Violence, desecration, and urban collapse at the Postclassic Maya political capital of Mayapán

Paris, Elizabeth H.; Serafin, Stanley; Masson, Marilyn A.; Lope, Carlos Peraza; Guzmán, Cuauhtémoc Vidal; Russell, Bradley W.

doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2017.06.002

Cited by 9 publications

(19 citation statements)

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“…9 ) and the other is next to the Itzmal Ch’en temple and colonnaded hall, part of an outlying ceremonial group near the far eastern gates of the city wall (MB2; 20 individuals; see Fig. 1 ) 37 , 57 . Both MB1 and MB2 are shallow graves that contain multiple, mostly disarticulated individuals who were buried along with smashed pottery (Chen Mul Modeled censers).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mayapan's cityscape contains varied and numerous funerary deposits, as well as extra-funerary deposits, interpreted as mass graves (Supplementary Note 3; Supplementary Data 2). Multiple individuals were often interred together in household graves, and ossuaries containing the secondary deposits of skeletal material exist within the monumental center, as well as in high-status houses in the residential zone [56][57][58] . In contrast, other large deposits of human remains in the monumental center (e.g., Round Temple Complex) likely represent sacrificed (or otherwise killed) war captives from polities targeted by the Mayapan state elsewhere on the peninsula (beyond the northwest stronghold of the confederacy).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…CE (Supplementary Note 3). Three of the individuals suffered perimortem cranial trauma and cut marks on some of the bones, indicating postmortem dismemberment and defleshing, likely caused by intentional desecration 56,57,59 . These mortuary deposits may correspond to historical references of conflict and strife waged on the Yucatán Peninsula between 1302 and 1362 cal.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Drought-Induced Civil Conflict Among the Ancient Maya

et al. 2022

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The influence of climate change on civil conflict and societal instability in the premodern world is a subject of much debate, in part because of the limited temporal or disciplinary scope of case studies. We present a transdisciplinary case study that combines archeological, historical, and paleoclimate datasets to explore the dynamic, shifting relationships among climate change, civil conflict, and political collapse at Mayapan, the largest Postclassic Maya capital of the Yucatán Peninsula in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries CE. Multiple data sources indicate that civil conflict increased significantly and generalized linear modeling correlates strife in the city with drought conditions between 1400 and 1450 cal. CE. We argue that prolonged drought escalated rival factional tensions, but subsequent adaptations reveal regional-scale resiliency, ensuring that Maya political and economic structures endured until European contact in the early sixteenth century CE.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Drought-Induced Civil Conflict Among the Ancient Maya

et al. 2022

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“…A well-known example of these connections is the use of burning temple-pyramid imagery by Nahua artists to signify conquest and how during the Spanish encounter, Mexica temple-pyramids became places of refuge (Hassig 1988: 105-106). In pre-Columbian times, the occurrence of Maya attacks to desecrate caves, temple-pyramids, and civic ceremonial groups reveal the importance of protecting sacred places (Brady and Colas 2005;Demarest et al 1997;Duncan and Schwarz 2015;Helmke and Brady 2014;Hernandez and Palka 2019;Pagliaro et al 2003;Paris et al 2017;Sheseña 2014). Overall, the status of Maya and Mesoamerican rulers was tied with the ability to transform and protect sacred landscapes (Koontz et al 2001).…”

Section: Martial Strategy Tactics and Landscapementioning

confidence: 99%

Tactical and Strategic Landscapes: A Study of Maya Fortification at Tzunun, Chiapas, Mexico

Hernandez

2023

Ancient Mesoam

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Although studies of warfare are now common in Maya archaeology, much remains to be learned about strategy, tactics, and various other practical factors in the process of making war. An emphasis on the concrete and practical is necessary to both acknowledge agency and understand how conflict relates to the human experience. Through an examination of documentary and archaeological data in a comparative framework, I elaborate on practices of Maya fortification construction and how the creation of a martial landscape ties into relations of power during the Late Postclassic/Early Spanish Colonial period (a.d. 1200–1600). During this period, in the region of Mensabak, Chiapas, Mexico, Maya peoples fortified a peninsula according to principles of defense-in-depth. In other words, they created layers of fortification to slow and stall an attack. My analysis reveals how the creation of a martial landscape shaped local culture by incorporating elements of sacred geography and ritual landscape to perpetuate social inequality.

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“…), burials (Baires ; Paris et al. ), sites (Cobb and Butler ; Pugh and Rice ; Rice ), and landscapes (Fitzhugh ; Ling and Cornell ). The ways that archaeologists today are investigating ritual and meaning are increasingly diverse, both conceptually and methodologically.…”

Section: Individuals and Groupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Finding Archaeology in 2017: What Is Archaeology and Why Are We Doing It? Why Should We Be Doing It?

Lewis

2018

American Anthropologist

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These annual review essays focus on what we as archaeologists are doing year by year. Many themes continue on from review to review, waxing and waning, not unlike the bell curves of a traditional pottery seriation.Each year, themes are highlighted and presented in varied ways according to the orientation and aims of the reviewer. All do a masterful job of curating the vast range of what archaeologists were, in each annual period, currently producing. My review follows in the footsteps of its predecessors, summarizing an array of new and exciting research, and describing how agendas presented in 2017 cluster around sets of related questions and aims. It will also look at the growing literature that asks, in one way or another, fundamental questions about what archaeology really is and why we pursue it. In this time when the value of academic pursuits and scientific perspectives are being highly scrutinized in politics and popular culture, archaeologists are faced with the uncomfortable question of "What is it, really, that we should be doing?" [archaeology, current issues, public archaeology, digital archaeology] RESUMEN Estos ensayos de revisión anual se enfocan en lo que como arqueólogos estamos haciendo año tras año. Muchos temas continúan de revisión en revisión, creciendo o menguando, no muy diferente de las curvas en forma de campana de la seriación de la cerámica tradicional. Cada año, temas son enfatizados y presentados de varias maneras de acuerdo a la orientación y metas del crítico. Todos hacen un trabajo magistral de organizar un rango vasto de lo que los arqueólogos estaban, en cada período anual, realmente produciendo. Mi revisión sigue los pasos de sus predecesores, resumiendo una colección de nueva y emocionante investigación, y describiendo cómo las agendas presentadas en el 2017 se agrupan alrededor de juegos de cuestiones y metas relacionadas.También examina la creciente literatura que pregunta, de una manera u otra, cuestiones fundamentales acerca de lo que la arqueología realmente es y por qué nos dedicamos a ella. En este tiempo cuando el valor de los empeños académicos y las perspectivas científicas están siendo altamente escrutados en política y cultura popular, los arqueólogos se enfrentan a la pregunta incomoda de "¿Qué es lo que realmente deberíamos estar haciendo?"[arqueología, cuestiones actuales, arqueología pública, arqueología digital] ARCHAEOLOGICAL FRAGMENTATION?While the theme of what such a diverse discipline should be subtly undergirds much of the literature, a number of 2017 articles, each in a very different way, directly address the very nature of what archaeology is and why we practice it. In the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, Assaf Nativ (2017, 55) asks us to reconsider our notions of the

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Violence, desecration, and urban collapse at the Postclassic Maya political capital of Mayapán

Cited by 9 publications

References 39 publications

Drought-Induced Civil Conflict Among the Ancient Maya

Drought-Induced Civil Conflict Among the Ancient Maya

Tactical and Strategic Landscapes: A Study of Maya Fortification at Tzunun, Chiapas, Mexico

Finding Archaeology in 2017: What Is Archaeology and Why Are We Doing It? Why Should We Be Doing It?

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