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Diagram summarizing the occupation and construction components for the monumental groups tested or excavated in the R?o Bec micro-region (Sub-Project III). Dark grey represents the construction phases (buildings or open spaces) detected during the excavations, while medium grey indicates the length of post-construction occupation. Light grey indicates important early sherd concentrations ("basketloads") in more recent fills. Most basketloads are dated to the Iximche phase that corresponds to demographic growth in the R?o Bec micro-region. Less significant occurrences of early sherds in recent fills are excluded from the diagram as they do not necessarily suggest a previous occupation of the group. Diagram by Philippe Nond?d?o.
Source publication
Chronology is a crucial issue given the specific settlement patterns of the
Río Bec region located on the northern fringe of the Maya central
lowlands. Fine-resolution chronology of the local residential occupation in its
many spatial and temporal forms is one of the main proxies available to
reconstruct social organization and dynamics, in the abs...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... of hard-fill construction for R?o Bec masonry residences can be dated precisely by means of the latest sherds included in the fill, as they provide the baseline for dating the latest stages in room construction (see ). Construction of masonry walls and roofing cannot be dated, as these parts rarely contain sherds. Sherds associated with floors and stratigraphically related middens and kitchens date occupation components. All dated components are grouped graphically in two diagrams, con- trasting the construction episodes (dark shade) against the occu- pation components (medium shade) detected in the excavated or tested dwelling units, including monumental groups. The diagram presented in Figure 5 corresponds to the scale of the micro-region (100 km 2 ), while that in Figure 6 corresponds to the scale of the nuclear zone (159 ha). Each diagram thus reconstructs the builders' activities in the sector under study as faithfully as possible, measured by a time span unit of 50 years. The earlier components shown in light shading do not correspond to occupational levels in situ, but to concentrations of earlier ceramics included in platform fills accumulated in later times. We call these specific features Figure 4. Factor analysis (principal components analysis) evaluating the seriation shown in Figure 3. The graph presents the multivariate distribution of ceramic typological categories (triangles) and excavated lots (gray dots), their size being proportional to their statistical weight. The two principal axes represent 40.26% of the analysis (Factor 1 with a 22.25% representativity and Factor 2 with 18.01%). The distribution in a curve (as per usual in factor analysis) is considered chronologically significant as stratigraphic order is maintained (here from left to right). Distance between groups allowed the analyst to determine clusters, which, in turn, validate the clusters obtained previously in Figure 3, as they show the same association of typological categories and archaeological lots. Middle Preclassic period lots and types were excluded from this graph to avoid an extreme clustering of later units that obscures the pattern. Chart by M?lanie Forn?. Table 1. Detailed provenience of 187 ceramic lots selected from the three preliminary seriation exercises, resulting in this final graph representing the entire R?o Bec chronological sequence (sherd total: n = 50,753). Contexts are located either within the micro-region (MR) or within the nuclear zone (NZ); numerals with letter correspond to the structure code within groups ...
Context 2
... as many of those deep sherds were found concen- trated, probably carried over from earlier close-by occupational con- texts into the fill of structures in the building process, as a normal, perhaps symbolic, procedure. They must reflect an occupational component located close to the residence under construction, although the location of these associated structures remains unknown. As shown in the nuclear zone settlement history (see below), early R?o Bec corresponds with a loose, dispersed pattern with numerous minor clusters that we know of mainly by those bas- ketloads, and also under leftover stone piles (see below). Truly ver- tical superpositioning of residences is rare (although present in Group K), yet a few cases of horizontal architectural "succession" have been detected, which tends to confirm that the buildings were erected over extended periods (Carrasco Vargas and Boucher 1985;) and with lateral displacement. This is why the settlement dynamics are as relevant to study chronologi- cally as the architectural stylistic sequence. On the 100 km 2 scale, the diagram ( Figure 5) includes 29 of the 73 micro-region groups, to which were added the sequences of comple- tely excavated Groups A, B, and D in the nuclear zone. The dating for each construction episode is based on presence-absence, associ- ation, and frequency of ceramic types in platform fills, taking into account the precise position of types in the corresponding seriation (the latest sherds being taken as terminus post quem). In some cases, the temporal resolution can be confidently brought down to 20 years using some well-dated diagnostic types (Ulil Fluted, Torro Gouged-incised, Tancachacal Slate, as well as Slate wares like Muna, Ticul, and Dzitas Groups, and Fine Orange wares, including the Altar Group). As for the occupation components, evaluating the time span they cover is more difficult given the almost total absence of primary middens and the relative rarity of sherds on residential floors. It is especially problematic to estimate the terminal occupation point of those edifices or groups built at the end of the Late Classic period and beginning of the Terminal Classic. Nevertheless, thanks to its 32 construction/occupation components for 73 monumental groups, the micro-region diagram serves as a basis for the distribution maps presented and discussed in this paper (Figure ...
Context 3
... dated components are grouped graphically in two diagrams, contrasting the construction episodes (dark shade) against the occupation components (medium shade) detected in the excavated or tested dwelling units, including monumental groups. The diagram presented in Figure 5 corresponds to the scale of the micro-region (100 km 2 ), while that in Figure 6 corresponds to the scale of the nuclear zone (159 ha). Each diagram thus reconstructs the builders' activities in the sector under study as faithfully as possible, measured by a time span unit of 50 years. ...
Context 4
... is why the settlement dynamics are as relevant to study chronologically as the architectural stylistic sequence. On the 100 km 2 scale, the diagram ( Figure 5) includes 29 of the 73 micro-region groups, to which were added the sequences of completely excavated Groups A, B, and D in the nuclear zone. The dating for each construction episode is based on presence-absence, association, and frequency of ceramic types in platform fills, taking into account the precise position of types in the corresponding seriation (the latest sherds being taken as terminus post quem). ...
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Citations
... The rbz includes several well-known sites, such as Becan and Río Bec (Figure 1). Based on present evidence, none of these sites dates earlier than Mamom sphere (Ball, 1977(Ball, , 2014Taladoire et al., 2013;Webster and Ball, 2021). North of Becan, however, lies the northern extension of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. ...
Recent research in the Maya Lowlands has revealed substantial new evidence for the first pottery producers at about 1000-600 bc, during the early Middle Preclassic period. This comparatively late adoption is a special case in Mesoamerica, where pottery appeared elsewhere up to a millennium earlier. Although archaic lifeways had long been established in the region, and pottery technology was likely known to some archaic communities, these new data reveal the complex set of circumstances that prompted the shift to ceramic production across the Yucatan Peninsula, Peten, and Belize. This article reviews these data from the perspective of the upland region of central and southern Yucatan, known as the Elevated Interior Region (EIR). Its rather complex early settlement links the EIR to contemporary pottery industries throughout the peninsula, suggesting well-established exchange systems were in place even as the first populations chose to settle more permanently on the landscape. Most significant among these cultural shifts was the increasing dependence on maize foodways as a primary subsistence strategy. Intensive maize agriculture has not been documented in Mesoamerica much before 1000 BC, yet ceramic technology was adopted independent of its use in other areas. Current evidence suggests, however, that the two were linked in the Maya Lowlands, where a relatively rapid transition took place as horticultural communities became more dependent on maize crops, followed waterways to settle more permanently on the landscape, and began producing pottery locally.
... Consequently, our ceramic data do not allow us to elaborate a reliable architectural chronology. Neither have we found helpful a comparison with the architectural sequence established for the Río Bec core zone [48], because the similarities in structural types are relatively few or cannot be determined in view of the current state of the CHRP buildings. Nonetheless, and although at many lowland Maya sites, where early occupation layers are buried under later constructions, early material is under-represented in surface collections [49], we believe that the proportions of material from different periods, collected both on surface and in test pits, are reasonably illustrative regarding the population dynamics in the area. ...
... A few other two-tower structures have been recorded (Fig 7A, 7D). If the one in group H31-e was built at the end of the Late Classic, as suggested by the ceramics collected in three test pits [46,50,56], it was contemporary with such structures in the Río Bec zone, largely dated to the late 8th and the 9th centuries [48]. Also relatively common in the CHRP area are remnants of architectural decoration composed of stone mosaics, colonnettes and other elements characteristic of both Río Bec and Chenes architectural styles (Fig 8). ...
... As indicated by ceramic frequencies, the population decrease in the CHRP area, which started in mid-8th century and continued during the Terminal Classic period, was followed by a dramatic demographic decline (for similar developments in the Río Bec zone, see [48]). The only available evidence of the drastically reduced and impoverished human groups that remained in the area during the Postclassic are fragments of Chen-Mul censers and other ceramic vessels, vestiges of ritual activity at a few monuments of Lagunita and Chactún and in a peripheral group of the latter, and an arrow head associated with a stela at Tamchén [4,12,13]. ...
Until recently, an extensive area in the central lowlands of the Yucatán peninsula was completely unexplored archaeologically. In 2013 and 2014, during initial surveys in the northern part of the uninhabited Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in eastern Campeche, Mexico, we located Chactún, Tamchén and Lagunita, three major Maya centers with some unexpected characteristics. Lidar data, acquired in 2016 for a larger area of 240 km ² , revealed a thoroughly modified and undisturbed archaeological landscape with a remarkably large number of residential clusters and widespread modifications related to water management and agriculture. Substantial additional information was obtained through field surveys and test excavations in 2017 and 2018. While hydraulic and agricultural features and their potential for solving various archaeologically relevant questions were discussed in a previous publication, here we examine the characteristics of settlement patterns, architectural remains, sculpted monuments, and ceramic evidence. The early Middle Preclassic (early first millennium BCE) material collected in stratigraphic pits at Tamchén and another locale constitutes the earliest evidence of colonization known so far in a broader central lowland area. From then until the Late Classic period, which was followed by a dramatic demographic decline, the area under study witnessed relatively constant population growth and interacted with different parts of the Maya Lowlands. However, a number of specific and previously unknown cultural traits attest to a rather distinctive regional development, providing novel information about the extent of regional variation within the Maya culture. By analyzing settlement pattern characteristics, inscriptional data, the distribution of architectural volumes and some other features of the currently visible archaeological landscape, which largely reflects the Late Classic situation, we reconstruct several aspects of sociopolitical and territorial organization in that period, highlighting similarities with and differences from what has been evidenced in the neighboring Río Bec region and elsewhere in the Maya area.
... Chart of oceanic surface currents affecting the Yucatan peninsula showing highly advantageous nexus-position occupied by Acanmul. Ball 1974Ball , 1977Bueno Cano 1999;Nondédéo 2003;Nondédéo et al. 2011;Taladoire et al. 2013), but it is very much in sync with available data as newly reexamined and reassessed (Ball 2014;Ball and Taschek 2013), and as has long since been hinted at by a number of seemingly "anomalous" findings identifying major architectural activity at Becan and Chicanna during the Terminal Classic Xcocom ceramic phase and dating well into the eleventh or even twelfth centuries (Bueno Cano 1987, 1999Carrasco Vargas 1989;Nondédéo et al. 2011). ...
... undertakings at Becan, Chicanna, Xpuhil, and other zonal sites (Campaña Valenzuela 2005, Campaña Valenzuela andBoucher 2002;Nondédéo et al. 2011:50-54;[also Bueno Cano 1987, 1999Carrasco Vargas 1989, 1994). 9 Importantly, these and other researchers (Arnauld et al. 2010;Dzul Gongóra and Taladoire 2010:127, Cuadro 2;Nondédéo and Dzul Gongóra 2010:120, Grafica 4;Taladoire et al. 2013) have continued to employ the now forty years old Becan ceramic study (Figure 24;Ball 1977) for the relative and absolute chronologies and relationships of the late ceramic phases involved, whereas a close scrutiny and reassessment of these coupled with later pertinent architectural data and radiocarbon determinations from Chicanna suggest that a radical revision of them is in order (Figure 24; Ball 2014;Ball and Taschek 2013;Bueno Cano1987;Carrasco Vargas 1989). ...
Acanmul is a medium-size center located at the north end of the Bay of Campeche about 25 km northeast of the city of Campeche. Between 1999 and 2005, three independent sets of investigations and major architectural consolidation were carried out at the center by archaeologists from the Universidad Autónoma de Campeche (UAC), the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH), Centro Regional de Campeche, and UAC in collaboration with San Diego State University. These efforts produced a wealth of new information on the archaeology of the central Campeche coast, including new insights into the emergence and evolution of the northern slateware tradition and the architectural history of the central coast from Preclassic through Postclassic times. New data concerning changing relationships through time of the central coast Maya to both the interior central and southern lowlands and to the northern plains also were documented, as was the mid ninth century sacking of the center. This article synthesizes the findings of the three separate institutional efforts at Acanmul and offers a number of new cultural historical scenarios and hypotheses based on them.
... As a typology and a comparative relative chronology, with some very minor additions and tweaking to its typological inventory, it has withstood the tests of time and multiple subsequent investigations well. The most recent syntheses of archaeology and cultural history both in the immediate area and farther afield on the peninsula continue to rely on it unhesitatingly (Nondedeo et al. , 2013. Nonetheless, recent work by the author in neighboring centralwestern Campeche (Ball and Taschek 2007, 2015 has occasioned a reexamination and scrutiny of the sequence, its component elements, and its stratigraphic and comparative typological underpinnings. ...
... The proposed restructuring of the Becan ceramic sequence does not affect the relative ordering of the dependent site or zonal occupational, settlement pattern, or architectural histories in any significant way, but the revisionist chronology ( Figure 5) does hold significant ramifications for their absolute dating, and so potentially for broader regional cultural history. Review of the most recent formulations of the latter (Campaiia 2005;Nondedeo et al. 2010Nondedeo et al. , 2013 suggests that the new chronology may actually bring Becan and its Late and Terminal Classic history into better conformity with these than did the original schema. 8 Monumental architecture and settlement features previously assigned to the Bejuco ceramic phase of ca. ...
One of the benchmark ceramic chronologies for the Central Maya Lowlands—that of Becán, Campeche—was critically flawed in its inception. Its flaws resultedfrom a perceived need to parallel the established Uaxactún bellwether and a failure to recognize that the typological and modal content of the sequence of assemblages defined was not continuous but disjunctive in character. In fact, this sequence reflected a broken continuum of discrete segments separated by a major break representing an actual occupational and historical gap in the site history of Becán. This paper reexamines the premises of the original Becán sequence, reassesses its structure and chronology, and offers a new alternative for its replacement and future fieldtesting. Reassessments of individual types and groups and their relationships and established chronologies, joined with a fresh consideration of Bejuco-phase depositional circumstances and stratigraphies, suggest that the political failure of Becán and the consequent abandonment of the center may have occurred as early as A.D. 730-750. The resulting gap in the occupational and ceramic sequences of the site lasted into the early ninth century. The suggested changes have significant ramifications not only for the chronologies of the site and the surrounding Río Bec region, but also for their cultural, architectural, and political histories.
In the ongoing debate about the role of agriculture in the development and decline of Classic (250950 CE) Maya lowland societies, the archaeological site of Ro Bec has a special place. It is one of the few settlements in which, years before the use of LiDAR to survey the Yucatn peninsula, a multi-scalar geoarchaeological study (Ro Bec Project 1, 20022010) allowed us to define a field systemthat is, landed domains of distinct fields organized around their local networks of household units. The dimensions of the fields, their correlation to the size of their corresponding households, and their long period of use (200 years, 700900 CE), during Ro Bec's apogee, raise questions about the fundamental issues of land use practices (intensification, diversification, and specialization) and their sustainability over what was a relatively long period. Those issues are at the heart of a new research program at Ro Bec, which we began in 2019, combining an archaeobotanical approach with land use and settlement pattern modeling, ultimately aimed at correlating local agricultural production with demography (Ro Bec Project 2, 20192022). Based on the knowledge of field and settlement systems in their environment that we accumulated during our past research, the paper starts with a description of the field system in one sector of the Ro Bec site, then focuses on the diversity of its plots on the household scale and proceeds to discuss the preliminary correlation that can be established between agricultural intensification and demography at Ro Bec at the neighborhood scale and the settlement scale.
Research in 1970 vaulted Becán to prominence on the landscape of great Maya centers. Mapping, excavation, and ceramic stratigraphy revealed that its enigmatic earthwork, first recorded archaeologically in 1934, was a fortification built at the end of the Preclassic period. Large-scale warfare thus unexpectedly turned out to have very deep roots in the Maya lowlands. The site's wider implications remained obscure, however, in the absence of dates and other inscriptions. The ever-increasing dependence on historical and iconographic information in our narratives, along with the invisibility of its Preclassic buildings and plazas, unfortunately marginalized Becán. Some colleagues even claimed that we have misinterpreted both the nature of the earthworks (not fortifications) and their dating (not Preclassic). We rehabilitate Becán by dispelling these claims and by showing that standard archaeological evidence, contextualized in what we know today, has much to say about Becán's role in lowland culture history. We identify intervals of crisis when the earthwork remained useful long after it was originally built, especially during the great hegemonic struggles of the Snake and Tikal dynasties, and introduce new ceramic and lithic data about Becán's settlement history and political entanglements. Our most important message is that inscriptions and iconography, for all their dramatic chronological detail and historical agency, must always be complemented by standard fieldwork.
