Marilyn A. Masson

University at Albany, The State University of New York | UAlbany · Department of Anthropology

Indigenous pottery traditions and other mate-rial aspects of daily life in Yucatan were slow to change during the early colonial period. This conservativism reflects a gradual rate of social change at the community scale as Maya peoples contended with a Franciscan missionization program imposed on them from the mid-16th to 17th centuries. Ceramic a...

This article presents a compositional analysis of metal artifacts from the Postclassic period ( a.d. 1100–1450) city of Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico. We document metallurgical production at R-183, an elite residential group and one of the most significant archaeological contexts associated with metalworking at Mayapan. Salvage excavations in 1998 recov...

The spatial contexts of effigy censer and figurine molds at Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico suggest a tightly controlled industry in which elite representatives of state government and religious orders exerted oversight over production and distribution. Attached artisans at Mayapan made these and other restricted goods for residents of palaces and patrons...

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 re...

Mayapan archaeology - chapters on art, architecture, dwellings, archaeological survey, artifact analysis, human osteology and mortuary patterns. Free download pdf here (Open Access): https://sites.pitt.edu/~ccapubs/books/m027.html

Mortuary rituals at the mission church of Yacman, a sixteenth-century rural Maya community, reflect locally specific variants of cultural hybridity relevant to the comparative study of the archaeology of agency and social change in early Colonial settings of Mesoamerica. Burial practices in this church reveal early adoption of Christian norms, foll...

This paper uses new data from lidar mapping to explore variation in the size of ancient Maya houselots. The amount of space available to households has important implications for subsistence, craft activities, social relations, and more. Comparisons of houselot data from three large cities (Coba, Mayapan, and Chunchucmil) and one rural area (southw...

Indigenous pottery traditions and other material aspects of daily life in Yucatan were slow to change during the early colonial period. This conservativism reflects a gradual rate of social change at the community scale as Maya peoples contended with a Franciscan missionization program imposed on them from the mid-16th to 17th centuries. Ceramic as...

In the twentieth century, an emphasis on generating big models to explain cross‐cultural similarities and differences, particularly with respect to environmental factors, culminated in some essentialist views that negatively characterized the complexity and stability of Maya area civilization and economic foundations. These assumptions about Maya “...

Dental modification represents one interesting aspect of corporeal adornment in human history that directly reflects personal social identity. Tooth filing choices distinguished certain individuals at the urban, Maya political capital of Mayapan from 1150 to 1450 ad , along with cranial modification, nose and ear piercings, tattoos and body paint....

This chapter summarizes the economic principles, research questions, and findings in the book. Themes reviewed include: autonomy, interdependence, and labor specialization, markets and merchants, boundedness and regional economies, movements of goods and social affiliations, and trade routes. Lingering questions are also discussed, especially the f...

Chapter 5 examines eight rural houselots, homes of farmers, in the vicinity of the Postclassic Maya capital city of Mayapán, Yucatán. Four houselots date to the Terminal Classic Period, when the area was a marginally located vicinity surrounding a small central town. Four houselots date to the Postclassic Period, representing peripheral localities...

We explore Maya social organization after the Classic-period “collapse” using mortuary and osteological patterns. Our data consist of 78 burials from the Freshwater Creek drainage of northern Belize: 24 dating to the Terminal Classic period (AD 800–1000) and 54 to the Postclassic period (AD 1000–1500). These mortuary data allow us to infer continui...

Resumen. La distribución de los patrones de las figurillas de Mayapán, revelan aspectos importantes ideales sobre el papel del género en la sociedad de Mayapán. Los hombres, las mujeres y los niños parecen haber usado figurillas en la práctica ritual. Las figurillas ayudaron a integrar la sociedad de Mayapán vinculando los rituales domésticos con a...

Settlement and ceramic patterns from Classic to Postclassic, northeastern Belize, following the southern Maya collapse. Reveals resiliency of well-watered Belize region, and strategically exploited proximity to Caribbean coastal trade networks over the long run.

Fauna from ritual and mortuary deposits, exploration of their meaning in the Formative Period.

Kukulcan's Realm chronicles the fabric of socioeconomic relationships and religious practice that bound the Postclassic Maya city of Mayapán's urban residents together for nearly three centuries. Presenting results of ten years of household archaeology at the city, including field research and laboratory analysis, the book discusses the social, pol...

Fieldwork at Progresso Lagoon and Laguna Seca, Belize.

Data from Carnegie Current Report publications. Excel version available on request.

UAlbany's CURCE (Center for Undergraduate Research and Creative Engagement) hosted and enlightening and fulfilling one-day conference on Friday, Nov. 22, 2019 for all who participated and attended. This event was for faculty, researchers, professionals, and graduate students. The conference was entitled “Methods and Models in Undergraduate Research...

Fieldwork at Laguna de On, Belize.

Fieldwork at Progresso Lagoon, Belize.

Fieldwork at Progresso Lagoon, Belize.

This analysis of production variability of Postclassic Maya pottery from consumer contexts at Caye Coco implies that household pottery making varied and that products destined for different social and functional use contexts were made with differing degrees of standardization. New chronological and typological information from the Terminal Classic...

Excavations at Laguna de On, Belize.

Fieldwork at Progresso Lagoon, Belize

Ethnic indicators at Mayapan and issues associated with identifying them.

This article presents evidence for the importance of traditional stingless beekeeping (meliponiculture) at the Postclassic period (CE 1150–1450) Maya political capital of Mayapán, Yucatan, Mexico, with a particular focus on the domestic and public contexts of this practice and its association with metallurgy and balché production. The spatial and s...

This article presents evidence from a mass grave at the Itzmal Ch’en administrative group, an outlying ceremonial center at the Postclassic period Maya political center of Mayapán, Yucatan, Mexico. The grave contains the remains of at least 20 individuals, likely the group’s elite patrons. The remains were subject to extensive postmortem treatment...

Exploring the long-term use of accounting practices and currencies by literate and numerate authorities contributes new information regarding the complexity of the political economy of ancient Maya society. Two forms of indirect, yet compelling, lines of evidence for accounting practices and currencies are presented in this article. First, we ident...

The complexity of the organization of craft production mirrors multiple aspects of the larger political economies of premodern states. At the late Maya urban center of Mayapán, variation in the social contexts of crafting within a single settlement defies simple classificatory models that once held sway in the literature of nonWestern state societi...

Our stable isotope study of well-dated human skeletal material indicates dietary stability in the Mayapan population between 1200 and 1400 C.E. The importance of maize as a staple food is confirmed as part of a diet rich in terrestrial meats, an observation consistent with existing faunal records from the city. There were no detectable dietary diff...

Chichén Itzá dominated the political landscape of the northern Yucatán during the Terminal Classic Period (AD 800–1000). Chronological details of the rise and fall of this important polity are obscure because of the limited corpus of dated hieroglyphic records and by a restricted set of radiocarbon dates for the site. Here we compile and review the...

A 2013 survey of a 40 square kilometer area surrounding Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico used high-density LiDAR data to map prehispanic architecture and related natural features. Most of the area is covered by low canopy dense forest vegetation over karstic hilly terrain that impedes full coverage archaeological survey. We used LiDAR at 40 laser points pe...

El reconocimiento del papel de los animales en las antiguas dietas, en las economias, politicas y los rituales, es vital para poder entender a las culturas del pasado en su totalidad. Por el otro lado, seguir las claves que se obtienen de restos de animales preteritos puede aproximarnos a entender la antigua relacion que existia entre los humanos y...

Kukulkan's Realm chronicles the fabric of socioeconomic relationships and religious practice that bound the Postclassic Maya city of Mayapán's urban residents together for nearly three centuries. Presenting results of ten years of household archaeology at the city, including field research and laboratory analysis, the book discusses the social, pol...

The prevailing view of the lowland Maya during the Postclassic period (A.D. 1050-1500) has been one of an impoverished, “degenerated” society devoid of cultural accomplishment. However, Marilyn A. Masson offers a fresh interpretation of this society as one that represented a complex, sophisticated, extensive organization of semiautonomous units tha...

Recognition of the role of animals in ancient diet, economy, politics, and ritual is vital to understanding ancient cultures fully, while following the clues available from animal remains in reconstructing environments is vital to understanding the ancient relationship between humans and the world around them. In response to the growing interest in...

Recognition of the role of animals in ancient diet, economy, politics, and ritual is vital to understanding ancient cultures. Following the clues available from animal remains in reconstructing environments is vital to understanding the ancient relationship between humans and the world around them. In response to the growing interest in the field...

This paper argues for the importance of complex market exchange in the Maya area prior to the so-called Postclassic “mercantile” period. We suggest that market exchange was foundational to the stability of Classic era polities, and by extension, that it was of key strategic interest to dynasts and their retinues. We reject some of the prevailing du...

Identifying districts, neighborhoods, or smaller social subunits within the urban landscape of Mayapán represents one of the most important challenges for understanding the organization of the city and the relationship between its governors and supporting population. Although historical sources attest to planning principles and strategies, includin...

Classic Period Maya society (A.D. ∼250–850) is almost as well known for its collapse as for its tremendous accomplishments in hieroglyphic writing, monumental art, and architecture and an extensive, populous network of cities and towns that crossed the terrain of parts of four modern nations (Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras). Indeed, intere...

"Thanks to Weeks, Masson, and the University Press of Colorado, Maya scholars now have an invaluable integrated resource. A vital resource for Maya specialists and Mesoamerican reserach libraries."-.C. Kolb, CHOICE 2006, the University Press of Colorado published The Carnegie Maya: The Carnegie Institution of Washington Maya Research Program, 1913-...

Most prior studies of collapse in the Maya area focus on the abandonment, decline, and transformation of Late or Terminal Classic period polities, which suffered far more permanent and damaging regional-scale demographic consequences than earlier cyclic fluctuation in polity fortunes (e.g., Culbert 1988; Demarest et al. 2004; Marcus 1993; Robles an...

This paper presents archeological evidence for animal use at Mayapán, the largest capital city of the Postclassic period Maya lowlands. The most commonly consumed species were white-tailed deer, turkey, and iguana, and other important but less frequent animals in the assemblage were dog, peccary, and brocket deer. A wide variety of local and non-lo...

Ceramic stylistic diversity across the Maya lowlands area fluctuates from the Late Preclassic through Late Postclassic periods. During the Late Preclassic and Late Postclassic, assemblages within and between individual settlements are less diverse. In contrast, the Early, Late, and Terminal Classic periods exhibit far greater intersite variation in...

Thirty-eight radiocarbon dates from Mayapan provide new information about the Postclassic chronology of this city. We analyze ceramic frequencies associated with our radiocarbon samples and discuss temporally diagnostic types in the Mayapan sequence. Radiocarbon samples from early construction contexts suggest that the Postclassic center was fo...

This analysis of production variability of Postclassic Maya pottery from consumer contexts at Caye Coco implies that house-hold pottery making varied and that products destined for different social and functional use contexts were made with differing degrees of standardization. New chronological and typological information from the Terminal Classic...

In this paper, we analyze the distribution of Late Postclassic (A.D. 1250–1500) architecture and associated artifacts of the Maya site of Caye Coco, Belize. Artifact density and distribution suggest that different buildings served different functions and reflect a range of domestic and non-domestic activities at the island. An assessment of th...

Ethnohistory 49.2 (2002) 454-456 This volume investigates the organization of royal compounds at Maya cities and reaches well beyond the institution of kingship to provide a more robust view of modes of Classic-period governance. Provocative interpretations reveal the strengths and weaknesses of interdisciplinary data rallied in its chapters for re...

The transition from Palaeoindian to Archaic societies in North America is often viewed as a linear progression over a brief but time-transgressive period. New evidence from the Wilson-Leonard site in Texas suggests social experimentation by Palaeoindians over a 2500-year period eventually resulted in Archaic societies. The process was neither short...

The composition of five Late and Terminal Classic Period stone tool workshop deposits from the Maya site of Colha, Belize, is compared to determine the degree of variability in production strategies within this community. Workshop deposits examined here are of two basic varieties: either attached to the slopes of single domestic platforms, or as is...