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Sacred Landscapes and Building Practices at Uci, Kancab and Ucanha, Mexico

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During the emergence of regional hierarchy around the site of Uci in northwest Yucatan, Mexico, ordinary people affected power relations in at least two ways. First, in the Late Preclassic and Early Classic periods, Uci had the largest ceremonial center and the largest population within a 20 km radius. Uci also physically linked itself to smaller settlements, such as Kancab and Ucanha, by means of a broad stone causeway. Yet Kancab and Ucanha's quadripartite placement of causeways and central plaza suggests that its households created a sacred landscape that gave them a degree of ritual autonomy. Ordinary people impacted power relations a second way by participating in the development of the megalithic architectural style, which was used in the region's most authoritative buildings. The use of this style in domestic platforms illustrates the ability of modest households to make their own decisions and to act in ways that constituted society at large.
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SACRED LANDSCAPES AND BUILDING PRACTICES AT UCI, KANCAB, AND
UCANHA, YUCATAN, MEXICO
Scott R. Hutson and Jacob A. Welch
Ancient Mesoamerica / Volume 25 / Issue 02 / September 2014, pp 421 - 439
DOI: 10.1017/S0956536114000285, Published online: 22 January 2015
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0956536114000285
How to cite this article:
Scott R. Hutson and Jacob A. Welch (2014). SACRED LANDSCAPES AND BUILDING PRACTICES AT UCI, KANCAB, AND
UCANHA, YUCATAN, MEXICO. Ancient Mesoamerica, 25, pp 421-439 doi:10.1017/S0956536114000285
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SACRED LANDSCAPES AND BUILDING PRACTICES AT
UCI, KANCAB, AND UCANHA, YUCATAN, MEXICO
Scott R. Hutson
a
and Jacob A. Welch
b
a
Department of Anthropology, University of Kentucky, 211 Lafferty Hall, Lexington, Kentucky 40506-0024
b
Department of Anthropology, Yale University, 10 Sachem Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06511-3707
Abstract
During the emergence of regional hierarchyaround the site of Uci in northwest Yucatan, Mexico, ordinary people affected power relations
in at least two ways. First, in the Late Preclassic andEarly Classic periods, Uci had the largest ceremonial center andthe largest population
within a 20 km radius. Uci also physically linked itself to smaller settlements, such as Kancab and Ucanha, by means of a broad stone
causeway. Yet Kancab and Ucanhas quadripartite placement of causeways and central plaza suggests that its households created a sacred
landscape that gave them a degree of ritual autonomy. Ordinary people impacted power relations a second way by participating in the
development of the megalithic architectural style, which was used in the regions most authoritative buildings. The use of this style in
domestic platforms illustrates the ability of modest households to make their own decisions and to act in ways that constituted society at
large.
At some point between the first and fifth centuries a.d., workers
built an 18 km long causeway between Uci and Cansahcab, con-
necting with smaller centers such as Kancab, located 8 km east of
Uci, and Ucanha, located 13 km east of Uci (Hutson and
Covarrubias Reyna 2011; Kurjack and Andrews 1976) (see
Figure 1). The causeway attests to an episode of microregional inte-
gration. Measuring between 6 and 9 m wide and between .2 and
1.1 m high, the causeway did not tower over the landscape, but it
did require over 50,000 m
3
of stone for its construction (not to
mention many other materials and forms of labor), suggesting that
hundreds of people helped build it. The significant effort required
to physically connect these sites via the causeway also suggests
that the act of microregional integration represented a transformative
moment in the history of this area. Given that Uci is by far the
largest site in the vicinity of the causeway, several archaeologists
have assumed that the construction of the causeway represents the
expansion of Ucis authority into its hinterland (Kurjack and
Andrews 1976; Maldonado Cárdenas 1995).
The Uci-Cansahcab Regional Integration Project (UCRIP),
which began in 2008, has thus far completed five seasons of archae-
ological fieldwork at Uci and sites to the east near the causeway. The
current paper is, in fact, not primarily about the Uci-Cansahcab inter-
site causeway, but about the interplay between very powerful people
from Uci and less powerful people from neighboring communities
that were connected to Uci by this causeway. Though the causeway
stands as physical testimony to an episode of integration, the broader
goal of the first phase of the UCRIP is to understand how the process
of integration affected people living near the causeway, and, at the
same time, understanding how these people shaped and conditioned
the process of integration. Our desire to understand not just how
integration affected Ucis neighbors, but also how these neighbors
affected the nature of integration, builds from the understanding
that all members of society, regardless of their position in fields of
power relations, have the potential to play active roles in the produc-
tion of history, even if historical and structural contexts constrain
those roles and even if these actors are only partially aware of the
consequences of their actions (Giddens 1979; Ortner 1984; Willis
1977). Taking a holistic view of historical transformation requires
considering the strategies of centralized authorities as well as
the strategies of households subjected to such authority. In
Mesoamerica, Elizabeth Brumfiel (1991,1992) helped pioneer this
approach by showing how the success of the Aztec state was contin-
gent upon creative labor allocation strategies deployed by members
of households in the Basin of Mexico. Several other archaeologists
have followed this lead and asked how the dynamic strategies of
subject populations shaped political integration and fragmentation
(Ashmore et al. 2004; Joyce 2008; Levine 2011; Lohse 2013;
Pauketat 2001; Robin 2003; Sheets 2000).
Here we provide the results of the first systematic settlement
surveys of Uci, Kancab, and Ucanha. The UCRIP has conducted
excavations in 87 architectural contexts from Kancab, Ucanha,
and a variety of smaller sites. Preliminary results of these excava-
tions suggest that, particularly with regard to economic effects, in-
tegration brought few benefits to the region. Integration with Uci
did not give households access to long-distance trade goods and
most households were poor in terms of their nonperishable material
possessions (Hutson 2012). Though impoverished, these house-
holds nevertheless show various signs of empowerment. Detailed
survey and mapping at Uci, Kancab, and Ucanha, combined
with chronological data from excavations, permit two discussions
of the ways in which empowered actors of various statuses
worked together (sometimes at odds, other times in harmony) to
transform their societies.
421
E-mail correspondence to: scotthutson@uky.edu
Ancient Mesoamerica,25 (2014), 421439
Copyright © Cambridge University Press, 2015
doi:10.1017/S0956536114000285
The first discussion focuses on how households at the sites of
Kancab and Ucanha worked together to produce a sacred landscape
that contrasted with the sacred landscape at Uci. As presented
below, Kancab and Ucanha are substantially smaller than Uci and
the intersite causeway connects directly with both of them. These
data suggest that Kancab and Ucanha lost some autonomy to Uci
with the construction of the causeway. Nevertheless, Kancabs and
Ucanhas distinct spatial strategies for accessing the sacred suggest
that they retained a degree of power and autonomy. The second discus-
sion focuses on how an architectural style used in the largest buildings
at Uci and other centers (Izamal, Ake) was also used by households
from all wealth levels at sites of all sizes. At the core of this style, re-
ferred to as megalithic,
1
is the use of large (usually longer than 60 cm),
dressed facing stones laid horizontally in the construction of platform
retaining walls (Mathews and Maldonado Cárdenas 2006). Rather
than approach the sharing of this style across society as a unidirection-
al case of emulation or appropriation, we discuss the possibility that it
developed through multidirectional contacts. This approach suggests
inclusive communities of practice and highlights household contribu-
tions to the constitution of ancient society.
BACKGROUND
Though this paper is not primarily about the intersite causeway
between Uci and Cansahcab, details about its construction fore-
ground power relations between Uci and the other communities
along the causeway. The Uci-Cansahcab causeway is one of four
long-distance (10 km or longer) causeway systems in the northern
Maya lowlands (Figure 1). The most famous of these causeways
measures 100 km long and connects Yaxuna and Coba (Villa
Rojas 1934). Long causeways also connect Izamal with Ake and
Kantunil (Roys and Shook 1966), and Uxmal with Kabah
(Carrasco 1993). In the southern Maya lowlands, long distance
causeways center on the sites of El Mirador (Hansen 1991),
Calakmul (Folan et al. 2001), and Caracol (Chase et al. 2011).
These southern causeways permit dry passage across seasonal
swamps. The causeway between Uci and Cansahcab does not
cross wetlands and therefore does not afford logistical advantages
in that respect. If ones goal is to get from Uci to Cansahcab with
the least effort, cutting a path is more economical than building a
raised causeway. Therefore, archaeologists have proposed that
causeways like that linking Uci and Cansahcab function as political
symbols and/or ritual technologies. Kurjack and Andrews (1976)
argued that the Uci-Cansahcab causeway was political in the
sense that it reflected relations of dominance between Uci and the
smaller sites connected to it, and in the sense that the causeway
marked and maintained the eastern boundary of the Uci polity in
the face of the Dzilam polity to the northeast (Figure 1).
Construction details for the Uci-Cansahcab causeway leave no
clues as to whether it was built from west to east or east to west.
The causeway actually consists of three unconnected segments:
one between Uci and Kancab, the second between Kancab and
Ucanha, and the third between Ucanha and Cansahcab (see inset
map in Figure 2). In other words, there are two gaps in the cause-
way: one at Kancab and one at Ucanha. UCRIP project members
have excavated seven 8 ×2 m trenches across the causeway itself
(three in the segment between Uci and Kancab, three in the
segment between Kancab and Ucanha, and one in the segment
between Ucanha and Cansahcab). These digs show that very few ce-
ramics are found in the core of the causeway. Two trenches yielded
no ceramics whatsoever. Only one trench, placed in the segment
between Uci and Kancab, had enough chronologically diagnostic
sherds (n =20) to give us the confidence to assign its construction
to a chronological period: The Late Preclassic (300 b.c.a.d. 250).
No sealed contexts presented themselves in the seven trenches.
Though each trench revealed a single construction stage, we do
not have enough information to determine whether or not the
three segments were constructed at the same time. The gaps in the
causeway at Kancab and Ucanha suggest that both sites were occu-
pied before the causeway segments were built. The recovery of a
complete Middle Preclassic (800300 b.c.) Kin Naranja vessel
cached in the fill of the main plaza at Kancab (Plank et al. 2014)
confirms that Kancab predates the construction of the causeway
segment between Uci and Kancab.
Causeways are not merely political symbols. Though a causeway
may not be absolutely necessary for economic integration, various
projects have generated data that suggest that causeways do indeed
facilitate commerce (Carrasco 1993; Chase and Chase 2001;
Hassig 1991; Hirth 2000:186187). Causeways may also embody re-
ligious beliefs and serve as stages for rituals of various sorts (Hutson
et al. 2012; Keller 2010; Ringle 1999). We discuss such beliefs and
rituals below with reference to intrasite causeways at Ucanha and
Kancab. Intrasite causeways, most of which are less than 500 m
long, are far more common than intersite cuaseways (Shaw 2008).
Given what we know about the blurred or nonexistent boundaries
between politics, economics, and ritual among the ancient Maya
(Masson and Freidel 2002; Wells and Davis-Salazar 2007), integra-
tion likely took multiple formspolitical, economic, ritual, social
(Chase and Chase 2001; McAnany 2010:264; Shaw 2008).
The Atlas Arqueológico de Yucatan, which assigned sites to
Ranks I through IV on the basis of quantities of large-scale architec-
ture, established Uci as a Rank II site (Garza Tarazona de González
and Kurjack 1980). Rank II sites are political centers with less pop-
ulation and fewer monumental buildings than Rank I centers. Of
the four Rank I centers identified by the Atlas in the state of
Yucatan (Chichen Itza, Izamal, TihoMerida, and Uxmal), only
Izamal, located 37 km to the southeast of Uci, as the crow flies,
was broadly contemporaneous with Uci and its causeway. The
largest buildings at Izamal, and two other nearby Rank II centers
(Ake and Dzilam), all share megalithic architecture, possibly indicat-
ing that these sites were part of a single larger political entity (Burgos
Villanueva et al. 2006:177). The Atlas project also documented two
Rank IV sites along the Uci-Cansahcab causeway: Kancab and
Ucanha. As discussed below, both of these sites contain house-
mounds clustered around a central plaza with large pyramids. The
Atlas project assigned Cansahcab to Rank IV, although the site is
heavily disturbed by the modern municipal center of the same
name. UCRIP has found hundreds of housemounds scattered across
the land beyond the ruins officially registered as sites by the Atlas.
Most of these housemoundslack the kind of spatialclustering observ-
able at Uci, Ucanha, and Kancab (see Figures 2,3,and4) and are
therefore difficult to assign to discrete sites. After the Atlas
surveys, Ruben Maldonado Cárdenas (1995) investigated Uci and
its satellite sites between 1979 and 1982 as part of the Ake project.
The UCRIP project continues the work of the Atlas project and
the Ake project. Though UCRIP has mapped and excavated a broad
variety of locations in the vicinity of the Uci-Cansahcab causeway,
this paper focuses on research at the three largest sites: Uci, Kancab,
1
We note here that the megalithic style of the northern lowlands differs
markedly from the megalithic style of Middle Preclassic El Mirador,
Guatemala (see Hansen 1998).
Hutson and Welch422
Figure 1. Map of a portion of the Maya area showing sites mentioned in the text. Straight lines indicate the paths of long-distance
causeways. Map by Scott R. Hutson.
Sacred Landscapes and Building Practices 423
and Ucanha. UCRIP mapped the Uci site core with total station and
then used GPS, tape, and compass to map other parts of the site as
well as survey transects to the west, north, and east (see Figure 2).
We did not map a south transect due to the proximity of the
modern town of Motul to the south. The mapped transects to the
west and north were 500 m and 600 m wide, and ended 2.9 km
and 2.5 km from the site center, respectively. The 500 mwide tran-
sect to the east of Uci, referred to as the causeway transect, follows
the intersite causeway and extends 8 km to Kancab. Building on
Maldonado Cárdenasinitial documentation of the site cores of
Kancab and Ucanha, UCRIP mapped these site cores with a total
station in order to produce digital elevation models of the largest ar-
chitecture. The project also conducted pedestrian survey of settle-
ment transects (500 m wide at Kancab, variable widths at
Ucanha) extending out from the site cores and reaching beyond
the site edges (Figures 3 and 4). UCRIP received 25 km
2
of
LiDAR data in an 11 kmlong swath from Kancab to Cansahcab
shortly before this article went to press. Though we have not yet ex-
cavated at Uci (and the Ake projects digs at Uci were relatively
limited), we have test pitted dozens of locations at both Kancab
and Ucanha (not to mention excavations at other sites not discussed
in this paper). Surface collections have been made at very few struc-
tures because leaf litter and other organic debris generally obscure
pottery on the ground. Even when organic material has been burnt
off as part of the process of milpa farming, pottery is often
absent. In spite of these difficulties, surface collections at 11
structures at Ucanha yielded enough sherds for chronological as-
sessment. Figures 3 and 4display the architectural complexes that
have been test pitted or surface collected at Kancab and Ucanha.
Uci
The site core of Uci lies on the southwest edge of the modern village
of Uci. Though modern occupation of the village has resulted in
poor preservation of the residential areas to the northeast of
ancient Ucis site core (Figure 2), house platforms are still visible
below modern houses and within modern houselots. The most
heavily destroyed ancient structures within modern Uci are those
located in the path of the grid of modern streets. Additional destruc-
tion has taken place beyond the village in the northwest part of the
site core (Figure 5), where heavy machinery was used to extract
building materials for the construction of the modern road
between Motul and Telchac in the 1950s. Nevertheless, the total
station map shown in Figure 5 reveals that the major elements of
Ucis site core are still observable. These elements consist of a
series of monumental architectural compounds surrounding a
linear series of depressions (see Hutson and Covarrubias Reyna
[2011] for more detail about the site center). We return to the rela-
tion between the large architecture and the depressions in the section
below on sacred landscapes. The Uci-Cansahcab causeway does not
actually connect with any of the large compounds in the Uci site
center. At 315 m east of the site core, the causeway definitively
Figure 2. Map of Uci, Yucatan, Mexico, showing limits of mapped area and two postulated edges. The architecture pictured in Figure 6
comes from Structure 4n1, which is circled at the right. Map by Scott R. Hutson.
Hutson and Welch424
Figure 3. Map of Kancab showing proposed site edges (dotted line) and limits of LiDAR mapping. The large, light gray polygon rep-
resents the limits of pedestrian mapping. Architectural compounds that have received excavations or surface collections are circled.
Map by Scott R. Hutson and Jacob A. Welch.
Sacred Landscapes and Building Practices 425
stops at a low platform located inside a modern houselot. Figure 5
shows the remnants of three other causeways, all running east-west
and measuring 80 m, 100 m, and 1,500 m long.
Figure 5 shows that broad basal platforms, averaging about
400 m
2
and 1 m high, surround the large architecture in the site
center. Such platforms, though often smaller than 400 m
2
,alsodom-
inate other areas of Uci not pictured in Figure 5.ThoughtheUCRIP
has not yet conducted excavations on or around platforms of this size,
they appear to be residential for three reasons. First, their size and di-
mensions are similar to basal platforms at nearby sites (Santa Teresa,
Kancab, and the Yaxche area) which broad-scale excavations show to
be residential. Second, several of Ucis basal platforms have smaller
ancillary structures off their edges. Some of these are platforms
with formal retaining walls, while others are chich moundssmall
(<25 m
2
), elliptical, low (<.5 m) piles of unworked stones
(usually no longer than 15 cm) with no formal alignments.
Ancillary structures often accompany residences at Classic Maya
sites (Ashmore 1981; Tourtellot 1988) and these chich mounds
may be ancillary structures. Third, some of the broad platforms
support foundation braces for superstructures whose size
(2550 m
2
) approximates that of traditional Maya houses in the
early twentieth century (Wauchope 1938), as well as ancient
Figure 4. Map of Ucanha showing proposed site edges and limits of LiDAR mapping. The large, light gray polygon represents the
limits of pedestrian mapping. Architectural compounds that have received excavations or surface collections are circled. Map by
Scott R. Hutson.
Hutson and Welch426
houses excavated at nearby Dzibilchaltun (Kurjack 1974). Those plat-
forms without stone foundation braces likely supported perishable su-
perstructures. Ucis broad platforms differ markedly from the more
common plazuela groups of the southern Maya lowlands.
The 500 mwide mapping transects to the west, north, and east
of Uci permit an etic delimitation of the edges of the site
(Figure 2). Though there are few areas around Uci that have no set-
tlement whatsoever, reasonably clear drop-offs in settlement density
present themselves on the west transect at 1.65 km from the center
and on the north transect at 1.35 km from the center. The settlement
documented at the north end of the north transect pertains to a site
registered by the Atlas project as 16Q-d(5):14. To the east, there are
two potential site edges, one located 1.65 km from the site center,
the other located about 2.5 km from the site center. We favor the
former site edge, thus embracing a conservative estimate for the
amount of land covered by Uci: 7.5 km
2
.
Of Ucis estimated 7.5 km
2
, we have mapped 3.73 km
2
. Several
factors compromise our ability to calculate settlement density.
Though we mapped a significant sample (what we estimate to be
half of the site), about 45% of what we mapped is within the bound-
aries of the modern town of Uci, where preservation is poor, likely
leading to the underrepresentation of settlement density. Thus, our
estimates do not use data on ancient remains in the modern
pueblo. Another potential distortion factor is that systematic
mapping of other sites in northwest Yucatan shows that settlement
density may vary with distance from the site center (Hutson et al.
2008; Ringle and Andrews 1988). To adjust for this, we divided
the site into 200 mwide concentric rings and calculated settlement
density estimates for each ring. This procedure yields an estimate of
905 compounds that appear to be the architectural signatures of
households. We follow the common definition of household as a
group of people that share activities such as consumption, produc-
tion, residence, reproduction, and transmission (Ashmore and
Wilk 1988:4). We use flexible criteria for what counts as the archi-
tectural signature of a household. The most common form of house-
hold architecture consists of a single, broad, basal platform (usually
between 200 and 500 m
2
) that supported superstructures or a broad
platform with one or more smaller structures within about 15 m. The
variability in the size of domestic architecture suggests variability in
the number of people pertaining to each household. Less common
forms of household architecture include pairs of smaller platforms
(100300 m
2
) or a cluster of chich mounds not affiliated with a
broad platform. Though there is a precedent for identifying isolated
chich mounds as residences (Ringle and Andrews 1988:182185),
we took the conservative position of not counting themas dwellings
since none have been excavated thus far at Uci. With 905 architec-
tural compounds in an area of 7.5 km
2
, Ucis settlement density is
121 households per km
2
.
Figure 5. Total station map of the Uci site core. Contour intervals are 1 m. Dark gray areas marked with an Rare depressions known
locally as
rejolladas
. Other gray areas are platforms above the natural ground surface. Note that Compounds 3 and 5 have been partially
dismantled for road construction fill. Map by Scott R. Hutson.
Sacred Landscapes and Building Practices 427
Surface collections and a small sample of test pits reported by
Maldonado Cárdenas (1982) suggest that Uci reached the height
of its occupation in the latter part of the Late Preclassic period
(a.d. 1250) and continued into the Early Classic period (a.d.
250600). This impression, which UCRIP will evaluate more thor-
oughly in the future, is supported by additional lines of evidence.
Many of the platforms pertain to the domestic megalithic construc-
tion style, which features large, dressed facing stones laid horizon-
tally in the construction of platform retaining walls (see also Stair
2014)(Figure 6). Extensive UCRIP excavations at Kancab,
Ucanha, Santa Teresa, and the Yaxche survey area, as well as re-
search from other parts of Yucatan (Mathews 2001; Mathews and
Maldonado Cárdenas 2006), show that megalithic platforms date
to the latter part of the Preclassic period and the beginning of the
Early Classic period. Since megalithic platforms from sites near
Uci date to the Late Preclassic and Early Classic, those at Uci prob-
ably share this chronology as well.
Kancab
The Kancab site center (Figure 7) is much smaller than Ucis
(Figure 5). It consists of a central plaza with a pair of mounds
(Structures 1 and 6) rising to a height of 7.5 m. The next three
highest mounds at the siteStructures 44, 14, and 17reach
heights of 5.8 m, 5 m , and 3.5 m above the natural ground surface
and are located to the north, west, and south of the central plaza, re-
spectively. Though we hesitate to call these buildings monumental,
their size stands out from the rest of the sites buildings. Their place-
ment on spacious platforms with connections to intrasite causeways
suggests that they hosted larger and more frequent ceremonies than
smaller architectural compounds. We call these compounds ceremo-
nial groups while also recognizing that lower structures on top of the
platforms may have been residences. In contrast to the Uci site center,
which encircles a series of depressions, Kancabssitecenterisbuilt
on a slight topographic rise. The nearest depression is a quarry
120 m south of the site center. This quarry is smaller (16 m long)
and shallower (1.5 m deep) than any of the central depressions at
Uci, some of which extend over 50 m long with a depth of 5 m.
Beyond the site core, small-scale megalithic platforms are common,
much like at Uci. Some of these broad platforms support stone foun-
dation braces, although most platforms would have supported entirely
perishable superstructures. Our survey of the four cardinally oriented
mapping transects identified reasonably clear drop-offs in settlement
density in all directions (Figure 3). The drop-offs are located 710 m,
550 m, 550 m, and 640 m from the site core on the west, north, east,
and south transects, respectively. These data produce an amoeba-
shaped site with an etic size estimate of 1.25 km
2
.
Of the estimated 1.25 km
2
pertaining to Kancab, .978 km
2
were
mapped on the ground, with LiDAR covering an additional
.165 km
2
. In these 1.143 km
2
we identified 140 architectural com-
pounds that appear to be the material signatures of households.
Settlement density is thus estimated at 122 households per km
2
,
which is very close to the 121 households per km
2
estimated for
Uci. The UCRIP has conducted excavations in the east causeway
terminus mound (Structure 30), 15 domestic platforms (a sixteenth
is to the north but outside our boundaries for the site), and two of the
ceremonial groups mentioned above (the main plaza and Structure
44) (see Figure 3). The 15 domestic platforms tested comprise a
12.5% sample of household compounds at the site. Fourteen of
the fifteen domestic platforms yielded pottery that dates to the
Figure 6. Megaliths in the retaining wall of Structure 4n1, an example of a small-scale megalithic platform. The gray rectangle in the
lower right corner is a notebook measuring 26 cm long.
Hutson and Welch428
Late Preclassic and/or Early Classic periods (ceramic groups
include Xanaba, Saban, Shangurro, Sierra, Tipikal, Unto,
Huachinango, Carolina, Timucuy, Tituc, and others). At least
eight of these platforms may have earlier occupations, given that
they contained ceramics from groups first produced in the Middle
Preclassic such as Joventud, Chunhinta, and Dzudzuquil. Most ex-
cavation contexts also have a substantial amount of pottery from the
Late/Terminal Classic (a.d. 6001000) and Postclassic periods
(a.d. 10001547). These chronological data suggest that most of
the architecture visible today was occupied at the time when the
causeway from Uci met up with the site of Kancab. Though
Kancab and Uci have nearly identical settlement densities,
Kancab is about a sixth the size of Uci, regardless of how one mea-
sures size (Table 1). For example, Kancab covers 16.7% of the area
covered by Uci, and our estimates suggest that it has 16.3% of the
household compounds. Comparison of the largest buildings in the
two site cores shows that the volume of architecture at Kancab is
17.3% of that present at Uci. This percentage should probably be
smaller given that portions of two large architectural compounds
(Compounds 3 and 5; see Figure 5) at Uci were removed for road
construction fill in the 1950s. Arranged differently, these data
show that both communities have about the same amount of large
architecture per household (see Table 1).
Ucanha
Ucanha is larger than Kancab but smaller than Uci (see Table 1).
Ucanhas site core (Figure 8) closely resembles that of Kancab
(Figure 7). The site has a main group with pyramids on the west
(Structure 147) and east (Structure 148) sides, measuring 8.5 and
7.7 m high, respectively. Pyramids to the north (Structures 151
and 231), west (Structure 120a), and south (Structure 1) reach
heights of 10 m, 4.2 m, and 7.3 m high, respectively. These pyra-
mids are part of ceremonial groups that may also contain residences.
Unlike Kancab, Ucanha has a palace east of the central plaza mea-
suring 80 ×55 m. Beyond the site core lie hundreds of broad, low
platforms, most of which exhibit the megalithic style discussed
above. A series of linear depressions much like those at Uci lie to
the southwest of the Ucanha site core, yet most of this low
ground falls outside our boundaries for the site.
Regarding etic site size, 1.4 km
2
of mapping with total station or
tape and compass and a large swath of LiDAR data suggest that
Figure 7. Map of the central portion of Kancab, Yucatan, Mexico. Note the locations of Structures 44, 30, 17, and 14, each placed in
one of the four cardinal directions. The corresponding causeways have been extended (dashed lines) to show how they would converge
at a single point in the site center. Map by Scott R. Hutson.
Sacred Landscapes and Building Practices 429
Ucanha covered 2.205 km
2
, 0.116 km
2
of which falls beyond the
area for which we have data. Within the 2.089 km
2
that we
mapped, we located 388 architectural compounds that appear to
be the architectural signatures of households. As the map in
Figure 4 shows, a 4 ha area directly to the east of the main group
lacks pre-Columbian architecture. This is where a variety of edifices
pertaining to an early twentieth-century henequen hacienda were
built. We believe that about six ancient architectural compounds
were destroyed in the construction of the hacienda. If we add
these six missinghousehold compounds, the data yield a settle-
ment density of 189 households per km
2
, which is considerably
denser than both Kancab and Uci. Given this density, we estimate
that another 22 households are located in the 0.116 km
2
that we
did not map. Since UCRIP excavations at Ucanha continue as we
publish this paper, we do not yet know when most of Ucanhas res-
idences were occupied. Nevertheless, preliminary analysis of ceram-
ics from excavations completed thus far suggests that much of
Ucanha, including the main plaza, the palace, and many residential
platforms underwent major construction episodes during the late
part of the Late Preclassic (a.d. 1250) (Kidder et al. 2014).
Given that Ucanha had three timesthe amount of residentialarchi-
tecture as Kancab (see Table 1), it comes as no surprise that it also had
substantially more large architecture, much of it ceremonial. The
volume of Ucanhas main group (Structures147 and 148, and the
Table 1. Site data for Uci, Kancab, and Ucanha. All three sites have major occupations at the end of the Late Preclassic
Area
Mapped
Estimated
Area of Site
Mapped
Households
Total Number of
Estimated
Households
Density of Settlement
(Households per Sq.
Km)
Combined Volume of
Large Archtiecture
Volume of
Archtiecture per
Household
Uci 3.73 7.5 400 905 120.67 110130,000 143.6464088
Kancab 1.143 1.25 140 153 122.48 20000 130.7189542
Ucanha 2.089 2.205 394 416 188.61 36000 86.53846154
Figure 8. Map of the central portion of Ucanha, Yucatan, Mexico. Causeway termini structures and other structures mentioned in the
text have been labeled. The causeways have been extended (dashed lines) to show how they would converge at a single point in the site
center. Many of the structures south of the site center were first presented in Maldonado Cárdenas (1995). Map by Scott R. Hutson.
Hutson and Welch430
basal platform that supports them), palace (Structure 92), and pyramids
(Structures 1, 13, 120a, 151, and 231) is about 36,000 m
3
, which con-
trasts with a volume of about 20,000 m
3
for Kancabsmaingroup
(Structures 1, 6, and the basal platform that supports them) and pyra-
mids (Structures 14, 17, and 44). Ucis seven largest compounds
have a volume of roughly 110,000 m
3
, though the actual volume
was higher before fill was taken for road-building in the 1950s.
Summary: Uci, Kancab, and Ucanha
In summary, Kancab has about a third the number of households as
Ucanha, which has, in turn, fewer than half of the estimated house-
holds at Uci (Table 1). Furthermore, Ucanha has nearly double the
volume of large architecture of Kancab, and Ucí has at least three
times as much large architecture as Ucanha. It is interesting to note
the relatively high volume of architecture per household at Uci com-
pared to Ucanha. Did Ucis leaders draw labor from sites like
Ucanha? We cannot answer this question since we lack precise con-
struction histories for the largest mounds. It is possible, however, that
the largest structures resulted from a variety of building episodes and
therefore may not inform us about the control of laborat any one point
in time. Despite differences in size and large architecture, all three
sites had similar kinds of domestic architecture (megalithic plat-
forms), and were occupied heavily during the Late Preclassic and
Early Classic periods, when the causeway was most likely built.
SACRED LANDSCAPES
In terms of sacred landscape, Uci differed significantly from Kancab
and Ucanha, as the following section highlights. The most distinctive
feature of Ucis site center is that its five largest architectural com-
pounds (Compounds 1 through 5) clusteraround a linear series of de-
pressions. Of these compounds, preservation is good enough in four
of them to determine the direction in which they face, and that direc-
tion is inward, toward the depressions. In other words, Compounds 1
and 2, on the east side of the depressions, face west. Compounds 3
and 4, on the west side of the depressions, face east. The depressions
at the site core are naturally occurring dry sinks. These karst features,
called rejolladas, are more common in the center of the Yucatan
Peninsula, to the east of Uci (Houck 2006; Kepecs and Boucher
1996). The linear alignment of the rejolladas at the center of of
the site indicates that they formed over a fracture in the limestone
shelf (Mandy Munro-Stasiuk, personal communication 2013).
Both pedestrian survey and LiDAR survey reveal only one other
linear cluster of rejolladas in the area, located on the southwest
edge of Ucanha. Rejollada 2, the largest of the rejolladas at Ucis
site core, measuring about 160 ×70 m, contains two small caves
that reach the water table, providing a source of water year-round.
The entrances to both caves are less than 100 m from contemporary
houses and have been visited and cleaned by modern inhabitants of
Uci several times. If there were artifacts on the surface, they are gone
today. During the rainyseason, vernal pools form in the deepest part
of Rejolloda 2, about 6 m below the natural land surface. This area is
unnaturally deep, as modern residents of Uci have told us that bull-
dozers modified it in the 1950s. Adjacent piles of fractured bedrock
also suggest the use of bulldozers. The bulldozers, however, did not
touch the caves. We do not see evidence (quarrying scars, partially
removed blocks) of ancient quarrying in this rejollada. Nearby
sites with even larger architecture lack such depressions in their
site cores; the largest buildings at nearby Izamal and Ake, for
example, cluster around a central plaza, not a depression.
The association between the rejolladas and Ucis largest build-
ings does not seem random: the likelihood that people unintention-
ally built the largest structures in a 20 km radius next to this rare
collection of rejolladas is very low. In Yucatan, modern communi-
ties and ancient communities often built the centers of their settle-
ments around openings in the earth, such as caves and waterholes.
They serve not just as year-round sources of water, but also as ritu-
ally important places. Archaeologists and epigraphers have argued
that caves for the ancient Maya signified houses of the gods, open-
ings to the underworld, and places of creation (Brady 1997; Prufer
and Brady 2005; Vogt and Stuart 2005). In other northern lowland
caves and cenotes, such as Balancanche (Andrews 1970), the
Cenote of Sacrifice at Chichen Itza (Coggins and Shane 1984),
Gruta de Chac (Smyth 2012), and Ikil (Slater 2014), the ancient
Maya performed ceremonies associated with rain. A review of eth-
nographies on highland Chiapas, Mexico, shows that caves are seen
as borders between natural and supernatural, portals to the under-
world, and the source of lightning, thunder, clouds, and rain.
Vogt and Stuart (2005:180) state that in these capacities caves
were key elements in defining the religious and even political iden-
tity of ancient urban communities.At many sites, rulers attempted
to appropriate these sacred landmarks by locating major temples and
palaces in relation to them, either by building on top of them, beside
them, or linking to them with causeways (Brady 1997; Brady and
Ashmore 1999; Halperin 2005; Vogt and Stuart 2005). According
to Brady (1997:614), the cave sanctifies the site and defines it as
the cosmic center, in the process legitimizing the site and the polit-
ical organization that stands at the center.Along these lines, we
believe that by siting their largest compounds in such a way that
they envelop the depressions and caves, the leaders of Uci created
an ideological landscape. Not only did these leaders harness a
sacred geography in order to gain access to rain and the gods, but
by appropriating this rare complex of depressions, they may have at-
tempted to encourage the notion that they had privileged access to
the sacred.
At the same time, the plans of Kancab and Ucanha suggest that
Uci was not the only site that embraced a landscape calibrated to
access the sacred. Kancab has four causeways (Figure 7)one to
the north of the site center, one to the south, one to the west, and
one to the east. The sacbe to the east of the site center is the
portion of the Uci-Cansahcab causeway that links Kancab with
Ucanha. Ucanha also has causeways in these four directions
(Figure 8). At both Kancab and Ucanha, the relatively short cause-
ways on the north, west, and south link or almost link an outlying
ceremonial group (consisting of a pyramid and a plaza; see above)
to the main group. Such a pattern of relatively short causeways
that link major architectural groupshas been noted at many different
Maya sites in the northern Maya lowlands such as Chichen Itza,
Chunchucmil, Coba, Cozumel, Dzibilchaltun, Ek Balam,
Komchen, Sayil, Labna, and Yaxuna. The most common explana-
tion of the function of these kinds of causeways is that they
hosted ritual processions (Freidel and Sabloff 1984:2; Shaw 2008:
120; Tourtellot et al. 1988). Ringle (1999) argues that in the Late
Preclassic period, these processions helped integrate communities
by linking the core with outliers while at the same time legitimating
the authority of the communitys leaders.
The presence of causeways that are roughly oriented to the cardi-
nal directions and that link, or nearly link, with the main group in the
site center suggest a representation of a world with four quarters and a
centera quincunx. Mayanists have found evidence of such repre-
sentations at many scales: in iconography, individual artifacts,
Sacred Landscapes and Building Practices 431
arrangements of multiple artifacts in caches, other structured deposits,
single buildings, and layouts of multiple buildings and other features
(Ashmore 1991;Coggins1980; Estrada Belli 2006; Fedick et al.
2012;Maca2006;McAnany1995;Tourtellotetal.2002). The
meaning of these representations, however, is not straightforward.
For at least 50 years, scholars have explicitly discussed the symbolism
of cardinal orientations among both past and present Maya. Our own
reading of this literature highlights two interpretations that are not mu-
tually exclusive. In the first interpretation, deftly explored by Coggins
(1980), crosses, quartered circles, and other quadripartite figures rep-
resent the path of the sun, with east as sunrise, north as zenith, west as
sunset and south as nadir. This interpretation, drawn heavily from
pre-Columbian iconography, sees four-part figures as illustrations
of the shape of time as well as microcosms of the Maya universe,
in which the passage of the sun and other celestial bodies connect
the natural world with the heavens (north/up, linked to royal ances-
tors), and the underworld (south/down, linked to the underworld).
Following this logic, laying out key aspects of the core of ones
town in the form of a quadripartite figure places that town in the
center of universe, around which the sun travels.
The second interpretation, exemplified by Freidel et al. (1993),
views pre-Columbian iconography from the perspective of contem-
porary Maya ritual and worldview. Detailed ethnographies (for
example, Hanks 1990) document practices of centering, in which,
for example, shamans create altars with four sides, four corners,
and a center. According to Freidel et al. (1993:130131), the
shamans act of centering accomplishes many things. Centering
creates a portal for accessing supernatural entities, it creates a
spatial order that focuses the spiritual forces of the supernatural
within the material forms of the human world,and it references
the Popul Vuh creation myth in which the First Father raises the
sky and builds a four-quartered house. Actively moving from the
center pointthe axis mundito the four corners and back
appears to accomplish two things: (1) reenactment of the creation,
which invests the participants in the ritual with the creative power
of those supernatural beings responsible for creation, and (2) the
opening of a portal to the underworld, which provides access to su-
pernatural beings (Mathews and Garber 2004).
These and other interpretations of quadripartite and quincunx ar-
rangements overlap. They both suggest that Kancabs and Ucanhas
four causeways and central plaza were arranged to symbolically
equate the architectural center of civic power with the center of
the universe(Ashmore 1991:200; see also Robin et al. 2014).
Did commoners from small centers such as Kancab and Ucanha un-
derstand quincunx symbolism? Finds from Belize suggest that
modest farmers not only understood quincunx symbolism but repli-
cated it in their own deposits and buildings. For example, Robin
(2002) excavated a quincunx-shaped cache of cobbles in a modest
rural residence at Chan, Belize, while Zaro and Lohse (2005) exca-
vated a nonelite architectural group with a quincunx layout that
marks the solstice and zenith passages near Blue Creek, Belize.
At the same time, there are reasons to be skeptical of studies that
identify buildings, site plans, and other materials as representations
of Maya cosmology. In particular, Michael Smith (2003,2005:220)
believes that these identifications lack methodological rigor. In his
words, in their desire to reconstruct ancient cosmology from frag-
mentary evidence,researchers fail to present multiple lines of evi-
dence, act selectively in terms of what data they present, and do not
state the selection criteria. Second, Smith believes these researchers
lack humilitythey present what he calls speculations as if they
were confident conclusions.
Regarding Smiths second criticism, we agree that it is important
to be humble because we lack texts and images from Kancab and
Ucanha dating to the time in which the causeways were constructed
that (1) describe the layouts of the cosmos and the ideal town, and
(2) state that leaders deliberately followed these ideals when laying
out their own town. Nevertheless, heeding Smiths first criticism,
we believe it is possible to build a plausible and rigorous argument
that built features at Kancab and Ucanha materialized a quadripartite
world view. Adding rigor to the data already presented begins by af-
firming that data presentation is not selective, in that the maps pre-
sented in Figures 3,4,7, and 8show all features mapped, not just
those that conform to a potentially preconceived idea of site plan-
ning. Our data presentation is also not selective because only 5%
of Ucanha and 8% of Kancab remain unmapped. In other words,
the likelihood of the existence of not-yet-mapped causeways
within Ucanha and Kancab that would spoil these sitesclear quin-
cunx patterns sites is very low.
Given that our data are not selective, and should therefore be con-
sidered as reasonable representations of all that was (and was not)
built, the argument that the layouts of the causeways and main
plazas at Kancab and Ucanha represent a quincunx also gains strength
by considering the unlikeliness that such a layout was built at both
sites, purely by chance, with no intention of representing a quincunx.
Our proposal is that the leaders of Kancab and Ucanha built a quad-
ripartite plan because they thought that their followers would recog-
nize the quadripartite symbolism and therefore join them in
conceiving of the site center as a legitimate axis mundi and portal
to the gods. If building a quadripartite site plan were just an idiosyn-
cratic pursuit of leaders at Kancab and Ucanha, rather than a more
broadly understandable strategy grounded in cosmological principals
intelligible to other lowland Maya people, we would not expect to
find evidence of quadripartite planning at any other sites. Yet we
do see quadripartite site layouts at several other centers such as
Chunchucmil (Hutson 2010:49) and Ek Balam (Bey et al. 1997),
Yucatan, La Milpa (Tourtellot et al. 2002) and Xunantunich (Keller
2010), Belize, and Tisil, Quintana Roo (Fedick et al. 2012).
Obviously there was communication between people of Ucanha
and Kancab, and this probably goes part of the way in explaining
the similarity in site layout. But if that same layout is expressed in
various media at many other sites and reflects a well-documented
and widespread cosmological principal, a parsimonious explanation
for some of the similarity is that there is an actual connection
between that principlethe quadripartite worldviewand the phys-
ical phenomena in question.
Another means of adding rigor comes from strengthening the
analogy made between the subject (the pattern seen at Ucanha
and Kancab) and the source (the iconography and epigraphy from
codices and other ancient Maya sites as well as ethnography and eth-
nohistory). The analogy is already strong given that the people on
both the subject and source sides speak/spoke the same languages,
share a subsistence system based on maize agriculture and, living on
the same land, faced similar constraints in terms of climate, season-
ality of rains, and fragile tropical soils. Furthermore, this subsistence
base is closely connected to aspects of a quadripartite cosmology,
particularly that movements of the sun and other celestial bodies
have direct impact on farming.
Closer attention to detail on the source side and the subject side
further strengthens the analogy and draws out its relational nature
(Wylie 1985). On the source side, one of the clearest descriptions
of quadripartite cosmology, as it relates to town planning, comes
from Landas description of Conquest-era towns in Yucatan.
Hutson and Welch432
Landa describes roads placed at cardinal directions, as well as a pair
of what he referred to as stone heaps along each road at the edge of
town (Tozzer 1941; see also Coe 1965). At the end of each year,
townspeople paraded from the center of the town to the stone
heaps at each of the four cardinal directions and performed rituals
in front of idols placed at the heaps. With the exception of the
east causeways at both Kancab and Ucanha, the other causeways
at each site link with architectural compounds consisting of a
pyramid on top of a broad platform (Figure 9). Earlier we referred
to these architectural compounds as ceremonial. Following several
other writers who have discussed intrasite causeways (Freidel and
Sabloff 1984:2; Shaw 2008:120; Tourtellot et al. 1988), we
propose that they are places where processions stop for rituals,
much like the stone heaps at the ends of the main avenues in the
contact-era towns described by Landa (see Tozzer 1941).
Assuming a conservative estimate of 2 m of space per person
(Inomata 2006), each platform could have hosted over 200 visitors
(see Figure 9). The platforms at Ucanha, the larger site, are larger.
Regarding the east causeway exceptions, the pyramid at the east
causeway terminus at Kancab (Structure 30) has no substantial plat-
form to host a crowd and the causeway extends eastward away from
the Kancab site core whereas the other three pyramids at Kancab
have causeways extending toward the site core. At Ucanha, there
is no east pyramid, perhaps because of historic period destruction.
The east causeway approaches the edge of the 4 ha area occupied
by the buildings of the historic-period hacienda and then simply dis-
appears without a formal stopping point.
The analogy between the ceremonial compounds on the cause-
ways and the paired stone heaps on the cardinally oriented roads re-
ported by Landa at the edge of Contact-period towns (Tozzer 1941)
Figure 9. Map of ceremonial compounds located at causeway termini at Kancab and Ucanha. Map by Scott R. Hutson.
Sacred Landscapes and Building Practices 433
can be judged formally and relationally, as Wylie advocates. In
terms of form, the analogy is inexact because paired stone heaps
are different from pyramids on platforms and because we only
have solid evidence for ceremonial compounds in three cardinal di-
rections at each site as opposed to four. The relational analogy fares
well because the pyramids were likely ritual spaces whose abutting
plazas easily could have hosted the kinds of ceremonies and proces-
sions discussed by Landa at the four corners of Conquest-era towns.
Furthermore, excepting Structure 30 at Kancab, the compounds
connected to the causeways at Kancab and Ucanha definitively
face the center of the site, the direction from which processions
would have arrived.
Finally, the case for a quadripartite plan gains additional rigor if
evidence can be marshaled to show that the different elements of the
quadripartite design were planned with reference to each other. As
each of the four causeways at both Ucanha and Kancab approach
the site center, they have a predominant orientation. Though the
causeways do not actually extend far enough into the center to inter-
sect each other, if the causeways were extended using the predom-
inant orientations, as is shown hypothetically in Figures 7 and 8,
they would come quite close to intersecting at a single point for
each site (compare against Normark 2008). At Kancab the hypothet-
ical point of intersection is on the main plaza adjacent to one of the
sites two largest mounds, Structure 1. At Ucanha, the hypothetical
point of intersection is near the center of the main plaza. These
alignments suggest that the builders coordinated the orientations
of the causeways so that they would create a cross with a single
point of intersection. As for chronology, six of the seven architectur-
al complexes with pyramids (Structures 17, 30, and 44, at Kancab;
Structures 13, 120, and 151 at Ucanha) received test pits. Ceramics
from these pits revealed the basal platforms to have been constructed
in the Late Preclassic. If the four causeways and their architectural
complexes were not built at precisely the same time, the orientation
data suggest that the last two causeways to be built at each site were
planned in such a way that their alignments pointed directly to the
first two causewayshypothetical point of intersection at each site.
We admit there is room for debate at Kancab. There are two distinct
causeways on the west sideone intersite and one intrasiteand if
one uses the orientation of the intrasite causeway as opposed to the
intersite causeway, the four causeways clearly do not intersect each
other at the same spot.
In sum, we argue that aspects of the site plans at Kancab and
Ucanha were intentionally built as a quadripartite, or quincunx,
design whose meanings were consonant with interpretations com-
monly given for quadripartite designs elsewhere in the Maya
areaas microcosms of Maya time and universe, and as portals to
the gods. The people of Kancab and Ucanha created an axis
mundi that centered their communities and gave them access to
the sacred (see also Stanton and Freidel 2005). The cross-shaped
plan of causeways with temples at the corners and the main plaza
at the center both represents and facilitates agency (Barrett 2001:
157). The plan represents agency because the people of Kancab
and Ucanha could have done otherwise. In particular, the people
of Ucanha chose to live very close to a series of depressions
nearly identical to those found at the Uci site core. Like the linear
depressions at Uci, those at Ucanha also contain caves and year-
round sources of water. But whereas the people of Uci harnessed
the sacred power of these depressions by building their largest struc-
tures around the depressionsedges, the people of Ucanha literally
left their own depressions off to the side, choosing instead to create a
sacred center from scratch over 400 m to the north of the
depressions. The people of Ucanha were not completely oblivious
to natural caves with water; they built some of their largest structures
close to smaller caves, and they might have chosen the precise loca-
tion of the palace because it is roughly in line with the linear depres-
sions to the south. Yet, unlike at Uci, natural caves were not the focal
points of site planning at Ucanha and Kancab.
Regarding whether or not Kancab and Ucanhas layouts facilitat-
ed agency in Barretts(2001:157) sense, we envision the quadripar-
tite axis mundi as a technology to be used in performances which
renewed and fortified both communities. Insofar as this ritual tech-
nology was contemporary with the cave-focused sacred landscape
of Uci, we conclude that Uci did not hold a monopoly on commu-
nity ritual practice. Though Uci was much larger than Kancab and
Ucanha and subsumed these sites by linking to them with an inter-
site causeway, the people at Kancab and Ucanha managed to main-
tain a degree of ritual autonomy. At the same time, the fact that the
practice of creating a symbolic center is common in contexts ranging
from households to political capitals suggests that the people of Uci
may never have even thought of monopolizing something so basic
as access to the sacred. Thus, the copresence of two contrasting
sacred landscapes may not speak to the issue of explicit negotiations
between a superordinate site and its subordinates. Nevertheless, the
site layouts at Ucanha and Kancab speak to more basic notions of
power; carrying out an intentional plan that makes the community
socially and ritually viable through the reproduction of cosmologi-
cal structures (Dobres and Robb 2000:9; Lohse 2007).
MEGALITHIC ARCHITECTURE
Megalithic buildings of the northern lowlands have made a strong
impression on travelers and archaeologists beginning with the first
writers to describe them (Brasseur de Bourbourg 1865; Charnay
1863; Stephens 1843). Stephens (1843:304), who saw the megalith-
ic monumental architecture at Dzilam, Izamal, and Ake in 1839, de-
scribed the immense staircase of Structure 1 at Ake as an approach
of rude grandeur, perhaps equal to any that ever existed in the
country.When these sites were explored more systematically, it
became clear that megalithic stones were used both in large-scale
and small-scale buildings (Maldonado Cárdenas 1995). Large-
scaleincludes buildings like Structure 1 at Ake, which, measuring
nearly 100 m in length and 10 m in height, surely counts as monu-
mental. A building like Structure 6 at Kancab, measuring 32×25 ×
7.5 m, may not fit some archaeologistsidea of monumental but
nevertheless counts as large-scalebecause it is the largest building
at the site. Small-scalerefers not to the smallest buildings (though
some of the smallest do have megaliths), but to platforms through-
out the Uci-Cansahcab area that usually cover between 200 m
2
and
500 m
2
in area, and usually stand less than 2 m high. Both small-
scale and large-scale megalithic buildings often have rounded
corners. Though the stones in small-scale megalithic platforms are
generally smaller than those in large-scale megalithic buildings
(Stair 2014), they have the same soft-edged pillowshape
(Mathews and Maldonado Cárdenas 2006; Taube 1995).
Small-scale megalithic platforms, however, lack two common fea-
tures of large-scale megalithic buildingsthe broad stairways de-
scribed by Stephens and megalithic apron moldings. Most of the
retaining walls of small-scale megalithic platforms are not made en-
tirely of megalithic stones (Stair 2014). UCRIP mapping at Uci and
its hinterland shows that the megalithic style was common in (small-
scale) buildings from sites at all ranks of the settlement hierarchy.
In more than 65% of the architectural compounds thus far
Hutson and Welch434
mapped on foot at Ucanha and Kancab, the primary structure is built
in the megalithic style.
We want to know how this style came to be used in both small-
and large-scale contexts within the same microregion (see Mathews
and Maldonado Cárdenas [2006] on the use of this style in other
regions of Yucatan). The situation at Uci, Kancab, and Ucanha,
where modest dwellings and larger buildings share key features, fre-
quently occurs in prehistoric contexts. The phenomenon is well
known in the eastern Mediterranean during the Bronze Age. For
example, late Bronze Age Mycenaean palaces (16001100 b.c.)
have a core plana long rectangular room with a vestibule at one
endthat developed out of house plans that were common in the
slightly earlier Middle Helladic phase (20001600 b.c.) (Castleden
2005:115). This core plan survives in several Classical Greek
temples, which were houses writ large, albeit houses for deities
(Carpenter 1962:216218). Excavations at the Minoan site of
Vronda provide an even closer analogue to the Uci case because
the public and private structures (in this case a community shrine
and common houses) that share the same plan (vestibule and larger
rectangular room) date to the same time period (Glowacki 2007). It
should be noted that many Minoan and Mycenaean dwellings do
not have the vestibule and central room plan (Carr-Rider 1964).
Likewise, at Uci, many small-scale platforms are not megalithic.
In such cases where practices found in households of lesser
status are also found in association with emergent or well-
established leaders, archaeologists often conclude that such practic-
es originated in one domain and were then copied in the other
domain. When households do the copying, it is called emulation.
When leaders do the copying, it is called appropriation. Leaders ap-
propriate well-worn practices and ideas as a means of grounding
their own initiatives in conventions that potential followers would
find sensible and acceptable. In the Maya area, researchers have
shown that many of the tropes of authorityancestor worship,
caching behavior, cosmologywere appropriated from earlier
Maya villages. Lisa Lucero (2003:523), reiterating interpretations
made by others (for example, McAnany 1995), states this position
clearly: [e]merging Maya rulers expanded family-scale rites, espe-
cially dedication, termination, and ancestor veneration rituals, into
larger communal ceremonies as part of the process that drew sea-
sonal labor from farmsteads to civic-ceremonial centers.
Regarding architecture in the northern lowlands, a clear example
of appropriation comes from Uxmal and Labna, where stone
mosaics in the façades of the most elaborate buildings depict mud
huts with thatch roofs, a common house form dating back to the ear-
liest Maya villages (Hammond 1991; Lohse 2007).
The appropriation argument fits Maya practices like ancestor
worship and caching because of times arrow. There is a clear his-
torical sequence in which norms and forms that appear first in
farming villages are taken up in later time periods by extractive
leaders. In fact, Robin and colleagues (2014) make a compelling
case that quadripartite planning principles like those discussed in
the previous section were first developed in farming communities
and later adopted as part of royal ideologies. Kus and
Raharijoanas ethnographic and ethnohistorical research on the
Imerina state in Madagascar shows that the processes by which
leaders adopt local symbols and practices can be complex. They
(Kus and Rahrijoana 2000:101) argue that the introduction and
maintenance of state ideology may not just be an issue of the
facile appropriation of local symbols.Imerina state ideology
grew from, and was crafted from, a dense engagement with local ex-
perience and worldview, involving myths, linguistic allusions,
metaphor, material symbols, architecture, and lived space. That
the earliest Imerina leaders reputedly lived in and ruled from
houses only slightly different from those of other members of
society also reflects this close engagement, suggesting that rulers
were once level with their supporters. The point is that languages
of power can grow from close interaction between associates who
are not yet easily sorted into ruler and ruled. These close interactions
imply that the flow of influence may not always be unidirectional. In
some cases, terms like shared developmentor co-constitution
may describe the process better than emulation or appropriation.
In Uci and its vicinity, megalithic architecture appears in both
large- and small-scale platforms during the same time periodthe
Late Preclassic. This contemporaneity brings the Uci case study
closer to the dynamic observed by Kus and Raharijoana and
marks a step away from the idea that the megalithic style originated
in one domain and spread in a unidirectional fashion to the other.
Houstons comments on the notion of a vernacular architecture
among the ancient Maya anticipate the perspective developed by
Kus and Raharijoana. He (Houston 1998:526) argues that the
great complexity of interaction between different builders, their
techniques, and varied needs and motivationsrequires us to be crit-
ical of sharp distinctions between so-called high and low styles of
architecture. These complex interactions bring us to a final
example: building practices in the Late Medieval English country-
side. Here, Johnson (2010) notes that high status and low status
houses share fundamental features, making it difficult to distinguish
between the two. Though many interpret these similarities in terms
of emulation, this interpretation misses the degree towhich the lives
of people of high and low status were intertwined. It was only in the
seventeenth century that elites severed ties with the rest of their rural
communities. Elites began to withdraw from community activities
and customs and there was an increasing segregation within the
house between families and servants (Green 2007:12). Elites
marked their difference by embracing imported Renaissance archi-
tectural styles. This development of a high style of architecture rup-
tured what was once a shared style. Building techniques were no
longer similar at all levels, cleaving an earlier community of practice
(Johnson 2010:119123). The formerly shared style against which
elites began to define themselves came to be known as vernacular.
In the English case study, we are interested in the shared style that
existed before the rupture that brought high and low, polite and ver-
nacular, into being. Regarding the explanation of the development of
shared architectural styles, this approach shift[s] the burden onto the
physicality of construction(Pauketat and Alt 2005:230) and away
from aggrandizing outcomes (see also Joyce et al. 2014). Prior to
the rupture between high and low in seventeenth century England,
there is precisely the complexity of interaction between different
builders, their techniques, and varied needs and motivationsthat
Houston (1998:526) discusses. The lesson here is not so much that
post-rupture vernacular builders make their own histories in the
face of authorities trying to make it for them(Upton and Vlach
1986:xxiii). Rather, the lesson is that prior to the rupture, builders
from all social levels worked together, not necessarily in the sense
of servants working inside higher status households as seen in
Late Medieval England, but in the sense that builders of different
status came at tasks with the same knowledge of form and technique.
Ordinary people are indeed still making history (and not just their
own), but the power that facilitates this is not the kind of power
that exalted actors possess and that others reject or emulate. There
is no center to this kind of power: we see power at work in wide-
spread interactions, collaborations, and techniques of construction
Sacred Landscapes and Building Practices 435
that came together to constitute and reproduce megalithic architec-
ture. Insofar as this form of architecture was widely used, it had its
own constitutive powerpeople came to express and materialize
themselves as intelligible subjects through it.
We do not mean to imply that megalithic architecture must have
developed in the same way as Late Medieval English vernacular ar-
chitecturethrough close interactions between people of various
social statuses. The style might in fact have originated in one
domain (be it folk housing or public architecture) and spread unidi-
rectionally to the other. The low resolution of the current chronolo-
gy certainly makes it possible that the style spread unidirectionally
without archaeologists being able to see it. Our goal in presenting
the scenario of multidirectional interaction in the development of
a style is to get readers to recognize that unidirectional flows of in-
fluence are not the only models for approaching questions of how
different segments of society come to share the same traits.
Even if the style did spread unidirectionally, households still
play an important role. If emerging leaders appropriated the style
from folk houses, then the folk should be credited both for develop-
ing the style and for constraining leaders to act in ways that drew
upon folk traditions. On the other hand, if low- and middle-status
households built domestic megalithic platforms in emulation of
megalithic works that they first saw in their sites largest buildings,
then they acted on their own in making the choice to emulate. We
say this because on the eastern side of the northern lowlands, in
Quintana Roo, leaders at the regional center of Naranjal and its sec-
ondary centers (Victoria, Tres Lagunas) built the largest buildingsin
the megalithic style but households of intermediate or low status did
not emulate this style (Glover and Stanton 2010). The decision not
to emulate in Quintana Roo suggests that households around Uci
had a choice of whether or not to emulate the megalithic style.
CONCLUSION
This paperpresents the first systematicsettlement pattern data forUci, a
Rank II center in northern Yucatan, and two smallercentersKancab
and Ucanhalinked to Uci by an intersite causeway. Uci, which
covered at least 7.5 km
2
, was substantially larger than Kancab and
Ucanha, which covered 1.25 km
2
and 2.2 km
2
, respectively. Uci
also had at least three times more large-scale architecture than the
other two sites. Excavations show that all three sites reached a demo-
graphic highpoint atthe end of the Preclassic period and the beginning
of the Early Classic period. Research presented in this paper helps
address how more powerful actors at Uci and less powerful actors at
Kancab and Ucanha both influenced the course of history. Here we
narrow in on two data sets: sacred landscapes within site cores and sim-
ilarities in small- and large-scale buildings. We argue that both ofthese
datasets provide examples of ordinary people contributing actively to
power relations in the Late Preclassic and Early Classic periods.
In the example of sacred landscapes, we presented two different
strategies for accessing the supernatural world. Uci took advantage
of exceptional natural featureslarge depressions with wet caves
which would have been used as portals to connect with supernatural
beings. In contrast, both Kancab and Ucanha built a quadripartite
arrangement of causeways and ceremonial compounds which
marked their community as an axis mundi. The people of Ucanha
chose this option even though they had at their disposal the same
kinds of depressions found at Uci. Thus, not only did Uci not mo-
nopolize contact with the sacred, people in the lesser centers exer-
cised agency by building very different sacred landscapes than
those seen at Uci.
Whereas different and perhaps competing strategies of ritual ag-
grandizement came into play in the example of sacred landscapes,
the second data set features a widespread similarity: the use of the
megalithic style in constructing both small- and large-scale architec-
ture. In this case, people of varied statuses used the same stock of
knowledge and techniques to build their world. By focusing on build-
ing practices we attend to the agency of people who constructed
agendas, asserted identities, made choices, and created cultures
through simultaneously mundane and meaningful acts,be it
digging a posthole or quarrying stone (Pauketat and Alt 2005:230).
Three processes might explain this shared style. Two of these process-
esappropriation by elites and emulation by commonersinvolve a
unidirectional transfer from one domain to the other. The third
process is multidirectional and presumes that the style grew in both
domains simultaneously as a result of frequent contacts among mul-
tiple and different actors. This process envisionsdynamic interactions
at the core of society which both produce and sustain shared knowl-
edge, techniques, symbols, and metaphors. Such a relational model of
Maya society is quite plausible in the Late Preclassic period, when
class divisions remained somewhat fluid. Whereas other studies of
the temporality of material practices among the ancient Maya show
that appropriation indeed occurred, the low degree of chronological
resolution in the case of megalithic architecture does not permit a
clear choice between these three processes. Nevertheless, all three
processes illustrate the ability of common households to make their
own decisions and/or to participate in projects that impacted and con-
strained other segments of society.
The conclusion that people in the vicinity of Uci chose how to
make their landscapes sacred and chose whether or not to use
and/or develop the megalithic style is important because broad-
scale UCRIP household excavations reported elsewhere (Hutson
2012) suggest that regional integration did not empower common-
ers. Many households did not gain any economic benefits when
the intersite causeway linked their communities with Uci.
Continuing fieldwork will help the UCRIP address other ways in
which regional integration affected these communities and how
they worked to shape integration.
RESUMEN
Este ensayo tiene como objetivo mostrar dos maneras en las que las unidades
domésticas juegan un papel sobresaliente en las transformaciones históricas.
A finales de la época preclásica y al principio de la época clásica,se construyó
una calzada de piedra entre Uci y Cansahcab, en el noroeste del estado de
Yucatan, México. Investigaciones recientes realizadas por el Proyecto
Arqueológico Sacbé de Uci (PASUC) han confirmado que Uci fue el sitio
más grande en el área, no solamente por sus edificios monumentales sino
también por la cantidad de personas que habitaron el lugar. Se especula que
Uci fue la capital política de la región, aunque existieron sitios secundarios
que mostraron arquitectura monumental también. Además de sus investiga-
ciones en Uci y otros sitios, el PASUC ha investigado Kancab y Ucanha,
los dos sitios secundarios conectados por la calzada. Durante el auge de
Uci, en el clásico temprano, Kancab y Ucanha eran mucho más pequeños
que Uci. Sin embargo, los ocupantes de Kancab y Ucanhaaproximada-
mente 100 y 250 unidades domésticas, respectivamentetenían la capacidad
de crear un espacio sagrado en el núcleo del asentamiento. Estos espacios
Hutson and Welch436
consisten en cuatro divisiones (delimitadas por cuatro calzadas) y un centro.
Tales espacios tenían un valor simbólico que conectaba a los habitantes de
Uci con los dioses, el cielo, y el inframundo. Esto indica que Kancab y
Ucanha mantenían poder sagrado y que la integración bajo Uci no resultó
en un dominio total. La segunda manera en que la gente humilde afectó la
historia de la región tiene que ver con el estilo arquitectónico denominado
megalítico.Este estilo se observa en los edificios más grandes de Uci,
pero también fue utilizado en plataformas domésticas. La cronología de este
estilo sugiere (aunque no confirma) que las unidades domésticas jugaron un
papel importante en el desarrollo del estilo megalítico.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank the Consejo de Arqueología, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e
Historia, for permitting UCRIP field research. The data presented in this paper
were acquired with funds from the National Science Foundation (2011:
BCS-1063667), The Waitt Foundation/National Geographic, The Selz
Foundation, and, at the University of Kentucky, the Office of the Vice
President for Research and the College of Arts and Sciences. Rubén
Maldonado graciously shared his previous research with us. For field and
lab assistance that contributed to this paper, we thank Iliana Ancona,
Miguel Covarrubias, Matt Davidson, Gavin Davies, Leigh Anne Ellison,
Shannon Iverson, Socorro Jiménez, Barry Kidder, Zada Komara, Céline
Lamb, Katie Lukach, David Medina, Kyle Mullen, Shannon Plank, Joe
Stair, Kevin Stanfield, Joe Stevenson, Carrie Todd, Rachel Ulrich, Daniel
Vallejo-Cáliz, Willem VanEssendelft, Teresa Vazquez, and Camille
Westmont. For permission to work on the tracts of land mentioned in this
paper, we thank Damian Chim, Javier Chim, the late Felipe Leon, Juan
Itza, Galvin Can Herrera, Mario del Pascual Pinto Escobedo, Arcadio
Tamayo, Arsenio Pool May, Andrés and Tomás Lopez, and Moises Osorio.
David Kotasek corrected the Spanish abstract. This paper has benefitted
greatly from comments from Nancy Gonlin and Mike Smith. We thank
them both.
Data Availability Statement: Most data used in this paper are available in the
UCRIP annual reports, which can be found online at http://www.mesoweb.
com/informes/informes.html.
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Sacred Landscapes and Building Practices 439
... Through daily and extraordinary interactions, rural households formed the social networks necessary to achieve economic and immaterial well-being, while also shaping relations of difference and inequality. Through residential proximity and livelihood strategies such as farming, water collection, and hunting, households were visible to one another, engaged in common experiences, and worked together, thus (re)producing shared sets of knowledge (Hutson and Welch 2014;Yaeger 2000). Yet everyday affairs, including the use of familiar and taken-for-granted objects, also shaped and habituated residents' differences (Bourdieu 1977;Miller 2010) that were based on factors like household size, wealth, occupation, status, and connectivity. ...
... The Ucí-Cansahcab Regional Integration Project (UCRIP) was initiated in 2008 to investigate the processes of integration, materialized by the construction of the causeway system, that took place in this microregion at the end of the Late Preclassic. The project has conducted extensive survey, mapping, and excavation at various centers and smaller settlements both on and along the Uci-Cansahcab causeway (Hutson 2012a(Hutson , 2021Hutson and Davies 2015;Hutson and Welch 2014;2021;Hutson et al. , 2016Hutson et al. , 2018Hutson et al. , 2020Kidder 2019;Vallejo-Caliz et al. 2018). ...
... 250), as the Uci microregion experiences important demographic growth and construction activity ( Figure 5), Uci, Kancab, Ucanha, and Cansahcab were connected by a sacbe system and united into a single polity headed by Uci . Ucanha and Kancab, however, retained some degree of political and ritual autonomy (Hutson and Welch 2014;Kidder et al. 2019;Kidder 2019;Welch 2016). Within this political alliance, these various ceremonial centers likely continued to compete for pilgrims who could also supply labor and resources (Hutson and Welch 2021). ...
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This article examines rural social differentiation in Chunhuayum, Yucatan, a rural village continuously occupied from approximately 800 b.c. – a.d . 1000. Focusing on the late Early Classic ( a.d. 400/500–600/630), a time when other settlements of the Uci polity experienced political and population disruptions, I examine how households shaped and expressed local social differentiation, particularly wealth, occupation, and social connectivity. Residential architecture provides the most salient marker of wealth differences at Chunhuayum, while ceramic, shell, and obsidian assemblages indicate that households also varied in terms of their occupations and external social networks. Within this predominantly agrarian village, two households attempted to improve their economic and immaterial well-being through locally innovative strategies—shell crafting and group-oriented ritual orchestration. Such strategies ultimately had different outcomes both for the household and community. These points underscore the heterogeneity of the rural ancient rural Maya, and that social differentiation was actively constructed by rural people rather than a trickling-down of the normative hierarchical social order. Through habituated practice and innovative action, Chunhuayum's Early Classic residents continued participating in external networks while shaping locally meaningful relations of differences.
... Following fieldwork between 1979 and 1982 by Maldonado Cárdenas (1995), research on the Uci-Cansahcab causeways took place as part of the Uci-Cansahcab Regional Integration Project (UCRIP; PASUC in Spanish). Beginning in 2008, UCRIP conducted extensive mapping and excavations within and beyond three of the four sites linked by the intersite causeways: Uci, Kancab, and Ucanha (Hutson and Welch 2014;Hutson et al. 2020). We call these three sites "centers" because they have higher population densities than the surrounding terrain and architectural features (pyramids ranging from 7 to 13 m high and intrasite causeways) not seen in their hinterlands. ...
... All three sites reached population peaks in the Late Preclassic. Uci is the largest site, covering up to 7 km 2 , with an estimate of more than 800 households in the Late Preclassic (Hutson and Welch 2014). Ucanha was the next largest site, with slightly less than half as many households, but with nearly triple the number of households as Kancab. ...
... Because Uci was the largest site linked by these causeways, it is tempting to see the construction of the causeways as a demonstration of Uci's emergence as a regional capital. Yet UCRIP research suggests that other sites on the causeway retained at least some independence (Hutson and Welch 2014). Excavations at Ucanha, the second-largest site in terms of both population and monumental architecture, revealed evidence of Late Preclassic politico-religious innovations at Structure 92, including a structure adorned with a mat design, which likely signifies its function as a popol nah, or council house, and a building adorned with two large stucco masks (Hutson et al. 2020). ...
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A multiyear field project focused on long-distance causeways between Uci and Cansahcab in Yucatan, Mexico, supports their use for processions and pilgrimages, their role in the creation of multisite polities, and their involvement in the constitution of local authority. Yet details of the causeways’ construction suggest that people contested this authority. Work was central to these dynamics and comes in the form of labor as practice, investments in the maintenance of relations with other-than-human beings, and the ways that causeways produced embodied experiences that were ideal for their use in pilgrimages.
... The Ucí-Cansahcab causeway extends 18 km, with Ucí at its western endpoint and Cansahcab at its eastern endpoint. Ucí is the largest site on the causeway, followed in size by Ucanha and Kancab (Hutson and Welch 2014;Maldonado 1995). Cansahcab was also important, but modern settlement has destroyed much of Cansahcab's architecture. ...
... To reiterate, Izamal, with the largest architecture in the northern Maya Lowlands (located 33 km away), represents the first level. Ucí, a fraction of the size of Izamal but seven times larger than Kancab (Hutson and Welch 2014), represents the second level. Kancab, a town with about a hundred households and mounds reaching 7 m above the natural ground surface, represents the third level. ...
Chapter
Religion was inseparable from daily life in the ancient Maya world, in part because activities like farming and building required contractual arrangements with sacred, other-than-human entities. Furthermore, ritual and politics were inseparable since most rulers could not derive authority from exclusive control of material resources. This chapter explores the ways in which domestic and community ritual practices in the northern Maya lowlands engaged political relations at a variety of scales. Caches within buildings at small- and medium-sized settlements along an 18-km-long causeway stretching from Ucí to Cansahcab illustrate that domestic ritual in rural contexts was not independent of rituals conducted by actors with much greater authority. At the same time, these domestic rituals provided the grounds upon which humble households could engage more powerful actors and contribute actively to the constitution of society.
... Regional survey near Mérida has elucidated a three-tiered Preclassic settlement hierarchy consisting of small, medium, and large settlements (Anderson et al. 2018, p. 198). Large settlements near Mérida include Xtobo, which contained 1500 people during the transition from Middle Preclassic to Late Preclassic (Anderson 2011, p. 314), Komchen, which housed 2750 people in the Late Preclassic (Ringle and Andrews 1990), and Ucí and Ucanha, which may have exceeded 6000 and 3000 people, respectively, in the Late Preclassic (Hutson and Welch 2014). All of these top tier sites have substantial monumental architecture as well as causeways, discussed below. ...
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This article synthesizes monumentality, governance, urbanism, and regional statecraft in the Northern Maya Lowlands during the Preclassic and Classic periods. As in some parts of the Southern Lowlands, ceremonial spaces likely predated sedentism and monumental construction predated large-scale inequality. Nevertheless, the process of construction and the resulting monuments facilitated complex societies. In the Late Preclassic, some political centers featured factional competition, and there is less evidence for individual rulers than in the Southern Lowlands. The Classic period exhibits remarkable variation in governance. Both dynastic rulership and collective governance in the form of shared decision making are common in the Northern Lowlands throughout the Classic period, with a shift toward the former in later centuries. Northern Lowland cities, while more densely settled than most Southern Lowland centers, do not follow settlement scaling expectations. Density contributed to neighborhood formation and collective action, yet minimal spatial clustering of households makes neighborhoods more difficult to identify. Intra-household inequality appears not to correlate with forms of governance. Marketplaces facilitated the both leadership strategies and household livelihoods. Scholars debate the nature or governance at Chichen Itza, yet several recent projects in its hinterlands clarify the nature of regional statecraft at Chichen, whose leaders exercised a variety of strategies, enabling the enrichment of some of its neighbors.
... Previous archaeological mapping in the southern MCKB surveyed the sites of Nakbe, La Florida, El Mirador, and Tintal with Total Station laser technology, allowing 3-D capability. The success of LiDAR in the archaeology of tropical forests in the Maya Lowlands of Belize (Chase et al. , 2014Ford et al. 2014;Prufer et al. 2015;Weishampel et al. 2011), Mexico (Fernandez-Diaz et al. 2014Hare et al. 2014;Hutson and Welch 2014;Rosenswig et al. 2013), and Angkor, Cambodia (Evans et al. 2013) prompted the pioneering use of LiDAR in the northern Peten of Guatemala by the Mirador Basin Project. Starting in 2015, the project recorded two large-scale aerial LiDAR surveys within the southern half of the MCKB, covering an area of 1703 km 2 (Figure 2), making it one of the largest contiguous LiDAR surveys recorded for archaeological research in the Maya Lowlands to date. ...
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LiDAR coverage of a large contiguous area within the Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin (MCKB) of northern Guatemala has identified a concentration of Preclassic Maya sites (ca. 1000 b.c.–a.d . 150) connected by causeways, forming a web of implied social, political, and economic interactions. This article is an introduction to one of the largest, contiguous, regional LiDAR studies published to date in the Maya Lowlands. More than 775 ancient Maya settlements are identified within the MCKB, and 189 more in the surrounding karstic ridge, which we condensed into 417 ancient cities, towns, and villages of at least six preliminary tiers based on surface area, volumetrics, and architectural configurations. Many tiered sites date to the Middle and Late Preclassic periods, as determined by archaeological testing, and volumetrics of contemporaneously constructed and/or occupied architecture with similar morphological characteristics. Monumental architecture, consistent architectural formats, specific site boundaries, water management/collection facilities, and 177 km of elevated Preclassic causeways suggest labor investments that defy organizational capabilities of lesser polities and potentially portray the strategies of governance in the Preclassic period. Settlement distributions, architectural continuities, chronological contemporaneity, and volumetric considerations of sites provide evidence for early centralized administrative and socio-economic strategies within a defined geographical region.
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How were so-called rural Maya settlements experienced by the people who lived in them? In this article, I focus on the archaeology of walking in the small site of Tzacauil, Yucatan (outlying the much larger site of Yaxuna), to explore how experiences of rurality were historically and socially contingent. Walking produces and reproduces embodied understandings of place—and, as such, can yield a more dynamic conceptualization of rurality. In Formative Tzacauil (ca. 300 b.c. – a.d. 250), grounded walking, incorporated with and sensitive to terrain, coexisted alongside groundless walking on artificial surfaces (i.e., sacbes and built walkways) imposed onto terrain. I argue that an understanding of everyday walking in Formative Tzacauil was not unlike that of urbanizing Yaxuna. I propose that only in Classic Tzacauil (ca. a.d. 550–1100) did walking become categorically different from Yaxuna, and I discuss how that shift opens new avenues for inquiry into rurality as an embodied experience of place that was always subject to change.
Chapter
This chapter examines ancient Maya landscapes to bring into relief two areas of ancient Maya life: centering urban landscapes within a cosmology; and sustainable communities. It suggests that understanding ancient Maya landscapes and taking the implications of their meanings seriously provide insight into what productive human–land relationships could look like. The chapter explores the two central points underlie and shape. First, Maya landscapes and human settlements are inseparable entities, and neither can be considered without the other. Second, landscapes and settlements are imbued with meaning and thus reveal a great deal about ancient Maya life. A vibrant example of how Classic Maya kings enmeshed urban landscapes in a cosmology can be seen at the Classic Maya city of Tikal in Guatemala. The presence of extensive areas of plants in communities increased evapotranspiration and precipitation, as it does in a rain forest. The ancient Maya farming community of Chan is located in Belize.
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New World households engaged in multiple forms of exchange: markets, redistribution, gifting, debt, reciprocity, and more. Determining the degree of prominence of each of these forms in ancient economies gives clues to the economic basis of leadership and the daily lives of households. A major method for inferring forms of exchange from household assemblages is Hirth's distributional approach. This paper applies the distributional approach to domestic inventories in two places where markets are unlikely: the Preclassic Maya in and around Ucí, Yucatan, Mexico; and Inka‐period settlements in the Upper Mantaro Valley, Peru. The data presented in this paper show an equitable distribution of fancy pottery among households of both high and low socio‐economic status in both areas. These somewhat unanticipated results could provoke several interpretations. At one extreme we could posit an important role for market exchange. At the other extreme, we could reject the logic of the distributional approach. This paper argues for a more circumspect track that uses additional lines of evidence to make inferences about incipient market exchange coincident with the rise of centralized leadership in the Maya area and poorly documented, possibly concealed market exchange nestled within Inka command economies. [Preclassic Maya, Inka economies, market exchange, households]
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A particular type of miniature ceramic vessel locally known as “veneneras” is occasionally found during archaeological excavations in the Maya Area. To date, only one study of a collection of such containers successfully identified organic residues through coupled chromatography–mass spectrometry methods. That study identified traces of nicotine likely associated with tobacco. Here we present a more complete picture by analyzing a suite of possible complementary ingredients in tobacco mixtures across a collection of 14 miniature vessels. The collection includes four different vessel forms and allows for the comparison of specimens which had previously formed part of museum exhibitions with recently excavated, untreated containers. Archaeological samples were compared with fresh as well as cured reference materials from two different species of tobacco ( Nicotiana tabacum and N. rustica ). In addition, we sampled six more plants which are linked to mind-altering practices through Mesoamerican ethnohistoric or ethnographic records. Analyses were conducted using UPLC-MS metabolomics-based analytical techniques, which significantly expand the possible detection of chemical compounds compared to previous biomarker-focused studies. Results include the detection of more than 9000 residual chemical features. We trace, for the first time, the presence of Mexican marigold ( Tagetes lucida ) in presumptive polydrug mixtures.
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Everyday life is critical in the constitution of selves and societies alike. Archaeology, with its attention to material and spatial remains, is in a unique position to further studies of everyday life, as ordinary materials and spaces formalize how people learn about themselves and their world. This review defines an archaeology of everyday life, examines its historical roots, synthesizes new literature on the topic, and outlines future directions. Although there is no established subfield called “everyday archaeology,” a rich and ever-growing body of recent research illustrates the impact of everyday life studies on archaeological interpretations and practice. Research on everyday life peoples the past in a way that few other paradigms do. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Anthropology, Volume 49 is October 21, 2020. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
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The nature of sociopolitical change during the Classic to Postclassic transition in Mesoamerica has been a source of great research interest and debate. Throughout most of Mesoamerica this period, lasting from about 600 to 1000 CE, was characterized by the fragmentation or collapse of the complex polities that dominated the Classic period (250-800 CE) political landscape. Archaeological, iconographic, and epigraphic research suggests that this period was characterized by dramatic changes in political institutions and ruling ideologies as well as depopulation in some regions (Cowgill 1979; Culbert 1973; Demarest et al. 2004; Diehl and Berlo 1989; Sabloff and Andrews 1986; Webster et al. 2000). Factors that have been implicated in the collapse include warfare, internal revolt, anthropogenic landscape degradation, and climate change. Despite the dramatic sociopolitical changes documented for this period, many questions remain as to their timing, nature, and causes. Perhaps nowhere in Mesoamerica has the Classic period collapse been as hotly debated as in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, where scholars disagree on the nature and timing of demographic and sociopolitical changes (Marcus and Flannery 1990; Winter 1989, 1994). In highland Oaxaca, problems with clearly defining a suite of diagnostic ceramic styles for the Early Postclassic, coupled with relatively few radiocarbon dates, have made it difficult for archaeologists to identify sites from this period (Kowalewski et al. 1989:251-254; Lind 1991-1992; Winter 1994), although research by Martínez, Markens, and Winter is beginning to resolve this problem (Chapter 2). Debates over basic questions of chronology have led to widely divergent arguments about the Classic to Postclassic transition, ranging from massive depopulation to political fragmentation with relatively little change in overall population (Chapters 1 and 12). In this chapter, I address the Classic to Postclassic transition in Oaxaca by examining the Classic period collapse in the lower Río Verde Valley on Oaxaca's western Pacific Coast (Figure 7.1).1 Recent research in the lower Verde has clarified the nature of demographic and sociopolitical change at this time ( Joyce et al. 2001; Joyce et al. 2004; Joyce and King 2001; King 2003). I consider the Classic to Postclassic transition from the perspective of the history of centralized political authority in the lower Río Verde Valley. The history of sociopolitical change in the region has been the focus of interdisciplinary research over the past twenty years (Barber 2005; Grove 1988; Joyce 1991a, 1991b, 1999, 2005; Joyce et al. 1998; Joyce et al. 2001; King 2003; Urcid and Joyce 2001; Workinger 2002). This research has included horizontal and/or block excavations at the sites of Río Viejo, Cerro de la Cruz, San Francisco de Arriba, Yugüe, Cerro de la Virgen, and Tututepec as well as test excavations at thirteen other sites. The entire region has been the focus of a non-systematic surface reconnaissance, and full-coverage surveys have systematically studied an area of 152 square kilometers ( Joyce 1999; Joyce et al. 2001; Joyce et al. 2004; Workinger 2002). The regional data demonstrate an initial period of political centralization toward the end of the Formative period, followed by a political collapse at ca. 250 CE. A second period of centralization occurred during the Late Classic period (500-800 CE) followed by collapse in the Early Postclassic (800-1100 CE). Although not a focus of this chapter, the prehispanic sequence ends with a third period of centralization during the Late Postclassic (1100-1522 CE), which was terminated abruptly by the Spanish Conquest. My historical analysis is based on a poststructural theoretical framework (e.g., Giddens 1979; Janusek 2004; Joyce et al. 2001; Pauketat 2001) and argues that regional political authority in the lower Río Verde Valley was relatively unstable and negotiated and was continuously produced by dynamic, ongoing social relations. Rather than representing the end of a long period of political relations that were overdetermined by a coherent and integrated political structure dominated by the elite (e.g., Fox et al. 1996; Marcus and Flannery 1996:chapter 15; Martin and Grube 2000; Schele and Mathews 1998), the Classic period collapse appears more like a "moment" prefigured, at least in part, by social contradictions and tensions that were inherent in the production of centralized political systems. I argue that archaeologists need to move away from the structuralist societal typologies that have dominated research on political relations in the past. Before discussing the archaeology of the lower Río Verde Valley, I briefly consider the implications of poststructural theory for models of Mesoamerican political organization. Approaches to the political history of Mesoamerican polities have most often relied on structuralist conceptions of political organization that focus on mechanisms of social organization and integration (Iannone 2002). In these models, ancient Mesoamerican polities are viewed as integrated and cohesive social formations. Recent debate, particularly in the Maya Lowlands, has focused on whether polities were organized in a centralized or decentralized fashion (e.g., Fox et al. 1996; Iannone 2002). Centralized or unitary states are organized and integrated through a centralized bureaucratic state system characterized by a great degree of administrative control over economic, military, and religious matters. Centralized polities are generally seen as larger in territory and population than decentralized ones and are characterized by an endogamous class system. In the decentralized model social integration is achieved largely through kinship and religious practices with rulers as lineage heads. Polities consist of a number of functionally redundant kinship-based units that unite or split apart depending on social conditions, particularly the presence of external threats. In the decentralized model the core political units therefore are kinship groups, usually viewed as lineages, which unite to form larger states that are led by kings who act as ritualists, politicians, and marriage brokers to forge tenuous and often temporary alliances of the social segments. Decentralized states are not characterized by the bureaucracies and large standing armies, often mentioned as features of centralized polities. Debates over Mesoamerican social organization are increasingly moving toward a middle ground between these two positions that recognizes a continuum in social organization from strongly centralized to decentralized (Iannone 2002; Marcus 1993, 1998). Marcus (1993, 1998) has attempted to integrate both the centralized and decentralized positions through her dynamic model, which argues that complex polities cycle historically between larger-scale and smaller-scale polities. The unification and dissolution of polities are seen as "different stages in the dynamic cycles of the same state" and thus are characteristic of the cultural evolution of complex societies (Marcus 1998:92). The main causes of state cycling are seen as interelite competition and the recognition that "large-scale, asymmetrical, and inegalitarian structures were more fragile and unstable than commonly assumed" (Marcus 1998:94). Despite the increasing recognition of the dynamism of prehispanic polities, approaches to social organization and political history continue to focus on overarching social and political structures. The decentralized and dynamic models recognize some inherent societal tensions, at least in the larger political formations of the pre-Columbian world, particularly between the institutions of kinship and kingship (see Fox et al. 1996; Iannone 2002). These models, however, continue to focus on the long-term stability, coherence, and integration of large-scale political units, whether the lineage in the decentralized model or the state in the centralized model. The dynamic model further argues that political cycling is part of the inherent structure of complex political systems. Instead of focusing on the nature of sociopolitical structures, in this chapter I will begin with Marcus's (1998) recognition of the fragility and instability of centralized political systems by exploring social contradictions and tensions that were inherent in the ongoing social relations that constituted the centralized political systems of the lower Río Verde Valley.
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This article examines the social construction and experience of everyday life in one socially salient place, the late Classic Maya farm-steads of Chan Nòohol, Belize. Men, women and children worked around the house and the ‘domestic’ and agricultural domains were neither socially or spatially segregated. Nor was everyday life a strictly inside or outside, private or public affair. These points underscore the fact that rigid Western taxonomizing is inappropriate for understanding life cross-culturally. Beyond farmers’ houses and agricultural terraces, Chan Nòohol was largely devoid of the physical surface traces that archaeologists often excavate. But this lack of architecture ended up being a blessing in disguise, because the entwined paths of people left visible traces in the porous soil surfaces. The imprints of people's daily walking and working documents some of their diverse lifeways and experiences. By integrating an analysis of the social construction of place with an analysis of living experiences, this article seeks to move beyond the impasse of theoretical polarities that have historically divided our field.
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The decipherment of Maya hieroglyphs has enabled scholars to better understand Classic society, but many aspects of this civilization remain shrouded in mystery, particularly its economies and social structures. How did farmers, artisans, and rulers make a living in a tropical forest environment? In this study, Patricia McAnany tackles this question and presents the first comprehensive view of ancestral Maya economic practice. Bringing an archaeological approach to the topic, she demonstrates the vital role of ritual practice in indigenous ecologies, gendered labor, and the construction of colossal architecture. Examining Maya royalty as a kind of social speciation, McAnany also shows the fundamentality of social difference as well as the pervasiveness of artisan production and marketplaces in ancestral Maya societies. Her analysis of royal iconography and hieroglyphic texts provides evidence of a political economy dominated by tribute extraction, thus lifting the veil of opacity over the operation of palace economies. Written in an engaging and accessible style, this book situates Maya economies within contemporary social, political, and economic theories of social practice, gender, actor-networks, inalienable goods, materiality, social difference, indigenous ecologies, and strategies of state finance.
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Following on from Rodney Castleden's best-selling study Minoans, this major contribution to our understanding of the crucial Mycenaean period clearly and effectively brings together research and knowledge we have accumulated since the discovery of the remains of the civilization of Mycenae in the 1870s. In lively prose, informed by the latest research and using a full bibliography and over 100 illustrations, this vivid study delivers the fundamentals of the Mycenaean civilization including its culture, hierarchy, economy and religion. Castleden introduces controversial views of the Mycenaean palaces as temples, and studies their impressive sea empire and their crucial interaction with the outside Bronze Age world before discussing the causes of the end of their civilization. Providing clear, easy information and understanding, this is a perfect starting point for the study of the Greek Bronze Age.
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The purpose of this volume is to elucidate the roles of commoners in ancient Mesoamerica as active ideological agents who participated in numerous ways in religious expression and ritual practice. The lacunae in understanding these roles is somewhat understandable given that ritual, religion, and ideology cut across multiple avenues of research, creating a challenge to scholars seeking to understand the different ways in which members of societies express shared belief systems. Given, however, that non-elites are frequently omitted from hypotheses or conclusions regarding ritual behavior and religious expression, at least in any capacity beyond being modeled as inert supplicants (a conclusion strongly rejected by most contributors to this volume, also see L. Brown 2000, 2004; Hutson 2002; A. Joyce and Winter 1996; Kunen et al. 2002; Mathews and Garber 2004; and Plunket 2002a), it is imperative that the challenge of foregrounding their participation in these symbolic systems be taken up in a coherent and systematic fashion. At stake is a greater and probably more realistic understanding of how all individuals, elite and non-elite alike in Mesoamerica and far beyond, contributed to and participated in the regular (re-)constitution of social process. Selecting ritual and ideology from the perspective of commoners, with implications for larger social contexts and bundled factional relations, as topics of study is timely. A great deal of attention has been turned in recent years to understanding ritual and ideology within complex and so-called egalitarian societies (select cross-cultural examples include Bell 1992, 1997; Blanton et al. 1996; Demarest and Conrad 1992; DeMarrais et al. 1996; Dietler and Hayden 2001; Earle 1997; Insoll 2004; Marcus and Flannery 2004; Plunket 2002b; Rappaport 1999; and Wolf 1999). Many of these studies impel and are motivated by agency-centered examinations that increasingly seek to situate elements of deliberate action within a multivocalic and polythetic prehistoric past (e.g., Brumfiel 1992; Dobres and Robb 2000; Hendon and Joyce 2004; Hutson 2002; A. Joyce et al. 2001; A. Joyce and Winter 1996; Love 1999; Robin 2002; Sheets 2000). Just as with other recent advances in subject-centered anthropological archaeology, the effort to understand the ideo-ritual role(s) of commoners in complex societies should not be considered as "adding commoners and stirring." As we question many of the underlying assumptions in research into these topics, serious and fundamental reworking of extant models of who controlled the past and by what means were resources-particularly of the "esoteric" type-allocated will be required. These issues lie at the very heart of organizational variation across all societies, past or present, complex or otherwise. In this chapter, I seek to reconcile these frameworks, the study of ritual and ideology with agentive approaches to understanding motivated behavior, to advance our "common" understanding of how members of ancient societies, particularly those born or lived of non-elite standing, contended with the myriad tensions and forces that shaped their lives. Following chapters pursue a number of courses-some not necessarily in agreement with the ideas proposed here-to demonstrate aspects of ritual technology and ideological practice that are to be found in the material record of prehispanic Mesoamerican commoners. The data sets these chapters present are instrumental in helping renew and revise our view of many-stranded social relationships that hinged on unequal access to different kinds of goods, materials, resources, prestige, and perhaps ideas and information (see Preface). My own approach derives from an effort to find alternatives to the Dominant Ideology Thesis, which I argue directly or indirectly shapes most of the current scholarship regarding ritual performance and ideological motivation. Implicated are James Scott's (1985, 1990) notions of a Hidden Transcript and Social Resistance. I explore recent conceptualizations of power and the application of Structuration Theory (following Giddens 1979, 1984) to revise our understanding of the causeand- effect relationship between commoners and elites. The significance of ritual and generative meaning, two related forces that served to cohere as well as distinguish social constituencies, are viewed from the perspective of collective remembrances (following Halbwachs 1941, 1952 [Coser 1992]). The result is a dynamic model of the ritualization of ideologically charged recursive relationships not simply between elites and non-elites themselves but between the organizational rules and expectations that shaped the negotiated relations between those categories and the variability they contain (see Preface). It is critical to note that this effort is not intended to place ancient commoners on equal footing with elites but rather to build a framework for examining the actions of both, particularly for commoners and particularly with respect to ideologically motivated ritual behavior, from a balanced perspective that fairly considers the contributions of all social elements in the constituted past.