MEETING PROGRAM
Friday, February 11,
2005, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
(TECO Conference Room,
USF College of Education)
6:00 pm Opening Remarks
S. Elizabeth Bird
(University of South Florida)
6:15 Plenary Paper: “Prehistoric
Cultural Interaction around the Gulf Coast, Florida to Mexico”
Nancy Marie White
(University of South Florida)
Archaeologists in the southeastern
U.S. and Mexico seldom communicate with each other, though hypotheses of
prehistoric cultural interaction between the two regions are numerous. This
presentation focuses upon the Gulf of Mexico, a warm, shallow, small sea surrounded
by rivers reaching well into the continental interior. There is tantalizing
evidence of cultural interaction around the Gulf throughout prehistory,
including artifacts, iconography, crops, environment and subsistence, and
cultural systems and practices such as mound building, but also some glaring
absences of evidence. Common cultural and environmental foundations,
short-distance interactions, and sporadic long-distance connections are
hypothesized.
6:45 – 8:00 Reception
Saturday, February 12,
2005, 8:00 am – 8:00 pm
(TECO Conference Room,
USF College of Education)
8:00 am Coffee and Tea Social
8:20 Welcome
E. Christian Wells
(University of South Florida)
David C. Grove (
9:00 “Social Hierarchy and the Sacred
Origins of Writing in Mesoamerica”
Mary Pohl (Florida State University), Kathryn Josserand (Florida State
University), Christopher von Nagy (Desert Research Institute) and Kevin Pope
(Geo Eco Arc Research)
New World writing systems were linked
to the emergence of social hierarchy. Initial evidence indicates that the
origins of writing in Mexico’s Gulf Coast Olmec culture predated 650 B.C. Early
Olmec elites developed writing to record their ritual calendar, which was a
central part of a larger complex of hierarchical social relations framing a
cosmology of the sacred.
9:20 “El Marquesillo Archaeological
Survey Project”
Travis F. Doering (University of South Florida) and Lourdes Hernández
(INAH Centro Regional de Veracruz)
El Marquesillo, in Veracruz, Mexico
is a multi-component archaeological site with evidence of significant
occupation during the Formative period (ca. 1200 to 100 B.C.). This paper
presents the latest findings, from the project’s investigation into the site’s
structure and composition to its role within the social and economic landscape
of the Olmec Gulf Coast. During the summer of 2004, geophysical prospection
surveys and an anthropic soil survey were undertaken to examine the presence
and nature of subsurface deposits, with the greater goal of mapping earlier
activity loci for comparison with later site organization. Profiles of selected
segments of the dynamic river cut, which has exposed significant portions of
the site, are used to link these sets of observations together to form a
diachronic picture of settlement organization over time. Analysis of surface
collected ceramic and lithic artifacts permits an assessment of patterns of
intrasite distribution and allows inferences to be made concerning the degree
to which the site’s residents were involved in intraregional exchange networks.
The combination of these datasets with photogrammetric techniques has resulted
in a high resolution picture of the site’s occupational history.
9:40 “A Preclassic Center in the Puuc
Region at Xcoch, Yucatan, Mexico”
Michael P. Smyth (Rollins
College)
New data from Xcoch show evidence
for a Preclassic center in the heart of the Puuc region. Located between Uxmal
and Santa Elena, initial reconnaissance in 2004 revealed a large site built
around a deep water cave, a gigantic pyramid and massive acropolis-like
platform, numerous E-Group-like quadrangles built in the megalithic style, and
widespread Preclassic surface pottery. These initial data suggest that Xcoch
had a substantial Preclassic occupation and may have been an even larger Early
Classic settlement. Continuing investigation will assess the importance of this
large, unexplored early Maya center, with the potential to open a whole new
chapter of Puuc region prehistory.
10:00 “The Long and Short of Mesoamerican
Prismatic Blades”
Dan M. Healan (Tulane
University)
Obsidian prismatic blades are a
highly distinctive and ubiquitous artifact in Mesoamerica, spanning several
millennia, that have been interpreted as playing a significant role in the
development of various technological, economic, and political institutions. At
the same time, enigmatic and occasionally contradictory aspects of core/blade
technology and its origin and spread continue to generate confusion and
controversy. The author reexamines the nature of prismatic core/blade
technology and the sociocultural milieu within which it occurred, from the
perspective of 25 years of fieldwork, analysis, and experimentation.
10:20 Catered
Break
10:40 “Stable Isotopes and Diet in Mesoamerica”
Robert H. Tykot (University
of South Florida)
Stable isotope analysis has been
widely applied in Mesoamerica to assess the importance of maize and other foods
in the human diet. The combination of carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios in
different skeletal tissues is now a well established technique and has been
used to address several specific questions about ancient diets. In bone
collagen, the isotope ratios emphasize dietary protein, while those in bone
apatite and tooth enamel reflect the whole diet. Bone collagen and apatite
represent average diet over the last several years of life, while tooth enamel
represents diet during the age of crown formation. The isotopic analysis of all
three tissues in individuals at Maya sites in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and
Mexico reveals variation in the importance of maize based on age, sex, status,
and local ecological factors, as well as dramatic changes in subsistence
patterns from the Preclassic to Postclassic periods. A synthesis of recent work
in this region will be given, along with recommendations for future research in
Mesoamerica.
11:00 “The Best Seat in the House”
Sandra Noble (Foundation
for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc.)
Interpretation of Maya social
organization through material remains has long been a subject of speculation.
The gap between data and interpretation inevitably involves the concerns and
conditions of the society producing such interpretive discourse, and diverging
interests and modes of analysis continue to result in alternative and often
conflicting interpretations of ancient Maya society, often involving
suppositions of systemic weakness that led to the collapse of its centralized
or dynastic authorities in the ninth century. Central in such interpretations is
the role of inscribed stone seats, erected by “subsidiary” or non-royal members
of Maya society in “subsidiary” districts or suburbs, such as in the Maya
polity of Copán, Honduras. At issue are the problematic interpretations of
these seats that support a particular construct of Maya sociopolitical
organization and an inherent weakness that would have doomed it to collapse.
Through analysis of form and construction, locational context, varieties of
decoration, and content of inscriptions, this presentation shows that
hierarchically privileged seats-of-authority, which are found in residential
complexes of very different socio-economic status, not only in Copan but
throughout the Maya region in Classic times, better support a model of
factional competition than of autocratic dynastic authority. These seats appear
to have been designed to construct the social position of their occupants in
relation to subordinate members of their own factions, to other faction leaders
with whom they were in competition, and to the ruler as both head of the polity
and leader of the royal faction.
11:20 “Architecture, Material Culture, and
Status at Classic Period Cancuen, Guatemala”
Brigitte Kovacevich
(Vanderbilt University) and Michael Callaghan (Vanderbilt University)
Architectural typologies emphasizing
labor investment in association with building type have frequently been used in
Mesoamerican archaeology to infer status. These typologies have also been
critiqued as unreliable in many cases. Evidence from Cancuen suggests that
architectural construction could be an important marker of status when used in
conjunction with other classes of material culture. This paper will utilize
architectural, lithic, and ceramic data from the Classic period site of Cancuen
to infer differences in status between households. Lithic data include
large-scale production of prestige goods such as jade and pyrite. Ceramic data
include household distributions of local utilitarian and fine wares as well as
distributions of imported northern highland ceramics and fine paste material
from the greater Palenque region. Artifact distribution patterns will also be
discussed in terms of differential economic behaviors and their implication for
the social system of Cancuen.
11:40 “Maya Queens: Not the Who So Much as the Why”
Traci Ardren (University of
Miami)
The existence and influence of royal Maya women, many of
whom held roles or offices best described as queen-like, has been well
acknowledged since the path-breaking decipherments of Proskouriakoff in the
1960’s. Yet the names and resting places of many ancient Maya queens continue
to be mentioned largely in passing, and the concept of ‘queendom’ in ancient
Maya culture has yet to be theorized or even defined. This paper explores the
intersection of gender and authority in Classic Maya culture using data from
epigraphic and archaeological sources, with special focus on queens from Tikal,
Yaxuna, and Copan. Patterns evident in these data indicate that queens
functioned not only as legitimizers of dynastic lines, but also inhabited a
diverse set of roles at the intersection between the culturally specific
understanding of women’s domestic responsibilities and the politico-religious
obligations of royalty. Globally, queens have relied upon a distinction between
the body politic and the body personal to resolve ambiguities in their status,
a phenomenon largely unappreciated in scholarly studies of Maya queens to date.
Recent epigraphic decipherments have illuminated the variety of ways in which
queenly power was expressed, allowing a more nuanced understanding of the
negotiated, but also explicit, authority held by certain elite Maya women.
12:00 pm “From Crops to Crafts to Power: The
Political Ecology of Quebrada Communities in Northwest
Honduras”
Karla L. Davis-Salazar (University of South Florida) and E. Christian
Wells (University of South Florida)
Agriculture has been practiced
continuously in the Naco Valley of northwestern Honduras for nearly 3,000
years. However, pre-modern cultivation in this region intensified during the
seventh through tenth centuries A.D., when populations were becoming
increasingly nucleated and differentiated. Some scholars believe that the
agricultural intensification relates to changing environmental factors, such as
a long-term increase in annual rainfall, which favored cultivation of staple
goods. Others have suggested that intensification has to do with growing
demands for foodstuffs that were exchanged for commonly needed craft items,
such as prismatic obsidian blades and polychrome pottery. In this paper, we
employ a political ecology framework for evaluating these alternative scenarios
and for explaining settlement patterns and land use practices in the Palmarejo
community of the Naco Valley during the Late Classic period, roughly A.D.
600-900. Political ecology, with its emphasis on the dialectic between
environmental and social forces in managing strategic resources, forces us to
consider both natural and cultural elements of ancient landscapes, which helps
us to understand the development of agrotechnologies and subsistence practices
in the Naco Valley. Here, we present the results of our recent 15-square
kilometer, full-coverage pedestrian survey of the study area, which indicate
that the region’s inhabitants settled riparian ecozones along quebrada edges
where soils were most fertile. The capital centers of each of the five
“quebrada communities” studied contain disproportionate numbers of residential
groups, non-residential architecture, and agricultural features, suggesting
that some communities were more successful than others at attracting and
organizing surplus labor for agricultural pursuits.
12:20 “Desire
and Political Influence: The Archaeology of Cacao Production in the Sibun River
Valley of Belize, Central America”
Patricia
A. McAnany (Boston University), Eleanor Harrison-Buck (Boston University), and
Satoru Murata (Boston University)
Political turbulence incumbent upon
the collapse of the southern Maya lowland dynasties is set against the local history
of the Sibun Valley, a cacao-producing region in central Belize. New data from
recent excavations—closely dated by radiocarbon analyses—indicate that
political influence over the valley was actively contested at the end of the
Classic period. The hegemony of the Petén—attested in ceramics and
architecture—appears to have been challenged by the growing power of the
northern Yucatec region, likely Chichén Itzá. Changing patterns of ritual
architecture and mortuary practices hint at the political re-orientation of the
Sibun Valley inhabitants, specifically the construction of circular shrines and
use of distinctive accoutrements in burial furnishings. Ironically, the largest
site in the valley, the Hershey site, displays none of the northern traits and,
in fact, has yielded a deposit of Terminal Classic disarticulated skeletal
remains that suggests a site of conflict. Strategically located relative to the
active trade routes of the Caribbean Inner Channel, the Sibun Valley enjoyed
ready access to a market for their highly desired cacao crop. This study
provides a textbook example of the manner in which a production locale became
enmeshed in the larger webs of competing political spheres.
12:40 Lunch
2:00 “Uaymil, a Seaport in the Western
Coast of Yucatan during the Terminal Classic Period”
Rafael Cobos (Universidad Autónoma de
Yucatán)
Investigations conducted at the coastal site of Uaymil in
northern Campeche have revealed that it flourished during the Terminal Classic
period and functioned as a transshipment station. Uaymil’s role was to
facilitate the movement of objects and merchandise that would eventually arrive
at Chichén Itzá via Isla Cerritos. Apparently, Uxmal—the great capital of the
western Maya northern lowlands—also benefited from the specific function that
Uaymil carried out at the end of the Classic period. Architectural and ceramic
data uncovered at Uaymil are used to show the great similarities that exist
between this coastal site and Uxmal and Chichén Itzá.
2:20 “The Cozumel Maya Bee Gardens”
A. Ivan Batun-Alpuche
(University of Florida)
This paper present historical and
ethnographic information of traditional beekeeping activities and agricultural
systems practiced in Yucatan, which were key to identifying prehispanic
beekeeping structures in Buena Vista and to explaining the practical use of
interconnected agricultural fields and beekeeping structures. Preliminary and
unpublished results of the archaeological project “Maya Settlement Patterns and
Land Use in Buena Vista, Cozumel, Mexico,” 2003 field season, which included
the mapping and survey of 4 square kilometers around the Postclassic site of
Buena Vista in southern Cozumel, brought to light an interesting pattern of
intensive agricultural fields and beekeeping structures on the island. The site
of Buena Vista presents a settlement pattern of a complex field wall system
delimiting agricultural plots and beekeeping structures. The distribution of
structures exhibit a previously unreported pattern in the Maya area, showing
how agricultural production and beekeeping of the stingless bee (Melipona becheii), were organized to use
field plots as both agricultural fields and bee gardens during fallow periods.
A number of early historical Maya and Spanish accounts refer to Cozumel Island as
an important place for honey and wax production. In addition, the region of
Buena Vista in southern Cozumel was known in prehispanic times as “oycib,”
which in Yucatec Maya means “place of the beeswax.”
2:40 “Mayapan’s Effigy Censers:
Iconography, Context, and External Connections”
Susan Milbrath (Florida Museum of Natural History) and Carlos Peraza
Lope (INAH Centro Regional de Yucatán)
The appearance of effigy censers at
Mayapan in the fourteenth century represents an intriguing innovation that
signals both religious change and expanding trade contacts. Some of Mayapan’s
Chen Mul Modeled censers are linked with Postclassic deities from central
Mexico, while others relate to Postclassic Maya codices and murals from Maya
sites such as Tulum and Santa Rita. Scholars believe that the cult of Chen Mul
Modeled censers originated at Mayapan, based on the site’s large quantity of
censers and the diversity of forms. Effigy censers found at other Postclassic
sites, distributed across the Yucatan peninsula and south to Belize and the
Peten in Guatemala, provide comparative data about the censer cult as it spread
out from Mayapan. Detailed analysis of Mayapan’s archaeological data and the
sites’s external relationships provides a framework for understanding the stylistic
relationships and chronological context of Mayapan’s censers. Ethnohistorical
accounts inform us about how the censers functioned in Mayapan’s religious
cults. By plotting the location of individual censers and identifying the
deities represented, it may be possible to reconstruct a great deal about
Postclassic religious ceremonies and the role of individual structures at
Mayapan.
3:00 “Chert Artifacts from the
Residential Areas of Mayapán, Yucatán, México”
Clifford T. Brown (Florida Atlantic University) and Katherine W. Gregory
(Florida Atlantic University)
We have analyzed approximately
25,000 chert artifacts recovered from 22 test pit-excavated household middens
in the residential areas of Mayapán, Yucatán. Mayapán was the capital of
northern Yucatán during most of the Postclassic period (ca. A.D. 1200-1450).
The senior author excavated these materials from four clusters of walled
residential houselots in different sectors of the site. The goals of the
analysis included: 1) identifying and describing lithic industries and
reduction sequences; 2) identifying lithic reduction loci; 3) identifying
activities and behaviors reflected in macroscopic usewear patterns; 4)
describing similarities and differences in the chert artifact inventories of
different houselots and groups of houselots; and 5) relating those differences
to differences in the ceramic assemblages and obsidian inventories of the same
houselots. We hope to use these data to understand the social and behavioral
variability among the houselots and groups of houselots mapped and excavated
during the project with an eye toward evaluating the small-scale social groups
present at Mayapán.
3:20 “Climatic
and Environmental Change, Demographic Shifts, and Infectious Diseases in the
Lake Patzcuaro Basin: The Formation and Spanish Conquest of the Tarascan State”
Laura Cahue (University of South Carolina-Columbia), Shannon Kicza
(University of South Carolina-Columbia), April Taylor (University of South
Carolina-Columbia), Emily Gollnick (University of South Carolina-Columbia)and
Christine Carter (University of South Carolina-Columbia)
The Tarascan State developed in the
Lake Patzcuaro Basin in the Middle to Late Postclassic during a period of Lake
level fluctuations. These lake level fluctuations were the result of climatic
shifts between dry and wet periods, presently hypothesized to be coupled with
ENSO events. In this study, we address the effects of these climatic and
environmental events on food availability and population strategies to cope
with food insecurity. We examine how these coping strategies affected the
health of the basin’s population, especially with respect to infectious
diseases. To address these questions in a temporal framework covering two major
political and economic transformations in the basin (state formation and
conquest), we use skeletal, archaeological, ethnohistoric and historic
documentary, biogeochemical and geomorphological data.
3:40 Catered Break
4:00 “The Maya Archaeometallurgy
Project at Lamanai”
Scott E. Simmons (University
of North Carolina-Wilmington)
This paper reports the results of
recent investigations (2001-2004) of copper metallurgy at the site of Lamanai
during the Spanish Contact Period. More copper and alloyed copper artifacts
have been recovered from controlled archaeological excavations at Lamanai than
at any other Maya site. An important goal of the Maya Archaeometallurgy Project
is to assess how this technology was integrated into Maya social, economic, and
political systems during the centuries just before and during Spanish Colonial
times. Recent excavations have focused on Structure N11-18, the largest Spanish
Contact Period residence at the site and likely the residence of Lamanai’s most
powerful contact period native authority. Ninety-two of the 180 (51 percent)
copper and alloyed copper artifacts recovered thus far from Lamanai come from
Structure N11-18. Evidence for on-site production in the form of scrap sheet
metal pieces, miscast copper bells, prills, and four copper ingots has been
recovered. All but a few of these objects come from excavations in and
immediately around Structure N11-18. The specialized production of copper
objects is viewed within the larger context of both pre- and post-contact
socioeconomic organization at Lamanai. The results of recent chemical
compositional analyses also are presented.
4:20 “The Madrid Codex in the Context
of Late Postclassic Mesoamerican Traditions”
Gabrielle Vail (New College
of Florida)
This presentation builds on recent
analyses that link the Madrid Codex to the northern Maya area, and not to
Tayasal as proposed in several previous studies. As a result of these analyses,
codical scholars concur that the Madrid Codex was painted near the end of the
Late Postclassic period, and not during the Colonial period as recently
claimed. A paper patch on one of its pages, which includes a partial text
written in Latin, suggests that it continued to be used until the late
sixteenth century. In this paper, I offer additional evidence for a Yucatecan
provenience for the Madrid Codex, based on linguistic and calendrical data,
stylistic considerations, and the iconography of the manuscript. I also
consider recent proposals, made in light of comparisons with the Borgia group
of codices from the Mixteca-Puebla area, that the Madrid scribes were part of a
broad artistic/scholarly tradition that encompassed the Maya lowlands and the
Mexican highlands. These data will be brought to bear on questions concerning
Maya scribal practices and the types of interaction that characterized the
northern Maya area with respect to other regions of Mesoamerica during the Late
Postclassic period.
4:40 “Double Mistaken Identities in
Post-Conquest Codices”
Lorena D. Mihok (University
of South Florida)
The conquest of Mexico brought two
extremely different methods for recording information together: a Nahua
tradition of pictorial representation and a European tradition of written text.
The production of post-conquest codices created the possibility for
miscommunication as each tradition catered to the needs of its respective
writers and viewers. This paper examines the relationship between the imagery
and glosses displayed on four folios from the Codex Telleriano-Remensis.
Ethnohistorian James Lockhart believes the interactions between Nahuas and
Spaniards during the early colonial period are more than simple examples of the
replacement of indigenous practices by dominant Western forms. He applies his
concept of “double mistaken identity” to a comparison of Spanish and Nahua
concepts of public office and issues of legality. Lockhart describes the
interactions between such different traditions as a relationship where each
side of the cultural exchange presumes that a given form or concept is
operating in the way familiar within its own tradition and is unaware of or
unimpressed by the other side’s interpretation. Lockhart’s idea suggests that
both sides of the Central Mexican colonial experience believed it could make
reference to the images and language of the other to discuss supposedly commonly
understood concepts, yet truly have no understanding of the other. Lockhart’s
concept of “double mistaken identity” surrounding these problems of
miscommunication may be applied to the creation of post-conquest codices
because these colonial pictorial manuscripts present the viewer with a direct
juxtaposition of pictorial and textual traditions. Do the images and the text
represent concepts assumed to be held in common, but actually present them in
drastically different terms? The images and glosses from the Codex
Telleriano-Remensis provide an opportunity to evaluate Lockhart’s concept.
5:00 Discussion
6:00 – 8:00 Reception