MEETING PROGRAM

Saturday, February 25, 2006, 8:30 am – 4:00 pm

8:30-9:00 am Coffee service and refreshments

9:00-9:15 am Welcome and Introduction

9:15-9:35 am Susan D. Gillespie (University of Florida)

Chalcatzingo Monument 34: A Formative Period “Southern Style” Stela in the Central Mexican Highlands
Chalcatzingo, Morelos, is well known for its Middle Formative bas-relief carvings, including the largest number of stelae known for any single site at that time period. These sculptures are evocative of Olmec (La Venta) style, even as they also incorporated motifs not found on the Gulf Coast. Less well known are the stylistic affinities of some of these carvings to West Mexico and to the Pacific slopes and highlands of Chiapas and Guatemala. This paper reports on a recently discovered stela, Mon. 34, with motifs that are virtually identical to those utilized in Late Formative artworks of southern Mesoamerica, including the lowland Maya region. This stela is an additional indicator, along with several other Chalcatzingo traits previously discussed by David Grove, of pervasive historical ties to southern Mesoamerica that have tended to be overlooked because of the dominance of interest in Chalcatzingo’s Olmec connections.

9:35-9:55 am Michael P. Smyth (Rollins College)

Ethnic Dynamics at Chac-Sayil, Yucatan.

Two decades of research at two major settlements in the Puuc hills region show complex patterns of ethnicity. Mortuary remains, residential architecture, and activity patterns from intensive survey and excavation at both Chac and Sayil indicate these centers were differentially affected by foreign influence and foreign interactions with ethnic groups both Maya and non-Maya. The dynamic changes in domestic organization between Middle Classic Chac and Terminal Classic Sayil will be discussed in regards to the emergence of a new perspective regarding the role of the Puuc region in Mesoamerican prehistory.

9:55-10:25 am Keynote address Victoria R. Bricker (Tulane University) and Harvey M. Bricker (Tulane University)
Maya by the Numbers

The Precolumbian Maya of Mexico and Central America are known for their advanced system of numerical notation involving the use of place position and a true zero. Numbers, some of them quite large, are an important part of the surviving records of this Precolumbian civilization. This lecture will examine the many contexts of numbers and numerical contexts in ancient Maya culture, including describing and commensurating astronomical and calendrical cycles, sometimes extending very far back into the mythical past.

10:25-10:40 am Coffee Break

10:40-11:00 am Christine Hernandez (Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University) and Gabrielle Vail (New College of Florida and Florida Institute for Hieroglyphic Research)

Investigating Pre-Columbian Calendars, Rituals, and Cosmology Using the On-Line Mesoamerican Codices Database

One of the aims of the NEH-funded Mesoamerican Codices Database Project (2004-2006), directed by Vail and Hernández, is to expand the on-line Madrid Codex Database (Vail 2002) to incorporate the remaining three extant painted screenfolds from the northern Maya lowlands (the Dresden, Paris, and Grolier codices). The original Madrid Codex Database is a searchable relational database accessible to users via the Internet that incorporates our interpretations of the iconography, calendrical data, and hieroglyphic texts from the Madrid Codex. Since its on-line debut in 2002, the database has been used as a research and resource tool on the ancient Maya and their painted books by scholars and the public alike. We anticipate that the current database project will contribute substantially to our goal of explicating how Maya divinatory almanacs were used and what they reveal about the ritual life of the cultures that produced them. To demonstrate the strengths of the expanded database, we summarize recent research on ties between almanacs in the Maya codices and the Borgia Group screenfolds from highland Mexico that offer evidence of pan-Mesoamerican scribal interaction.

11:00 -11:20 pm Allan Meyers (Eckerd College)

Detecting Domestic Space at a Hacienda Village in Yucatan: A Consideration of the Direct Historical Approach

The study of prehispanic household groups often draws on twentieth-century ethnography and ethnoarchaeology for interpretive frameworks. As such, inferences about the use of residential space assume some degree of cultural continuity between ancient and modern times. Historical archaeology provides an avenue for evaluating this important assumption. Recent investigations at Hacienda Tabi, a nineteenth-century sugar estate in Yucatan, have revealed domestic refuse patterns that approximate some well known ethnoarchaeological models. Patio spaces, in particular, are discernible within house lots of the hacienda village, where an indebted labor force once resided. The settlement's rapid abandonment, lack of subsequent occupation, and fine state of preservation underscore the importance of using historic sites to augment the direct historical approach in Mesoamerica.

11:20-11:40 am Traci Ardren (University of Miami)

Recent Research on the Nature of the Chichén Polity from Xuenkal

The Proyecto Arqueológico Xuenkal has conducted two field seasons of research at Xuenkal, one of the largest ancient sites within the historic Cupul province, north of Chichen Itza. One of our objectives is to identify the degree of economic and political control exerted by Chichen over this region, and to explore the ways in which such control might have been exerted. This paper will present a preliminary chronology for the occupation of Xuenkal and our first explorations of the nature of Itza presence (or the lack thereof) along the periphery of the Chichen polity on the northern Maya plains.

11:40-12:00 pm Debra S. Walker

Exploring Naachtun

The first ever controlled excavations at the remote site of Naachtun (literally distant stone) began in 2004. After two short seasons, the large Peten city has begun to reveal some if its secrets. While its rise to power can be linked to the second century collapse of El Mirador, 23 kilometers to the west, the city proved to be a strategic, and perhaps cultural, frontier throughout the Classic era. Excavations in 2005 revealed a cached eighth-cycle stela, stemming from its Early Classic apogee. Naachtun is the only site known to have used an emblem glyph in the Mirador Basin. At different times in its history, Naachtun formed alliances with both Calakmul and Tikal. Its situation between the two major Classic powers will likely provide substantive insights into Classic-era Peten politics.

12:00-1:30 pm Lunch Break

1:30-1:50 pm Clifford T. Brown (Florida Atlantic University), Carlos Peraza Lope (Centro INAH Yucatán), Walter R. T. Witschey (Science Museum of Virginia) and Rhianna Rogers (Florida Atlantic University)

Survey of the Central Part of the State of Yucatán, México

In July and August of 2005, we conducted a partial survey of the central part of the state of Yucatán. We investigated some 33 sites, most of which were we first recorded by our project. Important results include: mapping a portion of Hunactí and photographing bas relief fragments from the site; the discovery of significant sites within the Cenote Zone; the discovery of several Mayapán-type sites; and the discovery of the site of Otzmal, home of Nachi Cocom and site of the 1536 massacre of Xiu pilgrims. We also conducted systematic survey along two transects in the area and found the rural settlement is nearly continuous and relatively dense.

1:50-2:10 pm Adolfo Ivan Batun Alpuche (University of Florida)

Sacred Rejolladas and Agricultural Huayás: Distribution of Karstic Depressions in Buena Vista, Cozumel

Cozumel Island is a coralline limestone block with a physiographic composition as that found on mainland Yucatan where water plays a key role in the solubilization of the rocks, producing a complex terrain known as “karst”. In this karstic landscape caverns, cavities and dolines are common features. The postclassic site of Buena Vista located in the southeast portion of the island lies on a limestone ridge with the highest elevation in the island, and a great number of dolines or karstic depressions. Depending on their depth from the general elevation to the ground surface inside the depression, these features are locally known as rejolladas (maya “k’oopob”) or huayás. On the mainland, rejolladas have been suggested as strategic locations used for the prehispanic Mayas, for the cultivation of special crops including maize, cacao and cotton. This paper presents the distribution of rejolladas and huayás at Buena Vista, and a preliminary analysis of the association of these karstic features with masonry structures and agricultural fields. Our data show a close association of the rejolladas with ritual structures located in the site center, suggesting a direct elite control of the crops cultivated in these depressions. On the other hand, huayás are located in walled fields, distributed in the periphery of the site, suggesting a less strict control of the crops cultivated there.

2:10-2:30 pm Susan Milbrath (Florida Museum of Natural History)

Astronomical Cycles in the Imagery of Codex Borgia 39-40

At the Vatican Library I examined the original Codex Borgia in order to study iconographic details and days signs that are not clear in the published facsimiles. Traces of pigment in an important sequence on pages 39-40 indicate that the published facsimiles to date are inaccurate in terms of the sequence of day signs. This set of pages, showing the Earth Monster swallowing a Venus deity with bleeding solar disks, remains one of the most intriguing images in the entire corpus of Mexican codices. My reconstruction of the day sign sequence helps to place the astronomical imagery in the context of eclipse events. The eclipse event is identified as an almost total eclipse in 1496, which helps to date the events portrayed in the sequence. Placing the events in sequence helps to determine a number of “real-time” astronomical events, involving the sun, moon, Venus and Mercury.

2:30-2:50 pm Rhianna Rogers (Florida Atlantic University), Carlos Peraza Lope (Centro INAH Yucatán), Walter R. T, Witschey (Science Museum of Virginia), and Clifford T. Brown (Florida Atlantic University)

Results from Investigations at Hunacti, Yucatán

Ralph L. Roys believed that Hunactí, a large Mayan settlement located northwest of Peto in the municipio of Tixmehuac, was the capital of a pre-Columbian polity allied with the Xiu during the Contact period. Raymond Thompson, who mapped and excavated the early Colonial period ruins, was the first to investigate remains at Hunactí. Both scholars recognized that the site contained a mixture of major Classic period ruins and colonial architecture. In the summer of 2006, we spent approximately two weeks mapping and making surface collections in Hunactí. We recorded various structures (the largest pyramid, a long palace-type structure, a sacbe, fragments of Puuc-style bas-relief sculptures, and some smaller structures). We collected ceramics which appeared to be Late and Terminal Classic types associated with the Cehpech sphere. During our systematic survey of a transect from the site center northward, dense, almost continuous settlement as far as the town of Chucchub was observed.

2:50-3:10 pm Break

3:10-3:30 pm Gabrielle Vail (New College of Florida and Florida Institute for Hieroglyphic Research) and Christine Hernandez (Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University)

Online Introduction to the Maya Codices Database

3:30-3:50 pm Michelle Croissier (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

Structure TL5 at Teotihuacan’s Oaxaca Barrio: Public Architecture and Reconsidering the Chronological Debate

There are many unresolved questions regarding the nature of the Zapotec presence at Teotihuacan. My research addresses the Oaxaca Barrio’s public (or corporate) identity and attempts to resolve the long-standing debate on its chronology. I present ceramic data, radiocarbon dates, and the architectural floor plans of what was most likely the main temple for the barrio. My results suggest that the TL5 floor plan is comparable to Oaxaca-style architecture. Thus, Zapotec cultural traditions defined the enclave’s symbolic, if not institutional, public identity. Furthermore, to the extent that Structure TL5 represents the Zapotec presence at Teotihuacan, I argue in favor of an occupation that was limited to the Early Classic Period (ca. AD 200 – 550). These findings are significant to our understanding of the Oaxaca Barrio’s historical relationship to Classic Period states in Mesoamerica and, more broadly, towards modeling processes of enclavement in prehistory.

3:50-4:00 pm Closing remarks