Mayan arky midterm 3

Karl Polanyi

• Karl Polanyi’s theory of exchange: marketing behaviours are incompatible with premodern societies rooted in kinship and social solidarity. 

  An evolutionary framework:

• Village societies = reciprocity

• Chiefdom societies = redistribution

• Modern society = market exchange

• Maya was also thought to have resource redundancy (low biodiversity) and low populations, thus never developed market exchange. 

  • So I thought that all the gaps in their economy would be fille din through household reciprocity and such, but now we know better! 

• Was well known back when he was coming up with his thay there were ancient societies with market exchange- like mesopotamia, so he redefined market exchange for his use. Made it so that land and labor were big things for his marketplace concept- buying land/ labor, which does not seem to happen in premodern societies (at least not the way we would think) 

• Idea that the Maya had market exchange has only recently been accepted and remains hotly debated

Lady Sak K’uk

Mayan queen

• There are instances where queens ruled when royal dynasty was without a male heir

• Lady Sak K’uk was queen of Palenque, ascending the throne in 612 CE

• Father was Janaab Pakal, who had no male heirs

• Lady Sak K’uk ruled until 615 CE when her son Pakal (the Great) came of age

• Example of royal descent passing through matrilineal lines- essentially served as queen regent. Nothing to do with patrilineal side, her son becomes king because her father was king. 

Lady Six Sky

• Lady Six Sky, daughter of B’alaj Chan K’awiil of Dos Pilas

• 682 CE, Lady Six Sky arrived at Naranjo and established a new dynasty and becomes the de facto ruler

• Little is known about her husband as he is not mentioned in texts

Courtiers- Sajal

• Sajal: “regional governor”

  • Don't reside in the capital but reside in other sectors and preside over them. Probably part of a lineage, very powerful individuals. 

  • Ex; kalakmul in late classic- had control over many smaller cities, some had their own ajaws, but others probably had Sajals

Courtiers- Ajk’uhuun

• Ajk’uhuun = “of the holy books” (high ranking priest, likely with scribal duties)

  • Wouldve been literate. Certain items of clothing and oter stuff are usually associated with these people- head cloth with stick bundle or pen protruding from it,and have sarans. 

Courtiers- Ti’sakhuun + Banded Bird

• Ti’huun and/or ti’sakhuun = “mouth” (speaker?) or spokesperson for the ruler 

  • Less commonly seen. One of the words means white paper. 

• Banded bird (undeciphered) = scribe or artisan

  • Likely part of royal lineage, part of royal economy. Scenes often show connections to maya mythology as well

  • Conk shells are common motif in these scenes- cut in half, used to hold paint. . 

Courtiers- Lakam

• Lakam = individuals varying represented as bannermen, ambassadors, tax collectors(district head?)

  • Much more rare, but this is the one we are aware of. Probably lowest level in political economy, but titled, so relatively important. 

  • Appear to be non noble, likely wealthy commoners who have achieved a level of status. May have been district or neighbourhood heads who form alliances with royal courts. 

  • Title isnt seen until when cities reach

Ajpach’ Waal

: A lakam at El Palmar

• Southeastern campeche in mexico, 

• Central to a district/ neighbourhood 

• Surprisingly found this hieroglyphic stairway, which are very very rare- only example of one that hasnt been i an urban core anywhere in maya world. 

• Text describes an event, of this guy going on a diplomatic mission. 

• Glyohs say both king spresent for dedication of this stairway, means diplomatic mission must have been successful 

• This burial is thought to be of the person talked about in  stairway 

• Thought to be an embellished telling of the event that led to this person gaining their status 

• Glyphs are protoglyphs, the person who made it wasnt actually literate, was just making things that looked like glyphs- so this person wasnt part of royal circle really, didnt have access to the same artisans.

Halach Winik

• At Spanish contact, power in the Yucatan was concentrated in hands of ruling castes, many claiming descent from central Mexico

• Each independent province has a halach winik, rulers who claimed power through patrilineal descent

• Halach winik resided in capital towns, and was supported by products and labour from tribute

• Minor provincial towns headed by batabob, appointed by halach winik from a noble patrilineage

Joya de ceren

• A ca. 12-acre village buried by volcanic ash in 595 CE when the Laguna Caldera Volcano erupted 

• A small farming village, home to an estimated 200 people

• People produced agave fibers, manos, metates, and pottery vessels while acquiring imports such as obsidian, jade, and fancy pottery from Copan

• Remarkably well preserved, with structures, gardens, fields and other features preserved

Birds of paradise

Wetland agriculture:Raised Fields

• Birds of Paradise wetland field complex

• Located on a floodplain

• Rectilinear, pre-planned system on a north-south and east-west grid

• Canals up to 900 m in length

• Excavated fill piled up to create fields

• Predominantly maize cultivation based on carbon isotope signature in the soil

• Late-Terminal Classic and Early Postclassic

• Possibly an adaptation to persistent drought conditions

Alabama

• A small town, home to about 1,000 people.

• Small plazas, temple-pyramids, ballcourt, short causeway (sacbe)

• Established around 600 CE and occupied in places until around 1100 CE, and then reoccupied after 1300 CE

• Agriculture, fishing, local pottery production, granite working.

• At peak, tied into economic and political network of larger centers in the region.

• Engaged in coastal and inland trade for regional (chert) and long-distance items (obsidian).

Milpa cycle

The milpa 

• Extensive and only really works for lower density populations. 

• Milpa cycle: a sustainable method of farming

• Cycle spans 20 years and involves careful selection of plant species to sustain the ecosystem

• Ecosystem transforms at each phase of the cycle and grows back into a closed canopy forest at the end

• Four phases:

  • Open field, dominated by maize

  • Reforestation, with useful woody plants that produce shade

  • Closed canopy forest garden, full of useful species

  • Full forest regeneration

• Farmers have more than one milpa at a time, each in a different phase of the cycle

Step 1- clearing of most trees and burning, followed by planting

Step 2- field into orchard

• Maize beans and squash dominate the fields- not exclusively, but by far the most often. 

• Things we consider weeds are cultivated intentionally- deter pests, enhance soil with nutrients, help maintain moisture, etc. Results in good yields of food. 

• Couple years later, plantain, papaya, things like that start to produce- other shade loving things grow underneath their shade. Maize beans and squash also, but becoming more diversified 

Step 3- orchard to forest gardens

• Trees reliably producing things, some plants fklourish but too much shade for maize beans and squash. So farmers will start another milpa at the first stage to grow them there

Step 4- forest regeneration. Forest garden left to its own devices, in time hardwood trees will grow over the planted trees and make a very natural lookign canopy. 

Low-density agrarian-based urbanism

• Maya cities provide an example of low- density agrarian-based urbanism

• Alternative form of urbanism that deviates from our modern understanding (and preconceptions) of how cities are organized

• Monumental center, surrounded by sprawling, relatively low-density settlement, with considerable agricultural modification of the landscape (forest clearing and agricultural infrastructure – e.g., fields, gardens, orchards). Cities not densely packed together on purpose- using space for agricultural production, in their neighborhoods, between theur houses. Most people engaged in agriculture- agrarian civilization. 

• The primary reason for comparatively low settlement densities was presence of agricultural production within residential neighborhoods

Smallholder farmers

• Unlike state managed agricultural systems found in some other ancient civilizations, Maya agriculture was primarily organised at the household and community level. Most people were farmers (specifically smallholder farmers- people or families that cultivate a small plot of land, growing plants and using it to raise animals, mostly for their own subsistence. SOme excess was produced an dtraded, but mostly for themselves). 

• Smallholder farmers formed the backbone of Maya subsistence, producing the majority of food

• Farming required communal and family-based labour, with seasonal shifts in work patterns (e.g., clearing, planting, harvesting, processing

Agricultural terracing

• Stone terraces constructed on sloping uplands

• Vary from simple linear piles of rocks to engineered vertical faces of stacked stones

• Agricultural terracing still used by Indigenous communities in Highland Guatemala

• Walls slow the down-slope velocity of runoff and form barriers to trap sediment

• Barriers allow deeper, enriched, soils to form and reduced runoff velocity allows soils to absorb and retain more moisture

• Deeper, stable soils hold more nutrients, especially if enhanced through addition of organic matter (compost)

• Deeper soils allow more root crops

Several types of agricultural terraces were used. The main ones were:

• Contour terraces-partition hills into vertical segments, capturing and retaining soil and moisture along the face of slopes

• Footslope terraces-are positioned at the base of steep slopes to capture down-washing sediment

• Cross-channel terraces-are perpendicular to water flow act to reduce flow velocity and capture sediment

Agricultural terracing: The Vaca Plateau

• Caracol is the largest city, situated in steep hilly terrain

• Minanha and its subsidiary centers are much smaller, but also situated in steep hilly terrain

• Entire settlement zone of this region is terraced

• Contour, footslope, and cross-channel terraces, operating in concert

• Agricultural Houselots (farmsteads) interspersed with agricultural terraces

Chinampas

• Strong evidence of historical use of wetland fields from Mesoamerica in chinampas around Aztec Tenochtitlan but no parallel historical examples from the Maya

• Few studies of ancient Maya wetland agroecosystems – suggest wetland agriculture was practiced in complex ways and at a large scales

• Without historical data, we need more archaeological testing

Wetland agriculture: Chinampa model

• Characteristics:

• Fields reclaimed and raised from shallow bodies of water

• Canal/field edges stabilized

• Debris cleaned from canals and placed on fields as fertilizer

• Temperature moderated by canal water

• Polycultural systems with fruit trees (avocado), cacao, tubers (manioc), maize, beans, squash, fish, snails

• Evidence for system in NW Belize at Chawak But’o’ob and Sierra de Agua from stratigraphy (bottom to top)

• Buried soils with high amounts of charcoal from burning fields to prepare them for raising

• Coarse and fine-textured buried sediments

• Rounded river cobbles and ceramics deposited on top buried soils for better drainage

• Radiocarbon dated older sediments (excavated from below and then piled) on top of younger sediments 

“Palace diet”

Elites had access to more exotic species, more favored species (e.g., deer), and better cuts of meat: the Classic period “Palace Diet”

Cenotes + Rejolladas

• Maya land use also depended on water availability and quality

• Early settlement near water sources (natural springs, cenotes)

• As populations grow, water availability needs to be addressed

• Various strategies documented: building dams to divert water, canals, reservoirs, wells, chultuns, and wetland agricultural complexes of canals and raised fields

Cenotes and Rejolladas (dry sinkholes)

• Water naturally occurs in cenotes

• Rejolladas are dry sinkholes that provide humid and moist microclimates for agriculture

Chultunes

• Hand-dug cisterns into limestone bedrock

• Not all used for water storage:

• Storage of food and other items

• Ritual spaces (artificial caves)

• Burial chambers

• Those used for water fill in the rainy season with diverted rainwater

• Often associated with residential groups

Aguadas

• Depressions that collect and store diverted water

• Functioned as reservoirs, capturing rainwater during the wet season, which was then stored for use during the dry season

• Vary in size and could serve small communities or large urban centers

• Often have sophisticated engineering,including berms, dams, and sealed plaster or stone floors to protect water quality while some have holding ponds and sand filters

• Require active maintenance to preserve water storage capacity

“Landesque Capital”

• One of the solutions to challenges of practicing agriculture in the maya lowlands

• “Landesque capital” improvements to family-managed smallholder plots

• Land investments that conserved soils and improved cropping, and improved forest diversity of over time

• Includes all features and techniques that Maya land managers invested in the land to better meet their needs

Mono-centric settlement pattern ?

Poly-centric agglomeration settlement pattern ?

plazuelas

Maya residential groups (Plazuelas) 

• Constructed on a raised platform.

•  Structures built around patios or courtyards.

• Structures facing each other or perpendicular to each other.

• A long-lasting pattern observed archaeologically AND ethnographically for many contemporary Highland and Lowland Mayan-speaking group

Parts of a plazuela 

Houses may include, but are not limited to:

• Dwellings

• Kitchens

• Storehouses

• Maize crib

• Specialized activity platforms

• Kilns

• Sweatbaths

• Water features

• Refuse and provisional discard areas

• Bathrooms?

• Gardens

• Orchards

• Fields

Patrilineal/
matrilineal
descent

Royal descent 

• Royal succession generally patrilineal, and primogeniture the norm (right of succession belonging to the firstborn child)

• There are exceptions to this rule: in many cases a ruler’s parentage is not given in texts

• Thought that elaborate depictions of succession scenes might be an attempt to legitimise succession that isn't as direct, compensating for it. 

House societies

The “House Society” Model 

• The exact nature of how lineal descent groups lived together is not well understood

• At Spanish contact, residence groups were primarily patrilocal extended families

• These groups formed around men and their unmarried children related through the male line

• Diverse residents: many individuals in these residential groups were not patrilineally related

• The “House Society” model offers flexibility, and may be applicable to the Maya

• A “House:” a named group that possesses an estate composed of both material and non- material wealth

• The “House” is maintained and grows overtime through biological kinship, fictive kinship, marriage, and ties to common ancestor, among other means.

• Ruling “Houses” still exist around the world today, maintained by rights to inheritance and succession that are not exclusively patrilineal, involve the use of both patronyms and matronyms, fictive kinship, and even mythical origins

• Famous example: the royal “House of Windsor”

Households

• Cities are part of larger settlement network consisting of:

• Towns, villages, and hamlets

• Rural areas with dispersed smallholder households agricultural lands and people exploiting other valued resource

The “basic unit of most human societies” (Robin 2003)

• Households are a social unit.

• We study households by looking at the house (residential groups).

Ancient maya commoners: Household archaeology

• Beginning in the 1950s, settlement studies recognized houses as the most abundant feature on the landscape

• Few systematic studies of households were carried out before the 1980s.

• Household studies designed to contrast with elite-focused studies

• A far more practical level of analysis for understanding everyday people in past societies

Household archaeology 

• Provide a window into the everyday lives and practices of ordinary people across space and through time.

• Understand the social organization of the majority of people in past Maya Societies.

• Document and interpret cultural transformations, reconfigurations, reorganizations, AND continuities

Political / domestic economy

Maya economy is traditionally divided into the political economy and the domestic economy.

• Political economy: hierarchically managed system of production and distribution of prestige items for use by the royal Maya and other elites

• Domestic economy: goods and resources for basic daily use by all classes of Maya society

Political economy

• Political economy focuses on unequal relationships between elites and commoners in complex societies

  • Emphasis is on hierarchies, centralization of authority, and economic control by elite

• Elites utilize specialization and restricted exchange of specific types of items to increase power and differentiate themselves from commoners

Household economy – community economy – vertical economy

A different way: household economy, community economy, and the vertical economy

• Household economy: household level production and exchange

• Community economy: part-time surplus household craft production for exchange within the community for other household produced surplus items

• Vertical economy: exchange of household surplus for long-distance or exotic items

Emphasizes horizontal and vertical transfer of commodities among and between social classes (including elites and commoners), levels of settlement (cities, towns, villages, etc), and regions

Household Economy: Subsistence

• House is the “basic unit of production”

• Most production focused on subsistence activities and craft production to meet immediate household needs

• Agriculture, processing, cooking

• Building and maintaining the house

• Basic toolkits for daily life

Community Economy: Household Craft Production

• Most households participated in part- time, small-scale, “intermittent crafting”

  • Intermittent crafting = production occurs periodically

• “Multi-crafting”

  • Multi-crafting = production involves multiple types of goods, i.e., not specialized

  • Often objects of same material class

• Items exchanged at community level through reciprocity, gifting, and market exchange

Community Economy: Household Craft Specialization

• Most households participated in part- time, small-scale, “intermittent crafting”

• Intermittent crafting = production occurs periodically

• “Multi-crafting”

• Multi-crafting = production involves multiple types of goods, i.e., not specialized

• Often objects of same material class

• Items exchanged at community level through reciprocity, gifting, and market exchange

• Increasing demand for some products leads to craftspecialization.

• Production may be full-time, often in workshop settings:

• Many different products:

  • Stone tools (chippedstone and groundstone)

  • Ceramics

  • Salt

Vertical Economy

• Households obtained goods from distant regions, such as obsidian, jade axes, and certain types of polychrome vessels

• These items were acquired by trading surplus resources, integrating households into wider trade networks

• Elites had a degree of control over these items in various ways:
  - Trade: managing or sponsoring trade
  - Production: overseeing or restricting who could produce certain items
  - Distribution: controlling who had access to exotic items and where they were available
  - Consumption: reserving certain items for elite use or ceremonial purposes

Intermittent crafting

Most households participated in part- time, small-scale, “intermittent crafting”
Intermittent crafting = production occurs periodically

Multicrafting

“Multi-crafting”
Multi-crafting = production involves multiple types of goods, i.e., not specialized
Often objects of same material class

Attached specialist

• Attached specialists produced the most intricate polychrome pottery

• Had access to finest materials, such as particular clays or pigments, sometimes imported from distant regions

• Required high-levels of skill, including slip application, multistage firing, and intricate painting

• Often required artist to be literate and hold special cultural knowledge of mythology, elite symbolism, and iconography

• Some are even ‘signed’ by the artist

• True “elite polychromes” are gifted by rulers to specific individuals (not widely exchanged) or used as funerary offering

Craft production workshops ?

Polychrome pottery

• Two broad ‘types’ of polychrome pottery: true “elite polychromes,” produced by attached specialists within royal courts (restricted) and “simple” polychromes produced at scale and exchanged through markets (wealth items)

Distributional indicators for Maya markets:

• Even distribution of sold (obsidian, etc) goods across communities, with differences pertaining to purchasing power. E.g., everyone has access to “simple” polychromes and obsidian with wealthier households having access to greater quantities

lots of scenes on polychrome, also in sculpture

• Bias in depictions of what we see- only see what they wanted others to see, only depicting most important people 

• Some can be identified with names written next to them, some can be identified by other aspects 

• True “elite polychromes” are gifted by rulers to specific individuals (not widely exchanged) or used as funerary offering

Financing the state- Staple and Wealth finance

Elites financed their institutions through two primary mechanisms that operated simultaneously:

• Staple finance: obligatory payment of subsistence goods to the state

• Wealth finance: special items are used as payment

Both staple and wealth finance were furnished through taxes and tribute payments:

Tax/ Tribute

• Taxes: regular, expected contributions from local populations to support the state. Most often subsistence goods but also included labour (corvée labour tax).

• Tribute: payment from subordinate or allied groups to acknowledge subordination. Could include subsistence goods but most often involving more prestigious or symbolic items.

Reciprocity

• Reciprocity: Exchange based on mutual obligations; reinforced social bonds within communities

Redistribution

• Redistribution: Central authority collects and reallocates goods, often during ritual ceremonies; demonstrates elite power.

Market exchange

• Idea that the Maya had market exchange has only recently been accepted and remains hotly debated

• Karl Polanyi’s theory of exchange: marketing behaviours are incompatible with premodern societies rooted in kinship and social solidarity. 

An evolutionary framework:

• Village societies = reciprocity

• Chiefdom societies = redistribution

• Modern society = market exchange

• Maya was also thought to have resource redundancy (low biodiversity) and low populations, thus never developed market exchange. 

  • So I thought that all the gaps in their economy would be fille din through household reciprocity and such, but now we know better! 

• Was well known back when he was coming up with his thay there were ancient societies with market exchange- like mesopotamia, so he redefined market exchange for his use. Made it so that land and labor were big things for his marketplace concept- buying land/ labor, which does not seem to happen in premodern societies (at least not the way we would think) 

Market exchange: approaches

• The Maya did have marketplaces.

• Identifying and understanding how markets emerged and functioned are important topics in Maya archaeology today.

• Archaeological identification of Maya market exchange hinges on three key approaches:

• Contextual approach

• Configurational approach

• Distributional approach

Contextual approach

• The contextual approach focuses on the identification of features (large cities, craft specialists) that benefit from the efficiency of marketplace exchange

• Contextual indicators for Maya markets:

• Large, densely populated cities

• Sprawling, interconnected, settlement systems

• In these systems, people are not entirely self- sufficient and redistribution unlikely

Configurational approach

• The configurational approach prioritises architectural features, spatial layout, and location.

• Configurational indicators for Maya markets:

• Most markets occur in formal plazas

• Spaces are that flat, can hold large groups of people, and are easily accessible (close to sacbes or within residential districts or neighbourhoods

• Some markets have formal architecture:

• Perimeters and/or rows of low platforms as stalls

• Entryways that can be easily accessed and Monitored- lots of people can go in and out  

• Stands or spaces for magistrates/judges to adjudicate disputes and enforce rule- raised platforms where someone can oversee market activity and enforce rules. 

• Chunchucmil in yucatan has some of best evidence for this type of marketplace- has all these structures and also all the sacbes lead to this central plaza. No shrines/ monuments, suggests this is a secular place. 

  • Geochemical testing identified areas where there wouldve been lots of organics being processed. 

  • Pigments, other materials also have areas, looks very much like a modern market where areas are subdivided into specific tasks. 

Distributional approach

The distributional approach examines the distribution of goods at the level of the site and the region

Distributional indicators for Maya markets:

• Even distribution of sold (obsidian, etc) goods across communities, with differences pertaining to purchasing power

• E.g., everyone has access to “simple” polychromes and obsidian with wealthier households having access to greater quantities.

Marketplaces

Central markets

• Central markets identified at many Maya cities, likely sponsored by royal elites

• Range in complexity from open plazas to formal architecture. Some were operating on a daily basis, but some probably had dedicated periodic times they were open. 

• Degree of formality may indicate frequence or scale of operation

Neighbourhood marketplaces 

• Markets also developed in residential districts and neighborhoods

• Some have formal architecture, suggesting daily operation 

• Example: Yaxnohcah’s neighborhood marketplaces

Maya currencies

• In Postclassic Mesoamerica, known currencies included cacao beans, copper bells, salt, miniature axes, cotton mantles, jade and shell beads, other shell items

• Currency = a particular type of object that is commonly accepted as a medium of exchange and unit of account within a particular cultural context

  • Maya seem to have developed a currency based system at least in the classic- observations made by europeans so biased in what they thin of as commerce, but it seems thye had some kind of currency. 

• Essentially, items with known values can be traded for other items with perceived or agreed-upon values (equivalencies)

• Divisible items, like salt, cotton mantles, and cacao beans can add to value of items to establish equivalence

States/ State level societies

State = political entity or organized political system that displays characteristics of centralized government, social hierarchy, and administrative structure

• States are fundamentally different from other types of societies

• Kinship is not the main organizing principle of society, as government has full authority over all members of society regardless of kinship

• State authority is backed by force

• Social inequality

Shared elements of ancient states 

Some common shared elements of states include:

• Centralized authority- often reflected in public monumental architecture

• Public monumental architecture

• Administrative structure

• Social hierarchy

• Economic systems

• Developed cultural and legal systems

• Advances towards formal record keeping, sciences, mathematics, writing

• Dominant state-level religion

• Military organization

• These are common features, not a laundry list

Shared elements of ancient states: the current approach

• Two primary characteristics that are focus of current research:

• Urban living: all states have densely packed populations

• Centralized government (the state)

The rise and fall of states must be understood on their own terms: variation is present and important to remember

The first maya states

• El Mirador (lowlands) and Kaminaljuyu (highlands) exhibit some qualities of archaic states by the Late Preclassic

• These are the largest and most complex Maya urban centers in Late Preclassic

• Monumental architecture (pyramids, raised platforms, causeways) indicates high degree of sociopolitical complexity

• Likely had centralized authority

• El Mirador and Kaminaljuyu were “proto-states”: exhibit many state-like features, but uncertain if full state-level development had occurred by this time (prof says he thinks they were a full state level society though)

Classic maya city states 

• Emblem glyphs, kuhul ajaw, symbol for specific city states. Functioned mostly independently, were functionally similar but a little different. Each is its own polity.  

• Each city state has a k’uhul ajaw and government, represented by emblem glyph

• There have been significant debates surrounding how Maya city-states were organized internally and the political relations among city-states. How much power did political leaders actually have?

  • Some think maya cities would be considered weak states 

Weak vs. strong states

Weak states 

• Ruler has little coercive power, and power is based on successful performance in ritual, warfare, and statecraft

• Result is a political landscape with unstable, competitive kingdoms

• Each polity is a loose array of satellite centres surrounding a capital where k’uhul ajaw resided

• A high degree of duplication of functions between capital and dependencies

Strong states 

• Ruler has significant coercive power, and power is based on threat of force and control over people, land, and resources

• Result is a handful of powerful “superstates,” who have power over other city-states through subordination

• Subordinates recognize their status, evidenced through texts that describe well-organised state hierarchies

• Capital cities are unique places that perform specific functions not replicated elsewhere

Popol Nah

• Evidence for shared governance

• Popol Nah, “council house” in Yucatec Maya

• Large, rectangular buildings with multiple doorways, that served as places for political gatherings, community events, and other civic activities

• Popol Nah found at several Classic Maya sites, suggesting public consultation and a degree of collective governance in Maya political organization