2 Tropical Landscapes and the Ancient Maya
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APAA apaa12026 Dispatch: August 6, 2014 CE: N/A Journal MSP No. No. of pages: 19 PE: XXXXX 1 2 3 4 5 2 6 7 8 Tropical Landscapes and the Ancient Maya: 9 10 Diversity in Time and Space 11 12 13 Arlen F. Chase 14 UCF 15 Lisa J. Lucero 16 17 Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 18 Vernon L. Scarborough 19 Cincinnati 20 Diane Z. Chase 21 22 UCF 23 Rafael Cobos 24 UADY 25 Nicholas P. Dunning 26 27 Cincinnati 28 Scott L. Fedick 29 California, Riverside 30 31 Vilma Fialko 32 IDAH 33 Joel D. Gunn 34 UNC, Greensboro 35 36 Michelle Hegmon 37 ASU 38 Gyles Iannone 39 40 Trent 41 UNCORRECTED PROOFDavid L. Lentz 42 Cincinnati 43 Rodrigo Liendo 44 45 UNAM 46 Keith Prufer 47 48 49 50 51 ARCHEOLOGICAL PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION, Vol. 24, Issue 1, pp. 11–29, ISSN 1551-823X, online ISSN 1551-8248. C 2014 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/apaa.12026. 1 12 Arlen F.Chaseet.al 2 3 4 New Mexico 5 Jeremy A. Sabloff 6 7 Santa Fe Institute 8 Joseph A. Tainter 9 Utah State 10 11 Fred Valdez Jr 12 Texas, Austin 13 and 14 Sander E. van der Leeuw 15 16 ASU and Santa Fe Institute 17 18 19 20 ABSTRACT 21 Archaeologists have begun to understand that many of the challenges facing our technologically sophisticated, 22 resource dependent, urban systems were also destabilizing factors in ancient complex societies. The focus of IHOPE- 23 Maya is to identify how humans living in the tropical Maya Lowlands in present-day Central America responded to 24 and impacted their environments over the past three millennia, and to relate knowledge of those processes to modern 25 and future coupled human–environment systems. To better frame variability in ancient lowland Maya development 26 and decline, the area that they once occupied may be subdivided into a series of geographical regions in which 27 the collected archaeological data can be correlated with environmental differences. Although beginning as small 28 agricultural communities occupying a variety of ecological niches in the humid tropics of Mesoamerica, the ancient 29 Maya became an increasingly complex set of societies involved in intensive and extensive resource exploitation. Their 30 development process was not linear, but also involved periods of rapid growth that were punctuated by contractions. 31 Thus, the long-term development and disintegration of Maya geopolitical institutions presents an excellent vantage 32 from which to study resilience, vulnerability, and the consequences of decision-making in ancient complex societies. 33 [Maya, archaeology, environment, variability, sustainability] 34 35 arious individuals and authors—from politicians to nological, and environmental differences, many issues that 36 V philosophers to historians to scientists—have argued are of interest to archaeologists reconstructing prehistoric 37 that knowledge of the past is an important key to the future Maya lifeways are also of contemporary concern. These 38 and that, conversely, an ignorance of earlier times and events issues include, but are not limited to: sustainability and re- 39 can result in the unnecessary repetition of historically known silience; the role of political and economic factors in col- 40 failures and problems (Burke 1790; Lipe 1984; Oaklander lapse and or the disruption and transformation of social 41 and Smith 1994; Santayana 1905). Archaeologists often fo- stability; maximum or optimal population levels associated 42 cus narrowly on specific sites and issues, eschewing broader with specific environmental adaptations; the impact of cli- 43 applications. In an attempt to remedy this situation, archae- mate change; and the nature of past forms of urbanism and 44 ologists have joined with biologists, geographers, meteorol- landscape modifications. Thus, IHOPE scholars propose not 45 ogists, and others under the umbrella organization “IHOPE” only to develop an integrated history of the ancient Maya, 46 (Integrated History and Future of People on Earth). This but also to provide rich data from a precocious, non-modern, 47 project calls together a broad range of active researchers to non-western culture that will add to our understanding of 48 explore human–nature relationships. The intent of these ef- the dynamics of human–environment inter-relationships. 49 forts is to integrate knowledge of the past with a dynamic The expected end product is the ability to provide multiple 50 global perspective that can be used to meaningfully address “answers” to understanding processes underlying complex, 51 current world problems. globally relevant issues. 52 One subgroup of the IHOPE team is focused on ex- It is important to note at the outset that there is substan- 53 ploring the adaptations of the ancient Maya of southeastern tial variation in the archaeological past that most researchers 54 Mexico and upper Central America. Despite temporal, tech- currently lump together and call “Maya.” The ancient Maya 1 Diversity in Time Space 13 2 3 4 were not a single uniform or unified civilization; as we shall these polities not only spoke a variety of different Mayan 5 see, variation is both regional and temporal. Not only did languages and dialects, but also practiced varied forms of so- 6 languages differ across the Maya region (Sharer and Traxler cial and political organization, endorsed different religious 7 2006:25–28), but so too did governmental structures (Roys practices, and evinced a host of other cultural differences. 8 1957) as well as cultural and kinship principles (Fox and Depending upon proximity and opportunity, many of these 9 Justeson 1986); the variable historical and environmental diverse groups interacted within a broader Mesoamerican 10 circumstances that were found throughout the Lowlands fur- world system that was interconnected and reactive to far- 11 ther compounded the differences (Dunning et al. 1998). This distant shocks and stimuli. Thus, ancient Maya populations 12 sometimes occurred even when their communities were only followed varied trajectories developmentally and responded 13 a few kilometers apart (Stanton and Garreta 2001). These differently to climatic and environmental changes, external 14 ancient, and for that matter modern, differences within the challenges, and internal stresses. 15 Maya Lowlands—and the explicit recognition of the lack of Some 27 environmental “adaptive regions” have been 16 uniformity in and of itself (e.g., Scarborough et al. 2003) defined for the Maya Lowlands (Dunning et al. 1998; see 17 —are important to meeting the IHOPE goals because they also Chapter 1) based on differences in agricultural soils, 18 offer opportunities to test variable effects of the same global- wet and dry seasons, water supply and quality, and other 19 scale phenomena, such as climate change and radical shifts factors. The southeastern Maya Lowlands are so moist that 20 in economic orientations, on differing local situations. they support a complex canopy tropical rain forest rang- 21 Although greatly changed by historical circumstances, ing up to 40 meters in height. Yet, the northwest corner of 22 the present-day Maya still comprise distinct language and the peninsula is so dry it approaches desert-like extremes. 23 ethnic groups. Yucatec Maya of the northern Lowlands Although some outliers occur, the northwestern Lowlands 24 speak and dress differently than the Chorti Maya in the far appear to have supported less dense human populations than 25 southeast of the southern Lowlands and the Tzotzil Maya the southeastern Lowlands. Thus, despite the overall diver- 26 in the Chiapas region of the southwestern Lowlands; they sity, the environmental settings define certain constraints to 27 are still distinct groups of Maya, but more closely related the structural responses that are possible. 28 linguistically than the extremely variant Quiche Maya of IHOPE researchers have been meeting to assess the 29 the Guatemalan Highlands. Some 31 modern languages are differences and similarities in the archaeological, environ- 30 classified as “Mayan,” and these 31 languages are sepa- mental, and climatic records for different parts of the Maya 31 rated into four major groups that have substantial antiquity Lowlands. We are attempting to develop a meta-language 32 (Campbell and Kaufman 1985). Researchers still disagree that permits the integration of disparate groups of data col- 33 as to exactly what language was spoken by the “Classic lected over more than one hundred years from dozens of 34 Maya” who produced the carved stone monuments (stelae intensively excavated sites. Through the use of the same an- 35 and altars) during the Classic and Terminal Classic periods alytical measurements to compare and communicate archae- 36 (ca. C.E. 250–900; see Figure 2.1 for Maya time periods) ological and environmental information, we hope to ferret 37 and their accompanying hieroglyphic texts (Houston and out an understanding of diverse past processes of adaptation 38 Lacadena 2000). to a varied landscape, thereby gaining insights into how the 39 Some argue that the Classic Mayan language found in ancient Maya successfully lived as farmers in the lowlands of 40 the hieroglyphs was a prestige language that was distinct present-day Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras for 41 from the actual languages that were spoken by local popu- millennia. The Maya adapted and survived in the Lowlands 42 lations across the Lowlands (see Houston et al. 1996); this for 3000 years; nevertheless, their success was punctuated 43 view portrays the Maya as unified in their cultural expres- by periodic disruptions, the most dramatic being the disinte- 44 sion. Linguists, however, posit at least three different con- gration of their Classic period civilization around C.E. 900 45 temporary dialects or languages in the hieroglyphic texts of (Demarest et al. 2004). Their history, therefore, holds clues 46 the Classic period (Wichmann 2006). for the successful adaptations of modern societies to rapidly 47 By C.E.