Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 41 (2016) 147–158

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jaa

Political alliance, residential mobility, and diet at the ancient of Pusilha, ⇑ Andrew D. Somerville, Margaret J. Schoeninger, Geoffrey E. Braswell

University of California San Diego, Department of Anthropology, 9500 Gilman Drive, MC, 0532, La Jolla, CA 92093-0532, USA article info abstract

Article history: We present strontium, oxygen, and carbon isotope ratios derived from the tooth enamel of 16 individuals Received 7 June 2015 from the Classic Maya city of Pusilha, located in southern Belize. Carbon isotope data suggest that local Revision received 17 November 2015 people ate relatively more maize than observed at many other comparable Maya sites, and hint that diet- Available online 29 December 2015 ary practices at Pusilha may have been related to sex and status. Furthermore, strontium and oxygen iso- tope data imply that four individuals were born and spent their early childhood outside of the eastern Keywords: Maya lowlands. One individual may have come from the northern Maya lowlands, a second from the vol- Paleomobility canic highlands of , and two more from the Copan region. In three cases, the pattern of foreign- Ancient Maya ers in burials at Pusilha is inconsistent with their being sacrificed captives. Instead, they appear to have Bioarchaeology Isotope studies been foreign elites who married into the royal family. Political, economic, and ideological ties between Pusilha the Southern Belize Region and Copan have long been hypothesized but until now there has been only weak and ambiguous evidence for such connections. Ó 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction: political alliance, mobility, and the Maya of One potential example of the dynamic model concerns the pow- Pusilha erful state of Copan and the smaller and isolated polity of Pusilha, Belize (Fig. 1). Hieroglyphic and archaeological evidence tells us The political landscape of the Classic Maya (ca. A.D. 250–800) that an important ruler named K’awil Chan K’inich Muwan Sak Tz’u- comprised many small kingdoms ruled by divine kings called aja- nun (‘‘The Heavenly Sun-Faced K’awil White Hummingbird”) wob. Nonetheless, not all kingdoms were equal in power or size. founded Pusilha in the late sixth century A.D., at the very end of Various models—from the ‘‘Old Empire,” to superstates, to regional the Early Classic period (Prager et al., 2014:272–283). Where this states, to complete fragmentation—have been proposed to under- founder came from is not stated in hieroglyphic texts, but several stand the hierarchical political relationship among Maya polities lines of evidence once seemed to suggest a link between early (Adams and Jones, 1981; Marcus, 1976; Martin and Grube, 1995; Pusilha and Copan. The second ruler of Pusilha, K’ak’ U Ti’ Chan Mathews, 1991; Morley, 1920). Marcus’ (1993) dynamic model is (‘‘Fire is the Mouth of Heaven”) had the same name as the contem- particularly intriguing because it describes the growth and decline porary Ruler 11 of Copan (nicknamed ‘‘Butz’ Chan” by scholars), of powerful states. According to her, provinces—the small building and—for a time—it seemed possible that they were the same per- blocks of ancient polities—were the most stable units of political son. The hieroglyphic texts of both sites mention a legendary organization. An early state grew as it incorporated other pro- ‘‘pre-dynastic” ruler named ‘‘Leaf,” ‘‘Foliated,” or ‘‘Decorated Ajaw.” vinces, often by force or by marriage alliance. Such growth was Moreover, Copador pottery in the labeled as col- rapid during the Early Classic period, especially of states such as lected from Pusilha is chemically identical by INAA to sherds from , Copan, and the ‘‘Snake Head kingdom” (later based at Calak- Copan (Bishop and Beaudry, 1994) and both sites share the artistic mul). Over time, distant provinces broke away. Some of these convention of carving zoomorphic altars in the round, seeming to emerged as the centers of new, vibrant states. Others maintained suggest both economic and artistic ties. Finally, the main sign of the trappings of divine kingship but were more simply organized, the emblem glyph of Pusilha—read as un or ‘‘avocado”—somewhat small polities. resembles that of Quirigua, a known subordinate of Copan from its founding in the fifth century until the mid-eighth century, when it dramatically gained independence (Looper, 1999). These apparent ⇑ Corresponding author. links reasonably led Marcus (2003:95, 2004:371) to propose that E-mail addresses: [email protected] (A.D. Somerville), [email protected] Pusilha was conquered by Copan, became incorporated into the (M.J. Schoeninger), [email protected] (G.E. Braswell). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2015.11.004 0278-4165/Ó 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 148 A.D. Somerville et al. / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 41 (2016) 147–158

Fig. 1. Map of the southeastern Maya area showing locations of Pusilha, Copan, and other sites mentioned in the text. expansionist state, and later broke away as that state weakened in parents, died 20 years apart, and therefore could not have been the eighth century. Several other scholars also have seen important the same individual (Prager et al., 2014:283). ‘‘Leaf Ajaw” is men- relations between Copan, Pusilha, and sites in the Southern Belize tioned not only at Copan and Pusilha, but also at many other Region (e.g., Grube et al., 1999; Martin and Grube, 2000:201; important sites and seems to have been a legendary figure perhaps Reents, n.d.; Wanyerka, 2003). tied to the birth of Classic Maya kingship. Curiously, not a single Nonetheless, recent archaeological and epigraphic research has sherd of the chemically-sourced-to-Copan Copador pottery in the so far failed to document that Pusilha ever was politically or eco- British Museum was illustrated or described by the original exca- nomically subordinate to Copan. Although the second ruler of vators of Pusilha (i.e., Joyce, 1929:Plates XLIII–XLV; Joyce et al., Pusilha shared a name with Ruler 11 of Copan, they had different 1928:Plate XXXIV). In all of our excavations at Pusilha, we recov- Download English Version: https://daneshyari.com/en/article/1034878

Download Persian Version:

https://daneshyari.com/article/1034878

Daneshyari.com