The Izapa Kingdom's Capital

Formative Period Settlement Patterns, Population, and Dating Low-Relief Stelae

Bibliographic Data

ID5113903
AuthorsR M Rosenswig (0000-0001-9614-8904)
Year2019
Volume30
Issue1
Pages91-108
Publication date2019-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLatin American Antiquity (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1045-6635 • E-ISSN: 2325-5080
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/laq.2018.83
OpenAlexW2920282046
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited26

This article presents new settlement survey data from the Izapa center of southern Mesoamerica, a site long known for its corpus of low-relief stelae. These data, which track the changing distribution of population from 1000 BC-AD 100, indicate that the city's population peaked at 5,725 inhabitants. Izapa was the capital of a regional kingdom with more than 40 lower-order monumental centers and a territory that covered at least 450 sq. km. Recent AMS dates confirm the apogee of the kingdom at 300-100 BC, and volcanological reconstruction suggests that a Tacaná volcano eruption corresponds with archaeological evidence of political and demographic disruptions to the kingdom. Patterns at Izapa are contextualized in terms of Inomata and colleagues' (2014) call for redating Kaminaljuyu, placing the erection of stelae there to after 100 BC, as well as Love's (2018) and Mendelsohn's (2018) responses in this journal. Izapa was an integrated kingdom from 700-100 BC, and "Izapa-style" sculptures were a novel medium of political communication introduced after the polity had been functioning without them for centuries. If Inomata and colleagues' (2014) proposal is correct that low-relief stelae were erected only after 100 BC at other centers in southern Mesoamerica, this was centuries after the practice was established at Izapa

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Capital (architecture · Geography · Kingdom · Mesoamerica · Period (music · Political science · Politics · Polity · Population · Settlement (finance · Sociology · Archaeological Research and Protection · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies · Demography · Geology · History · Law