Timothy W Pugh
Biographic Data
| ID | 136387 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Timothy W Pugh |
| GIVEN NAMES | Timothy W |
| FAMILY NAME | Pugh |
| SIGNATURE | PUGH T W |
| AFFILIATIONS | Queens College, CUNY |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2985-0677 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 210 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Late Postclassic Lowland Maya politico-ritual architecture: Temple assemblages and Zacpeten
Late Postclassic lowland Maya civic-ceremonial masonry architecture appears in two main configurations—temple assemblages and basic ceremonial groups—first identified at Mayapan. Around the Peten lakes, these two architectural complexes have been tied to northern immigrant Kowojs and Itzas, respectively, and their distributions map the varying control over the lakes by these two ethnopolities. Temple assemblages exhibit considerable variation in …
Complexity, Cooperation, and Public Goods: Quality of Place at Nixtun-Ch'ich', Petén, Guatemala
Public goods are “non-excludable” and “non-rivalrous” resources, including roads, water management systems, and plazas, as well as “symbolic public goods,” such as religious architecture and social identity. Public goods occur in greater abundance in cities with more cooperative and inclusive forms of organization, which seems to undermine arguments that elites constructed them to augment their power. Such goods are major “pull” factors drawing m…
Middle Preclassic Hydraulic Planning at Nixtun-Ch'ich', Peten, Guatemala
Nixtun-Ch'ich', on the western edge of Lake Peten Itza in Peten, northern Guatemala, features an axis urbis and an urban grid dating to the Middle Preclassic period (800–500 b.c.). New research reveals that Middle Preclassic constructions—five circular or oval artificial pools and planned surface drainage—facilitated or impeded the movement of water. Large limestone rubble lines at least two of the pools (aguadas) in the city's core; two pools li…
Social Complexity and the Middle Preclassic Lowland Maya
Middle Preclassic Nixtun-Ch'ich: A lowland Maya primate/ritual city
Boundary Things in the Eastern Maya Lowlands: Negotiating Allied Relations From Terminal Classic to Postclassic Times
In this study, we offer a relational approach to theorizing boundaries for the Maya, adapting Mills’ (2018) concept of “boundary objects” as a means of understanding how people and things bridge or cross boundaries and were critical for developing and maintaining allied relations. We trace a network of sites on both sides of the Guatemala–Belize border dating to the Terminal Classic and Postclassic, which are generally characterized as times of i…
Early Colonialism and Population Movement at the Mission San Bernabé, Guatemala
Colonialism came late to northern Guatemala. The Spanish began to establish missions in the Peten Lakes region in the early 1700s, nearly 200 years after initial contact with the Mayas. Excavations in 2011–2012 at the Mission San Bernabé revealed European goods, nonnative animal species, and burial patterns that marked a new lifestyle. Who lived at the Mission San Bernabé, and where did they come from? The Spanish resettled indigenous populations…
Faceless Hierarchy at Nixtun-Ch'ich’, Peten, Guatemala
Societies vary in how they approach the challenges of increased population, inequality, and occupational specialization. The city of Nixtun-Ch'ich’ and its satellite, T'up, in Peten, Guatemala exhibit orthogonal urban grids—a trait absent from all other known Maya cities. Such grids require extensive planning and the ability to mobilize the population. The present data suggests that Nixtun-Ch'ich’ was substantially larger than any of the surround…
Early Construction of a Maya Sacred Landscape: The Sector Y “E-Group” of Nixtun-Ch’ich’ (Petén, Guatemala)
The southern lowland Maya city of Nixtun-Ch’ich’ exhibits an atypical gridded layout imposed in the Middle Preclassic period (800–400 b.c.). Sector Y, in the monumental core, consists of a two-part sub-structural platform with an “E-Group” quasi-astronomical architectural complex (Platform Y1) and a deep natural depression or fosa, Fosa Y (Platform Y2). Earliest construction began with bedrock leveling, probably around 1100–1000 b.c., followed by…
From the Streets: Public and Private Space in an Early Maya City
Souls of the Ancestors: Postclassic Maya Architecture, Incensarios, and Mana
In this article, we consider how the Postclassic Kowoj Maya of the central Peten lakes region of El Petén, Guatemala utilized mana in conjunction with their ritual objects and spolia to mediate between the natural and supernatural worlds. In many cultures worldwide and throughout time, mana (magical or spiritual powers that provide people and objects with a living force) transforms the ordinary into the spiritually powerful. The Kowojs imbued inc…
Zacpeten Structure 719: Activities at a Contact Periodpopol Nahbefore Rapid Abandonment
This paper addresses activities carried out in a late-sixteenth or seventeenth century Maya council house (popol nah) just before its abandonment. Structure 719 at the site of Zacpeten in the central Peten lakes district is considered a noble residence remodeled into a council house with an adjacent temple. Excavations revealed quantities of de facto refuse inside the structure's two rooms and around the exterior; recent studies focused on cerami…
Water, centering, and the beginning of time at Middle Preclassic Nixtun-Ch'ich', Petén, Guatemala
Early construction at Nixtun-Ch'ich', Petén, Guatemala: An architectural-footing and -bonding sample
The Origins of Early Colonial Cows at San Bernabé, Guatemala: Strontium Isotope Values at an Early Spanish Mission in the Petén Lakes Region of Northern Guatemala
The earliest Spanish explorers in the 15th century brought ships stocked with European domesticated animals to the Americas. Yet for nearly two centuries, the Maya living in Guatemala’s Petén Lakes region continued to rely on traditional wild animal species. A small number of cow, equid, and pig bones have been identified in Kowoj and Itza Maya Contact period contexts at Ixlú, Nixtun Ch’ich’, Tayasal, and Zacpetén; however, significant changes in…
Early Urban Planning, Spatial Strategies, and the Maya Gridded City of Nixtun-Ch'ich', Petén, Guatemala
Street grids commonly reflect the administration of urban populations and attempts to enhance city life. Planned grids are not typical of ancient Mesoamerican and especially Maya settlements, yet recent research at Nixtun-Ch'ich', Petén, Guatemala, has revealed a modular grid layout that is also diagrammatic. Excavations determined that the grid was constructed before 500 BC, making it the earliest currently known in Mesoamerica. Its construction…
A Chak'an Itza Center at Nixtun-Ch'ich’, Petén, Guatemala
Recent excavations conducted by Proyecto Itza investigated a Late Postclassic (a.d. 1400–1525) community at Nixtun-Ch'ich’, Petén, Guatemala. This community was likely occupied by a faction of Itza Mayas called the Chak'an Itzas. Recent work focused on the community's civic-ceremonial architecture and nearby residences. The former was dominated by two colonnaded halls standing abreast. These buildings, believed to have been popol najoob (council …
Technologies of Domination at Mission San Bernabé, Petén, Guatemala
The Spaniards established severalcongregacionesor missions in central Petén, Guatemala, shortly after the 1697 conquest of the region to help control local indigenous populations. Recent investigations at the church and community of Mission San Bernabé revealed details about the entangled relations of Mayas and Spaniards. Foucault's four technologies of domination help explicate these power relations as they were played out in the small settlemen…
Contact and Missionization at Tayasal, Petén, Guatemala
Until their conquest by the Spanish in 1697, many Itza Maya occupied a large village at Tayasal, Petén, Guatemala. After the conquest, two missions were built there. The village and missions are located within 2 km of modern Flores, which was once Nojpetén, the Itza capital, and later the Spanish presidio (fortified administrative center). Our excavations uncovered the San Bernabé mission on the Tayasal peninsula and defined the Late Postclassic-…
The contact period of central Petén, Guatemala in color
When Bernal Díaz del Castillo passed by Nojpeten with Hernán Cortés in 1525, he remarked upon the Itza capital’s brilliant whiteness, even from a great distance (Jones 1998:69). However had he stood in the central plaza, he would have discerned that the sun’s reflection eclipsed artifacts and architecture of a variety of colors. The archaeological record is frequently similarly whitewashed by our focus upon form, weight, and distribution. Neverth…
Contagion and Alterity: Kowoj Maya Appropriations of European Objects
From initial contact with the Europeans until their conquest (C.E. 1525–1697), the Itza and their political rivals, the Kowoj, dominated Petén, Guatemala. Colonial artifacts at Zacpetén record the initial appropriations of European objects by the Kowoj. All such objects rested in ceremonial contexts, indicating that the Kowoj considered them positive sources of sacred power. The Kowoj were in contact with the Spaniards and knew they were the sour…
Maya Worldviews at Conquest
This book examines Maya culture and social life just prior to contact and the effect the subsequent Spanish conquest, as well as contact with other Mesoamerican cultures, had on the Maya worldview. Focusing on the Post-classic and Colonial periods, the book provides a regional investigation of archaeological and epigraphic evidence of Maya ideology, landscape, historical consciousness, ritual practices, and religious symbolism before and during t…
Sanctuaries of Earth, Stone, and Light: The Churches of Northern New Spain, 1530-1821 by Gifford, Gloria Fraser
The Postclassic to Spanish-Era Transition in Mesoamerica
The Postclassic to Spanish-Era Transition in Mesoamerica. Susan Kepecs and Rani Alexander, eds. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005. 260 pp
Activity Areas, Form, and Social Inequality in Residences at Late Postclassic Zacpetén, Petén, Guatemala
Zacpetén, Petén, Guatemala was densely settled front the Late Postclassic to Contact periods. During initial contact with the Spaniards and after the conquest of Petén in A.D. 1697, a group called the Kowoj occupied the area where the site is located. Excavations in domestic contexts at Zacpetén revealed that occupants of larger residences had greater access to resources. Many common trade artifacts such as greenstone, serpentine, and obsidian st…
Early Urban Planning, Spatial Strategies, and the Maya Gridded City of Nixtun-Ch'ich', Petén, Guatemala
Street grids commonly reflect the administration of urban populations and attempts to enhance city life. Planned grids are not typical of ancient Mesoamerican and especially Maya settlements, yet recent research at Nixtun-Ch'ich', Petén, Guatemala, has revealed a modular grid layout that is also diagrammatic. Excavations determined that the grid was constructed before 500 BC, making it the earliest currently known in Mesoamerica. Its construction…
The Exemplary Center of the Late Postclassic Kowoj Maya
The ceremonial architecture of Late Postclassic Mayapán (A.D. 1268-1441) in Yucatán, Mexico, included repetitive arrangements of buildings known as temple assemblages. Archaeological investigations conducted by the Proyecto Maya Colonial in Petén, Guatemala, revealed a pocket of temple assemblages in a zone occupied by the seventeenth century Kowoj Maya. The Kowoj claimed to have migrated from Mayapán sometime after the city's collapse in A.D. 14…
A Chak'an Itza Center at Nixtun-Ch'ich’, Petén, Guatemala
Recent excavations conducted by Proyecto Itza investigated a Late Postclassic (a.d. 1400–1525) community at Nixtun-Ch'ich’, Petén, Guatemala. This community was likely occupied by a faction of Itza Mayas called the Chak'an Itzas. Recent work focused on the community's civic-ceremonial architecture and nearby residences. The former was dominated by two colonnaded halls standing abreast. These buildings, believed to have been popol najoob (council …
Contagion and Alterity: Kowoj Maya Appropriations of European Objects
From initial contact with the Europeans until their conquest (C.E. 1525–1697), the Itza and their political rivals, the Kowoj, dominated Petén, Guatemala. Colonial artifacts at Zacpetén record the initial appropriations of European objects by the Kowoj. All such objects rested in ceremonial contexts, indicating that the Kowoj considered them positive sources of sacred power. The Kowoj were in contact with the Spaniards and knew they were the sour…
Contact and Missionization at Tayasal, Petén, Guatemala
Until their conquest by the Spanish in 1697, many Itza Maya occupied a large village at Tayasal, Petén, Guatemala. After the conquest, two missions were built there. The village and missions are located within 2 km of modern Flores, which was once Nojpetén, the Itza capital, and later the Spanish presidio (fortified administrative center). Our excavations uncovered the San Bernabé mission on the Tayasal peninsula and defined the Late Postclassic-…
From the Streets: Public and Private Space in an Early Maya City
Souls of the Ancestors: Postclassic Maya Architecture, Incensarios, and Mana
In this article, we consider how the Postclassic Kowoj Maya of the central Peten lakes region of El Petén, Guatemala utilized mana in conjunction with their ritual objects and spolia to mediate between the natural and supernatural worlds. In many cultures worldwide and throughout time, mana (magical or spiritual powers that provide people and objects with a living force) transforms the ordinary into the spiritually powerful. The Kowojs imbued inc…
A cluster and spatial analysis of ceremonial architecture at Late Postclassic Mayapán
Flood Reptiles, Serpent Temples, and the Quadripartite Universe: The Imago Mundi of Late Postclassic Mayapan
Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico, was the most prominent Maya ceremonial center from the mid-thirteenth to the mid-fifteenth century. The city was a religious center for surrounding Maya populations. Its construction was linked through cyclical reasoning to a chain of antecedent centers, the ultimate link of which lay in creation. In the heart of Mayapan lay its exemplary center, an architectural model of cosmogony composed of five temple assemblages. Th…
Early Construction of a Maya Sacred Landscape: The Sector Y “E-Group” of Nixtun-Ch’ich’ (Petén, Guatemala)
The southern lowland Maya city of Nixtun-Ch’ich’ exhibits an atypical gridded layout imposed in the Middle Preclassic period (800–400 b.c.). Sector Y, in the monumental core, consists of a two-part sub-structural platform with an “E-Group” quasi-astronomical architectural complex (Platform Y1) and a deep natural depression or fosa, Fosa Y (Platform Y2). Earliest construction began with bedrock leveling, probably around 1100–1000 b.c., followed by…
Zacpeten Structure 719: Activities at a Contact Periodpopol Nahbefore Rapid Abandonment
This paper addresses activities carried out in a late-sixteenth or seventeenth century Maya council house (popol nah) just before its abandonment. Structure 719 at the site of Zacpeten in the central Peten lakes district is considered a noble residence remodeled into a council house with an adjacent temple. Excavations revealed quantities of de facto refuse inside the structure's two rooms and around the exterior; recent studies focused on cerami…
The Origins of Early Colonial Cows at San Bernabé, Guatemala: Strontium Isotope Values at an Early Spanish Mission in the Petén Lakes Region of Northern Guatemala
The earliest Spanish explorers in the 15th century brought ships stocked with European domesticated animals to the Americas. Yet for nearly two centuries, the Maya living in Guatemala’s Petén Lakes region continued to rely on traditional wild animal species. A small number of cow, equid, and pig bones have been identified in Kowoj and Itza Maya Contact period contexts at Ixlú, Nixtun Ch’ich’, Tayasal, and Zacpetén; however, significant changes in…
Social Complexity and the Middle Preclassic Lowland Maya
Early Colonialism and Population Movement at the Mission San Bernabé, Guatemala
Colonialism came late to northern Guatemala. The Spanish began to establish missions in the Peten Lakes region in the early 1700s, nearly 200 years after initial contact with the Mayas. Excavations in 2011–2012 at the Mission San Bernabé revealed European goods, nonnative animal species, and burial patterns that marked a new lifestyle. Who lived at the Mission San Bernabé, and where did they come from? The Spanish resettled indigenous populations…
Activity Areas, Form, and Social Inequality in Residences at Late Postclassic Zacpetén, Petén, Guatemala
Zacpetén, Petén, Guatemala was densely settled front the Late Postclassic to Contact periods. During initial contact with the Spaniards and after the conquest of Petén in A.D. 1697, a group called the Kowoj occupied the area where the site is located. Excavations in domestic contexts at Zacpetén revealed that occupants of larger residences had greater access to resources. Many common trade artifacts such as greenstone, serpentine, and obsidian st…
Boundary Things in the Eastern Maya Lowlands: Negotiating Allied Relations From Terminal Classic to Postclassic Times
In this study, we offer a relational approach to theorizing boundaries for the Maya, adapting Mills’ (2018) concept of “boundary objects” as a means of understanding how people and things bridge or cross boundaries and were critical for developing and maintaining allied relations. We trace a network of sites on both sides of the Guatemala–Belize border dating to the Terminal Classic and Postclassic, which are generally characterized as times of i…
Technologies of Domination at Mission San Bernabé, Petén, Guatemala
The Spaniards established severalcongregacionesor missions in central Petén, Guatemala, shortly after the 1697 conquest of the region to help control local indigenous populations. Recent investigations at the church and community of Mission San Bernabé revealed details about the entangled relations of Mayas and Spaniards. Foucault's four technologies of domination help explicate these power relations as they were played out in the small settlemen…
The Postclassic to Spanish-Era Transition in Mesoamerica
The Postclassic to Spanish-Era Transition in Mesoamerica. Susan Kepecs and Rani Alexander, eds. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005. 260 pp
Middle Preclassic Nixtun-Ch'ich: A lowland Maya primate/ritual city
Early construction at Nixtun-Ch'ich', Petén, Guatemala: An architectural-footing and -bonding sample
Faceless Hierarchy at Nixtun-Ch'ich’, Peten, Guatemala
Societies vary in how they approach the challenges of increased population, inequality, and occupational specialization. The city of Nixtun-Ch'ich’ and its satellite, T'up, in Peten, Guatemala exhibit orthogonal urban grids—a trait absent from all other known Maya cities. Such grids require extensive planning and the ability to mobilize the population. The present data suggests that Nixtun-Ch'ich’ was substantially larger than any of the surround…
Activity Areas, Form, and Social Inequality in Residences at Late Postclassic Zacpeten, Peten, Guatemala
Timothy W. Pugh, Activity Areas, Form, and Social Inequality in Residences at Late Postclassic Zacpetén, Petén, Guatemala, Journal of Field Archaeology, Vol. 29, No. 3/4 (Autumn, 2002 - Winter, 2004), pp. 351-367
Late Postclassic Lowland Maya politico-ritual architecture: Temple assemblages and Zacpeten
Late Postclassic lowland Maya civic-ceremonial masonry architecture appears in two main configurations—temple assemblages and basic ceremonial groups—first identified at Mayapan. Around the Peten lakes, these two architectural complexes have been tied to northern immigrant Kowojs and Itzas, respectively, and their distributions map the varying control over the lakes by these two ethnopolities. Temple assemblages exhibit considerable variation in …
Complexity, Cooperation, and Public Goods: Quality of Place at Nixtun-Ch'ich', Petén, Guatemala
Public goods are “non-excludable” and “non-rivalrous” resources, including roads, water management systems, and plazas, as well as “symbolic public goods,” such as religious architecture and social identity. Public goods occur in greater abundance in cities with more cooperative and inclusive forms of organization, which seems to undermine arguments that elites constructed them to augment their power. Such goods are major “pull” factors drawing m…
Flood Reptiles, Serpent Temples, and the Quadripartite Universe: The Imago Mundi of Late Postclassic Mayapan
Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico, was the most prominent Maya ceremonial center from the mid-thirteenth to the mid-fifteenth century. The city was a religious center for surrounding Maya populations. Its construction was linked through cyclical reasoning to a chain of antecedent centers, the ultimate link of which lay in creation. In the heart of Mayapan lay its exemplary center, an architectural model of cosmogony composed of five temple assemblages. Th…
Activity Areas, Form, and Social Inequality in Residences at Late Postclassic Zacpeten, Peten, Guatemala
Timothy W. Pugh, Activity Areas, Form, and Social Inequality in Residences at Late Postclassic Zacpetén, Petén, Guatemala, Journal of Field Archaeology, Vol. 29, No. 3/4 (Autumn, 2002 - Winter, 2004), pp. 351-367
A cluster and spatial analysis of ceremonial architecture at Late Postclassic Mayapán
The Exemplary Center of the Late Postclassic Kowoj Maya
The ceremonial architecture of Late Postclassic Mayapán (A.D. 1268-1441) in Yucatán, Mexico, included repetitive arrangements of buildings known as temple assemblages. Archaeological investigations conducted by the Proyecto Maya Colonial in Petén, Guatemala, revealed a pocket of temple assemblages in a zone occupied by the seventeenth century Kowoj Maya. The Kowoj claimed to have migrated from Mayapán sometime after the city's collapse in A.D. 14…
Activity Areas, Form, and Social Inequality in Residences at Late Postclassic Zacpetén, Petén, Guatemala
Zacpetén, Petén, Guatemala was densely settled front the Late Postclassic to Contact periods. During initial contact with the Spaniards and after the conquest of Petén in A.D. 1697, a group called the Kowoj occupied the area where the site is located. Excavations in domestic contexts at Zacpetén revealed that occupants of larger residences had greater access to resources. Many common trade artifacts such as greenstone, serpentine, and obsidian st…
The Postclassic to Spanish-Era Transition in Mesoamerica
The Postclassic to Spanish-Era Transition in Mesoamerica. Susan Kepecs and Rani Alexander, eds. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005. 260 pp
Contagion and Alterity: Kowoj Maya Appropriations of European Objects
From initial contact with the Europeans until their conquest (C.E. 1525–1697), the Itza and their political rivals, the Kowoj, dominated Petén, Guatemala. Colonial artifacts at Zacpetén record the initial appropriations of European objects by the Kowoj. All such objects rested in ceremonial contexts, indicating that the Kowoj considered them positive sources of sacred power. The Kowoj were in contact with the Spaniards and knew they were the sour…
Maya Worldviews at Conquest
This book examines Maya culture and social life just prior to contact and the effect the subsequent Spanish conquest, as well as contact with other Mesoamerican cultures, had on the Maya worldview. Focusing on the Post-classic and Colonial periods, the book provides a regional investigation of archaeological and epigraphic evidence of Maya ideology, landscape, historical consciousness, ritual practices, and religious symbolism before and during t…
Sanctuaries of Earth, Stone, and Light: The Churches of Northern New Spain, 1530-1821 by Gifford, Gloria Fraser
Contact and Missionization at Tayasal, Petén, Guatemala
Until their conquest by the Spanish in 1697, many Itza Maya occupied a large village at Tayasal, Petén, Guatemala. After the conquest, two missions were built there. The village and missions are located within 2 km of modern Flores, which was once Nojpetén, the Itza capital, and later the Spanish presidio (fortified administrative center). Our excavations uncovered the San Bernabé mission on the Tayasal peninsula and defined the Late Postclassic-…
The contact period of central Petén, Guatemala in color
When Bernal Díaz del Castillo passed by Nojpeten with Hernán Cortés in 1525, he remarked upon the Itza capital’s brilliant whiteness, even from a great distance (Jones 1998:69). However had he stood in the central plaza, he would have discerned that the sun’s reflection eclipsed artifacts and architecture of a variety of colors. The archaeological record is frequently similarly whitewashed by our focus upon form, weight, and distribution. Neverth…
A Chak'an Itza Center at Nixtun-Ch'ich’, Petén, Guatemala
Recent excavations conducted by Proyecto Itza investigated a Late Postclassic (a.d. 1400–1525) community at Nixtun-Ch'ich’, Petén, Guatemala. This community was likely occupied by a faction of Itza Mayas called the Chak'an Itzas. Recent work focused on the community's civic-ceremonial architecture and nearby residences. The former was dominated by two colonnaded halls standing abreast. These buildings, believed to have been popol najoob (council …
Technologies of Domination at Mission San Bernabé, Petén, Guatemala
The Spaniards established severalcongregacionesor missions in central Petén, Guatemala, shortly after the 1697 conquest of the region to help control local indigenous populations. Recent investigations at the church and community of Mission San Bernabé revealed details about the entangled relations of Mayas and Spaniards. Foucault's four technologies of domination help explicate these power relations as they were played out in the small settlemen…
Water, centering, and the beginning of time at Middle Preclassic Nixtun-Ch'ich', Petén, Guatemala
Early construction at Nixtun-Ch'ich', Petén, Guatemala: An architectural-footing and -bonding sample
The Origins of Early Colonial Cows at San Bernabé, Guatemala: Strontium Isotope Values at an Early Spanish Mission in the Petén Lakes Region of Northern Guatemala
The earliest Spanish explorers in the 15th century brought ships stocked with European domesticated animals to the Americas. Yet for nearly two centuries, the Maya living in Guatemala’s Petén Lakes region continued to rely on traditional wild animal species. A small number of cow, equid, and pig bones have been identified in Kowoj and Itza Maya Contact period contexts at Ixlú, Nixtun Ch’ich’, Tayasal, and Zacpetén; however, significant changes in…
Early Urban Planning, Spatial Strategies, and the Maya Gridded City of Nixtun-Ch'ich', Petén, Guatemala
Street grids commonly reflect the administration of urban populations and attempts to enhance city life. Planned grids are not typical of ancient Mesoamerican and especially Maya settlements, yet recent research at Nixtun-Ch'ich', Petén, Guatemala, has revealed a modular grid layout that is also diagrammatic. Excavations determined that the grid was constructed before 500 BC, making it the earliest currently known in Mesoamerica. Its construction…
From the Streets: Public and Private Space in an Early Maya City
Souls of the Ancestors: Postclassic Maya Architecture, Incensarios, and Mana
In this article, we consider how the Postclassic Kowoj Maya of the central Peten lakes region of El Petén, Guatemala utilized mana in conjunction with their ritual objects and spolia to mediate between the natural and supernatural worlds. In many cultures worldwide and throughout time, mana (magical or spiritual powers that provide people and objects with a living force) transforms the ordinary into the spiritually powerful. The Kowojs imbued inc…
Zacpeten Structure 719: Activities at a Contact Periodpopol Nahbefore Rapid Abandonment
This paper addresses activities carried out in a late-sixteenth or seventeenth century Maya council house (popol nah) just before its abandonment. Structure 719 at the site of Zacpeten in the central Peten lakes district is considered a noble residence remodeled into a council house with an adjacent temple. Excavations revealed quantities of de facto refuse inside the structure's two rooms and around the exterior; recent studies focused on cerami…
Early Construction of a Maya Sacred Landscape: The Sector Y “E-Group” of Nixtun-Ch’ich’ (Petén, Guatemala)
The southern lowland Maya city of Nixtun-Ch’ich’ exhibits an atypical gridded layout imposed in the Middle Preclassic period (800–400 b.c.). Sector Y, in the monumental core, consists of a two-part sub-structural platform with an “E-Group” quasi-astronomical architectural complex (Platform Y1) and a deep natural depression or fosa, Fosa Y (Platform Y2). Earliest construction began with bedrock leveling, probably around 1100–1000 b.c., followed by…
Boundary Things in the Eastern Maya Lowlands: Negotiating Allied Relations From Terminal Classic to Postclassic Times
In this study, we offer a relational approach to theorizing boundaries for the Maya, adapting Mills’ (2018) concept of “boundary objects” as a means of understanding how people and things bridge or cross boundaries and were critical for developing and maintaining allied relations. We trace a network of sites on both sides of the Guatemala–Belize border dating to the Terminal Classic and Postclassic, which are generally characterized as times of i…
Early Colonialism and Population Movement at the Mission San Bernabé, Guatemala
Colonialism came late to northern Guatemala. The Spanish began to establish missions in the Peten Lakes region in the early 1700s, nearly 200 years after initial contact with the Mayas. Excavations in 2011–2012 at the Mission San Bernabé revealed European goods, nonnative animal species, and burial patterns that marked a new lifestyle. Who lived at the Mission San Bernabé, and where did they come from? The Spanish resettled indigenous populations…
Faceless Hierarchy at Nixtun-Ch'ich’, Peten, Guatemala
Societies vary in how they approach the challenges of increased population, inequality, and occupational specialization. The city of Nixtun-Ch'ich’ and its satellite, T'up, in Peten, Guatemala exhibit orthogonal urban grids—a trait absent from all other known Maya cities. Such grids require extensive planning and the ability to mobilize the population. The present data suggests that Nixtun-Ch'ich’ was substantially larger than any of the surround…
Social Complexity and the Middle Preclassic Lowland Maya
Archaeology (26 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (25 works) · Latin American history and culture (23 works) · Geography (22 works) · History (22 works) · Maya (21 works) · History (13 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Ancient history (11 works) · Art (10 works)