It depends on how we look at things: New perspectives on the Postclassic period in the northern Maya lowlands

Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society

Volumn 151, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 11-26

  Sabloff, Jeremy A ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 43449114275     PISSN: 0003049X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Conference Proceeding    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (68)

1. Read 11 November 2005
2. I am deeply grateful to my colleague and collaborator, William L. Rathje, who co-directed the Cozumel Archaeological Project with me in 1972-73, for his friendship and intellectual stimulation, as well as for his helpful comments on this paper. I am grateful as well to all the participants in the project, most particularly Paula L. W. Sabloff, David A. Freidel, and Judith Connor Propper, for their stimulating ideas and conversations about the Postclassic period. An earlier version of this paper was presented at Boston University, when I was the 2005 Context and Human Society Lecturer. I wish to thank the Center for Archaeological Studies (James R. Wiseman, director) and the Department of Archaeology (Norman Hammond, chairman) for their kind invitation to present the Context and Human Society Lectures, as well as the Humanities Foundation of Boston University for underwriting them. As always, I am greatly appreciative of Paula Sabloff for her support (and for her suggestion for the title of this paper). This paper is dedicated to the memory of APS member Evon Zartman Vogt Jr. (1918-2004)
3. See William L. Rathje and Jeremy A. Sabloff, "Ancient Maya Commercial Systems: A Research Design for the Island of Cozumel, Mexico," World Archaeology 5 (1973): 221-31
4. Jeremy A. Sabloff, William L. Rathje, David A. Freidel, Judith G. Connor, and Paula L. W. Sabloff, "Trade and Power in Postclassic Yucatan: Initial Observations," in Mesoamerican Archaeology: New Approaches, ed. N. Hammond, 397-416 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1974)
5. William L. Rathje, "Last Tango at Mayapan: A Tentative Trajectory of Production-distribution Systems," in Ancient Civilization and Trade, ed. J. A. Sabloff and C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky, 409-48 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1975)
6. Jeremy A. Sabloff and David A. Freidel, "A Model of a Pre-Columbian Trading Center," in Ancient Civilization and Trade, ed. Sabloff and Lamberg-Karlovsky, 369-408
7. Jeremy A. Sabloff and William L. Rathje, eds., A Study of Changing Pre-Columbian Commercial Systems: The 1972-1973 Seasons at Cozumel, Mexico. Monographs of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology 3 (Cambridge, Mass., 1975)
8. Jeremy A. Sabloff and William L. Rathje, "The Rise of a Maya Merchant Class," Scientific American 233.4 (1975): 73-82
9. Jeremy A. Sabloff, "Old Myths, New Myths: the Role of Sea Traders in the Development of Ancient Maya Civilization," in The Sea in the Pre-Columbian World, ed. E. P. Benson, 67-88 (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collections, 1977)
10. and David A. Freidel and Jeremy A. Sabloff, Cozumel: Late Maya Settlement Patterns (Orlando: Academic Press, 1984), among others
11. Tatiana Proskouriakoff, "The Death of a Civilization," Scientific American 192.5 (1955): 86
12. Jeremy A. Sabloff, The New Archaeology and the Ancient Maya (New York: W. H. Freeman, A Scientific American Book, 1990)
13. E.g., E. Wyllys Andrews IV, "Archaeology and Prehistory in the Northern Maya Lowlands: An Introduction," in Handbook of Middle American Indians, ed. R. Wauchope and G. R. Willey, 2: 288-330 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1965)
14. A. Ledyard Smith, "Residential and Associated Structures at Mayapan," in Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico. Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication 619 (Washington, D.C., 1962), 269
15. J. Eric S. Thompson, The Rise and Fall of Maya Civilization, rev. ed. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966), 145
16. Harry E. D. Pollock, "Introduction," in Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico, 16
17. J. Eric S. Thompson, "Deities Portrayed on Censers at Mayapan," Carnegie Institution of Washington Current Report 40 (1957): 624
18. Lawrence Roys, "The Engineering Knowledge of the Maya," in Contributions to American Archaeology, 2.6. Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication 436 (Washington, D.C., 1934), 65
19. William L. Rathje (1975), cited in n. 3; p. 436
20. J. Eric S. Thompson, The Rise and Fall of Maya Civilization (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1954), 123
21. also see Ralph Roys, The Political Geography of the Yucatan Maya. Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication 613 (Washington, D.C., 1957), 4
22. See Cozumel Archaeological Project references in n. 3 above
23. As Rathje discussed at length in his pioneering 1975 article on "The Last Tango at Mayapan," cited in n. 3
24. See Fernando Robles Castellanos, ed., Informe Annual del Proyecto Arqueológico Cozumel: Temporada 1980. Cuaderno de Trabajo 2 (Merida: Centro Regional de Yucatan, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1986)
25. Fernando Robles Castellanos, ed., Informe Annual del Proyecto Arqueológico Cozumel: Temporada 1981
26. Cuaderno de Trabajo 3 (Merida: Centro Regional de Yucatan, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1986)
27. Thelma Noemí Sierra Sosa, Contribución al Estudio de los Asentamientos de San Gervasio, Isla de Cozumel (Mexico, D.F.: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1994)
28. and Demetrio Ramírez and Ma. Antonieta Ascarate, "Recientes Investi-gaciones de el Grupo II, o Mayapan de San Gervasio, Cozumel, Q. Roo," Actualidades Arqueológicas 23 (2000): 10-13, among others, for examples of more recent research on the island
29. Also see the five doctoral dissertations that derived from the Cozumel Archaeological Project: David Allen Freidel, "Late Postclassic Settlement Patterns on Cozumel Island, Quintana Roo, Mexico" (Harvard University, 1976)
30. Paula Lynne Weinberg Sabloff, "Tactics of Persistence: How Cozumel's Middle Sector Has Preserved Its Locally-controlled Land Transfer Pattern over 116 Years" (Brandeis University, 1977)
31. David Atlee Phillips Jr., "Material Culture and Trade of the Postclassic Maya" (University of Arizona, Tucson, 1979)
32. Nancy Lee Hamblin, "Animal Utilization by the Cozumel Maya: Interpretation through Faunal Analysis" (University of Arizona, Tucson, 1980); Judith G. Connor, "The Ceramics of Cozumel, Quintana Roo, Mexico" (University of Arizona, Tucson, 1983) and subsequent publications
33. Arlen F. Chase and Prudence M. Rice, eds., The Lowland Maya Postclassic (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985)
34. See, for example, Michael E. Smith and Frances F. Berdan, eds., The Postclassic Mesoamerican World (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2003)
35. Susan Milbrath, "The Last Great Capital of the Maya," Archaeology 56.2 (2005): 26-29
36. Heather McKillop, "Finds in Belize Document Late Classic Maya Salt Making and Canoe Transport," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 102 (2005): 5630-34
37. William L. Rathje, "The Origin and Development of Lowland Classic Maya Civilization," American Antiquity 36 (1971): 275-85
38. Heather McKillop, White Gold of the Ancient Maya (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002)
39. Susan M. Kepecs, "Chikinchel," in The Postclassic Mesoamerican World, ed. M. E. Smith and F. F. Berdan (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2003), 264
40. also see Susan M. Kepecs, "The Political Economy of Chikinchel, Yucatan, Mexico: A Diachronic Analysis from the Pre-Hispanic Era Through the Age of Spanish Administration" (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1999)
41. Also see Anthony P. Andrews, Maya Salt Production and Trade (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1983)
42. Marilyn A. Masson, "The Late Postclassic Symbol Set in the Maya Area," in The Postclassic Mesoamerican World, ed. Smith and Berdan, 200
43. Smith and Berdan (2003), cited in n. 31; p. 7
44. Frances F. Berdan, Susan M. Kepecs, and Michael E. Smith, "A Perspective on Late Postclassic Mesoamerica," in The Postclassic Mesoamerican World, ed. Smith and Berdan, 325
45. Milbrath (2005), cited in n. 25
46. Susan Milbrath and Carlos Peraza Lope, "Revisiting Mayapan," Ancient Mesoamerica 14 (2003): 1-46
47. Sabloff and Rathje (1975), cited in n. 3
48. also see Rathje (1975), cited in n. 3
49. William L. Rathje, David A. Gregory, and Frederick M. Wiseman, "Trade Models and Archaeological Problems: Classic Maya Examples," in Mesoamerican Communication Routes and Cultural Contacts, ed. T. A. Lee Jr. and C. Navarrete, 147-75. Papers of the New World Archaeological Foundation 40 (Provo: Brigham Young University, 1978); Connor (1983), cited in n.22
50. Marilyn A. Masson, "Changing Patterns of Ceramic Stylistic Diversity in the Pre-Hispanic Maya Lowlands," Acta Archaeologica 73 (2001): 1-30
51. Rathje (1975), cited in n. 3; p. 436
52. Marilyn A. Masson, In the Realm of Nachan Kan: Postclassic Maya Archaeology at Laguna de On, Belize (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2000), 4
53. Anthony P. Andrews, "Late Postclassic Lowland Maya Archaeology," Journal of World Prehistory 7 (1993): 35-70
54. Joyce Marcus, "Where is Lowland Maya Archaeology Headed?" Journal of Archaeological Research 3 (1995): 3-53
55. Joyce Marcus, "Recent Advances in Maya Archaeology," Journal of Archaeological Research 11 (2003): 71-148
56. See Anthony P. Andrews, E. Wyllys Andrews V, and Fernando Robles Castellanos, "The Northern Maya Collapse and Its Aftermath," Ancient Mesoamerica 14 (2003): 151-56
57. Rafael Cobos Palma, "Chichén Itzá: Settlement and Hegemony During the Terminal Classic Period," in The Terminal Classic in the Maya Lowlands: Collapse, Transition, and Transformation, ed. A. A. Demarest, P. M. Rice, and D. S. Rice, 517-44 (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2004)
58. See Jeremy A. Sabloff, "Ancient Maya Civilization," in Maya: Treasures of an Ancient Civilization, ed. C. Gallenkamp and R. E. Johnson, 34-46 (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1985)
59. Jeremy A. Sabloff (1990), cited in n. 5; Marilyn A. Masson and Jeremy A. Sabloff, "Developments in Northern Yucatan Archaeology," in Escondido en la Selva, ed. H. J. Prem, 417-24 (Bonn and Mexico, D.F.: Universidad de Bonn and Instituto Nacional de Antro-pología e Historia, 2003)
60. Carlos Peraza Lope, "Mayapán: Ciudad-capital del Postclásico," Arqueología Mexicana 20 (1999): 48-53
61. Marilyn A. Masson and Carlos Peraza Lope, "Commoners in Postclassic Maya Society: Social versus Economic Class Constructs," in Ancient Maya Commoners, ed. J. C. Lohse and F. Valdez Jr., 197-224 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004)
62. Nancy M. Farriss, Maya Society under Colonial Rule: The Collective Enterprise of Survival (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 25
63. Ralph L. Roys, The Indian Background of Colonial Yucatan. Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication 548 (Washington, D.C., 1943), 34-35
64. also see Joyce Marcus, "Maya Commoners: The Stereotype and the Reality," in Ancient Maya Commoners, ed. Lohse and Valdez, 278
65. Jeremy A. Sabloff, "Looking Backward and Looking Forward: How Maya Studies of Yesterday Shape Today," in Continuities and Changes in Maya Archaeology: Perspectives at the Millennium, ed. C. W. Golden and G. Borgstede (New York: Routledge, 2004), 18
66. Lisa Marie Collins, "The Zooarchaeology of the Copan Valley: Social Status and the Search for a Maya Slave Class" (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 2002)
67. J. Eric S. Thompson, Maya History and Religion (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970)
68. Also see Jeremy A. Sabloff, "Old Myths, New Myths: The Role of Sea Traders in the Development of Ancient Maya Civilization," in The Sea in the Pre-Colombian World, ed. E. P. Benson, 67-96 (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1977)