Hostname: page-component-5447f9dfdb-bvlk6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-07-30T19:41:11.141Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Pine, prestige and politics of the Late Classic Maya at Xunantunich, Belize

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2015

David L. Lentz ,
Jason Yaeger ,
Cynthia Robin  and
Wendy Ashmore
David L. Lentz
Affiliation:
Chicago Botanic Garden, 1000 Lake Cook Road, Glencoe, IL 60022, USA (Email: dlentz@chicagobotanic.org)
Jason Yaeger
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1180 Observatory Dr., Madison, WI 53706, USA (Email: jyaeger@wisc.edu)
Cynthia Robin
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University, 1810 Hinman Ave., Evanston, IL 60208, USA (Email: c-robin@nwu.edu)
Wendy Ashmore
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Riverside, Watkins Hall 1229, Riverside, CA 92521, USA (Email: wendy.ashmore@ucr.edu)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Comparing the source of a commodity with the social levels of the people amongst whom it is found can reveal important aspects of social structure. This case study of a Maya community, using archaeological and ethnographic data, shows that pine and pine charcoal was procured at a distance and distributed unevenly in settlements. The researchers deduce that this commodity was not freely available in the market place, but was subject to political control.

Keywords

Mayapinepaleoethnobotanyexchangepolitical economyBelize

Information

Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 79 , Issue 305 , September 2005 , pp. 573 - 585
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Abrams, E.M. 1994. How the Maya built their world: energetics and ancient architecture. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Ashmore, W. & Leventhal, R.M.. 1993. Xunantunich reconsidered. Paper presented at the First Belize Conference, Jacksonville, FL.Google Scholar
Atran, S. & Ucan Ek, E.’. 1999. Classification of useful plants by the northern Petén Maya (Itzaj), in White, C.D. (ed.) Reconstructing ancient Maya diet: 19–59. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.Google Scholar
Awe, J.J. 1985. Archaeological investigations at Caledonia, Cayo District, Belize. MA Thesis, Department of Anthropology, Trent University.Google Scholar
Balick, M.J., Nee, M.H. & Atha, D.E.. 2000. Checklist of the vascular plants of Belize. Memoirs of the New York Botanical Garden vol. 85. Bronx.Google Scholar
Ball, J.W. & Taschek, J.T.. 1991. Late Classic lowland Maya political organization and central-place analysis: new insights from the upper Belize valley. Ancient Mesoamerica 2: 149–65.Google Scholar
Barrera Marín, A., Vázquez, A.B. & López Franco, R.M.. 1976. Nomenclatura etnobotánica Maya: Una interpretación taxonómica. Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, Coleccion Cientifica 36. Mexico City.Google Scholar
Berlin, B., Breedlove, D.E. & Raven, P.H.. 1974. Principles of Tzeltal plant classification: an introduction to the botanical ethnography of a Mayan-speaking people of highland Chiapas. New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Breedlove, D.E. & Hopkins, N.A.. 1971. A study of Chuj (Mayan) plants with notes on their uses II. The Wasmann journal of biology 29: 107–28.Google Scholar
Breedlove, D.E. & Laughlin, R.M. 2000. The flowering of man: a Tzotzil botany of Zinacantan. (abridged ed.). Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Chase, D.Z. & Chase, A.F.. 1998. The architectural contexts of caches, burials, and other ritual activities for the Classic period Maya (as reflected at Caracol, Belize), in Houston, S.D. (ed.) Function and meaning in Classic Maya architecture: 299–332. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks.Google Scholar
Deal, M. 1988. Recognition of ritual pottery in residential units: an ethnoarchaeological model of the Maya family altar tradition, in Lee, T.A. & Hayden, B. (ed.) Ethnoarchaeology among the highland Maya of Chiapas: 61–90. Papers of the New World Archaeological Foundation no. 26. Provo: Brigham Young University.Google Scholar
Dickau, R. & Lentz, D.. 2001. Diets under duress: paleoethnobotanical evidence from the Late Classic Maya of Aguateca. Paper presented at the 66th annual meeting for the Society for American Archaeology, New Orleans.Google Scholar
Dunham, P.S. 1996. Resource exploitation and exchange among the Classic Maya: Some initial findings of the Maya Mountains Archaeological Project, in Fedick, S.L. (ed.) The managed mosaic: ancient Maya agriculture and resource use: 315–34. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.Google Scholar
Foias, A.E. 2002. At the crossroads: the economic basis of political power in the Petexbatun region, in Masson, M.A. & Freidel, D.A. (ed.) Ancient Maya political economies: 223–48. Walnut Creek: Altamira.Google Scholar
Graham, E.A. 1987. Resource diversity in Belize and its implications for models of lowland trade. American Antiquity 52 (4): 753–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graham, E.A. 2002. Perspectives on economy and theory, in Masson, M.A. & Freidel, D.A. (ed.) Ancient Maya political economies: 398–418. Walnut Creek: Altamira.Google Scholar
Hammond, N., Tourtellot, G., Everson, G., Sagebiel, K.L., Thomas, B. & Wolf, M.. 2000. Survey and excavations at La Milpa, Belize, 1998. Mexicon 22 (2): 38–43.Google Scholar
Harcourt, C.S. 1996. Belize, in Harcourt, C.S. & Sayer, J.A. (ed.) The conservation atlas of tropical forests: The Americas: 151–159. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Hehr, J.G. 1967. Charcoal: its multifarious effect in a rural Guatemalan community. M.A Thesis, Department of Geography, Western Michigan University.Google Scholar
Hirth, K.G. 1998. The distributional approach: a new way to identify marketplace exchange in the archaeological record. Current Anthropology 39 (4): 451–76.Google Scholar
Lecount, L.J. 1999. Polychrome pottery and political strategies in Late and Terminal Classic lowland Maya society. Latin American Antiquity 10: 239–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lecount, L.J., Yaeger, J., Leventhal, R.M. & Ashmore, W.. 2002. Dating the rise and fall of Xunantunich, Belize: a Late and Terminal Classic lowland Maya regional center. Ancient Mesoamerica 13 (1): 41–63.Google Scholar
Lentz, D.L. 1989. Botanical remains from the El Cajón area: insights into a prehistoric dietary pattern, in Hirth, K., Pinto, G.L. & Hasemann, G. (ed.) Archaeological research in the El Cajón region, 1: prehistoric cultural ecology: 187–206. Memoirs in Latin American Archaeology, no. 1. Pittsburgh: Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Lentz, D.L. 1991. Maya diets of the rich and poor: paleoethnobotanical evidence from Copán, Latin American Antiquity 2: 269–87.Google Scholar
Lentz, D.L. 1994. Paleoethnobotanical evidence for subsistence practices and other economic activities in the Petexbatun region during the Classic Period. Paper presented at the 93rd American Anthropological Association Meetings, Atlanta.Google Scholar
Lentz, D.L. 1999. Plant resources of the ancient Maya: the paleoethnobotanical evidence, in White, C.D. (ed.) Reconstructing ancient Maya diet: 3–18. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.Google Scholar
Lentz, D.L., Beaudry-Corbett, M.P., De Aguilar, M.L.R. & Kaplan, L.. 1996. Foodstuffs, forest, fields and shelter: a paleoethnobotanical analysis of vessel contents from the Cerén site, El Salvador. Latin American Antiquity 7: 247–62.Google Scholar
Lentz, D.L., Ramirez, C.R. & Grimson, B.W.. 1997. Formative period subsistence and forest product extraction at the Yarumela site, Honduras. Ancient Mesoamerica 8: 63–74.Google Scholar
Leventhal, R.M. & Ashmore, W.. 2004. Xunantunich in a Belize valley context, in Garber, J.F. (ed.) The ancient Maya of the Belize valley: half a century of archaeological research. Tallahassee: University Press of Florida.Google Scholar
Masson, M.A. & Freidel, D.A. (ed.) 2002. Ancient Maya political economies. Walnut Creek: Altamira.Google Scholar
Mcgee, J.R. 1990. Life, ritual, and religion among the Lacandon Maya. Belmont: Wadsworth.Google Scholar
Miksicek, C.H. 1983. Macrofloral remains in the Pulltrouser area: settlements and fields, in Turner, B.L. & Harrison, P.D. (ed.) Pulltrouser swamp: ancient Maya habitat, agriculture and settlement in northern Belize: 94–104. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Miksicek, C.H. 1991. The economy and ecology of Cuello, in Hammond, N. (ed.) Cuello: an early Maya community in Belize: 70–97. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Morehart, C.T. 2001. Preliminary analysis of paleoethnobotanical samples from Pook’s Hill, Cayo District Belize. Manuscript on file, Department of Anthropology, Florida State University, Tallahassee.Google Scholar
Morehart, C.T. 2003. Paleoethnobotany at Avila, in Ferguson, J.M., Oland, M.H. & Masson, M. (ed.). Belize Postclassic Project 2002: investigation of the shore settlements of Progresso Lagoon and San Estevan: 126–32. Occasional Publication no. 9, Institute of Mesoamerican Studies. Albany: The University at Albany.Google Scholar
Morehart, C.T., Prufer, K.M. & Lentz, D.L.. 2003. Wood of the gods: the ritual use of pine in ancient Maya society. Paper presented at the 68th Annual Meetings of the Society for American Archaeology, Milwaukee.Google Scholar
Oakes, M. 1951. The two crosses of Todos Santos: survivals of Mayan religious ritual. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Perry, J.P. Jr. 1991. The pines of Mexico and Central America. Portland: Timber.Google Scholar
Rice, P.M. 1987. Economic change in the lowland Maya Late Classic period, in Brumfiel, E. and Earle, T.K. (ed.) Specialization, exchange, and complex societies: 76–85. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Robin, C. 1999. Towards an archaeology of everyday life: Maya farmers of Chan Nòohol and Dos Chombitos Cik’in, Belize. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms.Google Scholar
Robin, C. 2002a. Outside of houses: the practices of everyday life at Chan Nòohol, Belize. Journal of Social Archaeology 2 (2): 245–68.Google Scholar
Robin, C. 2002b. Gender and Maya farming: Chan Nòohol, Belize, in Ardren, T. (ed.) Ancient Maya women: 12–30. Walnut Creek: Altamira.Google Scholar
Smith, M.E. 1987. Household possessions and wealth in agrarian states: implications for archaeology. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 6 (4): 297–335.Google Scholar
Tedlock, B. 1982. Time and the highland Maya. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Thomas, D.H. 1986. Refiguring anthropology: first principles of probability and statistics. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland.Google Scholar
Thompson, J.E.S. 1930. Ethnology of the Mayas of southern and central British Honduras. Field Museum of Natural History Anthropological Series 17: 23–213. Chicago.Google Scholar
Vogt, E.Z. 1969. Zinacantan: a Maya community in the highlands of Chiapas. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, C.D. (ed.). 1999. Reconstructing ancient Maya diet. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.Google Scholar
Wiesen, A. & Lentz, D.L.. 1999. Preclassic floral remains at Cahal Pech and Pacbitun, Belize: summary report, in Healy, P.F. (ed.) Belize Valley Preclassic Maya Project: report on the 1996 and 1997 field seasons: 53–67. Occasional papers no. 12. Peterborough, Ontario: Department of Anthropology, Trent University.Google Scholar
Wisdom, C. 1940. The Chorti Indians of Guatemala. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Yaeger, J. 2000a. Changing patterns of social organization: the Late and Terminal Classic communities at San Lorenzo, Cayo District, Belize. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms.Google Scholar
Yaeger, J. 2000b. The social construction of communities in the Classic Maya countryside: strategies of affiliation in Western Belize, in Canuto, M.A. & Yaeger, J. (ed.) The archaeology of communities: a New World perspective: 123–42. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Yaeger, J. 2003. Untangling the ties that bind: the city, the countryside, and the nature of Maya urbanism, in Smith, M.L. (ed.) The social construction of ancient cities: 121–55. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar