Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T00:26:03.278Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“ALL THAT IS SOLID…”: SACBES, SETTLEMENT, AND SEMIOTICS AT TZACAUIL, YUCATAN

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2012

Scott R. Hutson ,
Aline Magnoni  and
Travis W. Stanton
Scott R. Hutson*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Kentucky, 211 Lafferty Hall, Lexington, KY 40506-0024
Aline Magnoni
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Tulane University, 6823 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70118
Travis W. Stanton
Affiliation:
Departamento de Antropología, Universidad de las Américas Puebla, Sta.Catarina Mártir. Cholula, Puebla. C.P. 72810 México
*
E-mail correspondence to: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper applies structuration theory and semiotics to interpret the results of a recently completed total coverage pedestrian survey to the east of Yaxuna, Yucatan. Data from this survey suggest that a social group centered at the site of Tzacauil vied for political clout in the Late Preclassic period through the construction of a triadic acropolis 3 km from Yaxuna. This group also initiated but did not complete a new experimental construction: a long-distance causeway between the two sites. A central facet of structuration is the instability of social practice. Rules can be altered when transposed to new contexts, while durable resources, such as causeways and acropolis groups, do not ensure the solidity of the coalitions they are meant to represent. Despite an outlay of labor never again seen to the east of Yaxuna, Tzacauil had a rather short occupation. Though they never completed the causeway, the people of Tzacauil did succeed in transforming the conventional understanding of causeways. These events support a semiotic approach since they show that materiality is contingent: it has a potential that people may or may not work to realize.

Type
Special Section: Contemporary Archaeology in Yucatan
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , Fall 2012 , pp. 297 - 311
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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.)

References

REFERENCES

Anderson, David 2010 Xtobo, Yucatan, Mexico: The Study of a Preclassic Community. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Tulane University, New Orleans.Google Scholar
Ashmore, Wendy 1981 Some Issues of Method and Theory in Lowland Maya Settlement Archaeology. In Lowland Maya Settlement Patterns, edited by Ashmore, Wendy, pp. 37–70. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Barrett, John C. 1999 The Mythical Landscapes of the British Iron Age. In Archaeologies of Landscape: Contemporary Perspectives, edited by Ashmore, Wendy and Knapp, A. Bernard, pp. 253–265. Blackwell, Malden, MA.Google Scholar
Bauer, A.A. 2002 Is What You See All You Get? Recognizing Meaning in Archaeology. Journal of Social Archaeology 2:37–52.Google Scholar
Benavides Castillo, Antonio 1981 Los caminos de Coba y sus implicaciones sociales. Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, Centro Regional Sureste, Coleccion Cientifica, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Berman, Marshall 1988 All that is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity. Viking Penguin, New York.Google Scholar
Blanton, Richard E., Kowalewski, Stephen A., Feinman, Gary M., and Appel, Jill 1981 Ancient Mesoamerica: A Comparison of Change in Three Regions. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Bolles, David, and Folan, William J. 2001 An Analysis of Roads Listed in Colonial Dictionaries and their Relevance to Pre-hispanic Linear Features in the Yucatan Peninsula. Ancient Mesoamerica 12:299–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre 1990 The Logic of Practice. Translated by Nice, Richard. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA.Google Scholar
Brainerd, George 1958 The Archaeological Ceramics of Yucatan. Anthropological Records 19. University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith 1993 Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. Routledge, New York.Google Scholar
Chase, Diane Z. 1990 The Invisible Maya: Population History and Archaeology at Santa Rita Corozal. In Pre-Colombian Population History in the Maya Lowlands, edited by Culbert, T. Patrick and Rice, Don S., pp. 199–214. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Chippindale, Christopher 1993 Ambition, Deference, Discrepancy, Consumption: The Intellectual Background to a Post-processual Archaeology. In Archaeological Theory: Who Sets the Agenda?, edited by Yoffee, Norman and Sherratt, Andrew, pp. 27–36. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Clark, John E. 2003 Mesoamerica Goes Public: Early Ceremonial Centers, Leaders, and Communities. In Mesoamerican Archaeology, edited by Joyce, Rosemary A. and Hendon, Julia, pp. 43–72. Blackwell, London.Google Scholar
Conkey, Margaret W. 1989 The Structural Analysis of Paleolithic Art. In Archaeological Thought in the Americas, edited by Lamberg-Karlovsky, C.C., pp. 135–154. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Dietler, Michael, and Hayden, Brian (editors) 2001 Feasts: Archaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives on Food, Politics, and Power. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Fash, William L. 2005 Toward a Social History of the Copan Valley. In Copan: The History of an Ancient Maya Kingdom, edited by Andrews, E. Wyllys IV and Fash, William L., pp. 73–102. School of American Research, Santa Fe.Google Scholar
Flannery, Kent V. 1972 The Cultural Evolution of Civilizations. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 3:399–425.Google Scholar
Folan, William 1983 Archaeological Investigations of Coba: A Summary. In Coba: a Classic Maya Metropolis, edited by Folan, William, Kintz, Ellen, and Fletcher, Larraine, pp. 1–10. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Folan, William J., Hau, Jacinto M., Marcus, Joyce, Miller, W. Frank, and Heredia, Raymundo Gonzalez 2001 Los Caminos de Calakmul, Campeche. Ancient Mesoamerica 12:293–298.Google Scholar
Folan, William J., Marcus, Joyce, and Miller, W.F. 1995 Verification of a Maya Settlement Model through Remote Sensing. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 5:277–283.Google Scholar
Fox, John W., and Cook, Garrett W. 1996 Constructing Maya Communities: Ethnography for Archaeology. Current Anthropology 37:811–821.Google Scholar
Freidel, David A., Schele, Linda, and Parker, Joy 1993 The Maya Cosmos: Three Thousand Years on the Shaman's Path. Quill, New York.Google Scholar
Freidel, David A., Suhler, Charles K., and Krochock, Ruth 1990 Yaxuna Archaeological Survey: A Report of the 1989 Field Season and Final Report on Phase One. Southern Methodist University, Dallas.Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford 1979 Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony 1979 Central Problems in Social Theory. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony 1984 The Constitution of Society. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Gillespie, Susan D. 2008 History in Practice: Ritual Deposition at La Venta Complex A. In Memory Work: Archaeologies of Material Practice, edited by Mills, Barbara J. and Walker, William H., pp. 109–137. SAR Press, Santa Fe.Google Scholar
Hansen, Richard D. 1991 The Road to Nakbe. Natural History 5(91):8–14.Google Scholar
Hansen, Richard D. 1998 Continuity and Disjunction: The Pre-Classic Antecedents of Classic Maya Architecture. In Function and Meaning in Classic Maya Architecture, edited by Houston, Stephen D., pp. 49–122. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Harvey, David 1990 The Condition of Postmodernity. Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
Healy, Paul F., Helmke, Christopher G.B., Awe, Jaime J., and Sunahara, Kay S. 2007 Survey, Settlement, and Population History at the Ancient Maya Site of Pacbitun, Belize. Journal of Field Archaeology 32:17–39.Google Scholar
Hendon, Julia 2010 Houses in a Landscape: Memory and Everyday Life in Mesoamerica. Duke University Press, Durham, NC.Google Scholar
Hodder, Ian 1982 Theoretical Archaeology: A Reactionary View. In Symbolic and Structural Archaeology, edited by Hodder, Ian, pp. 1–16. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Hodder, Ian 1986 Reading the Past. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Hodder, Ian 1989 This is Not an Article about Material Culture as Text. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 8:250–269.Google Scholar
Hodder, Ian, and Hutson, Scott R. 2003 Reading the Past. 3rd ed.Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Houck, Charles W. J. 2006 Cenotes, Wetlands, and Hinterland Settlement. In Lifeways in the Northern Lowlands: New Approaches to Maya Archaeology, edited by Mathews, Jennifer P. and Morrison, Bethany A., pp. 56–76. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Hutson, Scott R. 2009 Proyecto Arqueológico Sacbe de Ucí-Cansahcab: Report of the 2009 Field Season. Manuscript submitted to the Consejo de Arqueología, Instituto Nacional Antropología e Historia, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Hutson, Scott R., Hixson, David, Magnoni, Aline, Mazeau, Daniel E., and Dahlin, Bruce H. 2008 Site and Community at Chunchucmil and Ancient Maya Urban Centers. Journal of Field Archaeology 33:19–40.Google Scholar
Hutson, Scott R., Magnoni, Aline, Stanton, Travis, Slater, Donald, and Johnson, Scott 2012 Memory and Power at Joya. In Power and Identity in Archaeological Theory and Practice: Case Studies from Ancient Mesoamerica, edited by Harrison-Buck, Eleanor, pp. 39–52. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Johnson, Gregory A. 1972 A Test of the Utility of Central Place Theory in Archaeology. In Man, Settlement, and Urbanism, edited by Ucko, Peter J., Tringham, Ruth, and Dimbleby, George W., pp. 769–785. Duckworth, London.Google Scholar
Johnson, Gregory A. 1973 Local Exchange and Early State Development in Southwestern Iran. Anthropological Papers No. 51. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Johnston, Kevin J. 2004 The Invisible Maya: Minimally Mounded Residential Settlement at Itzán, Petén, Guatemala. Latin American Antiquity 15:145–175.Google Scholar
Joyce, Arthur A., Bustamante, Laura A., and Levine, Marc N. 2001 Commoner Power: A Case Study from the Classic Period Collapse on the Oaxaca Coast. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 8:343–385.Google Scholar
Joyce, Rosemary A. 2004 Unintended Consequences? Monumentality as a Novel Experience in Formative Mesoamerica. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 11:5–29.Google Scholar
Keane, Webb 2003 Semiotics and the Social Analysis of Material Things. Language and Communication 23:409–425.Google Scholar
Keane, Webb 2005 Signs Are Not the Garb of Meaning: On the Social Analysis of Material Things. In Materiality, edited by Miller, Daniel, pp. 182–205. Duke University Press, Durham, NC.Google Scholar
Lucero, Lisa J. 2007 Classic Maya Temples, Politics, and the Voice of the People. Latin American Antiquity 18:407–428.Google Scholar
Marcus, Joyce 1973 Territorial Organization of the Lowland Classic Maya. Science 180:911–916.Google Scholar
Marcus, Joyce, and Flannery, Kent V. 1996 Zapotec Civilization. Thames and Hudson, London.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl, and Engels, Friedrich 1967[1872] The Communist Manifesto. Penguin, Middlesex.Google Scholar
Muhs, Daniel R., Budahn, James R., Prospero, Joseph M., and Carey, Steven N. 2007 Geochemical Evidence for African Dust Inputs to Soils of Western Atlantic Islands: Barbados, the Bahamas, and Florida. Journal of Geophysical Research 112(2):F02009.Google Scholar
Normark, Johan 2006 The Roads in Between: Causeways and Polyagentive Networks at Ichmul and Yo'okop, Cochuah Region, Mexico. Department of Archaeology, Göteborg University, Göteborg.Google Scholar
O'Brien, Michael J., and Lewarch, Dennis 1992 Regional Analysis of the Zapotec Empire, Valley of Oaxaca. World Archaeology 23:264–282.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parmentier, Richard J. 1994 Signs in Society: Studies in Semiotic Anthropology. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.Google Scholar
Parmentier, Richard J. 2009 Troubles with Trichotomies: Reflections on the Utility of Peirce's Sign Trichotomies for Social Analysis. Semiotica 177(1/4):139–155.Google Scholar
Pauketat, Timothy R. 2000 The Tragedy of the Commoners. In Agency in Archaeology, edited by Dobres, Marcia-Anne and Robb, John, pp. 113–129. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Pauketat, Timothy R., and Alt, Susan M. 2003 Mounds, Memory, and Contested Mississippian History. In Archaeologies of Memory, edited by Van Dyke, Ruth M. and Alcock, Susan E., pp. 151–179. Blackwell, Malden, MA.Google Scholar
Peirce, C.S. 1998 The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings, Vol. 2 (1893–1913). Indiana University Press, Bloomington.Google Scholar
Perry, Eugene, Velazquez-Oliman, Guadalupe, and Socki, Richard A. 2003 Hydrogeology of the Yucatan Peninsula. In The Lowland Maya Area: Three Millennia at the Human-Wildland Interface, edited by Gomez-Pompa, Arturo, Allen, M.F., Fedick, Scott L., and Jimenez-Osornio, J.J., pp. 115–138. Food Products Press, New York.Google Scholar
Plank, Shannon E., and Maca, Allan 2006 PAPAC and the Study of Copan's Urban Renovation under Yax Pasaj. Paper presented at the 71st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, San Juan, Puerto Rico.Google Scholar
Preucel, Robert W. 2006 Semiotic Archaeology. Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
Preucel, Robert W., and Bauer, Alexander. A. 2001 Archaeological Pragmatics. Norwegian Archaeological Review 34(2):85–96.Google Scholar
Pyburn, K. Anne 1990 Settlement Patterns at Nohmul: Preliminary Results of Four Excavation Seasons. In Precolumbian Population History in the Maya Lowlands, edited by Culbert, T. Patrick, and Rice, Don S., pp. 183–197. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Rice, Don S., and Rice, Prudence M. 1990 Population Size and Population Change in the Central Peten Lakes Region, Guatemala. In Pre-Colombian Population History in the Maya Lowlands, edited by Culbert, T. Patrick and Rice, Don S., pp. 123–148. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Ringle, William M. 1999 Pre-classic Cityscapes: Ritual Politics among the Early Lowland Maya. In Social Patterns in Pre-Classic Mesoamerica, edited by Grove, David C. and Joyce, Rosemary A., pp. 183–223. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Sahlins, Marshall 1987 Islands of History. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Schele, Linda, and Freidel, David A. 1990 A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya. William Morrow, New York.Google Scholar
Sewell, William H. Jr. 1992 A Theory of Structure: Duality, Agency and Transformation. American Journal of Sociology 98(1):1–29.Google Scholar
Shaw, Justine M. 2001 Maya Sacbeob: Form and Function. Ancient Mesoamerica 12:261–272.Google Scholar
Shaw, Justine M. 2008 White Roads of the Yucatan: Changing Social Landscapes of the Yucatec Maya. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Shaw, Justine M., and Johnstone, David 2001 The Late Classic at Yaxuná, Yucatán, Mexico. Mexicon 23(1):10–14.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Jay, Webster, David L., Martinez, Horacio, and Soto, Alvaro 2009 Rethinking the Great Earthwork of Tikal: A Hydraulic Hypothesis for the Classic Maya Polity. Ancient Mesoamerica 20:45–58.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael 1976 Shifters, Linguistic Categories, and Cultural Description. In Meaning in Anthropology, edited by Basso, Keith H. and Selby, Henry A., pp. 11–56. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Singer, Milton 1984 Man's Glassy Essence: Explorations in Semiotic Anthropology. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.Google Scholar
Smith, Adam T. 2003 The Political Landscape: Constellations of Authority in Early Complex Polities. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Stanton, Travis W. 2000 Heterarchy, Hierarchy, and the Emergence of the Northern Lowland Maya: A Study of Complexity at Yaxuna, Yucatan, Mexico. Ph.D. dissertation, Southern Methodist University, Dallas.Google Scholar
Stanton, Travis W. 2005 Formative Maya Causeways: Incipient Internal Site Design at Yaxuna, Yucatan, Mexico. Mono y Conejo 3:32–35.Google Scholar
Stanton, Travis W., and Ardren, Traci 2005 The Middle Formative of Yucatan in Context: The View from Yaxuna. Ancient Mesoamerica 16:213–228.Google Scholar
Stanton, Travis W., and Freidel, David A. 2005 Placing the Centre, Centring the Place: The Influence of Formative Sacbeob in Classic Site Design at Yaxuna, Yucatan. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 16:225–249.Google Scholar
Stanton, Travis, Hutson, Scott R., and Magnoni, Aline 2008 Proyecto interacción político en el centro de Yucatan: Primera temporada de campo. Report submitted to the Consejo de Arqueología, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Stark, Barbara L. 1999 Formal Architectural Complexes in South-Central Veracruz: A Capital Zone? Journal of Field Archaeology 26:197–225.Google Scholar
Stark, Barbara L. 2003 Cerro de las Mesas: Social and Economic Perspectives on a Gulf Center. In El urbanismo en mesoamérica, Vol. 1, edited by Sanders, William T., Mastache, Alba Guadalupe, and Cobean, Robert H., pp. 391–421. Instituto Nacional Antropología e Historia, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Suhler, Charles K., Ardren, Traci, and Johnstone, David 1998 The Chronology of Yaxuna: Evidence from Excavation and Ceramics. Ancient Mesoamerica 9:167–182.Google Scholar
Suhler, Charles K., and Freidel, David A. 1998 Life and Death in a Maya Warzone. Archaeology May/June:28–34.Google Scholar
Tilley, Christopher 1991 Material Culture and Text: The Art of Ambiguity. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Tokovinine, Alexander, and Fialko, Vilma 2007 Stela 45 of Naranjo and the Early Classic Lords of Sa'aal. PARI Journal 7(4):1–14.Google Scholar
Tourtellot, Gair 1988 Excavations at Seibal, Department of Peten, Guatemala: Peripheral Survey and Excavation Settlement and Community Patterns. Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, No. 16. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Trigger, Bruce 1990 Monumental Architecture: A Thermodynamic Explanation of Symbolic Behavior. World Archaeology 22:119–132.Google Scholar
Underhill, Anne P., Feinman, Gary M., Nicholas, Linda M., Fang, Hui, Luan, Fengshi, Yu, Haiguang, and Cai, Fengshu 2008 Changes in Regional Settlement Patterns and the Development of Complex Societies in Southeastern Shandong, China. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 27(1):1–29.Google Scholar
Valdés, Juan A. 1992 El crecimiento de la civilización maya del área central durante el preclásico tardío: Una vista desde el grupo H de Uaxactun. U tz'ib 1(2):16–31.Google Scholar
Van Dyke, Ruth M. 2004 Memory, Meaning and Masonry: The Late Bonito Chacoan Landscape. American Antiquity 69:413–431.Google Scholar
Villa Rojas, Alfonso 1934 The Yaxuna-Coba Causeway. Contributions to American Archaeology 2(9):187–208.Google Scholar
Vogt, Evon Z. 1968 Some Aspects of Zinacantan Settlement Patterns and Ceremonial Organization. In Settlement Archaeology, edited by Chang, Kwang C., pp. 154–173. National Press Books, Palo Alto, CA.Google Scholar
Webster, David L., Murtha, T., Straight, Kirk D., Silverstein, Jay, Martinez, Horacio, Terry, Richard, and Burnett, Richard 2007 The Great Tikal Earthwork Revisited. Journal of Field Archaeology 32:41–64.Google Scholar
Yaeger, Jason, and Canuto, Marcello A. 2000 Introducing an Archaeology of Communities. In The Archaeology of Communities: A New World Perspective, edited by Canuto, Marcello A. and Yaeger, Jason, pp. 1–15. Routledge, London.Google Scholar