One of the distinguishing features of Tikal is the lack of female representation in both the monumental art and hieroglyphic inscriptions known from the archaeological site. This paper presents the results of a study of 208 burials from Tikal conducted to investigate this apparent androcentric focus. Burials were studied in terms of tomb location and construction, the nature of accompanying grave goods, body alteration, and cause of death. Marked differences were noted between male and female interments, with males receiving preferential treatment, particularly in terms of tomb location and construction as well as the quantity and quality of associated mortuary objects found with the burials. The level of inequality between the sexes varied through time and across social class, but was manifested most strongly among the elite. Beginning shortly after the rise in dynastic authority at Tikal, this androcentrism appears to relate closely to the development of the centralized state. Sexual inequality may have been less pronounced at smaller, less politically centralized Maya centers. Comparative studies using mortuary data from these smaller sites are required to expand our knowledge of gender relations among the Classic-period Maya.

Ongoing fieldwork at the coastal site of Northern River Lagoon (NRL) in northern Belize, a specialized saltmaking community, has revealed a consumer relationship with the large, inland, stone-tool-producing center of Colha during the Late to Terminal Classic. Artifact distribution suggests that this economic partnership involved the movement of salt, salted products, and trade goods to Colha in exchange for stone tools. This inland–coastal partnership was enhanced by a shared ideology reflected in the iconography of identical Palmar Orange-polychrome plates. The presence of the ideologically imbued plates in both elite and nonelite contexts suggests they were intended to strengthen group allegiance and reinforce territorial boundaries during this troubled time. This study stimulates new insights into the structure of ancient Maya coastal–inland interaction spheres in northern Belize, thereby facilitating comparisons between local areas within a regional context.

The health of the Colonial-period Maya from Tipu, Belize, was evaluated using a skeletal series to explore differential effects of European contact by sex. Variables addressed were nutrition and disease patterns, reproductive patterns, and occupational stress. Results suggest that females enjoyed fewer childhood health disruptions, likely as a result of greater genetic buffering. No evidence of male preferential treatment was observed. Frequencies of indicators were similar to those reported for precontact Maya. Markers of adult activity patterns, including timing of parity, were also comparable to those of earlier groups. These findings support the cultural continuity with the Postclassic suggested by the archaeological and ethnohistorical records at Tipu.

Late/Terminal Classic Maya ballcourts from the upper Grijalva Basin (Chiapas, Mexico) are described and analyzed in a regional settlement and political context. The upper Grijalva Basin is found to have large numbers of ballcourts compared with other parts of the Maya area. The spatial distribution of ballcourts in the basin matches the distribution of civic-ceremonial centers, reflecting the key ritual and political roles of the ballcourt. Absence of a clear hierarchy in size or elaboration among the ballcourts reflects political decentralization. Ballcourt sizes, forms, alignments, and placements indicate their use for either Maya or Mexican hip ball games or more likely some combination of the two game types. Finally, three models that focus on elite factions, elite wealth building, and ritualized conflict are used to explore why the upper Grijalva Basin has so many more ballcourts compared with neighboring parts of the Maya area. An elite-factions model, incorporating a high degree of decentralization across the political landscape, is selected as most plausible for understanding the basin's proliferation of ballcourts.

Aztec images of decapitated goddesses link the symbolism of astronomy with politics and the seasonal cycle. Rituals reenacting decapitation may refer to lunar events in the context of a solar calendar, providing evidence of a luni-solar calendar. Decapitation imagery also involves metaphors expressing the rivalry between the cults of the sun and the moon. Huitzilopochtli's decapitation of Coyolxauhqui can be interpreted as a symbol of political conquest linked to the triumph of the sun over the moon. Analysis of Coyolxauhqui's imagery and mythology indicates that she represents the full moon eclipsed by the sun. Details of the decapitation myth indicate specific links with seasonal transition and events taking place at dawn and at midnight. Other decapitated goddesses, often referred to as earth goddesses with “lunar connections,” belong to a complex of lunar deities representing the moon within the earth (the new moon). Cihuacoatl, a goddess of the new moon, takes on threatening quality when she assumes the form of a tzitzimime attacking the sun during a solar eclipse. The demonic new moon was greatly feared, for it could cause an eternal solar eclipse bringing the Aztec world to an end.

The volcanic eruption that buried Cerén, El Salvador, at a.d. 590 preserved an extraordinary array of artifacts and features in or near their original positions. Household inventories are virtually complete, and activities can be reconstructed in almost ethnographic detail. It is therefore tempting to think that Cerén will automatically make less-well-preserved contexts at similar sites more explicable. This proposition is tested by comparing Cerén with a well-excavated set of household remains from seven small rural sites in the Copan Valley, Honduras, which have been much more heavily transformed by cultural and natural processes. Comparison is especially attractive because both the Cerén and Copan sites were small domestic places with similar social, residential, and economic functions. Both sets of sites also share a common basic cultural tradition on the southern periphery of Mesoamerica, and are in reasonably similar upland environmental settings.

The background, research design, structure, personnel, and history of investigations of the Vanderbilt Petexbatun Archaeological Project are summarized and critiqued. The major findings of each of the dozen subprojects of this multidisciplinary investigation of Maya civilization in the southwestern Peten region of Guatemala are reviewed. Subproject results include important new evidence on Classic Maya history, warfare, ecology, nutrition, cave ritual, social organization, and trade. These are summarized with particular emphasis on the implications of the Petexbatun findings for theories of the decline of southern lowland Maya civilization at the end of the Classic period.

Analysis of paleoethnobotanical remains from the Yaramela site in central Honduras has provided insights into subsistence activities, resource-extraction preferences from surrounding ecological zones, and the transfer of plant materials through interregional exchange networks during the Formative and Late Classic periods. Remains of maize (Zea mays) and squash (Cucurbita sp.) were found as well as the wood of a number of tree species, for example, pine (Pinus sp.), oak (Quercus sp.), fig (Ficus sp.), timber sweet (Licaria sp.), and guanacaste (Enterolobium cyclocarpum). These woods were obtained from the upland pine-oak savanna, the tropical deciduous forest of the Comayagua Valley, and the circum-riverine community along the Humuya River. In an unusual discovery, the wood of cashew (Anacardium cf. occidentale) was found in Middle Formative contexts. This, most likely an introduced domesticate from South America, appears to be the earliest record of Anacardium for Honduras. Paleoethnobotanical data along with root-processing artifacts indicate a diversified subsistence pattern based on domesticates of Mesoamerican and South American origin.

From 1989 to 1996, excavation and surveys were carried out at dozens of sites and intersite areas in the southwestern Peten by the Defensive Systems Subproject of the Vanderbilt Petexbatun Regional Archaeological Project and by subsequent related Vanderbilt investigations. The excavations and analyses explored fortification systems, related settlement, and artifactual evidence. Beginning at about a.d. 760, the major centers of the Classic Maya civilization in the Petexbatun region were fortified by a massive expenditure of labor on defensive walls of masonry, usually surmounted by wooden palisades. As warfare accelerated, major centers and later even small hilltop villages were located in highly defensible positions and were fortified by walls, palisades, moats, and baffled gateways. Despite these efforts, all major centers were virtually abandoned by the early ninth century. By a.d. 830, only the island fortress of Punta de Chimino and a very reduced and scattered population remained in the Petexbatun region.

Obsidian artifact sourcing studies performed over the last 25 years have identified obsidian from outcrops around the communities of Zinapecuaro and Ucareo, Michoacan, at sites widely distributed in time and space. Recent data indicate that Zinapecuaro and Ucareo constitute distinct obsidian sources, although their proximity to each other and their similar chemical compositions merit their consideration as collectively comprising part of an obsidian source area. Sourcing studies that used Ucareo as well as Zinapecuaro source reference samples provide strong evidence of considerably greater pre-Hispanic utilization of the Ucareo source, and raise the possibility that at least some artifacts attributed to Zinapecuaro in studies that did not use Ucareo reference samples may be from the Ucareo source. These findings are supported by recent archaeological evidence of considerably greater exploitation of the Ucareo source, including what is probably one of the largest known pre-Hispanic quarries. Preliminary data provide a tentative chronology for settlement and exploitation of the source area.

The Petexbatun region has a series of upland ridges surrounded by lowland wetlands. In Preclassic times, ancient Maya peoples began colonizing the region along waterways. Although few in number, they cleared large areas of upland tropical forest for agriculture and induced significant soil erosion. Population contracted in the region during the Early Classic, and mature tropical forest growth returned. During the Late Classic, population expanded rapidly across the region, forest clearance resumed, and desirable, intensively cultivated, upland areas were divided by an elaborate wall system. Upland agriculture during the Late Classic included the use of several types of terracing that significantly checked soil erosion during this period. Considerable variation may have existed between the urban agriculture practiced in the region's three major centers—Dos Pilas, Tamarindito, and Aguateca.

Obsidian from known outcrops in the Mesoamerican highlands has been recovered from lowland Maya sites, providing significant evidence for long-distance procurement and local redistribution of obsidian by the ancient Maya. Prior chemical-characterization studies of obsidian from the lowland Maya area provide a foundation for the study of Tikal-Yaxha obsidian presented here. The samples used in this analysis came from middens associated with 12 residential units located between Tikal and Yaxha and dating from the Preclassic through Terminal Classic periods. The results of chemical sourcing of the Tikal-Yaxha samples generally lend support to current interpretations of changes in obsidian distribution and procurement in the central Maya lowlands. During the Preclassic period, most obsidian was imported from the San Martín Jilotepeque-Río Pixcaya source area. Obsidian from the El Chayal source predominated throughout the Classic period, although some Mexican Pachuca obsidian appeared in Early Classic contexts, and Ixtepepque obsidian was apparently restricted to the Terminal Classic period.

This paper reviews bioarchaeological research that aimed to test the biological correlates of ecological explanations for the Maya collapse using human skeletal remains from five sites in the Pasión region. Stable isotope ratios of bone collagen and alkaline earth ratios in bone minerals do not support the expectation of increased reliance on maize and declining meat consumption during the final years of Pasión occupation. Moreover, skeletal pathology does not illustrate any increment in anemia, infectious disease, or dental growth disruption that is predicted to have been a consequence of high population density and deteriorating nutrition. Instead, changes in the social distribution of foods during the Terminal Classic supports the mounting evidence that the Pasión collapse was fueled more by sociopolitical transformations than environmental ones.

A technological typology for the description and analysis of Mesoamerican obsidian industries is proposed, and its relative merits vis-à-vis Sheets's (1975a) “behavioral” typology are briefly explored. The typology is used to classify and describe a pristine deposit of obsidian-blade refuse recovered from the Early Classic Maya site of Ojo de Agua, Chiapas, Mexico. Analysis of this deposit revealed that the obsidian artifacts were manufacturing refuse resulting from the production of fine prismatic blades from polyhedral cores imported from highland Guatemala. The obsidian refuse was recovered from a workshop dump rather than from an actual workshop.

The typological, modal, and chemical analyses of the pottery from the Petexbatun region of southwestern Peten, Guatemala, are used to establish a regional ceramic chronology and to assess three theories used to explain the Classic Maya collapse of the ninth and tenth centuries a.d. The three explanations are based on: (1) foreign invasion; (2) commercialization; and (3) internal warfare. Each of these theories suggests different changes in the regional ceramic-production and -exchange systems of the Petexbatun. Shifts in the ceramic production system are monitored using a standardization study, while instrumental neutron-activation analysis (INAA) is used to model changes in interregional exchange. The results of these analyses indicate that there was a continuity in the ceramic assemblage from the Late Classic Nacimiento phase (a.d. 600–830) to the Terminal Classic Sepens phase (a.d. 830–950). Together with little change in architectural, mortuary, and other artifactual styles, this finding suggests that no foreign groups invaded the Petexbatun region, and therefore did not lead to the collapse in the Pasion region. The small decreases in pottery standardization and the minor shifts in interregional exchange do not support the second theory that a major reorganization of Maya economy undercut the power base of the Maya elite class. On the other hand, these small decreases in standardization and in the scale of exchange do support the third theory, which suggests that internal warfare between the regional polities disrupted exchange, leading to more localized production. The stability of the ceramic production and exchange systems in the Petexbatun region throughout the collapse also suggests that the political and economic systems were largely disconnected. These findings suggest that internal political processes leading to an increase in competition and to intensified warfare were important factors in the Classic Maya collapse of the Petexbatun region in Peten, Guatemala.

Artifacts from an obsidian-blade workshop dump from Ojo de Agua, Chiapas, Mexico, are analyzed to determine levels of craftsmanship and craft specialization. Detailed consideration of knapping errors and rejuvenation flakes reveals that the blademaker at Ojo de Agua was moderately skilled at his craft, which he practiced on a part-time basis. The maximum level of output from his workshop was 26,000, or fewer, fine blades per year, or the equivalent of part-time work during a three-month period. Analysis of knapping strategies evident in the workshop debris suggests that the blademaker's overriding strategy was to achieve a balance between effort and knapping risk at the expense of raw material. Access to obsidian cores does not appear to have been a concern, as little effort was made to economize in this respect, and thousands of usable, irregular blades were discarded in the workshop refuse.

Three field seasons of extensive residential archaeology at Dos Pilas, Peten, Guatemala, provide important data for the examination of ancient Maya social structure and the Classic Period collapse in the Petexbatun region. A sampling strategy guiding excavations in structures of different size and architectural configuration enables us to reconstruct the multifaceted, segmented nature of Maya social inequalities and helps to elucidate the effects of the collapse on the lives of people of various socioeconomic ranks and statuses. Other significant findings of the project include hieroglyphic vessels and stone sculptures in nonroyal elite domestic compounds, postcollapse occupation in the settlement, as well as continued craft production and interregional trade into Terminal Classic times and after elite abandonment of the site. The results of household archaeology at Dos Pilas, which demonstrate that elites were affected first and foremost during the collapse, support theories of intensified elite competition, socio-political instability, and warfare for the Maya downfall in the Petexbatun Region, and not environmental degradation or breakdowns in interregional trade.