The Sotuta occupation of Yaxuna is a drastic reduction from the Yaxuna IVa period. We have found no evidence of occupation or construction in the settlement zone or at the Xkanha satellite site. Our only traces of Yaxuna IVb occupation are found in a very restricted locale on Structure 6F-3 of the North Acropolis and in the area of the Ballcourt Plaza. In the North Acropolis, Structure 6F-3 shows some evidence of Yaxuna IVb occupation. However, this assessment is based on stratigraphy associated with the end of Yaxuna IVb and is discussed in the section that follows. Suffice it to say here that in Structure 6F-3, accession architecture was utilized during Yaxuna IVb times. Access to the under-stair corridor and the chamber was possible from the topmost part of the uncompleted Stair A, which remained uncompleted afterward. This suggests that while the building was used the new rulers did not undertake improvements.
Yaxuna IVb occupation was, in the areas we were able to discern it, rather ephemeral compared to earlier occupations of the settlement. Evidence from the North Acropolis provides for only a single Yaxuna IVb construction. This is Structure 6F-9, a single-room, free-standing vaulted building constructed on a finger of land extending out from the southern center of the North Acropolis. While we extracted very little information from this building, its dedicatory cache included a Sotuta incensario fragment (Figure 20.14). Architecturally, it exhibited the most traditionally Puuc-style elements, including true boot-shaped vault stones and false soffits (Figure 20.15), suggesting that it was raised as tribute by the conquered.
Beyond our work, there has been significant reconstruction activity undertaken since 1996 in other ballcourt plaza structures by Lie. Lourdes Toscano and the CRY-INAH. Based on our observations of the reconstructed buildings, the entire ballcourt plaza may have been a small locus of Yaxuna IVb Sotuta occupation. As such, it is quite different in both size and scope than the Yaxuna IVa occupation it replaced. In fact, it may represent no more than a caretaker population, placed at the site to monitor Sotuta interests in the area and to keep open the lines of commerce to both the east coast and the southern regions of the peninsula. As we have already discussed, such an occupation is in marked contrast to the extensive construction and population numbers that characterized Yaxuna rva.
20.13 Burial 25.
In another work (Suhler and Freidel 1995), we stated our belief that an alliance of forces led by Mayapan conquered Chichen Itza sometime around a. d. 1250. Evidence from Yaxuna indicates that forces using Mayapan ceramics also brought about the end of Yaxuna IVb and its modest settlement in the monumental center of the site. Interestingly enough, the Chichen-related Structure 6F-9 was not deliberately collapsed at the end of Yaxuna IVb. Rather, the people of Yaxuna recall that this building was standing until sometime in the 1940s or 1950s, when a large tree that had taken root in the roof fell to the east, carrying with it a large portion of the building. This information was borne out during excavation when we encountered the burial of a youth believed killed by a lead ball sometime during the Colonial (Republican?) period. Little of the fine veneer stones of this shrine’s exterior were observable when we were working at Yaxuna. Subsequent work by the CRY-IN AH revealed the existence of these veneer stones along the base of the building. It is possible that its termination after a. d. 1250 involved stripping a
Yaxuna Op. 34 Cache 7 Incensario Fragment
2 cm
20.14 6F-9 Espita Applique incensario fragment.
Decorated exterior and leaving the concrete wall core exposed, thereby leaving the building standing but “flayed,” lacking meaning or publicly accessible statement of its purpose. In the northeastern settlement zone, Ardren (1997) excavated a Postclassic shrine with recycled decorated veneer stones along its base wall.
On the North Acropolis proper and at Structure 6F-3, we have some evidence for the types of stratigraphic deposits associated with architectural terminations.
RUBBLE COLLAPSE
20.15 6F-9 architectural details.
Burial 19 was placed into an oval pit cut through the floor of the east-west corridor that ran under the staircase, directly in front of the chamber doorway (Figure 20.16). Osteological analysis of what may represent one of the last pre-Columbian Maya to inhabit the site center of Yaxuna reveals a robust male twenty-five to thirty years of age. All of the teeth, including the articulating surfaces, were, however, covered with a thin layer of dental calculus, indicating his diet for some time prior to his death consisted of nonsolid food, most likely com gruel or pozole, perhaps a product of captivity or siege. Position of the body suggests he was placed bound, face-down on his knees, with his arms bent at the elbows, and his hands tight together under the chin (probably tied). Cranial preservation was poor; the skull appears to have been cmshed by two deliberately placed stones prior to the catastrophic and deliberate collapse of the corridor’s vault (Bennett 1994). Dispatch by stoning (whether murder or sacrifice is a culturally relative issue) has been documented from both the Mul Chic murals and Caste War history (Barrera Rubio 1980; Reed 1964).
The only associated artifact was a portion of a Chen Mul (Postclassic, Yaxuna V) incensario, another occurrence of a signature vessel. It was accompanied by a veritable menagerie of faunal material that trailed from the pit and into the southwest comer of the chamber. Species represented in the pit included two deer skulls with horns, a bird skeleton, a small rodent skeleton, and portions of a snake. Faunal scatter included the bones of fetal and adult deer, rabbit, birds, lizards, and snakes. Just underneath the doorway of the chamber we found a Chen Mul incensario face and arm (Figure 20.17).
We think Burial 19 was a Sotuta occupant of Yaxuna sacrificed by the forces of Mayapan—and a miserable one in life as well as death (Bennett [1994] found that, in addition to the extended grael diet, he had the heavy neck muscles of a tump-line porter). Shortly after deposition of the individual and associated material, the roofs of the chamber and corridor were collapsed, ending the 900-year use-span of Stmcture 6F-3.
Following the end of Yaxuna IVb there was some sort of activity at the site during the Postclassic (Yaxuna V). We have excavated examples of Postclassic altars and shrines in the site center and at Xkanha (Ardren 1997). However, we have recovered no evidence of occupation: no mound groups, no house mounds, no ceremonial stmcture larger than a small shrine or altar on a pre-existing stmcture. Given the fact that there exists ceremonial or ritual architecture, we feel there should also be domestic architecture for the populations that built the shrines and altars. However, we find it likely that Postclassic Yaxuna V settlement lies outside the site center. Such a settlement pattern would mark a disjunction from the previous 1,700 years of occupation at the site. If this is the case, the reasons for such a change must remain opaque pending further and more extensive exploration of the Postclassic period at Yaxuna.
Chen MiU incensario fragment
20.16 Burial 19.
World History
