SETTLEMENT AND HEGEMONY DURING THE TERMINAL CLASSIC PERIOD
Rafael Cobos Palma
He “linear succession model” (Tozzer 1957) depicts Chichen Itza as an isolated site that flourished during the Early Postclassic period after the collapse of settlements such as Uxmal. However, this model belongs to the past. Much of the criticism of the “linear succession model” is substantiated by results obtained from ceramic and settlement studies conducted at the local and regional levels since the 1970s in western, central, and eastern Yucatan (Figure 22.1).
The results of archaeological investigations realized to this date in the northern Maya lowlands show that emphasis has been given to the chronology of the Late Classic and Terminal Classic periods. Moreover, several of these chronological studies are either directly or indirectly associated with Chichen Itza and its Sotuta ceramic complex in a framework advanced by Ball (1979a: 32-34, Figure 17) twenty years ago. In brief. Ball’s reconstruction of the archaeological sequence in the northern lowlands is explained by the linear succession or traditional model, the nonlinear partial overlap model (Hypothesis A), and the nonlinear total overlap model (Hypothesis B). For the cultural historical reconstruction of northern Yucatan, Chichen Itza might have been partially or totally contemporaneous to other Maya settlements.
The nonlinear partial overlap model, or Hypothesis A, states that Cehpech ceramics predate Sotuta ceramics and were partially contemporaneous during the end of the Classic period. Sotuta materials dominated the ceramic inventory of the northern Maya lowlands after Cehpech ceramics ceased to be used. In the
22. / Location of Chicken Itzd and other northern Maya lowland sites mentioned in the text.
Cultural-historic reconstruction of northern Yucatan, Hypothesis A implies that the great Maya sites with their Cehpech ceramic component coexisted for a short period with Chichen Itza and its Sotuta ceramics (Ball 1979a; Lincoln 1986). The nonlinear total overlap model, or Hypothesis B, maintains that Cehpech and Sotuta ceramics were completely contemporaneous at the end of the Classic period. Hypothesis B implies that Classic Maya sites with their Cehpech ceramics totally coexisted with Chichen Itza and its Sotuta component (Ball 1979a; Lincoln 1986).
Considering the few ceramic studies conducted at the site level late in the 1970s, Hypothesis A and Hypothesis B could have been interpreted as two mutually exclusive alternatives (see Ball 1979a: 34), either partial or total overlap but not both. However, Andrews V and Sabloff (1986: 447; see also Robles and Andrews 1986: 67) added a spatial dimension to the overlap due to the fact that some regions of northern Yucatan showed a partial overlap, whereas in other zones the overlap “was total.” For instance, Andrews and Sabloff (1986: 447) acknowledged that Cehpech ceramics continued to be used. However, Cehpech ceramics mixed with Sotuta ceramics and, eventually, the Sotuta ceramics of Chichen Itza “definitely continued past the end of Cehpech ceramics,” Other settlements show a Cehpech component mixed with a small amount of Sotuta ceramics and both ceramics continued into Hocaba times of the Postclassic period. There are other regions where Cehpech or Sotuta materials were used after A. D. 900 and, in each case, these ceramics also continued into Hocaba times.
Using data from Dzibilchaltun and Isla Cerritos to reconstruct cultural-historical events dating between a. d. 700/800 and 1000/1100 in the northern Maya lowlands, the partial overlap reconstruction is favored (Hypothesis A). In fact, Andrews (1990), Andrews and Robles (1985), Andrews IV and Andrews V (1980), Andrews V (1979, 1981), and Robles and Andrews (1986) argue that the partial overlap between Cehpech and Sotuta ceramics lasted some 150 or 200 years between a. d. 850/900 and 1000/1100. After this partial overlap, Chichen Itza flourished 100 to 200 years after the Cehpech ceramics disappeared.
In other regions Cehpech ceramics (see Bey et al. 1992 for the similarities and differences between the Cehpech ceramics of eastern and western Yucatan) and Sotuta ceramics were totally contemporaneous between a. d. 750/800 and 1050, and they continued into Hocaba times. It is noteworthy to mention some regional variants, however. For instance, at Yaxuna (Suhler et al. 1998), El Meco (Robles 1986), Xelha (Canche 1992), and San Gervasio in Cozumel (Peraza 1993), Cehpech and Sotuta ceramics were associated with and continued into Hocaba. At settlements such as Ek’ Balam (Bey et al. 1998) and Coba (Robles 1990) with Cehpech ceramics, and Chichen Itza (Lincoln 1990) and the Chikinchel region of northeastern Yucatan (Kepecs 1998) with Sotuta ceramics, Hocaba ceramics also continued. Furthermore, Chichen Itza and settlements located in the western portion of the Chikinchel region do not have a Cehpech component.
At UxmalKowalski(1998; 416; see also Dunning and Kowalski 1994: 80-90; Kowalski et al. 1996: 289-291) suggested that the chronological overlap between Uxmal and Chichen Itza was partial, and that around the middle of the tenth century a. d., Uxmal local elite “may have lost their ability to govern.” However, a more detailed ceramic analysis than Robert Smith’s study of the Cehpech ceramics is needed at Uxmal, and this analysis may corroborate Kowalski’s affirmation or reveal that Cehpech and Sotuta ceramics totally overlapped at the site.
Therefore, as Andrews V and Sabloff (1986: 447) indicated, depending on the region or site in northern Yucatan where archaeological work is conducted, one should expect to find evidence to support partial or total overlap. Neither of these overlaps excludes one from the other. They seem to have coexisted regionally during the three or four centuries in which Cehpech ceramics existed (Bey et al. 1998: 114-116; Kepecs 1998: 125-129; Robles 1990: 177-217; Smith 1971: 134; Suhler et al. 1998: 177-179), and during the two or two and a half centuries in which Sotuta ceramics existed (Anderson 1998: 152; Smith 1971: 134). A careful review of the ceramic evidence uncovered in several settlements of northern Yucatan reveals that, at a regional level, a total overlap occurred when slate, unslipped, and red ceramic wares of Cehpech and Sotuta were in use during the eighth century a. d. Sometime between a. d. 700 and 800, the Yucatan settlements cut their ceramic ties with the southern Maya lowlands, the regional differentiation between eastern and western Cehpech began, and Sotuta materials were being used in central Yucatan.
Dating the Sotuta ceramic complex between a. d. 750/800 and 1050 went from the “realm of personal impressions and guesswork” (Ball 1979a: 33) to a proposal substantiated by stratigraphic contexts, ceramic analyses, and radiocarbon-14 dates. For instance. Ball (1979a: 33) suggested that archaeologists might “extend the tenure of Sotuta back some 50 to 100 years rather than to lengthen that of Cehpech.” A decade later. Ball and Taschek (1989: 192) acknowledged that the political, economic, and social apogee of Chichen Itza occurred between A. D. 700 and 1200, although they also felt “reasonably safe in further narrowing this interval by some fifty to a hundred years at each end.”
Bey et al. (1997), Cobos (1998b), Lincoln (1986), and Ringle et al. (1991, 1998) date the apogee of Chichen Itza between a. d. 750/800 and 1000/1050. Placing the peak of Chichen Itza 150 years earlier than it is traditionally suggested is based upon the following: ceramic analyses conducted in several northern Maya sites, recalibrated radiocarbon dates, regional distribution patterns of archaeological materials such as obsidian, turquoise, gold, tumbaga, and the presence of the Quetzalcoatl/Kukulkan cult in the Maya area. Moving back 150 years the dating of Chichen Itza places Sotuta ceramics within the chronological framework of the beginning and differentiation of the northern Maya lowlands ceramic traditions dating to the Late Classic and Terminal Classic periods.
If Cehpech and Sotuta began their contemporaneity as early as the eighth century a. d., when did Cehpech and Sotuta initiate their partial overlap at Dzibilchaltun and Isla Cerritos? Why did Yaxuna, El Meco, Xelha, and San Gervasio in Cozumel, with a predominant Cehpech ceramic component, coexist with the minority presence of Sotuta ceramics? Why did both ceramic complexes continue into Hocaba? Why did Ek’ Balam and Coba, whose Cehpech ceramics continued into Hocaba, preserve their ceramic components without mixing with Sotuta ceramics while they were contemporaneous to Chichen Itza? The answers to each one of these questions are directly related to two events that took place in central Yucatan late in the Late Classic period and during the Terminal Classic period, between a. d. 750/800 and 1050. These events include: (1) the establishment of Chichen Itza as an important settlement and its transformation into a regional state and the rise of Sotuta ceramics, and (2) the chronological contemporaneity of Chichen Itza and its northern Yucatecan neighbors during the early and late phases of the Sotuta ceramic complex.
This paper has two aims: first, to use ceramic and settlement-pattern data to show how Chichen Itza rose as an important settlement and political entity between A. D. 750/800 and 1050; second, to demonstrate that the degree of chronological contemporaneity of Chichen Itza and other northern Yucatan settlements changed throughout time. In other words, the end of the Late Classic period and the beginning of the Terminal Classic period in the northern Maya lowlands can be characterized by a total overlap. However, by the end of the Terminal Classic period, some sites’ ceramic complexes overlapped only partially while other settlements continued with a total overlap.
World History
