Features common to the various endings of the Classic-period political order may be identified and traced to common pressures and problems in Classic Maya society. In turn, the myriad manifestations of this period of culture change reflect (and help measure) the political and economic variability of Late Classic Maya civilization. In Table 23.1 we list just a few of the salient characteristics of many Classic Maya kingdoms. These are, of course, broad generalizations, some of which apply only weakly to specific polities (and all of which are subject to debate). The differing manifestations of culture change in different areas of the lowlands at the end of the Classic period result from different local responses to common challenges determined by regional conditions and varying external factors.
One issue raised (largely implicitly) in many of the chapters of this volume is the question of why Classic Maya rulers were generally unable to respond more effectively to preserve their political order and positions of power when confronted with the late eighth-and ninth-century internal stresses, climatic shifts, external competition, and population movements. We believe that the failure of many Classic Maya states to respond effectively to internal infrastructural stresses and external changes may have been due to the fact that ruling elites usually only weakly controlled major segments of economic infrastructure, such as subsistence management, production of utilitarian goods, or management of local settlement and exchange. Most Maya states were held together by the authority of the k’uhul ajaw of the capital center (the k’atun or may seat) with usually decentralized local, family, or community management of most aspects of the economy. Such a system would have had great strengths in terms of subsistence sensitivity to local microenvironmental features. Localized control was a key element in the success of the Classic Maya “managed mosaic” of subsistence systems (e. g., Fedick 1996a; Dunning et al. 1997; Dunning and Beach 2004). As Ashmore et al. (Chapter 14) point out, during the Classic period such community-level focus was also a strength in terms of social cohesion and community identity (see also Dunning 1992; McAnany 1990).
Elsewhere it has been argued that the unstable dynamics of expanding and contracting “galactic polities” and their hegemonies were merely the most spectacular versions of the ongoing status-rivalry that was a central characteristic of the Maya theater-states (e. g., Webster 1993,1995;Tambiah 1977; Demarest 1992). This status-rivalry generated not only conflict and warfare but, more often, the extraordinary architecture, art, and monuments that were the settings for pageants, feasting, and rituals. These activities were the most common form of competition for the allegiance of subordinate elites and centers and the populace as a whole. Grand rituals, inter-elite visits and feasting, marriage alliance, and war were alternative paths to the charismatic power of the k’uhul ajaw.
Yet this apparent “status-rivalry” between centers during the Late Classic has recently been shown (P. Rice 2004, n. d.) often to result from either ritualized competition or actual “warfare” (or both) among centers to “seat” the k’atun. K’atun seats held considerable secular powers in terms of controlling tribute rights, land titles, and appointments to public office, at least during the early Colonial period (Edmonson 1979: 11, 1982: xvii). In the Late Postclassic and early Colonial periods, there was considerable competition and outright warfare among candidates for the honor of seating these cycles. In the case of k’atuns, of course, they cycled every twenty years, meaning that the fighting could have been relatively continuous, particularly viewed in “archaeological time.” It also bears mention that during the Late Postclassic and early Colonial periods, the end of may cycles was accompanied by termination ritual: the city and its roads and idols were ritually destroyed at the end of the cycle and the city was abandoned (Edmonson 1979: 11). Some of the destmction of cities attributed to warfare in the Late Classic might have been the result of this sort of termination ritual (P. Rice 2004, n. d.).
In any event, almost all contributors to this volume have described intensification of the various forms of intersite competition in the Late Classic period. Increasing investment in architecture and monuments, reflecting intensified ritual, produced the beautiful art and ruins admired today, but they surely had a high energetic cost for the supporting populations of the Classic period. Alliance, warfare, and intersite visits also increased. Meanwhile, elite polygamy, a successful mode of extending power and forming alliances, could have exacerbated existing tensions by producing more heirs and competitors. The consequence, by the end of the Late Classic, was an increase in construction, ritual performance, and dynastic competition, all of which contributed to a staggering economic burden—but also resulted in the magnificent cities that centered the calendrical rituals assuring continuity of the Maya cosmos.
World History
