Prudence M. Rice and Donald W Forsyth
He Terminal Classic period in the Maya lowlands was originally described and defined at the 1965 Maya Lowland Ceramic Conference, held in Guatemala City, Guatemala (Willey, Culbert, and Adams 1967). The basis of the definition was ceramic content, although overall the period was seen as reflecting the collapse or cessation of multiple kinds of cultural evidence in the southern lowland region. Nonetheless, pottery remains one of the most important archaeological markers for readily recognizing and periodizing such changes. At the time of the 1965 ceramic conference, detailed ceramic reports were available for only a few sites and discussion of key characteristics of ceramic chronologies was thus fairly limited. Most of the data presented at the conference were the personal observations of the archaeologists present: Richard E. W. Adams, E. Wyllys Andrews IV, William R. Coe, T. Patrick Culbert, James C. Gifford, Robert L. Rands, Jeremy A. Sabloff, Robert E. Smith, Bruce W. Warren, and Gordon R. Willey. Not long after that conference, when Rands prepared his chapter on ceramic chronologies for the 1970 School of American Research publication on the Maya collapse in the southern lowlands (Rands 1973a; Culbert 1973a), he was able to work with materials from only eight sites or areas: the Belize Valley, Trinidad/lower Usumacinta, Tikal, Uaxactun, Seibal, Altar de Sacrificios, Piedras Negras, and Palenque.
Participants in the 1965 conference highlighted important trends evident in Terminal Classic ceramic complexes. One such trend is that Tepeu 3 represented an intensification of the process toward increasing “divergence” and regionalization
Of ceramic complexes that began in Tepeu 1 and continued through Tepeu 2 (Willey, Culbert, and Adams 1967: 301). Another is an accelerated decline in the apparent quality and quantity of the polychrome painted decoration evident in Tepeu 1 to Tepeu 2 times (ibid.). Rands (1973a) later elaborated this point, noting that there were in Late and Terminal Classic times two lowland ceramic traditions: a polychrome tradition in the south-central area plus a fine paste tradition in the west, which gradually moved eastward.
These trends are pertinent primarily with reference to the southern lowlands and their ceramic complexes, however. In early summaries the complexes of the northern lowlands received only scanty attention. Fortunately, there has been a great deal more work at northern lowland sites in the past three decades, and a third lowland tradition—slate ware—clearly should be added to Rands’s earlier list. Comparative study of ceramic complexes of both areas is now possible (with due caution), contributing to a clearer picture of Terminal Classic events throughout the lowlands.
World History
