In the decades to come, scholars will be searching for the broader patterning, parallels, and linkages between the regional perspectives on the Terminal Classic briefly summarized in this volume. Here, a cursory review of these regional syntheses can provide only an initial, highly subjective glimpse of this next comparative phase of study.
As observed above, one clear pattern is that of the chronological order of changes in material culture that define the Terminal Classic or Postclassic in different regions. The long-observed southwest to northeast “trend” of accelerated changes in the late eighth to tenth centuries (e. g., Bove 1981; Lowe 1985) seems to be verified by the culture-histories in this volume. Some scholars have interpreted this pattern as reflecting population movements in the late eighth and ninth centuries (e. g., Demarest, Chapter 6; Rice and Rice, Chapter 7; Carmean et al., Chapter 19; Suhler et al.. Chapter 20). However, only in some regions do ceramic chronologies sharply subdivide the Late Classic and clearly demarcate the Terminal Classic (e. g., Foias 1997; Tourtellot and Gonzalez, Chapter 4; O’Mansky and Dunning, Chapter 5; Demarest, Chapter 6). In Belize, as noted by Chase and Chase (Chapter 2), there are few non-elite ceramic markers to subdivide the Late Classic or distinguish it from the Terminal Classic. Poorly defined ceramic markers for many zones are a significant obstacle to interregional comparison and to the identification of common processes or related events. Yet in those regions, such as western Peten, where Tepeu 3 markers are most common and most clear, the changes at the end of the Classic period appear to be early and dramatic, and the Classic/Postclassic transition was disjunctive, rather than continuous (cf O’Mansky and Dunning, Chapter 5; Demarest, Chapter 6; vs. Chase and Chase, Chapters 2 and 16).
World History
