Both epigraphic and archaeological evidence confirm that the Late Classic florescence of the Dos Pilas hegemony came to an abrupt end in a. d. 761. After a century of successful expansion the overextended kingdom dramatically collapsed when Tamarindito and other centers rebelled against Dos Pilas, defeating and exiling Ruler 4, K’awiil Chan K’inich, the last known ruler of Dos Pilas, sacking the site, and sending the region into a spiral of intensifying warfare.
The archaeological evidence of warfare has been thoroughly excavated at Dos Pilas. There, defensive walls of stone footings and wooden palisades were rapidly constructed at several key locations using stone ripped from existing nearby structures, including the facades of palaces, hieroglyphic stairways, a ballcourt, and even the funerary shrine of Ruler 2, Itzamnaaj K’awiil (Demarest et al. 1991, 1997). Extensive excavations of these defenses discovered baffle gates, killing alleys, and a cache of decapitated heads of adult males—presumably captured warriors (Demarest 1989, 1990; Demarest et al. 1991, 1995; Escobedo et al. 1990; Inomata et al. 1990; Wright 1994; Symonds 1990; Palka 1991; Brandon 1992; Rodas 1995). Ceramics recovered in these excavations date the walls to late Tepeu 2 (the ceramically distinct Late Facet Nacimiento complex), coinciding with the date of the fall of Dos Pilas (a. d. 761) based on epigraphic decipherments (Houston and Mathews 1985; Houston 1987b; Houston and Stuart 1990). Mapping and excavations within the plaza area enclosed by the walls discovered a dense grouping of low platforms for thatch-roofed huts. Ceramics from associated middens date this “squatters village” in the ceremonial heart of Dos Pilas to just after the capture of Ruler 4, from the a. d. 760 to 830 Late Facet of the Nacimiento phase (Foias 1996, 2004; Foias and Bishop 1997; Palka 1995, 1997).
After the defeat of Ruler 4 ceremonial construction and the erection of monuments at Dos Pilas ceased and the city was largely abandoned; it had lost the tribute that had allowed it to thrive in the Late Classic and was therefore no longer a rational place for human settlement, nor a safe location for investment in public architecture or even settlement. The remaining elites may have then relocated to the more defensible site of Aguateca, high on a steep eroded fragment of the
Petexbatun escarpment, with a deep natural chasm bisecting the site center. To further secure the city, six kilometers of stone-footed wooden palisades were constructed in and around it. Some of the wall systems extended out to enclose field areas, rejolladas with probable intensively cultivated gardens, and access to potable water from springs (Inomata 1995,1997,2004; Dunning and Beach 2004). Despite such extensive defenses, Aguateca fell by about a. d. 810 (Graham 1967; Houston and Mathews 1985). Inomata (1995, 1997, 2004) discovered evidence for burning and rapid abandonment in the site center.
By the early ninth century, the last remaining major center of population in the Petexbatun was at Punta de Chimino. There, the naturally defensible peninsula had been fortified through the construction of three wall systems and the excavation of three moats, the largest of which was twelve meters deep. The other two moats protected arable land between the mainland and the tip of the peninsula. Research at the site in 1996 revealed that this neck of land was used for intensive agriculture, including stone box gardens (Beach 1996; Dunning and Beach 2004). The construction of the moats and the erection of palisaded walls atop the moats gave Punta de Chimino the most formidable defensive system in the Maya lowlands (Webster, personal communication to Arthur Demarest, 1993).
World History
