LATE AND TERMINAL CLASSIC SOCIAL STRATEGIES IN THE XUNANTUNICH AREA
Wendy Ashmore, Jason Yaeger, and Cynthia Robin
Hatever happened in the Maya lowlands at the end of the Classic period, the events and processes involved were surely complex, and must have varied markedly across the social and political landscape. In this essay, we illustrate some of that complexity and variability on at least two social scales. First, our focus on the lives of people in farmsteads and communities beyond the monumental civic centers helps complement the more intense attention customarily paid to elites and royals living in the hearts of those centers. Not only were our ancient informants subject in different ways than their overlords to the upheavals of Late and Terminal Classic times, they also responded with a somewhat different repertoire of tactics, in part because of their distinct social, political, and economic standing. And that brings us to the second kind of complexity and variation: by looking more closely at a relatively small area and populace, we recognize that, even at this scale, fortunes and strategies could be quite diverse, depending on local circumstances and specific histories. “Commoners” certainly did not have all social or other characteristics “in common” with one another, and we gain in understanding the complexity of this class—and their contemporaries—by identifying more fully the varied ways in which all people lived through the events of this period.
Specifically, in this paper we describe social integration, differentiation, and change in Late and Terminal Classic times within two commoner settlements near the civic center of Xunantunich, Belize. One of these, San Lorenzo, experienced a discontinuous history of occupation beginning in Middle Preclassic times, the
Best documented portion of which pertains to the Late and Terminal Classic periods. The other, Chan Noohol, was a sector of a larger settlement we call Chan, the latter with roots likewise in the Middle Preclassic, but within which the Chan Noohol area evinced a virtual boom-bust sequence late in the Late Classic period. The seeming abruptness of this demographic expansion and collapse is likely somewhat deceptive, in part an artifact of imprecision in dating (e. g.. Smith 1992). Nevertheless, the contrasts between periods are dramatic. And for each settlement, the archaeological record attests to varying sorts of self-sufficiency and dependency of its residents relative to larger economic, ritual, and political spheres. In neither case are the reasons for ultimate “collapse” fully clear, but by examining both of these places in some detail, along with other instances of local settlement considered in passing here, we can clarify some of the mosaic of prosperity, decline, rallying, contraction, and abandonment in this part of the Belize Valley. Our analysis complements and our findings broadly parallel those provided elsewhere (Ashmore 1998; LeCount et al. 2002; Leventhal and Ashmore 1999) concerning royal strategies within the Xunantunich civic core.
Highlighting the final integrative and differentiating behaviors for which we have evidence allows us to infer the social strategies of local residents in their responses, successful or otherwise, to this time of flux. Although the majority of our data pertain to the Late Classic period, we contend that understanding local manifestations of Terminal Classic society and the “Maya collapse” is possible only through detailed reference to and comparison with antecedent social forms and strategies.
By way of background, we first describe Xunantunich and the areas near it that we examined, outlining briefly the recent program of settlement research on which the paper builds. Because the Xunantunich Archaeological Project (XAP) and its Settlement Survey (XSS) were framed specifically to address issues of social change in Late and Terminal Classic times, we couch discussion in terms of cumulative earlier findings in the larger region and of the evolving interpretive models shaping our research. We then introduce briefly our project’s definitions of the Late and Terminal Classic periods. These and other time spans recognized by XAP derive principally from the ceramic chronology developed by Lisa LeCount, an analysis described more fully elsewhere (LeCount 1992, 1996; LeCount et al. 2002). Following a condensed account of XSS findings, we proceed to the San Lorenzo and Chan Noohol case studies, and then to concluding discussion about the end of the Classic in the Xunantunich area.
World History
