This volume brings together a wide spectrum of new approaches to ancient Maya studies in an innovative exploration of how the Preclassic and Classic Maya shaped their world. Moving beyond the towering temples and palaces typically associated with the Maya civilization, contributors present unconventional examples of monumental Maya landscapes.
Featuring studies from across the central Maya lowlands, Belize, and the northern and central Maya highlands and spanning over 10,000 years of human occupation in the region, these chapters show how the word “monumental” can be used to describe natural and constructed landscapes, political and economic landscapes, and ritual and sacred landscapes. Examples include a massive system of aqueducts and canals at the Kaminaljuyu site, a vast arena designed for public spectacle at Chan Chich, and even the complex realms of Maya cosmology as represented by the ritual cave at Las Cuevas.
By including physical, conceptual, and symbolic ways monumentality pervaded ancient Maya culture, this volume broadens traditional understandings of how the Maya interacted with their environment and provides exciting analytical perspectives to guide future study.
A volume in the series Maya Studies, edited by Diane Z. Chase and Arlen F. Chase
Content
List of Figures
List of Plates
List of Tables
Foreword
Preface
1.How the Maya Shaped Their World
Marcello Canuto, Brett A. Houk, Barbara Arroyo, and Terry Powis
2.The Holocene Occupations of Southern Belize
Keith M. Prufer and Douglas J. Kennett
3.The Natural and Constructed Landscape of Salinas de los Nueve Cerros, Guatemala
Brent K. S. Woodfill and Marc Wolf
4.Ritual Practice, Urbanization, and Sociopolitical Organization at Preclassic Ceibal, Guatemala
Melissa Burham, Takeshi Inomata, Daniela Triadan, and Jessica MacLellan
5.From Urban Core to Vacant Terrain: Defining the Heterotopia of Maya Monumental Landscapes at the Cross-roads of the Middle Belize Valley
Eleanor Harrison-Buck, Mark Willis, Chester Walker, Satoru Murata, and Marieka Brouwer Burg
6.Caracol’s Impact on the Landscape of the Classic Period Maya: Urbanism and Complex Interaction in a Tropical Environment
Diane Z. Chase, Arlen F. Chase, and Adrian S. Z. Chase
7.The Monumental Aquascape of Kaminaljuyu: Water in the Archaeology of an Early Highland Site
Bárbara Arroyo and Lucia Henderson
8.All the World’s a Stage: The Late Classic Built Environment of Chan Chich, Belize
Brett A. Houk and Ashley Booher
9.La Corona: Negotiating a Landscape of Power
Marcello A. Canuto and Tomás Barrientos Q.
10.Ancient Maya Queenship: Generations of Crafting State Politics and Alliance Building from Kaanul to Waka’
Olivia C. Navarro-Farr, Keith Eppich, Griselda Pérez Robles, and David A. Freidel
11.Landscapes of Warfare, Détente, and Trade in the Maya West
Charles W. Golden and Andrew K. Scherer
12.Monumental Landscapes as Instruments of Radical Economic Change: The Rise and Fall of a Maya Economic Network
Arthur A. Demarest, Bart Victor, Chloé Andrieu, and Paola Torres
13.A Discussion of Early Monumentality at Pacbitun, Belize
Terry G. Powis, George Micheletti, Jon Spenard, and Sheldon Skaggs
14.Monumental Landscapes, Changing Ideologies, and Political Histories in the Mopan Valley
M. Kathryn Brown and Jason Yaeger
15.Capturing the Forest: Ancient Maya Ritual Caves as Built Environments
Holley Moyes
16.Monumental Landscapes of the Maya: Cogitating on a Past Built Environment
Arlen F. Chase and Diane Z. Chase
References
List of Contributors
Index
