Domestication of plants in Maya Lowlands

The Lowland Mayan culture has been one of the most successful in Mesoamerica. Being an agricultural society, part of their success was based on plant genetic resources which satisfied their needs of social reproduction. This article reviews recent evidence on early agriculture in the geographic area where Lowland Maya culture originated, and discusses its implications for the study of plant domestication and evolution under human selection within this cultural sub-area. Questions of interest for future research are posed. As working hypotheses, we list two categories of species possibly implicated in the origin of this civilization: (1) native species that could have been the subject of local human selection or to some degree of agricultural manipulation by 3400 b.c., and (2) species that could have been introduced from other cultural areas of America by 3400 b.c. and subsequently subjected to local human selection.     

The Terminal Classic in the Maya Lowlands: Collapse, Transition, and Transformation

The Terminal Classic in the Maya Lowlands: Collapse, Transition, and Transformation. Arthur A. Demarest, Prudence M. Rice, and Don S. Rice, eds. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2004. 676 pp.     

Kingship in the Late Preclassic Maya Lowlands: The Instruments and Places of Ritual Power

The Maya of Central America constitute the only truly literate pre-Columbian civilization. Analysis of ancient Maya hieroglyphic texts and accompanying images dating from the Classic period (A.D. 200–900) documents the presence of a central and pervasive institution of governance: ahaw. The material symbol systems of the Lowland Maya of the protoliterate Late Preclassic period (350 B.C.-A.D. 100), as evinced in monumental decorated buildings and in portable art, suggest that these Maya innovated ahaw, the institution of kingship. The authority of ahaw rested upon direct descent and spiritual communion with the ancestors of all Maya, the Ancestral Heroes. Along with noble lineage, ahaw claimed charismatic power through the performance of shamanistic ritual. The Late Preclassic antecedents of the shamanistic parameters of ahaw are discussed in light of Classic and Postclassic ritual expressions.     

Smallholders in the Maya Lowlands: Homage to a Garden Variety Ethnographer

Ancient Maya subsistence practices and their relation to the rise and decline of Maya civilization have long been the subject of archaeological debate. Traditionally Mayanists correlate subsistence strategy with political economy, positing that a change in one must correspond to a change in the other. Since smallholders, as defined by Netting, can exist within a variety of political and economic systems, their ubiquity in the Maya Lowlands may explain why household studies often fail to detect political or economic change at a macro level. The absence of smallholders, however, may correlate with the depopulation of many Maya cities at the end of the ninth century.     

The Decipherment of Ancient Maya Writing

The Decipherment of Ancient Maya Writing. Stephen Houston. Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos. and David Stuart. eds. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001. 576 pp.     

Maya Zapatistas Move to the Ancient Future

This essay assesses recent events pertaining to the Maya Zapatista movement in light of the Mesoamerican past and present. Persistent patterns of Maya world construction, group and personal identity, and political legitimacy form the conceptual core of the movement, expressing themes that have been well documented for some 2,000 years in Maya cultural history. The essay concludes with suggestions as to the new forms that pan-Maya ethnic affirmation may assume in the multiethnic configuration of Mexico and Guatemala in the 21st century.     

The Machete and the Cross: Campesino Rebellion in Yucatan: The Conquest of the Last Maya Kingdom: Río Azul: An Ancient Maya City

The Machete and the Cross: Campesino Rebellion in Yucatan. Don E. Dumond. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997.571pp.
The Conquest of the Last Maya Kingdom. Grant D. Jones. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998.568 pp.
Río Azul: An Ancient Maya City. Richard E. W. Adams. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. 238 pp.     

A garden experiment revisited: inter‐generational change in environmental perception and management of the Maya Lowlands,Guatemala

This study reports ethnographic and experimental analyses of inter‐generational changes in native Itza' Maya and immigrant Ladino populations of Guatemala's Petén rainforest concerning understanding of ecological relationships between plants, animals, and humans, and the perceived role of forest spirits in sustaining these relationships. We find dramatic changes in understanding ecological relationships and the perceived role of forest spirits. Itza' Maya conceptions of forest spirits (arux) are now more often confounded with Ladino spirits (duendes), with Itza' spirits no longer reliably serving as forest guardians. These changes correlate with a shift in personal values regarding the forest, away from concern with ecologically central trees and towards monetary incentives. More generally, we describe how economic, demographic, and social changes relate to the loss of a system of beliefs and behaviours that once promoted sustainable agro‐forestry practices. These changes coincide with open access to common pool resources.