Long-term research at Waka’s City temple (Structure M13-1) demonstrates it was an important locale for ritual commemoration by local people as well as those from afar. Extensive and diversely constituted deposits throughout the building’s surface demonstrate it was venerated publicly by non-elites throughout Waka’s final occupations and gradual abandonment. Recent re-examinations of these materials confirm that they appear consistent with material assemblages from Waka’s domestic contexts. We can now also complement early insights that the building was important for Waka’s wider citizenry with deeper understanding of its earlier political significance and function; namely, that it formed a major component of the site’s political and ritual landscape for centuries, including playing a key role during the Early Classic Teotihuacan-Maya Entrada. Today the building’s fronting plaza continues as the locus for various pre-excavation ceremonies. Together, this paints a picture of a monumental center that remained vividly remembered for its political and ritual importance for centuries. In the context of the unifying theme of ruination studies and Indigenous perspectives on such landscapes, we consider this building to be an example of how landscapes remain animate and how memory is itself an animating force that sustains meaning and situates action.

Human sacrifice is one of the most dramatic and enduring rituals known to ancient societies. Death of the victim represents the climax of the event because lethal violence produces vivid images that articulate power relations between the organizers, audience, and those sacrificed. This study reconstructs burial treatments, biological profiles, and trauma patterns on 49 human sacrifices excavated from the site El Pollo located 13 km from Chan Chan, the capital city of the Chimú Empire (AD 1050/1100–1450), in the Moche Valley, Peru. Children and adolescents (n = 31/37) exhibit cutmarks to the anterior chest, which mirror the victim profiles and patterning of skeletal trauma documented at other Chimú sacrificial sites. Sacrifice at El Pollo also involved opening the chest cavities of adult males, dispatching bound male captives, and administering incisions to victim torsos to release blood. Given the administrative capacity and imperial enterprises of the Chimú Empire, these data indicate that sacrifice at El Pollo was part of a highly systematic ritual program staged throughout the Moche Valley and overseen by ruling elites at Chan Chan. This study provides evidence that sacrifice was modified to suit the civic-ceremonial needs of the empire and supported imperial efforts of militaristic expansion.

By using satellite images, this study confirms 350 km of ancient roads, comprising 634 wide and 321 narrow roads, in southwestern Amazonia’s earthwork-rich landscape. The roads were straight, mostly under 500 m long, but with some extending several kilometers. They occurred most prevalently in areas of dense earthwork. Nested earthworks were more road-rich than simple ones, and roads were more common in structures with quadrilateral rather than roundish shapes. Geoglyphs typically featured wide ceremonial roads with start widths ranging from 15 to 40 m, sometimes wider, and gradual narrowing toward their distal ends. Mound settlements had narrow, short roads pointing in various directions, which may have been for everyday travel. They also presented narrow but long roads leading to distant destinations, occasionally spanning many earthworks. When the endpoint was observable, 39.7% of roads led to a riverine environment indicating access, 10.6% connected to other earthworks reflecting integration, and 49.7% faded into currently open terrain. Many roads starting from geoglyphs aligned with the cardinal directions suggesting a possible awareness of astronomical alignments in the construction of the ditched ceremonial enclosures. This study confirms that ancient roads provide key insights into past civilizations and are essential to the region’s archaeological heritage.

The Chicha Soras valley on the boundary of Ayacucho with Apurimac in south-central Peru sees the introduction of intensive irrigated terraced agriculture in the Middle Horizon. The control over the water sources and the terracing systems fell to corporate lineage groups laying claim to common ancestors, viewed as being the founders of the local irrigation systems. The control over these systems and the rights of the respective lineages to land and water was expressed in the placement of ancestral tomb locations across the local landscape. This article demonstrates that ancestor-based organization of water sources was long lived across the area and survived the large-scale demographic and sociopolitical disruptions resulting from the Spanish conquest and the imposition of Christian belief systems.

This article focuses on the placement of ruins in the Mixtec landscape and in painted screen-fold manuscripts or codices during the Late Postclassic period, with an eye toward shedding light on broader Mesoamerican dynamics. I argue that while ruins of previous ages constituted meaningful links to the past in and of themselves, much of their significance, or even “vibrancy,” in the Postclassic inhered from the processes of persons journeying to and from them across the landscape. In the highly mountainous terrain of the Mixtec highlands, this movement frequently involved dramatic vertical ascents and descents, a phenomenon accentuated in the surviving codices from the region. Drawing from archaeological, textual, and iconographic evidence, I argue that this vertical movement to and from ruins of the past was closely intertwined with Mesoamerican understandings of temporality, and that traversing up and down the landscape could effectively constitute a kind of movement through time. Consistent with our grasp of Mesoamerican temporalities more generally, these spatiotemporal movements should not be seen as linear or teleological but instead as largely cyclical and bound up with concerns surrounding cosmic renewal.

New Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dates from archived samples from the site of Ch’uxuqullu, excavated 30 years ago on the Island of the Sun, Bolivia, provide a more precise and older chronology for human occupation. The first occupation began in the middle of the fourth millennium BC, considerably earlier than previously known. The site area was continually in use from at least 3500 BC up to around 160 BC. This new data, in conjunction with work in the last two decades, provides new insights into the archaeology of the lake region. The first use of pottery on the island is now refined with greater precision than previously proposed. We also know that watercraft technology began a millennium earlier than originally suggested. We report on these new dates and briefly discuss their implications for archaeological models of exchange and sedentism in the circum-Titicaca Basin.

This article presents the results of the first diachronic study of obsidian procurement patterns in the Gulf of Fonseca on the Pacific coast of Central America; it sheds light on the integration of the region in long-distance exchange systems. This study is based on portable X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (pXRF) analysis of all 713 obsidian artifacts collected from Terminal Classic and Postclassic contexts on Tigre Island, Honduras, and of 54 additional obsidian artifacts from two sites on the south coast of Honduras that are housed in museum collections. Analysis of obsidian artifacts collected in the excavation of the earlier occupation of the site of La Tigüilotada (AD 800–1200) on Tigre Island revealed the predominance of Ixtepeque obsidian and the lesser presence of Güinope obsidian. Obsidian artifacts from excavations of the reoccupation of La Tigüilotada (AD 1300–1500) and of the site of Gualorita (AD 1400–1550) relied almost exclusively on La Esperanza obsidian. Least-cost path analysis shows likely riverine routes connecting all three sources to the Gulf. We contextualize these results within prior obsidian sourcing studies from the region and conclude that precolonial island settlements took part in different transference networks from their mainland counterparts.

Over the history of Maya studies, archaeologists have proposed various models for the structure of Maya settlements and their use of the landscape. The introduction of lidar to Maya studies, and the wealth of data this technology yielded, has many of these ideas coming under renewed study. Some of the most prominent models discussed in the last two decades have centered on low-density agrarian urbanism and forest gardens. Using settlement studies, lidar data, and hydrological analysis, this article discusses the applicability of these models for the ancient Maya at Lamanai and Ka’kabish, and more generally, Northern Belize. The Maya in the periphery at Lamanai developed wetland management strategies by capitalizing on natural drainage next to seasonally inundated swamps, or bajos. Evidence suggests that the Maya sustained large populations by using channels at the edge of bajos for field systems. These systems may be key to understanding their sustainability in the past.

In the Nejapa region of Oaxaca, places now categorized by some as archaeological ruins have retained power and meaning through time. Ruins often retain vibrancy and are (and were) typically treated respectfully and carefully. Although many of the sites may no longer be occupied by humans, these ruined or palimpsest places should not be considered entirely abandoned or uninhabited. Some sites in Nejapa, such as Los Picachos and Cerro del Convento, were charged with spiritual valency that inspired people to leave offerings at the sites. Other long unoccupied archaeological sites, such as the ruins of La Baeza, Casa Vieja, and the Pueblo Viejo, were viewed in multiple ways: sometimes approached with trepidation or purposely avoided, and at other times viewed with nostalgia and reverence. Part of what makes ruins powerful and layered with meanings is their association with ancestors and their common connections to memorable, and often difficult, historical events. Thus, ruins play active roles and can at times inspire social actions and at other times entail intentional avoidance.

In Mesoamerica ceramics are used to define spatial and chronological units of past social, political, and economic activities. Here we compare results on ceramics subjected to type-variety classification, INAA and thin-section petrography, and symmetry analysis of design structure. The samples are primarily from sites in the Lake Pátzcuaro and Zacapu Basins in central and northern Michoacán from the Late Preclassic to the Late Postclassic periods (200 BC–AD 1522). We offer this analysis as a test case that introduces and compares the results of symmetry analysis with the more familiar typological and paste analyses. We explore how each approach monitors the timing and rate of sociocultural stability and change, as well as the kinds of social processes that each method documents.

Rather than static traces of the past, ruins and ancient material objects represent dynamic and important generative components of communities. A relational ontology views objects and matter as animate; here we focus on their collaborative potential with humans to inspire memory practices that bring together ancestors and living humans, things, and landscapes in recursive relationships. Situated at Etlatongo in the Mixteca Alta of Oaxaca, Mexico, our research interrogates broader Mixtec and Mesoamerican perspectives on things, which indicates certain materials and ruined places could be especially potent, imbued with cosmogonic energy from previous eras. Such material had animating properties as well as inspiring memorial narratives. Continuously occupied for more than 3,500 years, Etlatongo illustrates dynamic and varied interactions with past places and things. We present two precontact archaeological case studies that highlight these persistent engagements with the past: the first focuses on the reuse and reincorporation of earlier public architecture while the second features the selection and generative power of ancient ceramic figurine heads in two later domestic settings.

La reciente excavación arqueológica efectuada en el centro provincial inka de Tambo Viejo, en el valle de Acarí, Perú, resultó en el hallazgo de una pequeña construcción de forma rectangular y semisubterránea. En su interior encontramos hojas y semillas de coca en asociación con arena limpia. Esta evidencia sugiere que la pequeña construcción sirvió para el almacenamiento de las hojas de coca, las que habían sido cubiertas con arena limpia para garantizar su preservación. La arena tiene propiedades térmicas que crean condiciones relativamente frías y que son óptimas para la preservación de productos orgánicos.

One of the most significant engineering accomplishments of Maya civilization is Sacbe 1, a raised road connecting the ancient urban centers of Yaxuna and Coba. Using new lidar data in concert with excavation, epigraphic inscriptions, and landscape reconnaissance, we show that settlement and an urban experience emanated westward from Coba along the sacbe. The leaders of Coba—in particular, an ambitious seventh-century queen—used the sacbe to expand the political and cultural influence of their dynasty into the center of the peninsula while securing territory and resources. Gaps in the sacbe, precise delineation of its many curves, and examination of features near these curves call to mind several possible intentions governing its construction and use. Sites located along the causeway did not present significant barriers to the expansion of Coba. Sacbe 1 represents a uniquely urban space that expanded urban social networks into a rural hinterland while advancing state interests for territory and influence.

Although the Mixteca region has witnessed a long period of human occupation from before village societies were established to the present, traditional archaeological narratives tend to simplify this history by emphasizing singular points of origin and radical moments of change. Based on decolonial perspectives, we examine how persistence may be a more suitable framework for understanding the long history of human occupation in the region. Using information from three archaeological projects, this article analyzes the enduring histories of household practices at the site of Etlatongo in the Nochixtlan Valley. We focus on the construction of domestic spaces over three different periods in the long occupation of the site: during the latter half of the Early Formative (1400–1000 BC), the late Middle Formative (500–300 BC), and the Postclassic (AD 900–1500s). By analyzing the changing continuities of domestic practices at Etlatongo, this study contributes to scholarship examining the persistence of Indigenous communities in Mesoamerica.

Understanding what happened after the collapse of and dating the different reoccupations of Teotihuacan can be challenging due to different factors, including the reuse of building materials and looting during Postclassic and modern times, which resulted in altered archaeological contexts or significant inbuilt ages for the samples. A Bayesian approach integrating radiocarbon ages and detailed archaeological information can help to overcome these difficulties. In this contribution we present the process of building a high-resolution chronology for the tunnels located to the east of the Pyramid of the Sun (excavated by Linda R. Manzanilla from 1993 to 1996) by the integration of 20 radiocarbon ages from Cueva del Pirul and Cueva de las Varillas with detailed archaeological information on the context for each dated sample, including ceramic style. With the resulting chronology it is possible to distinguish the moment of the different occupations during the Epiclassic and Postclassic times, helping to refine chronologies based on ceramic styles and to understand the population dynamics in the area.

Individuals have long manipulated the dimensions of architecture, vessels, and monuments. Although scaled-up objects are often conspicuous parts of communities, this article instead considers scaled-down objects, specifically Postclassic Maya small, uncarved stelae. After presenting previously documented examples of these monuments from the Maya lowlands, the article introduces two recently recorded examples from Punta Laguna in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula: each is associated with the final deposition of hundreds of fragments of broken and unreconstructable anthropomorphic incense burners. Although the exact functions and meanings of these stelae remain elusive, understanding them as miniatures—as abstracted and compressed scaled-down versions of referents—aids in efforts to reenvision the Postclassic period and to uncouple notions of scale and complexity. More specifically, understanding small, uncarved Postclassic stelae as miniatures reframes their creation as a purposeful choice, rather than as an act of necessity; suggests they are a legitimate rather than anomalous type of monument; and encourages scholars to eschew conventional considerations of what these stelae lack—size, writing, and carved figural representations—and focus instead on what they retain: the medium of stone, their basic shape and upright nature, and their placement in nondomestic contexts and association with nondomestic artifacts.

Datasets from around the world suggest that people completed early monumental construction projects without long-term structures of hierarchy or authority. In the Maya area, some of the first monuments produced by semisedentary societies, such as those at Yaxuna and Ceibal, were built in the absence of substantial social inequality. The focus of these monuments was a relatively inclusive plaza. This article presents evidence of an eighth-century BC monumental construction at Ucí, another site that was probably not fully sedentary. At Ucí, however, the first large architecture is not inclusive. Structure 14sub5 lacks a front stairway, separating people in the plaza from those who could ascend the building from the back. The difference between the inclusivity at Ceibal and Yaxuna and exclusivity at Ucí suggests variation in degrees of inequality. Different societies experimented creatively with social and political organization. This aligns with the inherent complexity of egalitarian societies as well as the possibility that not all complex societies began as egalitarian. Consonant with the idea that people had power to act otherwise, early exclusivity at Ucí developed into inclusive forms of governance in the Late Preclassic.

En este trabajo estudio el arte rupestre creado por los zapotecos a su llegada a la parte sur del Istmo de Tehuantepec en el Postclásico tardío. Analizo varios aspectos de este arte desde una aproximación a la ontología zapoteca prehispánica para exponer la singularidad de este tipo de arte dentro de la cultura zapoteca, y para demostrar que constituía una acción y una experiencia diferente de lo que se considera arte en la tradición clásica de occidente, ya que se pintaba sobre un ente vivo. Propongo dos aspectos importantes de la estética de este arte: la vinculación íntima con la tierra como ente vivo y con los seres que habitan en su interior; y el poder de poner en acción esas imágenes que desataba su proceso de creación.