This article presents a compositional analysis of metal artifacts from the Postclassic period (a.d. 1100–1450) city of Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico. We document metallurgical production at R-183, an elite residential group and one of the most significant archaeological contexts associated with metalworking at Mayapan. Salvage excavations in 1998 recovered a small cache containing 282 copper bells, two miniature ceramic vessels filled with metal, and production debris including loose casting sprues and miscast bells. Metallographic analysis of a small copper bell and wire fragments from the cache reveals lost-wax casting production techniques. X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF) of metal artifacts provides insight into the range of metals used by the R-183 metalworkers, which included copper-lead, copper-tin, and copper-arsenic alloys, and how these alloys compare to assemblages recovered from other contexts at the city. Our findings strongly suggest the use of remelting and casting techniques, likely utilizing remelted metals of both West and central Mexican origin, together with the use of imported goods made from a range of copper alloys.

The spatial contexts of effigy censer and figurine molds at Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico suggest a tightly controlled industry in which elite representatives of state government and religious orders exerted oversight over production and distribution. Attached artisans at Mayapan made these and other restricted goods for residents of palaces and patrons of the city's public buildings. The study of effigy ceramic production reveals that, like earlier, Classic period Maya kingdoms, Postclassic elites also sponsored the crafting of symbolically charged goods. This finding expands understanding of Postclassic period economic organization, which is best-known for its expansive regional market exchange. The limited distribution of effigy censers and figurines further attests their primary use in the context of state-sponsored ceremonies and, to a lesser extent, high-status mortuary settings. Unlike other places and times in Mesoamerica, neither figurines nor effigy censers are representative of household-scale religious practice for the majority of urban residents at Mayapan.

Dental modification represents one interesting aspect of corporeal adornment in human history that directly reflects personal social identity. Tooth filing choices distinguished certain individuals at the urban, Maya political capital of Mayapan from 1150 to 1450 ad, along with cranial modification, nose and ear piercings, tattoos and body paint. Here we examine how filing teeth, considered a beautification practice for women at Spanish Contact in the sixteenth century, is distributed across a skeletal sample of males, females, elites and commoners in this city. We evaluate the normative claim of the Colonial period and determine that while predominantly females filed their teeth, most women chose not to. Sculptural art further reveals that male personages associated with the city's feathered serpent priesthood exhibited filed teeth, and we explore the symbolic meaning of filed tooth shape. Assessing the practice in terms of associated archaeological contexts, chronology and bone chemistry reveals that it did not correlate with social class, dietary differences, or birthplace. Residents of Mayapan, a densely inhabited, multi-ethnic city of 20,000, engaged with multiple material expressions of belonging to intersecting imagined communities that crosscut competing influences of polity, city, hometown and family scale identity. Tooth filing reflects identities at the individual or family scale.

Exploring the long-term use of accounting practices and currencies by literate and numerate authorities contributes new information regarding the complexity of the political economy of ancient Maya society. Two forms of indirect, yet compelling, lines of evidence for accounting practices and currencies are presented in this article. First, we identify potential accounting devices (counting sticks and tokens) found in the tombs of royal scribes and nobles, based on the contextual associations and depicted uses of similar objects in Maya art such as polychrome vases and murals. Second, we argue that the long-term use and significant standardization of specific shell objects suggests their role as all-purpose monies, in addition to their complementary status as counting devices or numerical symbols. This paper addresses the intricate relationships between symbolism, value and multiple modes of exchange that have long been of interest to cross-cultural studies in anthropology.

Thirty-eight radiocarbon dates from Mayapan provide new information about the Postclassic chronology of this city. We analyze ceramic frequencies associated with our radiocarbon samples and discuss temporally diagnostic types in the Mayapan sequence. Radiocarbon samples from early construction contexts suggest that the Postclassic center was founded by at least the twelfth century, or possibly the eleventh century a.d. on a modest scale. Additional dates help to assign much of the city's later architecture to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries a.d., and provide hints of violence, conflict, and abandonment events prior to the final collapse. Our results imply that Mayapan may have begun as a small center while Chichen Itza waned from its dominant political position on the peninsula, and that the establishment of Mayapan as a major regional capital may have been a process that took a century or longer to complete.

This analysis of production variability of Postclassic Maya pottery from consumer contexts at Caye Coco implies that household pottery making varied and that products destined for different social and functional use contexts were made with differing degrees of standardization. New chronological and typological information from the Terminal Classic and Early Postclassic Periods at Caye Coco provide data important to the study of long-term interregional affiliations leading up to the Late Postclassic. Our attribute analysis of major type and form classes of Postclassic Period vessels quantifies the relative diversity and homogeneity of products made for Caye Coco consumers. Greater standardization is found in serving dishes and other slipped vessel forms as opposed to unslipped storage and food preparation containers within the site’s assemblage, and evidence for regional scale similarities in dish attributes is also found. High levels of serving dish standardization likely reflect conditions of open social and economic boundaries and perhaps the direct exchange of some vessels. Minimally, stylistic templates were broadly shared due to the widespread use of highly visible serving dishes at regional feasts and religious celebrations.

The transition from Palaeoindian to Archaic societies in North America is often viewed as a linear progression over a brief but time-transgressive period. New evidence from the Wilson-Leonard site in Texas suggests social experimentation by Palaeoindians over a 2500-year period eventually resulted in Archaic societies. The process was neither short nor linear, and the evidence shows that different but contemporaneous lifeways existed in a variety of locales in the south-central US in the Early Holocene.

In this paper, we analyze the distribution of Late Postclassic (A.D. 1250–1500) architecture and associated artifacts of the Maya site of Caye Coco, Belize. Artifact density and distribution suggest that different buildings served different functions and reflect a range of domestic and non-domestic activities at the island. An assessment of the labor investment required to build the seventeen structures at Caye Coco provides evidence of the degree of social hierarchy at this site, as many more people would have been required to build its elite residences than could have lived in them. The shift in the focus of architectural construction to the island at Progresso Lagoon in the Late Postclassic contrasts with the predominance of construction on the west shore during the Terminal Classic period. This trend reflects the emergence of a new political center among the lagoon settlements. It also may suggest an increased concern with aquatic transportation of trade goods during the Postclassic period, as Caye Coco is the most prominent island of the lagoon, which connects directly to the Caribbean Sea. The architecture at Caye Coco suggests that Late Postclassic political organization of northeastern Belize was more hierarchical than has been previously documented. This paper is the first systematic effort to quantify architectural labor investment and size distribution at a southern lowland Postclassic Maya site in order to address the issue of sociopolitical hierarchy.

Ritual contexts at Laguna de On Island are identified in two structures that form part of a single household cluster in the central area of the site. The features and artifact assemblages of these structures indicate that a continuum of domestic-to-ritual debris is found at each location. Variation in the content of these assemblages is used to identify the degree of ritual activity and the function of each structure. Structure I is identified as a dwelling where ritual activity was conducted. Structure II is identified as a specialized household shrine or oratory. This examination of the contexts for ritual practice at Laguna de On addresses the issue of “secularization” of Postclassic Maya religion and the connection between status and ritual at a small, rural, Postclassic community.

Comparisons of Late Classic (A.D. 600-900) and Early-to-Middle Postclassic (A.D. 1000-1400) settlements at Laguna de On illuminate the transformation of Maya society at the community level in the aftermath of the Classic-period collapse. Affluent subsistence production communities such as Laguna de On reflect the emergence of the village as a focal point for social, political, and economic organization at this time, a pattern that persists in the Maya Lowlands to this day. Ties with the past are observed in comparisons of Classic-to-Postclassic domestic and public architectural efforts, burial patterns, faunal remains, lithic tool production and use, and settlement strategy at Laguna de On. Although some technological and material differences are observed in household assemblages of each period, the changes are not interpreted as material reflections of population replacement or ethnic difference. Postcollapse Belize Maya community organization and domestic patterns are analyzed as scaled-down transformations of Classic-period institutions in response to altered conditions of regional demography, ecology, and political geography.