Recent Shifts in Maya Archaeology: Investigations of the Colonial and National Periods of the Yucatan

This session seeks to highlight developments in the archaeology of the colonial and early national periods throughout the Maya regions. Maya archaeologists working in Mexico and across Central America have produced a rich body of scholarship exploring Maya society before Spanish invasion and settlement. Maya archaeology has been influential at both the regional and the international levels, generating standards for archaeological practice, introducing innovative scientific techniques, melding archaeology with ethnohistory and epigraphy, creating theories about the rise, maintenance,and collapse of state level societies. However, the rich material record and cultural groups from the periods following Spanish-Maya contact have remained marginalized within the archaeology of this important cultural and geographic region.

This session will bring together scholars working through the region at sites from the colonial through early national periods, and beyond. Historical archaeology across Mexico and Central America is only just gaining momentum. The scholars involved in this session are contributing not only to the expansion of knowledge about these marginalized time periods in Maya archaeology, but are also addressing some of the field's most pressing theoretical and methodological questions.