Preclassic Maya Social Transformations along the Usumacinta: Views from Ceibal and Aguada Fénix

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Preclassic Maya Social Transformations along the Usumacinta: Views from Ceibal and Aguada Fénix," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Preclassic period (ca. 1000 BC-AD 200) was a time of major social transformations and cultural innovation in southern Mesoamerica. Scholars have long debated the influence of societies, like the Olmec, on the origins of Maya civilization. Excavations at Ceibal, Guatemala, revealed that an early ceremonial center with a formalized site plan was established around 1000 BC, and suggest multidirectional interactions among the early lowland Maya and their neighbors. The Middle Usumacinta Archaeological Project, initiated in 2017, builds on the findings at Ceibal to investigate a series of ceremonial centers in Tabasco, Mexico, located between the Olmec heartland and the Maya lowlands. The largest of these centers, Aguada Fénix, includes a 1.4 km long earthen platform attached to several causeways. Recent excavations suggest that this monumental center was built by Maya people during the early Middle Preclassic period (ca. 1000-700 BC). Comparisons between Ceibal and the Middle Usumacinta sites demonstrate surprising similarities in construction techniques and ceramics, but also some differences in public architecture and ritual. The papers in this session explore local processes and interregional patterns along the Usumacinta in the development of lowland Maya society.