El Tintal in the Late Classic and Territorial Implications

Summary

The archaeological site of El Tintal, known primarily as a large and important Late Preclassic ancient Maya city in northern Petén, Guatemala, also had a significant occupation during the Late Classic Period. Preliminary observations and an initial season of explorations at El Tintal indicate that this later occupation was quite substantial, yet unlike the southern lowland pattern of recording history on stone monuments, not a single carved stela that dates to the Classic Period has been identified at the site. In this presentation, I contextualize El Tintal in the Classic Period political geography and explore the reasons why a major center like El Tintal would deviate from what appears to be such a widespread and standard tradition among its regional neighbors. More importantly, what this means when we conceptualize ancient Maya territories and its implications for recognizing boundaries, political and otherwise, especially when considering its location between two competing polities, Tikal and Calakmul, that we know impacted so many other cities in the region of modern-day Petén.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Lowland Maya Territories: Local Dynamics in Regional Landscapes

Keywords

Spatial Coverage