The Evolution of Anthropomorphic Imagery at Cahal Pech, Belize and its Implications for the Rise of Kingship in the Middle Preclassic Maya Lowlands.

Summary

In a series of articles published in the 1980’s, and in the subsequent volume "A Forest of Kings", David Freidel, and Linda Schele and Freidel demonstrated that the institution of kingship had been firmly established in the Maya lowlands by the Late Preclassic period. Twenty five years later, ongoing research in Belize and the Peten now suggests that this level of cultural complexity may have actually arisen by the Middle Preclassic period. One line of evidence that strongly supports this argument is the evolutionary change in anthropomorphic imagery. In this paper, I present evidence from the Belize River valley which suggests that the replacement of figurines by other forms of anthropomorphic imagery was closely associated with changes in the socio-political structure of Middle Preclassic Maya society.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Contextualizing Maya History and Archaeology Part I: Reflections on the 25th Anniversary of Forest of Kings   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage