Experiencing Yaxhom: Materiality, Memory, and Monumentality in the Puuc Hills of Yucatan

Summary

Research conducted at the ancient Maya site of Yaxhom has identified very early monumental architecture next to one of the most fertile tracts in the Puuc region of northern Yucatan. A third field season, reported on here, carried out further mapping and testing of the urban center to determine the extent of accompanying Formative architecture. We wished to test whether the platform served to mark place for a population with minimal investment in residential architecture or whether it formed part of a larger complex of mounds, suggesting it was the product of a more complex and stratified community. A further goal was to assess how the early monumental core was appropriated by the Late Classic community that grew up around it, potentially revealing political strategies of the period and the formation of community memory.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• The Bolonchén Regional Archaeological Project: Sixteen Years of Investigating Maya Society in the Eastern Puuc Region from the Preclassic through the Historical Period

Keywords

Spatial Coverage