Maya E-Groups and the Nature of Science -- Ours and Theirs

Summary

Maya E-Group architectural assemblages have attracted scholarly attention for about a century, and yet our ideas about them have become more muddled through time. Since the beginning of investigations in the 1920’s these structures have been thought to have had some astronomical function, but the exact astronomical significance suggested by archaeologists has changed though time. Today there is very little agreement about their meaning and function. In this presentation I will briefly review the history of the problem with an emphasis on the nature of the evidence that has been presented and how it has been presented. Rather than attempting to provide a definitive interpretation of the function of these buildings, I will argue that we have become increasingly, and perhaps dangerously, bold in our willingness to draw broad conclusions from limited evidence. The Maya E-Group problem sheds light on how interpretations become accepted as fact in archaeology, and the nature of scholarship in a fast-paced world.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16159