Navigating Social Memories and Reshaping Built Environments: An Analysis of Postclassic Reoccupation in the Yucatan Peninsula

Summary

Societal regenerations are common events in world history. Be they in ancient times, the recent past, or the present, such regenerations are instructive and encourage reflection on several critical issues. How, for example, do those exercising political authority negotiate traumatic social memories? And how, if at all, are preexisting built environments modified? To addresses these and other questions, I examine the regeneration of communities and the reestablishment of political authority in the northern Maya lowlands during the Postclassic period. In this presentation, I analyze the built environments at a series of coastal and inland sites in the eastern Yucatan Peninsula, and suggest patterns in Postclassic reoccupation and Postclassic treatment of the Classic period past. In doing so, I emphasize the importance of place, the past, and the built environment to the operation of political authority, as well as the usefulness of archaeology in understanding ancient, historical, and contemporary events.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

Keywords

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15364