Integrating and Disintegrating the North Acropolis of Yaxuna, Yucatan, Mexico.

Summary

The North Acropolis of Yaxuna was the primary focus of ritual and administrative life at the site during the Classic period and functioned as a focal point for involving the local population in integrative activities. Yet architectural evidence suggests that this architectural complex changed in function over the course of its use. The acropolis was first built in the Late Formative and was modified up until the Late Postclassic. We argue that the changes we see in the architecture in this complex had to do with changing social and political relationships with other sites across the Maya lowlands just as much as they had to do with internal processes. In this paper we try and understand the types of activities undertaken at the acropolis through the analysis of material artifacts from a large trash pit associated with the complex. Copious amounts of ceramic, lithic, and bone materials, particularly from the Late and Terminal Classic periods, shed light on the types of activies undertaken at this group and help us contextualize processes of integration and disintegration.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Integrating and Disintegrating in Central Yucatán: Archaeological Approaches to Social Change at Multiple Scales

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16542