In the Path of the Snake: Connecting Myth and Material Culture in the Late Prehistory of Champotón, Campeche

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Tales of the Feathered Serpent: Refining Our Understanding of an Enigmatic Mesoamerican Being" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The personage and deity of Kukulkan/Quetzalcoatl plays a central role in indigenous historical accounts regarding the prehispanic city of Chakanputun (Champotón). However, extensive disturbances resulting from continuous occupation of Champotón from the Preclassic period into modern times has had a major impact on the public precincts of the ancient city. This situation creates unique challenges in connecting ethnohistoric and archaeological evidence, particularly pertaining to the era of major societal upheaval and emergence of pan-Mesoamerican political, social, and economic links during the Terminal Classic/Epiclassic period. The goal of this paper is to create linkages between archaeological (settlement pattern, ceramic, and lithic evidence) and ethnohistoric evidence to understand diachronic processes along the Gulf Coast periphery of the Maya Area. Synthesis of these diverse sets of data provide a unique view of major changes that swept across Mesoamerica starting at the close of the Classic Period and extending to the eve of Spanish Contact.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Tales of the Feathered Serpent: Refining Our Understanding of an Enigmatic Mesoamerican Being   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25768