Pottery Traditions and Cultural Resilience: The Evidence from Yaxnohcah

Summary

This is an abstract from the "New and Emerging Perspectives on the Bajo el Laberinto Region of the Maya Lowlands, Part 2" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

A decade of research at Yaxnohcah informs our current understanding the Central Karstic Uplands and lays the groundwork for continuing research in the greater Bajo el Laberinto region. This paper summarizes the sometimes surprising results of ceramic analysis at the site, while acknowledging the limitations of single site strategies. Yaxnohcah was especially important during the Preclassic period, with early residents modifying the landscape and developing a local ceramic industry at about 900 BCE. By 600 BCE, Yaxnohcah potters had adopted the new waxy slips of a long-lived tradition that spanned the entire Maya region. Yaxnohcah thrived throughout the Preclassic but was overshadowed by Calakmul’s rise during the Early Classic. Always resilient, Yaxnohcah housed a substantial Classic era population and remained a home to some in the Terminal Classic and Postclassic periods. Pottery evidence for the waxing and waning of Yaxnohcah’s neighborhoods across time provides a baseline for studying population dynamics in the greater Bajo el Laberinto region.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• New and Emerging Perspectives on the Bajo el Laberinto Region of the Maya Lowlands, Part 2   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39025.0