Anachronology in the Study of the Precolumbian Maya: Toward a Post-Postclassic

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Misinformation and Misrepresentation Part 2: Reconsidering “Human Sacrifice,” Religion, Slavery, Modernity, and Other European-Derived Concepts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

All Mayanists, and Mesoamericanists in general, are familiar with tripartite chronologies. The periodization of time in precolumbian Mesoamerica between a “Preclassic”/“Formative,” “Classic,” and “Postclassic” has been baked into the conceptual framework of the discipline since its earliest days. However, in the more than a century since the terms were first used, subsequent discoveries have consistently served to undermine these demarcations, rendering them increasingly tenuous and arbitrary. Moreover, beyond the simple matter of accuracy, this traditional model is also increasingly problematic in the era of de- and neocolonialism. Focusing on the precolumbian Maya, this talk will explore the origins of the tripartite chronology, the assumptions and underpin it and that we tacitly perpetuate in our persistence with it, as well as propose an alternative interpretive model for the long-maligned “Postclassic” phase from ca. tenth century AD to the Spanish conquest.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Misinformation and Misrepresentation Part 2: Reconsidering “Human Sacrifice,” Religion, Slavery, Modernity, and Other European-Derived Concepts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38585.0