Mesoamerican Landscape Archaeologies (2009)

Ancient Mesoamerica 20 (2009) 183-187 Cambridge University Press 20 I 0

doi 101 0 17s0956536lO9990058

MESOAMERICAN LANDSCAPE ARCHAEOLOGIES

Wendy Ashmore Wendy Ashmore Department of Anthropology University of California Riverside CA 92021

Abstract

Landscapes figure centrally in conceptions and writings about ancient Mesoamerica This selective review considers four interrelated kinds of landscapes investigated archaeologically in Mesoamerica ecology and land use social history ritual expression and cosmologic meaning The litemlUre on each topic is large and from its inception Ancien Mesoamerica has contributed significantly Discussion here focuses on how we got to where we are in Mesoamerican landscape archaeology important cun-ent developments and directions for the decades ahead

Travelers and scholars alike have remarked extensively about the geographers have examined closely the hmdscape evidence for lands of what we now call Mesoamerica Landscape archaeology fanning other kinds of land use and resource management as is understood as a more concerted and systematic inquiry about well as the impact of landscape modifications anthropogenic or landscapes especially those of the past diverse approaches are otherwise evident and not surprisingly they are shaped strongly by the theorshy Ecological and cultural evolutionary theory together with favorshyetical perspective and goals of indi vidual investigators (Anschuetz able funding potentials sparked opportunities for extensive landshyet al 2001 Ashmore and Blackmore 2008) While recent years scape and settlement surveys after World War If (Nichols 1996 have seen much scholarly debate about definitions of landscape Sabloff and Ashmore 20(1) Work by Armillas (1949) and the eoncept is generally understood to refer at varied scales to Palerm (1972) laid well-known foundations for understanding space materializing cumulative interactions of people and their Mesoamerican land usc especially irrigation agriculture environs (Fisher and Feinman 2005 Knapp and Ashmore 1999 Accounts of such studies and then-emerging new findings occur Marquardt and Crumley 1987) In this vein half a century ago in pertinent volumes of the Handbook of Mi(ldle American while describing climatic vegetation and geomorphic regions Indians beginning with the first on Natural Environme1lts and of Middle America Carl Sauer (1959 121) wrote not only of the Early Cullures (Wauchope and West 1964) From the 1950s and physical settings he also called attention to the historical implishy 19605 inspired by Steward and Willey and then given further cations of the varied capacities of these landscapes to shape resolve by the systems-evolutionary frame of processualism culshyhuman settlement All of these topics and ideas infuse conduct of tural ecologys combined foci of subsistence demography and landscape archaeology in Mesoamerica the development of social complexity have shaped richly productive

This selective review highlights four interrelated kinds of landshy research articulating settlement land-use strategies resource proshyscape archaeology investigated in Mesoamerica ecology and land curement and symbiotic exchange Milestone studies took place use social history ritual expression and cosmologic meaning in the Basin of Mexico (Sanders 1981 Sanders et al 1979) the The literature on each topic is large and from its inception Maya lowlands (Kurjack 1979 Puleston 1973 Willey et al Ancient Mesoamerica has contributed significantly as illustrated 1965) the Valley of Oaxaca (Flannery 1973 Kowalewski 1990 in the sample of works cited in this essay Discussion for this Marcus and Flannery 1996) and the Gulf lowlands at San kallin anniversary of the journal considers how we got to where Lorenzo (Coe and Diehl 1980) Although far from the first inquiries we are in Mesoamerican landscape archaeology important current in their respective locales these projects transformed knowledge developments and likelv directions in the kotun ahead about local landscapes and settlement ill fundamental ways while

contributing to general models of cultural ecology and social evolshyution From this same formative period MacNeishs (1981) quest to document domestication of the quintessential Mesoamerican food ECOLOGY AND LAND USE plant maize remains a cardinal contribution in archaeobotanical

Subsistence regimes across Mesoamerica manifest quite varied studies ecologies and settlement histories Whitmore and Tumer (1992) Even as these ground-breaking studies defined major write of diverse landscapes of cultivation that Spanish conquerors Mesoamerican trajectories in human ecology and social evolution would have witnessed along idealized transects tracing the entradas parallel landscape efforts complemented and pointed to variation of Cortes from the Gulf Coast to central Mexico Montejo through from what werc becoming nonnative reference models Well the Yucatan Peninsula and Alvarado in Guatemala To understand known examples of the parallel investigations include work on the the sources of sixteenth-century diversity archaeologists and Pacific coast in Guatemala and Mexicos Soconusco region as

well as in preceramic contexts of the Basin of Mexico (Coe and E-mail correspondence 10 wendyashmoreucredu Flallnery 1967 Niederberger 1996 Voorhies 2004)

183

184

Ongoing work sustained inquiry about subsistence strategies how they have varied across environments and how they have changed over time Landscape archaeologies in both the Maya and Gulf lowlands for example transformed models of relatively

cultivation regimes to ones recognizing intricately complex mosaics of intensification and crop diversity (Fedick 1996 Harrison and Turner 1978 Rust and Sharer 2008 Stark and Arnold 1997) Anthropogenic and other landscape alterations affect the productivity or even suitability of specific terrain for cropshyping (Joyce and Mueller 1997 Ortiz and Cyphers 1997)

Although maize remains the paramount crop Mesoamerican landscapes yield diverse other foods (Lentz et at 1997 McClung de Tapia and Aguilar Hernandez 2001 McKillop 1994 McNeil 2006 Millon 1955 Powis et al 2008) Water management too continues prominent study as to the many ways Mesoamerican peoples have sculpted the landscape to enhance and control supplies of this essential resource (Davis-Salazar 2006 Dunning et al 1999 Lucero and Fash 2006 Scarborough and Gallopin 1991 Searborough et at 1994) Although irrigation is not the only aspect considered its persistent study reaffirms interests asserted early on (Nichols et al 1991) Equally necessary for human survishyval salt is examined with respect to both production in and trade across landscapes (McKillop 2002 Williams 2002)

Sources and exchange routes for other mineral resources are also pertinent to landscape archaeology as are inferences about transport means and costs (Drennan 1994) The absence ofbea~ts of burden in Mesoamerica plausibly affected transport potentials alternately water routes could facilitate movement Metals and metallurgy link Mesoamerica coastal Panama and the Andean coast (Anawalt 1998 Hosler 2003) Even stone was often procured from significant distances its critical roles in Mesoamerican society-for building sculpture food processing land clearing weapons or ritual parashy

bested transport challenges (Stark 1999) Although chert basalt limestone and other stone types serve promishynently in domestic provisioning and civic contexts obsidian and jadeite imply elevated valuation based on specific symbolic meanshyings together with patchiness or rarity in their source occurrence Chemical sourcing of obsidian continues to shape inferred landshyscapes of exchange as exemplified in the special section on obsidian in Ancient Mesoamerica (Volume 4 1993) Jadeite has one known Mesoamerican source now firmly localized in the Middle Motagua Valley (Seitz et al 2001) This has been a critical resource from at least Olmec times serving as the material embodiment of maize human creation and by extension an emblem of ritually sanctified

(Taube 2005) Two landscape ecology topics-drought

have seen notable upsurge in recent years perhaps relating to concerns with world habitats today Climate change models especially infershyence and timing of drought~ are discussed prominently with regard to social change and especially potential relation to the Maya colshylapse From Messengers (1990) article in the first issue of Ancient Mesoamerica to two special sections in 2002 as well as a plethora of other joumal articles and books landscape records of climatic indishycators and models for their understanding stand out as topics of critical interest So too do issues of landscape overuse erosion or general mismanagement (Paine and Freter 1996 Pyburn 1996)

SOCIAL HISTORY

While shaping prospects for provisioning society landscapes also embody social identity and social memory (Alcock 2002 Basso

Mesoamerican Landscape Archaeologies

1996) landscapes are tablets for inscribing and remembering history Advances and debates here draw from conjunction of art history epigraphy and archaeology long available to the study of ancient Mesoamerica (Fash and Sharer 1991) History here can be taken literally as text-based or more broadly as implied in other material remains for societies or segments of societies without written records (Houston 1994 A Smith 2003) Among the topics highlighted in landscape histories are migration epics and political cartographies mapping events and relations among peoples and places and the challenge to landscape archaeology in situating text and image referents on the ground

Some of the most famous migrations of ancient Mesoamerica )bornly resist landscape placement the location of Aztlan is a

prominent case in point (Chagoya 200 I) Of course myth metashyphor and history intermingle in migration from there as from a specific localized emergence place such as the seven caves of Chicomoztoc There is a rich intellectual tradition in identifying Tollan with one or more particular places-Tula in Hidalgo Teotihuacan and other places-along with recognizing its profound significance as a conceptual place of reeds (Boone 2000 Lopez Austin and Lopez Lujan 2000 Rice 2007 Ringle 2004)

Pohl and Byland (1990 see also Byland and Pohl 1994 Smith 1973) conjoined epigraphy iconography oral history and ground survey in systematic extensive landscape archaeology of Mixtec

Polity capitals and dynastic interactions including marriage alliances ritual travel and military conquest are increasingly identshyified with physical landmarks In sculpted and roads marked with footprints or travelers are portrayed as connectshying the places and events reflecting a widespread and longstanding means of citing movement across the Mesoamerican landscape (Johnson 2005 Marcus 1983a Taube 2002) Conquest and more diplomatic actions of eleventh-century Mixtec Lord Eight Deer Jaguar Claw are now traced from his base in highland Tilantongo to his second capital at Tututepec on the Oaxaca Pacific coast (Joyce et al 2004)

Other histories well attested in text and material remains arc in the landscape per se For example the late

fourth-century entmda of Teotihuacan emissaries into the Maya area and their impact on Maya dynastic governance are occurrences securely even famously situated through text architecture offershyings and burials especially at Tikal and Copan (Buikstra et al 2004 Fash and Fash 2000 Martin and Grube 2000 Sharer et al 2005 Stuart 2000 compare Wright 2005 a) Also securely docushymented is reverent sacrifice of high-ranking Maya at the Moon Pyramid of Teotihuacan around AD 350 (Sugiyama and Lopez Lujan 2007) The routes of transit are less clear however less tied materially to physical places We need more information on the landscapes and roles of intennediary locations places distinct from the Basin of Mexico or from Maya polities as part of landshyscape corridors for political economic and social exchange (Cowgill 2003b Garcia-Des Lauriers 2007 Navarrete 1978 Smyth and Rogart 2004)

Political cartographies most often rely on settlement hierarchies in the landscape and when available ethnohistoric place referents or pre-Hispanic texts with names linked to political capitals (Dunning and Kowalski 1994 Grana-Behrens 2006 Marcus 1973 1976 Martin and Grube 2000 Rice and Rice 2004) Absent texts architectural and other material styles suggest political relations (Ashmore and Sabloff 2002 de Mommollin 1995) Some architectutal forms especially ball courts or other buildings associshyated with ritual are inferred as political boundalies (Finstcn et al

185 Ashmore

1996 Kowalewski et aJ 1991) And sometimes landscapes and settlement relations are materially inscribed with the kinds of routes and connections cited earlier--or with barriers The principal overt connectors are pedestrian causeways or road systems and the barriers are walls and fortifications A special section in Ancient Mesoamerica (Volume 12 2001) is devoted to Maya causeways and its articles illustrate the social implications drawn from roads of varied form and length (see also Folan et al 1995 Keller 2006 Suhler et al 1998) Fortifications mark landscapes in many parts of Mesoamerica some quite dramatically (Demarest et a 1997 Hirth 1995) All materially embed social history in the land

RITUAL EXPRESSION

In many parts of the world distinctions blur between the contingenshycies of history and regularities of ritual Their expressions in landshyscape archaeology likewise overlap drawing once again from diverse but especially humanistic perspectives Political succession can for example be cast as divinely ordained ritually inevitableshyeven when actual transitions are challenged in practice In this vein Rice (2004) argues that the succession of preeminent politico-ritual

across the Maya world was foreordained in the structure of time-space in cyclical transfers of authority and obligation every 260 years a period called the may akin to annual transfers in Yucatec Maya communities (M Coe 1965a) Both contingent and regular expressions are manifest in the landscape this section focuses on procession and pilgrimage and the relation of scheduling events in the landscape through astronomy and the calendar

TIle cyclical transfers of Yucatec community authority cited above are accomplished in processions of community members together with pertinent god figures the orderly direction of their collective movements stipulated by the orderly progress of the sun through space and time-from the east counterclockwise Completing the process reestablished authority and recentered the community in the world Among the Aztecs the annual calendar designated a series of ceremonies and specified sacrifices conduct of which required

movements and contact of people traveling through the land The ritual cycle ensured that there was a constant organic flow frum the center of the allepeme (city-state) through the calpultill (corporate groups) and out into the natural landscape A cursory view of just four of the yearly ceremonies reveals both a tendency to saturate space beyond the ceremonial center and a tendency to reconcentrate people goods and symbols within the axis mundi (Carrasco 1991 40)

Passage in this case was not a single circuit but a series of trips often strenuous undertakings to sacred locations Sometimes merchants routes paralleled those of pilgrimage Freidel (1981) suggested (see also Halperin 2007) that periodic fairs could mark simultaneously pilgrimage destinations public festivals and market gatherings Again the result was ritual integration and recentering of extended communities

In other cases ritual travel is more contingent and occasional if again often arduous as in visiting an oracle Mixtec Lady 9 Grass prominent oracle of late pre-Hispanic times imparted decisions shaping episodes of political history from her base at the funerary cave of Chalcatongo (Pohl 1999) Yet pilgrimages like other rituals were not confined to upper social classes as illustrated by Maya pilgrims who journeyed to the oracle of Ix Chel on

Cozumel (Miller 198296 see also Kubler 1985 Patel 2005 Rice 2007) At the cave of Naj Tunich in Guatemala abundant images and glyphic texts suggest reverential visits and when paired with the absence of nearby settlements point to acts of pilgrimage (Ashmore and Blackmore 2008 Bll1dy 1989 Stone 1995) Offerings at places like the hiII and springs of El Manat in Veracruz similarly imply repeated ritual visits at unknown intervals and perhaps as pilgrimage from as early as 1700-1600 Dc (Ortiz and Rodriguez 1999)

Whether cyclical or contingent the arduousness of travel as well as its distance can impart social value the person undertaking ritual journey stands to acquire exotic knowledge experience and someshytimes material items none of which are available to others (Helms 1988) The joumeys may lead to 111 altered state of consciousness as in shamanic trance or can be physical movements (Tate 1999) In either case the traveler returns as a changed person often newly endowed with authority Landscapes of ritual expression are integral to Mesoamerican lifeways

COSMOLOGIC MEANING

Mesoamerican landscapes are alive pervasively imbued with cosshymologic meaning or cosmovision (Broda 1991 Carrasco 1990) Earth sky and underworld are sacred animate realms and all Mesoamerican landscapes are thus inherently sacred landscapes Soil stone water animals plants and celestial bodies all are relshyevant to peoples understanding their observed surroundings-and through that understanding the cosmos That is the cosmos is mapped in the experiential world in which people live their lives and in which mountains water stars and caves are key landmark categories for organizing those lives Among the most elegant repshyresentations of such cosmovision are in my view the Aztec Templo Mayor (Broda et aL 1987) and cosmograms in both the Maya Madrid codex and the Fejervary-Mayer codex of central Mexico Both codex images diagram Mesoamerican space and time integratshying calendric cycles with world directions deities colors and trees (Aveni 2000) Markings along the perimeter allow counts combinshy

the 260-ritual count and the 365-day year a symbol of comshypletion par-excellence (Aveni 2000261) The whole dcscribes a four-sided figure cardinally oriented with its center point as pivot for the whole Together with the center the comers make a five-part figure or quincunx an arrangement whose material antishyquity extends back to at least 1000 DC (Mathews and Garber 2004 Taube 2000) When Mesoamerican peoples move across the landscape they move within space and time structured in this cosmic manner (Rice 2007)

Moreover astronomy shaped space and time in ancient Mesoamerica as it did and still does elsewhere (Aveni 2001) The late Linda Schele and her colleagues viewed the stars as mapping the story of creation its events portrayed in the changing configurshyations of individual stars planets and whole cOllsteIlations (Aveni 2002 Freidel et al 1993 Schele 2002) On the ground buildings and architectural assemblages were frequently set in orientation to celestial phenomena The principal orientation of Teotihuacan so-called Teotihuacan north is linked to position of the Pleiades Among other famous instances are the so-called HE-Groups of Preclassic and Classic period Maya sites solsticeequinox observashytories named after their IIrst recognized occurrence in Group E at Uaxactun (Aimers and Rice 2006)

Acknowledgment grows for material representations of these sacred landscapes and their components having appeared by or

186

before 1000 BCbull esp~ial1y in Olmec society and culture While manifestations of these ideas could be as small as an individual artishyfact they also encompassed understanding at extensive scales more commonly considered landscapes As Schele put it after spreading through Mesoamerica during the Middle Formative these [Olmec-Iinked] symbols deities and cosmology functioned in subshysequent Mesoamerican history like a fugal variation on a set of origshyinal themes (Schele 1995105) For many such a time frame is a minimum threshold with inference of these or related ideas deeper in time to pre-agricul tural periods (Flannery and Marcus 1976 LOpez Austin 200 I compare Kubler 1962 Normark 2008)

Ecology ritual and politics fit comfortably even inextricably in cosmically understood Mesoamerican landscapes (Flannery and Marcus 1976) Recent research on water ritual and management illustrates the integrdtion of scientific and humanistic approaches in landscape archaeology Flowing waters as well as standing bodies are well established as critical landscape component~

(Stark 1999) Pioneering attention to irrigation finds complement in recent studies of hydrology manipulation (Cyphers 1996 Dunning et al 1999 Lucero and Fash 2006) and of how settlement location arrangement and orientation assert control of water resources (Brady 1997 Ishihara 2oo8b Heyden 2000b Scarborough 1998) Subsistence resources are intrinsic parts of the sacred landscape Reverence to water sources is evident in offershyings at springs lagoons and cenotes beginning-as ciLed earliershyby at least the late second millennium BC at EI Manati (Ortiz and Rodriguez 1999)

The combination of ecology ritual politics and cosmic undershystanding seems attested as well in Late Classic period Copan landshyscapes Settlement studies founded in ecological and evolutionary perspective link extraordinarily dense Maya occupation with the best arable soils and locally abundant water and stone resources (Fash 1983 Webster et al 2000) the densest portion the urban core is relatively clearly delimited by construction distribution on the land Elsewhere I have suggested that the positioning of key Late Classic pedod civic construction was politically detershymined grounded by cosmologic directions the layout was based around cardinal axes and lent sacred authority to the rulers who commissioned constructions (Ashmore 1991) Maca (2006) disshyagrees (compare with Coe I 965a) not with the cosmologic undershypinnings but by his suggesting the priority of comers over axes and that periodic processions from one corner to the others ritually


reestablished and recentered the Copan commul1ity---contained neatly within the aforementioned urban core Fash and DavisshySalazar (2006) add another alternative again not necessarily incomshypatible with the others whereby end points to roughly cardinal axes situate Copan between rise- and set-points of the sun (at carved monuments) and between northern and southern landmarks whose physical and directional attrihutes accord with the cosmologic meanings of sky and watery underworld respectively The several interpretations cited are not mutually exclusive They do however illustrate the potentials for productive convergence of landscape approaches from complementary theoretical and data pershy

(Folan et a1 1995 Ishihara 2oo8b Keller 2006 Tourtellot et al 2002)

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Mesoamerican landscape archaeology has deep and varied history a rich heritage on which to build further Inquiry and inference draw from theoretical and evidence di versity that has long characterized Mesoamerican studies In this essay I have sought to show that within contexts called landscape archaeology the diverse approaches have converged increasingly as tests prods and compshylements to one another (Ashmore 2004a Ashmore and Sabloff 2003 Fash and Sharer 1991) Necessarily omitted from this selecshyti ve review are important kinds of landscapes such as household and community domains that support the foregoing assertion and add further to the mix (Blackmore 2008 Lucero 2008 Manzanilla and Barba 1990 Robin 2002)

In the last katun multiple new lines of inquiry have emerged in tandem with fruitful continuation of established research The next twenty years offer opportunities for refining evidence and interpretshyations in all lines mentioned Among anticipated expansions are two on which others have remarked similarly One is suhstantially increased COllaboration-among scholarly specialists and with indishygenous leaders-for addressing climate change and landsCllpe degradation with insights from both past and present (Culbert 2004 Fisher and Feinman 2005) The other is foregrounding input from indigenous communities particularly with respect to ancient ritual landscapes and political cartographies (Borgstede 2004 Byland and Pohl 1994 Jvic de Monterroso 20(4) It seems safe to expect that as these and other developments take place Ancient Mesoamerica will feature the results prominently

RESUMEN

Los paisajes figuran de manera central en las conceptualizaciones yescrituras de la Mesoamerica antigua Esta resena selectiva considera cuatro tipos de paisajes que estan interrelaciollados investigados arqueologicamente en Mesoamerica la ecologia y eluso de 1a tierra la historia social la expresion ritual y el significado cosmologico La literatura de cada tema es gmnde y desde SIl principio Ancient Mesoamerica ha eontribuido de manera signifishycativa El presente articulo se enfoea en como lIegamos a donde estamos en la arqueologla de paisaje mesoamericano los desarrollos contemporoneos importantes y las orientaciones pard [as d6cadas futuras

La teoriu ecologica y de evolucion cultural junto con posible financiashymiento favordble ha suscitado oportunidades para inspecciones de ptisaje y de asentallliento extensivo despues de 13 Segunda Guerra Mundia Desde ese emollces mucha investigacion se ha ellfocado en estrategias de subsistencia como han variado en distinlos medias nantrale y como han camhiado con el tiempo La arqueologia de paisaje en Jas tierrds bajas

mayas y las del Golfo por ejemplo ha tmnsfonnado los modelos de regimenes de cultivaci6n relativamente simples a unos que reconocen modos que SOil complejos mosaicos de intcnsificacion y diversidad proshyductiva Las fuenles y rutas deintercambio pard olros recursos mincllIlcs son tambien pertinentes a la arqueologfa de paisaje como lamhien son los calculos de costas de tmnsporte Dos temas de ecologia de paisaje ~

sequia y degradacion del medio ambicnte han surgido notablcmente en los ultimos anos posiblemente relacionados a las preocupaciones aterca los habitats l1lundiales de hoy en dla

Entre los lemas destacados en las historias de paisajcs esllin las epicas migratorias y cartografias politicllS que trdzan eventos y relaciones entre seres humanos y lugares y el desafio que se presenta a la arqueologfa de paisaje de situar referencias de texto e imagenes del suela Aunque algnnas de las migracioncs mas famosas de In Mesoamerica antigua resisten tereamente la ubicacion en el paisaje los capitales de estados e interacciones

187 Ashmore

dimlsticas estan identificadas cada vez nHIS con el monumento fisico A veces el puisuje y las reladoncs de asentamientos estun inscritos materialmente con las rutas corredores y conecciones - 0 banerds

En Mesoamerica como en muchas partes del mundo las distinciones entre las contingencias historicas y regularidades de rito se haccn borrosas Las pmcesiones anuale 0 ciclicas involucran comunmente una serie de viajes agotadores a lugares sagrados del cual resultamn la integmci6n ritual y ayudan a centrar nucvamenIC a la comunidad extendida En otros CIISOS el viaje ritual es mas contingente y ocasional aunque arduo como en una visita a un OIllCUIo La tierra el cicio y el inframunrlo son reinos sagrashydos y todos los paisajes mesoamericanos entonees son intrinsicamente

paisajes sagmdos El ambiente construido esta oricutado frecuentamcnte hacia el fenomeno celestial La ecologia el ritual y la politica encajan de maneld c6rnoda hasta de manera inextricable en los paisjes mesoamericashynos con el entendimiento cosmico Los prlximos 20 anos ofrecen uua nueva

oportunidad para retinar las evidencins e interpretaciones en los tipos de arqueologia de paisaje que hemos considerado aqul Las investigaciones futuras segummente enfati7~ran las colaboraciolles para incorporar evidenshycias del pasado para dirigir temas del paisaje contemporaneo COlllO el cambio climatico pOl ejemplo La investigacion de los paisajes historicos y la expresion de ritual serviran para alentar la participacion colaboradora de Ifdcres indigenas

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank Geoff McCafferty for inviting prcpamtion of this artide and during its writing lelena Radovic translated the Spanish Chelsea Blackmore Shankari Patel Pamela Geller JeITY Sabloff summary I dedicate this essay to B11Ice Bill Sanders and Gordon Bob Sharer and Tom Patterson for encouragement and helpful critique Willey

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1997 Introduction to the Archaeology of the Gulf Lowlands In Olmec to Aztec Settlement Patterns in the Ancient Gulf Lowlands edited by Barbara L Stark and Philip J Arnold III pp 3-32 University of Arizona Press Tucson

Stone Andrea J 1995 Images from the Underworld Naj Tunich and the Tradition of Maya Cave Painting University of

Texas Press Austin Stuart David 2000 The Arrival of Strangers Teotihuacan and Tollan in Classic Maya History In Mesoamericas

Classic Heritage From Teotihuacan to the Aztecs edited by David Carrasco Lindsay Jones and Scott Sessions pp 465-513 University Press of Colorado Boulder

Sugiyama Saburo and Leonardo Lopez Lujan 2007 Dedicatory BuriallOffering Complexes at the Moon Pyramid Teotihuacan A Preliminary Report of

1998-2004 Explorations 18(1)127-146 Suhler Charles Traci Ardren and David Johnstone 1998 The Chronology of Yaxuna Evidence from Excavation and Ceramics Ancient Mesoamerica 9 (1)

167-182 Tate Carolyn 1999 Patrons of Shamanic Power La Ventas Supernatural Entities in Light of Mixe Beliefs Ancient

Mesoamerica 10 (2)169-188 Taube Karl 2000 Lightning Celts and Corn Fetishes The Formative Olmec and the Development of Maize

Symbolism in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest In Omec Art and Archaeology in Mesoamerica edited by John E Clark and Mary E Pye pp 297-331 National Galley of Art Washington DC and Yale University Press New Haven

2002 La serpiente emplumada en Teotihuacan Arqueologia Mexicana 9(53)36-41 2005 The Symbolism of Jade in Classic Maya Religion Ancient Mesoamerica 16(1 )23-50 Tourtellot Gair Marc Wolf Scott Smith Kristen Gardella and Norman Hammond 2002 Exploring Heaven on Earth Testing the Cosmological Model at La Milpa Belize Antiquity 76 633-634 Voorhies Barbara 2004 Coastal Collectors in the Holocene The Chantuto People of Southwest Mexico University Press of

Florida Gainesville Wauchope Robert and Robert C West editors 1964 Natural Environment and Early Cultures Handbook of Middle American Indians vol 1 University of

Texas Press Austin Webster David AnnCorinne Freter and Nancy Gonlin 2001 Copan The Rise and Fall ofan Ancient Maya Kingdom Fort Worth Harcourt College Publishers Whitmore Thomas M and B L Turner II 1992 Landscapes of Cultivation in Mesoamerica on the Eve of the Conquest Annals of the Association of

American Geographers 82(3) 402-425 Willey Gordon R W R Bullard Jr John B Glass and James C Gifford 1965 Prehistoric Maya Settlement in the Belize Valley Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and

Ethnology Vol 54 Harvard University Cambridge MA Williams Eduardo 2002 Salt Production in the Coastal Area of Michoacan Mexico An Ethnoarchaeological Study Ancient

Mesoamerica 13 (2)237-253 Wright Lori 2005 In Search ofYax Nuun Ayiin I Revisiting the Tikal Projects Burial 10 Ancient Mesoamerica 16(1)89shy

100

184

Ongoing work sustained inquiry about subsistence strategies how they have varied across environments and how they have changed over time Landscape archaeologies in both the Maya and Gulf lowlands for example transformed models of relatively

cultivation regimes to ones recognizing intricately complex mosaics of intensification and crop diversity (Fedick 1996 Harrison and Turner 1978 Rust and Sharer 2008 Stark and Arnold 1997) Anthropogenic and other landscape alterations affect the productivity or even suitability of specific terrain for cropshyping (Joyce and Mueller 1997 Ortiz and Cyphers 1997)

Although maize remains the paramount crop Mesoamerican landscapes yield diverse other foods (Lentz et at 1997 McClung de Tapia and Aguilar Hernandez 2001 McKillop 1994 McNeil 2006 Millon 1955 Powis et al 2008) Water management too continues prominent study as to the many ways Mesoamerican peoples have sculpted the landscape to enhance and control supplies of this essential resource (Davis-Salazar 2006 Dunning et al 1999 Lucero and Fash 2006 Scarborough and Gallopin 1991 Searborough et at 1994) Although irrigation is not the only aspect considered its persistent study reaffirms interests asserted early on (Nichols et al 1991) Equally necessary for human survishyval salt is examined with respect to both production in and trade across landscapes (McKillop 2002 Williams 2002)

Sources and exchange routes for other mineral resources are also pertinent to landscape archaeology as are inferences about transport means and costs (Drennan 1994) The absence ofbea~ts of burden in Mesoamerica plausibly affected transport potentials alternately water routes could facilitate movement Metals and metallurgy link Mesoamerica coastal Panama and the Andean coast (Anawalt 1998 Hosler 2003) Even stone was often procured from significant distances its critical roles in Mesoamerican society-for building sculpture food processing land clearing weapons or ritual parashy

bested transport challenges (Stark 1999) Although chert basalt limestone and other stone types serve promishynently in domestic provisioning and civic contexts obsidian and jadeite imply elevated valuation based on specific symbolic meanshyings together with patchiness or rarity in their source occurrence Chemical sourcing of obsidian continues to shape inferred landshyscapes of exchange as exemplified in the special section on obsidian in Ancient Mesoamerica (Volume 4 1993) Jadeite has one known Mesoamerican source now firmly localized in the Middle Motagua Valley (Seitz et al 2001) This has been a critical resource from at least Olmec times serving as the material embodiment of maize human creation and by extension an emblem of ritually sanctified

(Taube 2005) Two landscape ecology topics-drought

have seen notable upsurge in recent years perhaps relating to concerns with world habitats today Climate change models especially infershyence and timing of drought~ are discussed prominently with regard to social change and especially potential relation to the Maya colshylapse From Messengers (1990) article in the first issue of Ancient Mesoamerica to two special sections in 2002 as well as a plethora of other joumal articles and books landscape records of climatic indishycators and models for their understanding stand out as topics of critical interest So too do issues of landscape overuse erosion or general mismanagement (Paine and Freter 1996 Pyburn 1996)

SOCIAL HISTORY

While shaping prospects for provisioning society landscapes also embody social identity and social memory (Alcock 2002 Basso


1996) landscapes are tablets for inscribing and remembering history Advances and debates here draw from conjunction of art history epigraphy and archaeology long available to the study of ancient Mesoamerica (Fash and Sharer 1991) History here can be taken literally as text-based or more broadly as implied in other material remains for societies or segments of societies without written records (Houston 1994 A Smith 2003) Among the topics highlighted in landscape histories are migration epics and political cartographies mapping events and relations among peoples and places and the challenge to landscape archaeology in situating text and image referents on the ground

Some of the most famous migrations of ancient Mesoamerica )bornly resist landscape placement the location of Aztlan is a

prominent case in point (Chagoya 200 I) Of course myth metashyphor and history intermingle in migration from there as from a specific localized emergence place such as the seven caves of Chicomoztoc There is a rich intellectual tradition in identifying Tollan with one or more particular places-Tula in Hidalgo Teotihuacan and other places-along with recognizing its profound significance as a conceptual place of reeds (Boone 2000 Lopez Austin and Lopez Lujan 2000 Rice 2007 Ringle 2004)

Pohl and Byland (1990 see also Byland and Pohl 1994 Smith 1973) conjoined epigraphy iconography oral history and ground survey in systematic extensive landscape archaeology of Mixtec

Polity capitals and dynastic interactions including marriage alliances ritual travel and military conquest are increasingly identshyified with physical landmarks In sculpted and roads marked with footprints or travelers are portrayed as connectshying the places and events reflecting a widespread and longstanding means of citing movement across the Mesoamerican landscape (Johnson 2005 Marcus 1983a Taube 2002) Conquest and more diplomatic actions of eleventh-century Mixtec Lord Eight Deer Jaguar Claw are now traced from his base in highland Tilantongo to his second capital at Tututepec on the Oaxaca Pacific coast (Joyce et al 2004)

Other histories well attested in text and material remains arc in the landscape per se For example the late

fourth-century entmda of Teotihuacan emissaries into the Maya area and their impact on Maya dynastic governance are occurrences securely even famously situated through text architecture offershyings and burials especially at Tikal and Copan (Buikstra et al 2004 Fash and Fash 2000 Martin and Grube 2000 Sharer et al 2005 Stuart 2000 compare Wright 2005 a) Also securely docushymented is reverent sacrifice of high-ranking Maya at the Moon Pyramid of Teotihuacan around AD 350 (Sugiyama and Lopez Lujan 2007) The routes of transit are less clear however less tied materially to physical places We need more information on the landscapes and roles of intennediary locations places distinct from the Basin of Mexico or from Maya polities as part of landshyscape corridors for political economic and social exchange (Cowgill 2003b Garcia-Des Lauriers 2007 Navarrete 1978 Smyth and Rogart 2004)

Political cartographies most often rely on settlement hierarchies in the landscape and when available ethnohistoric place referents or pre-Hispanic texts with names linked to political capitals (Dunning and Kowalski 1994 Grana-Behrens 2006 Marcus 1973 1976 Martin and Grube 2000 Rice and Rice 2004) Absent texts architectural and other material styles suggest political relations (Ashmore and Sabloff 2002 de Mommollin 1995) Some architectutal forms especially ball courts or other buildings associshyated with ritual are inferred as political boundalies (Finstcn et al

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Mesoamerican Landscape Archaeologies (2009)

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