Of Watery Rocks and Slumbering Crocs: Reassessing Middle Preclassic Occupation at Altun Ha and Lamanai, Belize

ABSTRACT

Excavations in northeastern Belize have generated one of the more detailed regional databases of Middle Preclassic (1000–350 b.c.) settlement in the Maya Lowlands, providing the basis for developmental models of later Maya civilization. Modest Classic period architecture permitted extensive exposures of early occupations at several sites, but contemporaneous settlements at large, later centers remain poorly understood, despite the insights they may offer into emergent social complexity and political hierarchy. We review extant and unpublished data from Lamanai and Altun Ha, two large centers in northeastern Belize during Classic times, to compare aspects of Middle Preclassic settlement, architecture, and burial practices and to evaluate how this evidence relates to existing models of early Maya community development. Comparisons between these sites and among other Middle Preclassic settlements beyond northeastern Belize suggest a more nuanced approach to understanding developing social complexity in the Maya Lowlands, which acknowledges regional similarities and variability, is warranted.

KEYWORDS:

• Maya
• community
• architecture
• social complexity
• mortuary ritual

Acknowledgements

A version of this manuscript was originally presented as a paper at the Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting in 2015, and we thank Helen Haines for organizing the session that sparked this comparative reassessment. Excavations by David Pendergast at both Altun Ha and Lamanai were funded by the Social Sciences Research Council of Canada, the Royal Ontario Museum, and private donors, without which this analysis would not be possible. Elizabeth Graham directed later research at Lamanai and facilitated the excavations and analysis conducted by Terry Powis, and we thank Liz for her unending encouragement and support of this research. We would also like to thank Linda Howie and Norbert Stanchly for their collaboration in both excavations and materials analysis at Lamanai. Finally, we thank two anonymous reviewers for their comments on how to improve this paper and the editorial staff at JFA for helping shepherd it through to publication.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on Contributors

Sherman W. Horn III (Ph.D. 2015, Tulane University) is Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Grand Valley State University, Allendale, Michigan. His research interests include the origins and demise of ancient Maya civilization and integrating stratigraphic, spatial, and materials analyses in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software to unravel ancient socioeconomic networks and understand their impacts on developing social complexity.

Terry G. Powis (Ph.D. 2002, University of Texas at Austin) is an Associate Professor of anthropology in the Department of Geography and Anthropology at Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, Georgia. He is an archaeologist who conducts research in the Maya Lowlands of Belize, Central America, and the southeastern United States. He specializes in Maya pottery, diet and subsistence, and the evolution of complex societies. His recent research has focused on the origin of chocolate in the New World.

David Pendergast (Ph.D. 1961, University of California, Los Angeles) is an Honorary Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. He began research on the ancient Maya in Belize in 1961, and directed archaeological excavations at the major sites of Altun Ha (1964–1970) and Lamanai (1974–1986). He also carried out excavations in Cuba between 1994 and 2004, work that has been granted the Premio Ciencias Sociales (Social Sciences Prize) by the Cuban government, the first archaeological project to receive the honor. His academic and popular archaeological publications number more than 230, and his non-archaeological publications exceed 100.