Vanderbilt Institute of Mesoamerican Archaeology Series – serie

This volume presents the analyses and interpretation of a wide range of human osteological and burial data. The Petexbatun bioarchaeology subproject included a complete assessment of burial practices and human osteology in the Petexbatun sites and in the Pasion region at large. The chapters on paleopathology explore the human skeletal evidence for childhood nutrition and ill health throughout the various sites and the inter-site areas of the Petexbatun region, as well as from Seibal and Altar de Sacrificios. Wright's innovative study goes on to apply the most recent chemical techniques, particularly isotopic and elemental analyses of human bones, to assess the ancient diet of the populations of the Pasion region. Variability between sites, across social status groups, and over time is evaluated and conservatively interpreted in the light of contemporary issues and problems of bioarchaeological methodology and interpretation. Wright uses the new Petexbatun and Pasion region osteological results in order to re-examine past and current work on skeletal remains from other regions of the ancient Maya lowlands. In the final chapters of this work, Wright's osteological analyses inform a critique of the role that bioarchaeological data have played in the development of current ideas regarding the role of ecology, diet, nutrition, disease, invasion, and other factors in the demise of Classic Period Lowland Maya society. For bioarchaeologists, this work sets a new standard in the breadth and depth of osteological study, and its integration with problem-oriented archaeological research. For Pre-Columbian scholars in general, it provides new insights into the environmental and biological issues central to the debate on the end of the Classic period of Maya civilization.

This volume presents for the first time the detailed data and dramatic findings of Inomata's investigations of this Classic period second capital of the ancient Maya Petexbatun kingdom. As widely discussed in journals and the media, the autonomous Aguateca subproject of the Vanderbilt Petexbatun research recovered remarkable new evidence on the violent end of a Maya center. This monograph presents descriptions and interpretations of the excavations and surveys, site maps, and recovered ceramics and artifacts, as well as a wide range of applied analyses of this data. The sprawling defensive fortifications of this center, its already formidable natural location, and its final destruction and burning represent one of the most remarkable sets of evidence of the collapse of a Classic Maya kingdom. Inomata discusses the implications of his findings for theories of the end of Classic Maya civilization. This work also provides unique insights into the details of Classic Maya households, elite life, and social and economic roles. Such insights are possible because the epicenter of Aguateca was suddenly and rapidly abandoned and burned at the end of its occupation shortly after A.D. 800. Inomata applied the methods of meticulous horizontal excavation and point plotting of many artifacts to document this Pompeii-like situation, remarkable in its potential for understanding Maya life. The results of these investigations, reported both here and in an upcoming VIMA volume, have yielded a new understanding of variability in ancient Maya household size, structure function, and economic and social roles, challenging standing interpretations of Classic Maya population dynamics, domestic configurations, economic specialization, and social structure. Together with the extensive Aguateca site survey and excavations, the investigations presented in this volume provide a new, close view of the final years, and even the last moments, of a Classic Maya kingdom.

This overview and introduction to the multi-volume ""Petexbatun"" project series describes the objectives, structure, personnel, and major findings of the seven-year multidisciplinary investigation. The previous research, issues, and problem-orientation of the project are reviewed, and an unusually frank history of the 1989-1996 field investigations is presented. Final results of the dozen ""Petexbatun"" subprojects are previewed, including summaries of site-specific studies of centers and subordinate kingdoms and the regional disciplinary subprojects exploring osteology, ecology, faunal studies, ceramics, epigraphic history, settlement patterns, defensive systems, caves, and other aspects of Classic period civilization and culture change. Then, based on the project's findings, Demarest presents interpretive reconstructions of the linked historics of the Pasion River kingdoms and correlates these interpretations with the variable evidence and culture-histories of other regions of the Classic Maya lowlands. He points out that only through linking such accurate regional culture-histories can we begin to understand the eighth- through tenth-century changes in Classic Maya civilization. The volume describes how the ""Petexbatun"" project addressed this challenge in its research design, structure, and large, multicentered zone of study. Building on the previous 20 years of Harvard research in adjacent zones, the Vanderbilt projects succeeded in reconstructing events and processes throughout the Pasion River Valley, the largest single inland trade route of the ancient Maya world. In its conclusions, this first of the ""Petexbatun"" volumes of multidisciplinary studies, evidence, analyses, and interpretations, provides answers to some long-standing questions about the ""Classic Maya collapse,"" as well as a new, preliminary culture-history of the abandonment, decline, or transformation of the Classic Maya kingdoms of the western Peten. It is an exciting preview and summary of a decade of evidence on the debate over the fate of the Classic Maya civilization, one of the great controversies in the history of Pre-Columbian archaeology.