More than 30 years ago, I wrote, “What happened in the late Middle Preclassic [from 700–400 BC], and why, is one of the most crucial research topics in Maya archaeology today: here lies the key to the genesis of Maya civilisation” (Man 21:402). I could scarcely have envisaged then how true this would prove nor how much excellent scholarship would underlie that proof.
Kat Brown and George Bey, working, respectively, in the Belize Valley and the Yucatan peninsula, have gathered an impressive conspectus of expertise spanning Maya fieldwork from the Valley of Guatemala to northern Yucatan, taking as their point of departure R. E. W. Adams's 1977 edited volume, The Origins of Maya Civilization.
There is a dramatic contrast between what we knew then and now. We had scattered early Holocene evidence—Los Tapiales in the highlands, modified extinct-species bones from the Petén, chert flakes and extinct species from Loltun Cave in Yucatan, and MacNeish's proposed Paleoindian-Archaic sequence in northern Belize. That sequence is now discarded, and Loltun Cave is here skeptically reanalyzed by Andrews and Robles. Yet we have the Late Pleistocene skeleton from the Hoyo Negro cenote and enough scattered Clovis-related spearpoints to suggest sparse human occupation across the entire Maya area for the past ten millennia, with a still hazy articulation into the first ceramic-using agricultural villages: however, the accumulating evidence points to continuity of occupation, not migration.
Horticulturalists appear in lowland pollen profiles after 3000 BC (earlier on the Pacific coast, where the first pottery occurs by 1600 BC). What is new is that the Yucatan, long considered laggard (although 6 of this book's 13 data-based chapters cover these previously undervalued northern lands), has ceramic horizons as early as 1000 BC. The Ek ceramic complex at Komchen and the related Ch'oh Ek at Kiuic have strong decorative links with the Bladen complex of 900–650 BC at Cuello (Pring, dissertation, The Preclassic Ceramics of Northern Belize, 1977; there is also the unremarked occurrence of Yotolin Pattern-burnished monopod bottles in both areas) and elsewhere in northern Belize.
The pan-Mesoamerican Early Formative symbol set, found in central Mexico and the Gulf Coast, reaches east through Petén to the Cunil style of the Belize Valley, but is absent from Yucatan and northern Belize: a cultural frontier cuts across the Maya lowlands from near Champoton to north of the Belize Valley early in the first millennium BC, perhaps close to the divide between the Cholan and Yucatecan languages. A possible source for the Swasey and related northward ceramic traditions lies in the Ulua valley of Honduras: I endorse Andrews and colleagues' suggestion “that the inspiration for the first pottery in the north came from a different region in Mesoamerica [than west of the Maya Area] but at the same early date” (p. 82).
Architectural complexity occurs much earlier than we thought: while the discoveries at Ceibal and Cival are not covered in this book, they are frequently cited. The Middle Formative Chiapas (MFC) layout of “a north-south plaza flanked by regularly spaced pyramidal platforms with the tallest platform to the north” (p. 58) is found at Ceibal and perhaps at Komchen. Within this pattern, E-groups (or “commemorative astronomical complexes”) are the first special-purpose constructions to appear first at Ceibal (1000 BC) and then at Cival, Tikal, and elsewhere before 600 BC. Ballcourts (known from ca. 1400 BC in Chiapas) appear in abundance in the Middle Preclassic across the Pacific slope, Petén, and northern Yucatan, often in small communities. Massive Middle Preclassic structures are now known from Xocnaceh, Poxila, and elsewhere in the north, attesting a society at least as politically and economically organized as in Petén.
Triads of temples on an elevated base appear by the end of the period, as do massive open platforms surmounted by a range of smaller structures. Acuña's study of El Achiotal in western Petén discusses the complex architecture, sculptures, and murals of Str. 5C-01 and argues for an early triadic grouping, for iconographic links with the Olmec tradition, and for a function as a “Bundle House” asserting the authority and lineage of the local rulers: this small site's importance within the regional interaction sphere was perhaps spurred by its strategic location on a portage between the Gulf and Caribbean drainages.
Three chapters deal with the Belize Valley and its environs: one on the Cunil complex noted earlier; one on Middle Preclassic shell ornament production at Pacbitun (showing the same working of freshwater species and imported marine materials in on-site ateliers as has been documented coevally elsewhere); and one on the emergence of public spaces at sites such as Cahal Pech, Blackman Eddy, and now also Xunantunich. None are on the scale of those in Yucatan or the Pasión, but the fine-grained sequence resulting from more than a half-century of research makes this an especially valuable region of study.
Three chapters focus on sites in northern Petén. In addition to Acuña's study of El Achiotal in western Petén, there is an update from Richard Hansen and colleagues on the Mirador-Calakmul Basin: they report numerous additional sacbeob and assess the energetics and econometrics behind the colossal building programs at El Mirador and other Preclassic metropoleis. The study of lime production and the calculation of quarrying, transport, and placement of masonry and fill labor yield mind-boggling but credible estimates: the Danta pyramid at El Mirador, for example would have taken between 3.3 and 5.4 million person-days. Their argument for state-level political and economic administration by 600–400 BC here has statistical cogency.
San Bartolo, with its famous Late Preclassic murals, is the subject of the chapter by Saturno and colleagues: tunneling revealed a small E-group with a miniature ballcourt attached to its eastern side dating to 300–200 BC. This complex was then buried beneath a substantial triadic group forming the first phase of the Pinturas pyramid; the mural building of ca. 100 BC was attached in a later phase. The social forces involved “monumentally reflect successive stages in the codification of institutionalized kingship and the naturalization of social hierarchies” and “a transformation in the type of ritual commemoration taking place, shifting from a fundamental emphasis on these natural forces to instead foreground the preeminence of local royalty” (pp. 333–334).
Only one chapter deals with the Maya highlands, but the El Naranjo site near Guatemala City is important, and Bárbara Arroyo has already published a major monograph on it. A central north–south plaza with four rows of monuments has aspects of both the MFC pattern and of Pacific Slope sites, and Arroyo argues for a Middle Preclassic pilgrimage center supplanted by nearby Kaminaljuyu. The editors’ concluding summary is preceded by a discursive contribution by Freidel on “Maya and the Idea of Empire,” discussing the emergence of divine kingship from ancestor veneration by kinship groups and the role of the “Kaanul Empire” centered on El Mirador. As I noted in 1980, “‘Preclassic Maya civilization’ is no longer a contradiction in terms: the outward and visible signs of Classic civilization emerge from an already complex society” (Antiquity 54:190).
