OBJECTIVES

This paper has four objectives. First, I describe characteristics of a lineage model defined through a broad, cross-cultural reading of the ethnographic literature. This reading identifies specific traits and activities that many societies featuring lineages have in common and is based on a consideration of daily life and the accumulated behavioral detritus of several centuries. Second, I discuss how material correlates of these practices might appear in a Late Classic Maya archaeological context. I examine both day-to-day activities and actions associated with a more long-term perspective and draw on ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and archaeological examples of social practice. Third, I present a case study where these material correlates are sought in an archaeological context and evaluate the fit between the model and data. Fourth, I review some of the political and economic correlates and suggest potential consequences of lineage organization and suggest political and economic consequences of lineages on a Late Classic landscape.

This paper makes use of classic anthropological literature from the heyday of lineage theory, more recent work on lineage and kinship, and practice-oriented perspectives on group behavior. I hope that this discussion contributes to an increased awareness of what lineages do, as well as emphasizing what “lineage” can contribute to an understanding of the Classic Maya.

LINEAGES IN CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE

Lineages tend to form in certain environmental and demographic contexts. In imperial China, for example, lineages developed to protect resources in contexts of competition, uncertainty, and change. Areas only weakly controlled by the imperial government were settled by lineages (Rankin and Esherick 1990:317). African lineages were often located in areas characterized by a “poverty of habitat” and a consistent absence of centralized authority (Fortes 1953), particularly in areas of increasing population density (Shipton 1994:356). George Collier (1975:73–78) noted that lineages emerged under conditions of moderate land shortage, whereas conditions of land surplus or extreme shortage resulted in competition among nuclear families. An increasing scarcity of resources in conjunction with inconsistent political control, and perhaps increasingly dense populations, in addition to culturally specific factors may lead to lineage formation. But how exactly do we define lineages?

Archaeological Correlates of Late Classic Maya Lineages

Corporate property

Studies of modern and Classic Maya suggest a meaningful place is constructed with a center and periphery (Brady and Ashmore 1999; Hanks 1990:306–307). Centers of places include an artificial witz or a pyramid. Peripheries may be bounded by natural features, such as rock outcrops or rugged terrain (Fash 1983; Vogt 1969), or by artificial features such as fence posts, aggressive dogs, stakes, or small rock piles (Hanks 1990:324–325, 357; Leventhal 1981:197; Roys 1972; Tourtellot and Sabloff 1994). Corporate property, especially in densely settled areas, may be identifiable based on the presence of one or more of these markers. Some boundaries may exist only in the lived experience of living people, such as the boundaries walked during wayeb rites (Coe 1965) or Tzotzil k'in krus (sun cross) ceremonies (Vogt 1976:109–111), however, may not be archaeologically obvious. One or more of these boundary markers may have been in use at any time. A certain scale of boundary should be expected, surrounding several house groups.

Within these boundaries, certain feature classes can be expected. First, the heads of these lineages are likely to have lived in the most elaborate residential unit. This unit in particular would be expected to be the focus of ancestor-veneration rituals and the burials of the ancestors themselves within specialized mortuary architecture, such as a shrine. The shrine represents the group's ancestral claim on the resources located within the corporate boundary.

Agricultural fields, particularly those associated with intensive agricultural practices, should be located near residences within lineage lands (McAnany 1995). Features such as terraces, raised/drained fields, and water-storage features represent the subsistence and economic basis of the group. They also mark capital improvements to the landscape and are indicative of long-term ties to the land.

Lineage name/identity

The internal coherence and identity of the group may be expressed architecturally. Though modern Kekchi Maya are not organized in lineages, they are a different form of corporate group (Wilk 1990, 1991). Their “corporateness” may contribute to a better understanding of the lineage as a form of corporate group.

The houses of modern Kekchi Maya corporate groups are highly uniform in proportion and in construction. Group members will aid others in the construction of a house if the materials and proportions do not depart significantly from those used by the remainder of the group (Wilk 1990:38, 1991:189). Similarity of house-mound attributes within a lineage territory may be distinct and therefore serve as an indicator of group solidarity and identity. Accordingly, the variation in metric and qualitative aspects of domestic architecture within the corporate territory should be lower than the variation for domestic architecture outside the boundary (González 1998; Pugh 1996).

Exogamy

DNA analysis of a large, statistically significant mortuary population could help identify genetic relationships. Very few such populations exist for the Classic Maya, and the degree to which they may contain viable DNA is highly variable (Merriwether et al. 1997; Webster et al. 2000). In any case, social relations that made up a lineage may or may not have been linked biologically in that adoption or other means of negotiating members into the group also occur (Fortes 1953; Parkin 1997).

Internal rank

Intra-group inequality may be expressed in the residential units within lineage lands (e.g., Hendon 1991). Lower-ranked members should have smaller houses, including those represented by the hidden universe of non-mounded settlement (e.g., Pyburn 1989). Highly ranked lineage members should show privileged access to resources, including larger houses (Vogt 1983:98).

Households of lineage heads should be among the largest buildings in the corporate landholding and include an architecturally distinct burial shrine. Distribution of house size should be unimodal and positively skewed (Figure 1). In other words, a lineage territory would contain a large house (associated with the lineage head), with a few more houses of smaller, yet intermediate sizes, followed by even more structures of even smaller dimensions. Lineage would not be suggested if abrupt modes appeared within this distribution (Figure 2), which might argue for the prevalence of social classes (e.g., Haviland 1981, 1992; Kowalewski et al. 1992). The volume of all structures within a territory could be used to assess the rank of houses vis-à-vis one another in the context of single-phase settlement. Residences with higher construction volumes can be interpreted as reflecting higher labor investment and hence higher social rank for the occupants of that house (Vogt 1983:98).

Hypothesized distribution of structure size in a lineage territory.

Hypothesized distribution of structure size for a zone characterized by three social classes.

Ancestor veneration

Practices of ancestor veneration should be manifest in the form of a specific shrine, most likely located in the house or residential unit of the lineage head (Fortes 1976:7; Freedman 1958:85; Leventhal 1983; Tozzer 1941:130,131). The shrine represents the lineage claim on nearby corporate resources. Marshall Becker's (1971, 1999) Tikal Plaza Plan 2 (PP2), a group consisting of three or more structures with a shrine or small pyramid on the east side of the plaza, exemplifies a possible house of a lineage head. As the shrine is part of the material representation of the ancestors, and ancestors are typically celebrated in association with their symbol, artifacts associated with feasting and collective lineage ritual should be found in association with the residential group containing the shrine (Brown 2001:383–384).

The shrine is extremely significant. Ethnohistorically known Maya of Yucatan buried people of “high esteem” in shrines, while lower-ranked individuals were buried “inside or in the rear of their houses” (Tozzer 1941:130, 131). If this practice occurred consistently through the Late Classic period, as William Haviland (1997:3) and Susan Gillespie (2000b:473) suggest, ancestors would have been buried in a lineage's shrine (Goldstein 1981; Saxe 1970). The burials in this shrine may be distinctive compared with burials from beneath house floors or in other parts of the lineage territory.

Colonial Maya appear to have spent much of their wealth on ensuring that the saints and ancestors were well taken care of (Tozzer 1941:92), with the understanding that this was an investment in the future (Farriss 1984:328). Evidence of feasting, as a means of celebrating ancestors as well as of re-creating group identity and unity, would be present in midden deposits in the house of the lineage head. Feasting would be represented by higher proportions of vessel forms associated with preparing and serving large quantities of food (Brown 2001). Ethnographic Maya feasts to maintain the favor of the saints and ancestors involved the preparation and serving of food at the homes of higher-ranking group members (Nash 1970:213–214; Vogt 1969:674–678). Bowls and plates would be expected to occur with greater frequency at host homes than in ceramic assemblages associated with other residential groups (Table 1; Fox 1996:490–491; Hayden 2001:Table 2.1; Hendon 1991; LeCount 2001:Table 3). The courtyard of this house should be of appropriate size and accessibility to all members of the lineage.

Composition of ceramic assemblages recovered from areas associated with ancient feasting and areas believed not to have been loci of feasting

Thus, four of five lineage characteristics are archaeologically visible for the Late Classic Maya (Table 2). By testing for these characteristics, archaeologists should be able to identify the presence of Late Classic Maya lineages on the landscape. A case study seeks ancient material residues in a given locality that may suggest whether the lineage as defined here is a fit for a rural settlement context in what is now northwestern Belize.

Lineage characteristics and their Late Classic Lowland Maya correlates

TEST CASE: THE BARBA TERRITORY

The area to be examined is the Barba Territory, a .5 km² area (Figure 3) in northwestern Belize. This area lies atop an escarpment rising 100 m above the alluvial plain to the east. The nearest monumental center, Dos Hombres, is 2.5 km to the southeast, down the escarpment and across the Río Bravo. The Barba Territory is bounded on the north, east, south, and west by rough, steep terrain, creating gaps in the settlement between 200 and 400 m wide. No obvious gap was located to the southwest. No rock lines or rock piles were discovered in the course of the survey.

The Barba Territory, showing locations of courtyard groups.

The terrain is crested by limestone hills broken by steep drainage channels. Shallow soils (<30 cm deep) and steep slopes severely limit agricultural production, but the inhabitants of this area mitigated the steepness of a few hill slopes and drainage channels through the construction of terraces. In the absence of terracing, the slopes of the drainage surfaces in Figure 4 would have been between 7 and 9 degrees. After terracing, the slope in these drainage surfaces measures between 2 and 3 degrees (Beach et al. 1999; O'Neal 1999). The drainage to the south and east of the Barba Group contains four foot-slope and 18 cross-channel terraces. The construction and maintenance of terraces represents a large proportion of the corporate base of the group and a long-term commitment to this locality. Terraces also help regulate soil moisture, allowing for the production of an extra crop each year and an increase in the overall annual yield (Beach et al. 1999; Dunning and Beach 1994; Turner 1979).

The Barba Group and its associated terrace complex.

Group identity, reflected by a relatively high degree of homogeneity in domestic architecture, can be assessed statistically by examining metric measurements of house mounds within a lineage territory and comparing them with similar measurements of house mounds outside that territory. Test excavations indicate that at least 85% of rural settlement in this area is single-phase, Late Classic 2 construction.

Rather than measuring central tendency and comparing means, the issue here is a tight range of variation between populations, so a comparison of variance is more appropriate (Table 3). Levene's test determines whether the variance between two samples is due to chance (Conover 1999). In addition, the likelihood that the mounds come from the same population can be assessed. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) procedure tests the likelihood that the measurements came from the same population (Conover 1999:429–430). Since unexcavated mounds may not reflect underlying architecture, an alpha of .10 is used.

Descriptive statistics for mound width (in meters)

While the results for mound width are equivocal, the results for mound length are encouraging (Tables 3 and 4). Levene's test indicates that the difference in variance of mound width for the Barba sample and that of a sample collected outside (and adjacent to) the Barba territory is not significantly different (F = 1.763, p < .19), but the variance of mound length differs significantly (F = 7.425, p < .01). The K-S test yields similar results: width does not appear to have been drawn from the same population (maximum difference = .140, p < .483), but mound length does (maximum difference = .204, p < .10).

Descriptive statistics for mound length (in meters)

The dimension of length for house mounds is substantially less variable for the mounds in the Barba Territory than it is for other mounds outside the boundary. Levene's test indicates that this difference is most likely the result of deliberate action rather than chance. This is further emphasized by the result of the K-S test, which indicates that the measurements come from two distinct populations. The use of excavated mounds would be preferable, and results would be more conclusive, but the results of this analysis still suggest that meaningful social distinctions were expressed in domestic architecture.

A plot of house volume in this area (Figure 5) indicates that one house stands out as having the highest volume (398 m³). All tested houses in both the Barba and comparative samples indicated single phase, Late Classic 2 construction. Three intermediate-size houses (179, 147, and 113 m³) are present, but most are very small (<40 m³). The largest house also supports the only shrine in the area, and its layout is consistent with that of a Plaza Plan 2 residential unit (Figure 4; Becker 1971, 1999). I interpret this house, called the Barba Group, as being the house of the lineage head. Though it is the largest house in the area, the tallest mound (the shrine) is only about 2.2 m tall.

Frequency distribution of house volume, Barba Territory.

Two burials within the shrine indicate ancestor veneration. The first was highly deteriorated, and neither age nor sex could be estimated. A single, red-slipped bowl associated with the burial stylistically dates to about a.d. 650–700 (Fred Valdez, personal communication 1998). The second burial consisted of a prepared chamber that was dug out of the bedrock. The remains were those of a robust adult male, age 50 or older, buried in a flexed position (Frank and Julie Saul, personal communication 2002) and accompanied by five whole ceramic vessels. These include a Teotihuacan-style Japon Resist tripod cylinder, a polychrome ocellated turkey effigy, and a shell-shaped vessel with the head, shoulders, and arms of a man emerging from the rim (Figure 6). These vessels appear to date to the late facet of the Early Classic period (a.d. 450–550; Fred Valdez, personal communication 1998). The characteristics of this burial are consistent with what would be expected from that of a lineage founder (McCall 1995).

Vessels recovered from burial in Barba Group shrine. Vessel at upper right has a rim diameter of 17.5 cm, while vessel at lower left has a rim diameter of 8.5 cm. The cylinder at the upper left is 25.2 cm tall.

The pyramid is an important structure in Classic Maya politico-ritual expression, imparting “a notion of sacralization of place in that the construction of an artificial hill or wits converts a portion of the built environment into purely ritual space” (McAnany 1998:279). Pyramids also sanctify the political power of rulers through the construction of this sacred space (Schele and Freidel 1990:72–73). Although much smaller than a royal pyramid and located far from the monumental center of a major site, the Barba Group shrine is an expression of local politico-religious power and marks the both the sacred and not-so-sacred space of the group while contributing to the reproduction of intra-group inequality.

Quantities of ceramics and their distribution, particularly in association with the shrine, further suggest ancestor veneration. Middens from two houses in the Barba Territory yielded plates, bowls, and jars. Initial analysis of the numbers of vessels represented indicates that the number of food serving and preparation vessels in the Barba Group differs dramatically from those in another group (Table 5). More than twice as many serving and preparation vessels relative to storage vessels appeared at the group containing the shrine (Barba) as at groups lacking a shrine. This ratio correlates with ceramic counts at other Maya areas where feasting has been discovered (Fox 1996:490–491; LeCount 2001:Table 3). The periodic reunion of the social group in the house where the ancestors are buried underlines the importance of tradition in the continuous production and reproduction of group social structure.

Percentage composition of ceramic assemblages recovered from areas associated with ancient feasting and areas believed not to have been loci of feasting

The Barba Territory test case represents a close, though imperfect, fit with the model. Corporate territory seems to be topographically bounded on at least three sides. This territory may extend to the southwest, but other practices leaving ephemeral archaeological traces may also have occurred here. Alternatively, the territory may extend to the southwest—the nature of Maya boundaries makes the identification of an entire boundary a daunting task. The center of a created place is marked by the presence of a shrine. Evidence of intensive agriculture exists within the proposed territory. The proximity of the terrace complex to the house with the shrine (interpreted here as house of the lineage head) indicates that the practice of subsistence activities may have been a primary locus of face-to-face interaction among the population that lived here during the Late Classic period. Structures show a high degree of intra-territory similarity in their overall length compared with those outside. As part of day-to-day activity, individuals would have participated in the building and maintenance of the houses of fellow group members.

The Barba Territory also appears to have been occupied by an internally ranked social group. The association of the largest house with the shrine is no accident: this was the material expression of legitimacy, grounded in tradition, that helped perpetuate relations of inequality along multiple lines (including gender) within the group. Finally, the shrine was used as the interment location for certain individuals, and feasting appears to have been conducted in association with this building. The periodic conducting of collective ritual at the place where the ancestors were buried represented an important part of the reproduction of social structure. Given that the people expressing these emphases altered the landscape, I further suggest that once the shrine, terracing, and configuration of houses were established, they helped foster the continued reproduction of lineage relations over several years, if not multiple generations. The Barba Territory, which matches well with the criteria for a lineage, may be part of a larger conical clan, but this hypothesis requires additional fieldwork to test.

The presence of what appears to be a single lineage raises the question of whether other lineages may have emerged in northwestern Belize during the Late Classic period. Segmentary lineage theory implies the presence of several lineages where one exists, but lineages need not be organized along segmentary lines. Multiple social forms may form or co-exist in relation to one another in different places simultaneously (Sharer 1993). Given the similarities between the constructs used to model social organization, projecting the types of social groups that may have existed on the landscape is a daunting task.

For northwestern Belize, however, at least two and as many as seven lineages have been identified in this area to date (Hageman and Lohse 2003; Hageman and Rich 2001). If conditions of resource scarcity due to environmental degradation (Rice and Rice 1980), weak or inconsistent political centralization (Ball and Taschek 1991; Fox and Cook 1996), and increasing population density (Santley 1990) operated in the Late Classic and earlier periods, then lineages may have emerged or become more prominent in similar areas in other parts of the Maya Lowlands.

ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OF LINEAGE PRESENCE

The presence or absence of lineages in a specific area can potentially inform larger questions of resource availability, political centralization, and social instability. This is particularly true of rural zones, which are traditionally under-investigated relative to large site centers in the Maya area. By focusing on elites living in site centers, archaeologists may have sampled only the uppermost 2% of the Late Classic population (Adams and Smith 1981:338; Sanders 1992:147). This sample is not representative of Maya settlement as a whole due to qualitative differences between urban and rural economic and political practices (e.g., Giddens 1995). Rural areas are more likely to have supported lineages than zones located near monumental precincts, so the activities of lineages in other parts of the world may indicate parallel relations that may have existed in the Classic-period Maya Lowlands.

Ancestors and the corporate nature of the lineage form traditional axes along which products and labor of the lineage are distributed and organized. Lineages can often more effectively resist and overcome the effects of taxation and tribute than can individual households or other social groups, particularly if the lineage head is of high social rank. Such lineages inhibit the ability of centralized government to act locally (Freedman 1958; Gates 1996:107).

Given the association between the presence of lineages and resource scarcity and political instability, it is conceivable that lineages may have come into being in the wake of major wars between sites, particularly at the defeated site. Lineages would also effectively slow a return to centralized power, lengthening a recovery from defeat. Tikal, for example, experienced a “hiatus” between a.d. 562 and a.d. 695 after its defeat by Caracol (Houston 1987), possibly in allegiance with Calakmul (Martin and Grube 2000:39). If lineages crystallized near Tikal in the wake of this defeat, they may have also made it difficult for subsequent rulers to centralize power. Unfortunately, little is known from the epigraphic record dating to this period at Tikal (Martin and Grube 2000:40–43).

These scenarios do not necessarily suggest what actually occurred during the hiatus at Tikal. Instead, they indicate potential roles that lineages might have played on the larger political landscape if they emerged at those times. The study of lineages in rural settings may contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of Late Classic political and economic process, as lineages are land, power, tradition, and group solidarity in contexts of resource scarcity and political instability. Currently, epigraphic studies have answered many questions regarding the changing political fortunes of Maya sites. These studies are also creating new questions about political and economic processes, particularly in regard to tribute and the effects of losing a war. Future investigation of hinterland areas and a better understanding of the social organization of rural populations may answer these questions.

CONCLUSION

The importance of understanding rural social organization complements the large body of data available on site centers, particularly epigraphic data. Texts do not tell all; instead, they leave large gaps that can be filled through investigations focusing on the organization of rural Maya society. The Barba Territory represents a case of a rural social group showing practices in line with what would be expected from a lineage: a corporate territory including 32 agricultural terraces set off from nearby settlement; the mounds within the territory appearing to reflect the expression of a group identity; the houses within the territory indicating the creation and maintenance of rank within the territory; and ancestor veneration strongly indicated through the presence of a shrine, burials within this edifice, and the ceramic assemblage found in association with this distinctive building. By incorporating elements of practice theory with insights of classic structural functionalism, particularly in consideration of the requirements dictated by archaeological data, the concept of lineage can be useful in exploring and understanding the social organization of the Classic-period Maya. Lineages are likely to have formed in areas where resources were scarce and where centralized control was weak or absent. The lineage occupying the Barba Territory coalesced in a resource-poor area, on the edge of a steep escarpment and on the opposite side of the river from Dos Hombres, some 2.5 km distant. This rural zone is more likely to have supported people whose day-to-day activities are influenced by tradition (Giddens 1985, 1995) and revolved around agricultural land, the production and reproduction of the group and its identity, and the maintenance of institutionalized inequality within the group. The impact of tradition not only constrains or enables daily activity, but also transforms the landscape in the creation of a material axis about which the activities of the lineage revolve. As I have shown, the careful definition and putting into operation of an ethnographically based lineage model can be a positive contribution to the reconstruction of past societies where these conditions hold. Although the lineage was once largely discounted as a viable means of modeling social organization, this study adds to the growing body of work showing the continued usefulness of this model.

RESUMEN

Aunque los estudios antropológicos desde los años 1930s a los 1970s consideraban de gran importancia los aspectos de parentesco y linajes, estos fueron descreditados en los años 1980s. Estudios recientes, sin embargo, han indicado que el parentesco y el linaje, cuando son considerados como el producto de actividades sociales, pueden ser importante contribuciónes a los estudios de las sociedades vivientes y del pasado. Este trabajo explora el linaje como un modelo de organización social que se distingue por actividades específicas practicadas por los miembros de grupos sociales mayas del clásico tardío. Los linajes ocupan un territorio corporativo, manifiestan una identidad de grupo, crean y mantienen desigualdad social dentro del grupo y veneran a los ancestros realizando festejos periódicos. Este modelo se deriva de la literatura sobre linajes de distintas culturas, pero las prácticas asociadas con la organización del linaje son histórica y culturalmente específicas. Un rango de evidencias arqueológicas, basados en las prácticas endémicas de los mayas del clásico tardío, es puesto a prueba en un caso del noroeste de Belice. En este ejemplo las implicaciones del modelo se ajustan al caso de estudio: un territorio corporativo está indicado por un territorio de amortiguamiento rodeado por un número de terrazas agrícolas, la identidad de grupo es expresada en la arquitectura doméstica, el tamaño de las casas también indica una inigualdad institucionalizada dentro de los bordes del territorio y la veneración de los ancestros es sugerida por las cantidades de cerámica relacionada a la preparación y el servicio de comida consistente con la evidencia encontrada en aquellos lugares donde los mayas realizaron fiestas. Las implicaciones de un paisaje populado por linajes durante el período clásico implica que las investigaciones arqueológicas en áreas rurales son un complemento importante a los estudios más tradicionales en los centros nucleados.