CONVENTIONAL WISDOM AND THE MIDDLE PRECLASSIC IN THE BELIZE VALLEY

While the temporal and historical priority of the Jenney Creek complex in the lower valley and of the Benque Viejo la or Kanluk complex in the western or upper valley are now well established, the true chronology, composition, and functional character of one unit—the “Cunil” complex or subcomplex (Figure 3)—until quite recently remained open to debate (Ball 1996; Cheetham and Awe 1996). In consequence, and given its ambiguity and controversiality, the authors chose to exclude treatment of “Cunil” from the present study. New discoveries at Blackman Eddy and fresh data from Cahal Pech now appear to resolve these issues and to document the composition and status of “Cunil” (see later; Garber, Hartman, and Brown 2002; Hartman et al. 2002). Given the nature of the new findings, we think it is important to emphasize that they in no significant way affect the position taken or arguments made in this paper in that we consider and discuss the Kanluk and Jenney Creek complexes as components of established, in-place systems rather than as intrusive, evolving, or otherwise dynamic entities.

Cunil assemblage vessels (all from the lowermost depositional levels beneath Structure 6 (Awe's B-4, Cahal Pech). Drawn from actual vessels.

A sufficient body of radiometric determinations on the early facets of Kanluk and Jenney Creek have accumulated from Cahal Pech, Pacbitún, Blackman Eddy, and other sites to document a consistent positioning of this material between about 900–850 b.c. and 700–650 b.c. (Garber, Hartman, and Brown 2002; Hartman et al. 2002; Healy 1990; Healy [editor] 1999; Healy and Awe 1995b; Hohmann and Powis 1996; all dates in this article represent approximate actual calendar ages based on variously calibrated radiometric determinations, none of which differs significantly from the others for the time frame concerned.) Persistence as a late facet after 700–650 b.c. also is well documented, but determination of how long this second aspect continued before grading into or being replaced by a terminal Middle Preclassic–initial Late Preclassic complex—designated “Umbral” in the upper valley—is complicated both by depositional mixing of the component elements as subfloor and structural fill during the Late Preclassic and by the exceptional levels of de Vries effect atmospheric noise affecting global carbon levels and so both radiometric determinations and their calibration for the period between about 800 and 400 b.c. (Damon and Jirikowic 1992; Renfrew and Bahn 1996:134–135; Taylor 1997:76–78, Table 3.1; Tolstoy 1989:281–282, Figure 12.1).

The temporal span of the Umbral complex also remains to be determined exactly, but combining typological cross-dating and bracketing radiocarbon dates suggests an interval between about 550 and 200 b.c. The stratigraphically younger Xakal and late Barton Creek complexes are of what might be called “stereotypical” Chicanel sphere composition and can be dated securely to after 300 b.c.

The typological and modal compositions of the several early complexes have been presented on a number of previous occasions. Jenney Creek and early Barton Creek have been described by Gifford (1965, 1970; Sharer and Gifford 1970), Robert Sharer (1976), and Joseph Ball (1976). Both Thompson (1942) and Ball (1996; Tables 1 and 2) have discussed the Kanluk or Benque Viejo 1a complex, and this study's senior author treated Umbral in an earlier paper (Ball 1996).

Typological (type–variety) constitution of the Kanluk ceramic complex

Middle to early Late Preclassic Belize Valley ceramic units, assemblages, and ethnocultural assignments

Awe (1992), David Cheetham (Cheetham and Awe 1996, 2001), and Duane Strelow (Strelow and LeCount 2001) have provided preliminary descriptions of the material comprising “Cunil,” and discoveries at Blackman Eddy in 2001 and 2002 (Garber et al. 2002; Hartman et al. 2002), together with new (2002) data from Cahal Pech, promise finally to resolve the long debate concerning the actual composition of the “Cunil assemblage” as they have already resolved its functional status as a true, full complex, and its exact chronological position antecedent to Kanluk and Jenney Creek (James Garber, personal communication 2002).

In 2001 and 2002, the Southwest Texas State University Belize Valley Archaeology Project, directed by Garber and M. Kathryn Brown, located and excavated an extensive, stratigraphically isolated occupational deposit of seemingly pure “Cunil” material directly overlying bedrock and sealed beneath a lengthy sequence of architectural constructions extending from early in the Jenney Creek ceramic phase up through the entire Middle, Late, and Terminal Preclassic spans into the full Classic era (James Garber, personal communications 2001–2002; Garber, Brown, and Hartman 2002; Hartman et al. 2002). Although structural levels above it contained what were by then archaeologically familiar admixtures of “Cunil” and Jenney Creek ceramics, such definitive Jenney Creek/Kanluk hallmarks as orange Savana group types and true Jocote Orange-brown initially appeared to be absent from the constructionally sealed basal deposit. The deposit was well preserved and rich in carbon, faunal remains, and artifactual materials, including “retouched flakes, scrapers, drills, burins, chert macroblades, hammerstones, quartzite and granite manos, tecomate stone bowls, polished greenstone, marine and freshwater shell disk beads, bone needles, bone rings, stingray spines, stone pendants, ceramic ocarinas, and molded ceramic figurines” (Garber, Hartman, and Brown 2002:54), as well as pottery. It represented, in short, a complete cultural assemblage of pre–Jenney Creek vintage. Garber named the associated ceramic complex “Kanocha.”

Especially critical is the rigorously monitored and recorded stratigraphic integrity and situation of this deposit of which the Southwest Texas State team excavated well over 120 horizontal square meters. The soundness and reliability of these should address virtually all of the concerns confounding previous reported finds of “Cunil” materials at Cahal Pech (Awe et al. 1990; Cheetham 1995, 1996, 1998; Cheetham and Awe 1996, 2001) and Xunantunich (Strelow and LeCount 2001). Continuing field and lab studies and reports that are now in preparation on the content and radiometric chronometry of the Blackman Eddy deposit ultimately will constitute contributions of immense and seminal importance to the archaeology and culture history of the Belize Valley and our understandings of these.

It is important to emphasize that until the 2001–2002 Blackman Eddy discoveries, no genuinely acceptable unambiguous data existed as to the actual composition, functional status, or exact relative temporal position of “Cunil.” The senior author (Ball) ultimately reached this conclusion only after carefully re-examining and reconsidering all of the formally presented (Awe 1992; Awe and Campbell 1991; Awe and Healy 1994; Awe et al. 1990; Cheetham 1995, 1996, 1998, 2001; Cheetham and Awe 1996, 2001; Healy and Awe 1995b; Strelow and LeCount 2001) and anecdotal evidence (Jaime Awe, David Cheetham, and John Hodgson, personal communications 1991–1992, 1995–1997, 2000) available regarding the composition, depositional distribution, and interpreted stratigraphy of the “Cunil assemblage” as of July 2001, and following extensive discussions with Awe (personal communication 2000) and John Hodgson (personal communication 2000)—one of the two on-site excavators actually responsible for exposing and recovering the “Cunil” deposit at Cahal Pech in 1991–1992. Important new data from Xunantunich (Strelow and LeCount 2001) served to support the existence of a discrete “Cunil assemblage” but still failed to resolve issues of its functional character or true age.

Lying directly over bedrock deep beneath Structure A6 (El Castillo), arguably the most sacred spot on the ridge supporting the site, the Xunantunich “Cunil” depositional layer was itself overlain and sealed sequentially by one virtually sterile soil horizon, another of “Barton Creek” (early Xakal)–equivalent age, and a series of strata representing a combination of natural, habitational, and monumental construction agencies of Early Classic and later date. No Savana Orange or other definitive “Jenney Creek” (Middle Preclassic) ceramic markers were present in the strata overlying the “Cunil” deposit; nor was there any evidence to support a complex-level as opposed to subcomplex status or a chronological position other than “pre–Barton Creek” (i.e., pre–Xakal/pre–400 b.c.). Thus, the sub-A6 Xunantunich deposit decidedly verified and improved our knowledge of “Cunil assemblage” composition, but it in no way and to no extent advanced our understanding of its functional status or actual age.

In sum, the senior author had been able to find no inarguably solid or validly convincing basis for identifying “Cunil” as anything other than a probable special-purpose ceramic subcomplex of generic Middle Preclassic horizon vintage. In this respect, it also merits note that until the discoveries of 2001–2002 at Blackman Eddy, some of the most pertinent independent light available concerning the nature and relationships of “Cunil” came not from the Belize Valley but from Tikal, Guatemala (Laporte and Fialko 1993a, 1993b; Laporte and Valdés 1993). The extensive investigations carried out in the “Mundo Perdido” complex between 1979 and 1984 encountered what the researchers Juan Pedro Laporte and Vilma Fialko classified as early-facet Eb pottery (Laporte and Fialko 1993a), and in 2000 the Cahal Pech archaeologist David Cheetham identified as true “Cunil” ceramics among the contents of two small chultunes dug into the limestone bedrock underlying the group (John Clark and Donald Forsyth, personal communication 2000). Each of the two early-facet Eb deposits (Deposits PNT-006 and PNT-012), as well as a third late-facet Eb deposit (PNT-013), was recovered from a cavity dug into the limestone bedrock and sealed by multiple unbroken plaster floorings of late Eb or Tzec and later construction date. (It should be recalled that the two Eb deposits recovered years earlier by the University of Pennsylvania's Tikal Project also were recovered from depositional contexts consisting of artificial cavities, or chultunes, dug into the limestone bedrock underlying the site.) For a combination of context-based and content-related reasons, investigating archaeologists Laporte and Fialko (1993a:53) characterized these as “problematic” or “special” deposits and suggested that they very likely represented special-purpose subcomplexes rather than full assemblages.

Of considerable interest with respect to the status of the Cahal Pech “Cunil” material is the typological composition of the three deposits as determined by Laporte and Fialko (1993b:53–69). Excepting some minor relative frequency increase–decrease trends, the three deposits are generally comparable to one another in content and content frequencies and so were combined by the analysts for economy of presentation. Recent reanalysis of the chultun collections by Bernard Hermes (1999:11) emphasized the distinctiveness of the ceramics from Tzec–Mamom types but did not otherwise meaningfully alter the earlier findings or conclusions of Laporte and Fialko (1993a, 1993b). The most significant points suggested by the collections are these: (a) stratigraphically and chronologically, Eb clearly is antecedent to the Tzec Mamom assemblage; (b) what are recognizably diagnostic Cahal Pech “Cunil” types and modes are associated depositionally at Tikal with ceramics comprising the latter site's Eb or early Eb complex; (c) based on what in the senior author's judgment remain controversial and arguable contextual and compositional information, and in accord with the original investigators (Laporte and Fialko 1993a, 1993b), early-facet Eb (or “Eb,” following Hermes 1999) also appeared as likely to have been a functionally specialized subcomplex as it does a functionally complete full complex.

Following the established protocols of type-variety systematics, we believe it best to maintain the term “Cunil” for the upper-valley manifestation of this assemblage based on its established priority in the literature (Awe 1992; Awe et al. 1990; Cheetham and Awe 1996). However, we advise interested researchers and scholars that any valid or reliable definition of the assemblage and its content must be based on the more recent recognition and documentation of the lower valley “Kanocha complex” (ca. 1200–850 b.c.; Garber, personal communication 2001; est. Garber, Hartman, and Brown 2002) at the lower Belize Valley site of Blackman Eddy. This reflects persistent serious and continuing inconsistencies, discrepancies, and internal self-contradictions in all descriptions of the Cahal Pech “Cunil” material offered to date (Awe 1992; Cheetham and Awe 1996, 2001; Cheetham 1998, 2001).

The cited treatments of Kanocha, Cunil, Kanluk, Umbral, and Benque Viejo 1a all have been preliminary in nature, and a thorough, monograph-length study of the Middle Preclassic (Kanluk) through Protoclassic (Madrugada) archaeological pottery from Buenavista and Cahal Pech is only now in preparation by the authors. What we are concerned with calling to attention here is that all of the past treatments have involved synthetic associations of the earliest materials based on unstated assumptions of common origin or manufacture and circulation derived from depositional consociations that do not necessarily support the inferred relationships. In all of these studies, there has been an implicit assumption that depositional associations reflected not only depositional contemporaneity and so contemporaneous availability and use, but also functional integrity at the manufacturing and distribution levels as well. However, neither the Jenney Creek nor the Kanluk archaeological ceramic complex as defined represents a genuinely monolithic ceramic assemblage if such is conceived as the depositional product of a single, closed system of manufacture, distribution, use, and discard. Each is an artificial composite reflecting the full range of ceramic wares, vessels, and oddities actually in use in the Belize Valley between about 950 and 500 b.c. Ascription of either to a single producer community, economy, or even ethnic group or culture is neither justified nor correct. This is equally true for later periods, but the complexity, sophistication, and individuality of Classic- and Postclassic-era Mesoamerican pottery has made the recognition of intersite and interregional tradewares, gifts, and other exotica analytically simpler. This is not yet so for Preclassic-horizon ceramics, and a tacit assumption that depositional association reflects common producer output remains the rule concerning the ceramics of the era for a majority of Maya archaeologists. Perhaps nowhere has this assumption had so detrimental an effect on data interpretation as in the Belize Valley—a region that is ethnographically, historically, and archaeologically known to be associated with ethnically Maya societies. There, what is in fact a minority component of readily recognized Maya ceramics occurs within a matrix of not so easily identified local, generic Middle Preclassic-horizon pottery.

The easy identifiability of regularly present—although never abundant—examples of classic waxy red Joventud-group sherds and vessels, supported by the less common occurrence of polished black Chunhinta-group pottery and rarer yet appearances of cream-colored Pital monochromes and red-and-white Muxanal dichromes, pointed to a cultural affinity and so ethnic identity of the early Belize Valley Jenney Creek and Kanluk ceramics with the Maya (Tables 1 and 2; Figures 4, 5, and 6e). Not discounting the possibility that the area's aceramic Archaic dwellers might have included the Mayan-speaking ancestors of the later, “archaeologically visible” ethnic Maya (for discussion, see Iceland 1997, 2001), these early settlers potentially would have included some of the earliest Maya to enter the southern lowlands during the Preclassic period. The presumption of Maya cultural and ethnic identity was buttressed further by the presence among the local burnished orange and red-slipped orange paste-wares of an almost stereotypic Middle Preclassic vessel-form repertoire that many Mayanists seem to have forgotten is characteristic of the broader eastern Mesoamerican Middle Preclassic horizon, not exclusively of the Lowland Maya Mamom sphere alone (Figures 7, 8, 9, and 10; Drennan 1976; Lowe 1977, 1978, 1989; Lowe and Mason 1965).

Mamom ceramic sphere pottery from Cahal Pech and Buenavista del Cayo, red Joventud group, mixed types and forms (true SBM wares).

Mamom ceramic sphere pottery from Cahal Pech and Buenavista del Cayo, black Chunhinta group, mixed types and forms (true SBM wares).

Swasey–Bladen and Mamom ceramic sphere pottery from Cahal Pech and Buenavista del Cayo: (a) Pettville Red-and-Cream (Consejo group); (b) Fireburn Red-and-Cream (Consejo group); (c) Tower Hill Red-on-Cream (Quamina group); (d) Quamina Cream; (e) cream Pital group, mixed types and forms (true SBM wares).

Mars Orange Paste-Ware pottery from Cahal Pech, Guerra de Buenavista, and Las Ruinas de Arenal, orange Savana group, mixed types and forms (KXM wares).

Mars Orange Paste-Ware pottery from Cahal Pech, Guerra de Buenavista, and Las Ruinas de Arenal, mixed types and forms: (a) orange Savana group; (b) black Quemado group (KXM wares).

Mars Orange Paste-Ware pottery from Cahal Pech, Guerra de Buenavista, and Las Ruinas de Arenal, orange-red Rejolla group, mixed types and forms (KXM wares).

Mars Orange Paste-Ware pottery from Cahal Pech, Guerra de Buenavista, and Las Ruinas de Arenal, orange-red Rejolla group, mixed types and forms (KXM wares).

Our position on this is not very different from that recently espoused by Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus (2000) with respect to the widespread conflation of many generic Mesoamerican Early to Middle Formative modes and motifs with “Olmec” or “Gulf Coast” culture or civilization. Paralleling them, we suggest that those investigators and students who make what is literally a knee-jerk assumption of “Maya” ethnolinguistic identity for the early Belize Valley materials solely because “it's a Maya area” should familiarize themselves with the extensive literature on the Mesoamerican Formative horizon from outside this single zone. This may seem an unduly strong admonition, but over the past four years the authors have on several occasions had others seriously proffer the latter opinion as well as contend that “[The ceramics] look Maya,” “They've ‘always’ been called Maya,” and “Everybody knows they're Maya” as acceptable “arguments” for the status quo. Quite simply, these are not valid arguments in any way or to any degree.

Although the Kanluk and Jenney Creek ceramic complexes as defined are based on stratigraphic depositional associations, they do not represent one-to-one equivalents of local Middle Preclassic production–consumption assemblages but depositional composites made up of locally manufactured and used pottery plus additions resulting from local exchange, long-distance trade, possible gift-giving, the curation of heirlooms or antique vessels, and other processes. The evidence for some of these processes is easily recognized; that for others is not. However, what should be understood is that the compositional character of a Middle Preclassic complex such as Jenney Creek or Kanluk really is no different from that of a central lowlands Terminal Classic complex that includes fine orange, plumbate, or thin-slate ceramics or a northern lowlands Late Classic complex with inclusions of Palmar or Petkanche group polychromes or fine-paste wares from outside the immediate region of archaeological recovery (Ball 1977a, 1993; Ball and Andrews 1975).

Admittedly, identifying assemblage exotics in a Middle or Late Preclassic complex may be more challenging than recognizing them in stylistically more distinctive later situations; however, it still can be done (Neff et al. 1999). That it has not been attempted more generally is largely a result of not trying, not believing it possible, or of not crediting the likelihood on the Preclassic horizon of long-distance movement for the heavy, awkward, and very breakable commodity that pottery represents (Rathje et al. 1978).

A corollary—often implicit—to the assumption of assemblage integrality has been that a straight-line developmental relationship amounting to virtually a genetic connection existed between the Preclassic Belize Valley complexes and later ceramic industries, thereby tying the early pottery to the ethnic Maya of later times and so confirming the identity of its producer–users as the “earliest Maya” occupants of the greater Belize Valley region, if not the eastern lowlands as a whole. From Thompson through myriad present-day investigators, the assumption has been that the Benque Viejo 1a and Jenney Creek complexes associated with these settlers represented the pottery assemblages produced by the earliest continuous inhabitants of the Belize Valley. Gifford (1970, 1974:77–98, esp. 77–80; Willey and Gifford 1961) stands out as an almost sole exception to this. Gifford saw each successive ceramic complex—Jenney Creek–Xe, Mamom, Chicanel, Floral Park, and their successors—as evidence of a new and distinct population intrusion into the region, each of these, however, of Maya ethnicity although at first possibly influenced heavily by “Olmec” ideology and culture. Together with Sharer, Gifford (1970; Sharer and Gifford 1970) proposed a probable highland Central American origin for the Jenney Creek–Xe people and their pottery. Perhaps erring in the extremeness of his views regarding periodic mass-population movements, Gifford's recognition of the close ties linking the Jocote group of the Belize Valley and unslipped wares from the Pasión drainage (Altar de Sacrificios Xe and Seibal Real complexes) and the southeastern Maya Highlands (Chalchuapa Colos and Kal complexes) nevertheless remains sound. The relationships are clear, strong, and significant, and group/type-level identities at the very least are plainly involved. The Puleston (Puleston and Puleston 1971) riverine ingress model of the early 1970s to a large extent was based archaeologically on the analyses by Gifford and Sharer.

The present authors, however, as much as anyone else originally accepted a “genetic descent model” of occupational continuity and straight-line historical development for the valley and have used it as a basis for data interpretation since the early 1970s (Ball 1976). Indeed, ceramic evidence links the Belize Valley settlers with neighbors to the north of demonstrable Maya cultural affiliation from early in the first millennium b.c.

Unequivocal examples of Bladen horizon wares including Pettville Red-and-Cream, Fireburn Red-and-Cream, and an unspecified Consejo Red variety closely related to the northern Belize Estrella Variety (all Río Nuevo Glossy Ware; Kosakowsky 1987:23–34)—dated in their zone of origin to between 900 and 650 b.c. (Kosakowsky and Pring 1998)—have been recovered from multiple Belize Valley contexts at Cahal Pech, Buenavista, and Las Ruinas de Arenal (Tables 1 and 2; Figure 6a–d).

Pettville Red-and-Cream and Fireburn Red-and-Cream consistently have been misidentified and reported by Belize Valley archaeologists as “Tower Hill Red-on-Cream,” a type that in fact is quite distinct from them. Both occur only in the same, single vat-like jar form, and it seems highly likely that what was coming into the valley from the north was not pottery per se but some substance or commodity held by and transported in these vessels. True Tower Hill Red-on-cream is present but extremely rare and has been over-reported due to these misidentifications. Its chronological position also is somewhat less clear than that of the other Consejo group types and most likely is of late Kanluk 2 or even Umbral placement. As noted, most of the sherds that to date (2001) have been “identified” as “Tower Hill Red-on-Cream” actually belong to the Pettville or Fireburn types. It is also highly likely that most if not all sherds identified as “Consejo Red” actually are body fragments from red-slipped areas of these same dichrome vessels.

All of the foregoing—as well as slightly later Paso Caballo–Flores Polished Ware Joventud, Chunhinta, Pital, and Muxanal group ceramics—represent Middle Preclassic exotics, however, not locally manufactured components of the Kanluk or Jenney Creek assemblages. The latter consisted initially of pottery belonging to the Jocote (Tumbac Unslipped Ware, undesignated paste-ware), Savana and Quemado (Mars Orange Ware, Mars Orange Paste-Ware), and Rejolla (Ares Orange Ware, Mars Orange Paste-Ware) ceramic groups, progressively complemented and then replaced by local (Yesoso Orange Paste-Ware, ware undesignated) representatives of the Joventud and Sierra groups (Tables 1 and 2).

What we wish to emphasize, however, is that those ware sets of groups and types that can with real certainty be attributed to the long-lived Lowland Maya ceramic tradition occur only as traces or minority elements in the Belize Valley complexes of the Middle Preclassic period, and that once the inarguably “Maya” types are removed from the Kanluk and Jenney Creek configurations, the otherwise stereotypical “generic Middle Preclassic,” as opposed to Middle Preclassic “Maya” character of the remainder, becomes readily apparent despite some regional provincialisms (Tables 2 and 3).

Mopan–Macal Triangle Middle–early Late Preclassic ceramic collectionsa

The literature on the ceramics and stylistic modes of this period from throughout both eastern and western Mesoamerica is enormous, and we will not pretend to survey it even summarily here. Instead, we refer readers to the exhaustive work by E. Wyllys Andrews V (1990), Ann Cyphers Guillén (1992), Robert D. Drennan (1976), Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus (1994, 2000), David C. Grove (1989, 1997), Thomas A. Lee, Jr. (1989), Gareth W. Lowe (1977, 1978, 1989; Lowe and Mason 1965), Robert J. Sharer (1978, 1989), among others, on which we have relied to determine the most plausible cultural affiliations and ethnic associations of the early Middle Preclassic Belize Valley pottery as argued in the following sections of this essay.

THE MIDDLE PRECLASSIC IN THE BELIZE VALLEY: WHAT'S REALLY THERE

Our analysis of the Belize Valley Preclassic ceramics has not been unusually sophisticated in any way. It began with a traditional type-variety classification of the selected collections (Tables 1 and 2). Given common practice in the Belize Valley during the late 1980s and 1990s, we must emphasize that this did not involve an attempt to match or fit sherds into previously established typologies from either the valley or elsewhere. Potential varieties, types, and groups were isolated through sorting, descriptively defined, and then compared to existing typologies to determine possible affiliations or connections. Complexes were established on the grounds of consistent depositional associations, not typological or modal parallels. The deposition-founded complexes then were redivided on the basis of a macroscopic examination of paste variants and slip qualities believed to reflect consistent manufacturing techniques. These were treated as independent variables from those of vessel form, dimensions, surface color, and decorative modes of all kinds. Neither absolute nor relative frequencies were taken into consideration at this point, although their potential importance was recognized.

Our result for the Middle Preclassic collections examined was the identification of seven distinct ceramic ware-sets within the Kanluk and Jenney Creek complexes. Of these, five comprised slipped wares and two consisted of unslipped pottery (Table 3). The absolute and relative frequencies for these ware-sets next were calculated, with the results displayed in Table 3. These figures represent composite statistics based on two separate column samples drawn from two separate, depositionally contemporary, construction-sealed primary refuse deposits incorporated as core within and beneath the architectural body of Structure B-4 at Cahal Pech. The two deposits were found and excavated by members of the Trent University team between 1990 and 1992, over which time their stratigraphic situations and integrity were examined in the field and verified and their depositional character and most likely systemic derivation was determined independently by this paper's senior author. The depositional date of the materials was assessed to be very late to terminal Kanluk 2, and their probable origination age was evaluated as middle to late Kanluk 2. Together, the two samples included nearly 20 kilos of large pottery sherds with angular edges and little indication of surface exposure or erosion. The frequencies presented are the composite totals and deposit percentage ranges. Sorting criteria were selected and applied in such a manner that potentially ambiguous sherds consistently were included within the more common of two possible alternative ware classes resulting in the “greater than or equal to (≥)” and “less than or equal to (≤)” rather than absolute equivalency (=) values.

We have a strong impression that there was a progressive increase in sets a (waxy wares) and c (mimics) over time, but this must be regarded as anecdotal for the present. Interestingly, although there is also a very slight increase in the frequency of unslipped set e (the striated Sapote group), there is little evident impact on the relative abundance of unslipped set d (the Jocote ceramic group) which continued through the Late Preclassic with little change and on to the “ceramic Protoclassic” horizon as the Chan Pond group (Tumbac Unslipped Ware). Jocote Orange-brown itself also persisted as a special-purpose cache ware until at least the start of the local Early Classic Ahcabnal and Hermitage phases in the early fifth century a.d.

As analytical constructs, both Kanluk and Jenney Creek incorporate at least two separate and distinct but thoroughly intermingled traditions of ceramic production (Tables 1, 2, and 3). There is a majority core assemblage (KXM Tradition) of locally manufactured domestic and ritual pottery that is the fingerprint of the region from its arrival through its eventual amalgamation or replacement by a discernibly bona fide Lowland Maya ceramic industry during the Terminal Preclassic and Early Classic periods, and there is a distinctive and culturally important but nonetheless secondary minority set (SBM Tradition) representing the local circulation of exotic vessels produced by non-local Maya potters. The latter pottery may have been present as a function of some form of exchange ranging from trade to gifting, as a reflection of interethnic marriages, possibly as a byproduct of intrusive settlements, or any combination of these.

If the production circumstances of the Classic-period Lowland Maya pottery remain poorly understood (Rice 1985, 1987), those of the Preclassic represent as yet barely plumbed regions of investigation (for a rare exception, see Angelini 1998). Keeping this in mind, we nevertheless have hazarded what we believe is a reasonable albeit hypothetical breakdown of the majority KXM component of the Middle Preclassic Belize Valley complexes into two separate subsets or systems. One of these, the Jocote system (Figures 11, 12, and 13), very probably represents household-level production of a commonplace domestic necessity—basic utilitarian pottery for water procurement and storage and general cooking and foodstuff containment. This system, which Gifford first identified and, in collaboration with Sharer, examined some of the most far-flung distributions of (Gifford 1970, 1974, 1976; Sharer and Gifford 1970), seems to embody both a very basic level of production and a set of broadly shared norms or standards as to just how domestic pottery should be shaped, finished, and decorated.

Jocote group pottery from Cahal Pech, Buenavista del Cayo, Nohoch Ek, and Las Ruinas de Arenal, mixed types and forms (KXM wares).

Jocote group pottery from Cahal Pech, Buenavista del Cayo, Nohoch Ek, and Las Ruinas de Arenal, mixed types and forms (KXM wares).

“Decorated” Jocote group pottery from Cahal Pech, Buenavista del Cayo, Nohoch Ek, and Las Ruinas de Arenal, mixed types and forms: (a) Luminoso Burnished: Luminoso Variety; (b) Luminoso Burnished: Pattern-burnished Variety; (c) Chacchinic Red-on-plain; (d) Palma Daub (KXM wares).

The second Middle Preclassic ceramic system identified in our analysis is a heterogeneous grouping of slipped and unslipped-burnished wares in orange, orange-red, red, and dull black (Figures 7, 8, 9, and 10). Necked jars, tecomates, and a broad range of composite silhouette bowls and simple incurving to outsloping and gently flaring shallow dishes were produced in these wares, their surfaces generally undecorated although, in the case of the orange and black-colored groups, sometimes embellished with postslip incised or excised bouncing lines, zigzags, hatched triangles, or paw wings. We believe this pottery represents at least part-time specialist production at a household, barrio, or community level, although in this we tread on much more speculative ground than in our hypothesized ascription of Jocote series ceramics to household-level domestic production.

This second series of ceramic wares is technologically and stylistically far more sophisticated and also more heterogeneous than the Jocote series. Empirically, it also has proved far less useful in examining possible interregional connections. One important element of its composition is the well-known Savana Orange (Figures 7 and 8a) or “Mars Orange Ware” (properly, “Mars Orange Paste-Ware”; Rice 1976; Smith and Gifford 1966:162, 170). Neither coextensive with nor exclusive of the Jocote series in its distribution, the Savana group in some cases overlaps the latter, in others is present in its absence, and in still others is absent in its presence.

ETHNOLINGUISTIC IMPLICATIONS

The general areal distribution of Jocote series pottery was recognized as early as the late 1960s by Gifford (1970, 1976:Figures 215, 216 [these two figures were inadvertently reversed in publication. The Jocote series distribution described in the Figure 215 caption actually appears as “Figure 216.”]), and he along with Sharer (Sharer and Gifford 1970), as well as Dennis and Olga Puleston (1971) quickly recognized the broader cultural and historical implications of the data in terms of population linkages and expansions involving the regions extending from the southern highlands of Guatemala and El Salvador northward into and along the riverine drainages and coastal plain zones of Honduras, eastern Belize, and the southernmost Peten. What they did not choose to pursue at that time, however, was the possible ethnic or linguistic identity of the population(s) producing and so represented by the Jocote series. All of these scholars, as well as those who followed them, presumed that they were dealing with the earliest ethnic “Maya” pioneers of the Maya Lowlands—a natural, reasonable, and obvious conclusion to draw. However, it is a conclusion that we now believe may have been incorrect.

One early 1970s researcher, LeRoy V. Joesink-Mandeville (Joesink-Mandeville 1970, 1971, 1972, 1977; Joesink-Mandeville and Meluzin 1976), did argue aggressively to identify the Gulf coast “Olmec” as ethnically and linguistically Maya. However, in his efforts to equate the San Lorenzo–La Venta “Olmec” with the Preclassic Maya, and thus the origins of Maya civilization, Joesink-Mandeville persistently and erroneously ascribed ceramics of the Joventud, Chunhinta, Pital, and other Mamom sphere “waxy ware” ceramic groups to a Gulf coast “Olmec” derivation. Untenable as this position was even in the 1970s, subsequent research at Cuello, Mirador, and Nakbe, among other sites, has clearly demonstrated the genetic relationship of the Mamom–Chicanel assemblages to Classic Maya ceramics and so invalidated this thesis once and for all (Andrews 1990; Brady et al. 1998; Kosakowsky 1987; Kosakowsky and Pring 1998; Lowe 1977, 1989). It is highly conceivable that a combination of the controversies stirred by Joesink-Mandeville's work and the historical reluctance of American archaeologists to correlate pottery and ethnicity too facilely resulted in a more than usual reticence on the part of other investigators to explore these possibilities beyond the superficially obvious conclusions.

Further expansion on the early ceramic histories of the southern Maya Lowlands and Highlands and the potential ethno-linguistic significance of these histories came in the late 1970s and 1980s in a series of cogent, interlinked papers by Andrews (1990), Arthur A. Demarest (1989), Gareth W. Lowe (1977, 1989), and Sharer (1989). Brought together in synthesis, their individual studies meld to reaffirm the earlier identified distributions of Jocote series ceramics from the Belize Valley zone westward into the Pasión drainage of the southern Peten and southward through riverine and coastal lowlands to the Copan Valley. From there, they trace such pottery into the southeastern Maya Highlands and on to the Pacific coastal plain of Chiapas, Guatemala.

At least implicit in this argument is the possible association of the local assemblages of which the series formed an integral part with the ethnic Zoque of the Greater Isthmian region. Ultimately pushed ever farther westward by expanding Maya groups before and after the Classic period, there is no reason to assume that the ultimate late historical and ethnographic era distribution of Mixe–Zoquean groups (Andrews 1990:Figure 1.2; Campbell and Kaufman 1976:Figure 1) in a westward-curving arc from the Pacific to the Gulf coastal plain corresponded to their early Preclassic distribution. Although their model differs significantly from ours and they are not in agreement with our specific argument, Clark and colleagues (2000) argue an analogous westward shifting of Zoque and Maya ethnolinguistic boundaries during the Late Preclassic and later eras. Following their logic, we can see no reason that still earlier times could not have witnessed even more different distributions from the present.

In one study that is a model of critical scholarship, Demarest (1989) argued that the Rayo and Gordon complexes of the Copan Valley can be tied to the Tok, Colos, and Kal complexes of Chalchuapa, and thence both to the Greater Isthmian Conchas tradition. Demarest balked, however, at any identification of these assemblages with the Gulf coast “Olmec” culture. However, not counting a number of today largely rejected or abandoned equations of the Preclassic or Formative Maya themselves with the archaeological Gulf coast “Olmec” civilization (Coe 1962; Jiménez Moreno 1942; Joesink-Mandeville 1972, 1977; Joesink-Mandeville and Meluzin 1976; Thompson 1954), a number of scholars have suggested a possible Mixe–Zoquean (or “Greater Isthmian”) presence in the Maya Lowland area during Middle Preclassic times (Andrews 1986, 1990; Lowe 1977). The evidence for this possible presence ranges from such concrete contextual situations as an “Olmec”-like offering cache at Seibal (Smith 1982:118, 243, Figures 188, 189; Willey 1978:88–89, Figures 90, 91) to incidental occurrences of plainly redeposited isolates and groups of objects from as far afield as Isla de Cozumel (Rathje et al. 1973 [San Gervasio site]), central Yucatan (Andrews 1986 [Chacsinkin site]), northern Belize (Hammond 1999 [Cuello site]), and southern Belize (Healy and Awe 1996 [Uxbenca site]). The spectacular ceramic and jadeite burial furnishings from the Gordon subcomplex “Olmec” cemetery at Copan (Fash 1982, 1991:67–70, Figures 31–34) generally have been seen as more likely to indicate links to highland central Mexico than to the Gulf coastal lowlands (Demarest 1989; Tolstoy 1989).

By far the most thorough and thoughtful exegesis of the “Zoque hypothesis,” however, has been presented by Andrews (1990) based on an extensive comparative examination of excavated Middle and Early Preclassic horizon ceramic collections from throughout the lowlands of eastern Mesoamerica. Andrews (1990:7–10, 15–16) proposed the Xe sphere assemblages of the Pasión drainage were not Maya but Mixe–Zoque in ethnic affiliation and origin and that they represented one of two distinct early colonizations of the southern and southeastern lowlands, one that he believes most likely originated in eastern Chiapas or the northern highlands region of Guatemala. He identifies the earliest certain evidence for a Maya ethnic and cultural presence in the lowlands with the Swasey complex of northern Belize, an assertion with which the present authors are in full agreement. Data from multiple sources (Chase and Chase 1987; Kosakowsky 1987; Kosakowsky and Pring 1998; McAnany and Varela 1999; Robertson-Freidel 1980; Valdez 1987) documented a rapid expansion and modest evolutionary diversification of Swasey after 900 b.c. into several localized assemblages (Bladen at Cuello; Bolay at Colha, etc.), crystallizing ultimately as the many aspects of the Mamom sphere. In his study, Andrews (1990:10, 16–17) recognized the existence of a non-developmental relationship between the Xe and Mamom sphere complexes of the Pasión drainage, suggesting either an amalgamation of the two or a replacement of the former by the latter as ethnic Maya populations expanded into areas already occupied by Zoque groups, either displacing or absorbing them. The authors would underscore the likelihood of amalgamation, synthesis, or absorption rather than replacement, a probability that the upper Belize Valley data would appear to support.

Andrews's arguments remain essential to any critical examination of Preclassic culture history in the Maya Lowlands and are important in our interpretation. We have considered them carefully and are convinced of their validity. At the same time, we would emphasize that our conclusions were reached independently of Andrews's. Thus, rather than being an application of his hypothesis, our findings represent a parallel and potentially validating evaluation of it.

THE MIDDLE PRECLASSIC BELIZE VALLEY: RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT

Sound data now document occupations of the Belize Valley by the tenth century b.c. Farming the rich riverine bottom lands of the eastern coastal lowlands and so expanding upriver along them (Puleston and Puleston 1971), such pioneering settlers quickly recognized the advantages offered by the surrounding hillocks and ridges as to breezier, cooler, and more insect-free residential settings, and, still well within the ninth century b.c., they had occupied virtually all such elevated locations, as indicated by extensive archaeological testing over the past century. Very early, these Belize River pioneers were in interaction with neighbors of indisputable Maya culture-tradition affiliation to their north. The actual nature and intensity of this interaction remains undetermined. One thing that is clear, however, is that those ceramic groups and types that can with real certainty be attributed to the long-lived Lowland Maya (SBM) ceramic tradition occur only as traces or minority elements in the Middle Preclassic Belize Valley complexes. Their frequencies fluctuated considerably during the Late Preclassic, with an especially dramatic spike at the start of that era. Whether this increase reflects a genuine cultural historical situation, however, or is merely an artifact of sampling biased somehow toward compositionally distinct but contemporary contexts and occupational deposits from this period is unclear and remains to be resolved. In other words, SBM Tradition (classic Lowland Maya tradition) ceramics may have gained predominance in the Belize Valley during the Late to Terminal Preclassic, or SBM Tradition settlement sites and contexts of this period from within what was actually a dual settlement system may have been sampled selectively by archaeologists due to some unrecognized biasing factor. This is an intriguing and important question. In any event, as measurable by archaeological ceramic type frequencies and the apparent impact of “foreign” ideas on and in zonal pottery traditions, interaction with pottery makers of “Southern Lowland” Maya culture or an actual physical “Southern Lowland” Maya presence does appear to have increased significantly in the valley from the seventh century b.c. on.

The authors see early facet Kanluk and Jenney Creek as local expressions of widespread Middle Preclassic ceramic traditions that might just as easily have been associated with ethnic Zoque as with one or more Mayan-speaking groups or subgroups. As of this writing, this remains a call that neither can be made certainly nor should be made lightly.

Pioneering settlement fission and expansion into the still largely virgin tropical riverine environments of the southern lowlands underlie the provincializations that distinguish the Pasión Xe assemblages from those of the Belize Valley—and, for that matter, from the greater Isthmian and Gulf coastal regions—much as an analogous process likely underlay the considerable heterogeneity of early Mamom complexes (Ball 1977b). At the same time, a common ethnic identity, cultural background, and fundamental ideology could very credibly have sustained the ceremonial and social as well as more essential economic interactions that spread throughout these populations not only such commodities as obsidian but ritual ideological and status-relevant concepts, stylistic expressions, and paraphernalia ranging from jadeite statuettes and decorative designs to whole-scale caching or offering patterns as at Seibal. Were-jaguars, paw wings, flame-eyebrows, and other such motifs might be executed locally via a broad range of media. Actual objects such as jadeite bloodletters, spatulas, statuettes, and mosaic mask elements bespeak even more concrete interactions. It is significant that those of verifiable context occur in formal ceremonial situations as at Seibal and Cahal Pech. Although we may not be dealing with “Olmecs” or with émigrés from either the Gulf Coast or the Mexican highlands, we most certainly are dealing with groups or individuals who either shared or had “bought into” their ceremonial–ideological system and ritual knowledge and were trying hard to emulate these. In the Belize Valley, this pattern continued through the entire Middle Preclassic, as far as can be determined based on available data.

Whatever the actual case, it is our belief that the centuries following 700 b.c. witnessed a gradual but continuous expansion into the area of culturally distinct Maya groups from the north. Proximate settlement and incidental contact plausibly could have led to cross-group marriages, and if the circum-Palenque region of present-day Tabasco and Chiapas can serve as any sort of ethnographic model, a mosaic-like settlement system of interspersed “KXM Maya” (or Zoque) and “SBM Maya” farming hamlets and villages is not an unrealistic proposition for the later Middle Preclassic pattern in the valley. We believe something like this does reflect the actual reality during that period.

“Complex society” in the form of a “minimal chiefdom” had made an appearance in the Belize Valley by sometime between 500 and 200 b.c. in the context of the mixed ethnocultural mosaic described earlier. We here equate “complex society” with multi-community “ranked” societies or “chiefdoms,” reflected minimally in the appearance of substantial public or private masonry architecture; indications of multi-level social ranking; a multi-tier settlement/site hierarchy; and an identifiable “great” (or widespread) art style or tradition as opposed to one that is merely recognizably distinct from its contemporaries, predecessors, and successors (for elaboration on the concept from the eastern Mesoamericanist perspective, see Ball 1977b; Clark et al. 2000; for broader perspectives: Carneiro 1981, 1991; Marcus and Flannery 1996). Evidence of significant, sustained long-distance trade in both basic commodities and luxury goods provides additional supporting weight. We recognize that these all had appeared some centuries earlier elsewhere in the Maya lowlands as at Nakbe (ca. 500 b.c., Clark et al. 2000) as well as nearly a half-millennium earlier on the Mexican Gulf coast and in the Mexican highlands (Marcus and Flannery 1996), but what we are concerned with in this study is not the origin of Maya or Mesoamerican “civilization” in general but its very earliest glimmerings in the Belize Valley zone. Archaeologically, it is associated with the local Umbral ceramic complex that bridges the late Middle Preclassic–Late Preclassic threshold.

THE UMBRAL CERAMIC COMPLEX AND ITS CULTURAL HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS

“Umbral” is a compositionally interesting and historically important ceramic complex that as yet remains very poorly understood. To our knowledge, all investigators—including the present authors—have routinely classified Umbral materials and deposits as “late-facet Jenney Creek” or “late Kanluk.” This alone indicates much concerning its composition. The hallmarks of “Umbral” are a proliferation, although decidedly still not a predominance, of high-luster “waxy” or “greasy” red (Figure 17), black, cream, and dichrome slipped wares (Figure 18); the appearance of a low-polish, calcareous white pottery (Iguana Creek White; Figure 18b); and the appearance of the wide everted-rim dish or bowl—a virtually pan-Mesoamerican diagnostic of the Chiapa IV/Francesca or Terminal “Olmec” horizon throughout Mesoamerica (Figure 18; Drennan 1976; Lee 1989:211–213, Figure 9.3; Lowe 1989:37, 56–61; Lowe and Mason 1965:Figures 12–13). With the exception of the last-noted vessel form, the foregoing all are considered effectively to be “Maya” ceramics in the currently accepted conventional wisdom of Mesoamerican archaeology.

Known distributions of Jocote and Mars Orange Paste-Ware series pottery. Representative occurrence sites only indicated within each zone of distribution.

Middle Preclassic (red Joventud group) Yesoso Orange Paste-Ware pottery from the upper Belize Valley, representative types and forms from multiple sites (SBM “mimics,” KXM paste-ware tradition).

Middle Preclassic (red Joventud group) Yesoso Orange Paste-Ware pottery from the upper Belize Valley, representative types and forms from multiple sites (SBM “mimics,” KXM paste-ware tradition).

Umbral complex types from Cahal Pech, Buenavista del Cayo, and Tolok, red Sierra group, Ahuacan series, mixed types and forms (true SBM wares).

Umbral complex types from Cahal Pech and Buenavista del Cayo, mixed groups, types, and forms: (a) Sierra Red: Ahuacan Variety; (b) Iguana Creek White; (c) Ahchab Red-and-Buff; (d) Repasto Black-on-red; (e) Zapatista Trickle-Dichrome (true SBM wares).

By far the quantitatively most important Umbral slipped ware is a non-waxy, high-polish, double-slipped redware with a clear, hard, blemish-free, bright red finish (no illustration, but see Figures 15 and 16 for immediate antecedents). Shallow dishes, bowls, and necked jars were produced in this ware; their surfaces frequently decorated with visually subtle, very shallow preslip grooving in diagonally hatched or crisscrossing multiple-line patterns. The incising is so light as to be barely perceptible in most cases (Figure 16). The paste fabric of this redware is of a dense, compact to medium to coarse texture, pale orange to light orange-red color variably tempered with volcanic tuff, carbonates, or crystalline quartz. Based on the overall inventory of forms and decorative modes represented, we have assigned this undesignated ware—it lacks the surface finish and slip qualities of Paso Caballo–Flores Polished—to locally manufactured Yesoso Orange Paste-Ware representatives or mimics of the Joventud and Sierra groups. This pottery is plainly related (perhaps too plainly with regard to classificatory objectivity and taxonomic assignment) directly to the earlier Mars Orange (Savana, Quemado, and Rejolla ceramic groups; Mars Orange and Ares Orange Wares) and Yesoso Orange (Joventud and other ceramic groups) paste-ware traditions and represents continuity in exploited clay resources, preparation recipes, and production technology coupled with an adaptive adoption of what appear to be ever more “Maya” canons of form and style.

As previously indicated, it remains uncertain whether we are dealing with a ware tradition produced by SBM immigrants adapting local resources to their conventions of expression or one created by “indigenous” KXM potters in imitation of SBM imports for local consumption by the resident valley populace—whether “newcomers,” “old-timers,” or both. Even as of this publication, the authors themselves remain divided on this issue, an important one with significant ramifications for subsequent Belize Valley cultural history. What is clear is that Yesoso Paste-Ware ceramics continued a tradition of local production employing local resources; an earlier established double-slipping technology; and an increasing emphasis on the production of conventionally “Maya” forms. Regarding the last, we again emphatically remind readers that a significant proportion of such forms in fact represent a virtually stereotypical southern Mesoamerican Preclassic repertoire that many (perhaps too overspecialized?) “Mayanists” today seem not to be aware is found throughout broader southeastern Mesoamerica, not in the culturally “Maya” Lowland and Highland heartland alone.

In a lengthy and thoughtful written review of this article for Ancient Mesoamerica, Donald Forsyth (personal communication 2002) pointed out:

Although we agree entirely with Forsyth's comments, we believe that we must underscore yet again that Yesoso Paste-Ware ceramics are not themselves evidence for or of the presence of a second ethnic group in the Belize Valley. Rather, they evince the production of SBM-like ceramics within the valley by local potters using local resources. As repeatedly observed, this pottery might have been produced by new arrivals using local resources, or by the indigenous (KXM) population for any or all of the several reasons suggested.

Whatever the case, our model supposes both the intent and knowledge and the physical resources necessary to maintain traditional paste and slip recipes, production techniques, and formal canons by newcomers as well as continuing high levels of regular interaction and exchange among the valley's inhabitants. We believe that the archaeological record preserves and reflects just such a scenario. As in the case of the Kanluk–Jenney Creek assemblages, essential to our model is the premise that the population represented by the archaeological ceramics consisted not only of pottery consumers but producers. Granting this, the model is viable and “works.” Failing this, the model is readily disputed using a “sherds/pots don't equal people” argument. We propose that both the “principle of abundance” and what little we do know concerning the non-sumptuary, short-range ceramic production and distribution economies of historic and prehistoric lowland eastern Mesoamerica support our premise (Ball 1993; Ball and Taschek 1992; Bishop 1975, 1976, 1980; Farriss 1984; Fry 1979; Fry and Cox 1974; Jones 1982; Rice 1985, 1987). Having ventured onto this somewhat hazardous ground, we would still caution that ceramics are at best tricky as indicators of their users' ethnicity or cultural identity. Even more tenuous is the possibility that they can be used identify polities or political spheres in the way that some researchers recently have done (Andrews and Robles 1985; Robles and Andrews 1986).

Conversations with multiple project directors and their laboratory personnel over the past 15 years have documented that both Joventud and Sierra group Yesoso Orange Paste-Ware sherds have been classified routinely but unsystematically as “Black Rock Red,” “Sampoperro Red,” “Hillbank Red,” or “Sierra Red,” without any rhyme or reason (for more or less applicable definitions in all cases, see Gifford 1976). As there is absolutely no way to distinguish among these given the haphazard bases of their assignments, all must or should be regarded as invalid, whether fortuitously accurate or not. The reality is that we cannot distinguish among them, given their invalid bases. Conversations with several colleagues and students at the 2000 SAA Meeting in Philadelphia indicate that there is little hope for this much needed change in the immediate future. The “tyranny of tradition,” it appears, will continue to prevail.

The majority Umbral slipped wares combine an interesting amalgamation of an already existing (Kanluk phase) paste-clay tradition, a finishing or slipping technology that might equally have been native or more newly introduced, and a horizon-level form-mode tradition. Umbral forms—other than those of the definitively Maya types—conform to a generic Mesoamerican late Middle to early Late Preclassic pattern. The bottom line is that it is far from clear who the producers, let alone the consumers, of the late Middle to Late Preclassic ceramic assemblages of the upper Belize Valley actually were. Today's assumptions and reconstructions—based as they are on recent ethnographic and post-Contact historical demographic situations and the meticulous research of Grant Jones (1977, 1989), Thompson (1972, 1977; Scholes and Thompson 1977) and other scholars (Bolland 1977)—still yield pictures of the region as it has been since the sixteenth and fifteenth centuries and shortly before. Whether these sketches are applicable to the Classic or even Terminal Classic eras remains open to debate, and their validity as bases for declaring the ethnic and linguistic affiliations of the zone's Preclassic inhabitants is highly dubious.

Known architectural caches of Umbral date now number at least eight, including one from Blackman Eddy, one from Buenavista, and six from Cahal Pech and its immediate environs such as the Tolok group. Intriguingly, some of these, such as those from Tolok and Buenavista, consist of high-quality “Maya” ceramics of the early Ahuacan–Sierra series whereas others, such as those from Cahal Pech and Blackman Eddy, combine contemporary Maya vessels with “curated” or recovered pieces of local Jenney Creek/Kanluk or even apparent “Gulf Coast” affinities. One cache from Blackman Eddy, for example, in addition to a number of other possibly associated Jenney Creek vessel fragments, included two highly eroded and fragmentary spouted jars of Rejolla Orange-red and Mucnal Incised (Ares Orange Ware: Rejolla ceramic group); much of a broken Jocote Orange-brown jar; a complete small Chacchinic Red-on-plain bowl; and two Sierra Red dishes, including one each of the Ahuacan and the Sierra Variety (personal observation 1998; Brown and Garber 1999:15–16; Brown et al. 1999:Figures 3.12–3.15).

Ahuacan-series vessels also occurred in caches at Buenavista (Figure 17, bottom center) and Tolok (Figure 17, bottom right; Powis and Hohmann 1995:Figure 9). A locationally important structural cache of Umbral date from Cahal Pech (sealed within the core of Structure 4-6th, the earliest detected construction beneath the site's principal eastside funerary monument) consisted of a single small jadeite bead and three glossy, opaque-white “enameled” stingray spines—actual organic spines into whose surfaces chevron patterns were groove incised following which they were coated with the same emulsion used to slip Iguana Creek White series pottery. Another major offering deposit at the south edge of the Cahal Pech ridge included a stylistically “Gulf Coast” Preclassic jadeite mosaic element together with several specialized cache vessels and other exotic articles.

What is most interesting about Umbral, however, are not the new wares or their increased incidence, but two other aspects of the complex. One is the persistence of the basic domestic unslipped-ware “Jocote tradition” in conjunction with an otherwise classically “Maya” ceramic assemblage and the continued rarity—in the upper valley, at least—of the elsewhere widespread Achiotes–Sapote/Paila group types. The potential significance of this anomaly with respect to zonal marriage patterns and household composition is enormous, but not realistically pursuable on the bases of the data now available. Here, however, is yet another area of enquiry for future investigation. Interestingly, Clark and colleagues (2000) describe a virtually identical situation at El Cerrito in the Grijalva River Valley at about the same time and interpret it in a comparable way.

The other noteworthy aspect of Umbral is the direct association of the complex with an almost explosive proliferation of plastered masonry platform architecture throughout the Belize Valley, including what seem to be both private residential constructions and public monuments including an interesting class of low, broad, round performance stages (Aimers et al. 2000). Thus far, Umbral architecture has been reported from the El Pilar, Actuncan, Arenal, Buenavista, Cahal Pech, and Blackman Eddy centers and from a number of smaller plaza-group and plazuela sites including among others Nohoch Ek, Tolok, and Barton Ramie (Figure 1).

The significance of these features and their association with the threshold Late Preclassic Umbral ceramic complex is that they materially reflect the appearance of chiefdom-level society—or “civilization” as defined conventionally and for the purposes of this study. In considering the appearance in the Belize Valley of complex sociopolitical organization in the form of a minimal chiefdom sometime between the late seventh and late fourth centuries b.c., we found ourselves impressed by the arguments of participants in a 1988 symposium focusing on the potential roles of intra-societal or “factional” competition in the New World development of social ranking and associated authority-structures, and so ultimately of political complexity (Brumfiel and Fox 1994). Although the participants' arguments pertain properly only to factional divisions or fractionations of already existing entities, such as established states or chiefdoms—a critical fact which Marcus (personal communication 2001) brought to our attention appeared to have escaped a number of the contributors—they serve to highlight the potential importance of localized intergroup (or intragroup) competition in the emergence of complex societal organizations among such peoples as the Lowland Maya.

To date, the iconographically and epigraphically obvious importance of competition and warfare in Lowland Maya sociopolitical history has been examined primarily as a Classic-period phenomenon (Freidel 1986; Freidel and Suhler 1998; Pohl and Pohl 1994; Schele and Freidel 1990; Webster 2000). A quarter-century ago, however, David L. Webster (1977) and this paper's senior author (Ball 1977b) both advanced arguments for the role of warfare in the initial Preclassic development of Lowland Maya political complexity. The arguments then advanced were based on scenarios and premises quite different from those now suggested to have been at play in the Middle Preclassic Belize Valley case. For there, we propose a model involving the coextensive presence in the Middle Preclassic Belize Valley of two distinct dialectal, ethnic, or linguistic groups. These included a first-wave population of “KXM Maya” (or Zoque) settlers from the south who, not long after their arrival if not previous to it, were in direct and immediate contact with “SBM Maya” populations already present in the coastal lowlands to their north, and a secondary flow of latecomers emigrant from among those very same northern “SBM” populations. Over the early half of the first millennium b.c., interaction between the two regions continued and possibly increased. We suggest that one aspect of this interaction involved a progressive flow of “SBM Maya” into the valley either as immigrant families or in-marrying individuals, and that the late seventh to fifth century b.c. Belize Valley provided one meeting ground for the ultimately inevitable joining of these two populations. By that time, we conjecture that settlement in the valley was a mosaic of interspersed “KXM Maya” (or Zoque), “SBM Maya,” and ethnically mixed hamlets and small villages. Rather than any real melding of these distinct (dialectal, ethnic, or linguistic) groups, however, we suggest increasing social tension between them over the late middle first millennium b.c., even as their respective material cultures were becoming ever more synthesized.

Although neither inevitably nor necessarily contentious, we believe that in the Belize Valley zone growing intergroup tensions and rivalries and their attempted sublimation did play a key role in the development of ranked (complex) societal organization and ruling authority and the overt behavioral and material manifestations of these that we term “civilization.” Early forays in this direction possibly are documented at Blackman Eddy in the lower valley by as early as the seventh century b.c. (Brown 1999; Brown et al. 1999, Garber et al. 1998), and a combination of data suggests the establishment of a long-term resident seat of chiefly authority on Cahal Pech Hill in the upper valley by about 500 to 400 b.c.

Stela 9 of Cahal Pech (Figure 19), the sole known sculptured stone monument from that center, is a carved-in-the-round monolith that was found ritually “buried” in a late-seventh-century vaulted chamber tomb within the principal pyramid platform of a plaza group 350 m south of the site core at the end of a connecting sacbe. In a collaborative study of the monument's depositional context, associations (more than 200 small unslipped bowls and human phalanges and other human remains), and iconography (Awe and Grube 2001), Nikolai Grube has presented compelling comparative evidence that Stela 9 is of Late Preclassic age, possibly from early in that era, and that its closest similarities and parallels in imagery and iconography are with carved monuments of late Middle to early Late Preclassic date from Izapa, Tiltepec (near Tonala, Chiapas), Monte Alto, Kaminaljuyu, Tres Zapotes, and La Venta. All of these pertain to what Lowe (1971, 1977) termed the “Greater Isthmian” Tradition. Grube proposes a late date for Stela 9 and sees it as potentially derivative from the architectonic stucco mask tradition of the Late Preclassic Maya lowlands, perhaps transitional between it and the Classic era carved stela–altar complex. We suggest that Grube's own arguments are equally supportive of a late Middle–early Late Preclassic age (ca. 550–250 b.c.), and that its relationship if any to the stucco mask tradition is as likely to be one of inspiration as of derivation. At Blackman Eddy, Structure B1-4th (Figure 20) was the first to carry such decoration (Brown et al. 1998; Garber et al. 1998). At Cahal Pech, the earliest recorded façade masks flank the inset centerline stairway of Structure 6-4th (B-4-3rd), built sometime in the first century b.c. Whatever its relationship to these monuments and events, the Stela 9 monument—and presumably the lineage it represented—remained “active” until sometime in the late seventh century a.d. when it was formally and ceremoniously interred with much accompanying ritual in its vaulted plaza tomb.

Stela 9, Cahal Pech (height of monument, 1.6 m). After a photograph and drawings by Nikolai Grube, 1994.

Structure B1-4th, Blackman Eddy from the southeast (after Garber et al. 1998:Figures 3, 5; Brown and Garber 1999:Figures 1.4–1.6.)

The hypothesized co-occupation of the valley means that there were no invaders and no “invaded” population but, rather, two distinct interacting groups competing for ascendancy. Unabashedly stretching the analogy, the region might be compared to an ancient “Yugoslavia” or “Kosovo” ripe for the controlling authority of some Preclassic Tito. Elizabeth Brumfiel (1994) has argued that in the Postclassic Valley of Mexico an important function of the centralized bureaucratic state was integration of otherwise potentially conflictive ethnic groups. Bruce Byland and John Pohl (1994) describe a similar scenario for the Postclassic Mixteca Alta.

Whether rooted in ethnic diversity or otherwise, had overt intergroup competition (and raiding) played any real role in the development of ranked society in the greater Belize Valley region, we should expect some evidence of its existence in the presence of competition or even actual conflict. Clear and incontrovertible evidence of hostilities on the Middle Preclassic horizon is rare (Webster 2000), but some of the little that is known derives from a late Middle Preclassic context associated with early monumental public architecture at Blackman Eddy in the lower Belize Valley. There, Garber, Brown, and colleagues have identified evidence of the fiery destruction of monumental public architecture sometime during the terminal Middle Preclassic era (Brown and Garber 1999). While Garber and Brown continue to evaluate the significance of their Structure B1-4th data, they have favored reading these as evidence of intentional desecration and violent conflict. Their interpretation accords with our own model of the era's history as proposed in this paper, and we look forward to its further testing in the future. Interestingly, while skeptical of our reading of the Belize Valley evidence, Clark and colleagues (2000) argue similarly for late Middle and Late Preclassic interethnic hostilities and site destruction along the central Chiapas Zoque/Maya interface including at least one Blackman Eddy–reminiscent event of fiery architectural destruction involving the “Mound 5 Palace.”

AFTER THE “RISE”: BELIZE VALLEY CULTURE HISTORY TO THE FIFTH CENTURY a.d.

Which among the possible competing groups or chiefly villages ultimately emerged dominant is not clear. Full Late Preclassic (200 b.c.–a.d. 50) Belize Valley offerings and caches typically include items potentially representing either one or the other or even both of the hypothesized groups concerned, although archaeological convention has been simply to brand all these materials as “Maya.” In most cases, the basis for this assignment has been the recovery of the objects within a culturally Maya archaeological domain, nothing more.

For the post-Umbral, pre-Classic era (200 b.c.–a.d. 420), the local indicator groups suggesting continued, distinct “KXM” and “SBM” cultural patterns are the persisting Jocote and new Chan Pond types (KXM Tradition) and the widespread Late Preclassic Maya lowland Sapote (Paila) series (SBM Tradition). Each of these is part of the domestic household production ceramic system and is associated—respectively, we believe—with either local “KXM Maya/?Zoque” or local “SBM Maya” potters. Using these as indicators, excavation data from throughout the valley recovered over the past century by numerous investigators suggest a mixed settlement mosaic of KXM Tradition, SBM Tradition, and mixed KXM–SBM villages for the era with some suggestion of a heavier “SBM Maya” presence in the lower (eastern) valley. This is, of course, only an impression at this point, but it is one that merits investigation.

Despite the prevailing conventional wisdom of the past half-century and today, the sociocultural and ethnic landscape of the Belize Valley over the seven centuries following the emergence in the valley of a complex sociopolitical structure or “civilization” remains enigmatic. Using the assemblage rather than the complex as each has been defined herein as the basis for our assessment, we believe that available data do not support a fully and completely continuous “Maya” occupation of the valley until the early fifth century a.d., at which time it was associated with the inception of the local Early Classic period as represented by the upper valley Ahcabnal and lower valley Hermitage ceramic phases. Granting—and only given—the stratigraphic associational integrity and validity of the Madrugada–Ahcabnal and Floral Park–Hermitage complexes as published (Brady et al. 1998; Gifford 1976), the total data available today strongly suggest a progressive “creep” of “SBM” groups from the north and east with full cultural and ethnic “Mayanization” of the zone evident in the lower valley by between a.d. 350 and 400 but not in the areas to the west of Baking Pot until sometime after a.d. 400. Not surprising today, this expansion was associated with the appearance of “Teotihuacan-like,” Teotihuacan or Veracruz-derived, and other “Mexican” objects, ceramics, and stylistic elements.

Its peripheral location notwithstanding, it appears that the Belize Valley as elsewhere across the Maya lowlands experienced an Early Classic “colonization” in some manner associated with the interests or ambitions of the central Mexican Teotihuacan state. Once more, in this regard, new data from the past ten years neither answer questions nor resolve problems but indicate some fascinating avenues for investigation by future researchers. One thing that is certain is that the pre-Classic era culture history of the Belize Valley—generally regarded as a marginal area on the extreme periphery of the core Maya heartland—was far more interesting than has generally been assumed and at least as complex as that of any other region in early Mesoamerica.

RESUMEN

A pesar de más de dos décadas de programas de investigación extensivos y muy productivos que se concentran específicamente en la arqueología del preclásico del valle de Belice, nuestra comprensión y apreciación de la tradición cerámica e histórica cultural de la región hoy interpretadas eficazmente se quedan aún basadas y dependen de las formulaciones conceptuales inalteradas e incontestadas desde 1940 hasta 1960.

Estos incorporan una percepción de la secuencia cerámica del preclásico zonal como la encarnación física de un sistema local de productor-consumidor uniforme e incluso unitario relacionado directamente y genéticamente a los habitantes mayas clásicos y posclásicos de la región. En este trabajo, cuestionamos estas asunciones y la entereza de las estructuras conceptuales (los complejos cerámicos) y la armazón (la secuencia cerámica) en que ellos se basan. Examinamos el contenido y analizamos la composición de los complejos cerámicos del preclásico medio y tardío del valle de Belice como complejos culturales de circulación; ambos dinámicos y compuestos en lugar de cómo unidades arqueológicas sintéticas y concluimos que ellos reflejan una situación socio-económica, cultural y sociopolítica más compleja que tiene que ser reconocida todavía por otros investigadores.

Proponemos la presencia y la interacción dentro del valle desde el preclásico medio hasta el preclásico tardío de al menos dos grupos de dialectos, étnicos o lingüísticos distintos y sugerimos que la tradición cultural que apareció en el área por el protoclásico cerámico presentó una fusión de éstos. Usando el sistema “tipo-variedad”, este trabajo también presenta las primeras tipologías comprensivas y completas para los complejos cerámicos de los períodos medio y preclásico tardío del valle superior del río Belice incorporando nuevos datos de los años 1980 y 1990 y revisión mas sustantiva del trabajo más temprano de Thompson (1942) y Gifford (1976).

En nuestro modelo, la cerámica y otros datos indican que los complejos cerámicos del preclásico medio y del valle de Belice superior (Kanluk) y baja (Jenney Crek) son unidades analíticas compuestas que representan complejos culturales originalmente constando de componentes de la producción local (la mayoría) y exótica (la minoría) también como cantidades minoritarias que difiere por contexto de contaminantes o persistencia más temprana (Cunil y Kanocha). Las composiciones topológicas, las formas y los atributos diagnósticos de estos complejos sugieren orígenes e historias de desarrollo que involucran por lo menos a dos zonas de origen o grupos-productores diferentes.

Sostenemos que uno de éstos-nuestro grupo étnico “KXM” (Kanlux-Xakal-Madrugada) constituía la mayoría de la población del valle en todo el preclásico medio y bien avanzado el preclásico. Este grupo era responsable de la producción de los grupos cerámicos Jocote, Chan Pond, SavanaQuemado y Rejolla; y muy posiblemente de los grupos locales Juventud, Sierra, Yesoso Orege Paste-Ware (vajilla de pasta). Étnicamente y culturalmente, este grupo podría haber sido maya o no maya (posiblemente zoque) en su afiliación étnica-lingüística y cultural.

Mucho antes del año 800 a.C., los habitantes “KXM” del valle de Belice estaban en contacto directo y regular con los mayas de la tradición cerámica Swasey-Bladen Mamom (SBM) de la zona costera de Belice norteña, participando en una interacción que trajo vasos reales producidos por alfareros “SBM” de la tradición canónica “SBM” físicamente localizados en el valle de por lo menos el siglo noveno a.C. hasta el final del período preclásico tardío. Desde algún momento entre los años 800 y 600 a.C. en adelante, la producción local de cerámica fue muy parecida a la de “SBM” que comenzó en el mismo valle junto a inmigrantes del norte, o por emuladores indígenas “KXM” de la tradición “SBM”.

Desde los años 600 y 500 a.C., con el inicio de la fase Umbral, una oleada intensa pero breve en la frecuencia de importaciones reales “SBM” (tipos de los grupos cerámicos Juventud y sierra del Paso Caballo Polished Ware) demuestra un importante aumento en el valle de esta cerámica exótica o una influencia única de cerámica o fabricantes bien adiestrados y experimentados en esa tradición. Cualquiera de estas situaciones podría enlazarse bien a la apariencia de la clasificación jerárquica social local y la complejidad indicada esta vez por otras evidencias. Rápidamente después de esto, la frecuencia de tales importaciones verdadera disminuye, pero la incidencia de las imitaciones localmente fabricadas (la serie del grupo Sierra Paste Ware) permanece constante o aumenta. Estas imitaciones podrían haber sido producidas por los descendientes de una tradición intrusa de “SBM” o por alfareros de la tradición “KXM” que de forma selectiva asumieron los cánones de “SBM” específicamente identificables. Tal circunstancia podría ser el resultado de cualquiera de varios factores, incluyendo entre ellos la imitación que orientó a una posición social de importación exóticas “caras,” es decir la producción impulsada por la demanda para un mercado de consumidores creciente con tales gustos o simplemente por la preferencia de un estilo nuevo de vanguardia durante el período preclásico tardío y no a través del subsecuente período preclasico terminal o “protoclásico.” Era solamente con los complejos cerámicos del clásico temprano—el Ahcabnal (en el valle superior) y el hermitage (el valle bajo)—del siglo quinto siguiente que una verdadera y continua tradición “maya” fue establecida finalmente en el valle de Belice.

Ciertamente no esperamos convencer a cada lector de la presencia simultánea en el valle de Belice en la era preclásica de dos grupos étnicos distintos—si ambos eran mayas o uno maya y uno zoque. Sin embargo, esperamos animar a todos a revisar seriamente y en tono de crítica por lo menos parte de la sabiduría convencional empotrada con respecto a la historia cultural maya, la cerámica y las relaciones de éstos, para si que, en realidad, están basados en nada más que ideas preconcebidas, suposiciones y obviedades, todas sin poner a prueba e infundadas. A la magnitud que eso ocurre, este trabajo habrá logrado sus objetivos.