Many Classic Maya cities display aspects of wealth inequality, including monumental architecture, prestige goods economies, and differences in residential units. I evaluate wealth inequality at two Late Classic (AD 600–810) cities in northwestern Belize: Chan Chich and Ayiin Winik. Using legacy data and lidar data in GIS, I measured the area and volume of residential groups and calculated a Gini coefficient for each site. I found that both Chan Chich and Ayiin Winik had high Gini scores, reflecting extreme residential disparities. These findings largely parallel those of previous studies at other sites, alluding to regional trends in inequality in which sites in the well-connected and centralized Maya heartland of the broader Petén tend to have higher Gini coefficients than sites located in other subregions of the Maya world. My findings highlight variability in residential wealth inequality across the Maya Lowlands.

The ruination of many Maya cities in the northern Yucatán Peninsula toward the end of the Classic period (AD 300–900) did not necessarily bring about abandonment in those spaces. On the contrary, the transformation of monumental Maya architecture to heaps of rubble fostered new relations among humans, matter, and other-than-human entities in ancestral places. This article examines the formation and dissolution of a community in Ake’s epicenter, an ancestral Maya city located in present-day Yucatán, Mexico, from approximately AD 1100 to 1550. By AD 1000, monumental buildings were transforming into ruins due to human neglect and the action of gravity, erosion, humidity, and vegetation. These ruins were vibrant entities that prompted the growth of plants, attracted animals, materialized deities and ancestors, and generated human affects, conditions that assembled community life after political collapse. This article offers a glimpse into an ancestral Maya perspective on ruins. This Indigenous perspective was relational, nonhuman centered, and conceived of ruins as lively entities in more-than-human communities.

Photographs of a previously unpublished Maya vase, smuggled out of Belize in 1979, reside in the Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC. This vase, alongside dozens of others that I cataloged in the Dumbarton Oaks archives, is an example of the so-called “Holmul Dancer theme” in Maya ceramics. Re-examining this tradition in light of the new information from the vase, and from other recent discoveries, reveals how ceramic artists of the early ninth century used the dancing maize god as an allegory for the political landscape they witnessed rapidly changing around them. The vase also provides a case study in the potentially salubrious outcomes of archival and provenance research on looted materials. Should the vessel ever re-emerge, this research provides supporting evidence necessary to repatriate it to Belize.

This article considers the nature of divinity and the supernatural among the ancient Maya (ca. a.d. 200–900), not by examining the shared pantheon of this ancient civilization, but instead by investigating an alternate category of the supernatural, namely, triadic tutelary deities. One of the features of these entities is that these were tied to place, since these were specifically connected to particular capitals and polities. We will thus be looking at regional variation in belief systems, and the evidence that we have, as afforded by epigraphy, iconography, and archaeology. We describe the veneration of tutelary deities at several archaeological sites, focusing on those that explicitly designate a set of deities as ux luut k’uh or “three-in-a-set-deities.” Using this comparative data and introducing the evidence that we have for such tutelary deities at the archaeological site of Caracol, in what is now Belize, we present new interpretations of the epigraphic and archaeological record connected with these triadic tutelary deities and their cult complexes.

Despite its record among early twentieth-century explorers and being one of the first sites excavated in southwestern Petén, Guatemala, Altar de Sacrificios has eluded Maya scholarship for much of the last half-century. This article aims to redefine Altar’s position on the ancient Maya geopolitical landscape and reconsider its role in socioeconomic exchange during the Classic period (ca. AD 200–900). We report new findings from a unmanned aerial system survey of the Upper Usumacinta Confluence Zone, contextualizing our results with other remote sensing surveys across the Maya lowlands. By examining the size, form, and distribution of settlement across this fluvial landscape, we characterize variable patterns of settlement density and organization in relation to shifting river channels and potential land use practices associated with Altar’s Classic period occupation. Synthesizing these patterns and population estimates with data from other well-documented settlements across the Maya lowlands, this study highlights the diversity of this ancient urban tradition and contributes to broader discussions on Maya urbanization—especially the connections between cities and more rural zones of human habitation.

Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is a vital tool in archaeology, facilitating the planning of excavations while minimizing their impact. However, its application in the Northern Maya Lowlands of Yucatán, Mexico, has historically encountered limited application due to the region’s distinctive geological conditions and issues related to technological precision. The region’s limestone substrates can interfere with GPR signals, complicating the differentiation between cultural features, natural formations, and radar anomalies. Nevertheless, advancements in GPR technology over the past two decades have mitigated these challenges. This article offers a case study from Yaxuná, Yucatán, concentrating on the Central Plaza during the Middle and Late Formative period (600 BC–AD 200). By integrating GPR data with documented stratigraphic features and site insights, the study successfully identified cultural elements, directed excavation efforts, and revealed previously unexamined structures, thereby enhancing planning efficiency. These findings underscore the potential of GPR to reduce excavation-related damage, thereby assisting archaeologists in better uncovering and preserving cultural heritage.

Linking obsidian artifacts to their original sources elucidates ancient Maya trade networks and examining changes in the frequency of source attribution through time highlights shifting social, political, and economic affiliations. This report presents geochemical data from energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence on more than 500 obsidian artifacts from three sites in the southeastern Three Rivers adaptive region (TRR): Chan Chich, Gallon Jug, and Kaxil Uinic. The results indicate that ancient residents of these settlements procured obsidian from dynamic and varied exchange networks throughout the Preclassic and Classic periods. In the Late Preclassic and Early Classic, Chan Chich’s residents acquired most of their obsidian from San Martín Jilotepeque and Ixtepeque, unlike occupants of other TRR sites who mostly consumed El Chayal obsidian. By the Late Classic period, all residents of the TRR consumed primarily El Chayal obsidian and the first Mexican sources arrived at Chan Chich. As the first comprehensive study of obsidian exchange at these sites in southeastern TRR, these findings lay a foundation for understanding broader exchange networks and regional politics.

Ethics pertaining to the study of Maya skeletons are complex and vary widely across Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras. The complexity stems in part from the diversity of views held by local and national stakeholders, archaeologists, and the governments that oversee their work. Our position is that the views of local stakeholders should, whenever possible, guide the excavation, analysis, and final disposition of human remains from Maya archaeological sites. This article offers some of our reflections on working with human remains, as outlined in case studies from research at sites in Chiapas, Mexico, and in La Técnica Agropecuaria and Tikal in Guatemala.

Research was carried out over four field seasons at the Paynes Creek Salt Works, Belize, to evaluate the organization of ancient Maya salt production. Excavations and mapping sea-floor artifacts at Ta’ab Nuk Na and Ek Way Nal revealed distinct patterns of artifacts associated with salt kitchens and residences. Salt production at both salt works focused on boiling brine in clay pots over fires inside buildings to make salt cakes, with abundant briquetage (broken salt pottery) indicating the pots were broken before transport, similar to ethnographic accounts at Sacapulas, Guatemala. Excavations at Jay-yi Na revealed open bowls and a lack of trade goods, different from the other sites. The results indicate that by the Late Classic there was surplus household production of salt by local salt workers. They were integrated into a variety of exchange systems, providing salt in exchange for other commodities.

This report discusses the chronology of the sixth-century hieroglyphic stairways of El Resbalón that has confounded prior investigations. These narratives contain historical and deep-time sections. The former follow regular chronological and syntactical conventions. The deep-time sections of the texts present multiple aberrations that appear to be rhetorical or ritual devices, rather than calculation mistakes. The departure from the conventional chronological and syntactical patterns coincides with a localized political narrative that diverges from other Classic Maya inscriptions.

This study reports on 26 Maya ballcourts in the southeastern Three Rivers adaptive region, many of which are newly identified through a 2022 lidar survey. We analyze the ballcourts in terms of their form, dimensions, orientations, and integration with processional and ceremonial architecture. Statistical analyses and comparisons with ballcourts from neighboring regions, including the Belize River Valley, Holmul, and the western and northeastern Three Rivers region, highlight both shared architectural norms and regional variations, particularly in alley width and the relationship between alley length and width.

Drawing on examples from the Maya center of Actuncan, Belize, in this article I argue for the use of the tools of narrative and the modern experience of ruins as reflected in ruination and critical heritage studies as lenses for understanding the impact of ruins in the context of past societies.

In northwestern Belize, evidence of Late Postclassic Maya presence is limited to deposits indicating brief visitations to former city centers. Here, we present recent research at the sites of Kaxil Uinik and Ayiin Winik that has identified Late Postclassic ritual offerings at reset Late Classic monuments, as well as the first reported Late Postclassic altar in the region. These activities fit into a broad pattern of Postclassic veneration of early and long-lived locations on the abandoned landscape.

This paper provides a novel description and syntactic analysis of different types of quantifiers in Chuj, an underdocumented Mayan language. We focus on a subset of expressions that quantify over entities, and that have been noted to appear obligatorily in sentence-initial position. We argue that three types of quantifiers should be distinguished: (i) Predicative A-quantifiers, which occur sentence-initially because Chuj is a predicate-initial language; (ii) Focus D-quantifiers, which occur sentence-initially because they are lexically specified for an [A$'$] feature; and (iii) Basic D-quantifiers, which, lacking an [A$'$] feature, have no effects on the syntactic position of their host arguments. We also sketch syntactic analyses of each type of quantifier.

Geometric, anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, and abstract forms comprise many of the lithic forms of Central America. Commonly called eccentrics, these forms are often recovered from ritual offerings and elite burials. This article addresses more than 80 eccentrics recovered in the Holmul region from the sites of Holmul, Witzna, and Dos Aguadas and identifies the ways that these forms can inform ritual practice, symbolic significance, and potential communities of craftspeople. Eccentric size, thinning, skill of execution, and material choice are considered across multiple assemblages.

Classic period (c. AD 300–810) governance in the Southern Maya Lowlands was characterised by a system of divine kingship with paramount rulers. What constituted ideal governing systems, however, changed over time with greater emphasis placed on power-sharing by the Postclassic period (c. AD 1000–1521). Here, the authors document a colonnaded open hall at Ucanal, Guatemala, and explore its potential role as a council house and stage for civic engagement. It was constructed during the Terminal Classic period (c. AD 810–950/1000) in the wake of major political upheaval and provides early evidence for a turn toward more collective governing in Peten, Guatemala.

This article examines the sociopolitical evolution of Palenque and the Mensäbäk Basin, focusing on shifting models of organization from the Late Preclassic (300 BC–AD 250) to the Late Postclassic (AD 1250–1525). We argue that changes in access to ritual spaces and landscape-related ceremonies reflected broader transformations in Maya social organization as it made the transition from collective to less collective societies. The transformation from Preclassic to Postclassic occupations in the Mensäbäk Basin provides visible evidence of political and ideological shifts. Findings from Mensäbäk highlight the diversity of governance structures, showing that exclusionary and communal models varied based on spatial and temporal contexts.

One of the most significant engineering accomplishments of Maya civilization is Sacbe 1, a raised road connecting the ancient urban centers of Yaxuna and Coba. Using new lidar data in concert with excavation, epigraphic inscriptions, and landscape reconnaissance, we show that settlement and an urban experience emanated westward from Coba along the sacbe. The leaders of Coba—in particular, an ambitious seventh-century queen—used the sacbe to expand the political and cultural influence of their dynasty into the center of the peninsula while securing territory and resources. Gaps in the sacbe, precise delineation of its many curves, and examination of features near these curves call to mind several possible intentions governing its construction and use. Sites located along the causeway did not present significant barriers to the expansion of Coba. Sacbe 1 represents a uniquely urban space that expanded urban social networks into a rural hinterland while advancing state interests for territory and influence.

Due to the extractive nature of quarrying activities, quarry workers are relatively invisible within the archaeological record. Through a focus on quarry implements, we argue that scholars can identify the individuals involved in the quarrying process as well as evaluate the economic and political networks tied to the extraction of limestone resources. In the Maya region, studies of quarrying tools are evaluated based on contextual and use-wear studies; however, quarrying tools are frequently recovered from mixed assemblages. To increase the identification of quarry workers within the archaeological record, we advance a limestone-quarrier tool kit, which emerges from previous archaeological, experimental, and ethnoarchaeological research. We evaluate this toolkit using a case study from Xultun, Guatemala to consider the multiple sociopolitical identities held by Classic period Maya quarry workers.