Exploring Competing Memories and Materiality Through Landscape and Household Archaeology

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Casey Hanson
Keyword(s):  
Household Archaeology

The Sociopolitical Economy of an Ancient Maya Village: Cerén and its Sacbe

2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Payson Sheets ◽  
Christine Dixon ◽  
David Lentz ◽  
Rachel Egan ◽  
Alexandria Halmbacher ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Household Archaeology ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Agricultural Products ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Significant Progress ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Research Focus ◽  
Sociopolitical Organization ◽  
Politics And Religion ◽  
The Village

The intellectual, artistic, and architectural accomplishments of Maya elites during the Classic period were extraordinary, and evidence of elite activities has preserved well in the archaeological record. A centuries-long research focus on elites has understandably fostered the view that they controlled the economy, politics, and religion of Maya civilization. While there has been significant progress in household archaeology, unfortunately the activities, decisions, and interactions of commoners generally preserve poorly in the archaeological record. Therefore, it has been challenging to understand the sociopolitical economy of commoners, and how it related—or did not relate—to elite authority. The exceptional volcanic preservation of the site of Cerén, El Salvador, provides a unique opportunity to explore the degree to which elites controlled or influenced commoner life. Was society organized in a top-down hierarchy in which elites controlled everything? Or did commoners have autonomy, and thus the authority to decide quotidian, seasonal, and annual issues within the village? Or was there a mixture of different loci of authority within the village and the region? Research at Cerén is beginning to shed some light on the sociopolitical economy within the community and in relation to elites in the Zapotitan valley. A domain in which there was considerable commoner-elite interaction in the Cerén area was the marketplace. Elites and their attached specialists provided products, and commoners decided which marketplace they would attend to exchange their items. Evidence from Cerén also suggests that there were numerous other domains of authority within the community that had no detectable control or influence from outside. For instance, people in the village decided what crafts or specialized agricultural products to produce as surplus to be exchanged within the community for different products from other households. Cerén community members acted independently as individuals, as households, or in other domains within the community. Understanding the multiple layers of authority at Cerén sheds light on the sociopolitical organization in one non-elite Classic period Maya community.

Everyday Practice and Ritual Space: the Organization of Domestic Ritual in Pre-Aztec Xaltocan, Mexico

2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin De Lucia
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Political Process ◽  
State Level ◽  
Household Archaeology ◽  
Everyday Practice ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Ritual Space ◽  
Household Members ◽  
Domestic Ritual ◽  
Aztec Empire

This article offers new understanding to commoner ritual in central Mexico before the rise of the Aztec Empire through an examination of domestic ritual and everyday practice in Early to Middle Postclassic (AD 900–1350) households in Xaltocan. It also seeks to better understand the ways in which elites negotiate and reinvent ritual traditions to gain and maintain power. In this study, I integrate multiple lines of evidence including ethnohistory, household archaeology and burials to understand the organization, practice and meaning of ritual among commoners before the rise of the Aztec Empire. I argue that pre-Aztec commoner ritual worked to foster solidarity, social continuity and collective memory and was intimately concerned with the protection of household members and the maintenance of household and universal equilibrium. While some of the symbolism and rituals documented in pre-Aztec domestic contexts appear similar to those depicted in Aztec contexts, I argue that state rituals held different meanings as Aztec elites adopted and transformed widely-held commoner rituals and symbols to craft an ideology that promoted their own political agenda. Ultimately, domestic- and state-level ritual should be seen as part of an ever-changing, but necessarily intertwined, historical and political process.

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