Part 1: Household Horizontal Excavations: Intensive
Investigations of
Three Residential Units
Our investigations of three residential structures outside of the monumental zone at Mayapán reveal new patterns about the organization of the city and its economy (Figure 1). Two small commoner houses were fully excavated (X-43, L-28), located near the southeast and northern part of the city wall. One large upper status house was also investigated (Y-45a), located in a remote neighborhood also near the southeast part wall parameter. These investigations provide new data for the analysis of class structure, occupational specialization, and patterns of urban growth at Mayapán. House excavations were supervised by Pedro Delgado, Bárbara Escamilla, Yonny Mex, and Georgina Delgado, all of whom were students at the Universidad de Yucatán at the time.
The first structure we excavated is X-43, a typical commoner Mayapán house with two rooms and two benches (Figure 2). This house is located next to the southeast portion of the city wall, in a low-lying area (Figure 3). The most striking aspect of X-43 is the low density of materials associated with it. No caches or burials were found within or outside of the structure, and the density of refuse here is very low compared to other areas. Test pits at similar modest houses within 500m of the monumental zone had 10 times more pottery and 29 times more lithic flakes than this small dwelling. We conclude that X-43 was not occupied for long, and it was probably constructed late in the site’s history. Other houses within Milpa 7 are built on higher natural knolls (altillos). Later occupants of this area, like the family of X-43, may have been restricted to low-lying domestic space. No clear evidence for occupational specialization is observed from the meager artifact assemblage, although the formal lithic tools are primarily pointed bifacial knives or arrow points. Perhaps proximity to the city wall carried with it the need for defense, or males who lived at this house performed military service. No animal bone was found in the refuse zones around X-43, which indicates that these weapons were more likely for warfare than for hunting. The low density of faunal bone suggests these individuals may have dined elsewhere, or may have been provisioned with food prepared in another location.
Structure L-28, located 60m from the north part of the city wall, represents another commoner house that is quite similar to X-43. This two-room structure had three interior benches, and was situated on a small altillo (Figure 4). L-28 was built right on bedrock, and soil is shallow in this area. We recovered two burials near this house, one along the altillo base and one in the adjacent sascabera (natural or cultural depression thought to have been used as a quarry for soft limestone), which suggests that this house may have been occupied longer than X-43 (Figure 5). The sascabera adult burial was fragmented and secondary, and the other burial, a child of around 12-16 years, was buried with a shell ornament. Landa’s (1941) ethnohistoric account states that young females often wore such bivalve ornaments as indicators of their chastity.
Refuse density is not much higher at L-28 than at X-43, which suggests a relatively short occupation. L-28 has about 16 sherds per square meter of excavation, compared to 13 sherds for X-43. They have nearly identical numbers of points, formal stone tools, and utilized flakes. L-28 has far fewer pieces of flaking debris (.5 pieces per square meter compared to 4.1 for X-43); its residents seldom made or modified stone tools. Like X-43, projectile points are the majority of the tool assemblage. The analysis of pottery from our three houses revealed that L-28 was distinctive from the other two structures in its preference for a type of unslipped pottery – these patterns are described in further detail below.
Structure Y-45a is an upper status house that is located on a high altillo, 135m from the south part of the wall (near Minor Gate X, Figure 6). Although not yet excavated, other structures in the group probably represent a shrine (Y-45c), a small house/kitchen compound (Y-45b). We hope to complete this group in a subsequent season during our next cycle of investigations. The Y-45a residence has two stories of construction. The upper level, atop the altillo, has two long galleries, flanked on the sides by shorter exterior rooms. The rear upper gallery has five benches (Figure 7). The lower level, built along the south slope of the altillo, consists of four rooms, which were filled in upon abandonment. Upper status residences are present in many of Mayapán’s neighborhoods, although this style of house is unique thus far for the city. The position of such outlying secondary elites is poorly understood. Did they hold administrative responsibilities such as overseeing production or collecting tribute for barrios of the city? To what extent were they involved in production or dependent on exchange for their livelihood? Such questions prompted our investigations of Y-45a.
The upper rooms had sparse artifacts, suggesting they had been regularly swept clean. Refuse was found along the structure’s frontal wall, as well as along the eastern altillo base. The upper structure was built in at least two phases. The rear rooms were not discernable at the surface, as they had been completely filled in with rubble, as was side Room #5. Room 1 had a beautifully preserved stucco bench and floor. Room 2 was at the end of a 6m long L-shaped stone passageway built above a bedrock floor. The room is perpendicular to the passageway, forming an L-shape. Room 2 is linked to Room 3 by a stone window built into the dividing wall. Rooms 3 and 4 are smaller and more square than the other two, and may have been used for storage. Although we found no burials in Y-45a, the multiple construction phases attest to a lengthy occupation. Burials may lie within the Y-45c shrine located to the north of Y-45a, across the small group patio.
Many smashed ceramic vessels were present on the floors of Rooms 1 and 2, as well as over the Room 1 bench and in the passageway fill (Figure 8). Room 1’s vessels include one of the largest ollas ever recovered at Mayapán, along with many unusual serving and storage vessels. Room 2’s pottery also has a variety of vessels. Ch’en Mul censer fragments were concentrated in the passageway, including a rodent head and five cacao pods, although a restorable vessel was not present. Room 2 may have been a shrine room, based on the presence of censers there and burnt offerings recorded on its floor. The absence of a bench suggests it wasn’t used for sleeping or conferral.
Y-45a has yielded one of the most abundant and elaborate group of whole vessels ever recovered from a Mayapán house. We believe these pots represent much of the final house assemblage of vessels that were destroyed upon the structure’s abandonment. Why did the residents of this structure choose to fill in all of their rear rooms with rubble prior to leaving? No later occupation or construction overlies this rubble. This ceremonious act of termination likely attests to the travesty of the city’s fall. On one of the Room 1 vessels, the glyph 8 Ahau is painted (Figure 9); this is the katun of Mayapán’s destruction. At the R-86 group palace excavated by Proskouriakoff and Temple (1955:327), residents similarly took care to dispose of some of their vessels prior to departing. In that case, much ritual paraphernalia, including complete incensarios, were placed in a burial cist that was re-opened for this purpose.
The biggest surprise from Y-45a is the fact that one vessel was unlike any others found at Mayapán, and many unusual types are present. The vessels include a high proportion (19 of 27 whole or partial vessels) of Tecoh Red on Buff and related types, Pele Polychrome and Polbox Buff. These types are usually only a fraction of the sherds from Mayapán structures. The form and decoration of some of our Tecoh R/B vessels are unique, particularly the Katun 8 Ahau pot. An orange slipped olla with grey paste is of a type not previously identified at Mayapán, and the largest olla ever found at the site (Kanasin Rojo/Burdo) lay over Room 1’s bench. Prudence Rice visited our lab during the summer of 2004, and identified pottery in this assemblage that resembles Peten Lakes Kowoh ceramics; she and Leslie Cecil have initiated a sourcing study to determine whether these are imported vessels. Only one other structure at Mayapán had such a high proportion of Pele vessels, hall Q-88a, where Carlos Peraza found seven dishes on the floor beneath a burned roof. Structure Y-45a thus may provide important information about ethnic patterns at Mayapán.
Who were the residents of upper status houses like Y-45a, present throughout many of the city’s neighborhoods? Were they affluent merchants and/or heads of lineage segments? Landa (1941:26) describes one type of official, the caluac, which provisioned the city’s lords with all of their required goods, and Thompson and Thompson (1955:243) proposed that storage facilities might identify their houses. Structure Y-45a has two possible storage rooms that could have been used for such purposes. Alternatively, a long distant merchant, particularly one with ties to the central Peten, may have resided in such a house. Diverse artifact assemblages are one criteria by which mercantile activities could be identified along with storage facilities.
The lithics from Y-45a suggest that its residents were involved in military and/or hunting activities. Other stone tools reveal no specializations in agriculture or crafts as they consist of general purpose bifaces and modified flakes probably used in food preparation at this group. Overall, the stone tool assemblages of our three houses have some surprising similarities. Over half the tools are utilized flakes at all three locations, although X-43 had almost 20% more of these than L-28. The few formal tools consist of 50% or more projectile points in all cases (Figure 10), well above the site average of 36.2% points (percentage of all lithic tools identified). Obsidian is not more abundant at Y-45a as we expected for an upper status house; residents of L-28 relied the most on obsidian for household activities (40.1% of its stone tools, including utilized chert/chalcedony flakes).
Distinctive social group affiliation is implied by some other artifact distributions. All three locations have examples of the three major variations of flake projectile points (round, square, and concave base side notched points), but only Y-45a is dominated by one type, round base points. These are the most common type at Mayapán, but the proportion of these at Y-45a is notably higher than the site average. No projectile point base types dominate at either of the small houses. Beyond the high frequencies of Polbox/Tecoh/Pele ceramics at Y-45a described previously, we also note that L-28 has much higher proportions of Yacman Striated vessels compared to the other houses. These vessels are primarily utilitarian, unslipped ollas used for storage and food preparation. The other two houses used non-striated Navula unslipped vessels for these purposes. L-28 is also distinguished from the other two houses by a lower proportion of incensarios and the presence of sahumadores (ladle censers); these latter vessels are absent at X-43 and Y-45a. Higher amounts of tecomates (constricted mouth jars), molcajetes (grater bowls), cazuelas (basins), vessels used in food preparation and storage, are seen at L-28. We thus see differences in house assemblages that may signify variation in foodways and social affiliation. Our data imply that frequencies of rare slipped vessels like the Polbox group as well as common unslipped striated types may point to different social group identities, and we intend to pursue such comparisons further with our test pit results from the entire site.
What were the occupations of the residents of these structures? The artifacts suggest they were neither farmers nor craft specialists. Military activities were important at all three houses, but weapons form a major part of the site assemblage as a whole. The presence of storerooms at Y-45 indicates that tribute collection, trade or other behavior requiring storage may have occurred at this location. The occupants of this group could have been internal administrators or merchants engaged in long distant activities as their high proportions of exotic vessels imply. If Y-45a was a merchant residence, then the abundance of weapons would likely be linked to the need for defense on trading expeditions.
What of L-28 and X-43? Gair Tourtellot (1988:Table 45, 339-341) observes that more houses occur in isolation or in groups of two structures at Mayapán and Dzibilchaltun compared to Seibal. He proposes that Mayapán and Dzibilchaltun had labor institutions that called for part time occupation of small houses by nuclear families resettled from their more permanent homes. According to his model, part time laborers may have served in the military at Mayapán and worked the salt beds at Dzibilchaltun. Landa (1941) offers a corroborating statement that the city’s lords brought families to the city to provide services. Our investigations of X-43 and L-28 provide no information that contradicts Tourtellot’s military model, with their relatively short-term occupation histories and abundance of weapons. We think it likely, however, that single or two dwelling families probably provided a range of services at the city, including craft and agricultural production in addition to military service. Our test pit program has helped to identify stone tool and shell ornament workshops near other low status houses in the city as described below.
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© 2006 Institute for Mesoamerican Studies
Updated February 8, 2006
