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This introduction to the Special Section provides a summary of our current understanding of the first humans and the first Maya in these regions and presents seven articles that examine these critical periods from varied, intersecting perspectives. The Introduction begins with a brief history of early preceramic research (primarily in northern Belize) and provides a current chronology for the Paleoindian, Archaic, and Early Preclassic periods. The Paleoindian and Archaic (ca. 11,500–900b.c.) periods are discussed in terms of the origins of the first peoples in these regions, lithic technology, subsistence, and early ritual. Next, a summary of archaeological evidence for the transition to the first villages (ca. 1200–800b.c.) is provided, with examinations of a horticultural lifestyle, the earliest ceramics, increased socio-economic complexity, new ideology and ritual practices, and developing social inequality. Proto-Mayan and Mayan languages—their dating, origin, and early lexicon—are discussed in relation to the first Maya. Material culture and language are explored with regard to conceptions of Maya culture.

By AD 1450 the Inca had annexed the Kingdom of Lunahuana in the chaupi yunga of the Canete Valley. The Kingdom of Huarco proved much more difficult to subdue, but by AD 1470, after several efforts,...

Chapter 13 discusses Late Intermediate Period (~1000–1400 cal AD) and 20th-century fishing at Cerro Azul, a large site in the Cañete Valley on the Peruvian coast south of Lima. The authors provide data on the effects of the 1982–83 El Niño event on the local fisheries and use these data to examine the Cerro Azul zooarchaeological assemblage for evidence of El Niño events; they did not find signs of El Niño although events occurred while the site was inhabited.

Spindles with painted “barcodes” provide new information on weavers at Cerro Azul (Valley of Canete). Sets of identically barcoded spindles are often found in a specific workbasket, making it likely that each woman coded some of her personal property. At Cerro Azul, identically barcoded spindles occur in mummy bundles, workbaskets, open-air work spaces, storage bins, and a brewery. The juxtaposition of spinning, weaving, and brewing in one work space suggests Late Intermediate behavior anticipated the aklla—an Inca institution requiring “chosen women” to weave cloth and brew beer. The Inca presumably reconfigured this behavior so that it could be administered at an imperial level, rather than the level of the residential compound as at Cerro Azul (A.D. 1000–1470).

The study of individual style is of wide interest, but appropriate and convincing archaeological evidence is often lacking. Mummy bundles of three Late Intermediate (A.D. 1000–1470) women buried on the same terrace at Cerro Azul, Canete Valley, provide the ideal opportunity to discuss (1) the individual in prehistory, (2) personal stylistic choices made by each woman, and (3) possible relationships between these women. Since each woman was buried with at least two of the rare two-sided chumpis, those woven bands can be used to assess individual preferences for colors and motifs.

Social evolution can be defined as the appearance of new forms of social or sociopolitical organization. In the case of the prehistoric record, such changes are perhaps most successfully studied when archaeologists collaborate with ethnologists or ethnohistorians. Although ethnologists can provide unequaled detail on agents and institutions, many evolutionary transitions took longer than any ethnologist's lifetime. The archaeological record therefore provides an important proving ground for evolutionary theory. In this review, I synthesize some of the evidence supporting social evolution from both Old World and New World archaeology. I also argue that for the study of social evolution to advance, the field of anthropology must be willing to generalize; to compare and contrast cultures from different parts of the world; and to search for common patterns in the ways human societies responded to similar challenges.

The 2005 articles by Stoltman et al. and Flannery et al. to which Neff et al. (this issue) have responded are not an indictment of instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) but, rather, of the way Blomster et al. (2005) misuse it and of the hyperbolic culture-historical claims they have made from their INAA results. It has long been acknowledged that INAA leads not to sources but to chemical composition groups. Based on composition groups derived from an extremely unsystematic collection of sherds from only seven localities, Blomster et al. claim that the Olmec received no carved gray or kaolin white pottery from other regions; they also claim that neighboring valleys in the Mexican highlands did not exchange such pottery with each other. Not only can one not leap directly from the elements in potsherds to such sweeping culture-historical conclusions, it is also the case that other lines of evidence (including petrographic analysis) have for 40+ years produced empirical evidence to the contrary. In the end, it was their commitment to an unfalsifiable model of Olmec superiority that led Blomster et al. to bypass the logic of archaeological inference.

Petrographic analysis of Formative Mexican ceramics by J. B. Stoltman et al. (see the companion piece in this issue of PNAS) refutes a recent model of Olmec “one-way” trade. In this paper, we address the model's more fundamental problems of sampling bias, anthropological implausibility, and logical non sequiturs. No bridging argument exists to link motifs on pottery to the social, political, and religious institutions of the Olmec. In addition, the model of unreciprocated exchange is implausible, given everything that the anthropological and ethnohistoric records tell us about non-Western societies of that general sociopolitical level.

New 14 C dates from archaeological sites in Oaxaca, Mexico, support R. C. Kelly's observation that intervillage raiding may begin as soon as a region has segmentary societies. The oldest defensive palisade dates to 3260–3160 B.P. in conventional radiocarbon years, only a few centuries after village life was established. Over the next millennium raiding evolved into war, with residences and temples burned, captives killed, and populations moving to defensible hills. 14 C dates are now available for the first use of hieroglyphic writing to record a captive's name, military victories leading to the consolidation of the Zapotec state, the first skull rack, and the building of a fortress in conquered territory.

This paper focuses on the discoveries of the last decade in Maya archaeology, and assesses their impact on previous models and synthetic frameworks. Although the bibliography includes 700 items published during the last 10 years, it is not exhaustive; on the contrary, a frustratingly large number of discoveries had to be omitted. Two areas exploding with new research are (1) the elicitation of a greater variety of data from hieroglyphic texts, and (2) a series of chemical and biological breakthroughs in the analysis of human burials. The former make it easier to assess the role of elite actors or “agents” in processes of sociopolitical change. The latter hold out the hope of documenting warfare (through skeletal trauma), migration (by tracing tooth enamel isotopes to ground water), status or gender differences in diet (through bone chemistry), and biological connections of individuals to each other and to earlier populations (through DNA). By combining these new data, we are on our way to integrating humanism and science, and to treating Maya polities as case studies in primary or secondary state formation.

Las ruinas de Calakmul se encuentran en la cuenca del mismo nombre localizado dentro del 723,000 ha Reserva de la Biosfera Calakmul en el sureste del Estado de Campeche. Investigaciones del Centro de Investigaciones Históricas y Sociales de la Universidad Autónoma de Campeche han demostrado que Calakmul formaba una de las más grandes centros regionales en el área maya desde 600 a.C. hasta los fines del siglo IX dentro de su estado regional de 13,000 km2. Investigaciones de prospección remoto alrededor de Calakmul combinado con trabajos topográficos dentro de la ciudad misma han revelado 15 sac beob identificados por nosotros entre los tipos de vías terrestres descritos en los diccionarios de la idioma Maya formados durante el período colonial. Entre estos sac beob se encuentran tipos regionales, estatales y los sac beob registrados dentro de la ciudad de Calakmul. Aunque existe un traslapo entre varios tipos de sac beob, pensamos que excavaciones futuras van a ayudarnos a clasificar cada sac be en una forma más precisa.

Most scholars agree that the urban states of Classic Mexico developed from Formative chiefdoms which preceded them. They disagree over whether that development (1) took place over the whole area from the Basin of Mexico to Chiapas, or (2) emanated entirely from one unique culture on the Gulf Coast. Recently 21 put forth 11 assertions in defense of the second scenario, which assumes an Olmec “Mother Culture.” This paper disputes those assertions. It suggests that a model for rapid evolution, originally presented by biologist Sewall Wright, provides a better explanation for the explosive development of Formative Mexican society.

Fish and mammal bones from the coastal site of Cerro Azul, Peru shed light on economic specialization just before the Inca conquest of A.D. 1470. The site devoted itself to procuring anchovies and sardines in quantity for shipment to agricultural communities. These small fish were dried, stored, and eventually transported inland via caravans of pack llamas. Cerro Azul itself did not raise llamas but obtainedcharqui(or dried meat) as well as occasional whole adult animals from the caravans. Guinea pigs were locally raised. Some 20 species of larger fish were caught by using nets; the more prestigious varieties of these show up mainly in residential compounds occupied by elite families.

The 200-year period from A.D. 230 to 430 witnessed the transition from chiefdom to state in the Maya Lowlands and the founding of several early political dynasties. Considerable information on that era is known for major cities like Tikal and Copán, but we knew less about the Calakmul area until recently. Previously, Calakmul's earliest dated monument was Stela 43, carved at A.D. 514. On the other hand, Tikal's earliest text dated to A.D. 292, and its ruling dynasty claimed that its founding date was A.D. 230. The ruling dynasties of most other cities that eventually became Maya regional capitals were evidently founded later, between A.D. 330 and 430.With the 1994 discovery of Stela 114 at Calakmul, we can now push Calakmul's written record back to A.D. 431. The oldest stela in Calakmul’s realm was erected in A.D. 406 at Balakbal, to document the reign of a Balakbal ruler who was a contemporary of the Tikal ruler Curl Snout. Some 25 years later, Calakmul erected Stela 114 to commemorate a Calakmul ruler who was a contemporary of the Tikal ruler Stormy Sky. Even though we had expected Calakmul's dynasty to have greater time depth than A.D. 514, it was not until the discovery of Stela 114 that we were able to confirm that point.

En 1972, cuando empecé el proyecto titulado "Un análisis de la escritura antigua de los zapotecos de Oaxaca", hice varias visitas a todos aquellos museos que podrían tener en sus acervos muestrarios o ejemplos de la escritura zapoteca. Durante una de esas visitas, me sorprendió encontrar en el Museo "Rufino Tamayo", de la ciudad de Oaxaca, tres monumentos grabados que provienen de la zona maya. Estos monumentos son importantes ya que aumentan nuestro conocimiento del uso y extensión de los glifos mayas. Como se sabe, cada monumento añade información sobre el tema de los gobernantes -sus reinos y hazañas. También aprendemos cada vez más sobre las interrelaciones entre los sitios del mismo o diferente rango. Desafortunadamente, como suele suceder en el caso de los monumentos mayas que se encuentran en colecciones particulares, y a veces en algunos museos, casi nunca podemos estar seguros de sus procedencias. Podemos sugerirlas, pero es imposible comprobarlas. Aun así, a continuación describiremos los monumentos que aquí son objeto de nuestro estudio. Los dos primeros, si bien seria mejor y sabríamos mucho más acerca de ellos si se hubieran encontrado in situ, no por eso dejan de ser importantes en cuanto a la información que nos proporcionan. En lo que toca al tercero, tenemos una idea mas segura de su procedencia, ya que en 1927 fue estudiado por Beyer (1927a, 1927b), cuando era parte de una estela localizada en "Tila", Chiapas; ahora es solamente un fragmento.

Etude sur le role des jeux de balle dans les rituels mesoamericains et son importance dans l'organisation de la societe, de l'architecture et l'organisation des rituels politiques

Application d'une echelle logarithmique specifique a l'etude d'assemblages d'artefacts provenant de villages de la cote nord de Nouvelle-Guinee : le but des auteurs est de presenter une methode visant a tester l'apport de l'etude de la distance et du language a l'explication de la similarite de ces assemblages dans tous ces villages

In this paper we summarize more than a decade of interdisciplinary work at Calakmul, including (1) the mapping project, which has covered more than 30 km2; (2) the excavation project, which has uncovered major structures and tombs in the center of the city; (3) the epigraphic project, whose goal is to study the hieroglyphic texts and relate them to the archaeological evidence; (4) the analysis of the architecture, ceramics, and chipped stone to define sacred and secular activity areas and chronological stages; and (5) a focus on the ecology, hydrology, and paleoclimatology of Calakmul and its environs with the aim of understanding more fully its periods of development and decline.