Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Rubbish, Reuse, and Ritual at the Ancient Maya Site of El Zotz, Guatemala

  • Published:
Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This article questions the limits of archaeological categories. It highlights the ways in which labels created to interpret archaeological phenomena can, over time, become reified and even appear as archaeological entities themselves. To illustrate this point, I provide a common example from Mesoamerican archaeology, where one particular archaeological category—“termination”—is applied to a diverse array of complex assemblages of fragmented materials. The “termination” label is widely accepted, but ambiguous. Over time, the term has become so capacious as to not only describe quite varied archaeological assemblages, but also explain how they came to be formed and why they exist. This article critically examines the history, usage, and limits of “termination” as a cultural concept, an archaeological category, and a hermeneutic tool. Drawing on a case study from the ancient Maya site of El Zotz, Guatemala, I show that attention to the specific ways that people in the past manipulated, collected, and buried the components of an assemblage can yield more nuanced interpretations of ancient practices than those provided by an a priori label like “termination.” Extending indicators of pre- and post-depositional processes commonly employed in osteological analyses (e.g., visible burning, breakage, and surface modification patterns) to other types of artifacts (including lithics and ceramics) not only reveals the curation and ritual reuse of refuse by the ancient Maya of El Zotz, but also troubles the stability of the category of “termination.” More broadly, I call attention to the fact that employing reified archaeological categories may actively impede the identification of differences among ancient activities. Reflexively reconsidering archaeological labels not only prevents archaeologists from seeing the past as a mirror of the present, effectively explained by the categories and concepts we generate, but also raises new possibilities for rethinking traditional interpretations and long-held assumptions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 13
Fig. 14
Fig. 15
Fig. 16
Fig. 17

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Adams, W. Y., & Adams, E. W. (1991). Archaeological typology and practical reality: a dialectical approach to artifact classification and sorting. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Adams, E. Charles and Vincent M. LaMotta. 2006. New perspectives on ancient religion: Katsina ritual and the archaeological record. In Religion in the Prehispanic Southwest, edited by Christine S. VanePool, Todd L. VanPool, and David A. Phillips, Jr. pp. 533–566. AltaMira Press, Lanham, MD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Agurcia Fasquelle, R., Sheets, P., & Taube, K. A. (2016). Protecting sacred space: Rosalila’s eccentric chert cache at Copan and eccentrics among the Classic Maya. San Francisco: Precolumbia Mesoweb Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alperson-Afil, N., & Goren-Inbar, N. (2010). The Acheulian site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov: Volume II. New York: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ambrosino, J. N. (2007). Warfare and destruction in the Maya lowlands: pattern and process in the archaeological record of Yaxuna, Yucatan, Mexico. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University.

  • Ardren, T. (1999). Palace termination rituals at Yaxuna, Yucatan, Mexico. In R. Gubler (Ed.), Land of the turkey and the deer (pp. 25–36). Lancaster, CA: Labyrinthos.

    Google Scholar 

  • Arnold, D. E. (1985). Ceramic theory and cultural process. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Astor-Aguilera, M. (2009). Mesoamerican communicating objects: Mayan worldviews before, during, and after Spanish contact. In L. G. Cecil & T. W. Pugh (Eds.), Maya worldviews at conquest (pp. 159–182). Boulder: University of Colorado Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Astor-Aguilera, M. A. (2010). The Maya world of communicating objects: quadripartite crosses, trees, and stones. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Banducci, L. M. (2014). Function and use of roman pottery: a quantitative method for assessing use-wear. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 27(2), 187–210.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beck, M. E. (2006). Midden ceramic assemblage formation: a case study from Kalinga, Philippines. American Antiquity, 71(1), 27–51.

    Google Scholar 

  • Becker, M. J. (1993). Earth offering among the Classic period lowland Maya: burials and caches as ritual deposits. In M. J. Iglesias & F. d. A. L. Perramón (Eds.), Perspectivas antropológicas en el mundo maya (pp. 45–74). Madrid: Sociedad Española de Estudios Mayas.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bell, C. (1992). Ritual theory, ritual practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bollong, C. A. (1994). Analysis of site stratigraphy and formation processes using patterns of pottery sherd dispersion. Journal of Field Archaeology, 21, 15–28.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, L. A. (2004). Dangerous places and wild spaces: creating meaning with materials and space at contemporary Maya shrines on El Duende Mountain. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 11(1), 31–58.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, M. K., & Garber, J. F. (2003). Evidence of conflict during the Middle Preclassic in the Maya lowlands: a view from Blackman Eddy, Belize. In M. Kathryn Brown & T. W. Stanton (Eds.), Ancient Mesoamerican warfare (pp. 91–108). Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brück, J. (1999). Ritual and relationality: some problems of interpretation in European archaeology. European Journal of Archaeology, 2(3), 313–344.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brudenell, M., & Cooper, A. (2008). Post-Middenism: depositional histories on later bronze age settlements at Broom, Bedforshire. Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 27(1), 15–36.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buenger, B.. (2003). The Impact of wildland and prescribed fire on archaeological resources. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Kansas.

  • Cameron, C. M., & Tomka, S. A. (Eds.). (1996). Abandonment of settlements and regions: ethnoarchaeological and archaeological approaches. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chapman, J. C. (2000). Fragmentation in archaeology: people, places, and broken objects in the prehistory of South Eastern Europe. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chapman, J. C. (2012). Structured deposition meets deliberate object fragmentation. Archaeological Dialogues, 19(2), 129–133.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chapman, J. C., & Gaydarska, B. (2006). Parts and wholes: fragmentation in prehistoric context. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chase, D. Z., & Chase, A. F. (1998). Architectural context of caches, burials, and other ritual activities. In S. Houston (Ed.), Function and meaning in Classic Maya architecture (pp. 299–332). Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chase, A. F., & Chase, D. Z. (2004). Terminal classic status-linked ceramics and the Maya ‘collapse’: de facto refuse at Caracol, Belize. In A. A. Demarest, P. M. Rice, & D. S. Rice (Eds.), The terminal classic in the Maya lowlands: collapse, transition, and transformation (pp. 342–366). Boulder: University Press of Colorado.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chase, A. F., & Chase, D. Z. (2011). Status and power: Caracol, Teotihuacan, and the Early Classic Maya world. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology, 8, 3–18.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chase, A. F., & Chase, D. Z. (2013). Interpreting form and context: ceramic subcomplexes at Caracol, Nohmul, and Santa Rita Corozal, Belize. In J. J. Aimers (Ed.), Ancient Maya pottery: classification, analysis, and interpretation (pp. 46–73). Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

    Google Scholar 

  • Christenson, A. J. (2016). The burden of the ancients: Maya ceremonies of world renewal from the Pre-Columbian period to the present. Austin: University of Texas Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clayton, S. C., David Driver, W., & Kosakowsky, L. J. (2005). Rubbish or ritual? Contextualizing a terminal classic problematical deposit at Blue Creek, Belize. Ancient Mesoamerica, 16(01), 119–130.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coe, W. R. (1959). Piedras Negras archaeology: artifacts, caches, and burials. Philadelphia: The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coe, W. R. (1965). Caches and offertory practices of the Maya lowlands. In R. Wauchope (Ed.), Handbook of Middle American Indians, Vol. 2 (Vol. 1, pp. 462–468). Austin: University of Texas Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coe, W. R. (1990). Excavations in the great plaza, north terrace and north acropolis of Tikal (Group 5D-2). Tikal Reports no. 14. Philadelphia: University Museum, University of Pennsylvania.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cook, G. W. (2000). Renewing the Maya world: expressive culture in a highland town. Austin: University of Texas Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cook, G. W., & Offit, T. A. (2013). Indigenous religion and cultural performance in the new Maya world. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crader, D. C. (1984). The zooarchaeology of the storehouse and the dry well at Monticello. American Antiquity, 49(3), 542–558.

    Google Scholar 

  • Craig, J. H. (2004). Dedication, termination, and perpetuation: evidence for a continuum of ritual behavior at San Bartolo, El Petén, Guatemala. Master’s Thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Kansas.

  • Craig, J. H. (2009). Shifting perceptions of sacred spaces: ceremonial reuse of Maya architecture and monuments at San Bartolo, Guatemala. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Kansas.

  • Cultrone, G., Rodriguez-Navarro, C., Sebastian, E., Cazalla, O., & de la Torre, M. J. (2001). Carbonate and silicate phase reactions during ceramic firing. European Journal of Mineralogy, 13(3), 621–634.

    Google Scholar 

  • Daston, L. (2000). The coming into being of scientific objects. In L. Daston (Ed.), Biographies of scientific objects (pp. 1–14). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deal, M. (1985). Household pottery disposal in the Maya highlands: an ethnoarchaeological interpretation. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 4(4), 243–291.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deal, M. (1998). Pottery ethnoarchaeology in the central Maya highlands. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deal, M., & Hagstrum, M. B. (2000). Ceramic reuse behavior among the Maya and Wanka: implications for archaeology. In M. A. Dobres & J. Robb (Eds.), Agency in archeology (pp. 111–125). London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deal, Krista, DeBano, Leaonard, Elliot, Michael L., Haecker, Charles, Trinkle Jones, Ann, Kelly, Roger Lee, Kristine M., McCarthy, Daniel F., Oster, Elizabeth, Rude, Trisha, Ruscava-Barz, Samantha M., Ryan, Kevin C., Siefkin, Nelson, Timmons, Rebecca S., and Welch, John R. 2012. Wildland fire in ecosystems effects of fire on cultural resources and archaeology. JFSP Synthesis Reports 3. United Stated Department of Agriculture Forest Service. Rocky Mountain Research Station, CO.

  • Ellen, R. F., & Reason, D. (Eds.). (1979). Classifications in their social context. New York: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elson, C. M., & Smith, M. E. (2001). Archaeological deposits from the Aztec New Fire ceremony. Ancient Mesoamerica, 12(02), 157–174.

    Google Scholar 

  • Emery, K. F. (2008). Techniques of ancient Maya bone working: evidence from a Classic Maya deposit. Latin American Antiquity, 19(2), 204–221.

    Google Scholar 

  • Estrada-Belli, F., Tokovinine, A., Foley, J. M., Hurst, H., Ware, G. A., Stuart, D., & Grube, N. (2009). A Maya palace at Holmul, Peten, Guatemala and the Teotihuacan ‘Entrada’: evidence from murals 7 and 9. Latin American Antiquity, 20(1), 228–259.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fabian, J. (1983). Time and the other: how anthropology makes its object. New York: Columbia Unviersity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fash, W. L., Tokovinine, A., & Fash, B. W. (2009). The house of new fire at Teotihuacan and its legacy in Mesoamerica. In W. L. Fash & L. L. Luján (Eds.), The art of urbanism: how Mesoamerican kings represented themselves in architecture and imagery (pp. 201–229). Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fewster, K. (2001). The responsibilities of ethnoarchaeologists. In M. Pluciennik (Ed.), The Responsibilities of archaeologists: archaeology and ethics (pp. 65–73. British Archaeological Reports 981). Oxford: Archaeopress.

    Google Scholar 

  • Florescano, E. (2000). La Visión del Cosmos de los Indígena Actuales. Descatos, 5, 15–30.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foias, A. E. (1996). Changing ceramic production and exchange systems and the Classic Maya collapse in the Petexbatún Region, Volume I. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University.

  • Fontijn, D. (2012). Meaningful but beyond words? Interpreting material culture patterning. Archaeological Dialogues, 19(2), 124–127.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fowles, S. M. (2013). An archaeology of doings: secularism and the study of pueblo religion. Santa Fe: School for Advanced Research.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freidel, D. A., & Schele, L. (1989). Dead kings and living temples: dedication and termination rituals among the Ancient maya. In L. Schele, W. F. Hanks, & D. S. Rice (Eds.), Word and image in Maya culture (pp. 233–243). Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freidel, D. A., Schele, L., & Parker, J. (1993). Maya cosmos: three thousand years on the shaman’s path. New York: William Morrow.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freidel, D. A., Suhler, C. K., & Palma, R. C. (1998). Termination ritual deposits at Yaxuna: detecting the historical in archaeological contexts. In S. B. Mock (Ed.), The sowing and the dawning: termination, dedication, and transformation in the archaeological and ethnographic record of Mesoamerica (pp. 135–144). Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freidel, D. A., MacLeod, B., & Suhler, C. K. (2003). Early Classic Maya conquest in words and deeds. In M. Kathryn Brown & T. W. Stanton (Eds.), Ancient Mesoamerican warfare (pp. 189–215). Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garber, J. F. (1981). Material culture and patterns of artifact consumption and disposal at the Maya site of Cerros in Northern Belize. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University.

  • Garber, J. F. (1983). Patterns of jade consumption and disposal at Cerros, Northern Belize. American Antiquity, 48(04), 800–807.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garrison, T. G., & Houston, S. D. (Eds.). (2017). An inconstant landscape: the Maya kingdom of El Zotz, Guatemala. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garrow, D. (2012a). Odd deposits and average practice. A critical history of the concept of structured deposition. Archaeological Dialogues, 19(2), 85–115.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garrow, D. (2012b). Reply to responses. Archaeological Dialogues, 19(2), 133–137.

    Google Scholar 

  • Golden, C. W. (2002). Bridging the gap between archaeological and indigenous chronologies: an investigation of the Early Classic/Late Classic Divide at Piedras Negras, Guatemala. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.

  • Gómez de Orozco, F. (editor). (1945). Costumbres, Fiestas, Enterramientos, y Diversas Formas de Proceder de los Indios de Nueva España. Tlalocan 2: pp. 37–63.

  • Gosden, C., & Marshall, Y. (1999). The cultural biography of objects. World Archaeology, 31(2), 169–178.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haglund, W. D., & Sorg, M. H. (Eds.). (1997). Forensic Taphonomy: the postmortem fate of human remains. Boca Raton: CRC Press LLC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall, M. A. (2011). The cult of saints in medieval Perth: everyday ritual and the material of belief. Journal of Material Culture, 16(1), 80–104.

    Google Scholar 

  • Halperin, C. T., & Foias, A. E. (2010). Pottery politics: Late Classic Maya palace production at Motul de San José, Petén, Guatemala. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 29(3), 392–411.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hamann, B. E. (2008). Chronological pollution: potsherds, mosques, and broken gods before and after the conquest of Mexico. Current Anthropology, 49(5), 803–836.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hamilakis, Y. (2011). Archaeological ethnography: a multi-temporal meeting ground for archaeology and anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology, 40(1), 399–414.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hanks, W. F. (1984). Sanctification, structure, and experience in a Yucatec ritual event. The Journal of American Folklore, 97(384), 131–166.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hanks, W. F. (1990). Referential practice: language and lived space among the Maya. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hansen, S. (2012). Deposition in the Bronze Age. Archaeological Dialogues, 19(2), 127–129.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harrison-Buck, E., McAnany, P., & Storey, R. (2007). Empowered and disempowered during the late to terminal classic transition: Maya burial and termination rituals in the Sibun Valley, Belize. In V. Tiesler & A. Cucina (Eds.), New perspectives on human sacrifice and ritual body treatments in ancient Maya society (pp. 74–98). New York: Springer-Verglad.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hayden, B. (1984). Are emic types relevant to archaeology? Ethnohistory, 31(2), 79–92.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hayden, B., & Cannon, A. (1983). Where the garbage goes: refuse disposal in the Maya highlands. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2(2), 117–163.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hill, J. D. (1995). Ritual and rubbish in the Iron Age of Wessex: a study on the formation of a specific archaeological record. In British Archaeological Reports, British Series 242. Oxford: Tempus Reparatum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Houk, B. A. (2000). Life, the universe, and everything: Re-evaluating problematic deposit 2 from dos hombres, Belize. In B. A. Houk (Ed.), The 1998 and 1999 seasons of the Chan Chich archaeological project (pp. 141–150). Austin: The University of Texas Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Houston, S. D. (2014). The life within: Classic Maya and the matter of permanence. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Houston, S. D., & Stuart, D. (2001). Peopling the classic Maya court. In T. Inomata & S. D. Houston (Eds.), Royal courts of the ancient Maya, volume 1: theory, comparison, and synthesis (pp. 54–83). Boulder: Westview Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Houston, S., Newman, S., Román, E., & Garrison, T. (2015). Temple of the night sun: a royal tomb at El Diablo, Guatemala. San Francisco: Precolumbia Mesoweb Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hranicky, W. J. (2013). Archaeological concepts, techniques, and terminology for American prehistoric lithic technology. Bloomington: AuthorHouse.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hruby, Zachary X., & Katrina Lang. 2010. La Lítica del Proyecto Arqueológico El Zotz. In Proyecto Arqueológico “El Zotz” Informe No. 4, Temporada 2009, edited by Griselda Pérez Robles, Edwin Román, and Stephen Houston, pp. 307–320. Report submitted to the Institute of Anthropology and History, Guatemala.

  • Hutson, S. R., & Stanton, T. W. (2007). Cultural logic and practical reason: the structure of discard in ancient Maya houselots. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 17(2), 125–144.

    Google Scholar 

  • Inomata, T. (2003). War, destruction, and abandonment: the fall of the Classic Maya center of Aguateca, Guatemala. In T. Inomata & R. Webb (Eds.), The archaeology of settlement abandonment in Mesoamerica (pp. 43–60). Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Inomata, T. (2014). Fire intensity assessment through the analysis of artifacts and building materials: burning and abandonment at the Classic Maya sites of Aguateca and Ceibal, Guatemala. Advances in Archaeological Practice:50–63.

  • Inomata, T., & Ponciano, E. (2010). The palace group. In T. Inomata & D. Triadan (Eds.), Burned palaces and elite residences of Aguateca: excavations and ceramics (pp. 23–52). Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jervis, B. (2014). Middens, memory, and the effect of waste. Beyond symbolic meaning in archaeological deposits. An early medieval case study. Archaeological Dialogues, 21(2), 175–196.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, A. M. (2002). Archaeology theory and scientific practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, A. M. (2015). Ritual, rubbish, or everyday life? Evidence form a middle bronze age settlement in Mid-Cornwall. The Archaeological Journal, 172(1), 30–51.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keane, W. (1997). Signs of recognition: powers and hazards of representation in an Indonesian society. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kidder, A. V., Jennings, J. D., & Shook, E. M. (1946). Excavations at Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institute of Washington Publication 561.

    Google Scholar 

  • Killion, T. W. (1990). Cultivation intensity and residential site structure: an ethnoarchaeological examination of peasant agriculture in the Sierra de los Tuxtlas, Veracruz, Mexico. Latin American Antiquity, 1(3), 191–215.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kosiba, S. (2012). Emplacing value, cultivating order: places of conversion and practices of subordination throughout early Inka state formation (Cusco, Perú). In G. Urton & J. Papadopoulos (Eds.), Constructions of value in the ancient world (pp. 99–127). Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kunen, J. L., Galindo, M. J., & Chase, E. (2002). Pits and bones: identifying Maya ritual behavior in the archaeological record. Ancient Mesoamerica, 13(02), 197–211.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lamoureux-St-Hilaire, M., Macrae, S., McCane, C. A., Parker, E. A., & Iannone, G. (2015). The last groups standing: living abandonment at the ancient Maya center of Minanha, Belize. Latin American Antiquity, 26(4), 550–569.

    Google Scholar 

  • Landa, D. d. (1994). In M. del Carmen León Cázares (Ed.), Relación de las cosas de Yucatán. Distrito Federal, México: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lindahl, A., & Matenga, E. (1995). Present and past: ceramics and homesteads. An ethnoarchaeological project in the Buhera District, Zimbabwe. Uppsala: Repro HSC.

    Google Scholar 

  • López Varela, S. L., van Gijn, A., & Jacobs, L. (2002). De-mystifying pottery production in the Maya lowlands: detection of traces of use-wear on pottery sherds through microscopic analysis and experimental replication. Journal of Archaeological Science, 29(10), 1133–1147.

    Google Scholar 

  • Luby, E. M., & Gruber, M. F. (1999). The dead must be fed: symbolic meanings of the shellmounds of the San Francisco Bay Area. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 9(1), 95–108.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lucero, L. J. (2010). Materialized cosmology among ancient Maya commoners. Journal of Social Archaeology, 10(1), 138–167.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marroquín, E., Garrido, J. L., & Houston, S. D. (2011). Operación 2: Excavaciones en la Acrópolis. In J. L. G. López, S. Houston, & E. Román (Eds.), Proyecto Arqueológico El Zotz: Informe Preliminar No. 5, Temporada 2010 (pp. 4–66). Guatemala: Reported submitted to the Institute of Anthropology and History.

    Google Scholar 

  • McNiven, I. J. (2013). Ritualized middening practices. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 20(4), 552–587.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mock, S. B. (1998). Prelude. In S. B. Mock (Ed.), The sowing and the dawning: termination, dedication, and transformation in the archaeological and ethnographic record of Mesomamerica (pp. 3–18). Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Monaghan, J. (1998). Dedication: ritual or production? In S. B. Mock (Ed.), The sowing and the dawning: termination, dedication, and transformation in the archaeological and ethnographic record of Mesoamerica (pp. 47–56). Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Monaghan, J. (2000). Theology and history in the study of Mesoamerican religions. In Handbook of Middle American Indians, Supplement 6, Ethnology. Austin: University of Texas Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morehart, C. T., Lentz D. L., & Prufer, K. M. (2005). Wood of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Pine (Pinus spp.) by the Ancient Lowland Maya. Latin American Antiquity, 16(3), 255–274.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morris, J., & Jervis, B. (2011). What’s so special? A reinterpretation of Anglo-Saxon ‘special deposits’. Medieval Archaeology, 55(1), 66–81.

    Google Scholar 

  • Munro, R. (2013). The disposal of place: facing modernity in the kitchen-diner. In D. Evans, H. Campbell, & A. Murcott (Eds.), Waste matters: new perspectives of food and society (pp. 212–231). Malden: John Wiley and Sons.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nalda, E., & Balanzario, S. (2011). Kohunlich: Acumulaciones Inusuales y Figurillas. Mexico City: National Institute of Anthropology and History.

    Google Scholar 

  • Navarro-Farr, O. C. (2009). Ritual, process, and continuity in the Late to Terminal Classic transition: investigations at Structure M13-1 in the Ancient Maya Site of El Perú-Waka’, Petén, Guatemala. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas.

  • Navarro-Farr, O. C., & Prera, A. L. A. (2014). A cumulative palimpsest effect: the multilayered meanings of late-to-terminal classic era, above-floor deposits at structure M13-1. In O. C. Navarro-Farr & M. Rich (Eds.), Archaeology at El Perú-Waka’: ancient Maya performances of ritual, memory, and power (pp. 34–52). Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Navarro-Farr, O. C., Freidel, D. A., & Prera, A. L. A. (2008). Manipulating memory in the wake of dynastic decline at El Perú-Waka’: termination deposits at abandoned structure M13-1. In T. W. Stanton & A. Magnoni (Eds.), Ruins of the past: the use and perception of abandoned structures in the Maya lowlands (pp. 113–145). Boulder: University Press of Colorado.

    Google Scholar 

  • Needham, S., & Spence, T. (1997). Refuse and the formation of middens. Antiquity, 71(271), 77–90.

    Google Scholar 

  • Newman, S. E. (2013). Limpieza de Saqueos en la Acrópolis de El Zotz (Operación 22). In J. L. G. López, T. Garrison, E. Román, & S. Houston (Eds.), Proyecto Arqueológico El Zotz, Informe No. 7, Temporada 2012 (pp. 99–116). Guatemala: Report submitted to the Institute of Anthropology and History.

    Google Scholar 

  • Newman, S. E. (2015a). Rethinking refuse: a history of Maya trash. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Brown University.

  • Newman, S. E. (2015b). Applications of reflectance transformation imaging (RTI) to the study of bone surface modifications. Journal of Archaeological Science, 53, 536–549.

    Google Scholar 

  • Newman, S., Garrido, J. L., & Carter, N. (2017). Collapse, continuity, change: El Zotz in the Terminal Classic period. In T. G. Garrison & S. Houston (Eds.), An inconstant landscape: the archaeology of El Zotz, Guatemala. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nielsen, J. A. (2006). The coming of the torch: observations on Teotihuacan iconography in Early Classic Tikal. In F. Sachse (Ed.), Maya ethnicity: the construction of ethnic identity from Preclassic to modern times: Proceedings of the 9 th European Maya Conference, Bonn, December 10–12, 2004 (pp. 19–30). Markt Schwaben: Verlag Anton Saurwein.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nongbri, B. (2013). Before religion: a history of a modern concept. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Brien, M. J., & Lyman, R. L. (2002). The epistemological nature of archaeological units. Anthropological Theory, 2(1), 37–56.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Connor, T. (2008). The archaeology of animal Bones. College Station: Texas A&M University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Olivier, G. (2007). Sacred bundles, arrows, and new fire: foundation and power in the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2. In D. Carrasco & S. M. Sessions (Eds.), Cave, city, and eagle’s nest: an interpretive journey through the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2 (pp. 281–313). Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Olsen, S. L., & Shipman, P. (1988). Surface modification on bone: trampling versus butchery. Journal of Archaeological Science, 15(5), 535–553.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pagliaro, J. B., Garber, J. F., & Stanton, T. W. (2003). Reevaluating the archaeological signatures of Maya ritual and conflict. In M. Kathryn Brown & T. W. Stanton (Eds.), Ancient Mesoamerican warfare (pp. 75–89). Walnut Creek, California: AltaMira Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peraza Lope, C., Ku, P. D., & Ojeda, B. E. (2002). Intervenciones en un edificio del preclásico medio en Tipikal, Yucatán. Los investigadores de la cultura maya, 10, 262–276.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pérez Robles, G., Flores, F. Q., & Stephen, H. (2010). Operación 2: Excavaciones en la Acrópolis. In G. P. Robles, E. Román, & S. Houston (Eds.), Proyecto Arqueológico “El Zotz” Informe No. 4, Temporada 2009 (pp. 9–68). Guatemala: Report submitted to the Institute of Anthropology and History.

    Google Scholar 

  • Phillips, P., Ford, J. A., & Griffin, J. B. (1951). Archaeological survey in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, 1940–1947. Cambridge, MA: Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Plunket, P., & Uruñuela, G. (2003). From episodic to permanent abandonment: response to volcanic hazards at Tetimpa, Puebla, Mexico. In T. Inomata & R. W. Webb (Eds.), The archaeology of settlement abandonment in Middle America (pp. 13–27). Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Purdy, B. A. (1975). Fractures for the archaeologist. In E. H. Swanson (Ed.), Lithic technology (pp. 133–141). Paris: Mouton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rice, P. M. (2009). Mound ZZI, Nixtun-Ch’ich’, Peten, Guatemala: rescue operations at a long-lived structure in the Maya lowlands. Journal of Field Archaeology, 34(4), 403–422.

    Google Scholar 

  • Richards, C., & Thomas, J. (1984). Ritual activity and structured deposition in later Neolithic Wessex. In R. Bradley & J. Gardiner (Eds.), Neolithic studies: a review of some current research (pp. 189–218). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robertson, R. A. (1983). Functional analysis and social process in ceramics: the pottery from Cerros, Belize. In R. M. Leventhal & A. L. Kolata (Eds.), Civilization in the ancient Americas, essays in honor of Gordon R. Willey (pp. 105–142). Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sadek-Kooros, H. (1972). Primitive bone fracturing: a method of research. American Antiquity, 37(3), 369–382.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sadek-Kooros, H. (1975). Intentional fracturing of bone: description of criteria. In A. T. Clason (Ed.), Archaeozoological studies (pp. 139–141). Amsterdam: Elsevier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sahagún, Bernardino de. 1953. General history of the things of New Spain: book 7—the sun, moon, and stars, and the binding of the years. Translated by Arthur J.O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble. Santa Fe: The School of American Research and the University of Utah.

  • Schiffer, M. B. (1987). Formation processes of the archaeological record. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schiffer, M. B. (1989). Formation processes of broken K pueblo: some hypotheses. In R. D. Leonard & G. T. Jones (Eds.), Quantifying diversity in archaeology, New Directions in Archaeology Series (pp. 37–58). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schiffer, M. B., & Skibo, J. M. (1989). A provisional theory of ceramic abrasion. American Anthropologist, 91(1), 101–115.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schlanger, S. H., & Wilshusen, R. H. (1996). Local abandonment and regional conditions in the North American Southwest. In C. M. Cameron & S. A. Tonka (Eds.), Abandonment of settlements and regions: ethnoarchaeological and archaeological approaches (pp. 85–98). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwake, S. A., & Iannone, G. (2010). Ritual remains and collective memory: Maya examples from west central Belize. Ancient Mesoamerica, 21(2), 331–339.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sergant, J., Crombé, P., & Perdaen, Y. (2006). The ‘invisible’ hearths: a contribution to the discernment of Mesolithic non-structured surface hearths. Journal of Archaeological Science, 33(7), 999–1007.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shipman, P., Foster, G., & Schoeninger, M. (1984). Burnt bones and teeth: an experimental study of color, morphology, crystal structure, and shrinkage. Journal of Archaeological Science, 11(4), 307–325.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shoval, S., Gaft, M., Beck, P., & Kirsh, Y. (1993). Thermal behaviour of limestone and monocrystalline calcite tempers during firing and their use in ancient vessels. Journal of Thermal Analysis, 40(1), 263–273.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sillar, B., & Joffré, G. R. (2016). Using the present to interpret the past: the role of ethnographic studies in Andean archaeology. World Archaeology, 48(5), 656–673.

    Google Scholar 

  • Skibo, J. M. (2013). Understanding pottery function. New York: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, M. L. (2011). ‘I discard, therefore i am’: identity and leave-taking of possessions. In Identity crisis: archaeological perspectives on social identity, edited by Lindsay Amundsen-Meyer, Nicole Engel and Sean Pickering, pp. 132–142. Proceedings of the 42nd (2010) Annual Chacmool Archaeology Conference. Chacmool Archaeological Association, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta.

  • Sparks, G. (2011). Xalqat B’e and the Theologia Indorum: crossroads between Maya spirituality and the Americas’ first theology. Ph.D. Dissertation, Divinity School, University of Chicago.

  • Stahl, P. W., & Zeidler, J. A. (1990). Differential bone-refuse accumulation in food-preparation and traffic areas on an early Ecuadorian house floor. Latin American Antiquity, 1(2), 150–169.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stanton, T. W., Brown, M. K., & Pagliaro, J. B. (2008). Garbage of the gods? Squatters, refuse disposal, and termination rituals among the ancient Maya. Latin American Antiquity, 19(3), 227–247.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stiner, M. C., Kuhn, S. L., Weiner, S., & Bar-Yosef, O. (1995). Differential burning, recrystallization, and fragmentation of archaeological bone. Journal of Archaeological Science, 22(2), 223–237.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stross, B. (2007). Mesoamerican Copan resins. Electronic document, http://www.utexas.edu/courses/stross/papers/copal.htm, Accessed 24 June 2013.

  • Suhler, C. K., & Freidel, D. A. (2003). The tale end of two cities: Tikal, Yaxuna, and abandonment contexts in the lowland Maya archaeological record. In T. Inomata & R. Webb (Eds.), The archaeology of settlement abandonment in Middle America (pp. 135–147). Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swenson, E. (2015). The archaeology of ritual. Annual Review of Archaeology, 44, 329–345.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tax, S., & Hinshaw, R. (1969). The Maya of the midwestern highlands. In E. Z. Vogt (Ed.), Handbook of Middle American Indians, Vol. 7, ethnology, part 1 (pp. 69–100). Austin: University of Texas Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomas, J. (2012). Some deposits are more structured than others. Archaeological Dialogues, 19(2), 124–127.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, R. H. (1958). Modern Yucatecan Maya pottery making. Memoirs of the society for American archaeology, No. 15. The Society for American Archaeology, Salt Lake City.

  • Thompson, M. (1979). Rubbish theory: the creation and destruction of value. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tsukamoto, K., Camacho, J. L., Valenzuela, L. E. C., Kotegawa, H., & Olguín, O. Q. E. (2015). Political interactions among social actors: spatial organization at the Classic Maya polity of El Palmar, Campeche, Mexico. Latin American Antiquity, 26(2), 200–220.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ubelaker, D. H. (2009). The forensic evaluation of burned skeletal remains: a synthesis. Forensic Science International, 183(1-3), 1–5.

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Keuren, S., & Roos, C. I. (2013). Geoarchaeological evidence for ritual closure of a kiva at Fourmile Ruin, Arizona. Journal of Archaeological Science, 40(1), 615–625.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walker, W. H. (1995). Ceremonial trash? In J. M. Skibo, W. H. Walker, & A. E. Nielsen (Eds.), Expanding archaeology (pp. 67–79). Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walker, W. H. (1996). Ritual deposits: another perspective. In E. Charles Adams (Ed.), River of change: prehistory of the middle Little Colorado River Valley, Arizona State Museum Archaeological Series 185. Tucson: The University of Arizona.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walker, D. S. (1998). Smashed pots and shattered dreams: the material evidence for an Early Classic Maya site termination at Cerros, Belize. In S. B. Mock (Ed.), The sowing and the dawning: termination, dedication, and transformation in the archaeological and ethnographic record of Mesoamerica (pp. 81–99). Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walker, W. H. (2002). Stratigraphy and practical reason. American Anthropologist, 104(1), 159–177.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whyte, T. R. (2001). Distinguishing remains of human cremations from burned animal bones. Journal of Field Archaeology, 28(3/4), 437–448.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wylie, Alison. 1985. The reaction against analogy. Advances in archaeological method and theory 8: 63–111.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yaeger, J. (2010). Shifting political dynamics as seen from the Xunantunich palace. In L. J. LeCount & J. Yaeger (Eds.), Classic Maya provincial politics: Xunantunich and its hinterlands (pp. 145–160). Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Źrałka, J., Koszkul, W., Radnicka, K., Santos, L. E. S., & Hermes, B. (2014). Excavation in Nakúm Structure 99: new data on Protoclassic rituals and Precolumbian Maya beekeeping. Estudios de Cultura Maya, 44(44), 85–117.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

Earlier versions of this article were greatly improved as a result of suggestions received from the editors, three anonymous reviewers, Steve Houston, and Travis Stanton. I am especially grateful to Felipe Rojas and Steve Kosiba for their close, multiple readings and detailed comments. The fieldwork reported here was conducted as part of the El Zotz Archaeological Project, directed by Dr. Stephen Houston, Dr. Thomas Garrison, and Lic. Edwin Román, with permission from Guatemala’s Institute of Anthropology and History (IDAEH). Excavations were carried out by Griselda Pérez Robles, Elizabeth Marroquín, and Jóse Luis Garrido López with excavation assistants from Cruce Dos Aguadas and Dolores, Petén.

Funding

This study was funded by the US National Science Foundation (BCS #08400930—Landscape Succession in Lowland Maya Archaeology, Houston and Garrison PIs) and the US National Endowment for the Humanities (Grant #RZ-5-680-07—Archaeology of El Zotz, Guatemala, Houston PI), as well as the US National Science Foundation (BCS #1260737—Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant, Houston and Newman PIs) and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (Dissertation Fieldwork Grant and Osmundsen Initiative, Newman PI and a Richard Carley Hunt Postdoctoral Fellowship).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Vermont, 509 Williams Hall, 72 University Place, Burlington, VT, 05405, USA

    Sarah E. Newman

Authors
  1. Sarah E. Newman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sarah E. Newman.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of Interest

The author declares she has no conflict of interest.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Newman, S.E. Rubbish, Reuse, and Ritual at the Ancient Maya Site of El Zotz, Guatemala. J Archaeol Method Theory 26, 806–843 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-018-9388-9

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-018-9388-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation