This paper utilizes anthropological and sociological approaches to social memory to analyze the position and relevance of sacred sites among the Jakaltek Maya of the western highlands of Guatemala. Based on archaeological investigations and oral history, the connection between the past and present is analyzed in terms of collective memory, underscoring the importance of specific places and landscape in remembering as well as in reinforcing Jakaltek identity and history. Three distinct sacred sites are discussed, including their archaeological evidence; position (or lack of) in histories; disposition/creation as sacred site; and ties to the community's social memory. Sacred sites and social memory are viewed as a key component of indigenous activism and identity politics as well as an integral aspect to understanding the social context of archaeology in the Guatemalan Maya Highlands.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. A long-standing understanding of the Maya highlands suggests that the Postclassic period was characterized by increased warfare and conflict over the preceding Classic period, as seen in settlement patterns and defensive features. Based on recent archaeological work in Guatemala's western highlands, we argue that the archaeological evidence does not support this conclusion; defensive characteristics are also common in the Classic period. Drawing on examples from the Huista Acatec region of the Cuchumat?n Mountains, a typology of defensive characteristics is presented, along with comparative examples elsewhere in the Maya highlands. We suggest that these material correlates of defensibility, while showing that conflict was a central concern in both the Classic and Postclassic periods, lay the foundation for future studies of warfare in the Maya highlands. These insights have implications for the study of settlement pattern defensibility beyond the Maya highlands, including the construction and use of defensive feature typologies, the appropriateness of categorizing societies as either peaceful or militaristic, and the wider identification of cultural continuity. Se ha pensado que el per?odo postcl?sico se caracteriz? por m?s guerras que el per?odo cl?sico precedente, en base a los patrones de asentamiento y rasgos defensivos de las tierras altas mayas de Guatemala. La nueva evidencia arqueol?gica de nuestro proyecto en las tierras altas occidentales guatemaltecas no apoya esto; rasgos defensivos son tan communes en el per?odo cl?sico como en el per?odo postcl?sico. Se presenta una tipolog?a de las caracter?sticas defensivas en la regi?n Huista Acateco de las monta?as Cuchumat?nes de Guatemala junto con ejemplos comparativos de otras regiones de las tierras altas mayas. Sugerimos que este correlato material de defensa, adem?s de mostrar que las situaciones de conflicto fueron centrales en los per?odos cl?sico y postcl?sico, sirve como punto de partida para nuevos estudios de Guerra en las tierras altas mayas. Esto tiene implicaciones para el an?lisis de los patrones de asentamiento defensivos en otras regiones, incluyendo la elabo raci?n y uso de tipolog?as de rasgos defensivos, el problema de categorizer sociedades pac?ficas o militarizadas, y una m?s amplia identificaci?n de la continuidad cultural.For many years following the turn of the last century, archaeologists characterized the Lowland Maya of the Classic period (A.D. 300 to 1000) as a peaceful society of priest-kings. Empirically, this perspective seemed to be sup ported by the apparent lack of fortifications or defensive features around Lowland Maya sites dur ing this period. In contrast, the Postclassic Maya, particularl...
This article reviews archaeological evidence of the Late Postclassic period in the Maya highlands. The Maya highlands contain a diverse and complex geography, a diversity that is represented in the material record. While archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence from the central Guatemalan highlands has long dominated discussion of the Late Postclassic period, research has shown that developments outside of this subregion were extremely variable and localized. A focus on the Quiché and Kaqchikel states has resulted in an important and rich body of evidence that has undeniable importance to Maya and Mesoamerica studies, as well as modern Maya peoples.
Memory is … a social process of remembering and forgetting that is embedded in the materiality of existence (Hendon 2010: 1-2). The past decade or so has witnessed a burgeoning of studies on memory, collective memory, and social memory in the humanities and social sciences (Climo and Cattell 2002; Klein 2000; Olick and Robbins 1998). Berliner (2005) employs the phrases "memory boom," "memory craze," and "obsession with memory" to describe the current state of affairs of social memory studies in anthropology and history. Archaeology joined in this trend, and about ten years ago many citations to the foundational literature in social memory studies (Assmann 1995; Connerton 1989; Halbwachs 1980, 1992; LeGoff 1992; Nora 1996) started to appear in connection with archaeological research on historic and prehistoric societies (Golden 2005). Studies of intersubjective personal memory and social memory as a process in ancient Mesoamerica, however, have been a bit slow to develop compared to some other contemporary topics such as landscape, materiality, embodiment, spatiality, and temporality which are entangled with memory and which can (or must) be linked in any archaeological study of social memory. Even at sites with no written texts, such as some of those treated in the present collection, this conceptual entanglement allows a reading of social memory from settlement patterns, architecture, monuments, burials, votive caches, and portable material culture (
The international community is concerned about criminal activity involving cultural property and is promoting the use of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime to combat looting and trafficking of cultural property. This article discusses how the Convention may be applied, outlines some of the intentions of UN member states with regard to cultural property crime, and the role of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. It is suggested that cultural property stakeholders should scrutinize this developing effort, particularly in the areas of UNTOC application to specific cultural property cases and the collection and analysis of data specifically to address the connections between cultural property and transnational organized crime. *
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