Chronological Revision of Preclassic Kaminaljuyú, Guatemala: Implications for Social Processes in the Southern Maya Area

Abstract

Kaminaljuyú has been an important focus of archaeological research since the 1930s, and the chronologies of various sites of the Southern Maya Area are linked directly to that of Kaminaljuyú. The implications of the currently prevalent chronology of Kaminaljuyú are that various social and political institutions developed significantly earlier in the Southern Maya Area than in the Maya Lowlands during the Preclassic period. Our evaluations of new and existing radiocarbon dates through the application ofBayesian statistics, as well as ceramic cross-dating, indicate that the Middle and Late Preclassic portions of the Kaminaljuyú sequence need to be shifted forward in time by roughly 300 years. Our chronological revisions have the following important implications: (1) many centers in the Southern Maya Area suffered political disruptions around 400 B.C., roughly at the same time as La Venta and the centers in the Grijalva region of Chiapas; and (2) highly centralized polities with divine rulers and their depictions on stelae developed roughly contemporaneously in the Southern Maya Area and in the Maya Lowlands after 100 B.C.

High-precision radiocarbon dating of political collapse and dynastic origins at the Maya site of Ceibal, Guatemala

“…For the Classic Period, we also incorporated calendrical dates. In the analysis of the radiocarbon dates, identifying stratigraphically mixed carbon samples and old wood was a critical step (26,27). The Oxcal program version 4.2 facilitated this process through the statistical identification of outliers and visual representations of probability distributions (28)(29)(30).…”

The Earliest Maya Farmers of Peten: New Evidence from Buenavista-Nuevo San José, Central Peten Lakes Region, Guatemala

“…Cheetham was the first to note the presence of the Olmecoid symbols on pre-Mamom pottery found in the Belize River Valley, the Pasion, and the central Peten [60]. Lohse's and Inomata and his colleagues' efforts to accurately place the pre-Mamom pottery in absolute time allow us to state that the incised Olmec/Olmecoid symbols appear between 1000 and 800 BC [1][2][3]43]. On the Gulf Coast, these two centuries mark important transformations as San Lorenzo was in decline by 1000 BC (or even earlier, 1150 BC, [2]), and La Venta did not enter its Golden Age until after 800 BC [2,80,81,144].…”

“…The origins of the first fully sedentary Maya communities of the southern Maya lowlands have garnered recent attention, as well as much debate [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. In spite of recent efforts, evidence for the earliest agricultural pottery-making villages in central Peten, the heartland of Maya civilization, remains spotty and elusive.…”

Time tested: re-thinking chronology and sculptural traditions in Preclassic southern Mesoamerica

“…In a recent study, Inomata et al . (2014) proposed a substantial revision in the chronology of Kaminaljuyu, a major centre in the Maya highlands, shifting its Preclassic portion approximately 300 years later than was previously supposed (Figures 1 & 2; Robinson et al . 2006; Arroyo 2010; Ortíz Vallejos 2014).…”