Connecting households: Ceremonial and domestic settlement patterns at the Preclassic site of Noh K’uh in Chiapas, Mexico

The Life and Death of Homes at Noh K'uh: The Cosmological Ceremonies of Late Preclassic Corporate Maya Households

“…The burial of caches in household spaces was a common activity in the Americas (Barber et al 2013; Bauer 2005; Becker 1992; Coe,1959; Harrison-Buck 2004), and examples from Noh K'uh reveal how residential ceremonial activities sustained distinct and influential households by commemorating domestic spaces. On their own, rituals of household renewal are ubiquitous across time and space in the Maya region, but when contextualized with previous research on extended household design (Juarez 2018), large domestic construction programs (Juarez 2021), and broader monumental programs dedicated to cosmological practices (Juarez 2022), domestic ceremonies reveal a social pattern typical of corporate-leaning societies. The complexity and scale of Noh K'uh's ceremonial practices may indicate that multiple households played a guiding role in organizing the broader community, which would have divided power and control across the populace residents, as is common in communities with corporate forms of social organization (Beekman 2008; Blanton et al 1996).…”

“…I consider this holistic approach at the Late Preclassic (400 b.c. – a.d. 250) site of Noh K'uh in Chiapas, Mexico by analyzing how households sought to distinguish group identities through differences in settlement patterns (Juarez 2021) and ritual offerings (described in section Commemorative Ceremonies below), while simultaneously commemorating a collective identity at the level of the site through the construction of a ritual center. Using an approach that begins with the analysis of domestic contexts, this article discusses how household caches and dwelling renewal ceremonies reflect the general trend toward centralization (Guernsey and Love 2005; Kaplan 2011; MacLellan 2019a, 2019b) and urbanization (Burham et al 2020; Burham 2022; Hansen 2001; Ringle 1999) that occurred in Late Preclassic Mesoamerica.…”

“…At Noh K'uh, extended household clusters of 12 or more structures were aggregated to create the community of Noh K'uh. Every household cluster was constructed on top of artificial plateaus, which contained open-air gathering spaces, numerous domestic activities, and an array of pyramid and elongated platform structures (Juarez 2021). In other words, the individual artificial plateaus appear to have functioned as their own distinct communities, with their own defined spaces for social and religious gatherings.…”

Viewing the World through Cosmovision at Late Preclassic Noh K'uh in Chiapas, Mexico

“…2). In total, these surveys revealed the presence of 176 house mounds and monumental structures (Juarez 2021) in an area covering 50 ha (Juarez et al 2019). The majority of excavated materials date to the Late Preclassic between 395 and 1 bc (Juarez et al 2019, 213).…”

“…Furthermore, archaeological research continues to find evidence of alignments and references to cosmology (Landau 2015; Šprajc 2005), especially during the Preclassic (Grove & Gillespie 2009;Love 1999;Rice 2018). Furthermore, materials from Noh K'uh demonstrate that residents shaped their homes in a rectangular pattern, reshaped and remodelled hill façades to accommodate a specific orientation (Juarez 2021), made offerings in the earth and stone foundations of their homes (Juarez 2011) and utilized quincunx symbols in architecture (discussed in this article). Additionally, Inomata and colleagues' (2020) recent discovery of a 1400 m long artificial plateau further demonstrates that the desire to reshape the landscape into ceremonial arenas may predate the construction of permanent homes (Inomata et al 2015).…”