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Situating Power and Locating Knowledge: A Paleoethnobotanical Perspective on Late Classic Maya Gender and Social Relations

Abstract

Viewing household production in terms of a political economic balance of "give and take" circumvents difficulties related to gender attribution in archaeology and challenges timeless gender stereotypes. This chapter proposes such an archaeological approach to gender by examining the charcoal assemblages from two Late Classic period Maya archaeological sites in the upper Belize Valley of western Belize. These sites occupied distinct positions within a complex political economic landscape, and their charcoal assemblages reflect heterogeneity in household production. The type and the intensity of activities, including wood procurement and craft production, were socially contingent. We propose that household activities and forms of knowledge were conditioned by the positions of households within broader political economic landscapes, not conforming to the timeless social stereotypes imposed by archaeologists.

Household Archaeology in Polynesia: Historical Context and New Directions

“…Expecting to find divergence between ethnohistoric/ethnographic models and the form, size, and function of specific types of house structures in East Polynesia is necessary to develop dynamic views of residential house sites and their use through time. Such a perspective is key to crafting interpretations of daily life at the local scale that historicize social relations rather than project status relations or gender relations as they existed in contact period households into the deeper past (Brumfiel and Robin 2008;Morehart and Helmke 2008;see also Verhoeven 2009). Diachronic perspectives outlining change through time in residential sites throughout the 1,000year East Polynesia cultural sequence are needed to address these questions.…”

Los Malacates Arqueológicos De La Península De Yucatan

“…Previamente, Large (1975 en Voorhies 1991:237), en su estudio sobre los malacates de Chichen Itza ya había mencionado que los discos fueron anteriores a los malacates “formales”, considerando que pudieran provenir del período preclásico medio. En la zona maya han sido reportados otros malacates de disco hechos de tiestos reutilizados en sitios como Altar de Sacrificios (Willey 1972), Copan (Hendon 1995, 1997), Motul de San José (Halperin 2008), Pook's Hill (Morehart y Helmke 2008) y K'axob (Bartlett 2004), aunque datan principalmente del período clásico. Además, sabemos que hay un problema de identificación de este tipo de malacates ya que fácilmente se pueden confundir como tejos perforados y generalmente no son reconocidos como instrumentos utilizados en la actividad del hilado.…”

“…Más recientemente han sido estudiados en sitios como Copan (Hendon 1995, 1997), Aguateca (Inomata et al 2002), Caracol (Chase et al 2008), Motul de San José (Halperin 2008) y K'axob (Bartlett 2004). También se han recuperado malacates en contextos domésticos emplazados en lugares predominantemente rurales como Chichicapa en el estado de Tabasco, México (Gallegos Gómora 2009), Chan Noohol y Pooḱs Hill en Belice (Morehart y Helmke 2008) y Cerén en El Salvador (Beaudry-Corbett y McCafferty 2002).…”

Prosperity, power, and change: Modeling maize at Postclassic Xaltocan, Mexico

“…Although beyond the scope of this paper, artifact analyses could be conducted to assess the socio-economic status of households (by, for example, examining the proportion of serving wares or other high status items) and combined with maize analysis (e.g., Turkon, 2006). Indeed, combining artifacts with plant remains greatly augments the interpretive power of paleoethnobotanical research (Morehart and Helmke, 2008). Moreover, such an approach would certainly strengthen the diachronic application of Hirth's (1998) and Garraty's (2009) models by considering variability in a range of goods beyond maize.…”