RECONSIDERING THE BELIZE VALLEY PRECLASSIC: A case for multiethnic interactions in the development of a regional culture tradition

Abstract

Despite more than two decades of extensive and highly productive research programs by a series of institutions and individuals focusing specifically on the Preclassic archaeology of the Belize River Valley, understanding and appreciation of the region's ceramic tradition and interpreted culture history today effectively remain based on, and dependent on, unmodified conceptual formulations from the 1940s through the 1960s. These incorporate a view of the zonal Preclassic ceramic sequence as the physical embodiment of a uniform and even unitary local producer-consumer system tied directly and genetically to the later Classic and Postclassic Maya inhabitants of the region. In this paper, we question both these assumptions and the soundness of the conceptual constructs (ceramic complexes) and framework (ceramic sequence) on which they are based. We examine the content and analyze the composition of the Belize Valley Middle and Late Preclassic ceramic complexes as dynamic, composite, producer-consumer circulation assemblages rather than as static, synthetic archaeological units, and we conclude that they reflect a much more complex socioeconomic, cultural, and sociopolitical landscape than has yet been recognized and appreciated by other investigators. We propose the presence and interaction within the valley during the Middle and Late Preclassic of at least two distinct dialectal, ethnic, or ethnolinguistic groups, and we argue that the local cultural tradition emerging in the area by the ceramic Protoclassic represented a ranked amalgamation of these. The paper also presents the first comprehensive and complete type-variety typologies for the Middle through Late Preclassic ceramic complexes of the upper Belize Valley, incorporating both new data from the 1980s and 1990s and substantive revisions of earlier work by

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

“…These four first ceramic traditions precede the well known pan-Maya Mamom ceramic horizon. They have been considered highly divergent and, in some cases, even proposed to be non-Maya by some authors [5,[45][46][47][48]. The Swasey complex from Cuello in northern Belize was originally championed as the earliest lowland Maya pottery from c. 2000 BC, but these dates were later revised to 1200-1000 b.c.…”

“…Similarly, Sharer and Gifford [47] connect the Jenney Creek complex of Belize Valley with Chalchuapa pottery. Even more recently, Ball and Taschek have also argued that the Cunil and the subsequent Jenney Creek traditions of the Belize Valley pertain to non-Maya groups, possibly Mixe-Zoquean speakers, migrating from the southeastern Maya highlands [5]. These two authors point to the rarity of types and wares typical of the subsequent Mamom ceramic tradition and instead argue that the dominant types and wares (such as Jocotal Orange-Brown and Mars Orange) of the Jenney Creek complex have direct connections with Chalchuapa.…”

“…These two authors point to the rarity of types and wares typical of the subsequent Mamom ceramic tradition and instead argue that the dominant types and wares (such as Jocotal Orange-Brown and Mars Orange) of the Jenney Creek complex have direct connections with Chalchuapa. They believe that these dominant wares represent non-Maya groups intermixed with Maya communities which produced the Mamom-tradition types [5].…”

“…We propose to define a pre-Mamom Eb ceramic sphere to which the earliest pottery at Buenavista and Tikal belongs. This Eb ceramic sphere has close connections with the Cunil ceramic tradition in slips and ceramic forms, but not in pastes [4,5,68], and we leave it to future scholars to determine whether the Eb and Cunil ceramic traditions are close enough to belong to one larger ceramic sphere as Cheetham suggests [4]. We also see connections between the Buenavista pottery and the Pasion region as suggested originally by Rice for other Central Peten Lakes sites [68,69].…”

“…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.…”