Settlement History and the Classic Collapse at Copan: A Redefined Chronological Perspective

Webster, David; Freter, AnnCorinne

doi:10.2307/971710

Cited by 81 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Existen dos hipótesis sobre la naturaleza y la escala del "colapso" en Copán. Con base en datos de hidratación de obsidiana (2000+), Webster y Freter (1990) han propuesto un modelo que muestra una disminución demográfica gradual, insistiendo en que las cerámicas de la fase Coner del Clásico Tardío continuaron hasta 1250 d.C. Fash y Sharer (1991), por otra parte, sostienen que el patrón del colapso en Copán es un proceso de tres etapas entrelazadas: primero, el debilitamiento del poder político y religioso en el siglo VIII; segundo, la caída de la autoridad dinástica centralizada durante el siglo IX, y tercero, la despoblación rápida, con la presencia de las cerámicas de la fase Coner hacia 900 d.C., seguido por el eventual abandono del valle alrededor de 1100 d.C. (Viel, 1998). Más adelante veremos que la evidencia lítica refuerza esta última hipótesis.…”

Section: Aguateca Y Copánunclassified

La Guerra y las armas de los mayas clásicos: puntas de lanza y flecha de aguateca y Copán

Aoyama¹

2013

ECMAYA

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IntroducciónThomas Gann y J. Eric Thompson escribieron hacia 1937: "Los mayas, juzgando por las escenas representadas en las estelas, fueron las naciones menos dadas a la guerra que alguna vez existieron" (Gann y Thompson, 1937: 63). Las investigaciones arqueológicas a gran escala, los desciframientos epigráficos y los estudios iconográficos en las décadas de los sesenta y setenta cambiaron la percepción tradicional de los mayas del período Clásico como un pueblo básicamente pacífico (Marcus, 1974; Proskouriakoff, 1961; Puleston y Callender, 1967; Rice y Rice, 1981; Webster, 1976). La naturaleza, la variabilidad y el papel de la guerra en el origen, desarrollo y decaimiento de la civilización clásica maya, no obstante, han sido debatidos intensamente en las últimas décadas. Un grupo de estudiosos enfatiza la dirección causal de la guerra a las condiciones sociales y ecológicas, mientras otro grupo sostiene que la guerra fue resultado de presiones demográficas y ecológicas (Chase y Chase, 1989; Cowgill, 1979;Demarest, 1997;Gunn et al., 2002; Freidel, 1992;Martin y Grube, 2000; Schele y Miller, 1986;Webster, 1977). Algunas de estas discusiones se han centrado en el "colapso" de la civilización clásica maya. Las investigaciones arqueológicas multidisciplinarias a gran escala del Proyecto Arqueológico Regional de Petexbatún han demostrado que la guerra intensiva fue ciertamente la causa directa de la caída de los reinos de Petexbatún a finales del siglo VIII y a principios del siglo IX , aunque dicho proceso no necesariamente se aplica a otras partes de las Tierras Bajas Mayas.A pesar de la indudable presencia de guerra entre los mayas clásicos, es difí-cil demostrarla arqueológicamente. Las evidencias potencialmente útiles para la guerra en los datos arqueológicos incluyen inscripciones, iconografía, armas, fortificaciones, paleopatología, incidentes de destrucción violenta e interrupción repentina de los patrones culturales (Webster, 1993: 422-423). Desafortunadamente, los textos que se refieren a la guerra no son del todo explícitos sobre los motivos de la guerra, ni su naturaleza (Stuart, 1993: 333). Muchos sitios del Clásico maya carecen de tales inscripciones y del arte relacionado con la guerra. La gran mayoría de los centros de esta etapa se localizaban en terre-

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Section: Aguateca Y Copánunclassified

La Guerra y las armas de los mayas clásicos: puntas de lanza y flecha de aguateca y Copán

Aoyama¹

2013

ECMAYA

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“…The hypothesis that, between A.D. 600 and 900, population pressure drove the Maya to deforest their lands and thereby to instigate large-scale erosion, first proposed by Cooke (4), has gained wide acceptance as one of the primary causes of the collapse (5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11). The collapse of the great ancient city of Copan, Honduras, has been linked to deforestation using data from a pollen profile in a sediment core taken from a pond near the urban center (12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…An expanding population with growing needs for food and for wood for fuel and construction would have generated pressure on the surrounding forest cover (9,(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18). Food production on the valley floor would have been reduced by the expansion of urban constructions into some of the most fertile agricultural fields.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…His results were made relevant to the question of the collapse only by the revision of population estimates for the Copan Valley. These revisions, proposed by Webster and Freter (15), were based on dates obtained through a technique known as "obsidian hydration." Rejecting the notion of a more-or-less rapid collapse, the reinterpretation of Copan's settlement history instead proposed a gradual decline in population that began around A.D. 850 and ended with the final abandonment of the city in A.D. 1235 (15,18).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These revisions, proposed by Webster and Freter (15), were based on dates obtained through a technique known as "obsidian hydration." Rejecting the notion of a more-or-less rapid collapse, the reinterpretation of Copan's settlement history instead proposed a gradual decline in population that began around A.D. 850 and ended with the final abandonment of the city in A.D. 1235 (15,18). This reassessment of Copan's settlement history placed the earliest levels of Rue's sediment core in the middle of a long "process of collapse" (16) rather than after a collapse had occurred.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Evidence disputing deforestation as the cause for the collapse of the ancient Maya polity of Copan, Honduras

McNeil

Burney

Burney³

2009

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Archaeologists have proposed diverse hypotheses to explain the collapse of the southern Maya lowland cities between the 8th and 10th centuries A.D. Although it generally is believed that no single factor was responsible, a commonly accepted cause is environmental degradation as a product of large-scale deforestation. To date, the most compelling scientific evidence used to support this hypothesis comes from the archaeological site of Copan, Honduras, where the analysis of a sediment core suggested a dramatic increase in forest clearance in the Late Classic period (A.D. 600–900). By contrast, in the work presented here, the authors’ analysis of a longer sediment core demonstrates that forest cover increased from A.D. 400 to A.D. 900, with arboreal pollen accounting for 59.8–71.0% of the pollen assemblage by approximately A.D. 780–980. The highest levels of deforestation are found about 900 B.C. when, at its peak, herb pollen made up 89.8% of the assemblage. A second, although less pronounced, period of elevated deforestation peaked at approximately A.D. 400 when herb pollen reached 65.3% of the assemblage. The first deforestation event likely coincided with the widespread adoption of agriculture, a pattern found elsewhere in Mesoamerica. The second period of forest clearance probably was associated with the incursion of Maya speakers into the Copan Valley and their subsequent construction of the earliest levels of the Copan Acropolis. These results refute the former hypothesis that the ancient Maya responded to their increasingly large urban population by exhausting, rather than conserving, natural resources.

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Detection of significant demographic differences between subpopulations of prehispanic Maya from Copan, Honduras, by survival analysis

Whittington

1991

American J Phys Anthropol

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Heterogeneity and small sample size are problems that affect many paleodemographic studies. The former can cause the overall distribution of age at death to be an amalgam that does not accurately reflect the distributions of any of the groups composing the heterogeneous population. The latter can make it difficult to separate significant from nonsignificant demographic differences between groups. Survival analysis, a methodology that involves the survival distribution function and various regression models, can be applied to distributions of age at death in order to reveal statistically significant demographic differences and to control for heterogeneity. Survival analysis was used on demographic data from a heterogeneous sample of skeletons of low status Maya who lived in and around Copan, Honduras, between A.D. 400 and 1200. Results contribute to understanding the collapse of Classic Maya civilization.

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Settlement History and the Classic Collapse at Copan: A Redefined Chronological Perspective

Cited by 81 publications

References 6 publications

La Guerra y las armas de los mayas clásicos: puntas de lanza y flecha de aguateca y Copán

La Guerra y las armas de los mayas clásicos: puntas de lanza y flecha de aguateca y Copán

Evidence disputing deforestation as the cause for the collapse of the ancient Maya polity of Copan, Honduras

Detection of significant demographic differences between subpopulations of prehispanic Maya from Copan, Honduras, by survival analysis

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