The Role of Ritual in the Emergence of Classic Maya Leaders

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With National Science Foundation support Dr. Lisa Lucero will conduct one season of archaeological excavation at the site of Saturday Creek, located in the Belize lowlands. Because riverine areas were the loci of earliest Mayan settlement they often contain long occupational records and thus offer excellent venues to examine directional change over time. Based on prior work, Dr. Lucero has uncovered an approximately 1,700 year sequence from ca. 800 BC to 890 AD at Saturday Creek. The goal of her work is to understand how centralized political authority developed, as Mayan culture moved from egalitarian to stratified and increasingly large numbers of individuals were integrated into regional units. It is unclear how ruling elite gained and were able to maintain power. Both archaeological and ethnographic data indicate that ritual and ceremonial activities played an important role in Mayan society and Dr. Lucero will focus on this. Ceremonies serve to unify people, can legitimize political agendas and increase the prestige of sponsors. Based on preliminary data it is hypothesized that rituals involving death, dedication and ancestor veneration originated at a family level and were later appropriated and transformed by emerging elites to serve broader integrative functions. Eventually, she believes they became closely associated with royal families and served, in community eyes, to link them with the divine. The Mayan archaeological record is rich in materials such as ritual caches of ceramics and other objects which served ceremonial functions and these have been discovered in a wide variety of contexts. At the Saturday Creek site Dr. Lucero will excavate a series of structures including solitary structures, an elite compound and a palace which span a range of social statuses and time. She will determine whether the earliest ritual remains occurred in family associations and later expanded beyond this immediate context. Through analysis of cache contents she will also gain insight into how rituals changed over time.This research is important for several reasons. It will provide data of interest to many archaeologists and shed new light on the forces which served to integrate early large scale societies. Approximately 10 -12 students will participate in the field research and thus the project will also serve an important educational function.