Non-elite Political Economy, Agriculture, and a Sacbe at Ceren, El Salvador

University Of Colorado At Boulder, Boulder CO

Investigators

Abstract

With National Science Foundation support Dr. Payson Sheets and Dr. David Lentz and their graduate students will explore authority in an ancient Maya village in El Salvador. They will incorporate students from two Salvadoran universities in fieldwork, laboratory analyses, and publication of research results. Researchers will take advantage of an unusual volcanic eruption, of Loma Caldera at about AD 600, which preserved the ancient village of Ceren to an extraordinary degree. For the first time archaeologists can explore the level in Maya society where decisions were made, whether by the elite in the nearby city or by commoners in the village of Ceren. The predominant understanding for decades among Mayanists is that the elite controlled everything, including politics, economics, religion, and agriculture. That became standard because virtually all research was done in the big cities, focusing on the palaces, pyramids, temples, and tombs of the elite. Little was known about commoners, even though they made up some 90% of the population. However, recent research at the Ceren site is indicating that the quality of life of Maya commoners was surprisingly high, and that they may have been able to make decisions on their own, in certain domains beyond elite authority. The discovery in 2011 of a "Sacbe," a formal Maya roadway, leading southward from the Ceren village, provides an opportunity to explore the level of decision-making. The Sacbe runs through agricultural fields of corn and root crops. If the Sacbe was constructed and maintained by San Andres, the city 5 km to the south, and the harvests hauled to it, researchers will discover evidence supporting that. Or, if the Sacbe was built and maintained by individual village farmers whose fields adjoined the Sacbe, the field boundaries will coincide with differences in the Sacbe. The third alternative is that authority was at the Ceren village, where elders organized the Sacbe, and the bulk of agricultural production was brought into the village. The volcanic ash preserved details such as relative amounts of foot traffic and even hand-marks of shaping planting beds and maintenance of features. In addition to examining the Sacbe through the agricultural area, it will be instructive to determine its endpoint within the village. It could end at Structure 3 and its plaza, which was the locus of political decision making. Or it could end at Structure 10, the village ceremonial building. Or it could split and connect those locations, or perhaps others. The end point or end points within the village will provide evidence of the function or functions of the Sacbe, and thus indicate what people or groups had authority over its construction, maintenance, and use(s). Many Sacbes are known in the Maya lowlands because they were constructed of limestone and have preserved well. Limestone is unavailable in the volcanic Maya highlands and Sacbes were unknown before this discovery. The Ceren Sacbe was constructed of compacted volcanic ash, with no stone, and thus would not preserve for long after it was abandoned. A replica will be constructed in 2013 and studied to see how natural processes affect its preservation.