Settlement and Community Patterns at Sayil, Yucatan, Mexico: The 1984 Season

The lowlands of the vast Yucatan Peninsula, where ancient Maya civilizations flourished for 2000 years until the Spanish Conquest in the 16th century, are conventionally divided into the wet tropical Southern Lowlands of Guatemala and Belize and the dry tropical Northern Lowlands in Mexico. The apparent peak of Maya civilization, or at least of archaeologists\u27 attention to it, is in the Southern Lowlands in the centuries before its collapse around A.D. 900 (the Classic Period), with thereafter the finest remains occurring in the Northern Lowlands, especially in the Puuc (i.e. hilly) region in the northwest corner of the peninsula. Our attention has been brought to this Puuc region in part because its florescence spans the critical A.D. 800-1000 period during which great, if not cataclysmic, changes occurred in the course and locales of Maya civilization and its people. This region should, therefore, offer a most constructive contrast to the chaos of other contemporaneous and, so far, better studied regions. Furthermore, study of the dwelling places of the people should provide evidence not only for just how many they were and how they lived through those tumultuous times, but also for their trade with and possible origins from other regions, and even, perhaps, evidence that they had a significant role in the changes occurring there

The New Archaelology and the Ancient Maya

Using high-tech equipment, chemical analyses and sampling strategies, archaeologists are learning more about how and why cultures change. Using the study of the Maya as a test case, this book shows how the transformation of archaeology has brought new understanding of past civilizations.https://scholar.dominican.edu/cynthia-stokes-brown-books-personal-research/1122/thumbnail.jp

A civilização maia: contextualização historiográfica e arqueológica The Mayan Civilization: historiographic and archeological contextualization

Este artigo versa sobre a contextualização historiográfica e arqueológica da civilização maia. O intuito é traçar um perfil das primeiras explorações nos sítios arqueológicos, observar a construção do conhecimento criada acerca das primeiras informações obtidas pela Arqueologia, além das diversas vinculações das pesquisas empreendidas em relação aos contextos históricos de sua época e as teorias utilizadas atualmente pelos maístas.<br>This article deals with the historiographic and archeological contextualization of the Mayan civilization. Its purpose is to trace the profile of the first explorations into archeological sites, the construction of the knowledge created around the first information obtained by Archeology, as well as the diverse research links undertaken in relation to the historical contexts of its time, and the theories used at present by the Mayanists

Ancient Maya Settlement Patterns at the Site of Sayil, Puuc Region, Yucatan, Mexico: Initial Reconnaissance (1983)

The ancient Maya site of Sayil is located in the Puuc region of northern Yucatan approximately halfway between the sites of Kabah and Labna (Figure 1). It is a very large site both in terms of extensive public architecture and areal extent, although it is not nearly as well known as Uxmal nor are many of its structures visited by tourists. Our current knowledge of the site\u27s overall layout is based on the 1934 map prepared by Edwin Shook under the direction of Harry Pollock during the latter\u27s survey of Puuc architecture for the Carnegie Institution of Washington (Pollock 1980). A brief initial reconnaissance of Sayil was undertaken in May-June in 1983 with the intention of laying the groundwork for a full-scale multiyear exploration of the settlement and community patterns of the site. This initial research has given us a much clearer picture of the nature of Sayil\u27s settlement than was heretofore available and has allowed us to carefully plan for future research