Ahead of its time?
Classic Maya sites in the lowlands of the Yucatan Peninsula are generally known for their monumental art and architecture in central sacrosanct spaces, and their political economies are believed to have been highly centralized. The predominantly Early Classic site of Chunchucmil, however, does not fit this stereotype. Moreover, even though its urban population ranks among the largest and most densely packed in any Maya site, it inhabits one of the most depauperate agricultural landscapes. These idiosyncrasies have stimulated a great deal of archaeological research, all of which lead to the conclusion that Chunchucmil had a surprisingly commercialized economy. In addition to importing basic necessities, some of which were exchanged in a large central marketplace, its basic economy was built on servicing merchants along the most active Mesoamerican maritime trade route and funneling long distance trade items to sites in the interior of the peninsula. This article summarizes the data leading to the conclusion that Chunchucmil’s economic complexity rivaled that of the secondary states of the Postclassic Period and therefore was way ahead of its time. It also questions whether the kind of bottom-up approach applied here might reveal more complex economies at other Classic Maya sites than the more ardent advocates of the prevailing, monolithic ‘political economy’ paradigm have thus far been able to concede. In which case, it was perhaps only slightly ahead of its time.
Punta Canbalam in Context
Abstract Investigations at Punta Canbalam on the Gulf Coast of Campeche reveal it is probably the largest of several important but underreported trading sites on the pan-Mesoamerican maritime trade route. The coastline has been unstable for the last thousand years, subjecting the site to sea level changes and repeated episodes of beach erosion and redeposition. The relatively dense scatter of temporally mixed, highly weathered sherds and other artifacts on an exceedingly narrow, modern beach indicates that it is all secondarily deposited and that its original location was offshore. An interdisciplinary team is beginning to recognize clues in its environmental and cultural contexts as to where this peripatetic site was originally located and the extent to which it depended upon exchanges of salt, petty commodities from inland, and canoe-borne exotics from afar. This predominantly Terminal Classic and Early Postclassic site likely served as a port of entry for obsidian, jade, fine-paste ceramics, and other goods for the nearby inland city of Chunchucmil. It also probably supplied the interior with marine and estuarine food and ornamental and ritual products in exchange for inland agricultural products and other items.
Suspended sediments in the southeastern Gulf of Mexico
Abstract Suspended sediment concentration was determined from samples collected during oceanographic cruises dinamo I and dinamo II, aboard the R/V Justo Sierra in the southeastern Gulf of Mexico, during dry and north wind climatic periods in 1990. The average suspended matter concentration was 5.1 mg/l for the dry period and 5.5 mg/l for the period with a northern wind. The maximun value was 25.2 mg/l on dinamo II cruise and was obtained off the Grijalva and Usumacinta rivers, as well as the maximun observed during dinamo I. The suspended sediment is composed mainly of silt and clay particles toward the terrigenous zone and silicious organic debris and tar balls toward the offshore carbonate region. The relative abundance of elements in samples from the terrigenous and transitional zones reflects the influence of fluvial fine sediments by cationic elements of argillaceous origin. Sigma- t distribution patterns show the presence of a current coming from the north of Yucatan Peninsula, which penetrates in the study area parallel to the isopycnals. CTD data, satellite images, Ca/Al distributions and suspended sediments distributions suggest that off the Grijalva-Usumacinta mouth the direction of the current is eastward. Lower concentrations of total suspended matter are located seaward Terminos Lagoon and are apparently associated to a cyclonic circulation zone.