To understand better the significance of the Olmec style and its implications for Early Formative interregional interaction within Mesoamerica, one particular type of artifact—the hollow figurine—is examined. A definition of the Olmec style is provided based on Gulf Coast monumental art. One of several contemporaneous hollow-figurine types—“hollow babies” (Group 1)—is consistent with a Gulf Coast–based definition of the Olmec style. Fragments of Group 1 hollow figurines from across Mesoamerica are examined, revealing concentrations at a Gulf Coast center and, to a lesser extent, sites in southern Mexico. Rather than the primarily funerary function previously suggested for these objects, contextual data suggest multivalent meanings and functions. Group 2 figurines are related but different; variation appears in both the distribution of Group 2 fragments across Mesoamerica and their use. Available evidence suggests limited access to hollow figurines of both groups compared with contemporaneous solid figurines. A previous assertion that “hollow babies” were primarily produced and consumed in Central Mexico is rejected, and the significance of the differences among these hollow-figurine types is considered.

In this article, we examine the traditional classificatory terms of cache and burial as they are used in Lowland Maya archaeology and argue that, rather than forming mutually exclusive categories, these ritual deposits are members of a continuum. After discussing the intertwined concepts of dedication and termination and the cosmology of caches, we summarize burgeoning evidence that not all deposits classified as caches are votive offerings. We also discuss the role played by household refuse in ritual contexts. We then describe the investigation of a pit excavated into bedrock beneath a residential structure at the Maya site of La Caldera, in northwestern Belize. Our interpretation of the ritual importance of the pit is based on a series of behaviors that activated, terminated, and then reactivated the ritual pathway defined by the feature. We suggest that this behavioral approach to special deposits is more compelling than attempts to classify the material traces of ritual actions according to narrowly defined terms.

In this paper, we analyze the distribution of Late Postclassic (A.D. 1250–1500) architecture and associated artifacts of the Maya site of Caye Coco, Belize. Artifact density and distribution suggest that different buildings served different functions and reflect a range of domestic and non-domestic activities at the island. An assessment of the labor investment required to build the seventeen structures at Caye Coco provides evidence of the degree of social hierarchy at this site, as many more people would have been required to build its elite residences than could have lived in them. The shift in the focus of architectural construction to the island at Progresso Lagoon in the Late Postclassic contrasts with the predominance of construction on the west shore during the Terminal Classic period. This trend reflects the emergence of a new political center among the lagoon settlements. It also may suggest an increased concern with aquatic transportation of trade goods during the Postclassic period, as Caye Coco is the most prominent island of the lagoon, which connects directly to the Caribbean Sea. The architecture at Caye Coco suggests that Late Postclassic political organization of northeastern Belize was more hierarchical than has been previously documented. This paper is the first systematic effort to quantify architectural labor investment and size distribution at a southern lowland Postclassic Maya site in order to address the issue of sociopolitical hierarchy.

This study of saltmaking in coastal Michoacan underscores the value of ethnoarchaeology as a tool for assessing ancient saltmaking activities. Common salt (sodium chloride) was a strategic resource of great importance for Mesoamerica during pre-Hispanic and Colonial times. This study deals with salt production in La Placita and neighboring areas of coastal Michoacan and Colima, in western Mexico. The primary goals are to document traditional saltmaking techniques—in particular, the material culture, organization of work, ecological setting, and levels of production observed in the study area, as well as the importance of salt manufacture and trade for the area's economy and culture over time. Ethnographic observations together with ethnohistorical and archaeological data shed light on the pre-Hispanic production, use, and commerce of salt in the coastal area of Michoacan, one of the least studied regions in Mesoamerica. There are three types of sites in the study area: (1) sites where salt is currently being produced; (2) abandoned sites where salt production was carried out until some fifty years ago; and (3) archaeological sites where salt may have been produced and/or distributed in ancient times. The material evidence of salt production consists of: (1) terreros, or mounds of leached soil; (2) eras, or solar evaporation pans; and (3) specialized pottery types. Finally, this paper uses archaeological and historical evidence, as well as oral traditions, to discuss ancient salt exchange and trade networks.

Discriminant functions were developed using long-bone robusticity measurements of 82 individuals from the protohistoric Maya site of Tipu, Belize. All individuals were sexed using nonmetric morphological indicators, particularly those of the pelvis. These functions are designed to provide a means of determining the sex of fragmentary prehistoric Maya skeletons. The equations ranged in accuracy from 77.5% to 100%. The reliability of these equations was tested using a jackknife method on the Tipu sample and by applying the equations to small samples of prehistoric skeletons from the sites of Seibal, KOB Swamp, Laguna de On, and Chau Hiix. The vast majority of the equations applied to the test cases succeeded in correctly estimating the sex based on pelvic and cranial features. A more reliable technique for sex determination of poorly preserved skeletal remains will allow a whole new range of archaeological and bioanthropological hypotheses concerning sex and gender among the ancient Maya to be investigated and considered.

In this issue's Special Section we offer the second part of a group of studies dealing with the impact of climate change on ancient Maya civilization. As mentioned in the Introduction to the first part (Fowler 2002), Mayanists have been aware of the possible effects of climatic factors on Maya culture since the early decades of last century. At first, comments on the effects of climate change in the Maya area were largely speculative. By the 1980s such work became increasingly compelling and sophisticated, including correlations of worldwide glacial, palynological, and other climatological data, as reflected in several publications (Dahlin 1983; Folan et al. 1983; Gunn and Adams 1981). Soon after, Lewis Messenger provided a broad global correlation with specific reference to archaeological sequences in Mesoamerica and the Maya area (Messenger 1990). Perhaps it would be fair to say that Maya paleoclimatological studies may have peaked with the massive work of Richardson Gill (2000), which has attracted much critical attention. David Webster (2002:241–247), for example, praises the book for its directness and clarity of purpose but expresses skepticism about the climatological bias and stresses that much more research is needed.

Pollen and charcoal analysis of a 5.3-m sediment core from Aguada Petapilla, a peat bog, provides evidence of late Holocene vegetation and fire history in the Copan Valley, Honduras. Low concentration and preservation problems characterized the pollen flora, but there are taxa present indicative of major agricultural trends, including Zea mays. Microscopic charcoal fragments are well represented and record continued burning in the region since the lowest level of the core (5700 B.P. [3750 B.C.]). Presence of Zea indicates that maize farming was initiated by as early as 2300 B.C. Three peaks in charcoal-fragment frequencies occur in periods centered approximately at 900 B.C., 400 B.C., and A.D. 600. Fires in this relatively dry region of the southern Maya Lowlands (whose mean annual rainfall is about 1,400 mm) could have resulted from natural forest fires or human agricultural clearing at any time in the Holocene. This contrasts with wetter areas of tropical Central and South America (mean annual rainfall of about 2,500–4,000 mm) where significant climatic drying is required to ignite primary tropical forest.

Archaeological and ecological investigations in the Mirador Basin of northern Guatemala have recovered archaeological, phytolith, palynological, and pedological data relevant to the early occupation and development of Maya civilization in a specific environmental matrix. Fluctuation in vegetation types as evident in cores and archaeological profiles suggest that the seasonally wet, forested bajo environment currently found in the northern Peten was anciently more of a perennially wet marsh system that may have been heavily used and influenced by large Preclassic occupations. Data suggest that climatic and environmental factors correspond with the cultural process in the Mirador Basin, and research in progress is oriented to further elucidating these issues.

Maya Lowlands climate researchers have set aside earlier beliefs that Maya civilization flourished in an unchanging environment. Analyses of river discharge, weather patterns, lake-bottom sediments, and settlement patterns reveal a highly variable climate, considerable diversity in local geology and soils, and a wide range of cultural adaptations tailored to distinctive subregional settings. Significant knowledge gaps remain. Among the unanswered questions is how cities in the elevated interior were maintained without natural, permanent bodies of water even during equitable climatic conditions, much less through the episodes of severe drought that have become apparent in studies of past climates. The research reported in this article lays the groundwork for climate studies in the southwestern Yucatan Peninsula.

La región del río Candelaria se vio en varias ocasiones afectada por los cambios climáticos. Los niveles del río variaron en el transcurso de los siglos significativamente y esto afectó a los chontales de Acalan que vivieron a filo del agua para bien o para mal, ya que su vida giraba alrededor de ella. Sus casas, campos de cultivo y ciudades fueron afectadas por los niveles que alcanzó el río. Las evidencias paleoecológicas conocidas todavía son escasas y los comentarios que se hacen son tentativos, sin embargo, por ser una región de ríos, lagunas y pantanos se sabe que estuvo sometida a momentos críticos y problemáticos, que de alguna manera queda reflejada en la ocupación prehispánica de la región.

Recent paleoecological research indicates that the collapse of Classic Maya civilization in the southern and central Maya Lowlands coincided with the onset of prolonged and severe drought conditions around A.D. 850. The northern Maya Lowlands is an area that receives much less rainfall today and probably did so throughout most of the recent past; nevertheless, many northern lowland sites not only persisted throughout the period of the drought but actually prospered under the hegemony of Chichen Itza. This paper attempts to resolve this obvious paradox by examining the adaptive responses made by the northern Maya. The northern lowlands had a slight edge in adapting to the climate change that apparently devastated the south because it had easy access to a diversity of resources that no doubt contributed to Chichen Itza's subsistence security and the enrichment of its realm. However, massive transformations in the political and religious domains were every bit as necessary to Chichen Itza's adaptive strategy. The seeming paradox of Chichen Itza's successful adaptation to environmental adversity represents a cautionary tale about the dangers of oversimplification that are inherent in environmental deterministic thinking. Paradoxes of this kind arise when the primacy of cultural factors in adaptive processes is ignored.

The demographic and cultural Collapse of the ancient lowland Maya civilization in the ninth century A.D. has long been of fascination to both scholars and the general public. A large number of hypotheses has been offered to explain this event. Evidence derived from several independent lines of investigation during the 1990s indicates the time of the Maya Collapse was one in which severe drought conditions prevailed over much of the lowlands. Drought is now considered a potential primary causal factor for the Collapse. This paper cites some of the evidence for the presence of drought conditions at the time of the Collapse and then considers the degree to which a drought-based explanation for the Collapse is compatible with what is currently known about the Collapse's occurrence. There are problematic aspects to the temporal and spatial development of the Collapse that suggest that the Terminal Classic-period drought did not constitute a single, overwhelming blow that rendered collapse inevitable. It is suggested, instead, that culture-historical events and ecological factors interplayed with the Terminal Classic-period drought in such a way as to render the Collapse possible.