Thesis (Ph. D. in Anthropology)--Vanderbilt University, May 2007. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Texte remanié de: diss. Ph. D.--New York--Syracuse University, 1988. Titre de soutenance : Cosmology and changing technologies of the Campeche-Maya. / Bibliogr. p.[165]-180. Index.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2009. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed November 17, 2009). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 238-253).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Central Florida, 2009. / Adviser: Arlen Chase. Includes bibliographical references (p. 60-68).

This dissertation examines portraiture at Palenque during the Classic period. I propose that portraits communicated information about the identity of the sitter through the representation of the face and head. I argue that when picturing the same person, sculptors rendered particular facial features with remarkable consistency. Artists also represented modifications to the face. Some superficial treatments that play roles in the ascription of identity include cosmetic devices appended to the face, tattoos or scarification, and facial hair. These changeable features operated alongside the face's form to communicate individual identity. The representation of facial features allowed the designers of visual programs at Palenque to make specific claims about the identity of sitters. For example, in some cases portraits quote physical characteristics observable in earlier portraits to mark biological connections of the individuals represented. Additionally, posthumous portraits furnished opportunities to situate some ancestors into divine lineages. Artists represented the faces, heads, and costumes of certain sitters in a manner that overtly referenced images of Maize Gods. In contrast, contemporary portraiture typically exhibits variations in the face's details, differences in the age of the sitter, and a diverse array of costumes. Despite this instability, portraits created during the sitter's lifetime still exhibit enough consistency to facilitate the identification of particular individuals. I suggest that emphasis placed on either divine lineage or temporal concerns shifted depending on political circumstances. This complex negotiation took place as the roles and responsibilities of kings changed during the Late Classic period. I advocate that portraits reflect the fragile and tenuous political environment during this time period, but more importantly, I propose that portraits actively participated in shaping environments and attitudes of Palenque's inhabitants. / text

Ten years after the Guatemalan Peace Accords heralded the construction of a multi-ethnic democracy, corrupt neo-authoritarian regimes have derailed the Accords, continued state violence and impunity, and implemented neoliberal economic policies that have worsened poverty in Mayan highlands. Strangely, war tattered and impoverished rural Mayans, including many who supported the revolutionary left in the 1970s, provide these parties' main base of support. Stranger still is widespread support for ex-dictator general Ríos Montt, who stands indicted for genocide of Mayans in the 1980s. Mayan support for neo-authoritarians is usually viewed as either an expression of pure democratic free will or as the repression of revolutionary consciousness through fear and/or deception. While the former ignores massive Mayan support for the left and trivializes decades of repression, the latter ignores important changes in Guatemalan political culture and erases Mayan agency. My dissertation reframes this phenomenon by providing a critical genealogy of Mayan political imaginaries in relation to overlapping and competing regimes of power for the last sixty years. During 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork in the right-dominated Mayan-Mam town of San Pedro Necta, I investigated Mayan responses to reformist and revolutionary organizing, state repression, state-led agrarian modernization, and neo-authoritarian development populism. I focus on the effects of these mechanisms on evolving conceptions and practices of politics, development, and community among township inhabitants. Bitter Earth locates the appeal of neo-authoritarian politics in the ways that state strategies have rearranged the conceptual and affective terrain upon which Mayans collectively struggle for economic security, dignity, and racial equality. This research shows the limits of neoliberal multiculturalism, particularly its complicity with colonial governance and counterinsurgency strategy, and orients our thinking towards political alternatives consistent with Mayans' long-term struggles for racial justice and community autonomy.

Not available / text

Many studies on the power dynamics of Maya groups focused on large ceremonial sites, but more recent research, including this study, has identified similar dynamics within Maya hinterland societies. Hinterlands are the remote or less developed areas of a region, and generally associated with subsistence agriculture. The increasing prevalence of hinterland settlement studies in the Maya Lowlands find densely populated landscapes with a range of mound sizes and arrangements (e.g., formal east-focused plaza groups, less formal courtyard groups, informal clusters, isolated mounds), as well as a diverse assortment of features. Settlement and soil physiography studies have demonstrated the socio-economic impact of environmentally diverse landscapes, with small variations leading to an uneven distribution of economically important resources. In this study, I investigate the socio-economic organization of the Medicinal Trail hinterland community, located in northwestern Belize of the Maya Lowlands. Specifically, I argue that the limited nature of good agricultural land in the Maya Lowlands provided an opportunity for the inhabitants of pioneering households to establish a basis for wealth that those who arrived later could not replicate. The monopolization of this land led to inequality which was maintained through the construction of ancestral shrines. The inhabitants of the two largest and oldest formal groups within the community, Groups A and B, represent Maya commoners whose economic and socio-political status was elevated above most of the community’s inhabitants, providing them with limited social power. This power, however, was dynamic and shifted as a result of agentic struggles between Groups A and B, as they vied for community leadership. Evidence suggests that community power was held first by the inhabitants of Group A during the Late Preclassic and later, during the same period, shifted to Group B, where it was held until abandonment. Evidence for Postclassic pilgrimages at Group B substantiates the later importance of this group. Though the inhabitants of Group A were no longer community leaders, they remained a wealthy and, likely, influential household through the Classic period. This study demonstrates the complex and dynamic nature of hinterland commoner social organization. / text

The following report describes the excavation and preliminary analysis of Burial 5 at Group A of the Medicinal Trail archaeological site in northwest Belize. The excavation of Burial 5 occurred over the duration of the 2009 and 2010 field seasons, and this report focuses on the 2010 portion of this excavation, which was conducted within the field laboratory at the Programme for Belize Archaeology Project. In this report, I describe the methods utilized during the 2010 excavation and preliminary analysis processes. I also discuss some of the theory relevant to Maya mortuary practices as they relate to my interpretations of the findings from Burial 5. / text

This thesis has probed the influences of selected variables which operated to encourage the development of hierarchy among the Tarascans, but in contrast, acted to the deter any development of the hierarchy among the Mayans. Due to Tarascan successful interaction with their physical world, they developed a centralized state with formal institutions. This fact allowed the Spaniards to easily eradicate Tarascan political and religious power centers, and to replace them with Spanish contemporaries. As a defensive reaction to their complete subjugation by the Spaniards, the Tarascans molded a Spanish religious and political organization to meet their needs for the survival of their Tarascan identity.On the other hand, the Mayans were subject to the harshness of their environment in cultivating and harvesting milpa. These peasant Indians could only maintain their society in a decentralized condition whether political, religious, or social. Their heritage solely revolved around milpa cultivation. The Spaniards found it difficult to subdue them and they could never subvert the cultural core of the peasant Mayans with their religious and social institutions and values. The Mayans had no need to develop the hierarchy as a weapon against the intrusion of Spanish culture. They always found their identity, unity, and independence in their practices of milpa cultivation and ritual.