Ancient Maya state, urbanism, exchange, and craft specialization: chipped stone evidence from the Copan Valley and the La Entrada region, Honduras.

JAMES, N. ; BRODIE, NEIL ; STODDART, SIMON 等

KAZUO AOYAMA. Ancient Maya state, urbanism, exchange, and craft specialization: chipped stone evidence from the Copan Valley and the La Entrada region, Honduras (University of Pittsburgh Memoirs in Latin American Archaeology 12). xxviii+227 pages, 91 figures, 85 tables. 1999. Pittsburgh (PA): University of Pittsburgh Department of Anthropology; 1-877812-54-4 paperback.

The Acropolis at 9th-century Copan may have been littered with arrowheads, according to Dr AOYAMA -- suggesting a violent end there, and reinforcing the proposition that the `Maya collapse' was self-inflicted. He has assessed the stone tools recovered from both the Copan Valley and district to the northeast for all periods from Early Formative to Early Postclassic. His study of sources of the material seems to reveal development of economic control; and he confirms that, as in Yucatan and Belize, in the Early Postclassic, Central Mexican obsidian was more common than during the Early Classic -- as though trade flowed more freely. Yet, while he allows that early leaders controlled other crafts, Dr AOYAMA thinks that specialization in knapping followed emergence of social ranking but did not foster it. However -- while aware of doubts about the scale of production at other cities of the Classic period -- he does think that Copan later enjoyed a flourishing obsidian industry and exported the produce. The report is in English and Spanish.

Drs COBEAN & MASTACHE are right to point out that there is a dearth of excavations of rural sites of the Early Postclassic period in Central Mexico. During the past decade, the Mexican government sponsored a great deal of major research on towns of that period; but, after all, the great majority of people then were villagers. It is not surprising to learn that the housing investigated at Tepetitlan was similar to that in the great town of Tula, a few miles away but it is important to have it confirmed -- and COBEAN & MASTACHE do warn that there are other residential structures at the site which appear to be unlike the patio group that they dug. The bulk of the report is devoted to the finds, including bones, human and faunal (less rabbit than in the town), and plants (including a fragment of cacao -- compare AOYAMA), with particular attention to maize (by B.F. Benz, who identified various kinds) -- but the pottery leaves doubt as to whether tortillas were normal fare. COBEAN & MASTACHE analyse the evidence for activity areas. The body of the report is in both English and Spanish but the technical appendices in Spanish only.

Congratulations to the authors and their publisher for making the new history of the Classic Maya so accessible to a wide readership. MARTIN & GRUBE are strong contributors to the revolutionary decipherment of royal epigraphy and, here, sum up the tales that are now emerging. The authors include the latest -- and more complicated -- results of their assessment of links among the `city states' (Dr GRUBE contributes to HANSEN (`World history', above)). The work is highly technical but readers are spared the methodological apparatus. The book complements that of L. Schele & D. Friedel, A forest of kings (1990 New York: Morrow), which was a popular success. The illustrations in this one are vivid, intense and insistent -- so much so, indeed, that they distract from the narrative. After all, though, it is a very special story -- it was riddled with ideology; and it tells us little about the majority of the Indians. That is where COBEAN & MASTACHE and AOYAMA are so valuable.

NB too the review of BARKER & GILBERTSON in `Environments', above.