Ancient Maya Commoners

Chapter 1. Examining Ancient Maya Commoners Anew

CHAPTER 1 Examining Ancient Maya Commoners Anew jon c. lohse and fred valdez, jr. Studies of ancient complex societies are often charged with answering basic questions such as how such civilizations came about, how they adapted specialized strategies allowing them to contend with widely diverse environments, and why they ceased to exist. Archaeologists necessarily rely on theoretical models, sometimes using ethnographically or ethnohistorically based bridging arguments to provide humanistic explanations for these complex and dynamic processes. These accounts determine to a very large degree how social scientists and, ultimately, the general public come to understand ancient societies and the roles different people played in them. An array of frameworks, approaches, and perspectives have been employed through the years to address questions such as these, particularly in the case of the prehistoric Maya of Central America, though the majority of these frameworks have tended to focus on the behavior of only a small segment of society. Highlighted individuals, many of whom are known to us by name thanks to advances in epigraphy, were community and polity leaders whose actions are perceived as influencing the course of culture history. Most people today are, quite understandably, comfortable with this picture; it accords well with the model of our own society. However , while the point that such individuals long ago played central roles seems beyond question, we suggest that much Maya scholarship traditionally has failed to account for the vast majority of historic and prehistoric populations. It is our immediate goal to bring attention to the rich diversity that characterized social non-elites in Maya society. Looking into the future, we hope to encourage a thoughtful reconsideration of both the overt theoretical perspectives and implicit assumptions applied to the study of pre- 2 Jon C. Lohse & Fred Valdez, Jr. historic elites and commoners alike. The most important theme underlying our approach, a theme that is reiterated throughout many of the chapters in this volume, involves examining commoners on their terms, according to the roles they did play in providing the economic base for the social, political, and ideological institutions in ancient Mesoamerica. This view is indispensable to the study of ancient civilizations such as the Maya, for, as has been noted by many, commoners ‘‘allowed the specialized division of labor that led to writing, metallurgy, monumental architecture , cities, and the great religious and artistic traditions we associate with civilization’’ (Peoples and Bailey 1997:146–147). Seeing Ancient Maya Commoners Even though individuals of non-elite status constituted anywhere between 80 and 98 percent of the population in pre-Columbian times, our perception and understanding of commoners are frequently based on comparisons with elites, in terms of both material well-being and behaviors undertaken in broader social contexts. Recently, Rosemary Joyce (1994:182) succinctlycharacterized some distinctions between commoners and elites: ‘‘Thus, the elite become those who use imported or elaborate goods, consume more of these goods in life (as seen in middens) and death (as seen in burials), draw on greater energy for the construction of their living sites, and have less evidence of malnutrition or poor health’’ (emphasis added). Focusing on what elites do (and by implication what commoners do not do), Arlen Chase and Diane Chase (1992:3) identifyelites simplyas ‘‘those who run society’s institutions.’’ Perspectives such as these, perfectly valid and with deep roots in Western anthropology, reflect something of an imbalance in the ways commoners of the past are approached, or not, in archaeology. Qualities ascribed to the non-elite are often defined in reference to those displayed by paramount status holders in society. Archaeologists frequently see commoners as ‘‘small’’ (versus larger-than-life rulers often glorified on stone monuments), ‘‘impoverished’’ (when compared to elaborate palaces and grave offerings of the high and mighty), ‘‘unempowered ’’ (in the face of elite decisions on most weighty social matters), and ‘‘anonymous’’ (in that none are known to us by name or individual deed). In her summary chapter to this volume, Joyce Marcus evaluates some additional stereotypes of commoners. Throughout the history of anthropology, commoners have been variously characterized as faceless, Examining Ancient Maya Commoners Anew 3 internally homogeneous, and relatively inert in terms of their impacts on cultural development and processes. Karl Marx (1971:230), for example, egregiously described the constituency of the nineteenth-century French countryside as ‘‘a smallholding, a peasant and his family; alongside them another smallholding, another peasant and another family. A few score of these make...