Classic Maya Borders and Frontiers: Excavations at El Paraíso, Copán, Honduras, 2003 Season

Introduction

This study aims to determine how processes of non-kin identity formation, such as factionalism or ethnogenesis, are related to the development of complexity in the past. Specifically, this research seeks to model the role played by non-kin identity formations (such as elite factions and ethnic groups) in the development and collapse of polities and interregional exchange in the southeastern Maya area during the Classic period (Figure 1). The anthropological study of factions and ethnicity often results in diametrically opposed models. Factional studies often adopt a situational ("instrumentalist") approach to group affiliation that sees transaction, boundary-formation, and context-specific negotiation of values as critical to the development of an elite identity. In contrast, ethnicity studies often rely on normative ("primordial") models that see ethnicity developing through the outward expression of and emphasis on several cultural markers of difference. That is, it is the emic expression of difference by members of a group.

Factional affiliation, whether based in social, political, or economic interaction, represents a form of social organization that is not created and maintained in isolation. It is, instead, situational, with affiliations developing in contra-distinction to one another. The dispositions and markers that maintain the relevance of one’s affiliation to a group are preserved through sustained interaction (Barth 1966; Bourdieu 1977; Shennan 1994). Interactions among individuals who share a factional affiliation (as in a profession, political affiliation, or socio-economic class) erase subtle differences through interaction that reinforces similar dispositions based on a perception of shared material conditions of existence. Curiously, interactions between individuals who do not share an affiliation (i.e. people of unequal economic status, residents of rival centers, or members of different ethnic groups) can certainly reinforce and even widen their distinction if their interactions are canalized (Barth 1966) within strict limits designed to highlight difference.

Unlike the case of factional, interest-group affiliation, ethnic groups often develop and coalesce through the use of certain cultural markers (diacritics, sensu Cohen 1978). They gain a super-ordinate salience, often in opposition to another group. Although these diacritics might appear arbitrary from an etic perspective, the emic perception of them as representative of an immanent (almost normative) culture transforms them into effective and readily recognizable icons of identity. In fact, their normative quality often involves some form of materialization–such as architectural style, decoration, emblems, insignia, or even written language–that leaves an archaeological signature (in residential structures, building façades, prestation goods, or texts) of the group’s self-proclamation.

When proponents of factional and ethnic studies adopt a practice-oriented approach, however, they both agree on the self-ascriptive nature of this identity and on the assertive (though arbitrary) nature of its set of symbols (diacritics). This paradigm emphasizes the development of salient social identities (Schortman and Nakamura 1991); that is, it tracks the process of social organization (i.e. "factionalization" or "ethnogenesis"). By adopting a practice-oriented paradigm, both approaches can form an integrated study of affiliation relevant to multiple scales of ancient complex society. This multi-scalar relevance renders this approach a potentially powerful tool to interpret the creation, maintenance, and dissolution of complex systems of non-kin based interaction.

Affiliations in the Southeast Maya Area

This study adopts a practice-oriented approach to the investigation of identity formation during the Classic period in the southeastern Maya area. This area was dominated in this time period by the large elite Maya polities of Copán and Quiriguá.

In general, the study of identity-forming interaction in this part of the Classic Maya area has generally focused on the interregional interaction of Maya with non-Maya people. Early research on the interregional scale of interaction assumed that complex phenomena like identity formation co-varied simply with ethnicity, social organization, and language and therefore could be circumscribed by culture spheres with discrete, abrupt territorial boundaries (Longyear 1947; Lothrop 1939; Stone 1959).

A more refined anthropological perspective shifted the focus from the recognition of static interregional identities to interpreting the dynamics of their creation, exhibition, and manipulation. Approached from this theoretical perspective, interregional interaction, such as that between the Maya and their non-Maya neighbors, was cast in terms of dynamic center-periphery models (Boone and Willey 1988; Robinson 1987). Studies of this scale of interaction generally define glaring asymmetries (political, social, or economic) among the participants and model a core-periphery relationship between a hierarchically-organized central group and loosely integrated outlier groups. Other Mesoamerican examples include interaction between Olmec and non-Olmec (Benson 1981; Coe 1965; Sharer and Grove 1989), Late Formative highland and lowland Maya (Rathje 1972), and Teotihuacán and Early Classic Maya centers (Miller 1983).

At the regional scale of inter-polity interaction, researchers developed political economy models that account for regional interaction reflected in elite assemblages. These models interpret a wealth economy based on an exchange network of peer prestation, mutual visitations, and marriage alliances (Brumfiel and Fox 1994; D’Altroy and Earle 1985). These interactions were based primarily in royal courts and presided over by a handful of powerful Maya rulers. Although this scale of analysis opened many new avenues of investigation, it is limited by its emphasis on elite interaction and its focus on monumental centers.

For the southeastern Maya region, this approach resulted in development of a regional model of elite interaction in which elites from Copán, Quiriguá, and their secondary hinterland centers engaged in multiple scales of identity-forming interactions. In fact, research revealed an extremely complicated series of interactions among elite residents within this region (Schortman and Nakamura 1991; Schortman and Urban 1994; Sharer 1974). Specifically, it claims elites adopted visible symbols of identity (Schortman 1989; Viel 1999) both for local manipulation (Bell and Reents-Budet 2000) and for participation in a regional organization of elites (Schortman 1986; Schortman and Nakamura 1991). Elites are interpreted as forming interregional identities through their participation within a context-specific political economy. Development of elite status is the result of tactics necessary to guarantee local power. Identification with other elites forms a regional "interest group" that supports the notion of an "elite sameness" despite major regional differences and antagonisms.

Finally, interaction has been tracked at lower scales of Classic Maya society in order to explain what sort of identities were salient among members of households, extended family compounds, or local communities (Ashmore and Wilk 1988; de Montmollin 1988; Haviland 1988). At this scale, interactions are assumed to result in the development of nuclear family, residential kin group, and regional lineage affiliations. In the southeast Maya area, research focusing on this scale of analysis has emphasized the salience of kin-based identities to commoners living at the various elite centers. Some research (Canuto 2002; Canuto and Fash 2003; Gerstle 1989; Schortman, Urban, and Ausec 2003), however, has suggested that forms of identity based on wider ranging interactions of commoners–that is, beyond the kin-group–were also critical to non-elite individuals. These studies have acknowledged the potential for ethnic differences, patron-client relationships, tribute obligations, and even some forms of institutional hierarchy (e.g., slavery) were salient to the non-elite members of Classic Maya society.

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