Rescuing the Origins of Dos Pilas Dynasty:
A Salvage of Hieroglyphic Stairway #2, Structure L5-49

Recent Evidence from the Pasión, Petexbatún, and Cancuén

The Harvard Ceibal and Altar de Sacrificios projects directed by Gordon Willey, compiled detailed evidence that began to reveal both the central role of riverine trade in western history and the role of warfare in the collapse of the river kingdom. They also discovered the unusual Cycle 10 conquest states that arose after the regional collapse in the Petexbatún and Middle Pasión (Tourtellot and González in press). Building on this research, the Vanderbilt 1989-1994 Petexbatún project and 1996 Punta de Chimino project provided the most detailed view yet of the violent dynamics of the Middle Pasión region and the early collapse there (Demarest 1997; Valdes 1997; Demarest, Escobedo, and O’Mansky 1997).

Finally, in the past four years, the Vanderbilt Cancuén project has opened up the history and archaeology of the Upper Pasión river system, revealing an even more intimate relationship between this wealthy Maya kingdom at the head of navigation and the Pasión river system that it controlled.

Jade, pyrite, presumably quetzal feathers, and other highland exotic raw materials and finished objects could have been given as gifts or exchanged with other centers to cement Cancuén’s strategic alliances. They also could have been distributed in more limited quantities to lesser elites as part of the royal patronage networks. Similarly, the many other kingdoms downriver on the Pasión and Usumacinta reinforced their religious and military bases of power with patronage networks redistributing the goods that had passed downriver from the highlands. This economic and ideological linkage between the patronage networks of the riverine kingdoms helps to explain the constant interactions of these kingdoms and the correlation in their histories and their coeval declines.

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