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FAMSI © 1999: Stephen D. Houston |
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Investigations at Piedras Negras, Guatemala: 1999 Field Season Among the River Kings: Archaeological Research at Piedras Negras, Guatemala Results in 1999 The project devoted relatively little time to test-pitting in 1999. We thus moved into what might be described as an increasing reliance on "judgmental sampling," that is, informed rather than random excavations, although still with exploratory intent. A few pits were sunk into northern groups in the C-sector, and one of those was soon expanded into a more extensive and probing operation. Most investigations were deliberately designed to strip large areas and to examine architecture in all of its complexity. For such work, test pits would be more frustrating than informative. At this moment, we feel reasonably confident of the overall chronology of settlement at Piedras Negras. Nonetheless, there can be no doubt that the site guards additional surprises in its buried architecture. Technically, the most ambitious excavations took place in the R-5 pyramid. Panel 4, which had fallen from its summit, made it clear that this building was the muk, or burial mound, of Ruler 1. Obviously, this also meant that the structure dated at least to the following reign, with most of its bulk coming into existence under the patronage of Ruler 2. (Last year, work on Pyramid O-13 established that renovations could take place generations later, Escobedo and Alvarado, 1998:14.) The summit floor, a single-roomed chamber with three entrances, had been partly cleared by Pennsylvania, during which they recovered a painted stucco head on the central axis, close to a back niche in the wall. Another head, evidently the portrait of another individual, appeared to the front of the room, also looking up, with the neck oriented to the doorway. These heads had been detached from a building facade, perhaps an earlier level of R-5. The project began a vertical shaft through the loose rubble that afflicts all archaeology at the site. As efforts at Pyramid O-13 had shown; trenching or tunneling into the heart of the structure would have been impossible (Houston et al., 1999:12). After 3.70 m. the shaft hit a plaster floor, then others at 5.50 and 7.55 m. respectively, at which point the season closed. 1 This shaft will be reopened next year. The basal platform of Pyramid R-5 was also explored, especially the boxed receptacles of stelae butts. These yielded a well-preserved cache (Figure 2a., Figure 2b.), a fragmentary human burial, and, in front of the platform, deep deposits of early date. To the west appeared, at floor level, an unusual concentration of Early Classic ceramics and seven pieces of green obsidian imported from Pachuca, México. On the center line was a cache with a lidded-vessel, almost certainly dedicatory to the final phase of construction in R-5. From earlier seasons, the project had known of early deposits under the plaza level. An apparently natural level of rotted limestone (caliza) turned out to be artificial. Underneath, down to bedrock, were increasingly earlier layers of material, ending in Middle Preclassic sherds (Forsyth and Hruby, 1997:208-209). Another early deposit, discovered last season, was the destroyed arrangement of platforms and courtyards under the West Group Plaza (Figure 3, Garrido, 1998:64). Additional exploration showed that it extended to the west, into a sunken court surrounded by platforms that probably supported buildings of bajareque. This wattle-and-daub had been smashed and pushed into the courtyards and over remaining platforms, resulting in thick, brick-like deposits. The debris was particularly deep to the west, under the N-1 sweatbath, where a 2.5 m. pit recovered sherds and partial vessels of Early Classic (Naba) date. Narrow trenches determined that this arrangement of platforms and courtyards came from two major episodes of construction and numerous minor modifications. A square building measuring 4 m. on a side had a stuccoed talud with one, centrally located vertical band on each side; a stairway led off its north side. Within this structure was evidence of another building, its stairway facing south. We are convinced that this elaborate series of leveled platforms and courts functioned as the original palace of Piedras Negras, although, regrettably, the Maya had removed any traces of floor plans. Judging from the amount of debris, the buildings probably stood at least another 2-3 meters higher. Their floors were cleanly swept into a low terrace on the western revetment of the West Group Plaza, later covered by the N-1 sweatbath. The ceramics demonstrate that the systematic destruction of the palace took place at the end of the Early Classic, but before Balche times, the subsequent, transitional phase that develops into the full Late Classic period. The exposure of Early Classic settlement in the presumed "servant’s quarters" (see below) suggests a close relationship between the palace and "servant’s zone" at this time. True to expectation, the Acropolis, a massive agglomeration of buildings, stairways, courtyards, and terraces, proved increasingly intricate as team members plumbed its depths. For the first time, project excavations penetrated the J-1 platform, a broad base for Stelae 1-8, Pyramid J-4, and platform J-7 (Figure 4). Defining its southern face was a megalithic stairway, which contained a cache consisting of cracked jade and greenstone, shell and eccentrics. Behind it came a highly complex pattern of superimpositions and destructive episodes. The earliest feature was an Early Classic structure on bedrock. Only a small, plastered fragment survived. It was oriented, strangely enough, away from the facade of J-1, and may have been the remains of a destroyed, elongated building. Slightly later, the Maya constructed a larger, intact building in east-west alignment, fronted by a plastered stairway. On its back was a transverse stairway. This building, apparently a free-standing structure, experienced one of the enigmatic destruction events found in Courts 1 and 3 of the Acropolis: i.e., resulting in enormous quantities of bajareque (wattle-and-daub fragments with occasional signs of white plaster), human bone, and dense concentrations of fine artifacts, including a bowl with glyphic text and stuccoed rim band (Figure 5). Similar deposits cover the buried structures under the West Group Plaza (see above). Clearly, the bajareque represents the exploded fragments of Early Classic buildings. Unfortunately, almost nothing is known of their ground plans, since the Maya shaved off their surfaces, leaving only patio floors and sloping bases. At this point, J-1 came into existence as part of the great mass of the Acropolis. We believe this event represents part of something far larger, a great conceptual leap involving new, more ambitious acts of large-scale planning. Consider the Acropolis. What had been a series of distinct buildings and small terraces interspersed among outcrops of bedrock transformed itself into a single mass, a wholesale modification of landscape. Elevated and restricted courtyards came into existence with huge effort, as rubble was hauled up from probable quarry sites along the Usumacinta to fill and level the uneven surfaces of bedrock. The scale of such renovations and expansions must have involved both a new aesthetic–one that did not so strongly desire the display of natural forms–and a profound shift in organizational abilities and access to labor (Houston et al., 1999:14). We call this transformation the "Great Shift". (An earlier one would be the explosion of population half-way through the Early Classic period.) The Great Shift is still problematic in many ways, especially in matters of chronology. Just as architecture changes, there seems to be, in contrast, remarkable continuity in ceramics, with unbroken sequences during this period in places such as Structure J-24. But the architectural shift is unequivocal. Platform J-1 went from a single building on bedrock to a way-station, a means of accessing the buildings and courtyards rising behind it. Similarly, the raising of the East Group Plaza and, at a slightly earlier date, the West Group Plaza, created new, broad routes for processionals as well as unrestricted views of architecture (Barrientos, 1997:134). Structure P-6 came into existence to define the southern terminus of one of these routes. The Acropolis was covered with dressed stone on many of its slopes, a pattern insufficiently registered on the Penn map, which shows these inclines as purely natural. At this time masons devised a system of conduits–stone-lined ditches covered with thin slabs–to conduct water away from the new pile of buildings. A later set of ditches, probably dating to the final years of the Late Classic, carried this water over the outermost layers of the J-1 platform. It is intriguing to speculate that the Great Shift caused society to change, and not the other way around. Rather than having the necessary institutions in place, the process of constructing these gargantuan plazas, platforms, and buildings may have led to the innovations that eventually coalesced into what we know as Late Classic society. A mission, a directive to build, would compel adjustments in the organization of labor. The same process of envelopment–the Great Shift–characterizes Court 3. Excavations in 1997 and 1998 revealed Early Classic buildings on the summit of a natural hill, along with, in 1999 the first evidence of Late Preclassic (Chicanel) pottery that had been compressed into natural hollows in the bedrock. By the end of the Early Classic period these constructions had grown to cover all visible vestiges of the knoll, supporting what may have been a free-standing building. A stairway, later removed by the Maya, faced southeast. As was true in other parts of the Acropolis, the Shift then took place. Buildings that looked outward were superseded by more complex, enclosed spaces, with many more courtyards, corridors, and levels. In the middle years of the Late Classic period long and deep retaining walls replaced small walls and minor building adjustments. The use of bajareque in monumental architecture diminished dramatically, although this technology continued in the form of walls and internal building supports in Structure J-12. In place of more delicate and ephemeral buildings, Late Classic masons shifted to permanent structures with doorways spanned by wooden lintels. The broad openings helped enlarge doors and introduce more light to inner chambers. But they were also an unwise choice: not a single, external doorway survives intact at Piedras Negras. In a cascade of damage, the collapse of doorways led inevitably to the destruction of vaults and the shearing of colored, stucco ornaments. Volutes and balls, some in sections as much as a meter long, were recovered this season from slumps in front of Structure J-18. This stucco had almost certainly fallen from the upper facade of the building. A prominent goal of the 1999 field season was the further exploration of an area presumed to contain the servant’s quarters of the Acropolis (Houston et al., 1999; Arredondo, 1998:137). Two buildings were excavated completely, Structures N-7 and N-10, in part because of high phosphate and heavy metal readings nearby, and because of the presence of a spectacular dump of royal ceramics found in 1998. Structure N-10 formed part of an Early Classic platform, with Late Classic (Yaxche and Chacalhaaz) additions. Structure N-7 was equally complicated, consisting of an unusual C-shaped layout with restricted inner room that was later expanded by the addition of higher and wider walls. These walls may have functioned as open benches. Structure N-10 also had wide benches, albeit of cruder form, that were deployed in an E-shaped pattern; the open spaces served as narrow corridors. Unfortunately, these buildings did not yield any unambiguous evidence in favor of our initial hypothesis: that is, there were no elaborate cooking facilities, no obvious signs of storage, no barracks-like residences, if such could even be expected in a Classic site. But the deposits were complex, with signs of incensario rituals (Structure N-7) and densely packed middens near buried staircases under the courtyard in front of N-10. The only way of resolving our interpretive problem is further excavation in other mound groups, so as to understand the sector as a whole. Another elite residence came into focus as a result of test-pitting. This group comprised Structures C10-C14, to the northeast of the Northwest Group Plaza. The courtyard of this mound group proved to have a cemetery rather like that excavated in and around Structure R-20 during the 1998 field season (Monterroso, 1998:112). An Early Classic platform and burial demonstrated long occupation. During the Yaxche phase, other burials were inserted, still others robbed, and two caches placed within a series of low, single-riser terraces (Figure 6). The complexity of these deposits has yet to be satisfactorily plumbed, and at least two burials covered by slabs await further excavation. In the middle of the courtyard, lying face-up on the surface, was an eroded hieroglyphic panel (Figure 7). Although the panel is utterly illegible–one can make out at least forty glyph blocks and a central scene, but no more–a comparison with other panels in the area, including some from Piedras Negras, make it likely that the text concluded with a reference to a burial. This supposition was strengthened by the discovery of a well-furnished burial directly to the east, in Structure C-13 (Figure 8). This building consisted essentially of one phase, the burial itself and its subsequent interment under a terraced building. The narrowness of C-13 pointed to the conclusion that it was never roofed, but rather consisted of terraces with cylindrical altars. The final modification involved the addition of a stairway and, we believe, the placement of the panel in an outset balk directly above the burial. It is possible, given what we know of other panels, that this is the first burial ever recovered of a noble of sajal rank. In 1999 the project continued work in the sweatbaths of Piedras Negras (Houston et al., 1998b:43-46; Child, 1998). A new emphasis was on ancillary buildings, those structures that might have had some functional relationship with sweatbaths by reason of their proximity. Three sweatbaths were excavated: Structures J-17, N-1, and O-4. Preliminary analysis of their dating demonstrates a consistent pattern noted in previous years, namely, that all vestibules and new construction appear to date to the early years of the Chacalhaaz phase (ca. A.D. 730±30 years). Our present suspicion is that most date to the reigns of Rulers 4 or 5, although it is unclear what that might mean in terms of royal commissioning: Does the fact that a certain structural modification takes place more-or-less simultaneously indicate that royal fiat is involved, or simply that a new fashion has swept through the site? The apparent uniformity of the changes lends weight to the possibility of royal patronage as an explanation for this change. Structure J-17 proved to be important for its larger number of rooms (eight in total), human burial (unique at Piedras Negras) in front of the water channel, and extraordinary quantity of late ceramics, all of late Chacalhaaz date. The ceramics in J-17 provide crucial evidence of two things: the nature of late ceramics in use by occupants of the royal palace; and the final years of Piedras Negras as a city. Along with artifacts found by Penn in situ within J-12, a building directly to the west of J-17, the sherds from J-17 compose the most complete sample of the problematic late facet of Chacalhaaz (Holley, 1983:202-207). Other sherds are scattered on floors of buildings in the palace (Holley, 1983:Tables 29-31). Since J-17 lies below J-12 and Court 2, and far above any settlement below, it is virtually certain that these ceramics result from palace disposal. More hypothetically, they represent the residue of palace life as it existed at the end of, or even after, Ruler 7’s reign (Houston et al., 1999:14). The accumulation of trash on J-17 indicates substantial changes in royal existence at this time. Clearly, J-17 no longer functioned as anything other than a convenient dump. This raises disturbing questions about the end of Piedras Negras. Late Chacalhaaz ceramics and their clustering in the palace and a few pyramids point to a counterintuitive pattern. If these deposits do truly come from the reign of Ruler 7, then the palace and royal court would appear to postdate the collapse of Piedras Negras as a city–that is, the dynasty survived Piedras Negras itself, a small island in the midst of desolation (Holley, 1983:160). 2 Supporting evidence may come from the periphery, which has only one identifiable sherd of probable late facet Chacalhaaz date, from the Cueva de Alberto, a rock shelter 2 km. to the southeast of the city (Figure 9). These data would seem to indicate that the demographic collapse at Piedras Negras took place within an exceedingly short period of 5-10 years. Future research may resolve some of these issues. The 1999 field season did uncover strong evidence of late, unfinished buildings at the site, such as Structure 0-17, inside of which was the fragment of a probable throne with the name of Ruler 2 (Figure 10). The other sweatbaths reveal the most useful data on ancillary buildings. At a later stage, O-4 contained a number of crudely fashioned rooms with benches. Nearby, in Structure 0-3, were other benches positioned for maximum privacy, with access through angled entrances. It is probable that these benches relate to the sweatbath. But what might that connection be? In the first place, we suspect that the increased quantity of benches offers evidence of opened access and increased use by inhabitants of the city. Whether this reflects a "democratization" of use is uncertain. The benches themselves may have been used for rest between lengthy baths and for feasting or enema rituals, which require a supine position. Nor can a more salacious function be discounted. At least one Classic Maya vessel probably shows what amounts to an orgy in a sweatbath (Coe, 1978:plate 11). Residential architecture, too, came into clearer focus. Structure U-16 was completely excavated, in complement to the full stripping of other mounds in this group (U-8 and U-17) during the 1998 field season (Wells, 1999:220-221). To our knowledge, this is one of the first residential patios to be thoroughly excavated in the western Maya Lowlands. U-8 and U-17 had shown a subtle pattern of shifts through time, with more-or-less similar layouts in buildings, but with gradual expansion. A large platform elevated on all sides and resting on bedrock, U-16 contained a formal entrance that faced its patio; large flagstones probably demarcated areas left exposed to the elements, since they would have reduced muddy traffic in the rainy season. Three benches were disposed against the back and side walls of a central room on axis with the formal entrance. A wide trench through the middle of this building revealed earlier stages of these benches and a burial crypt. Here, as in more monumental architecture, the Maya had cut into, and ripped out, early deposits. To the east was a grouping of what may have been masonry storage cells. Additional trenching in U-17, first cleared in 1998, revealed more burials. The fill in U-16 yielded a fragmented animal bone, masterfully and minutely incised with the image of a winged, agnathous god with headdress (Figure 11a.); there was also a remarkable if fragmentary incised text, reading U-ba/u-?-lu/"Ruler 7," "his head carver (?), Ruler 7," of which a similar construction occurs on a subsidiary text on Panel 3, perhaps with assimilation of the agentive a (Figure 11b.). 3 Nearby, in Structures U-18 and U-31, excavations cleaned off a long range structure (U-18) and a poorly preserved extension (U-31). At their intersection was the earliest phase of these buildings, which lay atop a thick layer of caliza and an Early Classic building covered by a ceramic dump. A surprising find was a cruciform arrangement of partially crypted burials in the center of the building. Mapping recorded no fewer than 68 buildings, many of them missed by Penn mappers in the 1930s (Figure 12). Typically, these lay in irregular groupings in areas of dense güaymil (second growth) and on low ridges in the seasonal bajo below the South Group. To our regret, it seems likely that considerable errors (20 m.+) existed in parts of Penn’s survey of this zone. In all candor, had we known of such errors in the first and second season, we would have resurveyed, rather than simply extended, the Penn map (Houston et al., 1999:11). Future investigators at Piedras Negras should proceed with caution when relying on horizontal distances in this earlier survey. Our mapping did, however, have a more positive result, by tying in excavations within the near-periphery of Piedras Negras. The two excavations in the periphery followed a more intensive strategy than the far-flung reconnaissance of the first two seasons. Our focus was a small valley girded and defined by hillocks and ridges–clearly a principal path of access into Piedras Negras. The long-term objective of the Periphery Sub-Project will be to examine this sector completely, with excavation in all or most of the groups within the natural drainage. The intent: to undertake the analogy of a "community" or "neighborhood" study. One such group BS-23 (Brecha Sur) was excavated in 1998 (Webster and Kovak, 1998). The two under study in 1999 represented the most modest buildings in this sector, and thus, hypothetically, the easiest to dig and understand. However, excavations in BS-25, a single terrace, quickly demonstrated their complexity. A massive terrace had been constructed of fieldstone and repeatedly modified, often in alignments that proved difficult to disentangle. The plan of the mound, which began in the Yaxche phase, but largely dated to Chacalhaaz, corresponded to a two-structure mound group that had been arranged in linear fashion because of the steep slope. Large numbers of broken metates lay on the surface, and debris on flattened areas continued up to, and beyond, the excavated area, suggesting a more extensive, elongated occupation, with work or discard zones to either side of the buildings. The other site, BS-27, straddled a knoll some 20 m. in elevation above BS 25. Disposed in L-shaped form, the mound group was first tested for phosphate concentrations, which duly appeared in high quantities near the benches on the larger mound, Structure 1. Ceramics were striking in their crudeness and poor firing, with an inventory far poorer than the larger site of BS-23. A fascinating component of settlement history around Piedras Negras was the discovery of an abandoned guerilla camp (Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes/Comunidades del Pueblo en Resistencia, El Petén) about an hour’s walk (ca. 5 km.) southeast of the project headquarters. The site consisted of over ten terraces measuring approximately 5 x 10 m., clustered tightly together, parallel to a seasonal stream bed that still contained, in sections, over 50 cm. of water. Low-lying foliage had been cut, but not the trees that provided protection against aerial surveillance and bombing. The camp was evidently selected because of this water source–one bed had been blocked off and excavated to a depth of 2 m. as a perennial water supply–and the site’s strategic location at the confluence of three valleys. Sloping hillsides marked areas to the north and south, a dramatic cliff face defined the hollow to the west. Apparently, attack by Guatemalan army units was expected from the south, so that the stream beds served as natural moats. Exploration 100 m. to the north of the camp revealed the existence of extensive bunker systems with gun ports facing above the camp to the south. Many of these holes were still covered by logs, tarp, and earth, and extended to a depth of 1.5 m. below the surface. Another safeguard were sentry posts set at a distance of 2 km. from the camp in narrow defiles leading to the guerilla settlement. A banana plantation of ca. 2-3 ha. and a milpa of the same size lay within one km. of the camp, again for protective reasons, since they would have been easily visible from the air. The camp itself merits detailed ethnoarchaeological work as an important historical artifact of Guatemala’s troubled past. Abundant Mexican trade goods carried expiration dates in the mid-1990s. One dilapidated building covered with zinc roofing had a crucifix nailed to its western end, a surprising relic for such an orthodox Marxist-Leninist movement. Equally surprising was the large quantity of individual cooking hearths and maize-grinders, since we had expected more collective arrangements. Caches raided by our workers contained mud boots and rotting military clothing; ammunition boxes and saddle supports attested to an uncertain and peripatetic way of life. The ancient Maya paid relatively little attention to a site that suited the needs of modern, clandestine conflict: a single set of two mounds with Late Classic sherds could be found on a hill to the south of the stream. For the first time the Project was able to glean geological information, other than the sketchy but useful data available in Aliphat (1994). The city’s location was determined by a geologically favorable placement along the Usumacinta River, on a low-relief platform above seasonally flooded valleys, and as part of an arch across a regional syncline. Black chert exposed along the river provided the community with a rich deposit of tool-making material. Staining of these rocks by manganese dioxide led to the site’s modern name. During reconnaissance, Zachary Hruby determined that the greatest concentration of fine, large-noduled chert occurred on the river bank below the Acropolis and the N-1 sweatbath, a probable lure for early settlement. The lack of erosion on beds near the ruins confirmed that large amounts of architectural fill almost certainly came from the river bank during the Classic period. Three distinctive rock units were found and correlated with use in structures. The first was a honeycombed limestone that was employed principally in fill. The second was a thick-bedded limestone shaped into facing stones and carved monuments. The third consisted of a dolomite to dolomitic limestone that served as an ideal material for wall construction, being readily fractured into relatively regular blocks. The first two rock units crop out along the river; the third occurs at the elevation of the main site and higher hilltops. Piedras Negras is within a cone-karst setting. Cockpits are not associated with the cones, and there is little evident internal drainage. However, one pit is possibly the largest in Guatemala at 100 m. in diameter by 66-120 m. deep (Houston et al., 1999:16). Shovel tests quickly showed that little cultural material would be found without deep excavation–the slopes of the sinkhole are so unstable as to be continuously crumbling into the bottom. The origins of this pit, as well as those of many others nearby, stem from the late Cretaceous and Paleocene units underlying the site. The uppermost unit is a cliff-forming dolomite to dolomitic limestone that supports little solutional enlargement for caves. It is underlain by an easily eroded carbonate chalk which forms no caves. Karst cones are partly created by solution of the dolomitic limestone and partly from weathering of the chalk, undercutting and disintegrating the dolomitic limestone. 4 The pit was formed by the collapse of both units into a deeper limestone, where large, water-filled conduits are apparently present, removing collapsed rock by dissolution. Moreover, the valleys to the southeast and northwest probably occur because of solution to this deeper stratum. Whatever water may be flowing through this system breaks into many small rivulets that dribble into the Usumacinta at low water level during the dry season. Caves are few, small, limited to dolomitic rocks, and mostly deriving from collapse rather than dissolution. Some contain Late Classic vessels and occasional fissures of moderate depth. To judge from finds within them, these features were used by the Maya as places for burial. Preservation of one such individual, a 12-year old, was extraordinarily good. A detailed analysis of animal remains from deposits with clear ceremonial and ritual functions–caves, burials, and caches–suggests that the three contexts contain very different assemblages. In the case of the cave remains, it is likely that, despite the presence of human remains in all deposits, the faunal remains are predominantly those of resident and therefore intrusive animals. The exceptions are species that might easily have been brought to the cave either by humans or by large carnivorous predators such as weasels, foxes, and cats. The caches and burials tell a different story. The bird remains found in the cache deposits include both whole skeletons and large body portions, a distribution that generally indicates intrusive species. However, in this case the presence of other, more definitively ritual species, indicates that these are in fact ceremonial offerings and not intrusive animals. The predominance of either whole skeletons or bird wing elements suggests that the feathers of small bright birds were an important part of the cache assemblages. In both cases the assemblages combined marine (rare and expensive) and riverine (common and local) aquatic animals, suggesting that the importance of these cache species lay in their emphasis on a watery environment, not in their focus on either marine exotics or elite goods. Perhaps the association between the birds (as sky elements) and the aquatic species (often underworld elements) suggests a bridging role for these caches placed between heavens and underworld. The animal remains found in association with human burials at Piedras Negras are more difficult to interpret. While some species are easily defined as intrusive (rodents and lizards), and others are clearly ritual (marine shell decorations), our understanding of the role of other species must be based on the distribution of the remains themselves. The fact that deer limb elements are both ubiquitous and numerous suggests that these are not intrusive, but are the remains of foods interred with the corpse. Further quantitative and distributional analysis of burial remains will provide further proof of this suggestion.
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