Search Results (12)

The Yucatán Peninsula, a key region of the ancient Maya civilization, has long presented challenges in establishing absolute chronological frameworks for its cultural practices. While the central regions of Mesoamerica have been extensively studied, the southern areas, including the Yucatán, remain underexplored. Limekilns, integral to lime production in pre-Hispanic Maya society, are well suited for archaeomagnetic studies due to the high temperatures (>700 °C) required for their operation. This study analyzed 108 specimens from 12 limekilns near Mérida, Yucatán, using rock-magnetic experiments and progressive alternating field demagnetization to refine the absolute chronology and determine the continuity of the lime production technology. Thermoremanent magnetization was predominantly carried by magnetite-like phases. Archaeomagnetic directions were successfully obtained for ten kilns with robust precision parameters. Age intervals were calculated using global geomagnetic models (SHA.DIF.14K, SHAWQ.2K), local paleosecular variation curves, and a Bootstrap resampling method. The analysis identified apparently two distinct chronological clusters: one between 900 and 1000 AD, associated with the Late–Terminal Classic period, and another near 1500 AD, just prior to the Spanish conquest. These findings reveal an apparent 500-year hiatus in lime production, followed by the potential reuse of kilns. Our study refines the chronological framework for Mayan lime production and its cultural and technological evolution. The integration of archaeomagnetic methods demonstrates their far-reaching applicability in addressing questions of continuity, reuse, and technological adaptation, contributing to broader debates on ancient pyrotechnological practices and their socioeconomic implications. Full article

This paper analyzes spatial gestures and cognition in a new, or so-called “emerging”, visual language, the Yucatec Maya Sign Language (YSML). This sign language was created by deaf and hearing signers in various Yucatec Maya villages on the Yucatec Peninsula (Mexico). Although the sign language is not a signed version of spoken Yucatec Maya, both languages evolve in a similar cultural setting. Studies have shown that cultures around the world seem to rely on one preferred spatial Frame of Reference (FoR), shaping in many ways how people orient themselves and think about the world around them. Prior research indicated that Yucatec Maya speakers rely on the use of the geocentric FoR. However, contrary to other cultures, it is mainly observable through the production of gestures and not speech only. In the case of space, gestures in spoken Yucatec Maya exhibit linguistic features, having the status of a lexicon. Our research question is the following: if the preferred spatial FoR among the Yucatec Mayas is based on co-expressivity and spatial linguistic content visually transmitted via multimodal interactions, will deaf signers of an emerging language created in the same cultural setting share the same cognitive preference? In order to answer this question, we conducted three experimental tasks in three different villages where YMSL is in use: a non-verbal rotation task, a Director-Matcher task and a localization task. Results indicate that YMSL signers share the same preference for the geocentric FoR. Full article

In the town of Sacapulas, located in the mountainous country of Guatemala, there is a constant risk of natural disasters. Floods and landslides occur frequently, resulting in the loss of human lives and cultural aspects. Important to the region, the creation of the black salt is most affected. This resource has been created since the time of the Mayans on the salt beach surrounding the town. However, from the 1940s onwards, this industry has shrunk. As a result, architectural expressions known as “salt kitchens” have almost disappeared, and there is no information on the subject available. By employing interviews, area survey, and GPS mapping, it was discovered that the location of the salt kitchens is determined by the shape of the beach. However, only one third of the beach area is accessible up to this day. It was discovered that the destruction of the salt kitchens is due to natural elements as well as owners reusing the land for other economically viable functions. To preserve their existence, the first plans of the salt kitchens were created, and will help future researchers if necessary. Full article

This article presents the case of Guatemalan Pentecostalism as a highly relevant expression of Latin American Pentecostalism that helps to clarify the debate about the syncretic nature of Pentecostalism. We use the Guatemalan case to test the thesis of Juan Sepúlveda, a Chilean Pentecostal historian and theologian, who explains the success of Latin American Pentecostalism in light of its syncretic character. His argument about the syncretic character of Pentecostalism is based on the Chilean case. Paying attention to its historical development, we present Guatemalan Pentecostal theology in relation to traditional Mayan culture and religion and in relation to popular Catholicism and traditional Latin American Protestantism. Specific attention is paid to the espoused theology of Pentecostal pastors as they provide an account of indigenous Pentecostals’ lived faith. Finally, we answer the question: Does Juan Sepulveda’s approach (still) provide an adequate framework for the theological assessment of possible syncretic characteristics of (Latin American) Pentecostalism? The Guatemalan case indicates ways to improve certain limitations of Sepúlveda’s approach, such as its static understanding of culture and its exclusion of the theological understanding of syncretism. Full article

In the town of Sacapulas located in the mountainous country of Guatemala, there is a constant risk of natural disasters. Floods and landslides occur frequently, resulting in the loss of human lives and cultural aspects. Specifically, in the region, the creation of black salt is the most affected. This resource has been created since the time of the Mayans on the salt beach surrounding the town. However, from the 1940s onwards, this industry has shrunk, impacting the sustainability of indigenous people. After conducting several area and space analyses, it was found that the black salt beach has evolved considerably since the last research conducted in 2001. The shape of the space has been reduced, while the use of the area has been modified by the people of the town, who specifically use the hot springs located below the river shore of the beach. This new usage can coexist with the Salt making industry is only made by a few people now, there are few working in this industry, and they only work in the dry season. The result is an opportunity for economic growth and an increase in tourism if the area handled properly by managing the land and planning ahead. Full article

Perceptual sociophonetic work on Guatemalan Spanish has demonstrated that listeners are more likely to link male voices with traditional Maya clothing, the traje típico, when their speech includes features of Mayan-accented Spanish. However, as Maya women are more likely than men to wear the traje típico, this matched-guise study investigates native Guatemalans’ perceptions of Mayan-accented Spanish produced by female voices. The results demonstrate that guises with features of Mayan-accented Spanish were more likely to have traje típico as a response than guises without these features. When compared to the previous studies with male-voiced guises, the findings suggest an interaction between gender and Mayan-accented Spanish. Traje típico responses were more common for female-voiced guises than male-voiced guises and occurred at the highest rate among female-voiced guises with features of Mayan-accented Spanish. Thus, gendered and cultural practices are reflected in the indexical fields of Mayan-accented Spanish in Guatemala, regardless of the gender or ethnicity of the listener. That is, the visual body–language link is significantly more essentialized for the identity of a woman than for the identity of a man in Guatemala, suggesting that gendered stereotypes, language ideologies, and embodied practices mutually reinforce one another in the collective consciousness of the region. Full article

Although the Guatemalan population is made up of 53% Indigenous peoples, there is a certain belief according to which Indigenous peoples are still currently associated with underdevelopment, inferiority, submission, and exploitation, causing the belief that, for many, being Mayan is not synonymous with identity, but with poverty, neglect, and inferiority. Through a biographical–naturalist study, we delve into how Guatemalan teachers experienced not only their Mayan being, but also how the construction of their identity was gestated in schools. After carrying out the data analysis process, we underline and describe how the Mayan culture, worldview, and language still constitutes a difficulty and an obstacle to the construction of the personal identity of Indigenous peoples in Guatemala. We describe the experience lived in monolingual and monoethnic schools in which not only is the Mayan culture not recognized, but the use of the language and its expression are prohibited. We review the repercussions that the actions of the political agendas have on the key of recognition, highlighting how, beyond the legislative indications, it is the involvement and personal actions of teachers that is making it possible to make known and recognize the Mayan culture. Full article

The Huasteca Potosina region has a relevant landscape heritage of biocultural diversity, due to high biological diversity and the presence of the Teenek (Huastec Mayan), Nahua, and Xi’iuy (Pame) ethnic groups. The object of this study is to analyze, among the different cultural groups of the region, how the performances of the relevant Socioecological Systems (SESs) influence the conservation of biocultural diversity. Quantitative approaches are used to determine the expected trends of indices (Informant Consensus Factor, ICF; Cultural Importance Index, CII; Shannon–Wiener Biodiversity Index, SWI) commonly used in the ethnobotanical field. Data of the main domestic forest species used by the groups mentioned above were collected in 2021. We analyzed the SES profile for each of the ethnic groups and a mestizo group, as well as their relationship with the biome they mainly inhabit and the domestic functions fulfilled by the ethnobotanical species. As a result, we found that the low deciduous forest and the sub-evergreen tropical forest biomes, which co-evolved mainly with the Nahua and the Teenek SESs, present higher diversity and effective use of species so that offer better chances for conserving the landscape heritage of biocultural diversity. Otherwise, the results also show the critical nature regarding the biomes inhabited by the Pame and the mestizo’s SESs. Full article

Just before the lockdown caused by the SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19, the archeological sites close to the Mexican Caribbean were having an exponential number of visitors. The restrictions on traveling due to the pandemic resulted in a decrease in the number of visitors; however, the visitor flow is rising again. This scenario provides a historical opportunity to carry out strategies towards the visitor’s management as well as to awake consciousness of the damage caused by the excess of visitors in cultural heritage sites. Establishing limits on the number of visitors is a well-recognized strategy to achieve sustainability in a cultural heritage site. An excess of visitors has an impact on two elements: the cultural resource and the quality of the visitor experience. Crowding perception has been demonstrated to be an effective indicator to evaluate the visitor experience and to determine standards of quality in cultural and natural sites. The place of origin of visitors is among the sociodemographic factors that can affect crowding standards. This study used a quantitative questionnaire based on normative theory and a visual method to identify the crowding standards of national and international visitors at the Mayan archaeological site of Tulum located in the vicinity of the Mexican Caribbean resort of Cancun. The results show that general visitor acceptability decreases as the number of people increase. International visitors are less tolerant to crowding than national visitors as they show the most restrictive acceptable level of people at the same time at the archaeological site. Findings are discussed in terms of their management implications for the development of a tourism-carrying capacity framework for cultural sites, thereby contributing to the achievement of more sustainable cultural tourism. Full article

There are disproportionate adverse impacts related to climate change on rural subsistence farmers in southern Belize, Central America who depend directly on natural resources for their food and livelihood security. Promoting a more resilient farming system with key climate-smart agriculture (CSA) adaptations can improve productivity, sustainability, and food security for Mayan milpa farming communities. Once a sustainable system, the milpa has become less reliable in the last half century due to hydroclimatic changes (i.e., droughts, flooding, hurricanes), forest loss, soil degradation, and other factors. Using interviews with both milpa farmers and Extension officers in southern Belize. This qualitative study finds several socio-ecological system linkages of environmental, economic, socio-cultural, and adaptive technology factors, which influence the capacity for increasing CSA practices. Agriculture Extension, a government service of Belize, can facilitate effective CSA adaptations, specifically, an increase in mulching, soil nutrient enrichment, and soil cover, while working as partners within Maya farming traditions. These CSA practices can facilitate more equitable increases in crop production, milpa farm system sustainability, and resilience to climate change. However, there are several institutional and operational barriers in Extension which challenge their efficacy. Recommendations are presented in this study to reduce Extension barriers and promote an increase in CSA practices to positively influence food and livelihood security for milpa communities in southern Belize. Full article

This article explores the social, economic, cultural and political issues bound up in two matters relating to the environment in the Sololá and Lake Atitlán region of the Guatemalan Mayan highlands in 2004–2005: the violent breakup of an anti-mine protest and the various reactions to a tropical storm that threatened the lake ecosystem. It views these events as part of a historical conjuncture and centers them in a larger discussion of Maya political activism, environmentalism and neoliberal development in Guatemala from the 1990s–mid-2010s. It begins with the transition from war to peace in the 1990s, charting how Maya participation in municipal politics soared even as the official Mayan movement waned as the state turned to neoliberalism. Zooming in on municipal development and politics in Sololá in the early 2000s, it then traces at the ground level how a decentralizing, “multicultural” state promoted political participation while at the same time undermining the possibility for that participation to bring about substantive change. The center of the article delves deeper into the conjuncture of the first decade of the new millennium. By mapping events in Sololá against development, agrarian transformation and rural urbanization, it argues that resilient Maya community structures, although unable to stop the exploitative tide, continued to provide local cohesion and advocacy. Activists and everyday citizens became more globally attuned in the 2000s. The article’s final section analyzes municipal plans made between 2007 and 2012, arguing that creating and controlling community structures became increasingly important to the state in a time when Guatemala’s “outward” global turn was accompanied by an “inward” turn as people confronted spiraling violence in their communities. Critics called young people apolitical, but in 2015, massive demonstrations led to the imprisonment of the nation’s president and vice-president, showing that there is a chapter of Guatemala’s history of activism yet to be written. Full article

This article examines how Native places are made, named, and reconstructed after colonization through storytelling. Storying the land is a process whereby the land is invested with the moral and spiritual perspectives specific to Native American communities. As seen in the oral traditions and written literature of Native American storytellers and authors, the voices of indigenous people retrace and remap cartographies for the land after colonization through storytelling. This article shows that the Americas were storied by Native American communities long before colonial contact beginning in the fifteenth century and demonstrates how the land continues to be storied in the present as a method of decolonization and cultural survivance. The article examines manifestations of the oral tradition in multiple forms, including poetry, interviews, fiction, photography, and film, to demonstrate that the land itself, through storytelling, becomes a repository of the oral tradition. The article investigates oral narratives from precontact and postcolonial time periods and across numerous nations and geographical regions in the Americas, including stories from the Mayan Popol Vuh; Algonkian; Western Apache; Hopi; Haudenosaunee/Iroquois; and Laguna Pueblo stories; and the contemporary poetry and fiction of Joy Harjo (Mvskoke/Creek Nation) and Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna Pueblo). Full article