ABSTRACT

Walls surrounding all or part of a site center have long been recognized as important archaeological features, but often little consideration is given to their function beyond their apparent defensive use. Recent investigations of the site wall at Chichen Itza in the northern lowlands highlight the need for a strong framework within which to interpret wall features, as well as the importance of viewing wall structures as dynamic systems that may have served multiple functions simultaneously or over time. Such a framework will allow researchers to understand site walls as part of larger systems of social control in addition to providing insight into the practice of warfare among the ancient Maya. In the case of Chichen Itza, the wall that surrounds a large part of the ceremonial center appears to have been built originally as a symbolic structure, part of an elite program of separating the ceremonial precinct from its mundane surroundings. In contrast, late additions to the wall indicate the possibility of an increased need for defense in the site center. In 1976, E. Wyllys Andrews V and Edward Kurjack published one of the earliest reports on walled sites in the Maya area, a discussion of the sites and site walls at Ake, Cuca, and Muna in the northern lowlands (Figure 1.1). In this work, which was based on ground survey and aerial reconnaissance, Andrews and Kurjack recognized the usefulness of site perimeter walls in understanding patterns of political organization, boundary creation, and warfare among the ancient Maya. Nevertheless, 35 years after the publication of this pioneering study, site walls are still underappreciated and poorly understood. A number of sites throughout the Maya area, and especially in the northern lowlands, contain walls that surround all or part of the site center. These features appear as integral components of the programs of monumental architecture, yet their importance is often overlooked. Walls are often assumed to be defensive structures, an interpretation based solely on their existence, without any consideration of alternative or additional functions. Several scholars have called for a more nuanced or holistic approach to the interpretation of site perimeter walls, but a strong framework for such an approach has yet to be proposed (Rice and Rice 1981; Ringle et al. 2004). In this paper, we discuss this problem of interpretation, as well as the possible

implications of investigating wall features as dynamic, multifunctional, and important components of Maya sites. Based upon excavations carried out in 2009 at the northern lowland Maya site of Chichen Itza, this chapter offers an example of the potential utility of walls in understanding processes of warfare and power through social and ideological control. Interpretation of Site Perimeter Walls

The investigation of site walls may be key to understanding the nature of warfare for the northern lowlands, the Maya area, and perhaps even for archaic states in general. This is because the presence and characteristics of defensive fortications, which often include walls, indicate the arenas within which conict occurred as well as the strategies and tactics employed in war (Webster 1993:420-422). Webster (1993:435-441) has proposed a model of Maya warfare in which Maya elites of the Classic period “devised ideological charters which…defused the terror of war, making it a special and noncompetitive royal display.” Such warfare was intended to maintain the balance of power and to legitimize rulership. According to Webster, increasing environmental and political stresses and the inexibility of this ideological framework led to “warfare [that] was more frequent, more intense, more lethal, and less constrained by political/ideological conventions during the Terminal Classic/Early Postclassic than it had ever been before” (Webster 1993:439). In addition to being practiced in a more destructive manner, warfare during this period may have shifted from peripheral arenas and second-tier sites along frontiers, such as those described by Connell and Silverstein (2006) during the Late Classic, to central places including major political centers. Such pervasive violent conict may in turn have been an important contributing factor in the restructuring of the Maya world during the Postclassic period, accompanying and contributing to the political decentralization that took place at that time. Importantly, the presence of defensive fortications at sites away from frontiers often signies “a weakness or absence of central authority” (Keegan 1993:145) in archaic societies. Thus, if a model of escalating warfare accompanied by the breakdown of social and political institutions in the Terminal Classic to Early Postclassic periods is accurate, fortications may have been built at sites that were political central places. It is tempting to view site perimeter walls as direct indicators of warfare in the archaeological record, and these structures can certainly provide insight into conict in the ancient Maya world. Nevertheless, simply identifying site walls with warfare both understates the complexity of wall systems and misrepresents the scale and nature of warfare among the Maya. Dahlin (2000:294) correctly states that “perimeter walls are probably not a good indicator of the frequency or severity of warfare” because they may represent only that the “threat of siege tactics” existed. Some sites actually may have perimeter walls that were built without any defensive purpose in mind. Instead of merely equating the presence of site walls with the need for defense, care should be taken in identifying the attributes of such walls that indicate their function (Webster 1993:419). An inherent quality of any wall is that it creates a physical boundary on the landscape. Walls are useful to the archaeologist, because they are features that “represent emic expressions of the prehistoric functional denition of space” (Webster 1980:835). In some cases, perimeter walls may be intended to form barriers against the outside world, built to protect against threats from without. In other instances, walls may be manifestations of ideological barriers-for

instance, the boundary between sacred ritual space and areas of mundane daily activity. In fact, site walls in the Maya area may have performed many functions simultaneously:

As boundary features, wall or ditch/embankment systems may have functioned to dene and protect social space, to delineate sacred space symbolically, to control human trafc and commerce, or to restrict access to elite and/or administrative zones. These functions, of course, are not mutually exclusive. In addition it should be noted that any of these possible uses may [sic] also have had a defensive aspect as well (Rice and Rice 1981:272).