Active environments: Relational ontologies of landscape at the ancient Maya city of Aventura,Belize

Archaeological approaches to ancient Maya relational ontologies

Archaeologists have embraced relational ontologies in an effort to avoid projecting present-day Western categories onto the past (Alberti and Jones, 2013; Fowles, 2013; Hodder, 2012; Meskell, 2004; Weismantel, 2018). Archaeologists who study relational ontologies often do so by incorporating ethnography, linguistic data, and/or indigenous knowledge with a close study of archaeological materials. For example, the Mayan word ch’ulel, which has been translated to “soul” or “life force,” was present in both humans and non-humans in ancient inscriptions (Stuart, 1997: 157). This has also been recorded ethnographically amongst the Tzotzil Maya (Sharer and Traxler, 2006). Additionally, there is no recorded Mayan word for “nature,” and one community of Yucatec Maya in Chunhuhub, Quintana Roo, Mexico, borrowed the Spanish word for nature after contact (Anderson, 2005: 120). Ethnographies have explored various Maya communities’ relationship with their environment and highlight an emphasis on the active qualities of non-humans in a Maya worldview (Anderson, 2005; Vogt, 1969). However, ethnography can be problematic for archaeologists to utilize. Maya people are (and were) very diverse, speaking a multitude of languages and inhabiting a broad geographical range. While there are similarities in human–environment relationships in contemporary ethnographies, it is important not to generalize for the entirety of Maya people, and especially not to project people’s behavior today onto the past as if they were timeless or never-changing.

One way to take relational ontologies seriously without ethnographic analogy is by “following the materials,” as outlined by Weismantel and Meskell (2014). They advocate for an approach that works from the ground up, starting with an analysis of material substance of artifacts in human form and their contexts before discussing the body. Their focus is on the “dense relations among social actors and their non-human and material worlds” (Weismantel and Meskell, 2014: 235). Instead of projecting what human form artifacts represent, they look at the physical material and from there trace out relationships between things. In doing so, meaning emerges from the materials themselves, not from projected categories. The approach of following the materials is especially well suited for arcaheology, as material culture and spatial relationships are classic topics of archaeological inquiry. The very act of conducting archaeological research invites a following of the materials (Edgeworth, 2012: 91).

Archaeologists have convincingly deconstructed binaries related to the nature/culture divide in ancient Maya society without the use of iconography, inscription, ethnography, or linguistic evidence by examining spatial relationships, material form, and everyday activities. Robin (2002) highlights relational aspects of space when she demonstrates that the distinction between inside/outside of houses was not an idea important to the lived experience of everyday life at the farming community of Chan. With the use of soil science, a close reading of spatial relationships allows Robin to argue that the boundaries of the house were not confined to the pole walls, and it was the spaces in between dwellings and the activities that took place in those spaces that comprised the household. The spatial relationships of ancient Maya cities and architecture have also been examined to break down binaries. Ashmore (1991, 2015) and Ashmore and Sabloff (2002) have argued that the apparently natural landscape was imbued with social meaning, and architectural features were strongly influenced by “natural” ones. The spatial layout of cities acts as a microcosm of the universe, governed by north–south and east–west complementary parts. This was not to represent the world, but to “equate the architectural center of civic power with the center of the universe” (Ashmore, 1991: 200).

The study of material form at ancient Maya sites illuminates the interconnectedness of built/unbuilt landscape features. Lucero (2018) and Lucero and Kinkella (2015) have demonstrated that the water temple at the pilgrimage site of Cara Blanca in Belize has a physical form that defies categorization as purely natural or cultural. While walls have been built up, terraces have been cut into the bedrock, so that the temple is simultaneously built and unbuilt. With examples from across the Maya Lowlands, Harrison-Buck (2012) argues that the use of speleothems and marine shells in the construction of circular shrines highlights an ancient Maya relational ontology because the materials do not “represent” nature, but rather embody the “transformative call of the rainy season and Quetzalcoatl [the feathered serpent god] himself” (75). The shrines themselves were animate facets of an active, cosmologically linked landscape.

Interrogating everyday activities in the past has also allowed archaeologists to deconstruct binaries. Ross (2011) identifies actively managed tree species and species common in forest gardens in supposedly natural forests adjacent to ancient Maya settlement. From this, she demonstrates that the distinction between undomesticated plant procurement and agricultural practices was not well defined. Similarly, Hutson et al. (2007) argue that the binary of ritual/practical was not relevant in daily life activities. Refuse deposition was structured by factors such as settlement density, but also cosmology. Cultural logic and practical knowledge were not distinct realms. All of these archaeologists highlight that although there are some aspects of the archaeological record that Westerners today may recognize as natural (outside of house, unbuilt landscape, undomesticated plants, practical execution of basic needs) or cultural (inside of house, built landscape, domesticated plants, ritualized actions), for the ancient Maya in the above cases, these were not relevant or discrete categories.

The above scholars construct their arguments by outlining familiar categories and deconstructing them with archaeological evidence. I too start with familiar categories, and I use the terms natural/ecological and cultural/social in order to break them down with reference to the landscape. While discussing aspects of a holistic landscape discourages boundary making, it is difficult to avoid privileging certain aspects of the landscape over others. It is important to reinforce the fact that ecological and social qualities are interconnected. It may be impossible to give equal treatment to all aspects of the landscape, but by emphasizing the relationships between aspects rather than distinctions between them, archaeologists can move past focusing on discrete categories (Meskell and Joyce, 2003; Weismantel, 2018; Weismantel and Meskell, 2014).

In what follows, I examine the spatial context, material form, and explicitly cosmologically connected activities that make up the pocket bajos at Aventura. These three analytical categories have been effectively used to deconstruct categories elsewhere in the Maya region using archaeological data, and I operationalize them to study landscape features. The spatial context and material form allow for an understanding of the active qualities of pocket bajos both in their creation and the creation of the city. Then, an examination of associated activities that mark cosmological connections demonstrates how pocket bajos were active social agents throughout the occupation of the city. Building from this analysis, I move toward a holistic approach to understanding the active qualities of landscape in human–environment interactions.

Spatial relationships

Spatial boundaries at Aventura are messy, and there is no clear segregation between what would be considered natural and cultural spaces in a Western ontology. At Aventura, pocket bajos are in both the city center, directly abutting the highest temple, and the outskirts of dense construction. Since the pocket bajos were on the landscape before the city was built, the location of the pocket bajos at Aventura invited and influenced where people were able to construct the city. Pocket bajos were surrounded by architecture on some sides, while others show no signs of construction. Of the 162 mounds mapped at Aventura, 20 percent are located within 20 meters of a pocket bajo. Every pocket bajo mapped at Aventura has between 1 and 3 mounds within 5 meters of its edge. However, at least 50 percent of the perimeter of every pocket bajo mapped at Aventura has no construction within 50 meters. They were neither entirely within the city nor outside of it.

Several types of construction are present along the pocket bajo edges. In addition to temples and civic architecture, households are commonly associated with these microenvironments. Households are of critical significance because they were where family members were buried, and ancestors were foundational to community building in ancient Maya society. As McAnany writes, “lands adjacent to residences … take on particular importance because they are spatially proximate to burial sites of ancestors” (2013: 65). Specific archaeological evidence for ancestor veneration at households on pocket bajo edges is discussed below. Due to their relationship with households at Aventura, pocket bajos likely took on particular importance. For example, some households were constructed to face pocket bajos. An elite household, Group 22, on the edge of Bajo 2 across from Plaza A had a doorway directly facing the pocket bajo (Grauer, 2019). Additionally, the front of the structure had a stairway that led down into the pocket bajo (Figure 3). The household was oriented a near perfect east–west, but it was also oriented to face Bajo 2. This particular household was less than 10 meters away from two smaller mounds occupied at the same time period, but rather than face them, it was oriented to face the pocket bajo. The construction of this household, and therefore the location of ancestors and foundation of the household community, was influenced by Bajo 2. OPEN IN VIEWER

The spatial relationships between pocket bajos and architecture at Aventura invites consideration of why these microenvironments were important. Their presence in the site core and on the outskirts of construction shows they were simultaneously in and outside of the city, intricately entangled with the ecological and social. The presence of households in particular highlights that these spaces were important for their likely association with ancestors and therefore community building, as discussed below. Their physical layout impacted where architecture at Aventura was constructed, and the relationship between pocket bajos and households worked to produce social meaning. Pocket bajos were social agents and worked with the people living at Aventura to create the physical city and community that lived there.

Form and material

The formal and material qualities of pocket bajos do not fit neatly into categories of built and unbuilt landscape. Processes that can be considered both ecological and anthropogenic were involved in the formation of pocket bajos. Trench excavations conducted by AAP on the edges of Bajo 1 and Bajo 2 in 2016 and 2018, respectively, revealed the form and material that comprised the pocket bajos. Generally, pocket bajo edges are formed by sloping bedrock, irregularly shaped from processes of erosion. At Aventura, the bedrock is soft limestone, and in some places, it has been cut into to create steps. Such steps were uncovered directly north of the main temple in Plaza A and were likely constructed to facilitate some kind of access to Bajo 2 (Figure 4). The physical material is the same in both instances, but the processes are different, further blurring the boundaries between ecological and anthropogenic. OPEN IN VIEWER

At least two platforms were constructed along the edge of Bajo 2. One of these platforms is Plaza A, which demonstrates an intimate connection between this central plaza and Bajo 2 (Figure 5). There is also a platform on the edge of Bajo 2 on its opposite side at Group 22. A thick layer (20–30 centimeters) of sascab (eroded limestone) was laid out along the edge of Bajo 2 directly in front of an elite household (Figure 4). This sascab layer mirrors the bedrock: its surface undulates with erosion and both are the same 2.5Y 9/1 Munsell color. The sascab was likely quarried from nearby, as evidence of sascab quarrying was uncovered less than 1 kilometer south of Bajo 2 (Nissen, 2018). The use of sascab to build a platform so similar to the bedrock found under the soil along pocket bajo edges further complicates the nature/culture binary. OPEN IN VIEWER

Sascab and bedrock highlight a key conflict with a binary ontology: When does a material become cultural? When a material such as sascab or bedrock is moved or cut into, it is an explicit example of human–environment interaction, but the material itself does not transform into something above nature. The sloping, eroding bedrock is a less obvious example of human–environment interaction: processes such as water flow shaped the pocket bajo edge, but human occupation likely affected the rate of erosion as well. If all materials are connected, how can anything actually be “natural” or devoid of interaction with humans? When categories of natural and cultural are created, it effectively severs the relationships that tie all things together. This conundrum is in line with what Morehart and Morell-Hart (2013) term the “tyranny of the ecofact.” They argue the term “ecofact” is misleading because it ignores the anthropogenic qualities of past landscapes, and the use of the term limits our understanding of human–plant relationships in the past (2013: 486). Similarly, deeming materials such as sascab and bedrock natural or cultural based solely off clear indications of modification ignores the intricacies of human–environment interactions.

Although the people living at Aventura who constructed Plaza A certainly had the means, resources, and technology to undertake grand episodes of massive construction, they left the overall shape of Bajo 2 intact. This can be said of all pocket bajos at Aventura. While they have been constructed on and cut into, their general shape is irregular. This stands in contrast to features such as aguagdas and reservoirs, which are constructed areas for water storage that tend to be either rectangular or circular (Scarborough et al., 1995). This form indicates at the very least the people of Aventura had an intimate understanding of the pocket bajos, and likely harbored a certain amount of deference for these microenvironments as they were before people settled in the area. As with the spatial relationship between pocket bajos and architecture, the material and form of the pocket bajos themselves influenced how the people of Aventura built their city, indicating they were active in its construction.

Marking cosmological connections

Activities that were occurring on pocket bajo edges are in line with how Severin Fowles describes “doings” in that they “mark and make explicit the mutual entanglement of people, things, and cosmos” (Fowles, 2013: 104). In a Western ontology, these activities may be called “ritual” to mark them as special and overtly engaging in cosmology, although as noted above activities were not ontologically divided into separate categories of ritual/practical in ancient Maya society (Hutson et al., 2007; see also Astor-Aguilera, 2010). Activities such as incense burning and bone burying were just as practical/utilitarian as they were ritual/supernatural: they helped to build the community and maintain social connections, not only between people but also between people and landscapes.

Activities associated with pocket bajos engaged both their physical contents (water, soil, stone, plants) and transcendent qualities. As places of low elevation and with deep soils, they retain moisture much better than the surrounding higher plateaus of elevation that buildings were constructed on. Over the last approximately 100 years, they have been seasonally inundated, holding standing water from December to April during the rainy season. Memories passed down through two generations of people living in the area indicate at least one pocket bajo at Aventura (Bajo 4) held standing water year-round as recently as the mid-1800s when the village of San Jose de los Abanes was established (R Aban, personal communication, 19 July 2017; Oland, 2018). Historic colonial accounts suggest by the 1880s, these areas of low elevation flooded periodically (Burden, 1935). Objects uncovered in pocket bajo excavations suggest these spaces contained water in ancient times as well. Excavations of the steps north of the main temple at Bajo 2 produced fragments of a burned incensario directly off the edge of the second step. This incensario, which was used to burn incense, was accompanied by marine shell and water-worn stones (Grauer, 2017). Such an assemblage is indicative of an activity that explicitly engaged watery qualities of the pocket bajo, therefore reinforcing meaningful relationships between humans and the aqueous landscape. People need water to sustain life, and in ancient Maya society, water also signaled connections between human and non-human worlds (e.g. the watery entrance to the underworld) (Lucero, 2006a, 2018). Burning incense in association with watery objects at the edge of Bajo 2 made explicit the connections, simultaneously physical and conceptual, between people, water, and landscape. It was an activity that overtly engaged human and non-human realms, melding “nature” and “culture” into one.

Activities that emphasized the connections between living and ancestral realms were being performed on the other side of Bajo 2 in a household context. At Group 22, people were performing household ancestor veneration in between their house and the pocket bajo. Excavations of this elite household on the edge of Bajo 2 revealed that the sascab platform that was constructed had a large (40 centimeters) gap in it, in which the remains of a single side of an adult pelvis (os coxa) was placed (Figure 4) (Moles, in press). Directly on top of this cut in the platform was evidence of a burning event. This burning event and bone burial took place in between the house and the pocket bajo. Ancient Maya ancestor veneration often incorporated physical remains and activities such as incense burning (Gillespie, 2000: 473; McAnany, 2013: 33) and was performed to (re)articulate social ties. Ancestor veneration did significant social work, including identity formation and social group creation (Gillespie, 2000: 91). The acts of burning incense and engaging with materials of the deceased actively linked the living to cosmological forces (Gillespie, 2002: 69). Clearly, the pocket bajo was important to the people living in this household for more than just its ability to retain water for sustenance. At Group 22, burying the bone reaffirmed that Bajo 2 was “where the ancestors slept” (McAnany, 2013: 100), and the burning event enabled people to activate and access the community building qualities of the pocket bajo.

The pocket bajos at Aventura invited activities that marked the significance of human and non-human relationships. Microenvironments such as these organize communities both physically, in terms of spatial proximity to resources, and conceptually, in terms of shared ideologies (Davis-Salazar, 2003: 282; Fash and Davis-Salazar, 2006; Luzzadder-Beach et al., 2016). Not only were the pocket bajos at Aventura active in the creation of the city, they were continually active in making explicit the ties between humans, landscape, and ancestors by inviting the activities of water engagement and ancestor veneration. In this sense, the pocket bajos played important roles in the continuity of community at Aventura. The pocket bajos continued to shape social life at Aventura as an active part of the landscape.