LETTER FROM CHALCHUAPA:

REASSESSING KAMINALJUYÚ CHRONOLOGY AND SOCIAL PROCESSES IN SOUTHERN MAYAN AREA THROUGH RADIOCARBON DATING

 

Akira Ichikawa (Nagoya University)

 

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Kaminaljuyú is the most representative archaeological site of Southern Mayan area. The new chronological revision of Kaminaljuyú presented by Inomata and his colleagues (2014) has generated heated debate about Mayan social processes and social complexity, in particular, the emergence of political institutions headed by divine rulers in the Southern Mayan area. The new chronology presented by Inomata and his colleagues suggests that assumptions about the Middle and Late Pre-classical portions of the Kaminaljuyú need to be shifted forward in time by roughly 300 years. It also proposes that highly centralized polities headed by divine rulers developed contemporaneously, around 100 B.C., in both the Southern Mayan area and the Mayan Lowlands area. This theory suggests that significant changes in Maya civilization in the Preclassic period did not occur as continuously or gradually as previously thought. There are several academic critiques of Inomata’s new chronology. However, these critiques have primarily relied on data from a few archaeological sites located in western area from Kaminaljuyú such as Izapa and Ujuxte. This presentation will validate the new Kaminaljuyú chronology, using radiocarbon dating evidence obtained from Chalchuapa, El Salvador, and neighboring areas, which are located to the southeast of Kaminaljuyú. As a result, the data illustrated in this presentation will support the new Kaminaljuyú chronology and its implications for social processes in the Southern Maya area.

 

(Talk in Japanese)