Writing is the greatest act of preservation.

INCISED LINES: PLANNING AND DESIGN IN THE LATE FORMATIVE E GROUP AT YAXUNÁ, YUCATÁN, MEXICO

Ryan H. Collins

FirstView, Latin American Antiquity. April 2022.

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Although direct evidence of civic planning is rare among Mesoamerican sites, such features offer great insight into past practices, intentions, and urban transformation. Using data from the transition to the Late Formative period (ca. 400–300 BC), I argue that direct evidence of urban planning is present in the monumental constructions of Yaxuná in Yucatán, Mexico. There, investigators detected a series of carefully rendered incised lines directly on Floor 6 of the E Group plaza. Along with the buildings' exposed surfaces, incised lines served as visual markers for placing rubble and dry-core fill into two categories: large dry-core stones and small compact fill. These visual distinctions informed the location of features built on top of this fill, including Floor 5 and a causeway spanning the plaza's central axis, distinguished from the white floor surface sascab (a durable product of pulverized limestone) by a red-orange color. The incised lines at Yaxuná grant insight into how ancient builders envisioned public works and then implemented and completed features in a step-by-step design process, which required precision and foresight.

THE ROLE OF MIDDLE PRECLASSIC PLACEMAKING IN THE CREATION OF LATE PRECLASSIC YUCATECAN CITIES: THE FOUNDATIONS OF YAXUNÁ.

Travis W. Stanton and Ryan H. Collins

In Early Mesoamerican Cities: New Perspectives on Urbanism and Urbanization in the Formative Period, edited by Michael Love and Julia Guernsey. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. January 2022 
ISBN: 9781108838511

SELECTIVE MEMORY: MONUMENTAL POLITICS OF THE YAXUNÁ E GROUP IN THE FIRST MILLENNIUM B.C.

Ryan H. Collins

FirstView, Ancient Mesoamerica. August, 2021.

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In seeking continuities and disjuncture from the precedents of past authorities, the Mesoamerican emergent ruling class during the Formative period were active agents in directing changes to monumental space, suggesting that memory played a vital role in developing an early shared character of Maya lifeways (1000 b.c. to a.d. 250). The trend is most visible in the civic ceremonial complexes known as E Groups, which tend to show significant patterns of continuity (remembering) and disjuncture (forgetting). This article uses the northern lowland site of Yaxuná in Yucatan, Mexico, to demonstrate the use of early selective strategies to direct collective memory. While there are E Groups in the northern Maya lowlands, few Formative period examples are known, making Yaxuná a critical case study for comparative assessment with the southern lowlands. One implication of the Yaxuná data is that the broader pattern of Middle Formative E Groups resulted from sustained social, religious, political, and economic interaction between diverse peer groups across eastern Mesoamerica. With the emergence of institutionalized rulership in the Maya lowlands during the Late Formative, local authorities played a significant role in directing transformations of E Groups, selectively influencing their meanings and increasingly independent trajectories through continuity and disjuncture.

FROM SEDENTISM TO SPRAWL: EARLY URBAN PROCESS AT YAXUNÁ, YUCATAN, MEXICO 1000 BCE TO 250 CE

Ryan H. Collins

A dissertation presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Brandeis University Waltham, Massachusetts. 2018