Paper short abstract:

This paper reviews the linguistical works on Mayan languages and its relations for their revitalization in order to explore the future of anthropology as social science. It discusses the ways in which the anthropologists or linguists can contribute to the revitalization of Mayan languages.

Paper long abstract:

In the Maya movement in modern Guatemala, some kinds of anthropological, linguistical and archaeological studies provided an ideological base for the Mayans to reconstruct their ethnic identity. But linguistical studies on Mayan dialects and communitiy specific ethnographies were considered harmful, because they were thought to help to fractionalize the Mayan peoples. An then what do the anthropologists have to do to manage with those Mayans who seek the unification of the Mayan peoples?

In order to answer this question, colonial Spanish missionaries' works on Mayan languages will be taken as model for "writing" culture of/with/for the Mayans. The Spanish missionaries called it "reducir" (to reduce) to make a grammar. It implies a simplification of linguistic rules for the Spanish speaking users of the grammatical guide. It was not intended to describe scientifically its linguistic rules but to help them to learn the language. The missionaries used the Latin and Spanish grammars as model for describing the linguistic rules of indigenous languages. Although those grammatical guides did not properly nor totally account for the linguistic rules of the targeted language, they fulfilled needs of the era to a certain extent. If we admit subjectivity and cultural bindedness of the anthropologists in ethnographic descriptions, we notice that the anthropologists are not so different from the colonial missionaries. From this point of view, we start thinking about what anthropological "reducing" can do for the revitalization of Mayan languages and the unification of Mayan peoples.

Paper short abstract:

The decipherment of Maya writing is a story of surmounted challenges and novel, piercing insights into the civilization behind such texts. But a look to the future reveals its limits as well as promising routes ahead.

Paper long abstract:

The decipherment of Maya writing is a story of surmounted challenges and novel, piercing insights into the civilization behind such texts. But a look to the future reveals its limits. What seem to be insoluble debates darken its future. Constraints of evidence, arguments about spelling rules, unexamined postulates, and faltering access to newly discovered texts point to problems in this maturing discipline. The list of worries is large: meta-data about the script remain elusive or unstudied; full sets of dates are not yet tabulated; lags occur in relating inscriptions to surrounding contexts; and scholars, divided between a few full-time specialists and a large field of part-time students or enthusiasts of varying training, evince faltering concern with placing Maya writing in comparative perspective. Looking to the positive, this paper highlights consensus and promising directions that are sure to deepen local and comparative knowledge.

Paper short abstract:

I review progress in study of ancient Maya skeletons over the last 25 years regarding health, diet, mobility and mortuary behavior. Growth is seen in the larger number of dedicated bioarchaeologists of the Maya, new analytic methods and research topics despite ongoing archaeological challenges.

Paper long abstract:

Having fought the battle of bioarchaeology in the Maya area for over 25 years, I will examine progress made in the field over this quarter century with an eye to the future. Poor skeletal preservation continues to hinder studies of ancient Maya health, as do inadequate excavation and conservation/curatorial practices. Epigraphic decipherment has revealed ever more detailed narratives of elite lives, and has encouraged a return to skeletal life history or osteobiographic approaches. While on firmer footing today, such studies also risk over-interpretation. Global financial woes have hindered the large scale settlement studies needed to recover representative skeletal series and thus populational studies of health. Skeletal research has markedly improved the interpretation of "unusual" mortuary deposits, although an interpretation of sacrifice remains quite enticing to many researchers. Isotopic studies have largely characterized the range of dietary variability across the lowlands, though work on mortuary correlates of social status continues to be simplistic in most projects, often due to disjunction between the archaeologists and paleodietary researchers. Isotope work on mobility is growing, albeit constrained by inadequate isotopic mapping. It is easy to point out problems in most all of our work, however, that many bioarchaeologists now focus solely on Maya remains has helped us to improve our interpretations, has integrated us more fully into the world of Mayanists, and leaves me somewhat hopeful for our future. Now, its time we talk with the living Maya.

Paper short abstract:

Caches are interesting for their rich array of materials and enigmatic symbolic meanings. Objects of jade, shell, animals, obsidian and flint were laid in symbolically charged ways. Semiotic analyses provide a comprehensive understanding of the multivalency of ritual deposits.

Paper long abstract:

Caches, or non-burial ritual deposits, in Maya archaeology have been a topic of interest for many decades because of their incredible array of material items and seemingly impenetrable symbolic meanings. These deposits, which often consist of jade, imported shells, animal sacrifices, and especially elaborately chipped obsidian and flint "eccentrics", were laid in undoubtedly religious ways. While a focus on the objects and their spatial orientation is important, I propose that special attention to the iconicity of the items and their raw materials, in conjunction with the technologies that were used to create them, will provide an avenue for deeper understanding of these multivalent deposits. A semiotic analysis allows for a more comprehensive approach to grasping multivalency and perhaps the intentions of those who engaged with and created these goods.

Jade, shell, flint, and obsidian were the most prominent materials in Classic Maya caches, but not simply because they were valuable as long distance trade items and functional materials; they were icons of the very structure of ancient Maya world view and mythology. These materials signified world directions and creation myths, but also the human role in constructing that mythological history. Finally, the technologies used to create cache goods endowed another level of meaning associated with those who crafted these items, and the items themselves. Piercean semiotics provides an avenue to disentangle possible meanings of these caches to owners, producers, and onlookers via the triadic relationship between sign, object, and interpretant.

Paper short abstract:

I will summarize anthropological research questions that I have asked in Maya lithic study and their answers, and propose what should be done in the rest of my career and by next generations of Maya scholars.

Paper long abstract:

The panel, the Future with/of Maya Anthropology, will be an international session to be held in Japan for the first time to discuss and think about the future of Maya studies as anthropology in general but also as various specialized studies (e.g., archaeology, epigraphy, iconography, physical anthropology, ethnology) covering different areas for debate. I will summarize anthropological research questions that I have asked in Maya lithic study and their answers, and propose what should be done in the rest of my career and by next generations of Maya scholars. The results of nearly 30 years analysis on more than 180,000 lithic artifacts from the Copán region, Honduras, and the Aguateca and Ceibal region, Guatemala are summarized and discussed. The objectives of this regional-scale analysis were to elucidate the socioeconomic and political aspects of (1) procurement, exchange, and production of obsidian utilitarian goods; (2) the relationship between Late Classic Maya political boundaries and the boundaries of obsidian exchange; (3) chipped stone weapons and warfare; (4) the variability of artistic and craft production; as well as (5) royal ritual as theatrical performance.

Paper short abstract:

This paper provides a summary account of research conducted in recent decades on the origins of Maya civilization and suggests topics to be considered by the next generation of scholarship.

Paper long abstract:

In focusing on the Preclassic period and on the archaeological research of the last thirty years, two central themes arise: a greater understanding of the environmental setting for the evolution of Maya civilization, and a more informed understanding of Maya ritual culture brought about by recent archaeological work and by advances in iconography and epigraphy. This paper examines these contributions with an eye toward future directions of research.

Paper short abstract:

Increases in number and detail of Maya zooarchaeological studies reveal a heterogeneity in animal use that must be understood through collaboration with other anthropological specialists, particularly in such fields as ethnology and iconography.

Paper long abstract:

The study of archaeological animal remains from the Maya region integrates zoological taxonomy and ecology with archaeological context and anthropological themes. Recently, zooarchaeologists have probed such issues as climate change, environmental impact, economic and political integration, cuisine, and ritual. Increases in number and detail of zooarchaeological studies in the last decade now allow diachronic comparisons of Maya-animal interactions among regions, polities, communities, and people. These have created a new picture of heterogeneity in ancient Maya animal use. Our interpretations thus require a deeper understanding of the meanings of animals for the ancient Maya and a move away from interpretation of archaeological animal remains as reflective only of food. This more detailed understanding benefits from collaboration with other specialists among the anthropological branches.

As an example, Maya ethnographic data is a rapidly disappearing resource with enormous potential for zooarchaeology. Recent work in the Atitlan highlands and Peten lowlands of Guatemala has revealed much about such topics as animal product re-use and discard, hunter's interpretations of sustainability and appropriate prey, the mechanics of food sharing and trade, and the cosmological significance of animal carcass curation. Iconographic imagery revealing continuity in animal themes from Colonial through Preclassic periods provides a vital link between the ancient and modern Maya attitudes. Zooarchaeologists need expert collaborators in such fields and, as such, interdisciplinarity among the branches of anthropology is vital to the future of zooarchaeology.

Paper short abstract:

For Mayan women in Guatemala, clothing is an important medium of non-verbal communication. Focusing on the evolution of women’s tunics (huipil), I will not only analyze how Mayan women have shared various patterns and created the variety of huipils, but also examine the mechanism of female network.

Paper long abstract:

In the Guatemalan Highlands, Mayan women are weaving textiles with looms that date back to the Mayan Civilization and making their clothes from them. There are approximately 80 Mayan villages where women continue to wear traditional clothes, including (1) a huipil (women's tunic), (2) a wrap-around skirt, (3) a sash. The difference in the shapes, patterns and colors displayed on these pieces of clothing shows what village a woman is from. Therefore the role of clothes is considered an important medium of non-verbal communication.

In this presentation, I will discuss how Mayan women have shared various patterns and created a variety of huipils. Firstly I analyze the evolution of huipils collected from the end of the 19th century to the present in a Mayan village, Nahualá. Secondly I examine how women have inherited various patterns, invented a variety of huipils and shared them among themselves.

All women take interest in huipil. In this village, there are four kinds of huipils distinguished by patterns. When women find a beautiful pattern in someone's huipil, they try to borrow it from its owner in order to copy it, as well as to make their own huipil decorated with it. In this way, various patterns are spread in the village through the female "web" of communication, which extends from interfamilial level to the community level. Thus, I aim to examine the mechanism of the informal female network created by their clothes.

Paper short abstract:

This paper describes how Mayan people have been expressing their agency as Maya since 1980s, referring to the ethnological studies in Yucatan and Belize. Then, it asks who can decide what is Maya culture, and what is the role of researchers in order that Mayan people construct their agency.

Paper long abstract:

Maya agency means an ability to make history as Maya. I have been studying Maya agency, through four different kinds of researches. The first research in 1980s is how Yucatec Maya express their identities. The second is the self-image of Alianza Maya, a political organization in Merida, Yucatan in 1990s. The third is the cultural revitalization movement by INDEMAYA, a Yucatan State agency for promoting Mayan culture in 2000s. And the most recent research topic is tourism development in the central and southern Belize in 2010s.

These researches suggest dynamic chances of Maya agency. In 1980s, Maya never meant people's identity but their name of language. Then soon Mayan identity was politicized and asserted by political leaders. After gaining a degree of political power, Mayan elites shifted their interest to the expression of contemporary Mayan culture. And at present Mayan culture draws attention as a commodity for tourism development.

Based on this variation of Maya agency, we have to pose two questions. One is who can determine Mayan culture. Although obviously Mayan political and business leaders have power to do so, what is the possibility of Mayan people in grass-root level? The other is what is the role of researchers in order that Mayan people construct their agency further. Since they utilize academic knowledge in their own way, researchers may face a frowning situation. A mutually respectful relation is indispensable to promote dialogue between Mayan people and academics.

Paper short abstract:

No one constructs pyramids among the Maya today. Thousands of contemporary Mayan weavers, however, make textiles with designs that go back to the 8th century. If such perishable culture has successfully transmitted the ancient civilization to today, how has it been possible? What does it suggest?

Paper long abstract:

We tend to choose durable materials - stones, ceramics and metals, among others - as the most significant cultural evidence, perhaps because, as we are by nature ephemeral, there exists in us a desire to endure over time. Modern museums and their systematic conservation technology represent this philosophy of the culture of the durable.

In contrast, the Mayan culture, and perhaps many other cultures of the world, including that of the speaker, who is Japanese, seem to pay more attention to constant renewal than to antiquity itself. Each item or each action of the culture of the perishable - ways of alignment, textiles, gestures, for example - falls under the premise that it must be destructible or disappear shortly, as the human body. However, the culture of the perishable survives, paradoxically thanks to its own transient nature, since it is necessary to copy, reproduce and renew perishable patterns continuously and successively.

As an example of the culture of the perishable, the speaker takes the interrelationship among social order, textile designs and the concept of the human body of the Tzotzil of southern Mexico. The study suggests certain fundamental aspects of cultural transmission from one generation to another - one of the important topics of general anthropology - and will challenge the Cartesian tilt to the culture of the durable, immanent in modern scholarship.