Lowland Maya Archaeology at the Crossroads

Abstract

The Lowland Maya region has seen an enormous increase of new data over the last decade, but our progress is hampered by a tendency for cyclic return to previous theoretical positions. This results from several factors: too short a view of the discipline's history; a lack of familiarity with the rest of Mesoamerica; a lack of collaboration among archaeologists, ethnohistorians, and epigraphers; and a tendency to view alternative methodologies as competing rather than complementary. This paper synthesizes some of the major new discoveries and suggests where progress might be made if differing approaches were used in concert rather than in isolation.