Living with Ruins: Community Regeneration after Political Collapse at the Ancient Maya City of Ake, Yucatan, Mexico

Rosado Ramirez, Roberto

doi:https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-vgty-sy40

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Living with Ruins: Community Regeneration after Political Collapse at the Ancient Maya City of Ake, Yucatan, Mexico

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This dissertation is about people living with the ruins of an old city. It demonstrates that ruined cities can provide sources of cultural identity and community life, conditions that contribute to social revitalization in times of crisis. The case study for this dissertation examines the ancient Maya city of Ake, in present-day Yucatan, Mexico. Ake was a long-lasting Maya center with massive urban infrastructure that, during a period of political instability in 1000-1100 CE, began a transformation into ruins. From 1100 to 1550 CE, Ake went through a period of settlement regeneration that made use of the city-in-ruins. In post-collapse Ake, women, men, and children reconstructed a sustainable community within its ruins that thrived for centuries until the Spanish invasion of Yucatan in the 16th century.This dissertation challenges a Western view of ruins as deserted spaces, devoid of meaning and use for society. The archaeology of Ake offers a glimpse on an Indigenous perspective on ancient cities, where ruins can become places of community life and sources of cultural identity. Due to the way in which the political collapse of ancient societies is often portrayed in popular media, the word collapse brings to mind ideas of the end of civilizations, the disappearance of people, and abandoned landscapes. Yet, when the buildings in a city transform into ruins, their social life does not necessarily end. Ruined places can still host human communities owing to their ideological and material qualities. This study highlights the key role that ruined cities can play in the regeneration of human communities in the aftermath of political collapse. The term “collapse,” when used in reference to ancient cities, can be misleading. What is often referenced by the term “collapse” is a social process that impacted political entities but did not involve a demographic catastrophe. This leads to a key question: how did ancient communities endure the social changes brought about by political collapse? To answer this question five seasons of survey, excavation, laboratory analysis, and archival research were conducted at Ake. These research activities were funded by the National Science Foundation, National Geographic Society, and Northwestern University. The Ake research created the first Geographic Information Systems record of the city. Detailed excavations of post-collapse households and shrines and a complete analysis of associated artifacts, ecofacts, hieroglyphs, and soils documented a comprehensive picture of life at post-collapse Ake. Research results illustrated how the sociocultural qualities of a ruined urban space, in tandem with residents’ participation in long-distance exchange networks, were critical factors that enabled the reconsolidation of society in Ake after an episode of sociopolitical collapse. The Ake study highlights the powerful role that ancient cities can play in social regeneration as loci for settlement aggregation, hubs for contact with foreign societies, and potent sites of social memory.

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