Spatio-temporal boundaries in Classic Maya settlement systems: Copan's urban foothills and the excavations at Group 9J-5 (Honduras)

The spatial and temporal boundaries of the Classic period (AD 400–900) settlement at Copan in Honduras are not well enough defined to advance synchronic studies of urban community or diachronic studies of the dynastic collapse and its aftermath. This dissertation presents data from Copan's northern foothills that significantly sharpen these boundaries. These data support the interpretation of an intentional urban design during the 8th century, and challenge and strengthen archaeological approaches to the ancient Maya city at Copan and elsewhere. This design is based on a quincuntial pattern that adheres to indigenous Maya categories of spatial definition, negotiation, and boundary maintenance. This framework is grounded by the monumental U-group, a formally distinct type of ancient Maya architecture. The dissertation concludes that in the late 8th century a quincuntial arrangement of these groups was imposed on the landscape by dynastic authority, effectively renewing the spatial boundaries of the city during a time of great instability. The data supporting this scheme derive from Harvard's recent GIS mapping and excavation in the area of Group 9J-5, an elite architectural complex in the northern foothills and site of a prominent U-group. The Harvard research marks the most intensive field effort conducted in the foothills zone, many of the results of which are novel. For example, analysis following C. R. Bill's new ceramic rim typology demonstrates that Group 9J-5 was abruptly terminated at about AD 820 but that this area of the city endured beyond the collapse for almost a century, beyond even the Late Coner 2 subphase. The project identified a Terminal Classic ceramic assemblage at Group 9J-5 that heretofore has been elusive at Copan and which marks the end of a long post-dynastic occupation and use of Group 9J-5. Finally, results of a GIS re-survey of a sector of the northern foothills significantly advance our understanding of settlement density in this area—which is nearly 20% greater than earlier estimates—and document the elaborate strategies and architectonics employed among the foothills settlement of the ancient city. These strategies include intensive use of often elaborate systems of retention terraces and elevating platforms and demonstrate that in the Late Classic period settlement in the northern foothills was well planned and markedly urbane.