The organization of stingless beekeeping (Meliponiculture) at Mayapán, Yucatan, Mexico

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2018.07.004Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Evidence for stingless beekeeping is found throughout the Maya site of Mayapán.

  • Concentrated beekeeping is evident at an outlying ceremonial/administrative center and palace.

  • Stingless beekeeping was also practiced by many ancient metalworkers to produce wax for lost-wax casting.

  • The widespread practice of stingless beekeeping is consistent with models of Maya cities as agro-urban landscapes.

Abstract

This article presents evidence for the importance of traditional stingless beekeeping (meliponiculture) at the Postclassic period (CE 1150–1450) Maya political capital of Mayapán, Yucatan, Mexico, with a particular focus on the domestic and public contexts of this practice and its association with metallurgy and balché production. The spatial and social distribution of beekeeping activities throughout the city refines scholarly understanding of an integrated and functionally complex Maya agro-urban cityscape. Beekeeping activities are identified through the distribution of small limestone disks, interpreted as the covers for traditional hollow log hives, which were widely distributed throughout the Mayapán’s urban landscape. High concentrations of limestone disks at the outlying ceremonial/administrative center of Itzmal Ch’en and also at an elite palace group, may indicate concentrated honey production for crafting fermented honey wine, balché. Limestone disks are also widely distributed at other contexts such as temples and halls of the site’s monumental center as well as secondary elite and commoner house groups. Limestone disks are regularly recovered (although not exclusively) in association with metallurgical ceramics, suggesting that meliponiculture and lost-wax metallurgy were often practiced by the same households. Honey and wax production was a complex undertaking, involving by-products essential for other industries that were not solely produced for commercial exchange. Instead, these activities were frequently embedded into symbolically charged consumption spheres and specialized artisanal practices.

Introduction

When the Spanish arrived in the northern Yucatan, one of the most predominant agrarian practices was the breeding and handling of indigenous stingless bees. Most of what we know about Pre-Columbian beekeeping derives from ethnohistoric sources and ethnographic studies of traditional Maya communities (Villanueva-Gutiérrez et al., 2013). In particular, sources such as Diego de Landa’s Relación de las Cosas de Yucatán (Tozzer, 1941) attest to the widespread practice of meliponiculture in northern Yucatan at the Contact period, due to the significance of honey and beeswax to commercial exchange and tributary demands. New evidence from over 20 years of archaeological research at Mayapán, the primary political capital of northern Yucatan during the Postclassic period (CE 1150–1450), reveals that meliponiculture was a significant Pre-Columbian industry. Small limestone disks are numerous in certain contexts at this pre-modern urban city; they match descriptions of traditional beehive covers used during the Colonial period and beyond. The discovery of these disks raises numerous questions about the organization of meliponiculture at Mayapán. To what extent was this practice broadly spatially and socially distributed, and to what extent was this activity conditioned by socioeconomic factors, urban gardening, and/or industries relying on honey and wax products?

The findings presented in this study suggest that meliponiculture took place at a variety of scales, activity contexts, and degrees of specialization. We argue that intensified beekeeping is particularly associated with two complementary productive industries: balché (honey wine with hallucinogenic properties), and metallurgical production, through the use of beeswax to make casting models in the lost-wax casting process. Both of these products require the deployment of specialized knowledge, including fermentation for ceremonious events (balché) and technical knowledge (lost-wax metallurgy). The practice of beekeeping in the same spaces as the other two industries would constitute a form of multicraft production: “The concurrent practice of multiple crafts by different individuals or groups … in the same space or in a series of adjacent spaces” (Shimada, 2007: 5; see also Hirth, 2009:4). However, beekeeping was also a small-scale household productive activity, practiced independently and autonomously by many urban households at Mayapán. Similarly, small-scale craft production for other industries across the city existed alongside loci characterized by larger debris quantities indicative of surplus production (Masson et al., 2016). These findings contradict ethnographically-derived models of beekeeping as a practice that was concentrated in small villages and rural areas. Instead, our findings suggest that beekeeping was a critical component of Mayapán’s agro-urban economy.

Section snippets

Agrarian production and models of Maya urbanism

The degree to which agrarian practices such as beekeeping were integrated into ancient Maya cities touches on long-standing debates about the unplanned, low-density nature of Maya cities, and the integration of agrarian activity and craft production activities. Many scholars have traditionally conceptualized farming and associated activities as both autonomous and redundant, centered predominantly on villages and rural areas. This view of agrarian activity derives in part from segmentary state

Ethnographic and ethnohistoric models of meliponiculture in northwest Yucatan

Ethnographic and ethnohistorical records provide an important source of information on the organization of meliponiculture during the early Colonial period, and in the latter half of the 20th century, with particular reference to the local context of northwest Yucatan. These records describe diverse ways in which beekeeping articulated with urban/rural economies; varying scales of production are evident. We also recognize that these models are derived from post-Contact communities. The collapse

The multiple uses of honey and wax: exchange, craft production, and ritual

Ethnographic and ethnohistorical records also suggest that the honey and wax produced through meliponiculture were valuable commodities during the early Colonial period, and in the latter half of the 20th century. As discussed below, these records suggest that beeswax was an important raw material in numerous craft industries: lost-wax metallurgy, weapons hafting, featherworking, pottery production, and scribal record-keeping. Honey was an important comestible/sweetener and medicinal substance,

Archaeological evidence for meliponiculture and lost-wax casting at Mayapán

The city of Mayapán was the largest and most densely populated in northern Yucatan at the height of its power, during the Postclassic Period (CE 1150–1450; Masson and Peraza Lope, 2014a). As with most cities, it played an important role as a center of political administration, craft production, trade, and religious ritual, both for its own residents and members of the regional confederacy for which it served as the seat of rulership (Masson and Peraza Lope, 2014a). Thanks to the investigations

The spatial distribution of meliponiculture at Mayapán

Archaeological evidence for meliponiculture at Mayapán is associated with 75 different structures throughout Mayapán (Table 1, Fig. 8, Fig. 9, Fig. 10). Of these, 41 structures were located in the monumental zone, while 34 structures were located in the residential zone. The presence of 98 limestone disks in association with the structures of the monumental zone runs contrary to expectations based on ethnographic and ethnohistorical data. Nine of the disks from the monumental zone were

Meliponiculture and multicraft production at Mayapán

Below, we describe evidence for four spheres of meliponiculture as it was practiced at Mayapán: (1) Meliponiculture for concentrated honey and wax production (at elite residential and public buildings); (2) Meliponiculture for multicraft production with lost-wax metallurgy (artisanal); (3) Small-scale meliponiculture within the monumental zone; and (4) Small-scale meliponiculture at ordinary dwellings. Significant surplus production for specialized activities is suggested for two locations,

Beekeeping and models of agro-urbanism at Mayapán

The evidence for widespread urban beekeeping at Mayapán highlights the diversified nature of agrarian practices within Maya cities. As Barthel and Isendahl (2013: 224, 228) have argued, urban farming is not only common in ancient cities, but serves as a key resiliency facet in maintaining household food security, and contradicts modernist understandings of urban life as detached from rural ecosystems and agricultural production (c.f. Wirth, 1938). Previous studies have productively documented a

Conclusion

Agrarian practices such as meliponiculture were widespread at Mayapán and deeply integrated into numerous aspects of its urban economy, lending further support to models of agro-urban production in Maya cities. The extensive evidence for meliponiculture within Mayapán’s city walls itself runs counter to ethnographically-derived models of beekeeping traditions concentrated in small villages and rural areas. Instead, evidence for the most intensified production contexts for meliponiculture was

Data availability statement

Data will be made available by request to the authors.

Acknowledgements

Research in Mayapán’s settlement zone has been facilitated by generous support of the National Science Foundation (Masson, Hare NSF-BCS-1144511, 0742128, 0109426); by the National Geographic’s Committee for Research and Exploration (Masson/Peraza Lope/Hare, #8598-1; Paris, #9486-14); by the Center for Social and Demographic Analysis, University at Albany’s College of Arts and Sciences (Masson), and by the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection (Paris, 2014-2015), under the permission of

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