Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology, Vol. 10, 2013, pp. 105-114. Copyright © 2013 by the Institute of Archaeology, NICH, Belize. 10 THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PAST TO THE ANCIENT MAYA POLITICAL PRESENT: RECENT INVESTIGATIONS AT CALLAR CREEK, BELIZE Sarah Kurnick The politicization of the past is integral to the acquisition and maintenance of political authority. To justify their authority in the present, rulers frequently invoke past leaders, emphasize their ties to predecessors, and suggest themselves heir to certain already-accepted ideological traditions. Recent research by the Mopan Valley Archaeology Project (MVAP) at the site of Callar Creek – located approximately halfway between Xunantunich and Buenavista in the Mopan Valley of Belize – has explored how the low-level leaders at Callar Creek acquired and maintained their political authority. Research suggests that they used a combination of strategies, including sponsoring communal gatherings and stressing their connections to nearby, larger centers. Primarily, however, they emphasized their ties to ancestral members of their own community. Like other ancient Maya rulers – and like rulers in other societies in various times and places – who used the past to justify and naturalize the present, the Callar Creek leaders used the past for their own political ends. This paper will present the results of MVAP’s investigations at Callar Creek, and will consider the importance of ancestors to the exercise of political authority, and of the past to the ancient Maya political present. Introduction The exercise of centralized political authority is a hallmark of complex polities, both past and present. Institutionalized asymmetrical political relationships are prominent and persistent features of past, other, and our own lives. Not surprisingly, understanding and explaining the operation of political authority have been, and will continue to be, integral aspects of anthropological research. Particularly important is the study of politically authoritative relationships in early complex societies. Pierre Bourdieu (1994), among others, has suggested that studies of the origins, or genesis, of social institutions provide a means by which to understand and question those institutions. For Bourdieu (1994:4), this “reconstruction of genesis” brings “back into view the conflicts and confrontations of the early beginnings and therefore all the discarded possibilities, [and] retrieves the possibility that things could have been (and still could be) otherwise.” Over the last four field seasons, the Mopan Valley Archaeology Project (MVAP) has researched the formation and perpetuation of politically authoritative relationships among one particular early complex society, the ancient Maya, at one particular archaeological site: Callar Creek. This article will briefly consider the concept of political authority before summarizing and synthesizing the recent research conducted by MVAP at Callar Creek. It is argued that the leaders at the site used a variety of strategies to acquire and maintain political authority, but that they spent considerable time and effort emphasizing their connections to ancestral members of their community. Put differently, the veneration of ancestors, and the politicization of the past, was one of the primary ways they reinforced their authority and bolstered their position in the sociopolitical hierarchy. Political Authority Max Weber (1978:212) classically defined authority as the “probability that certain specific commands . . . will be obeyed by a given group of persons” and argued that authority necessarily implies a “minimum of voluntary compliance,” or an “interest in obedience.” Stated simply, authority is the ability to give commands that others choose to obey. This definition raises several questions. How does authority function? How are politically authoritative relationships created and reproduced? Why do individuals often choose to recognize and acknowledge authority? And, how do those exercising authority encourage their followers to obey? Importantly, attempts to acquire and maintain authority are not always successful. Individuals can – and do – reject authority, disobey orders, and revolt against regimes. Nevertheless, throughout time and in various places, individuals have exercised, and