CONVERGENCE ZONE POLITICS AT THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE OF UCANAL, PETEN, GUATEMALA Christina T. Halperin , a Jose Luis Garrido Lopez, b Miriam Salas, b and Jean-Baptiste LeMoine a a Department of Anthropology, Université de Montréal, 3150 Jean-Brillant, Montréal, QC H3T 1N8, Canada b Proyecto Arqueológico Ucanal, Callejon Rosario, Flores, Peten, Guatemala Abstract The Maya archaeological site of Ucanal is located in Peten, Guatemala, close to the contemporary border with Belize. In pre-Columbian times, the site also sat at the frontiers of some of the largest political centers, Naranjo in Peten, Guatemala, and Caracol, in Belize. Entangled between these dominant centers and with ties to peoples in the Upper Belize Valley, the Petexbatun region in Guatemala, northern Yucatan, and elsewhere, Ucanal was a critical convergence zone of political and cultural interaction. This paper synthesizes archaeological research by the Proyecto Arqueológico Ucanal to underscore theways in which this provincial polity, identified epigraphically as K’anwitznal, maneuvered within and between different cultural affiliations and political networks. We find that the site’s role as a political frontier during the Late Classic period was more of a bridge than an edge. During the later Terminal Classic period, the K’anwitznal kingdom gained independence, but continued to serve as a critical convergence of influences and interaction spheres from throughout the Maya area and beyond. INTRODUCTION The site of Ucanal is located in Peten, Guatemala, close to the con- temporary border with Belize. In pre-Columbian times, the site was situated at the frontiers of two larger polities, Caracol and Naranjo, that were fierce enemies during much of the Late Classic period (ca. a.d. 600–830). Official histories inscribed in stone and displayed in public spaces reveal that the K’anwitznal polity, centered at the site of Ucanal, alternated political affiliations between these two larger political powers and as such served as a shifting frontier in their respective assertions for political authority and regional dominance. Political frontiers, however, were not necessarily manifestations of disjunctions, divisions, or differences between peoples, but also as places of articulation, interaction, and hybridity (Alvarez 1995; Bhabha 1994; Iannone 2010; Tenzin 2017). Despite Ucanal’s status as a political frontier during the Late Classic period, recent archaeological research at the site by the Proyecto Arqueológico Ucanal reveals that Ucanal’s boundary status was just as much a bridge as an edge. We find that Ucanal was a convergence zone of interaction spheres and expressions of political, economic, and social affiliation. Such affiliations, however, were not static. Later in the Terminal Classic period (ca. a.d. 830–9510/1000), Ucanal shed itself of its subordinate political status, but continued to sit at a crossroads of diverse spheres of interaction. As such, our research contributes to a dynamic understanding of political fron- tiers whereby marginal entities take advantage of their in-between status to both persevere and recreate themselves anew. BORDERS: EDGES AND BRIDGES Borders, frontiers, and boundaries are generally characterized as areas between major political, economic, and cultural entities— the edges, limits, or ends of such entities. They are often highly contested, as states and political powers fight to gain authority or maintain control over these peripheral regions. In the Maya area during the pre-Columbian period, borders—physical manifestations of territorial division—were sometimes created through the con- struction of and symbolism surrounding defensive walls (Golden 2010; Golden and Scherer 2013) and earthworks (Puleston and Callender 1967; Webster et al. 2007). Natural or sacred features, such as caves, cenotes, mountain tops, and shrine sites, also marked borders and boundaries of political territories, city limits, and community places and were forged through repeated visits and ritual circulations during key moments in the ceremonial calen- dar (Garcia-Zambrano 1994; Halperin and Hruby 2019; Hill 1996; McAnany 1995:87). In contrast, frontiers, are the interstitial points between political, administrative, and cultural entities, what Kopytoff (1987:1–9) calls “internal frontiers”: ambiguous, anoma- lous, societies on the fringes of the metropoles. Our focus here is on the latter of these processes: the ways in which smaller political centers served as the critical sites of contestation and negotiations between larger political powers (Foias 2013; Hammond 1991; Iannone 2002; Marcus 1993, 1998; Martin and Grube 2000). Rather than focus solely on the edges, limits, or ends of political powers, however, much recent research has underscored the crea- tive, hybrid, and bridging roles of boundaries and border relation- ships in both ancient and contemporary political, economic, and cultural formations (Alvarez 1995; Bhabha 1994; Iannone 2010; LeCount 2017; Lightfoot and Martinez 1995; Schortman and 476 E-mail correspondence to: christina.halperin@umontreal.ca Ancient Mesoamerica, 31 (2020), 476–493 Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020 doi:10.1017/S0956536120000085 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536120000085 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. 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