Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Anthropological Archaeology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jaa Late fire ceremonies and abandonment behaviors at the Classic Maya city of Naachtun, Guatemala Lydie Dussol a, ⁎ , Julien Sion b , Philippe Nondédéo c a Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, CNRS, Archéologie des Amériques, Maison Archéologie Ethnologie, 21, allée de l’Université, 92023 Nanterre, France b Center of Mexican and Central-American Studies (CEMCA), Río Nazas #43, Col. Cuauhtémoc, Del. Cuauhtémoc, C.P. 06500 Mexico City, Mexico c CNRS, Archéologie des Amériques, Maison Archéologie Ethnologie, 21, allée de l’Université, 92023 Nanterre, France ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Maya Fire Anthracology Ritual deposit Abandonment Mobility Memory Terminal Classic Early Postclassic ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the process of abandonment in pre-Hispanic Maya societies. Toward the end of the Classic period (250–950 CE), the general desertion of the Central Lowland cities gave place to multiple acts – including fires and on-floor ash spreading – intended to ritually terminate the occupation of houses and buildings. While the urban area of Naachtun, Northern Peten, was apparently depopulated by the end of the Terminal Classic (830–950 CE), fire ceremonies were performed in two political buildings during the Early Postclassic (950–1250 CE). The detailed study of the remaining charcoal deposits and their comparison with habitual Late and Terminal Classic abandonment deposits in households allows us to examine the material, social and environmental di- mension of these fire ceremonies. We argue that these late rituals were held by people who were still tied to the city and that they are thus distinct from those performed as part of pilgrimages to sacred landscapes during the Late Postclassic and Colonial times. Instead, we state that they reflect the continuity of rites and of collective memory drawn from Naachtun’s history, providing indirect evidence that human settlements persisted around the abandoned cities for some time after the collapse of Classic political systems. 1. Introduction The general desertion of the Central Maya Lowlands toward the end of the first millennium has been the subject of strong debate among the scientific community and the public. Since the ruins of ancient Maya cities were rediscovered early in the 19th century, archaeologists have sought to understand the causes of what was called the collapse of Classic Maya civilization (e.g. Aimers, 2007; Demarest et al., 2004; Turner and Sabloff, 2012). The crises that characterized the end of the Late Classic and the Terminal Classic periods (750–950 CE) seem to have been multi-faceted (resource over-exploitation, overpopulation, migrations, warfare and climate change, etc.) and their impact on cities more or less slow and reversible depending on the resilience of each community. Increasing evidence indicates that people persisted around the depopulated cities or reinvested formerly abandoned zones, long after the departure of the majority of the inhabitants, which accom- panied the disintegration of the Lowland social-political systems. Yet while focusing on the causes of these phenomena, little insight is pro- vided on the way people themselves lived this period of disorder (Arnauld et al., 2017a). Transitional stages of collapse and post-collapse are key, however, to understand the cognitive processes implied in the social and cultural changes within civilizations (Diamond, 2005; Faulseit, 2016). During the Terminal Classic period (830–950 CE), the greater frequency of abandonment deposits, the only vestiges of the rites intended to symbolically close a place’s occupation (Boteler-Mock, 1998), indicates the increasing concern of people faced with the abandonment of their living spaces. When and where excavation programs have focused on abandon- ment dynamics, the detailed study of these material deposits on the buildings’ floors have shown that, except in certain cases of escape due to violent circumstances (e.g. Inomata et al., 2002), the abandonment of Maya cities was progressive. Some families continued to live several decades beside houses already in ruins (Lamoureux-St-Hilaire et al., 2015). At the site of Naachtun, Northern Guatemala (Fig. 1), a Central Lowland city occupied during the whole Classic period (150–950 CE), intensive excavations carried out for several years by the Naachtun Archaeological Project (2010–2018, CNRS, University of Paris 1 and University San Carlos of Guatemala) highlighted a complex set of de- positions related to abandonment both in residential areas and in public buildings of the urban core (Sion, 2016). While the surrounding dwellings were abandoned between the end of the Late Classic and the Terminal Classic periods (800–950 CE), two monumental buildings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2019.101099 Received 12 March 2019; Received in revised form 13 August 2019 ⁎ Corresponding author at: Université Côte d’Azur, CNRS, CEPAM, Pôle universitaire Saint-Jean d’Angély 3, 24, avenue des Diables Bleus, 06300 Nice, France. E-mail address: lydie.dussol@cepam.cnrs.fr (L. Dussol). Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 56 (2019) 101099 0278-4165/ © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. T