Settlement History and the Classic Collapse at Copan: A Redefined Chronological Perspective

Abstract

Surveys, test pitting, and large-scale excavation carried out since 1975 around the Classic Maya center of Copan, in western Honduras, have yielded a wealth of settlement data. A total of 2,048 obsidian-hydration dates have redefined the Late Classic Coner ceramic phase, showing it to extend well into the Early Postclassic. Sites with Coner ceramics exhibit much more intraphase chronological variation than expected. The Classic “collapse” at Copan was much more protracted than thought previously. There is an abrupt royal collapse at about A.D. 800, but subroyal elite activity continues for another 200 years, and population declines gradually over a period of four centuries.