ARCHITECTURE AND RITUAL PRACTICE IN THE ACTUNCAN E-GROUP

Situated on a ridge overlooking the Mopan River, the Plaza F complex of Actuncan forms one of the key early ceremonial spaces within the Preclassic Maya landscape of the Upper Belize River Valley. Its architectural configuration, consisting of a plaza flanked by an elongated eastern platform and western pyramid, defines it as an E-Group. E-Group complexes were some of the first public ceremonial structures constructed in many Middle Preclassic Maya sites (1100 – 900 BCE) and served important ritual and community-integrative functions. In examining the central structures of the Actuncan Plaza F complex, we can evaluate how the distinct constructed components of the complex were integrated over time to fulfil these functions, despite variations in construction materials, labor, and patterning of ritual deposits. Changes occurring during the development of the complex in the Middle Preclassic to Terminal Preclassic period (1100 BCE – 250 CE) indicate transitions in the way the public space was conceived and used, with implications for developing social practices. However, continued investment in the public ritual space and continuity in certain ritual elements indicate it retained its overarching communal functions.