I know that in my latest post I wrote that I would not write anything more on the 2012 circus until next year, but I saw this on Bast’s forum this morning and it perfectly illustrates the ethnocentrism and nonsense these people are willing to spread. In the future I will expose more of these people’s ideas (not just Bast himself, but also ideas of people like Acolyte, Wirelessguru, etc.).

Maranatha refers to an article where a Chinese woman has killed an unusual snake. It had a foot emerging from its body. Maranatha goes on and says: “Is has begun…as the creation falls more out of harmony with the Creator…we will notice more rapid mutations. ‘And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the  whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.’ Revelation 12:9. 2012 is the Chinese year of the Dragon, 2012 is supposed to be the return of Quezacoatl, the dragon or flying winged serpent of the Mayans. Satan’s power is in ascendency…”

This person hence equates Quetzalcoatl with Satan. There are some minor mistakes such as that Quetzalcoatl is an Aztec deity (the Maya called it Kukulkan or Ququmatz) and it did not have wings (the deity was feathered, not winged). More problematic is the idea that 2012 is the year when Quetzalcoatl will return. The Aztecs never had the Long Count and 2012 would therefore be of no importance to them. 2027 on the other hand… (watch out for that date, in 2013 we will probably begin to see 2027 forums).

Neither is this an example of mutation. It is an anomaly probably caused by the snake’s morphogenesis (the biological process when the individual snake developed). This process controls the distribution of cells during the embryonic development. Hence, since snakes once evolved from lizards they do share some genetic materials with snakes. During the process of embryonic development something went wrong and a lizard-like leg emerged. It is not the case that we soon will have one-legged snakes everywhere. These religious people always ground their nonsense in anomalies as if that proof there is a god to account for it. Maranatha goes on:

“Who is Quetzacoatl? He is none other than the Fallen Lucifer. Quetzacoatl: “Sometimes he appears as an aged bearded man with fair or black hair, large eyes and a high forehead.” -Quetzacoatl, The Dictionary of Ancient Deities, p. 395, Turner and Coulter. The Feathered Serpent is a symbolism unquestionably for Satan. According to the Dictionary of Ancient Deities, Quetzalcoatl is ‘supreme deity and God of air, clouds and the wind.” This is curious because this is exactly how the Bible describes Satan: “according to the Prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.” Ephesians 2:2.

OK, look at this Aztec representation of Quetzalcoatl above. Does it appear to be “an aged bearded man with fair or black hair, large eyes and a high forehead”? There is no beard and the eyes are not notably large and neither is the forehead. Why does not the Bible mention a beak-like mask of Satan (Quetzalcoatl wears such a mask to cover his bearded face I assume…)? Queztalcoatl is a complicated deity and comes in many different forms but never as a Biblical Satan. If there are some similarities it does not mean that they are the same but that these deities have emerged from people’s involvement in the world where certain entities and phenomena come along (such as air, clouds and wind). Maranatha continues:

I suggest the bearded-white man that appeared to the indigenous Indians in Central America was Satan just as he has appeared according to many in the ancient pagan mysteries proclaiming himself to be a god. The motif of Quetzalcoatl follows that of every other fertility, pagan sun-god that came before him. He is a Psychopomp like Osiris. He is lord of the Underworld as is Pluto. He is intoxicated like Bacchus and has illicit sex with a witch. Quetzacoatl’s heart is in the Sun like the Egyptian Thoth. He is the Sun god like Apollo. He has the broad forehead, and huge eyes indicative of every alien encounter ever reported. He is the patron god of gold and metal as is Hermes, and like Hermes and Mercury, he is the messenger of the gods. The word Angel is translated from the word Angellos which means “Messenger.” Now who was the messenger of God, other than he who once covered the throne of the Most High God- Lucifer? Ezekiel 28. […] Lucifer name means “the light bearer” as does the title “Venus” the Sun of the Morning, the androgynous being who, as Hermes, was revered as the bearer of knowledge to mankind. What knowledge? “The knowledge of good and evil” or higher enlightenment is referred to here which the winged- serpent introduced to man in the Garden of Eden. The curse of God on the serpent was the lost of wings and feet, “Upon thy belly shall thy go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.” Genesis 3:14, 15

Here we encounter yet another mish mash of deities from different areas and period subsumed under the master-signifying Lucifer/Satan/Devil/God/Bible. Quetzalcoatl is related to Osiris and Thoth from ancient Egypt, Apollo, Hermes and Mercury from Greek mythology and of course Lucifer from the Bible. Only if you have a hopelessly generalized and reductive view of religions can you boil all these different traditions to be the expression of a master-signifier. Everything is traced back to the Bible. This is ethnocentrism at the core. Maranatha continues:

What am I saying? Satan’s power is building toward the climax of 2012 when he will make himself known for the 1000 year rule envisioned by Satanist- 2012: The Transit of Venus across the Sun, the Chinese year of the Dragon, the return of UFO’s, the return of a being appearing in the Earth as Christ, the appearance of the Maitreya, the Return of the Feathered-serpent Quetzalcoatl, global enlightenment movement where everybody suddenly realizes they are a god […]. The veil between the physical world and the spiritual world of demons and angels will be torn. Perhaps we should connect the dots…”

Alright, here we find further connections to Chinese dragons (mentioned in the beginning), Maitreya Buddha, UFOs, etc. Apparently, there is a global enlightenment movement that will make us all realize we are all gods. I love the last sentence. The problem is only that Maranatha already has connected the dots back to a personally chosen master-signifier. The Bible teaches us nothing of how Quetzalcoatl was worshipped. Once again we have an example of how the 2012circus just is a Christian apocalyptic creation that has nothing to do with either the Maya or the Aztecs.

This post will be the last one on the 2012 circus for this year. In “honour” of today’s date, it is time to present the evidence that the Maya never believed that the Long Count (LC) would end and begin anew at 13.0.0.0.0 (December 21 [or 23], 2012). Many 2012ers (and plenty of Mayanists as well) falsely believe that the LC cycle spans 13 baktuns (roughly 5125 years) and that a new one will follow this one.

Some 2012ers (read Jenkins and his followers) further believe that there are five LC cycles that together form a longer cycle that is related to the precession of the equinoxes (a Platonic year of roughly 25,920 years). According to Jenkins this is also related to a Galactic alignment when the ecliptic crosses the galactic equator. However, as Mark Van Stone shows, this alignment actually occurs every year but due to the precession this event occurs on different days. As regards the 21 December date, the sun touched the galactic equator already in 1983 and will do so until 2019. Hence the 2012 date as the chosen date for this event is wrong. If we choose the December 23 correlation that crossing actually occurred during the 1870s. If you use that correlation we should already be dead or have transformed our consciousnesses. Further, solstices were unimportant to the Maya. Van Stone says that “when faced with a choice of an auspicious day on which to schedule an important event, Maya almost never chose a solstice or an equinox.” The likelihood that the winter solstice three years from now was significant is slim.

The idea of five LC cycles forming earlier and current creation is mainly based on circumstantial evidence because the Aztecs mention that they live in the fifth creation/Sun and that four earlier ones have preceded this one. It is further argued that Popol Vuh from the early Colonial period also mentions earlier creations that have been destroyed. However, Popol Vuh was written down in the highlands of Guatemala after a century of Aztec influence and several centuries of contacts with Central Mexico. Although there are earlier traces of the same mythology in much earlier lowland iconography and epigraphy one should read Popol Vuh carefully. Just remember how much the early missionaries distorted the data used by later Mesoamericanists when they created a multilayered cosmological model.

Similar processes of hybridization occurred in Prehispanic times as well. As far as I know there is no evidence of multiple creations in Classic and Late Formative iconography or epigraphy. Only one earlier creation is mentioned (particularly at Palenque). Further, the Aztec creations are multiples of Calendar Round (CR) cycles (52 year long periods). One is 7 CRs long, another is 6 CRs long and two others are 13s CR long. Following this logic the multiple LCs would also be 7 baktuns long and 6 baktuns long, etc. In Jenkins’s model all cycles are 13 baktuns long. Thus, the 2012ers pick something here and something else there and create a non-existing cycle. Further, all Aztec Suns experienced a period of limbo, the cycles did not begin immediately after one and another as is argued to have occurred with the LC cycles. Neither are the Suns completely cyclical since every new cycle is an improvement of the earlier one. Earlier creations were unstable but the current one is stable. Van Stone argues that this Sun could last for ever since it is in balance. Both Aztec and Popol Vuh says this is the final creation so even if there were multiple creations preceding this one, they apparently saw no end in sight. That is just Christian end of days talking.

However, there is evidence that the Maya knew of the precession of the equinoxes as a phenomenon and they may actually have attributed some relevance to it. But they never divided it into five parts or creations. Van Stone mentions that Barbara MacLeod has detected an interval of time that the is called 3-11-pik/baktun. If you multiply 3, 11 and 144,000 (the number of days in a baktun) you end up at 13,010.5 years which is roughly half the length of the precession cycle. The rulers celebrated a portion of this long interval. Every 8,660^th day (roughly 24 years) there is an 11-Pik/Baktun station in the LC. A long-lived ruler that experienced three of these stations (71 years) would be given the title 3-11-Pik Ajaw. 71 years is also the time needed for the equinox sun to precess one day. However, the well known archaeoastronomer Anthony Aveni is skeptical to MacLeod’s ideas.

As mentioned in earlier posts, the idea that the LC will end on 13 baktun is just a projection of the beginning of the current LC (which began at 13.0.0.0.0, in 3114 B.C.) to the supposed end date. Monument 6 at Tortuguero mentions this future date but there is no indication that there will be a change in cycles. However, there are at least three other monuments in the Maya area that describe future events beyond 13.0.0.0.0. These are the Hieroglyphic Stairway at Yaxchilan, the West Panel of the Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque, and Stela 10 at Tikal (three rather large and important sites, not an “obscure” and fairly “insignificant” site like Tortuguero).

Van Stone mentions a step from the Hieroglyphic Stairway at Yaxchilan that depicts two dwarves playing ball. There is a LC above them (9.15.13.6.9) but this also contains larger time-periods that relate to this creation, not the earlier one. These periods are all stuck at 13 and are believed to be “symbolic”. The inscriptions at Palenque mention an event in the year AD 4772, which is within the next piktun, indicating that the baktuns are 20 and not 13. The Tikal inscriptions have a date of 1.11.19.9.3.11.2.? (the k’in position is unknown). Here the higher orders are not stuck at 13, the piktun coefficient is 19 and number 13 is not given any special treatment on this monument. In short, Yaxchilan, Palenque and Tikal all had different ways to record events. In the great meta-narrative of the “ancient Maya civilization”, such differences tend to be erased by 2012ers.

Stela 10 to the right

As Van Stone argues: “It seems that different schools of time‐reckoning existed in different city‐states. These were proud, squabbling polities, constantly jockeying for power like Athens and Sparta. When one thinks about it, it seems much more likely that they would have competing mythologies and scientific systems, than that they would have been of one accord.”

Thus, to say that the “Maya culture” had one homogeneous system of recording dates is dead wrong and this belief relies on Westernized/Christian assumptions. But I am afraid the 2012ers will not be able to understand this, their ideas solely rest on arborescent models where everything can be traced back to a master-signifier (this one may differ depending on one’s preferences). Some of these people do not even see Aztec Suns as myths but as evidence of what really happened. There is no way one can debate with such people.

“The search for the Logos keeps the same research questions in motion that not only constrict the relevance of society in early prehistory, but which also act to maintain our own perceptions of the role and place of the West in the world, together with social and political aspects in our own society. It is no coincidence that the loss of Europe as the primary cultural reference through colonialism resulted in the birth of ethnology and, of course, the Paleolithic…” (Gamble and Gittins 2004:108).

There are two reasons for my choice of quote. One reason has to do with a recent find of very old pottery in a cave in the Hunan province, China. It is between 17,500 and 18,300 years old and at an instant moment it has been labeled the oldest pottery known. I do not doubt this, but finds like this raises several issues, such as where did ceramic production origin (both in time, place, and in what kind of social context). Hence we run into the problems of origins, a topic I have touched upon before when I mentioned the investigations of the origins of the Kaan kingdom at Ichkabal.

The second reason for my choice is the comments I received from the reviewers of my upcoming article in Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory. One reviewer was concerned that my neo-materialist framework felt far removed from the ancient Maya. Another reviewer felt that my non-human-centered approach was not in line with an anthropological archaeology (this is basically the same critique). I partially agree with both reviewers but that was the whole idea of the article.

Gamble and Gittens use Derrida’s concept of logocentrism. In Greek, logos means thought, speech, account, meaning, reason, proportion, principle, standard, and of course logic. Logos also figures as the root for the suffix -ology, such as in archaeology. Logocentrism concerns the discourse that is based on foundational metaphysical ideas, such as truth, presence, identity, and origin. I have mentioned Derrida’s critique of the metaphysics of presence before. This critique basically means that we rely on a static presence of a timeless and essential entity (“being”) that we depend upon in our analysis. The entity is believed to remain stable even though its content has a tendency of becoming something else.

Logocentrism more specifically concerns the idea that all signification is indeterminate and meaning cannot be frozen, it cannot remain static and stable. Archaeology is logocentric since it is a metaphysical construct that does not exist beyond our language and signification. No humans, no archaeology. Gamble and Gittins argue that the Paleolithic implies a search for the point of origin from where unequivocal meaning is possible. Central ideas, like Culture, are created and these have the effect of making the whole structure natural since it is given a center, a point of reference and origin. But this center is impossible and therefore it is a nonexistent point of truth.

Culture is this nonexistent point of truth. It is a fluffy word that appears to relate to a something real but no one can really say what it is. It for sure cannot be pointed out as a single object. Still, archaeologists argue and debate as if this center actually exists since we have a need to secure our authority. Hence we will continue to repeat the same arguments again and again since it provides coherence and security. Instead of questioning our academic practice we have created a metaphysical system that only support predetermined values and truths. The questions we ask actually predetermine the answers we give. If we search for cosmological patterns we will for sure find them.

This is quite similar to the idea of the master-signifier that determines everything within the arborescent structure of thought in Deleuze and Guattari’s work. As said before, this center of security, the master-signifier is the concept of Culture. Therefore we search for the origins of cultures, of cultural practices like pottery making, and of ancient dynasties within the Maya culture. We do this in order to confirm our metaphysical system. Here it becomes obvious that my neo-materialist approach does not confirm the secured metaphysical system of Mayanist studies. The reason why my article feels removed from the ancient Maya is because the prevalent models of the ancient Maya are deeply intertwined with the essentialist culture concept. It for sure will appear as if it has been written by someone not well acquainted with the Maya culture. If I add cosmological metaphors, ethnographic analogies, etc. into the text the readers will feel more secure and see it as anthropological archaeology. But that is not my chosen path in academia. It will not settle for a place of secure origins. I will for sure hear that my own approach is filled with origins and security as well. But at least they will be different from the ones I criticize.

Gamble, Clive and Erica Gittins (2004). Social archaeology and origins research: a Paleolithic perspective. In A Companion to Social Archaeology. Lynn Meskell and Robert W. Preucel (eds), pp. 96-118. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

“We feel Maya studies have too frequently applied Western models of religion to the ancient Maya” (Brady and Prufer 2005:366).

By this quote it is argued that non-Western religions have primarily been studied from an atomistic perspective (such as myths, witchcraft, and magic) whereas World religions like Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism have been seen as distinct entities. The cave specialists Prufer and Brady argue that this probably goes back to Weber’s distinction between magic and religion.

There are three main issues in the archaeology of religion: the difference between ritual action and belief, the degree of embeddedness of religion in other social formations, and using historical analogies while interpreting archaeology. By using examples from ethnographic and ethnohistoric studies, various phenomena are compared and transformed into an ideal “Maya form” of religion.  Frequently used are references to studies on shamanism and animism (Eliade apparently must be included in the bibliography).

By upgrading “atomistic entities” like myths, witchcraft, and magic to a more distinct Maya religion/cosmology (an assemblage in DeLandian terms), Brady and Prufer actually creates yet another “Western model” of religion. I would not regard a religion as a concrete assemblage, it is a conglomerate of atomistic entities that form assemblages with materialities, but never in the way visualized by Brady and Prufer’s arborescent model. Certain rituals and beliefs may be related to caves, but maybe not other activities that otherwise are combined into the same religion or cosmology.

Religion is a “Western” model in its origin, the ethnography used by Brady and Prufer has traditionally been compiled by Western anthropologists, educated within a Western university system that has set up criteria for what is religion, rituals, beliefs, etc. How can there ever be non-western models of religion when religion at its core is made up by certain Western traditions? What about archaeology? Is it of any interest outside a discourse affected by “Western ideas”?

Brady, James E. and Keith M. Prufer (2005). Maya cave archaeology: a new look at religion and cosmology. Stone Houses and Earth Lords: Maya Religion in the Cave Context. Keith M.  Prufer, and James E. Brady (eds), pp. 365-380. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.

“trade disruption with natural resource-producing hinterland areas during a Dark Age (caused by depressed ecological conditions and climatic conditions) forced the shift in pottery design rather than the introduction of the potter’s wheel and the need for less skilled labor that caused the lowering of quality, as Braudel (2001) has explained along anthropogenic grounds.” (Chew 2007:27)

Sing Chew proposes that World Systems have undergone several Dark Ages. As one example he uses a simultaneous change in design of pottery in Egypt and Mesopotamia around 3200 BC.  The design went from being colourful to becoming plain and utilitarian. Braudel suggests it had to do with mass production and with the introduction of the potter’s wheel. However, the potter’s wheel was only introduced to Egypt around 2600 BC. In order to explain the simultaneous change Chew argues that trade disruptions with resource producing hinterlands during the Dark Age (that had been created by ecological and climatic conditions) forced the change in pottery design (p. 27).

I am not an expert on a Mesopotamia and Egypt but I feel this ecological explanation is squeezed into Chew’s made up arborescent model. Why cannot there be a change in taste that is wide spread and need these changes have the same origin? I am not all against World System theory (as I once was), but it is far too generalizing and it too often seeks explanations on just the World System level, not from the connected parts. Indeed, there are processes going on that we may not understand if we only focus on a small area, but by using a World System as the basis for a study one does not acknowledge that the World System just is a high, but less dense, level of assemblage. There were connections between different areas but these were not the most necessary connections and I doubt that changes in ceramic design indicates ecological degradation (but I am not suggesting that ecological degradation did not occur).

Chew, Sing C. (2007). The Recurring Dark Ages: Ecological Stress, Climate Changes, and System Transformation. Lanham: Altamira Press.

The last century has brought considerable changes and transformations of the localized identities of the Guatemalan indigenous population. They are now developing the national and international identity of a “pan-Maya culture”. A thirty-year-long civil war, which officially ended in 1996, has to a greater extent than anything else formed these new identities. Indigenous leaders have in this process created a movement which emphasizes the pre-Hispanic cultural heritage. In the search for and creation of an independent and unaffected “Maya culture”, they have turned to archaeological remains, the vigesimal number system and the calendars. The hieroglyphic writing has gained a central position in this movement, since it is believed to give “authentic voices” of the past (Houston 2000:141). Often they use the results from archaeological and epigraphic research, which is dominated by Americans and Ladinos. Thus, there is a conflict of interests between the Maya leaders, the Maya commoners, the Ladinos and foreign researchers.

A discussion of what the Maya were and are has partially its origin in the colonial and the post-colonial environment, since the discussion of the relation between the Maya and the Ladino is unavoidable in Guatemala. Ladinos consider themselves to be a biologically distinct group. In reality, they are a mixture of “Europeans” and “Maya” (Fischer & Brown 1996:9).

The long civil war in Guatemala had profound ethnic and racist currents. It created a wave of revitalization in several communities and led to the formation of the Maya movement. The long road towards a more rightful treatment of the indigenous population was noticed in 1992, when the K’iche’ woman Rigoberta Menchú received the Nobel Peace Prize. An agreement on the indigenous population’s rights was signed in 1995. This document states that the contemporary Maya are descendants of an ancient people who speak different but historically related languages. Further, the Maya languages are supposed to be taught in schools, the syncretic religion of the Maya is recognized and the indigenous population should participate in the administration of archaeological sites (Warren 1998:53, 56). Maya people are still underrepresented at universities in both Guatemala and Mexico. One percent of the Maya population gain university education. These universities do not teach Maya history or glyphs, so they have to study abroad (Grube & Fahsen 2002:218).

Undoubtedly, there will be more archaeological researchers who are indigenous themselves in the future. The question is how the Maya movement, which was formed during the civil war, will affect archaeology and anthropology, since they want researchers to adapt to their objects of study. To make things good after centuries of oppression, archaeologists are urged to interpret the result according to contemporary political and social needs. Requests are being made for artefacts that are now in foreign collections to be returned and the activists want the lowland archaeological sites to be declared as sacred sites (Houston 2000:140).

Although I support the Maya movement’s political agenda I cannot help viewing the movement as a mirror image of contemporary arborescent culture models in archaeology and anthropology. I therefore do not side with anyone. My aim is rather to abandon the humanocentric view of the past and look at how materialities affect and have affected agents and even how they have formed agency. Materialities and human agents as one of several assemblages defined and formed the identities of past people. There is no such thing as an essential Maya culture, just assemblages of heterogeneous parts connecting, opening up, and dissolving.

Hopefully this will be my last post about this “old” movie. I should be preparing myself for the 2012 movie(s) instead and continue with my series on “prophets of nonsense.”

One can rightly ask why Mel Gibson wants to show this one-sided representation of the Maya when war and human sacrifice are but mere fractions of what archaeologists find. The actual archeological evidence of war throughout the Maya area is quite scarce (see my earlier post on warfare). Instead, critics argue that Gibson should have focused on more positive cultural achievements such as writing, astronomy, and agriculture (never mind that the movie would have been quite boring with these themes).

Those critics who defend a more positive image of the Maya do not consider that they or their colleagues have created or exacerbated the blood dripping representation they now reject (Normark 2004). Book titles like “The Blood of Kings” (Schele and Miller 1986) are quite revealing. There are many Mayanists who had and still have such a violence-oriented research (Demarest 2004; Freidel 1992, Webster 2000). It is no coincidence that Gibson chose the Maya area for the movie (the story could just as well have taken place anywhere in the world). Gibson had his story ready and he only needed a place to stage it and the Maya area fit him like the hand in the glove (a Swedish expression). He alone cannot be blamed for this because this is how the Maya usually is portrayed on TV and in National Geographic, often with the support of prominent researchers (Hervik 1999; Normark 2004, 2006c).

According to the critics, the negative representation of the Prehispanic Maya in Apocalypto also gives a negative representation of the contemporary Maya. It is not unlikely that the movie will have this effect, but the ill-treatment of Maya groups that endures today, have endured for hundreds of years before the movie and the oppression is based on other phenomena than a single Hollywood movie. It would be to ascribe the movie too much importance. I do not anticipate that we will be flooded by Maya movies in the same way that there is an abundance of movies and television series on Romans (the 2012 movies will most likely not concern the Maya area, just the end of all mankind).

Apocalypto’s long-term impact is rather among people from other geographical areas, that is, among the tourists who visit any of the reconstructed ruins. Before the trip to Playa del Carmen or Cancun in Mexico the future tourist sees the movie to inhales some “Maya culture”. Unfortunately, the movie is part of a trend where “exotic” peoples are portrayed as savage, blood thirsty cannibals or perpetrators of violence, such as in the Lord of the Rings movies, King Kong, and the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Although historical depictions of the Romans in TV series like Rome, or the movie Gladiator, have their share of violence, these representations will not be as problematic since the “Romans” of today are not a suppressed group in the way that some Maya groups are.

It seems that the Mayanists have awaken from a deep slumber and found “their” Maya described in a view that they have acknowledged before, but they refuse to deal with this view when it is visualized in Gibson’s exaggerated way. Most researchers have fallen into the same political correctness of criticism and no researchers have praised the movie (including me). If, however, one want to criticize the stereotypical image the movie expresses one should rather begin by criticizing the Mayanists who have created or disseminated these images which Gibson has freely elaborated upon. However, it is easier to criticize Gibson than one’s own colleagues who one needs to deal with a long time after Apocalypto has left the big screen. It is therefore illuminating that only few critics mention the archaeologist Richard Hansen who was Gibson’s consultant.

Gibson is an easy target. It is not difficult to find flaws in Apocalypto. A little self-criticism of the view of the Maya that the researchers have created themselves should be in place. Archeology does not benefit from the view that the critics of Apocalypto launch as a counter attack. This is the view of the Maya as one of the world’s greatest civilizations. This reflects the same values as those of Gibson, that is, there are better and worse cultures (and people). This means, by extension, that the ancient Maya are seen as more civilized than the contemporary Maya, ranked on some cultural evolution ladder (Normark 2006b, 2006c). Gibson’s view and the researchers’ views are therefore two sides of the same coin. This view of culture was not created by the Maya for the Maya, but by Westerners for Westerners (Hervik 1999). Whether it is journalists or archaeologists that convey the view of the Maya culture, the Maya culture is all too often described as something that reached a peak 1300 years ago and then declined. However, the question is who determines the peak and what are the criteria for doing so? The criteria often come from archeology’s colonial heritage, which view large buildings, palaces, writing, etc. as highlights in a development that all societies are believed to undergo (Normark 2006b). The more similar to us a culture is, the more civilized it is deemed to be. Societies without a state-like structure are often looked down upon by researchers and the public. Gibson’s view is the classic mirror image. For him, it is “the noble savage” which stands for the good. It is Jaguar Paw and his hunters that stand for the unspoiled minds and hearts that will be destroyed by civilization.

Both researchers and Gibson sees “the Maya culture” as something abstract beyond the individual human being. This approach reduces the human being and sees culture as an organism that is born, lives, transforms, and dies. Such a cultural concept rarely works well with the way the archaeological material is constituted (Normark 2006a, 2006d). But researchers and Gibson still press their materials and stories into this cultural form, which thereby is strengthened and reified and live on in books, articles, and now in movies. Unfortunately, Gibson’s Maya will probably become the official representation of the Maya culture that researchers need to waste unnecessary time to refute. But in the long term it might not be a negative for it is likely to increase the self-criticism among some researchers.

Of course, I have painted a generalized picture of Mayanist research here and many Mayanists will disagree with me. However, at the core of this research is arborescent thinking, a desire to link everything back to the “Maya culture” or Culture with a big C. Both Mayanist researchers and Gibson are similar in this way of hierarchical thinking. The content may differ but not the form.

We are only about 3,5 years from the end of 12 Pik (more commonly known as 12 Baktun) according to the so-called Long Count calendar (a 5125 years long cycle). According to most commonly accepted correlations between this calendar and the Gregorian calendar, this will occur on the 21st or 23 rd of December 2012. Mayanists for the most part do not bother about that date. The date (whatever one choose) only meant that we go from one baktun to another, or possibly move into another cycle. Inscriptions indicate that the last cycle ended and the new one began on 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk’u which occurred on 11^th or 13^th of August 3114 B.C. The common assumption is that this current cycle also will last for 13 baktuns.

Wild speculations about what will happen on this date have emerged over the years, mainly by people who have New Age affiliations (“Mayanism”). See Mark Van Stone’s informative critique of (mainly) John Major Jenkins‘ alignments between the Winter solstice sun and the dark rift in the Milky Way. Check also out Stephen Houston’s discussion of the Tortuguero monument that mention the 13 Baktun date.

I shall focus on one of these other “prophets”. This is the Swede Carl Johan Calleman. He does not believe the 13 Baktun cycle ends in 2012, but on October 28 2011, apparently for no other reason than that the date should end on a 13 Ajaw date (not 4 Ajaw).  However, this is his Cosmic cycle, not completely correlated with the Long Count calendar (because it does not fit his own made up scheme).

Calleman’s interest seems to be about different levels of consciousness related to the 9 levels of the Underworld (however, some established Mayanists believe that there were five levels, four leading down to the fifth and four leading up from it). Anyway, Calleman believes that the 9 levels are not a myth but a reality since number 9 figures in the cosmology around the world (but so do number 3, 4, 5 and 13 as well even if they are important in the Maya area as well). He believes that most pyramids in the Maya area had nine levels (some did but most of them did not have nine platform levels).

His main goal is to interpret the whole history of humans, life, the earth and Cosmos from the Long Count Calendar (mixed with some Aztec beliefs as well, never mind that the Aztecs did not use the Long Count calendar). He suggests that there are 13 time periods in a creation cycle with various durations (13 Heavens). Each of the 9 Underworlds consisted of 13 Heavens. He claims to find support for his model/scheme in science. Let us see what his scientific facts are.

The longest (and first) of these Underworlds would then be 16.4 billion years (yes, beginning at the Big Bang indeed, although Big Bang is currently estimated to around 13.7 billion years B.C.). Upon this lies the eight other Underworlds that develops a frame of consciousness for the life it creates. The next Underworld is 20 times shorter (due to the vigesimal numbering system) and hence began 820 million years ago. Calleman relates this to the emergence of complex life, not life itself though (one would expect that to be an important phenomenon but it simply does not fit this scheme). Anyway, Calleman is not correct here either since the so-called Cambrian explosion in life (when a multitude of complex life forms emerged) came later (530 million years ago). The next Underworld emerged 41 million years ago. This relates to “monkeys” (although the earliest monkeys usually are dated to around 35 million years ago and primates as such can be traced back to the earliest Tertiary period). One can wonder why Calleman ignores the emergence of mammals or the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs that allowed the early Tertiary mammals to develop, without these events we would not have any primates (or monkeys) in the first place. Calleman apparently does not follow the evolutionary important phases.

Next Underworld is 2,050,000 years ago and is apparently related to humans, but what he mean by humans is not clear. Sahelanthropus is the oldest possible hominid, 7 million years old. Australopithecus (“Lucy”) is 3-4 million years old. The genus Homo is 2,5 million years old (0.5 million years before Calleman’s Underworld).  The next level began in 100500 B.C. and this is when speech apparently emerged (I did not know one could date this so accurately). However, the emergence of speech is up for debates, ranging from 50-500,000 years ago (and maybe more), but Calleman has apparently more information than others on this point.

Then, on the 16^th of June 3115 B.C. (in the 6^th Underworld) writing emerged (but let us ignore all facts that proto-writing actually existed before this and there is no sharp date dividing them). The 7^th Underworld began in 1755 and this is when industrialism emerged (a specific date is not given so I do not know if Calleman refers to a particular innovation this year, but it probably is just a date based on his scheme). The 8^th Underworld began 5^th of January 1999 and is apparently the IT revolution (I believe this happened many years before). Finally, the 9^th Underworld will emerge 260 days before the end date of all these cycles in 2011. This final Underworld will transform us all. Just wait two years and this transformation will have begun to change us all.

And there is more. Calleman argues that 2012 is still important but not the winter solstice in December but on the 6th of June. At this date there will be a Venus transit which is when the planet Venus aligns with the Earth and the Sun. Since this apparently occurs on the Swedish National day, Swedes have an important role in this newly transformed world. Let it be known that it it will be this Swede’s (this haecceity’s) goal to expose the fallacies of these “prophets”.

Calleman’s view of the Long Count calendar is, of course, not well attuned with established Mayanist views. To be honest, it is complete BS like the rest of the 2012 end date nonsense. The best thing one can say about Calleman’s “Maya calendar” is that it is a cinematographic and teleological view of time (see my post on Bergson and note the irony in my choice of the word “best”). This is arborescent thinking at its worst, an idea that reduces the complexities of the world to some higher transcendent (divine?) goal. It is not based on how contemporary “Maya” or ancient “Maya” viewed the calendars. I am sure we will see and hear more about this in the years to follow. Hopefully, the  prophets of nonsense will be quiet on Christmas Eve 2012.

Almost two and a half years have passed since I defended my dissertation on causeways (sacbeob, Yucatec for “white roads” or “artificial roads”) at the sites of Ichmul and Yo’okop. I have already mentioned them in a couple of posts. Now, I will present causeways as they have been described in Mayanist research. One can see this series of posts as running parallel with my other series on Posthumanocentric archaeology. The aim is to at the end present my Posthumanocentric interpretation of these causeways. Remember that most of the other interpretations of causeways rely on the arborescent culture schema that I do not follow. For references, see my dissertation which can be found here.

Sacbe 3 at Yo'okop

Since the Prehispanic people of the Americas lacked wheeled vehicles or draft animals, demands on communication were simple (Hassig 1991:21-22). Therefore, most means of communication went along informal routes, such as paths and trails, which had minimal or no labour investment in their construction or maintenance. These routes were the result of necessity and they had an irregular pattern as they avoided natural obstacles (Trombold 1991:3). Trade in the Prehispanic Americas only needed communication routes that were one person wide. To increase the transported volume of goods, it was easier to increase the traffic in the single-file flow on paths. Such past informal trails are difficult to find as they soon disappear in the tropical environment. However, trails have been preserved by volcanic ash in Costa Rica (Sheets and Sever 1991:60).

Formal routes are planned and purposefully constructed. These routes are evidence of labour, engineering and maintenance, which indicates an organization that planned and altered the landscape to facilitate and control the way people moved (Beck 1991:67). Formal routes can be divided into roads and causeways. My interest here is in causeways which have raised road beds (Trombold 1991:3). However, some of the “causeways” are barely above the ground level, though they still have a constructed surface, which the routes in the Maya area generally did not have. Causeways can be further divided into real and mythological routes (Folan 1991:222).

Causeways are found in all types of terrain, climate, geographic area and vegetation (Shaw in preparation-a). They are also known from the late Middle Formative to the Postclassic. Archaeological data suggests that the earliest known causeways in the Maya area were constructed during the late Middle Formative period (600/500 to 300 B.C.) (Kurjack and Garza 1981:301). Some of the early causeways reached considerable proportions. One causeway at Nakbe was 24 meters wide, several meters high and was covered with one meter thick layer of saskab (limestone marl) (Suasnávar 1994). The early causeways at the large Late Formative site of El Mirador also reached considerable lengths. One of them probably went to Calakmul, 38 km to the north (Folan, et al. 1995).

Thus, from early on in the “urbanization” process of the Maya area, causeways were part of both large and small centres. Coba, Chichen Itza, Izamal, Calakmul, Caracol and El Mirador are examples of large sites from various periods that had extensive networks of causeways extending to smaller centres. These sites are believed to have been centres for larger political formations. As it is believed that causeways joined different groups, or played a considerable role in cosmograms, it should be noted that many sites lack causeways. Causeways are also absent or there are only a few, at some large sites. Tikal, considered to be one of the most powerful sites in the 8th century A.D., lacks any known extensive road network, apart from the one within the site centre (Harrison 1999).

The Ichmul-Xquerol causeway and a sheep farm

Shaw (2001g:267) asks one of the critical questions concerning many Mayanists: “why are some sites able to dominate, manage, and/or coerce their populations without causeways, and why do others make such extensive use of these expensive, but effective, links?”. I believe that the key to this question is that the causeways should be seen as a serial phenomenon of various actualizations which cannot all be summarized into one explanation since they all differed at particular locales (Normark 2004c). It is not proven that causeways were used to dominate people, but it is likely that social formations with elaborate and formal road systems were less responsive to change than those without them (Hassig 1991:25). Thus, roads affected the way people behaved, as their presence directed and removed people. Later constructions tended to follow established material patterns rather than cosmological patterns, although some adjustments of site layout may have taken place based upon memories of an old layout (Stanton and Freidel 2005). In some ways the causeways could be seen as externalised memories. Olivier treats roads as memories. He argues that moments in time can be connected although they are temporally “distant” from each other and that the memory of the past is masked since it adopts the form of the present. As an example he uses the Roman decumanus (main road) that survives as a memory of ancient urbanity in Paris in the form of the boulevard (Olivier 2004:212).

People living at sites without causeways did not have the same issues as those with causeways. Therefore, I believe that there can only be site-specific answers to Shaw’s question. However, even though Mayanists often choose single sites for research, they also tend to seek the “Big Picture” to fit their site into something greater. Hence the blurry concept of “Maya culture” sneaks in and flattens out every Other to the Same. No such blueprint model shall of course be used in a Posthumanocentric study.

In posthumanocentric archaeology, matter is a durational process which is actualized into a contemporary form. Material objects affect and are being affected by non-linear rhizomes in which human associated relations are meshed in a multitude of processes. The rhizome is a form that is neither genealogical nor orthogenetic like the arborescent schema but a connection between different multiplicities. Multiplicities are crucial in posthumanocentric archaeology since they replace essences and explain emergent properties. Multiplicities specify the structure of spaces of possibilities, spaces which, in turn, explain the regularities exhibited by morphogenetic processes. The rhizome is therefore made up of heterogeneous components that are different in kind, such as a bee and a flower, a relationship that is not working on an arborescent schema. The rhizome works as an acentered multiplicity that always changes and is on the move since there is no central driving agency or cause. In short, the rhizome is an anti-genealogical, horizontal, nomadic, non-fixed and heterogeneous network that works from the bottom up.

What usually is termed “human culture” works on a rhizomatic model rather than on an arborescent model. “Culture” lacks a true genealogy, there is no creator, no single origin, since emergence is a decentralized process. A multitude emerges as an assemblage of component parts without a united control. Thus, the emergence of the world and humans cannot be found by reducing processes to certain essential stages or hierarchies as is done in arborescent humanocentric concepts (either band, tribe, chiefdom and state hierarchies, or structure and agency, or by using human agents and artifacts as different stages of a causal process). In the posthumanocentric interactions, a human being is but one of several material nodes in a decentralized rhizomatic meshwork of emergence. The human subject emerges from matter and the humans themselves form greater assemblages together with other material forms.

It is when the archaeologist creates representations of the rhizome(s) that it is transformed into a transcendent and arborescent macro-structure, an abstract class, that some archaeologists call culture. Culture as a concept is abandoned in Posthumanocentric archaeology and real “social” assemblages of increasing scale replace it, a bottom-up view . The position of the human is to become a catalyst for material processes where past intentions are removed as a-priori starting points. That is how I view the human: as a catalyst within assemblages.

I can already visualize the angry complaints about inaccuracies and the accusations of ethnocentrism, racism, etc. that will follow in the backwaters of the upcoming movies revolving around the year 2012. We have seen these accusations and complaints before concerning Apocalypto, Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, King Kong, etc. I have been part of this choir myself but I have a more or less neutral position nowadays.

Mayanists have been quick to dismiss Apocalypto and its director (and, surprise, there are countless inaccuracies and exaggerations in that movie). However, it is not Mel Gibson who is the bad boy. He was just using known stereotypes and generalizations created by others. These others, who are they? They are first of all countless of people that, since the conquest, have had their own biased views on the Other (not only Spaniards, but “Mayans” themselves”).

And, of course, some of these more recent others are well known Mayanists like the late Linda Schele, Mary Miller, David Freidel, Arthur Demarest, and a host of others who have spent considerable time focusing on violent activities, auto-sacrifice, human sacrifice, torture, decapitation, etc. It is ironic then when one finds interesting quotes here: http://www.xispas.com/blog/2006/12/apocalypto-caligula-of-yucatan.html

Demarest says “I don’t care about some minor historical inaccuracies. That’s Hollywood. What I’m very worried about is how the Maya themselves will perceive the film.”

Freidel says “I can promise you that there will be a massive repudiation of this film, not only as a work of fiction, but as a systematic and willful misrepresentation of the Maya.”

These are interesting quotes considering their own publications that have focused more on violence than on any other single topic. Yes, the movie misrepresent the “Maya”, but so do “Maya Cosmos: Three thousand years on the shaman’s path” as it is a masterpiece of arborescent thinking.

Is this ignorance of ones own role in creating Gibson’s mega-violent epic, a lack of self-criticism or in fact a reliance on the arborescent cultural model that too often mixes contemporary people with those of the past? In any case, it is easy for a Mayanist to criticize Mel Gibson, but perhaps we should look in our mirror first.

A common method in Mayanist studies is that of analogical reasoning in order to explain past human beliefs, practices, social- and political organizations. The use of analogies in archaeology has been debated, particularly in American archaeology that has a long tradition of analogical reasoning. Mayanists use both general comparative and direct-historical analogies. General comparative analogies are less common than direct historical ones in Mayanist studies, but they do appear, such as in models on socio-political organization. Here we have seen analogies with galactic polities of South-East Asia and Greek city states.

Prudence Rice suggests that the best analogies are the direct-historical ones since they show continuity and relies on Darwin’s descent with modification instead of orthogenetic evolution. It is argued that one should work back from known historical periods. Mayanists therefore frequently employ ethnographic or ethnohistoric analogies to explain patterns seen in the archaeological record. This is the clearest example of how the “Maya culture” is seen from an arborescent, ontogenetic and organismic perspective. It is like an organism evolving from one origin and it is the same essential “Maya culture” in the past as in the present. Analogical reasoning is no clearer than in two volumes on cave archaeology, edited by James Brady and Keith Prufer. Although they state that caution should be taken with analogies, their statement is only an attempt to justify their extensive reliance on ethnography in interpreting the archaeological record. The picture shows traces of contemporary use of the rejollada at Chanmahas near Ichmul: three wooden crosses and a pila (metate) near a small water pool (behind the photographer).

Crosses and metate at Chanmahas

By expanding the area of analogies (both spatially and temporally), researchers can always find an analogy suitable for their objective(s). If a suitable analogy is not found in the lowlands, then one can always turn to the highlands in Guatemala and Chiapas, or if this does not work, one can search elsewhere in Mesoamerica or even in the American Southwest (which sometimes is included in Greater Mesoamerica). This is the arborescent logic where everything can be traced back to the master-signifying Maya or Mesoamerican culture. However, such approaches are right in one way, there are no cultures isolated from a wider world. Not only did Spanish colonialism affect the indigenous peoples of the Maya area, so did the presence of Olmecs, Teotihuacanos, and Aztecs. Thus, instead of talking about possible Maya/Central Mexican hybridization as has earlier been the case with the site of Chichén Itzá, we could talk about homogenization of certain activities and materialities, for example through a religious-political “Quetzalcoatl-cult” network. However, it is one thing to map historical continuity and similarities of certain phenomena and another thing to rely on a general Maya or Mesoamerican culture to explain these similarities.

Hodder has argued that some analogies are more valid than others, but there is little foundation for such an argument. A greater knowledge of ethnographic studies and Colonial period sources does not always give more knowledge of Prehispanic social formations. For example, Richardson Gill uses Colonial and modern analogies to explain how drought affects communities and he projects these explanations on the “Maya collapse.” He fails to acknowledge the impact of the Spanish congregation politics, Catholic doctrines, new biota, enforced changes of marriage customs, etc. These Colonial changes affected settlement and water conservation strategies during droughts. In an area only 7-30 km east of Lake Chichancanab, where Terminal Classic droughts have been detected, there is a great discrepancy between Colonial and Prehispanic settlement indicating that the Colonial analogies used for droughts have substantial flaws. Thus, both direct historical and general comparative analogies give an aura of static social formations. How long does a cultural tradition actually exist (and do they really exist other than in culture-historical models)? Analogies are easy ways to fill the past with some content, but all such interpretations begin in a transcendent level far from materialities.

I admit that we probably can never do archaeology without some form of direct-historical or general comparative analogy since we use basic analogies when we identify material forms (to separate an axe from a hammer by relating them to similar forms elsewhere). But this can also be explained by past individuals’ cognitive capabilities to create similarities rather than there being a transcendent culture behind the similarities. Further, we always encounter the archaeological context with a baggage of earlier knowledge and experience that make us automatically distinguish forms. But why should we only use analogies known from historical sources or from ethnography? This usage probably has to do with the “prehistoric” appearance of ethnography itself. Much of ethnography has described vanishing ways of living often believed to be under the threat of modernity. These ways of living are often considered to be more relevant to archaeology than studies focusing on “societies” similar to the ones that the majority of archaeologists come from. This also affects one’s choice of theory. For example, why is Bourdieu often considered being a more relevant source than Giddens in archaeology? Has it to do with the fact that Bourdieu made ethnographic work among the “traditional and conservative” Kabyle in Algeria and that Giddens focuses on a “modern and progressive” capitalist society? Whatever the answer is we might just as well use general analogies from our own social formations, such as when Fahlander discusses the distribution of air-conditioners within a modern settlement to problematize the archaeological suppositions concerning the spatial distribution of materialities.

Therefore, I believe that ethnographic and ethnohistoric analogies may be useful in one way: in pointing out flaws of assumed facts rather than to support them. Even if the analogies are used as cautionary tales they are usually included in an archaeological study to support a plausible explanation. Researchers mainly use ethnography when it is believed to support their interpretation, not otherwise. As mentioned, it is common to use ethnographic analogies in cave studies. Current cave use and meaning is used to interpret past cave use and meaning when it suits one’s preconceived understanding. Thus, analogies for the role of caves in cosmology are abundant  but when one is to explain the presence of female burials in caves few researchers use analogies with contemporary people. Apart from the fact that people no longer are buried in caves, there appears to be gendered distinctions in the use of karstic features that makes direct analogies with past cave use problematic. In some contemporary Kekchi communities, women of a certain age tend not to enter caves because fertile women are believed to be threats to the fertility of the mountain-spirits. In some ethnographic studies in the Yucatec area, men enter the earth to collect sacred cave water and women get water from the sinkholes without entering the earth. Apparently women usually do not enter caves today but there are Prehispanic female burials in some caves. Such inconsistencies in the use of analogies are common. If the contact with the Spaniards changed burial customs and gendered use of caves has changed since the Terminal Classic then other activities may have changed as well.

The archaeological concept of culture is largely organismic. This can best be described by Deleuze and Guattari’s famous arborescent (tree-like) schema which certainly is not new to archaeology but its implications for the archaeological concept of culture has not been developed. This is the schema of a hierarchical system centered on a core and an essence. It is transcendent, genealogical, linear and segmented. At the top (or rather at the roots) sits the immutable concept of culture and all individual entities are ordered according to this concept. From the transcendent culture, other elements branches out into the particular artifacts. Difference is added afterwards to each branching element so that it can become a particular of the general. The particular, such as the artifact, is seen as less important than the more general concept of culture. These subordinate elements are unable to move horizontally to connect to other elements. In order to connect they must be connected higher up in the hierarchy, in a more general category. The tree is therefore a closed system that only is the sum of its parts. It is a stable system because the overall concept of culture defines/signifies everything else in the system and it is complete in itself and non-connected to other systems. The arborescent schema creates a signifying regime, a regime of signs that signifies everything within the tree by linking the parts to a determinant master-signifier.

The arborescent structure of archaeological thought

Culture is this master-signifier in the tree of archaeological theory. The culture concept signifies materiality as “material culture,” material objects primarily imbued with human or cultural meaning because they have been in contact with or modified by humans. The archaeological culture is believed to have an origin, a time and place from where everything evolves and branches into segments following a genealogical evolutionary pattern, but the branches are still part of the same transcendent entity assumed to exist beyond the materialities. A culture can also be divided into segments, ranging from social organization to artifacts. These segments are described as relations of interiority since they exist within an organic cultural body. In this view, materialities are also passive in relation to the human and the culture. This is hylomorphism, the idea that matter is only realizing a preexisting transcendent form through external causes. An artifact under production only realizes a preexisting “Mayaness.” Whatever a Maya agent produced materially it would for sure be something belonging to a Maya culture. Deleuze and Guattari show in several cases how this tendency of thought always is confronted with or is circumscribed by other ways of reasoning, but these are often consumed by the logic of the tree.

Roots strangling ruins at Angkor

Thus, the tree(s) puts a heavy burden on the ruins we study. Cut it/them down, liberate the ruins and seek other connections that break the fixed culture-historical schema that for far too long directs most archaeological research.

My ongoing project on caves and climate also makes use of different Deleuzian spaces as seen in the title of my book in preparation. The book’s title is a play with words pronounced like hole (that is the cave) but has different meanings. The focus for this entry is the second word, holey.

Preliminary cover and title

For Deleuze, a body or an assemblage is co-constituted with its space. The idea of space as a homogeneous whole where action takes place is a striated space. The arborescent/sedentary order (such as the State or the Church) relies on a striated space where everything is arranged and disciplined in closed systems (socially and physically). Striation occurs when technology reorders space and makes it measurable. A striated space is metric, extensive/actual and has lines of divide and demarcation that classify, measure and distributes space following politics or economy. This is also a segmented space that creates specific segments where certain rules occur. This striation comes from the overcoding, centralization, hierarchization, binarization, and segmentation of free movement.

Deleuze and Guattari sees nomadic thought as occupying a smooth space. This is a turbulant rhizomatic space where heterogeneity is distributed in an open manner. This space has not been disciplined. This space has more of affects and sensations than properties. Like a nomad, this space shifts with every movement, but the movements do not take place in space, it unfolds as the smooth space of the activity. A smooth space is intensive, boundless and oceanic. Like an ocean, it lacks distinction that privileges one place over other places and therefore it is non-disciplined. Smooth space cannot be controlled since it ceases to exist when it is overcoded by an arborescent order. The smooth space might be encircled and can turn static and become affected by the arborescent order. Smooth space lacks a long-term memory and can temporally emerge within a striated space.

However, these two forms of space only exist in mixture. The nomadic thought and the arborescent order are not dialectic opposites since they coexist in all social formations. Deleuze and Guattari focus on how forces striate space and also create forces that smooth spaces. There is always a constant interchange between smooth and striated space, so we can actually talk about smoothing and striating forces. The arborescent thought creates hierarchies and striations, but this tendency is prevented by nomadic thought that moves around and affects different striations of the arborescent order. However, if the nomadic thought gains access to the signification of certain nodes and therefore has to confront the arborescent order in a direct confrontation, it will become arborescent itself and striate space in order to maintain its obtained power.

There is also a third form of space that relates to the other two forms. A holey space is part of an underground space that connects with smooth space like a rhizome and is blocked by striated space. Holey space is the space of counter-action to striation. The cave is a holey space during periods when it is used as a hide out from the striating forces of the Catholic Church and Spanish State.