This volume represents the final report of the Selz Foundation Yaxuna Archaeological Project at the Precolumbian Maya center of Yaxuna, Yucatan, Mexico from 1986 to 1996. This volume contains summaries of all survey data, excavations, artifact analyses, and current interpretations. Contents: 1) Introduction; 2) Background to the investigations; 3) The natural setting; 4) Chronology (Yaxuna Ia (750/500 B.C.-250 B.C.), Yaxuna Ib (250 B.C.-A.D. 250), Yaxuna IIa (A.D. 250-A.D. 400), Yaxuna IIb (A.D. 400-A.D. 550), Yaxuna IIc (A.D. 550-A.D. 600), Yaxuna III (A.D. 600-700/730), Yaxuna IVa (A.D. 700/730-A.D. 900/950), Yaxuna IVb (A.D. 900/950- A.D. 1100/1200), Yaxuna V (1100/1200-1400?), Yaxuna VI (?)), 5) Excavations; 6) Conclusions; Appendices.

This volume was conceived to provide a forum for Mexican and foreign scholars to publish new data and interpretations on the archaeology of the northern Maya lowlands, specifically the State of Yucatan. Increased communication among scholars has become increasingly important for grasping a better understanding of the great amount of data emerging from the State of Yucatan. There has been more salvage work conducted in this state than in any of the others throughout Mexico and the data is overwhelming. Because of this large amount of salvage work, archaeologists in the INAH office in Yucatan have had little time to publish the great majority of the new information. Further, many of the forums that are easily accessible to scholars in the northern lowlands have constrictive space restraints not conducive to publishing data. With these points in mind, this volume seeks to gather papers that did not necessarily have to have a theoretical focus, and that could be data laden so that the raw data from many of these projects would not be confined to difficult to access reports in the Merida and Mexico City offices. The result is a series of manuscripts on the northern lowlands, most of which focus on the State of Yucatan. Some of the papers are very data heavy, while others have a much more interpretive emphasis. Yet all of them contribute to a more complete picture of the northern lowland Maya.

This volume illuminates human lifeways in the northern Maya lowlands prior to the rise of Chichen Itza. This period and area have been poorly understood on their own terms, obscured by scholarly focus on the central lowland Maya kingdoms. Before Kukulkan is anchored in three decades of interdisciplinary research at the Classic Maya capital of Yaxuna, located at a contentious crossroads of the northern Maya lowlands. Using bioarchaeology, mortuary archaeology, and culturally sensitive mainstream archaeology, the authors create an in-depth regional understanding while also laying out broader ways of learning about the Maya past. Part one examines ancient lifeways among the Maya at Yaxuna, while part two explores different meanings of dying and cycling at the settlement and beyond-ancestral practices, royal entombment and desecration, and human sacrifice. The authors close with a discussion of the last years of occupation at Yaxuna and the role of Chichen Itza in the abandonment of this urban center. Before Kukulkan provides a cohesive synthesis of the evolving roles and collective identities of locals and foreigners at the settlement and their involvement in the region's trajectory. Theoretically informed and contextualized discussions offer unique glimpses of everyday life and death in the socially fluid Maya city. These findings, in conjunction with other documented series of skeletal remains from this region, provide a nuanced picture of the social and biocultural dynamics that operated successfully for centuries before the arrival of the Itza.