House, floor and soil: fixing residence

Résumé En

In Lowland sedentarizing settlements of the Classic Maya, modifications of the Earth surface is an important focus that should be explored through observed practices of ritual deposits and stratification. With specific temporalities (domestic, generational, programatic…), such practices appear embedded even in monumental place-making contexts at a collective scale. Some are considered “ritual” by archaeologists, others are not. However, they were constitutive of repeated sequences of creation, destruction, and re-creation synchronizing human activities with time dimensions of the World, allowing social groups to settle residence, and repair damage on Earth surface. An example is offered with the alternate deposition of pitted caches and layers within a semi-public house eventually covered by a temple at La Joyanca (Petén, Guatemala). This intentional stratification would have materialized the stable placement of a royal House on a public plaza through a scheme of repairing-preparing soils for sowing.We basically suggest that among the ancient Maya ritual procedures of building a house are structured by two distinct modes of materializing space, making soil, and on the prepared spot, elevating structures. Obviously both modes occurr sequentially, in sequence. The prepared soil must have qualities that depends on the type of elevated structures, either perishable or masoned, or both combined.