Central America (Geographic Keyword)
76-100 (239 Records)
The site of Chawak But'o'ob in the Rio Bravo Conservation and Management Area of northwestern Belize is being investigated by the Rio Bravo Archaeological Survey. The site, located just two kilometers southwest of the minor Preclassic- and Classic-period city of Dos Hombres, is unusual in that it is a modestly sized commoner residential site with a ballcourt. Very unusually, the paired ballcourt buildings are the largest at the site and perhaps along with the adjacent sweat house, are the only...
Exploring the Viability of Geochemically Sourcing Elaborate Metates Through XRF Spectroscopy (2017)
The Central American elaborate metate is a perplexing group of ground stone artifacts. Their function continues to be the subject of debate, with interpretations ranging from hallucinogenic and food preparation to ritual seating. It is difficult to deny, however, the substantial labor investment represented and likely symbolic significance. X-Ray fluorescence spectroscopy has proven an invaluable tool in the non-destructive geochemical sourcing of archaeological obsidian, providing insights into...
Faring the Sweet Sea: Simulating Pre-Hispanic Raft and Canoe Navigation in Lake Cocibolca, Nicaragua (2017)
Before 1492, the human communities that inhabited the shores of Lake Cocibolca in Central America engaged in dynamic interactions and exchange networks, traveling across the land and canoeing or rafting on the lake and rivers to trade goods and communicate with their neighbors. Evidencing this travel network, archaeological studies have documented an abundance of ceramics and carved stone that the past inhabitants of the Lake Cocibolca region produced and traded widely during the later...
Farming and Foraging in Late Ceramic Period Society at Sitio Drago, Western Caribbean Panama (2015)
This paper examines patterns in plant and animal remains excavated from midden contexts at Sitio Drago, a 1400-year-old village site located on a Caribbean island in Panama. To date, most studies of farming and foraging in ancient Panama have focused on villages located in the central highlands and Pacific foothills – regions with a cooler, drier tropical climate that better facilitates agricultural productivity. Although highly informative, these studies alone do not provide us with a complete...
Feminicide and the Struggle to Fight Impunity in Guatemala (2016)
The mortality rate of women in peacetime Guatemala has reached the level documented at the height of the genocidal war that took 200,000 lives. These female victims tend to be between 16 and 30 years-old with most of these brutal killings occurring within or near Guatemala City. To paraphrase UN Rapporteur Philip Alston, female homicides are only the beginning of the cost because a society that lives in fear of killing is unable to combat impunity and cannot get on with life and the business of...
Firing Strategies: Experimental Pottery Technology Programme for Belize (2017)
This report is a continuation of the Experimental Pottery Research Program I began in Belize in 2000 (Hankins 2009: 177-186). The scarcity of material evidence of pottery manufacture and firing signatures contributes to the relevance of different research strategies to expand our understanding of this technology. Firing pottery is challenging. The technology of constructing pottery is difficult, stressful, and requires constant attention. All the labor, skill, and planning can be lost in the...
The Forgotten Area: The Archaeology of Morazán, El Salvador (2016)
The archaeology of the department of Morazán, in northeastern El Salvador, is poorly known. Several sites there were included in national site lists compiled in the 1920s and 1940s, and a small survey was conducted in the 1950s, but only one site, the Gruta del Espiritu Santo, has been thoroughly documented. Multiple reasons explain the dearth of archaeological research. Much of the worst fighting during the 1980s and 1990s civil war occurred in Morazán, which is also one of the poorest and most...
Geospatial Analysis of Material Procurement and Distribution in the Hinterlands of Northwestern Belize (2015)
The ancient Maya employed a wide variety of lithic raw materials for tool manufacture, such as strategies that combined local production of flaked stone tools with the import of some finished tools from distant sources. Over time, variable stone tool acquisition, manufacture, and use are reflected in the comparative differences in the formal versus expedient technologies and raw material types from a variety of contexts, including ceremonial, non-domestic, and domestic. The authors will present...
Gesture, Identity, and Meaning in Southeastern Mesoamerica (2016)
Hand imagery carried conventionalized meanings across ancient Mesoamerica and represented an embodied semantics that was central to ancient constructions of meaning. Precolumbian ceramic imagery from northwestern Honduras reflects of this generalization and features a set of highly stylized compositions that conveyed an array of specific meanings. Figures and, by extension, the gestures made by them feature prominently in this corpus, but little attention has been paid to how these motifs...
The Heat of the Night: Ritual Purification and Curing in Mesoamerica (2017)
While daytime is often reserved for fairly mundane activities, most archaeological questions have focused on this time period. A wide variety of activities though cross the day into the nighttime, or occur only after dark. It is during the night when Mesoamericans recreated much of their mythology in ritualistic acts. This paper explores the use of household temazcales as nightly ritual spaces. These saunas were not only found in large communal spaces, but also in households. For what were the...
High Resolution Imaging of Stone Tools from the 1st Millennium BC, Grand Cocle Region of Panama: A Digital Archive Initiative (2017)
Archaeological investigations often result in large quantities of stone and ceramic artifacts which, after being catalogued and analyzed, are stored in accessible places and rarely used for further research, student training or public education. Digital technology is changing this. It is revolutionizing the way we do research, archive our results and communicate with others. Based on a sample of time- or functionally-sensitive stone tools from the 1st millennium BC component at the...
History and Prehistory of the Panama Canal Zone Revealed by the Current Canal Expansion Program (2015)
A wide array of archaeological resources has been identified by the Panama Canal Expansion, a civil construction effort that began in 2008 and will end late in 2015. Over 40 separate cultural resource studies have been contracted by the Panama Canal Authority since the start of the project. Located at the narrowest point of the Central American isthmus, the project area has been an environmentally rich and strategically important location since Pre-Hispanic times. Pre-construction survey and...
The Human Burials of Conchal, Rivas, Nicaragua (2016)
The mounds of Conchal in Nicaragua were originally thought to be domestic refuse mounds, filled mostly with crushed shells and broken ceramics. Only upon excavation was it discovered that there were multiple individuals buried in the mounds. What did this mean to the inhabitants who lived here? Why were these individuals buried with refuse? Using an analogy from across the pond, it is believed that the individuals were not necessarily buried here purposefully. The individuals were possibly...
Human impact on a monumental landscape at the microscopic level: an ancient Maya community and its temple (2015)
This paper discusses the results of geochemical and micromorphological analysis of sediment samples in and around a monumental temple structure at the site of La Milpa, northwest Belize. This analysis forms part of a project that aims to examine community agency and practice in public monumental spaces, in particular how the actions of diverse groups of agents influence the functions of monumental architecture. Artifact and architectural evidence gathered over five field seasons at Structure 3...
Human/animal interactions in the Copan Valley from the beginning to the end of the Copan dynasty: Stable Isotope Analysis of the Felids from Altar Q and the Motmot dedicatory offerings (2015)
In fifth century Copan, Honduras, beneath the city’s first dynastic monument a complete puma was offered beside a female human burial. Over three centuries later, under the watchful eye of sixteenth and final ruler of the dynasty Yax Pasaj, a series of sixteen felids (many of them jaguars) were placed in the dedicatory cache of Altar Q, the "stone of the founder." Here we investigate the remains of some of the largest carnivores on the landscape, the jaguar and puma, to analyze human-felid...
Hun Tun: Household Context and Social Complexity in Northwestern Belize. (2015)
The ancient Maya site, Hun Tun is located in northwestern Belize and serves as a platform of inquiry into social complexity at the household level. This paper addresses ancient Maya commoners in household contexts while discussing data that are pertinent to ideas of household identity, social formation, and household production by re-evaluating the value of domestic space. The analysis of everyday objects in domestic contexts contributes to these data. Major archaeological features at Hun Tun...
Hybrid Cultures: The Visibility of the European Invasion of Caribbean Honduras in the 16th Century (2017)
Archaeological excavations in Caribbean coast Honduras explored the site of Ticamaya, described in 16th-century Spanish documents as the seat of a leader of indigenous resistance. Yet despite testing confirmed deposits from the period covering initial conflict with the Spanish, roughly 1520-1536, these excavations produced no use of European goods until the late 18th century. Contemporary with Ticamaya, the site of Naco to the west hosted troops sent by Cortes, and at least one majolica vessel...
Identifying the drivers of Central American rainfall shifts: implications for past, present, and future human behaviour (2017)
Yok Balum Cave’s location at the northernmost extent of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) combined with its abundance of aragonitic stalagmites makes the site an exceptional archive of paleoclimatic information. Additionally, Yok Balum Cave is located at the heart of the Maya Lowlands, and speleothem-based paleoclimate records from the site can provide invaluable information for archaeological research. Although the Yok Balum record and most other regional climate records strongly...
Imitating from Memory: Hybrid Vessels and Attempted Replications of Stylistic Elements from Central Panama in the Pre-Hispanic Ceramics of Costa Rica (2015)
The ceramics of Central America are replete with examples of stylistic influence that represent attempts by local potters to reproduce foreign styles from distant lands. Examples include attempts to reproduce elements of Late Classic Maya styles in ceramics of the "southern periphery" of Mesoamerica. This paper presents evidence for attempted but imperfect and even inept reproduction of elements from the opposite direction—territories far to the south and east—by identifying elements of...
In Defense of Plainware Ceramics: Form, Function, and Foodways in Sapoa Period Pacific Nicaragua (2016)
Plain, utilitiarian pottery has typically been considered the 'red headed stepchild' of ceramic studies. This is especially the case in Pacific Nicaragua, where beautifully decorated polychromes have attracted the most attention. However, more theoretically engaged studies consider utilitarian pottery as a key to understanding foodways, and therefore offer important insights into alternative dimensions of social practice. This paper will consider plainware cooking and storage vessels from...
In the Shadow of the Giant: Investigating the Rise and Fall of Settlement Groups Adjacent to Site Cores in the Belize Valley (2017)
Located directly across the Belize River from Barton Ramie, the recently discovered site of Lower Dover has been the focus of intensive research by the BVAR Project since 2011. The major foci of these investigations are to determine the relationship between Lower Dover, Blackman Eddy and Baking Pot, and to ascertain the development of the site within the sociopolitical landscape of the Belize River Valley region. In an effort to address the latter research questions, excavations have focused...
In Too Deep: Excavations of a Partially Inundated Ancient Maya Salt Works at Wiz Naab, Paynes Creek National Park, Belize (2015)
Underwater survey and excavation in a large salt water lagoon between 2004 and 2013 revealed ancient Maya wooden buildings with briquetage—the broken pots from evaporating brine in pots over fires to make salt. Unexpected in the tropical landscape of Belize, the wooden buildings were preserved below the sea floor in mangrove peat, which created an anaerobic matrix. Elsewhere, historically and in modern times, the salt content of the brine was enriched by pouring it through salty soil—reducing...
Incorporation and Independence in the Preclassic Western Maya Lowlands: Integrating Local and Regional Traditions at Rancho Búfalo, Chiapas, Mexico (2015)
In this paper, I explore tensions between territorial integration and local resilience at Rancho Búfalo, Chiapas, a five hectare Preclassic center that was geographically intermediate to the cultural territories of the Olmec, Lowland Maya, and Pacific Coast. This site's residents' employed a localized approach to extra-local architectural packages, ceramic spheres and burial traditions, that complicates traditional narratives of ethnic and political incorporation in Preclassic Southern...
Inland ports in Northwestern Peten, Guatemala, a preliminary assessment (2015)
Northwestern Petén is characterized by an extensive wetland system subject to flooding during the annual rains, connecting what appear as isolated bajos in the dry periods of the year into larger, intermittent drainage networks. The San Juan, Chocop and Xan rivers drain these flooded areas into the San Pedro Martir River, which flows west, ultimately joining the Usumacinta River. We hypothesize that El Achiotal, a Preclassic center located within these seasonally occurring flood lands, and the...
An Interactive Map of Honduran Archaeological Sites (2015)
Honduran Archaeology has long focused on the investigation of Copan and the ancient Maya culture in the western part of the country. The non-Maya region has only been investigated intensively in the past 50 years, despite the fact that as a bridge between the cultures of Meso- and Southamerica Honduras offers an exciting area of investigation. Access to information about the non-Maya archaeology of Honduras is difficult, given that there are hardly any introductory summaries. In order to make...