Mesoamerica (Geographic Keyword)
26-50 (2,387 Records)
Guatemalan archaeology is benefiting from new technologies for the monitoring and measurement of spatial information. Traditionally, archaeologists have relied on specialists in mapping and surveying to record spatial data and use it as the basis for the study of distribution of cultural traits. However, advances in mapping technology which allow non-specialists to collect multiple data points in shorter amounts of time is greatly aiding archaeologists working at sites in Guatemala. Other...
Advertising the Empire: Purépecha Strategies in the Imperial Heartland at Angamuco, Michoacán (2017)
Regime change is a social process that has occurred throughout human history and yet much is still unknown about how political developments shape local communities. This paper examines the impacts of the Late Postclassic (1350-1530 CE) Purépecha Empire on residents at Angamuco, an ancient city within the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin imperial heartland in Michoacán, Mexico. Imperial narratives in ethnohistoric texts emphasize that authorities controlled craft production, tribute, and social practices....
The Afterlife in Exile: Butterfly Imagery on Teotihuacan-style Censers from the Pacific Coast of Guatemala (2017)
The Teotihuacan-style censers from Guatemala have received relatively little attention since the 1980s. Following upon earlier suggestions for a merchant-warrior presence in the Escuintla region, this study examines the butterfly imagery on a group of Teotihuacan-style censers in the national collections of Guatemala. This group of unprovenanced artifacts has research value because (1) its original imagery is intact, and (2) all have been sampled for paste analysis (instrumental neutron...
Age Estimation Using Dental Development and Long Bone Length for the Children in the Late Classic Copan Maya Civilization (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Childhood growth and development remains difficult to estimate in past populations, yet, it provides a unique window into childhood experiences in prehistory. This study considers subadult skeletal remains estimated to be 1-21 years of age at the time of death from the ancient Maya population in Copan, Honduras based on the end of the eruption/development...
Agricultural Productivity of Four Different Physiographic Zones in the Lower Río Verde Valley, Oaxaca, Mexico: Using the Current Landscape as a Means to Facilitate an Understanding of Past Productivity (2017)
As part of the larger Río Verde Settlement Project (RVSP), soil sampling of different physiographic zones was conducted during the spring of 2016 in the lower Río Verde Valley. The major goal of this sampling program was to assess variation in soil fertility across the region, as related specifically to maize agriculture. The lower Verde Valley was broadly divided into four physiographic zones (floodplain, coastal plain, piedmont, and secondary valleys). Previous studies identified the...
Aknah and the moon spiners: gender relations and rituals in caves. (2017)
Mensabak Lake, in the Lacandon Rainforest, is surrounded by caves that were used as pilgrimage destinations and for different rituals in the Protohistoric period. The role of Maya women in the rituals and ceremonies has been delimited to fertility and dependency stereotypes not only in the historical documents but in the archaeological research. This presentation discusses Maya women’s participation in a multi-regional pilgrimage network having Mensabak as the epicentre.
Album of Maya Architecture (1958)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
Algarrobos_Laja_Path Shapefile (2010)
The aim of the LEAP projects was to publish multi-layered e-publications and develop and link them to associated digital archives. The original LEAP project was funded by the AHRC while the LEAP II, A Trans-Atlantic LEAP, was supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This shapefile is part of a 2011 LEAP II project "Placing immateriality: situating the material of highland Chiriquí" by Karen Holberg. All files associated with this record must be downloaded to ensure that the shapefile...
Alimento para las deidades: Nuevas prácticas sacrificiales y post sacrificiales en los centros mesoamericanos del Epiclásico y Posclásico inicial (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Movement of People and Ideas in Eastern Mesoamerica during the Ninth and Tenth Centuries CE: A Multidisciplinary Approach Part II" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Durante las últimas décadas se han documentado varios conjuntos de restos humanos no reverenciales y altamente procesados en diferentes estados de manipulación dentro el territorio de Mesoamérica. En un principio se les apreció como hechos aislados hasta...
All the Gods of the World: Modern Maya Agricultural and Rain Ritual in Yucatan, Mexico (2017)
The modern residents of Yucatán, Mexico blend traditional Maya beliefs in a pantheon of ancient gods and other supernatural forces with more recent Catholic traditions flowing from centuries of Spanish colonial influence. This paper compares and contrasts modern rituals from the Yucatec Maya village of Telchaquillo, Yucatán. Each rite was associated with a local cenote, limestone sinkholes that along with caves serve as accesses to the Maya underworld and homes to the gods themselves. My...
All the Underworld’s a Stage: Ancient Maya Ritual Stages of Xibalba (2015)
Ancient Maya rulers dramatically gave offerings to the gods and ancestors on behalf of the local population, and the spectacle was central to the maintenance of the social hierarchy. Some of these public ceremonies took place in in the subterranean realm of Xibalba, from the vantage point of visible, elevated areas within cave sites. The actors using the ritual stages described in this paper, whether from large urban centers or smaller villages in the countryside, would have used the...
Alta Vista (Chalchihuites), Astronomical Implications of a Mesoamerican Ceremonial Outpost at the Tropic of Cancer (1982)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
Alternative Mexico: a Mobile Application to Preserve Contemporary Heritage Values (2016)
“Alternative Mexico” is a mobile application drawing from the need to preserve and promote contemporary heritage resources that are of great value to its citizens. After more than a century of infrastructure building and promotion of urban lifeways to become a modern country, the experience has resulted in the appropriation of modern spaces and behaviors by Mexico’s citizens, with the inevitable creation of new heritage values. These new heritage resources oppose the national definition of...
Altica and the Role of Middlemen in Formative Obsidian Exchange (2017)
Altica’s location, in the Patlachique Range 10 km away from the Otumba obsidian source, suggests a potentially significant role in the distribution of Otumba obsidian. Altica may have served as an important middleman and processing site in Formative obsidian exchange, but a greater understanding of the nature of these exchange relationships is required to define this role. This paper combines geochemical sourcing and technological data from obsidian from nine Early and Middle Formative sites,...
Altica ceramics and figurines: Stylistic and chronological analyses (2017)
Craft specialization and exchange feature prominently in explanations for the development of the first complex societies in Mesoamerica. It is clear from analyses of surface collections at Altica that during the Early and early Middle Formative periods (c. 1300-850 B.C.) its inhabitants exported obsidian tools and imported pottery from long distances, including the southern Gulf Coast. Altica is one of the few early agricultural settlements located in the northern Basin of Mexico from which we...
The Altica Project: Reframing the Formative Basin of Mexico (2017)
The Altica Project, that began in 2014, is an important step in addressing the limited problem-oriented research at Formative sites in the Basin of Mexico for over two decades. Altica is the earliest-known settled village in the Teotihuacan Valley and one of the only first-farming village sites in the Basin of Mexico that has not been engulfed by the urban sprawl of Mexico City. Despite its small size and remote location, Altica was an important piece in Early and Middle Formative exchange...
Amacuzac archaeological project. (2016)
Arqlgo. Pablo Sereno Uribe. INAH Guerrero. The Chimalacatlán archaeological project has focused its research in the southern section of the state of Morelos. Initially, this archaeological site was excavated by the archaeologist Florencia Müller in 1943. The first actions developed by the Chimalacatlan archaeological project centered on the conservation and restoration of the different buildings along the site, focusing on those buildings that were extremely damaged. Subsequently, several...
America's Yesterday (1937)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
American Pompeii: Old evidence on Late Classic ties between the Pacific Coast and the Antigua valley (2017)
An archaeological collection from finca Pompeya in the Antigua Guatemala valley provides significant information about Late Classic interaction with the adjacent Pacific coast. Excavated in 1893, the collection was eventually scattered to several museums in Germany, the United States, and Guatemala. However, it can be reconstructed from a photograph made not long after the discovery, and from newspaper reports that provide rough descriptions of the excavations. The objects themselves are still...
The anahuatl pectorals from the offerings of the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan (2017)
The anahuatl pectoral is one of the shell ornaments that have been found in the offerings of the great temple of Tenochtitlan. In paintings and sculptures, it is worn by Tezcatlipoca and deities that are stars and warriors, as Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli and Mixcoatl. Inside the offerings, the anahuatl are associated to items related to the underworld, sacrifice and war. This has led to propose that these pectorals represented the stars, which were the warriors during the night. The presence of the...
An Analysis of Architectural Form and Function at Cahal Pech, Belize: The Case of Structure B7 (2015)
Recent archaeological investigations at Cahal Pech, Belize have focused considerable attention on understanding the form and function of monumental architecture in the site’s largest public courtyard. Designated as Plaza B, the courtyard contains an eastern triadic shrine or "E-Group", and three large range-type or palace-like buildings that are located on the north, west and south flanks of the plaza. Our investigations of these buildings, particularly on Structure 7, have revealed important...
An Analysis of Ceramic Function from the Sacred Landscape Archaeological Project, La Milpa, Belize (2016)
In 2014 and 2015, the California State University, Los Angeles Sacred Landscape Archaeological Project carried out investigations of a collapsed chultun at the site of La Milpa in northern Belize. Excavation revealed a heavy concentration of ceramic and artifacts immediately surrounding the collapse with concentrations dropping precipitously only a few meters from the complex. This report analyzes the ceramic sherds recovered in excavation. The ceramics were sorted into six categories:...
Analysis of Culturally Derived Speleothem ny INAA: An Analytic Approach to Sourcing (2017)
The occurrence of "foreign" ceramic materials as well as the breakage and transport of speleothems during ancient Maya cave visitations have become an increasingly well-documented phenomenon (Brady et al. 1997). This phenomenon has raised several questions such as the spatial and temporal extent of these interactions, practices, meaning and specifically what does all this tell us about the relationship between Maya polities and proximal or distant caves. Geochemical analysis of geological...
Analysis of elasmobranches from offerings 126, 141 and 165 found at the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan (2017)
Numerous fish from diverse species have been found inside the Great Temple offerings. These were transported from the coast to Tenochtitlan. During the seventh field season of the Templo Mayor Project, five sawfish rostra were found inside three offerings. By analyzing macro and microscopic structures, and through the comparison with modern specimens from the Ichthyology Collection of the Institute of Marine Sciences and Limnology, at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, these animals...
Analysis of Faunal Material from Sacred Spaces at Agua Lluvia and Along the Dos Hombres to Gran Cacao Archaeology Project in Northwestern Belize. (2015)
This research focuses on the faunal material from the caves and sacred deposits at Agua Lluvia and along the Dos Hombres to Gran Cacao Archaeology Project in northwestern Belize. The analysis and interpretation of faunal material in caves can be problematic for zooarchaeologists. Unlike other archaeological features, caves have the added complexity of bioturbation, irregular stratigraphy, and inconsistent preservation. Similarly, faunal remains found within caves can easily be disregarded on the...