Mesoamerica (Geographic Keyword)
401-425 (2,387 Records)
The Mopan Valley Preclassic Project has been conducting research at Group D, Xunantunich, a Late Classic elite residential unit with an eastern ancestor shrine. This research has significantly changed our understanding of the establishment and ritual re-use of this group. Recent investigations have revealed Late/Terminal Preclassic constructions including a small courtyard platform and an early structure buried within the Late Classic ancestor shrine. Thousands of ceramic sherds were...
Changing Art? Changing Identity?: Visual Culture in Ancient Veracruz during the Late Classic-Early Postclassic Transition (2016)
Group identity is visible in the archaeological record in the form of discrete burial practices, site planning, ceramic and artifact assemblages, settlement patterns, and architecture. Yet notions of ethnic identity are multi-layered and complex; the more so during periods of intense migration and social upheaval . The Late Classic to Early Postclassic transition was one such period, characterized by observable changes in practices and materials. In Veracruz (at sites such as El Tajin, Las...
Changing Faces: Evolutions in Art at Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala (2017)
The site of Kaminaljuyu experienced intensive ideological and material cultural change from the Preclassic through the early Classic period. Certain artistic forms and ideological precepts, however, simultaneously demonstrate remarkable continuity. This talk focuses specifically on public messages communicated through stone sculpture as well as, to a lesser degree, messages communicated by elite and royal funerary contexts in order to access continuity and change in Kaminaljuyu’s archaeological...
Changing Food Choices from Paleoindian to Classic Maya Periods: A Zooarchaeological Analysis (2016)
Very little is known about Paleoindian and Archaic subsistence strategies of the people of Mesoamerica prior to the development of ceramics as food processing, storage, and serving containers. Rockshelters with good preservation and stratigraphic deposits can provide excellent contexts for a comparative faunal analysis though time. We examine subsistence patterns using the faunal remains from the Maya Hak Cab Pek (MHCP) rock shelter in the Toledo District of southern Belize before and after the...
Changing Patterns of Production and Exchange in "Borderland" Economies: The Case of the Classic Maya Civilization (2018)
Following the trajectory of the work of Rita Wright, recent research has focused on production, producers, and exchange in a "borderland" zone, the "frontier" between Classic Maya lowland city-states and less complex, but more diverse, polities of the resource-rich highlands to the south. These "borderland" studies led to insights concerning exchange, production, and the roles of elite managers and non-elite "labor". Archaeologists and economists examined the material culture of dozens of sites...
The Chapultepec Castle Chimalli: A Habsburg-repatriated Mexica feline-hide shield (2015)
This paper examines a well-known Mexica chimalli (shield), possibly from the sixteenth century, currently found among the holdings of the National Museum of History, Chapultepec Castle, Mexico City. The importance of this study lies in three fundamental aspects: 1) very few Mexica shields have survived; 2) the examples found outside of Mexico have not been fully analyzed; and 3) the chimalli now residing at Chapultepec Castle was originally taken from the Basin of Mexico to Europe during the...
Characterization of Local and Aztec Rule at Calixtlahuaca (2017)
The Aztec Empire has been characterized as both an example of relatively indirect rule and as a case of relatively collective rule, positions which are least superficially opposed. In this paper, I use ceramic data (INAA, petrography, and type classification) from multiple contemporaneous households at the provincial capital of Calixtlahuaca in the Toluca Valley to evaluate these two positions. I compare data from the time periods during which the site was under local rule and when it was...
CHARATERIZATION OF CERAMICS UNCOVERED IN THE PAROTA RIVER BASIN AND LAKE SIRAHUEN BASIN, MICHOACÁN, MEXICO: FLUORESCENCE ANALYSIS IN ULTRA-VIOLET LIGHT AND PETROGRAPHY IN THIN SHEETS (2017)
This poster shows the results of the petrographic characterization of the ceramics found in the basins of the Parota River and Lake Sirahuen, two archaeological areas surveyed as part of the Proyecto Arqueología y Paisaje del Área Centro Sur de Michoacán. Fluorescence techniques applied are an induction of ultraviolet light and petrographic analysis in thin sheets; the first technique was used as an experimental test to identify variances in a very large sample and thereby to reduce to a viable...
Charcoal Analysis to Reconstruct the Ancient Wood Economy of Naachtun (2016)
Researchers have long considered that the relations between ancient Maya societies and their tropical forested landscape significantly affected social and environmental development throughout the Maya Lowlands. The lingering debate contrasting the hypothesis of a massive deforestation during the Classic period with a model of careful environmental management has not been resolved, and places forest resources exploitation at the center of the rise and development of ancient Maya cities. In...
Charting Long-Term Social Stability in the Tres Zapotes Region: Theory, Method, and Settlement Patterns (2017)
In 2014 we initiated the Recorrido Regional Arqueológico de Tres Zapotes (RRATZ) to implement the NSF-funded project, "Long-term Social Stability in the Tres Zapotes Region." The goal of this project was to better understand the resilience of a tropical lowland polity through a millennium of political, economic, and environmental challenges, to document the preconditions that gave rise to this Olmec and Epi-Olmec polity, and to document the transformations that occurred in the wake of its...
Chemical and Radiocarbon Analyses of Paint Samples from Oxtotitlán (2016)
The prehistoric rock paintings in the Oxtotitlán site are thought to be among the earliest of Mexico and represent the beginning of the highly influential Mexican muralism tradition. The proposed antiquity of the murals is based primarily on stylistic interpretation of the motifs represented in the paintings. Our objective was to use radiocarbon analyses of organic matter in the paint and biofilms covering paint layers to provide more direct evidence as to the ages of the artifacts. Small paint...
Chemical residue and microbotanical analyses in the Royal Kitchen at Kabah, Yucatan. (2015)
Since 2010 the "Proyecto de Restauración e Investigación Arqueológica en el Grupo Este de Kabah, Yucatán", under the direction of archaeologist Lourdes Toscano, performed explorations in the area that covers structures 1C-2, 1C-3, 1C-4 y 1C-5. The goal of these interventions is bearing out the hypothesis that the group served as a special food-processing area. Excavations resulted in the recovery of faunal remains, ceramics, as well as several types of lithic tools like prismatic blades,...
Chemical Residues Analysis and Infrared Spectroscopy to Determine a Kiln´s Function from a Henequen Hacienda in Yucatan, Mexico (2017)
San Pedro Cholul was a henequen plantation and industrial facility, a hacienda estate, situated on the northeastern part of Merida city, Yucatán, México. Its principal development was during the last decades of the nineteenth century, known as Yucatan´s Gilded Age, and it was totally abandoned by the middle of the twentieth century. In 2015 we excavated a kiln facility in order to confirm its function as a lime production structure, to obtain archaeomagnetic dates, and to extract sediment...
Chemical residues in ceramic household containers of Santa Cruz Atizapan site in the valley of Toluca, Mexico (2017)
The results of analysis of chemical residues are presented in a set of 2469 samples of archaeological ceramic artifacts: 434 foreign vessels (Kabata 2010), 452 samples of various types of local vessels (Pérez 2002, 2009), 480 comales (Terreros 2013), 470 pots, pans, 334 cazuleas, 140 braseros and 159 sahumadores. The containers correspond to the Late Classic and Epiclasic lakeside site occupation of Santa Cruz Atizapán, in Mexico State. Residues of protein, carbohydrates, fatty acids, phosphates...
Chert at Chalcatzingo: Implications of Knapping Strategies and Technological Organization for Formative Economics (2015)
The site of Chalcatzingo, at the eastern edge of the state of Morelos, Mexico, has been an important source of information about shifting economic and social dynamics during the Formative period. Lithic analyses focusing on the site's specialized obsidian knapping have played a significant role in showing Chalcatzingo's place as a trade hub situated at the boundary between the central highlands and Gulf Coast regions. This paper reports on the site's chert lithic assemblage and presents the...
Chichén Itzá and its maritime ports during the Terminal Classic period (2015)
The ancient city of Chichén Itzá reached its apogee as a regional capital in the tenth century. Part of this apogee included the territorial hegemony that Chichén Itzá exerted over a vast area of the maritime coasts of the Yucatán peninsula and Belize. By controlling the coasts, Chichén Itzá maintained strict authority over the different objects and merchandise that were distributed and exchanged throughout the maya lowlands in the Terminal Classic period. In order to control the distribution...
Child Burials and Figurines at a Terminal Classic Maya Household, Ceibal, Guatemala (2017)
The ancient Maya center of Ceibal is known for a florescence during the Terminal Classic period (c. AD 800-900), a time when most cities in the region were in decline. Excavations at the Karinel Group, a residential complex, have focused on the site’s Preclassic origins. However, an elite household also occupied the area during the Terminal Classic period. The residents built four house platforms around a patio, had access to high-status goods, and took part in crafting activities. Along the...
Children as social actors within the domestic group at Monte Albán, Oaxaca. Mexico (2015)
This paper starts from a micro and qualitative approach to describe and analyze the social position of individuals: children, women and men within various domestic units in Monte Alban, Oaxaca, through archaeological indicators of prestige, power and wealth. The methodology uses funerary practices and its meaning in social terms within the domestic group, to identify the social role especially of children, a sector of the population rarely studied. The location of burials into de domestic unit...
Chipped Tool Production and Exchange in Late Postclassic Tlaxcallan: Integrating Specialized Production with the Political Economy of a Collective State (2017)
Archaeological and ethnohistoric research has demonstrated that political-economic strategies in Late Postclassic (AD 1250 – 1521) Tlaxcallan were highly collective. At the same time, recent cross-cultural research indicates that collective political structures are strongly correlated with internal revenue sources, or taxes and corvée paid by free citizens. Thus, we hypothesize that Tlaxcaltecan political architects established internal revenue strategies to fund state activities. If this were...
Chiriqui 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...
Chirping Birds, Barking Dogs, and Singing Men: Ancient Ceramic Effigy Vessel Flutes from Tala, Jalisco, West Mexico (2017)
Duct flutes are an important class of aerophone instrument among the ancient and modern indigenous Americans. Duct flutes can be further classified into tubular and vessel types. While they are widely distributed, vessel flutes, unlike tubular flutes, are rarely depicted in regional iconographies. This is perhaps because they are small in size and generally hidden by the player’s hands and are thus difficult to portray in murals, vases and sculptures. However, this is not the case in West Mexico...
The Chronological Ceramic Sequence of Naranjo, Guatemala: A Revision and Relationship to Kaminaljuyu (2015)
Recent research at the site of Kaminaljuyu and the revision of the ceramic sequence has promoted a revision of Naranjo chronology and ceramics. The site of Naranjo is located 3 kms north of Kaminaljuyu and has a significant occupation during the Middle Preclassic. An abandonment of the site has been dated to around 500-400 BC, the moment when the first rise of Kaminaljuyu has been identified. The results of analysis presenting the relationships of various ceramic types from Naranjo connected...
The Chronology of Ancient Maya Cave Use in Belize (2016)
The prevalence of Late Classic cultural material in ancient Maya ritual cave sites has led both researchers and lay people to characterize cave use as a Late Classic phenomenon; yet, data collected by the Belize Cave Research Project under the direction of Holley Moyes and Jaime Awe demonstrates that many if not most caves were initially used during earlier temporal periods and many sites demonstrate continued use beginning in the Preclassic period. From 2011 to 2015, the regional project has...
Cinampas of Mexico (1964)
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Cities on the Move across Northwestern Mesoamerica: Contribution by Dominique Michelet (2018)
The paper aims at enhancing the contribution by Dominique Michelet and his teams to the knowledge of sedentism and urbanization on the northern and northwestern fringes of Mesoamerica (mainly San Luis Potosí, Guanajuato, Michoacán, Mexico). Distinct processes of mobility, migration and agglomeration developed in those regions, in particular with reversibility of sedentary life related to multiple factors, among which climatic and agrarian cycles are only partly known so far. Specific community...