Maya (Other Keyword)
176-200 (495 Records)
Technological and distributional analysis of the lithic collections from Cancuen, La Corona, Rio Bec and Naachtun show that the same goods were produced under different production contexts, some specific debitage being deposited in elite cache, whereas the same flakes were also gathered in domestic refuse. This suggests that some aspects of production were carried out in independent workshops, but a part of some knapping actions were given as tribute with particular stages of debitage held in...
Food and Foodways at Sihó, Yucatán: Understanding Socioeconomic Diversity (2017)
In the past as in the present, foodways and cuisine have been expressions of identity and status. Different social strata had different access to natural resources and offer a variety of material expressions related to food, preparation and service, from grinding stones to exquisite art works. In Classic Maya society, some foodstuffs such as cacao, were mentioned and painted in beautiful elite wares, as well as in murals and carvings. At Sihó, Yucatán, archaeological projects developed by the...
A Forgotten Facet of Fedick: Scott's Contributions to Maya Lithics Research (2015)
Scott's body of multidisciplinary and collaborative research resists categorization to a single rubric, even in ones as broad as historical ecology or cultural geography. However, many archaeologists I've met who haven't worked directly with him only understand his long-term research projects within these two paradigms. Few remember or realize that Scott began his graduate school career examining the lithic economy of the Tikal-Yaxha survey transect and that he has continued to facilitate and...
Form and Function of a Dual-Chambered Chultun at the Medicinal Trail Community, Northwestern Belize (2016)
The chultun from Group H at the Medicinal Trail Community in northwestern Belize was an unsealed, dual chambered feature filled with lithic debitage and sparse ceramic evidence. The chultun was located on the southern side of the dual level Structure H-1. The chambers had doomed roofs and walls with a sill leading into the largest chamber, the western chamber. The eastern chamber was small and was more of a niche than a chamber to be entered. Although storage is suggested by the small size of...
Forms and Meanings of Human Fire Exposure among the Northern Lowland Maya (2015)
This paper explores some of the forms, occasions, and meanings of human fire exposure among the Northern Lowland Maya during the Classic period. Conceptual points of departure are native concepts of heat, smoke and fire, together with their transformative powers in human beings, ritual enactment, and physicality. These notions provide blueprints for the spectrum of treatments documented in the area’s mortuary record, spanning veneration, profanation and/or sacrifice. Combining forensic...
Foundations to the Late Classic Kingdom: Copan in the 6th century CE (2017)
Historical and archaeological data support interpretation of Classic Maya polities as centralized states—strongly integrated organizations with stratified and hierarchical political structures led by rulers wielding coercive power. Yet archaeology is often hard pressed to identify changes instigated by individuals or events, or define watershed moments when particular sites or regions coalesced as states. By the early sixth century CE, the kingdom of Copan had established itself as a dominant...
Friends, Foes, or Uneasy Acquaintances? Copan's Relationship with its Neighbors (2016)
A recent mapping and excavation project in the Copan Valley is taking a second view of communities outside of the Copan Pocket. The goal of this project is two-fold, one, to understand the environmental context of these sites, and two, to understand the relationship between them and the powerful leaders of the Copan Acropolis. It is unlikely that the kingdom of Copan could have reached its apogee without the support and subordination of its closest neighbors, a diversity of towns, villages and...
From "Star Wars" to Attack of the Kaan (2015)
Over the past 25 years, epigraphic research on the Classic Maya has demonstrated that political alliances and warfare were not only widespread but also structured in such a manner to suggest a greater degree of political centralization than originally contemplated. Texts carved on ancient monuments suggest that lowland Maya society of the Classic period (AD 250-850) was characterized by a rivalry between two major capital cities, Calakmul and Tikal, who sought to dominate the Maya lowlands....
From A Forest of Kings to the Forests of Petén: The Mirador Group at El Perú-Waka’ (2015)
More than 10 years of research at El Perú-Waka’, carried out under the co-direction of David Freidel and several Guatemalan collaborators, has resulted in a wealth of information about this ancient city and the role its rulers and residents played in the Classic Maya world. Enhanced through his work with Linda Schele, Freidel’s persistent focus on the interplay between ancient history and archaeology—on stelae, buildings, and people—has shaped research at Waka’, located in Guatemala’s Laguna del...
From Cacao to Sugar: Long-Term Maya Economic Entanglement in Colonial Guatemala (2016)
This paper explores highland Maya sugar production as a product of later colonial entanglement influenced by precolonial and early colonial innovations and traditions. In the mid-17th century, the colonial Kaqchikel Maya community of San Pedro Aguacatepeque is described as a producer of sugar. Hoewever, the community’s embrace of sugar cane production (and associated sugar products) emerged in a complicated manner: as a product of preexisting precolonial and early colonial cacao tribute...
From hero objects to foam blocks: Contextualizing the archaeological record in Maya: Hidden Worlds Revealed (2016)
Maya: Hidden Worlds Revealed is a 10,000- to 15,000-square-foot traveling exhibition created through multi-national, multi-institutional partnerships and intended to appeal to museum visitors of all ages. The core of the exhibition is a collection of more than 200 stunning and thought-provoking archaeological artifacts and ethnographic objects from throughout the Maya world. These objects provide visitors opportunities to engage with the authentic Maya past, the Maya today, and the work of...
From Quarry to Household: The Economics of Limestone Bifaces among the Classic Maya of Buenavista del Cayo, Belize (2015)
Limestone is one of the most abundant stone resources over much of the Maya lowlands and scholarly research has been focused on its use as a construction material. Limestone was also used to create a variety of portable items, such as manos, metates, bark beaters, and bifaces. In this paper we examine the evidence for production, exchange, and consumption of limestone general utlity bifaces in the Bueanvista del Cayo zone, Belize during the Classic period. Although chert bifaces are more...
From Quelites to Crop Indices: Thinking Through Maya Chenopods (2017)
While chenopod cultivation has been documented extensively in North and South America, evidence for similar practices in the Maya area is lacking. Macrobotanical evidence of Chenopodium recovered from pre-Hispanic Maya archaeological sites is limited to a few seeds. In contrast, the palynological record suggests widespread tolerance across the entirety of the Maya area, if not intensive management or even cultivation of Cheno-am genera in some contexts. It is likely that chenopods are an...
From Quelites to Crop Indices: Thinking Through Maya Chenopods (2017)
While chenopod cultivation has been documented extensively in North and South America, evidence for similar practices in the Maya area is lacking. Macrobotanical evidence of Chenopodium recovered from pre-Hispanic Maya archaeological sites is limited to a few seeds. In contrast, the palynological record minimally suggests widespread tolerance across the entirety of the Maya area, if not intensive management or in some contexts even cultivation of Cheno-am genera. It is likely that chenopods...
From the Known to the Unknown: Exposing a Middle Preclassic Maya Power Structure at Pacbitun, Belize (2017)
The Middle Preclassic (900-300 BC) is known as a time for developing complexity in Maya society. The most perceptible evidence of this development is exhibited in the construction of the earliest forms of monumental architecture. However, for areas like the Belize River Valley, these structures are uncommon and poorly understood. Now, with the discovery of a large Middle Preclassic platform at the site of Pacbitun, we have the opportunity to increase our understanding of early monumental...
Functional Flesh: A Consideration of Bodily Loci in Classic Maya Bloodletting Practices (2016)
Bloodletting is generally accepted as a pan-mesoamerican practice, varying both in ideology and process. The Classic Maya drew blood from two specific areas: men most commonly let blood from their genitals while women more often let blood from their tongue or cheeks. Previous research into the choice of oral and genital perforation for nonpermanent piercing includes little investigated functional qualities, which may have been a key factor for locus choice. I argue that the functionality of...
Gardens of the Maya (2016)
Houselot gardens are defined as cultivated spaces adjacent to households used to grow flowers, herbs, vegetables, and fruits. Gardens function as a primary source of many food items including staples, condiments, medicines, and spices; they provide many non-food items such as dyes, construction materials, or ornamentals; and also often provide food to sell in markets. Crops grown in houselot gardens encompass primary and secondary crops as well as those grown for both individual household use...
Geochemical Analysis of Maya Commoner Houses and the Spaces in Between at Actuncan, Belize (2016)
This research considers commoner activity patterns by investigating the results of a geochemical analysis of 500+ samples from earthen surfaces at Actuncan, a prehispanic Maya city located in western Belize. Samples derive from Terminal Classic surfaces of commoner houses as well as the open spaces surrounding them. Archaeological research has often focused on areas that contain visible architecture, since those regions are most easily recognizable as places that contained ancient activity,...
The Geophysical Investigations at the Tzib Group in Pacbitun, Belize (2016)
The archaeological site of Pacbitun is one of the ancient sites that was inhabited by the Maya for approximately two thousand years. It is located in the west central side of Belize, near the town of San Antonio. Exploration of the surveyed areas revealed a smaller archaeological site in 2011 known as the Tzib Group, also known as “Mano Mound” due to the significant amounts of mano fragments found on the surface. In the 2014 summer season, geophysical data was collected using an instrument...
Getting Carried Away - A Petroglyphic Litter Scene from Cenote Ceh' Yax, Yucatan, Mexico (2016)
During reconnaissance in a dry cenote at the small site of Ceh’ Yax, Mexico, members of the Central Yucatan Archaeological Cave Project discovered an in-situ monument incised with a petroglyphic scene depicting a dignitary seated within a litter. Although litters are not commonly shown in Mesoamerican imagery, they do appear on lintels, wall graffiti, codex-style Maya vases, and as ceramic effigies. This paper will present an analysis of Mesoamerican litter iconography which will demonstrate...
Giant Sloths, Ancient Maya Jars, and the Cave of the Black Mirror: Underwater Cenote Research at the Cara Blanca Pools, Belize (2018)
This research focuses on ancient Maya settlement at the Cara Blanca Pools, a string of 25 freshwater cenotes and lakes located in west-central Belize. Pool 1 has been the most extensively explored, with a depth of 235 feet and a geological makeup where the pool extends deep underneath the surrounding cliffs, becoming an underwater cave. The underwater cave component is named "Actun Ek Nen," which translates to "Black Mirror Cave" in the Mayan language. Our underwater exploration, methodology,...
Good Neighbors: Investigating Maya Neighborhood Organization in Northern Belize (2016)
Socio-spatial constructs that loosely translate as "neighborhoods" are found within many indigenous Mesoamerican communities. Unfortunately, the phenomenon receives less attention and commentary by observers of contemporary lowland Maya place-making. Nevertheless, archaeologists have long suspected that ancient lowland communities possessed multiple spatial subdivisions; and, at long last, neighborhood archaeology would seem to be a growing focus of research. To date, however, the physical...
Hallowed (under)Ground – Ancient Maya Dark Zone Use Patterns in the Subterranean Realm of Yaxcaba, Central Yucatan, Mexico (2015)
Cave explorers and scholars classify the different light zones of underground spaces into three categories – light, twilight, and dark. Despite the practical challenges ancient people faced while traveling into and through dark zones (those entirely devoid of light), it is common across the Maya region to find rich evidence that demonstrates that these spaces were heavily utilized during Precolumbian times. Research conducted during the 2009 - 2011 field seasons of the Central Yucatan...
Harrison's View: The Importance of Small Scale Analyses in Maya Archaeology (2015)
Peter Harrison's work in Maya archaeology was important in many ways. One of the most important, and perhaps overlooked, was the scale of focus at which he often worked. Single features, single rooms, single buildings, and single plazas: all of these are commonly uncovered when digging in Maya site centers. However, due to a lack of artifacts, analyses at these scales are not often conducted. Harrison's work exemplifies that much can be learned from small-scale architectural analyses and in that...
Hilltops and States in the Usumacinta River Basin (2016)
The ordering of space has been a focus of state-building initiatives since the formation of the earliest centralized polities. Landscape archaeologists are especially well situated to contribute to discussions regarding how states succeed and fail to control diverse populations in topographically complex areas. During the Late Classic period, the Middle Usumacinta Basin supported numerous regional polities, including Piedras Negras and Yaxchilan, that vied for supremacy over terrain broken by...