Belize (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
1,276-1,300 (4,066 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Frontiers in Animal Management: Unconventional Species, New Methods, and Understudied Regions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Hawaiian featherwork constitutes a treasured element of Hawaiian cultural heritage. Feather artefacts curated in museums today were acquired between the late 18th and the early 20th centuries and it is clear that their production required thousands of feathers sourced from Hawaiian forest...
European Ceramics in the Caribbean: A Glimpse at Globalization during the Colonial Era (2021)
This is an abstract from the "NSF REU Site: Exploring Globalization through Archaeology 2019–2020 Session, St. Eustatius, Dutch Caribbean" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Dutch Caribbean island of St. Eustatius (Statia) was a free port for much of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries where the forces of globalization, such as people, resources, commodities, and ideas moved unceasingly, altering the world as it was and pushing it closer...
European Material Culture in Indigenous Sites in Northeastern Cuba (2017)
Northeastern Cuba, particularly the modern-day province of Holguin, is one of the areas of the Caribbean with the largest number of indigenous sites yielding European objects. In the sixteenth century, most of these sites maintained direct or indirect links with Europeans, while others were transformed into permanent colonial spaces by the Spaniards. The study of European objects found at these sites suggests that some of these items were acquired through exchange or as gifts. However, the...
Evaluating Archaeological Predictability Across the Western United States (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Novel Statistical Techniques in Archaeology II (QUANTARCH II)" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Human behavior is patterned in relation to the environment, and these patterns are approximated by the archaeological record. Similarly, the ability to discover archaeological material is patterned in relation to the environment. Geographic Information Systems and statistical software have been used to develop multiple...
Evaluating Digital Workflows in Academic and CRM Settings (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological field research can be expensive for a student or a small cultural resource management (CRM) firm. This poster proposes inexpensive and efficient methods for students conducting field research and CRM companies with limited startup resources. We discuss the results of field testing our digital workflow, which utilizes Avenza Maps Pro, a...
Evaluating Precolumbian Contact between Ecuador and Costa Rica: A Ceramic Approach (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Coastal Connections: Pacific Coastal Links from Mexico to Ecuador" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists have long noted similarities in ceramic technologies and traditions between Costa Rica and Ecuador. These are relevant for models of culture change, whether the result of direct interactions or parallel cultural processes in the emergence of social complexity. We test the alternatives of direct,...
Evaluating the Applicability of the Coimbra Method on an Archaeological Sample from Sint Eustatius (2021)
This is an abstract from the "NSF REU Site: Exploring Globalization through Archaeology 2019–2020 Session, St. Eustatius, Dutch Caribbean" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. To uncover details of past people’s day to day life, bioarchaeologists have attempted to reconstruct possible activity patterns by examining changes that occur at musculoskeletal markers, called entheseal sites (ES). While there is general agreement about the overall effect of...
Evaluating the Food Values of Alternative Crops and Implications for Drought Effects on the Ancient Maya (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Far from being limited to maize, beans, and squash, the ethnographic Maya are known to make use of 497 species of food plants indigenous to the Maya Lowlands. This study presents initial results of determining “food values” based on nutritional content for these plant species, and the methods used to determine the values. The results have significant...
Evaluating the Radiocarbon Record of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands (2018)
The Lower Pecos Canyonlands archaeological region in southwest Texas and northern Mexico at the eastern limit of the Chihuahuan Desert is best known for the excellent organic preservation and polychrome pictographs found in dry limestone rockshelters. Radiocarbon dates from the Lower Pecos Canyonlands (LPC) can be used to address broad research questions pertaining to economic strategies (e.g., earth oven plant baking and bison hunting), and settlement patterns, as well as narrower topics such...
Evaluating Turkey Wellness and Treatment in the Maya World (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Current Research on Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) Domestication, Husbandry and Management in North America and Beyond" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As the primary domesticated animal in prehistoric Mesoamerica, the turkey occupied a prominent and multivalent role in society, as a food source, a feather provider, and a subject of ritual sacrifice. The preponderance of turkey remains across the archaeological record of...
An Evaluation of Obsidian Projectile Point Chronology and Possible Sourcing in the Tehuacan Valley, Mexico (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Innovations and Transformations in Mesoamerican Research: Recent and Revised Insights of Ancestral Lifeways" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Obsidian, a volcanic glass, was widely used in Mesoamerica for cutting tools, weapons, jewelry, and ritual objects since the Paleoindian period (ca. 9000 BC). Because its sources have unique chemical signatures, obsidian provides a durable and measurable index of interactions...
An evaluation of stingless bee wax as a pattern material in Mesoamerican investment casting (2017)
Mesoamerican metal objects have been studied in-depth in terms of alloys and production techniques, but little work has been carried out on the foundry materials used in the pre-Hispanic casting process. In modern foundry practice, synthetic waxes, paraffins, or processed European honeybee wax (from the Apis genus) are commonly used as pattern materials. One possible ancient Mesoamerican pattern material is the wax of the stingless bee Melipona beecheii, a species known to be cultivated by the...
Everyday Life During the Late Terminal Classic in the Cochuah Region (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Following a peak in construction activity during the Terminal Classic, most of the 105 sites documented in the Cochuah Region in the central Yucatan Peninsula were abandoned with only a fraction boasting minor Postclassic activity in the form of small shrines and temples. However, at a number of settlements, a much-reduced population continued during a newly...
Everyday Life in a Maya Center: New Data towards Social, Economic, and Ritual Behavior at the Ancient City of Dos Hombres (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Ancient Maya Landscapes in Northwestern Belize, Part I" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The current research in the Dos Hombres civic ceremonial center utilizes the lens of "everyday life" in order to understand the internal ritual, economic, social, and ideological activities of this ancient city, as well as how it interacted with the surrounding household hinterlands, and the socio-political and economic role this...
Everyday Objects and the Lived Experience: Inhabiting Gufuskálar, a Late Medieval Icelandic Fishing Station (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SANNA v2.2: Case Studies in the Social Archaeology of the North and North Atlantic" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Early Icelandic fishing stations are understood primarily through the shifting role of fishing within the Icelandic economy and the importance of fish provisioning within the North Atlantic. Thus, less focus has been placed on studying the lived experiences and domestic lives of people who worked at and...
Evidence for complex society at Middle Preclassic La Venta settlements (2017)
In the past, abundant ceremonial evidence found at La Venta and other Gulf Coast Olmec sites has spawned widely ranging views on the emergence of complex society in Mesoamerica. Evidence of dense local riverine settlement was gained from my survey at La Venta and surrounding sites in 1986-7, revealing household sites both on La Venta and surrounding villages on abandoned river courses. The chronological sequence has been guided by over 50 radiocarbon dates recovered from a series of domestic...
Evidence for Early Sedentary Occupation in the Yaxnohcah Region, Campeche, Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Early settlement at Yaxnohcah appears to have been widespread throughout a landscape covering over 40km2. In this paper, we specifically discuss the distribution of this settlement in the period from 900-700 BCE and contrast it to the distribution from 700-300 BCE. Initial analyses suggest that the spatial range of the settlement contracted in the latter...
Evidence for Forest Clearance and Food Production in Lapita and Post-Lapita Fiji (2018)
Investigations at the site of Qaraqara have sought to determine the antiquity of forest clearance and food production in Fiji. Located over 25 km inland from the coast, archaeological excavation has indicated that the site was used for habitation and cultivation, producing a ceramic-rich deposit that extends to a depth of 250 cm. Geoarchaeological analyses of sediment cores from Qaraqara reached 500 cmbs, and document the formation of stable soils by 3000 BP, during the Lapita period. Plant...
Evidence for the Emergence of Social Complexity in Early Formative Period Coastal Oaxaca, Mexico (2017)
The emergence of sociopolitical complexity, and its connections to other developments such as changing subsistence and domestic mobility, has been a central theme of archaeology for over a century. Mesoamerica has been no exception to this trend, and scholars of pre-Columbian Mexico and Central America have scrutinized socioeconomic correlates of changing political integration and centralization. One concept central to this research has been that of hereditary hierarchical inequality. In fact,...
Evidence of diet and food consumption from Chavin de Huantar during the Middle and Late Andean Formative (1200 – 550 BCE) (2017)
Excavations carried out at the Wacheqsa sector at Chavín de Huantar identified archaeological contexts from the Middle Formative (1200 – 900 cal BCE) and Late Formative (900 – 550 Cal BCE). In this paper we present preliminary results of starch analysis carried on in culinary equipment (ceramics) retrieved from domestic occupations from the Middle and Late Formative periods and a large midden, originated from the discard of feasting remains during the Late Formative period. Microbotanical...
Evidence of Exchange in Precolumbian Ceramics from Isla Colon, Bocas del Toro, Panama (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Materials in Movement in the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Isla Colon, the largest island in the Bocas del Toro archipelago on Panama’s northwest coast, has a unique density of archaeological features in the region. Sitio Drago, the largest site yet found on the island, includes ceremonial and settlement mounds and a diverse and sizable assemblage of subsistence remains and cultural materials....
Evidence of Meteor Shower Outbursts Recorded in the Classic Maya Hieroglyphic Script Using Orbital Integrations (2018)
No firm evidence has existed that the ancient Maya civilization recorded specific occurrences of meteor showers or oubursts in the corpus of Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions. In fact, there has been no evidence of any pre-hispanic civilization in the Western Hemisphere recording any observations of any meteor showers on any specific dates. The authors numerically integrated meteoroid-sized particles released by Comet Halley as early as 1404 BC to identify years within the Maya Classic Period, AD...
Evolution of Elite Residence at San Martín Tilcajete, 500-100 B.C. (2017)
Between 1995 and 2014, we directed 11 seasons of horizontal excavation in and around the main plazas of two Formative Period sites, El Mogote and El Palenque, near San Martín Tilcajete in the Oaxaca Valley. Our results indicate that major changes occurred in public architecture and elite residence between the Early Monte Albán I phase (500-300 B.C.) occupation at El Mogote and the Late Monte Albán I phase (300-100 B.C.) site of El Palenque. In view of the evidence of fundamental cultural...
The Evolution of Plant Resource Diversity in Precolonial Puerto Rico with Direct Implications for the Rest of the Greater Antilles (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Coloring Outside the Lines: Re-situating Understandings of the Lifeways of Earliest Peoples of the Circum-Caribbean" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Except for Jamaica, the earliest human occupations in the Greater Antilles date to ca. 6000 cal yr BP. Contrary to older ideas, the view taking shape now is that survival strategies incorporated a range of plant domesticates along with wild resources obtained through...
Evolution of the Aztec Tecpan Palace (2017)
Sahagún called the Aztec palace a place of wisdom, and in the mature Aztec empire, sages of all kinds gathered in the tecpans and were members of elite families. The power of ruling families was based, in part, on their more sophisticated education, including divination and curing, and palaces as centers of knowledge served their communities. We know this from descriptions of contact-era imperial palaces, and we also know that these impressive places were the products of the evolution of the...