Belize (Country) (Geographic Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Myra Jean Tuggle.

This is an abstract from the "Research and CRM Are Not Mutually Exclusive: J. Stephen Athens—Forty Years and Counting" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Above the 400 foot sea cliff at Kealakekua Bay on the leeward Kona coast of Hawai‘i are the remnants of extensive pre-Contact Hawaiian agricultural infrastructure. Inventory survey and data recovery on 100-plus acres at the top of the sea cliff provided an opportunity to examine a relatively large...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Jacob Griffith-Rosenberger. Reagan Neviska. Chelsea Katzeman.

Candeleros are simply made ceramic artifacts that consist of one or more cylindrical chambers that are usually circularly arranged and often show signs of burning. These objects are found widely across Mesoamerica though they are rare in most locales. The 100 km2 Naco Valley in northwestern Honduras diverges from this pattern in that: candeleros are frequently found in Terminal Classic (800-1000 CE) assemblages here; they vary in size from items containing a single chamber to others with upwards...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jemima Georges.

This is an abstract from the "Recent Research in the Petén Lakes Region, Petén, Guatemala" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Petén Lakes region of Petén, Guatemala, sits on karst bedrock and is home to a series of lake chains, the largest of which is Lake Petén Itzá. Nixtun-Ch’ich’ lies on the lake’s western arm. The lowland’s limestone topography allows for high drainability of water resulting in scarce surface hydrology. Aside from the few...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nobutaka Hirahara.

East Cape, the southeastern tip of Papua New Guinea mainland, is one of the pottery production areas in southern Massim. Domestic pottery production has continued to the present day, mainly made by female potters to supply their own needs. However, more extensive pottery production beyond the household level occasionally occurs, especially when funerals (toleha) are held. Toleha are organized by the matrilineal descent group (guguni) of a dead person; the potters who belong the descent group get...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Boyd Dixon. Michael Dega.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Feasting and gift-giving in the ethnography, history, and archaeology of native peoples in Southeast Asia and its islands in the Western Pacific are often given primacy in accounts of academic fieldwork. Some ethnohistoric accounts on the pre-Contact and Spanish Colonial Chamorro people indigenous to Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands of Micronesia also...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Whitney Goodwin.

This is an abstract from the "Ceramics and Archaeological Sciences 2024" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. At the site of Selin Farm (AD 300–1000) in northeastern Honduras, recent research revealed repeated episodes of large-scale feasting occurring over a period of nearly a thousand years leading up to major shifts in local social and political organization (Goodwin 2019; Reeder-Myers et al. 2021). Shell midden mounds at the site contain large...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mario Zimmermann. Gabriel Ortiz A la triste.

This is an abstract from the "Advancing Public Perceptions of Sustainability through Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Food security and food adequacy are at the core of many sustainability debates. Growing urban populations and a simultaneous decline in staple crops are severe threats to both. While the relation between rising demographics and subsistence has been a focus of scholarly debate in anthropology, crop diversity in ancient...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeff Kowalski.

This is an abstract from the "Tales of the Feathered Serpent: Refining Our Understanding of an Enigmatic Mesoamerican Being" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. At Uxmal, Yucatán, monumental plumed snakes appear in the sculptural program of the Main Ballcourt and Nunnery Quadrangle. These feathered serpents express complex concepts connected to their pan-Mesoamerican role as a demiurge associated with dawning light, life force, and cosmic order...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Geoffrey McCafferty.

This is an abstract from the "Tales of the Feathered Serpent: Refining Our Understanding of an Enigmatic Mesoamerican Being" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Polychrome pottery from the Greater Nicoya region of Central America prominently features ‘feathery serpents’ that have been associated with the Mixteca-Puebla tradition of greater Mesoamerica. A closer look at the variety of ‘feathery serpents’ has discriminated between more Borgia-like images...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Palus.

This is an abstract from the "In Search of Solutions: Exploring Pathways to Repatriation for NAGPRA Practitioners (Part III)" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Federal agencies and repositories holding federal collections have been bound to curation standards often developed without consideration for nontangible values and needs and a legacy of collecting practices intended to preserve the past yet uninformed by the interests and concerns of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yesenia Landa. Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach. Thomas Garrison. Timothy Beach. Byron Smith.

This is an abstract from the "La Cuernavilla, Guatemala: A Maya Fortress and Its Environs" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. La Cuernavilla is an ancient Maya site situated in the El Zotz Biotope in the central Petén of Guatemala. This study focuses on the paleoenvironmental changes, agricultural subsistence, and occupational trajectories of La Cuernavilla, based on data gathered from across the larger landscape between 2009 and 2017 on the Proyecto...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Clarissa Cagnato. Olivia Navarro-Farr. Griselda Pérez Robles. Juan Carlos Pérez Calderón. Damaris Menéndez.

Structure M13-1, a major civic-ceremonial building at the center of the Classic Maya city El Perú-Waka’ in northwestern Petén, Guatemala, held special significance to its citizenry. While it was likely ritually significant since the Early Classic period, evidence indicates it was the focus of sustained and repeated ceremonial acts of likely varying scales, accouterment, and practitioners throughout the Late and Terminal Classic periods (circa A.D. 600-900). In this paper, we explore data from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Corey Bowen. John Janusek.

A regimented canon of ceramic production emerged at the site of Tiwanaku in the 5th-6th century AD, coinciding with the transformation of the site from a local ritual center to a regional political authority. The highly standardized range of forms and painted imagery it produced presents great potential for an extensive analysis of both complete and fragmented Tiwanaku-style vessels. To date, most analyses of Tiwanaku ceramic vessels have categorically centered on form in order to facilitate...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emilie LeBrell. Geoffrey G. McCafferty. Sharisse D. McCafferty.

This is an abstract from the "Mesoamerican Figurines in Context. New Insights on Tridimensional Representations from Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Female figurines of the Greater Nicoya region feature a 2000-year history of thematic continuity. During the Formative and Classic periods (locally Tempisque and Bagaces periods), figurines were often red-slipped, nude females in a seated, kneeling or standing position with hands on hips;...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sonia Alconini.

Samaipata was one of the largest centers of the Southeastern Inka frontier. Multifunctional in nature, it was an important advance point toward the tropical lowlands. Despite the intrusions of the Guaraní-Chiriguanos, this region witnessed complex processes of settlement reorganization. This was particularly the case of the fertile valley of Mairana, an important breadbasket of this frontier outpost. Occupied by the Mojocoya and Gray Ware archaeological cultures, their inhabitants produced...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Herve Monterrosa Desruelles.

This is an abstract from the "Approaches to Cultural and Biological Complexity in Mexico at the Time of Spanish Conquest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. It is well a known fact among researchers that the only confirmed jade deposits in Mesoamerica are found in the middle Motagua Valley in Guatemala. This gem’s brightest shades of green were the most appreciated among Mesoamerican people, yet, barely three hundred objects made with emerald green...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tracy Martens.

In 2008, Chris Carter of the Australian National University (ANU) and Calogero Santoro of Universidad de Tarapacá de Arica (UTA) excavated at Caleta Vitor, located at the coastal mouth of Quebrada Chaca in northern Chile. The site was occupied from at least 13,000 BP through to the Spanish invasion and came to world attention when it was featured on ABC Catalyst (ABC iView , 2009). This research project is aimed at identifying and establishing the provenience of the well preserved textiles and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Harriet "Rae" Beaubien.

The information potential of skeletal remains – as for any excavated material – is impacted by the conditions of archaeological burial, and the environments and actions encountered during subsequent excavation, laboratory processing, study, and storage. A conservation approach emphasizes the mitigation of threats to material stability and integrity, which for excavated collections are often most critical at the point of archaeological exposure and recovery. Techniques and materials in use by...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Helen Henderson.

This is an abstract from the "I Love Sherds and Parasites: A Festschrift in Honor of Pat Urban and Ed Schortman" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper reflects on the singular importance of field school experiences, such as the semester abroad program of Kenyon College, for supporting students as they come to understand the social context of professional life in Latin American Archaeology and their ability to positively contribute to an...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark McCoy. Jesse Casana. Thegn Ladefoged.

This is an abstract from the "Finding Fields: Locating and Interpreting Ancient Agricultural Landscapes" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The significance of urbanization and royal centers in the development of productive agricultural systems and state formation has been minimized in the Hawaiian Islands. Today, thanks to several key methodological advances, especially remote sensing using lidar, we are closer than ever to an integrated and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Karleen Ronsairo.

La Blanca was one of two major regional centers during the Conchas phase (900-600 B.C.E.) of the Middle Preclassic period in the Soconusco region of Pacific Guatemala. Household differentiation and social stratification at Preclassic sites in this region can be explored by analyzing the distribution of ceramic figurines across elite and commoner households at La Blanca. Through an analysis of typological distributions of figurines from La Blanca, I provide insight into the production and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Damien Marken. Matthew Ricker. Robert Austin.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One of the limiting factors to settlement aggregation in the Maya lowlands is the availability of potable water. With few perennial surface rivers and lakes, the ancient Maya collected water from rainfall for consumption. In areas with high population densities, such as Classic period cities, this required engineering the built landscape to funnel water for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Evan Parker. Kenneth E. Seligson.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Proyecto Arqueológico de Sitios de Pesqueña Escala en el Puuc Oriental (PASPEPO) recently completed an intensive mapping and surface collection program at three small-scale sites in the eastern Puuc Region of the northern Maya lowlands. Using lidar-derived digital terrain models (DTMs) as a baseline for settlement pattern identification, we identified...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marc Wolf. Thomas Guderjan.

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. For several decades, MRP (Maya Research Program) has been working to amass an enormous base of survey and mapping data from the Three Rivers (Blue Creek, Bravo, Booth’s) and upper La Lucha escarpment region of Belize. Over 50 archaeological sites have been precisely recorded using innovative technologies and techniques that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Arlen Chase. Diane Chase.

Excavations within various locales at Caracol, Belize have recovered artifactual materials on the floors of epicentral stone buildings that were associated with the latest occupation of the site epicenter. These deposits are the result of both "de facto" refuse and rapid short-term abandonment processes. In many cases, complete vessels and other artefactual remains were recovered from the floors of Caracol’s epicentral buildings. Other terminal deposits comprise thin sheet-like layers of broken...