Belize (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
1,851-1,875 (4,066 Records)
The stable isotope ratios of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen (δ13C, δ15N, and δ18O values) in animal tissues show promise as environmental indicators. We evaluated the use of chimpanzee hair and leporid (jackrabbit and cottontail) bones. Chimpanzee hair δ13C values correlate negatively with mean annual precipitation (MAP) as expected based on isotope variation in C3 plants, whereas δ15N values do not because of diet selectivity. Leporid bone δ13C values do not correlate with MAP because of leporid...
Infrastructures of Moving Water at a Terminal Classic Maya Site in Petén, Guatemala (2018)
What are the temporal dynamics of water infrastructures? Recent research at the Maya site of Ucanal in Petén, Guatemala, has identified several water management features, such as canals, dams, baffles, and roads, many of which drain water away from the site core and towards a nearby river, the Río Mopan. The heavy focus on water drainage rather than water storage is seemingly incongruous with paleoclimate data, which reveal evidence of droughts during the height of the site’s occupation. This...
Infrastructures of Race and War: Tracing Historic Roads in Postwar Quintana Roo (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The last half of the nineteenth century was for Yucatan, like much of the Atlantic World, a time of extreme tumult. Having recently gained its independence from Spain, the fledgling nation found itself plunged into numerous violent, political conflicts. None had so lasting an impact as what has become commonly known as the Caste War of Yucatan. Arguably...
An Inhabitant’s Perspective of Material Urban Structure at Chunchucmil (2018)
Maya urban archaeology is progressively addressing how to ‘people the past’, using data exploration techniques. The Chunchucmil map (Hutson and Magnoni 2017) offers an exemplary spatial data resource. Chunchucmil features here as a testing ground for showcasing the interpretive research advances enabled by Boundary Line Type (BLT) Mapping. BLT Mapping resulted from establishing a common frame of reference to make radical comparisons between Maya and contemporary urban patterns. The anticipation...
Initial Experimental Analysis of Soft Hammer Techniques in the Maya Lowlands (2018)
Lowland Maya lithic studies have traditionally focused on the rise of specialization at large urban centers. While many of these studies have focused on form and function of the tools produced, few focused on the technological means of tool production. Maya lithic studies have been assumed a priori to have been created using traditional means of hard-hammer and billet reduction. This paper reviews current evidence for the use of hardwoods in the production of stone tools, as well as provide an...
Initial Timing and Spread of the Eastern Agricultural Complex: Need for a Comprehensive Database (2018)
Extensive research has illuminated many aspects of the emergence of the Eastern Agricultural Complex, yet gaps remain surrounding the origin and spread of these early domesticated plants. The long-term goal of our research is to create a comprehensive, online database of accurately dated EAC plant samples similar to the Ancient Maize Map project (Laboratory of Archaeology, University of British Columbia). Compiling this chronology will contribute to our understanding of the social, economic, and...
Inland, Urban vs. Coastal, Rural Salt Production in the Southern Maya Lowlands: The View from Salinas de los Nueve Cerros (2017)
Salinas de los Nueve Cerros is the only non-coastal salt source in the Maya lowlands. For over two millennia, Nueve Cerros’ residents produced massive quantities of salt that was commercialized throughout the western Maya world. Unlike the Caribbean saltworks, the salt here was contained within a large urban zone. The saltworks used a variety of techniques to make the finished product, boiling brine and leaching salt-laden soils as in Paynes Creek but also scraping the salt flats. Each of these...
Innovation, Not Imitation: The Classic Period Ceramics of Belize (2024)
This is an abstract from the "“The Center and the Edge”: How the Archaeology of Belize Is Foundational for Understanding the Ancient Maya" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Entertaining the initial assessment of Belize as a secondary outpost of ancient Maya culture, Belize’s subordinate role should be reflected in its ceramic record based on conventional archaeological assumption. However, research since the 1980s proves this to be untrue. Our paper...
Inscription, Replication, and Production of Olmec Imagery and Regional Identities (2017)
The Early Formative period exhibits dramatic transformations in imagery and identity throughout Mesoamerica. Focusing on a time period before techniques for mold made and mass produced objects had been achieved, this paper explores replications that involved copies, iterations, and emulations of designs and imagery. At select sites in Mesoamerica, objects have been documented with Olmec-style imagery, some of which have been linked to the Gulf Coast Olmec society; in most cases, the Olmec...
The Inside/Outside Connection: A Spatial Analysis of Faunal Remains from Contact Period Maya Elite Structures at Lamanai, Belize (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Celebrating 20 Years of Support: Current Work by Recipients of the Dienje Kenyon Memorial Fellowship for Zooarchaeologists" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the colonial period, the Maya living in frontier zones retained much of their community-level sociocultural and hierarchical systems. At Lamanai, Belize, recent excavations of three elite residences provide an opportunity to examine the relationship between...
Insights from the Classic to Postclassic Pottery of Belize (2024)
This is an abstract from the "“The Center and the Edge”: How the Archaeology of Belize Is Foundational for Understanding the Ancient Maya" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For many years, Belize was considered to be peripheral to major social and cultural dynamics in the ancient Maya world. Recent pottery analyses in Belize, however, document that Classic and Postclassic Belize experienced some significant regional changes that inform our current...
Institutional Analysis of the Social Property System and its Application for the Management of Cultural Resources in Mexico (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In Mexico, archaeological sites are located on private, communal, ejido, federal or vacant land. The exercise of land ownership rights determines the type of technical and legal protection, which is usually assumed by the Mexican State. Generally, to mitigate risks, official archaeologists must carefully collaborate with public, private or common-pool...
"An Instrument for Seeing": The Multivalent Nature of Volcanic Glass in Mesoamerica (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Ceremonial Lithics of Mesoamerica: New Understandings of Technology, Distribution, and Symbolism of Eccentrics and Ritual Caches in the Maya World and Beyond" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Throughout Mesoamerica, obsidian commonly turns up in the form of prismatic blades, knives, projectile points and spearheads—pragmatic tools of daily work and routine life in the Pre-Columbian world. Yet these ordinary usages did...
Integrated compositional analysis of lowland Maya Middle Preclassic pottery at Holtun, Guatemala (2017)
The archaeological site of Holtun is an intermediate sized Maya civic-ceremonial center with documented occupation from the Middle Preclassic through Terminal Classic periods (800 BC – AD 900) featuring well-preserved cultural deposits in multiple contexts. Previously, NAA was conducted on an assemblage from the Middle Preclassic ceramics in which four discrete compositional groups were identified. One such group in particular was composed almost exclusively of Mars Orange Paste Ware, a product...
An Integrated Heavy-Lift Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and Remote Sensing Platform (2018)
We describe an integrated heavy-lift unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and remote sensing platform used to map archaeological features under the forest canopy in the northern Yucatán. We collaborated with Mobile Recon Systems Inc. to construct a UAV-based aerial mapping system that can be used to create high-resolution maps and 3D models of archaeological ruins, excavations, caves, and cenotes for small to medium-sized areas of the forested environment. The system integrates Light Detection and...
Integrating and Disintegrating the North Acropolis of Yaxuna, Yucatan, Mexico. (2017)
The North Acropolis of Yaxuna was the primary focus of ritual and administrative life at the site during the Classic period and functioned as a focal point for involving the local population in integrative activities. Yet architectural evidence suggests that this architectural complex changed in function over the course of its use. The acropolis was first built in the Late Formative and was modified up until the Late Postclassic. We argue that the changes we see in the architecture in this...
Integrating archaeobotany to provide Insight into domestic and public ritual in southern Brazil (2017)
Archaeobotanical results are integrated with archaeological and paleoecological data for the southern proto-Jê of the southern Brazilian highlands. Results from a domestic structure displays a pattern of architectural termination and renewal that not only uncovers an ancient ritual practice, but also reveals practices of plant management when considered alongside paleoecological data. Within the wider context, the data support a change in the performance of ritual practices revolving around fire...
Integrating Archaeological and Historical Information to Identify Agricultural Features and Reconstruct Traditional Hawaiian Irrigation Networks in windward Kohala, Hawai‘i Island (2017)
Where landscapes have been modified by recent development, identifying surface archaeological features requires a different analytical approach. In windward Kohala, Hawai‘i Island, after more than 150 years of land conversion to commercial agriculture features that comprised traditional Hawaiian irrigation agriculture have been mostly obscured. To address this, several sources of information were collected including historic documents and maps, previous and recent archaeological surveys, and...
Integrating Close-Range Photogrammetry Methods for Outdoor Scene Documentation of Scattered Remains (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Forensic Archaeology: Research & Practice" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Documenting the context of outdoor crime scenes with decomposing bodies and skeletal remains using traditional methods can pose a challenge due to the complexities of outdoor scenes and various taphonomic processes that can modify the remains and the scene. While the use of close-range photogrammetry (CRP) methods are currently more often...
Integrating Generations on the Formative Maya Landscape: Households and Communities at Tzacauil (2017)
Many Maya centers owe their longevity to the long-term persistence of their households, which were integrated as continuous social units throughout multiple generations. Yet how did the integration of the multigenerational Maya household first emerge? I address this question through the lens of the early farming village of Tzacauil, Yucatán, Mexico. In the Late Formative period (250 BC – AD 250)—the era in which Tzacauil was occupied and abandoned—people in the Maya area began using stone to...
Integrating LiDAR with Pedestrian Survey at the Ancient City of Angamuco, Michoacán, Mexico (2017)
Remote sensing techniques have enhanced studies of ancient urbanism particularly because they have improved the speed of data collection and our abilities to identify the extent of urban sites. Data derived from airborne laser scanning such as LiDAR have been rapidly incorporated to study settlement patterns in order to accelerate the survey process, but also to produce innovative and higher quality data. In this paper, we discuss the use of LiDAR and traditional pedestrian survey data at...
Integrating Low- and High-Precision Chronologies in North American Archaeology (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Three Sides of a Career: Papers in Honor of Robert L. Kelly" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Many archaeologists have questioned the value of using aggregated radiocarbon ages as a proxy measure of past human population growth. Most of these criticisms revolve around the lack of precision in these aggregated approaches. Higher-precision Bayesian approaches have often been presented as a better alternative. However,...
Integrating UAV-Based Photogrammetry, Digital Data Collection, and GIS during the Trincheras Tradition Project Excavations (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Trincheras Tradition Project is an ongoing collaborative effort to better understand the prehispanic past of Northwest Mexico. Led by Dr. Randall McGuire and Elisa Villalpando, researchers from Binghamton University and the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) spent two field seasons in 2017 and 2018 excavating three Trincheras Tradition...
The Integration of Island and Mainland Maya Communities: Perspectives from Ambergris Caye, Belize (2018)
After a span of over twenty years archaeological investigations have resumed at the San Pedro site, located in downtown San Pedro, Ambergris Caye. Investigations in the early 1990s revealed portions of a Spanish contact period Maya community that was settled as early as the 14th Century CE. Based on previous as well as ongoing investigations at the San Pedro site and other Maya sites on the island and the mainland, it appears that communities on the caye were linked to one another in various...
Intellectual Disability, Employment, and the Public Record (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeologies of Health, Wellness, and Ability" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Disability is a natural part of the human experience and our work as archaeologists should reflect this. The key to recognising and minimizing bias in our work is to include marginalized groups as much as possible. But in a field that by its traditional definition demands a high level of intellectual and physical rigor how can we best do...