Belize (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
2,451-2,475 (4,066 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Living Landscapes: Disaster, Memory, and Change in Dynamic Environments " session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The oral tradition of the Chilla landscape distinguishes two main stories: the first one portrays the apparition of the Virgin Mary, and the second one narrates the Mayan origins of its inhabitants. However, Chilla is in El Oro province, where a monumental pyramid and other neighboring sites correspond to the...
Movement and Vision: Reconstruction and Analysis of a Multi-Occupation Fortified Site Complex in the Moche Valley (2017)
This poster reports the results of non-invasive field prospection using aerial drone photogrammetry to map and reconstruct surface architecture at two multi-occupation archaeological sites in the Moche Valley of Peru. Sites MV-42 and MV-49 (Puente Serrano) make up a fortified and possibly ceremonial center complex located in the middle valley. The sites were occupied contiguously during the Salinar, Gallinazo, and Early Moche phases (EIP; 400 B.C.-A.D. 400), with a later re-occupation by the...
A Movement at the Margins: An Icelandic Rural Transformation at the Edge of the 19th Century Atlantic World (2018)
In the early modern Atlantic World, core/periphery mercantile economics ascribed a marginal place for Iceland. The island's role in trade involved the production of low-cost bulk goods destined for markets mostly via Denmark into the 19th century. The focal area of this paper, the rural and upland Mývatn region, was in some ways socially and ecologically marginal even within Iceland. The growing environment was affected by unpredictable cold weather while volatile erosion zones hemmed local...
Movers or Moved? An Iso-histological Approach to the Postmortem Movement of Prehispanic Maya Human Remains (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Integrating Isotope Analyses: The State of Play and Future Directions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Death was not the end for many members of Prehispanic Maya communities (250 BC–1560 AD). Indeed, the inclusion of human remains in structures that continued to function indicates that the dead (or their significance to the living) maintained social if not biological vitality. Although there is also ample evidence that...
Moving Beyond: Using Methods of Assessing Holocene Environmental Change in Northwestern Guyana (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology on the Edge(s): Transitions, Boundaries, Changes, and Causes" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. To assess Holocene dietary changes we conducted isotopic analysis of human and faunal remains from seven shell mounds in Northwestern Guyana. We used stable carbon 13C and oxygen 18O isotope compositions data to assess the degree of dietary constancy as a proxy for determining the likelihood of there being any...
Moving Off-Road: Traversing Taskscapes at Wari Camp, Belize (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Manifesting Movement Materially: Broadening the Mesoamerican View" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The study of movement has long been relegated to the background of archaeological investigations, as its materialization proves multifarious yet equally elusive. The resulting collection of archaeological "movement studies" generally focuses on the most formalized manifestation of movement: road systems. Yet at the...
Moving within the ‘A‘ā: The Influence of Liminality in the Hinterlands of Manukā, Ka‘ū, Hawai‘i Island (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Rethinking Hinterlands in Polynesia" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Situated at the transition between windward and leeward sides of the island of Hawai‘i, Manukā is a tapestry of environmental and sociopolitical gradients perpetually reconfigured by the lava flows from Mauna Loa. As a geographically liminal region, place-names describe it as where "the trade winds of Ka‘ū give way to the gentle breezes of Kona." The...
Multi-crafting in Coexisting Gallinazo-Moche Contexts at Songoy-Cojal, North Coast, Peru (2017)
Over the past few decades, it has been recognized that craft studies often overlook the social significance of crafts practiced concurrently. How does the selection of certain types of materials inform on the relationship between manufacturers and consumers? Does multi-crafting imply broader social relations? Or does multi-crafting imply locally meaningful social relationships through the various types of crafts produced? This paper explores the multi-craft traditions practiced in coexisting...
A Multi-instrument Geophysical Survey for the Identification of Preclassic Ritual Deposits at Cahal Pech, Belize (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Preclassic (~1000 BC-AD 300) marked the appearance of increased socio-political integration and the emergence of inequality in the Maya lowlands. Over the course of the Preclassic, emerging elites invested in monumental construction projects and consolidated their ritual authority with ceremonial events, which occurred in large public plazas. As one of...
A Multi-proxy Investigation of Settlement on Pingelap Atoll, Pohnpei State, Federated States of Micronesia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pacific atolls are generally regarded as challenging places to live. In addition to being far from other land masses, most have low biodiversity, limited access to freshwater, and are susceptible to extreme weather. However, settlers established residence on atolls in the Micronesian region as early as 2,000 years ago. This paper presents the first major...
Multi-Scalar Analysis of Copper and Silver Production under the Inka: A Case Study from Northern Chile (2017)
Andean prehistory witnessed the development of numerous regional metallurgical traditions that were harnessed and significantly restructured as the Inka empire (AD 1400-1532) expanded along western South America. Taking the Tarapacá Valley of northern Chile as a case study, I analyze how imperial incorporation altered the production of copper and silver across multiple spatial scales. I begin at the regional level, analyzing how the procurement and transport particularly of silver-bearing ores...
Multi-Sited Field Curation Methods: The Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Digital Archive Project (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since 1988, the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project has actively excavated archaeological sites throughout the Belize River Valley, resulting in a plethora of archaeological material elucidating nearly 3,000 years of human occupation. Beginning during the 2017 field season, the BVAR Digital Archive Project aims to curate, consolidate, and...
Multicomponent analyses of prehistoric Fijian diet: Stable isotopes of bone collagen and carbonate (2017)
Several studies have provided stable isotopic insights into prehistoric Fijian diet via carbon and nitrogen analyses of bone collagen, with recent reports suggesting a diet of predominantly C3 plants though with some individuals exhibiting significant input from lower trophic level marine resources. Here we add to these studies by incorporating both a larger sample size from several sites on Viti Levu and a combined analysis of isotope data obtained from human bone collagen and carbonate. The...
A Multicomponent Archaeological Site at Spring Lake, San Marcos, Texas (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the 1970s, researchers recovered fluted points that appeared diagnostic of Clovis technology in Spring Lake, the spring-fed headwaters of the San Marcos River located along the Balcones Escarpment in Central Texas. Although recovered in mixed stratigraphic contexts, this evidence suggests that Ancestral Peoples may have visited the site for over 13,000...
Multidisciplinary Recovery of Previously Cremated Remains after Urban Wildfires (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Canine Resources for the Archaeologist" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A firestorm in Northern California in October 2017 brought with it the beginning of a new field in archaeology. This arose following the detection and recovery of cremated remains of previously deceased loved ones kept within the home that were left behind as family members fled for their lives. Locating these cremains saves their living relatives...
Multiethnic Colonial Communities and Endogamy: Evaluating the Dual Diaspora Model of Moquegua Tiwanaku Social Organization (2017)
The Moquegua Valley Tiwanaku colonial enclave was comprised of two Tiwanaku-affiliated populations: camelid agropastoralists who used Omo-style ceramics and maize agricultural specialists associated with Chen Chen-style ceramics. Despite living in close proximity, Chen Chen- and Omo-style communities maintained distinct social and cultural boundaries for several centuries. Goldstein’s dual diaspora model suggests that Omo- and Chen Chen-style Tiwanaku colonists represent two separate but...
Multifunctional Obsidian Blades: Exploring Use-Wear of Maya Blades from the Quiché Basin, Guatemala (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Use-wear analysis is a valuable method for understanding the various functions of stone tools, a central concern in lithic analysis. This poster focuses on the results of a use-wear study of 50 Late Postclassic (AD 1250-1525) prismatic obsidian blades from two Maya sites in the Utatlan/Q'umarkaj region of the Quiché Basin in highland Guatemala: Ismachi and...
The Multiple Meanings of the Rock Art Landscape of Central and Southern Honduras (2018)
The physical landscape of Honduras was and continues to be home to a diverse group of indigenous groups, each with distinct cultural traditions, artistic styles, and sociopolitical configurations. In prehistory, this landscape was imbued with cultural meaning in a variety of ways, from the monumental to the perishable. This paper presents and discusses what we know about the rock art of central and southern Honduras, which contains a variety of iconographic rock art styles within a very limited...
Multiproxy and LiDAR Evidence for Intensive Maya Wetland Agriculture Along the Rio Bravo River (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Ancient Maya Landscapes in Northwestern Belize, Part II" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We present preliminary results from a newly discovered Maya wetland canal and raised field system found along the Rio Bravo River in Northwest Belize using airborne LiDAR. The LiDAR data reveals canals and raised fields in a very rectilinear pattern that suggest planning and organization for many kilometers down the floodplain near...
Multiscalar Island Colonization Estimates through Bayesian Calibration Models (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Constructing Chronologies II: The Big Picture with Bayes and Beyond" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologically, island colonization may be estimated at different geographical and temporal scales. Whereas behaviorally, colonization is a single landfall event, identifying the location of this initial landing in the archaeological record is not always possible due to site preservation, taphonomic, and sampling...
Multiscale Diversity in Classic Decorated Pottery in the Hiix Witz kingdom of the Western Maya Lowlands (2017)
A political entity defined mainly on epigraphic evidence, the Hiix Witz kingdom includes at least three head centers, Zapote Bobal, El Pajaral and La Joyanca, all located south of the San Pedro Mártir river. The architecture, sculpture and ceramics of the three sites were subjected to extensive studies from 1999 to 2006, also in 2012, suggesting that this entity consisted of relatively heterogeneous components that must have entertained distinct relations with neighborring regions of the...
A Multisite Assessment of Mobility in Coastal and Interior Nicaragua through 87Sr/86Sr Analysis (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Migration and mobility have long been topics of interest in Nicaraguan prehistory, but research addressing these inquiries in the Greater Nicoya has relied primarily on linguistic analyses and the comparison of artifact typologies. Archaeological science is increasingly benefiting from the use of strontium isotope analysis as a proxy for mobility and...
Multispecies Entanglements in Great Lakes Agricultural Landscapes: A Case Study from the Late Woodland Arkona Cluster Sites, Ontario (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Multispecies Frameworks in Archaeological Interpretation: Human-Nonhuman Interactions in the Past, Part II" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper explores the multispecies entanglements in and along the edges of Western Basin maize fields ca. AD 1000–1300 in southern Ontario, Canada. As these communities became increasingly reliant on agriculture, their construction and management of new field landscapes catalyzed...
Mundus vult decipi: Caribbean Indigenous Art Past, Present, Future (2018)
The 1990s, with quincentenary ‘celebrations’ and two highly influential Taino art exhibits in Paris and New York (the epicentres of the pre-Columbian art market), heralded a seismic increase of indigenous Caribbean art forgeries. But these weren’t the first indications of an emerging market: Caribbean forgeries had been circulating since at least the 1950s. The artistic heritage of the pre-Columbian Caribbean still remains largely understudied, with far smaller-scale production than seen in...
Museum Manners: Brushing Up on Research Etiquette by Learning from the Mistakes of Others (2019)
This is an abstract from the "How to Conduct Museum Research and Recent Research Findings in Museum Collections: Posters in Honor of Terry Childs" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Following rules and common courtesy go a long way in the realm of research, and museums research is no different. Yet, the museum world is so different from the field and most degree course work typically does not cover how to conduct museum based research. Therefore you...