Belize (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
2,676-2,700 (4,066 Records)
Ceramic assemblages of Postclassic and Colonial Maya sites in highland and coastal Guatemala are dominated by comales: griddle-like cooking vessels indicative of a maize tortilla diet. Given that some archaeologists have interpreted the appearance of the nixtamal/tortilla/comal complex in Guatemala as evidence of the "Mexicanization" of the Maya region, the Pacific coastal region of Guatemala -and its Central Mexican diasporic populations- is seen as the likely source of comales. As a result,...
Overview and Preliminary Results from the 2022 Excavation at Fort Louise Augusta, St. Croix, US Virgin Islands (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The former Danish West Indies are one of the scant examples of Scandinavian colonialism and the only example of Danish colonialism in the Americas. Although considered latecomers to the region, the Danes maintained almost continuous control of their West Indies from their initial settlement until the islands were sold to the United States in 1917. This...
An Overview and Synthesis of Paleocoastal Research on the Yucatan Peninsula (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Advances in Global Submerged Paleolandscapes Research" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The broad carbonate platform and shallow continental shelf of the Yucatan Peninsula supported the rise of the northern lowland Maya and the dispersal of Paleoamerican peoples thousands of years earlier. Exploration—particularly in the region’s now-submerged cave systems—has revealed the remains of the Yucatan’s earliest human...
Overview of a Photogrammetry / Map-Stories Approach to Heritage Management on Barbuda (2024)
This is an abstract from the "At the Frontier of Big Climate, Disaster Capitalism, and Endangered Cultural Heritage in Barbuda, Lesser Antilles" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological sites on the island of Barbuda are increasingly under threat from natural disasters and human practices. Photogrammetry is a promising tool to preserve detailed spatial data of threatened sites for future study and present sites to both researchers and the...
Overview of Archaeological Investigations in the Middle Usumacinta Region (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Preclassic Maya Social Transformations along the Usumacinta: Views from Ceibal and Aguada Fénix" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Middle Usumacinta Archaeological Project started investigations in the Department of Tabasco, Mexico, in 2017. Its main objectives are to examine the relationship between the residents of the Maya lowlands and those of the Olmec region and to trace social change during the Preclassic...
An Overview of Autosacrificial Instruments in Mesoamerica: Ethnohistory, Iconography, and Archaeology (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Sacrificial and Autosacrifice Instruments in Mesoamerica: Symbolism and Technology" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. It is well-known that autosacrifice was a common practice among Mesoamerican societies since at least the Middle Formative period (ca. 900–300 BC). Iconography suggests that elites offered their blood and did penance to contact with the sacred realm. However, ethnohistoric evidence reveals that this...
An Overview of Painted Rock Representation in the Utcubamba Basin, Eastern Peru (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster summarizes several years of investigations into painted rock representation and its social context within the Utcubamba Basin, Amazonas, Eastern Peru. This poster has three aims. The first, to provide an overview of the Utcubamba basin’s forms of painted rock representation. This is significant to a broader history of the region as there are...
An Overview of Paleoindian and Archaic Finds from August Pine Ridge, Belize, Central America (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent findings have come to light from previously reported but poorly known preceramic deposits from near the village of August Pine Ridge, Belize, Central America. Years of sand quarrying have led to the recovery of hundreds of artifacts representing the entire known preceramic sequence from Central America. Present are fluted bifaces as well as...
Overview of the Archaeological Work in Barbuda: A 20-Year Retrospective (2024)
This is an abstract from the "At the Frontier of Big Climate, Disaster Capitalism, and Endangered Cultural Heritage in Barbuda, Lesser Antilles" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Barbuda has been the focus of transdisciplinary investigation since 2005. Central to our work in Barbuda is our collaborative relationship with the outmost experts of the island, the Barbudan people. The foundation for all work on island is that of mutual respect for our...
An Overview of the Dos Hombres to Gran Cacao Archaeology Project Soil Testing and Methodologies (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper aims at emphasizing the importance of soil science practice to archaeology thus adding a scientific analytical nature to the cultural nature of archaeology. This report explores this field application of pH and NPK testing in the Dos Hombres to Gran Cacao Archaeology Project area located in northwestern Belize. These types of testing are of...
Overview of Traditional Cultural Properties in Relation to the NHPA and Bulletin 38 (2018)
The publication of National Register Bulletin 38 in 1990 highlighted the importance of living communities to historic preservation by establishing traditional cultural properties as places eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places (Register). While the concept of traditionally important places was not new in 1990, locations important to living communities had received varied, and often minimal, consideration under the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). By...
Pacific basketmakers: a living tradition: catalog of the 1981 Pacific basketmaker's symposium and exhibition. (Fairbanks, Alaska) Symposium of traditional basketmakers; Honolulu, 1981.05. (1983)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the EXARC Bibliography, originally compiled by Roeland Paardekooper, and updated. Most of these records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us using the...
Painted pots and royal routes: hieroglyphic and ceramic traditions in the western Peten (2017)
The cities of the western Peten shared a common history and several ceramic traditions. In the northwest along the San Pedro Martir River, archaeological sites like El Peru (Waka’), Zapote Bobal (Hiix Witz), La Joyanca, and La Florida (Namaan) flourished with seemingly few—if any—clashes between them for the entirety of the Classic Period. That being said, we know that this region was greatly affected by the Tikal-Calakmul wars. There was even a ‘road’ or route between the sites allied to the...
The Palace Group at Xochicalco, Morelos, México (2017)
Xochicalco is a hilltop site located in the mountain range of the western part of the modern Mexican state of Morelos. Archaeological investigations carried out in the upper part of the site between 1994 and 2009 have provided several breakthroughs in our understanding of one of the most representative sites of the Epiclassic period in Mesoamerica. The site’s major building complex, known as the Acropolis, is situated on the very top of the hill. Covering approximately a hectare, this group...
Palaces at La Joya, Classic Period Central Veracruz: Architectural and Ideological Evidence (2017)
La Joya was the capital of a very small state during the 1st millennium AD in South Central Veracruz. This region is rarely associated with major political power, though obviously it was of high prestige in the Mesoamerican world in terms of the distribution of the paraphernalia associated with the ballgame ritual. Two contemporary monumental platforms at the site can be interpreted as palaces, with administrative, residential, ritual, and service areas, one possibly housing a political and the...
Palaeoeconomies in the East Alligator River Region, Australia (2017)
The East Alligator River Region has undergone considerable environmental change throughout the Pleistocene and Holocene, with changing sea levels dramatically altering the ecosystems of this region. Current archaeological models for this region indicate that people adapted their economic activities to successfully exploit these shifting environments. Molluscs have played an important role in the economic activities of these groups and often comprise large portions of the regional assemblages,...
The Palenque Pool Project: An energetic analysis of monumental construction costs (2017)
The Palenque Pool Project began excavations of the largest pool of the Picota Group in the Classic Maya site of Palenque in 2014. This group is located one kilometer from the Palace on the western edge of the site. Although the function of the pool is still unknown, its placement adjacent to one of Palenque's two stelae and its similarity to modern Maya examples, suggests ceremonial use. Prior research shows that a laborer could transport 586 kg of limestone per five-hour person-day from the...
Paleo-sediment Coring Studies in Micronesia: A Review and Critique (2019)
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. Paleo-sediment coring studies by archaeologists, pioneered in Micronesia by Steve Athens and colleagues, including myself, in the 1980s, are reviewed and assessed for their contributions to archaeological science in the western Pacific within a CRM context. It is suggested that while data generated...
Paleoclimate data and behavioral change in the highlands of Papua New Guinea (2017)
Climate variability generates both opportunities and limitations for subsistence strategies, as well as related settlement patterns and technologies. While not the only driver of behavioral change, climate is a critical force in shaping patterns of past behavior. This paper presents the results of lithic analysis of three sites from the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea that span 20,000 years of occupation. Additionally, the findings from a summed probability distribution analysis of...
Paleodiet in the Atacama Desert (Arica, Chile) and Andean Highlands (Ayacucho Basin, Peru) Using Stable Isotope Analyses of Dental Calculus (2017)
Long-considered a nuisance, dental calculus has recently enjoyed attention as a potentially useful alternative biomaterial for a variety of anthropological applications, including stable isotope analysis as a technique to study paleodiet. Carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes of dental calculus have been measured for populations near Arica, Chile in the Atacama Desert (Archaic-Late Intermediate period), and post-Wari (Late Intermediate Period) populations from the Ayacucho Basin, Peru in the...
Paleoecology and Geoarchaeology of the Buenavista Valley, Petén, Guatemala (2023)
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. We have studied the long-term environmental change and geoarchaeology of the Buenavista Valley in the region of El Zotz and La Cuernavilla in Guatemala’s Petén through multiple NSF grants from the 2000s to an NGS Grant for fieldwork in 2022. Past studies focused on the El Zotz reservoir, other regional reservoirs, dam...
Paleoenvironmental Research at Yaxnohcah, Campeche, Mexico (2024)
This is an abstract from the "New and Emerging Perspectives on the Bajo el Laberinto Region of the Maya Lowlands, Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. When the Proyecto Arqueológico Yaxnohcah began 13 years ago in 2011, some of our driving questions centered on the Bajo el Laberinto and the role that this enormous wetland played in the rise and development of what was to become the great city of Yaxnohcah: Why were the early inhabitants of the...
Paleoenvironmental Studies at the Ancient Maya Center of Yaxnohcah based on Analyses of eDNA, Pollen, and Plant Macroremains (2024)
This is an abstract from the "New and Emerging Perspectives on the Bajo el Laberinto Region of the Maya Lowlands, Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Yaxnohcah was a major civic-ceremonial center of the ancient Maya world, especially during the Preclassic period (1000 BCE–200 CE). Environmental data from excavations provided important insights into the interaction between the ancient inhabitants of the polity and the surrounding Neotropical...
Paleoethnobotanical Analysis of a Classic Taino Ritual Site at Cinnamon Bay, St. John (AD 1000–1490) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster presents preliminary analysis of paleoethnobotanical data from excavations at a Classic Taino site (AD 1000–1490) located at Cinnamon Bay on St. John, US Virgin Islands. Excavations began in 1992 when it was determined that the site was at risk of being lost to erosion. Until now, there has been no analysis of the paleoethnobotanical samples...
A Paleoethnobotanical Analysis of Ceramic Residues from Caches and Burials at the Lowland Maya Site of Holtun, Guatemala (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Among the Maya, plant-based foods were not just important for sustenance but also had ritual meaning, especially emphasized when placed in graves and caches. Food offered during ritual performances created a reciprocal relationship between living individuals, their ancestors, and the gods. This poster will present the paleoethnobotanical results from...