Belize (Country) (Geographic Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mario Giron-Ábrego.

This poster addresses an understudied area relevant to the initial peopling of the Americas: what are the earliest indications of human activity in Mesoamerica (particular emphasis on Guatemala)? Its geographic location and its relatively narrow expanse make the southern half of Middle America the natural stage to funnel terrestrial and coastal/riverine routes of early human migrations. Despite this consideration, archaeological research targeting Paleoamerican horizons [pre-12,800 BP] in this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Georgia Fox.

The deep history behind what anthropologist Sidney Mintz refers to as the "stimulant or drug foods" reflects collective choices that transformed the socioeconomic fabric of early modern life. The archaeological record can reveal the physical manifestation of such choices through the myriad assemblages of artifacts that bear witness to the adoption of stimulant foods and also the tragic outcomes from the production of these commodities. In this paper, I will discuss my long-term archaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jaroslaw Zralka. Bernard Hermes. Carmen Ting. Christophe Helmke. Wieslaw Koszkul.

This is an abstract from the "Making and Breaking Boundaries in the Maya Lowlands: Alliance and Conflict across the Guatemala–Belize Border" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological investigations at Nakum (an important Maya site located in northeastern Guatemala) brought about the discovery of many monochrome and polychrome ceramics in many different architectural contexts. The style of ceramics supplemented in many cases by mineralogical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Arthur Demarest. Paola Torres.

Joe Ball’s research, his ceramic studies, his insistence on material culture as basis for work, and his honesty in critique of poorly grounded interpretation together provide a standard of building culture-history on solid ceramic studies, chronology, and material culture analyses. Many recent interpretations of Classic Maya society have not met that standard. Here we aspire to his bottom-up, material culture approach to interpretation in recent collaborative research in the western Peten and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nathan Meissner. Marc Marino. Emmalea Gomberg.

This study focuses on the social aspects of craft production among outlying populations of the greater Copán Valley of Honduras during the Late Classic to Early Postclassic transition (A.D. 800-1200). Lithic data from four valley sites including Rastrojón, Río Amarillo, Quebrada Piedras Negras, and Site 29 are compared to elucidate raw material procurement strategies and methods of chert reduction by local producers. Interesting differences emerge among the sites concerning changes in raw...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Pilar Regueiro Suarez.

This is an abstract from the "Recent Archaeological Investigations in Chiapas, Mexico" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the eighth century, the stone monuments of Yaxchilán and its area of influence recurrently recorded individuals with the title sajal, a position associated with leaders of corporate groups with functions related to the government of peripheral sites, administration, war, and circulation of goods. Among all the sajals of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn Catlin.

This is an abstract from the "Materializing Political Ecology: Landscape, Power, and Inequality" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Past ecological and political-economic changes are embedded in the materiality of the landscape, and investigating correlations between such changes can suggest how relationships between ecology and economy were structured and managed within past societies. Iceland was first settled in the late ninth century by wealthy...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Susan deFrance.

The Moquegua Valley in southern Peru was the locale where the rival early imperial states of Wari and Tiwanaku established provincial colonial centers. Both Wari and Tiwanaku colonists concentrated their settlements in the low to mid-sierra elevations of the valley, elevations that are not modern zones of camelid husbandry. The political ecology of imperial settlement at this elevation fostered the development of local systems of camelid pastoralism that were significant economic components for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Verónica Vázquez López. Felix Kuppat. Kathryn Reese-Taylor. Armando Anaya Hernández.

This is an abstract from the "Regimes of the Ancient Maya" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The history of the Kanu’l dynasty and their Late Classic regime at Calakmul has been researched extensively since the 1990s. The most recent insights into the earlier episodes of Kanu’l politics have emphasized that their seat of power during the Early Classic was Dzibanche and that it was a powerful faction that took power in Calakmul in the early seventh...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marieka Arksey.

This paper investigates the use of caves as performance spaces for water and agriculturally focused rituals during the Maya Late Classic period (~ A.D. 750-900) and the events of the 'collapse'. Although the ‘collapse’ of the social, economic, and political systems during this period has been the subject of much study, the majority of research has focused on the environmental factors with little consensus as to how rulers attempted to maintain order, social solidarity, and political power...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kasey Diserens Morgan.

This is an abstract from the "The Conceptual and Ethical Limits of Heritage in Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Political involvement in the protection of historic resources often places a façade on historic narratives that creates a distance between communities and their heritage. Often, this control reflects leftover colonial legacies, creating structures of power that do not allow communities to advance economically, socially, or...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kacey Grauer.

This is an abstract from the "Materializing Political Ecology: Landscape, Power, and Inequality" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Post-humanism importantly considers active roles of nonhuman entities in society. However, it is crucial that power relationships between people do not fall by the wayside when studying past societies. In this paper, I approach geological features at the ancient Maya city of Aventura, Belize, from a perspective that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marie Kolbenstetter.

This is an abstract from the "Reconstructing the Political Organization of Pre-Columbian Nicaragua" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The relationship between environment, politics, and economies has often been observed in the archaeological record. In the Gulf of Fonseca, where archaeological sites concentrate around mangrove swamps, rivers and estuaries; politics were intricately tied to the affordances of riverine systems. Based on the ceramic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ann M. Scott. Judith Maxwell.

Caves and other sacred landscape features such as clefts in rocks and mountain voids embody special powers controlled by earthen, spiritual entities. To the Highland Maya that power personified by the earth owner needs to be maintained, appeased, and managed, even on a daily basis. This maintenance comes in the form of elaborate ceremonies utilizing a number of special items deemed suitable for pleasing the ancient entities. Mayan ritual specialists or daykeepers, who perform the ceremonies, are...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ashleigh Breske.

This theoretically-oriented project engages discussions of historical arguments for the repatriation of indigenous cultural property that ultimately led to the creation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in 1990. I will investigate how institutions and cultural values mediated changes in repatriation policy both nationally and internationally. By examining ownership paradigms and institutional power structures, it is possible to understand the ramifications of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Simon Martin.

This is an abstract from the "Making and Breaking Boundaries in the Maya Lowlands: Alliance and Conflict across the Guatemala–Belize Border" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The region now divided by the national boundaries of Belize and Guatemala was once home to a broad range of political entities. Noticeably, large centers with monumental inscriptions in the western and southern portions contrast with smaller and far less textually verbose sites...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Linda Scott Cummings. Paul M. Miller.

Midnight Terror Cave lies in the Cayo District, ca. 16 km southwest of Belmopan, in central Belize. Studies of the cave by California State University, Los Angeles, in association with the Belizean Institute of Archaeology, revealed eight naturally divided sections (called ‘Operations’). Significant quantities (more than 10,000 bones and bone fragments) of calcified human remains from the Late Classic period (AD 600–900) lay on the surface of the cave floor (Prout and Brady 2018:3). Operations V...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alyce De Carteret. Diana Magaloni Kerpel.

This is an abstract from the "Polychromy, Multimediality, and Visual Complexity in Mesoamerican Art" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Maya polychrome ceramics have long been regarded for the distinctive regional styles that emerged during the Late Classic period (ca. 600–900 CE). These styles, aligned with royal workshops and their patrons, encompass a wide range of aesthetic strategies, particularly with respect to color. Some workshops and their...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Justin Bracken.

Dissertation fieldwork since 2014 at Muralla de León has documented, mapped, and partially excavated an integrated system of earthworks that appears to have served both large-scale defensive and hydrological functions. Located on the shores of Lake Macanché, the site sits atop a steep-sided natural rise, artificially augmented in height by an encircling stone rampart wall, or enceinte. A defensive function for the enceinte is hypothesized, though it also appears to serve as a means of water...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ava Godhardt. SJ Casillas. Jessica Weinmeister. Troy Brown. David M. Hyde.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster provides a summary of the 2023 archaeological investigations conducted at and around Group M of the Medicinal Trail Hinterland Community, an ancient Maya site in northwestern Belize. Group M is a non-residential masonry architectural group located at the north end of the Medicinal Trail Community. It is situated on a knoll, with a sharp...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Takeshi Inomata.

This is an abstract from the "Constructing Chronologies I: Stratification and Correlation" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists working in the Maya area face multiple challenges as they develop chronological studies. First, many sites are complex urban centers with diverse types of structures and areas. Second, these sites commonly have long occupation, involving migrations, destructions of buildings, and recycling of construction...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Javier Quezada-Euán.

This is an abstract from the "Adventures in Beekeeping: Recent Studies in Ecology, Archaeology, History, and Ethnography in Yucatán" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. La meliponicultura en México, así como en gran parte del mundo, ha experimentado un creciente interés y popularidad. Un mayor número de personas y grupos se están involucrando en la actividad lo que ha llevado a su expansión tanto de las regiones donde se practica, como en el número de...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Arlen Chase. Diane Chase. Adrian Chase.

This is an abstract from the "Ancient Mesoamerican Population History: Demography, Social Complexity, and Change" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The determination of accurate population numbers for ancient Mesoamerican societies is key for making interpretations about past levels of complexity. This is not only necessary for understanding how societies changed over time but also for how they were organized over space. The techniques that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elyse Chase. Adrian Chase. Diane Chase. Arlen Chase.

This is an abstract from the "Ancient Mesoamerican Population History: Demography, Social Complexity, and Change" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Caracol, Belize, is among the largest known ancient Maya cities. Its urban area spans some 200 km2 and is integrated by a series of radial causeways that connect outlying public architecture and plazas to the central hub. The entire landscape is covered by residential settlement and agricultural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Barbara Arroyo. Javier Estrada. Gloria Ajú.

This is an abstract from the "Ancient Mesoamerican Population History: Demography, Social Complexity, and Change" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The population estimates from the Preclassic period for the site of Kaminaljuyu located in the Maya Highlands were the result of regional surveys conducted by the Pennsylvania State University research program in the 1970s. Since then, Guatemala City urban sprawl has impacted the site conservation....