Belize (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
3,201-3,225 (4,066 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Dynamic Frontiers in the Archaeology of Chiapas" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In spite of the intensity of interest in the ancient Maya, very little research has been conducted to date in lowland eastern Chiapas. This region, crossed by several important rivers and trade routes, connects multiple important areas, including the southern Maya lowlands, the Guatemalan and Caribbean highlands, and the Gulf and Caribbean...
Revitalizing Ancient Knowledge: A Community-based Outreach Project Sharing Classic Maya Epigraphy in Ox Mul Kah (San Antonio), Belize (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 introduces a community engagement program I designed to teach Classic Maya epigraphy to members of my community, Ox Mul Kah (San Antonio, Belize). While the Classic Maya ancestors left us with an elaborate culture, which was passed on to modern communities like Ox Mul Kah, many Maya today are unaware of the ancestral achievements like...
Reviving Collections “At Rest”: Examining Recent Efforts to Promote Collections Research at CFAR (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The struggle to manage collections generated through the process of archeological activity is ongoing despite decades of attempts to resolve the “curation crisis.” Artifacts collected in the field and their associated records are most often shelved in curatorial facilities and storage closets prone to disassociation and decay. In the best circumstances,...
"Rich" Men: Caciques in Trade and Exchange in the Polyglottal Southern Central American World (16th Century) (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Coastal Connections: Pacific Coastal Links from Mexico to Ecuador" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper will explore the relationship between "rich" men and trade and exchange, particularly in polyglottal Costa Rica and Panama in the sixteenth century. It will focus on these caciques's social organizations, their representatives, their political responsibilities, their power exertions, and their rivalries and...
Rio Amarillo’s Temazcal: Fertility, Toads, and Childbirth in the Copan Valley, Honduras (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Heat, Steam, and Health: The Archaeology of the Mesoamerican Pib Naah (Sweat Baths)" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2014, rescue excavations in a residential group on the outskirts of Río Amarillo, 20 km from the ancient center of Copan, revealed the presence of a Pib Naah (temazcal/sweat bath), with clear ties to women’s rituals and Maya concepts of fertility. This evidence led the author to name this structure...
The rise and fall of the bi-headed serpent: How much of Late Lima cultural development could be explain by an ENSO? (2017)
In the present paper, I will combine evidence of two sites: The Pachacamac Sanctuary and the domestic site of Lote B, both in the Lurín valley in order to discuss the political changes happening in the central coast to the onset of the middle horizon. Asking how these political changes related with the climatic variation register for the area in both bottom sea and lake cores. I point out that this process of political centralization was contemporaneous with mayor climatic anomalies that have...
The Rise and Fall of the Forest Canopy: An Application of Compound-Specific Stable Isotopic Analysis to a Holocene Sequence of Soils as a Record of Human Impacts in Southern Belize (2018)
Derived from lipid-rich plant tissues (primarily leaf waxes), long chain n-alkanes are a durable organic biomarker whose relative abundance is used in paeloecological studies as a proxy marker of plant species composition, and as an indicator of biomass burning. Isotopic composition of individual n-alkane components preserves signals that reflect both hydroclimate and canopy height. These properties can be employed to examine spatially integrated signals of anthropogenic land clearance in lake...
The Rise of Northern Maya Ceramic Chronologies: Emerging Perspectives on Middle to Late Preclassic Processual Dynamics and the Legacy of Joseph W. Ball (2018)
Seminal and persistently relevant work by Ball has shaped and reshaped our understanding of Middle to Late Preclassic population movements on the Yucatan Peninsula and the establishment of local potting communities and traditions. Evidence of Middle Preclassic ceramic production in the northeastern-most Maya Lowlands had remained elusive until the mid 1990s. Early Nabanche affinities observed in the locally produced pottery of northern Quintana Roo suggested an expansion of peoples across the...
The Rise of Social Complexity in Pacific Nicaragua (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Centralizing Central America: New Evidence, Fresh Perspectives, and Working on New Paradigms" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Despite over 150 years of research, the archaeology of Nicaragua remains in its infancy. Projects have conducted settlement pattern surveys and rescue projects have recovered information from endangered sites, but very little problem-oriented research has ever been conducted. Consequently, “big...
The rise of the replica (2009)
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...
Rises and Falls of Uaxactun Dynasty: Combining Epigraphic and Archaeological Evidence (2019)
This is an abstract from the "At the Interface the Use of Archaeology and Texts in Research" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The dynastic history of Uaxactun is one of the most ancient among the political centers of the Maya Lowlands in the Preclassic and Classic periods. The beginning of history of a dynasty concerns to the III cent. BC, and its end to the final years of the IX cent. AD. On an extent more than a thousand-year history the dynasty...
Rising from the Bush: Investigations of Elite Households Adjacent to Site Cores in the Belize Valley (2018)
Since 2010, the BVAR Project has conducted intensive research at the recently discovered site of Lower Dover, located directly across the Belize River from Barton Ramie. A major part of the BVAR investigations is to determine the socio-political relationship between Lower Dover, Barton Ramie, Blackman Eddy, and Baking Pot. Other research questions have focused both on the monumental architecture of the site core, and on plazuela groups in the periphery of site’s epicenter. One such peripheral...
Rising from the East: The Preclassic Foundations of Lowland Maya Societies in 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. The Preclassic period (1200/1100 BC–AD 300) represents one of the most significant cultural transitions for lowland Maya societies. Over the course of ~1,500 years, communities settled permanently on the landscape, committed to agriculture, and began building monumental...
Ritual activity at the Grazia Complex, Yaxnohcah (2017)
Yaxnohcah is located in southern Campeche, Mexico and had an important occupation from the Middle Preclassic to the Late Classic period (c. 600 b.c.e.-800 c.e.). The focus of this paper is the Grazia complex, one of the ten major civic-ceremonial groups. Grazia consists of two monumental platforms featuring a triadic group and a ball court. The complex is located about 2 km southwest of the center of the site. Excavations began in 2016, revealing the presence of several constructive phases,...
Ritual and Cultural Process in the E-Group Complex at Holtun, Guatemala (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Holtun: Investigations at a Preclassic Maya Center" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper we present data from investigations of Group F, or the E-group complex at Holtun, Guatemala. Named for the group at Uaxactun where this specific architectural compound was first identified, the Holtun E-group contains a large pyramidal structure to the west and a range structure to the east. First believed to be celestial...
Ritual and Death: A Paleopathological Analysis of Skeletal Remains from Salango, Ecuador during the Guangala Period (100 BCE-800 CE) (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. There are many questions that have yet to be answered about the prehistoric people of Ecuador, especially along the southern coast. In particular, more studies are needed in order to understand how people lived and interacted with each other and the landscape at the important ritual site of Salango. Salango was occupied from 4000 BCE through Spanish contact...
Ritual and Movement in the Preclassic Hinterlands of the Mopan River Valley (2021)
This is an abstract from the "The Preclassic Landscape in the Mopan Valley, Belize" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Evidence from the Mopan River valley continues to clarify the nature and extent of Preclassic occupation of the region. The hinterland community of San Lorenzo sits directly across the river from both Xunantunich and Actuncan, sites with substantial Preclassic construction and ritual use. Using data gathered from this ancient...
Ritual and Political Landscapes of the Preclassic Maya: A View from the Cival Region (2018)
The link between Lowland Maya ritual and power relations during the Preclassic period has been so far approached primarily through iconographic, burial and artifact data at the local scale. Very little evidence exists linking notions of political authority, ritual practices and landscapes at the regional level. Recent survey and excavation data from the Cival region of Northeastern Peten, reveals a vast and complex settlement pattern. The Preclassic Maya city of Cival was surrounded by a network...
Ritual and Productive Activities in the Mound-Top Structure at Buen Suceso (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Finding Community in the Past and Present through the 2022 PARCC Field School at Buen Suceso, Ecuador" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Three seasons of excavation at Buen Suceso have identified a series of occupation floors in the area of the site referred to as Unit 6. This area is also the highest at the site, suggesting the existence of a mound or an augmented rise that was utilized during the Valdivia period. This...
Ritual and/or Transformation: The Anadara granosa-Dominated Shell Mounds of the Australian Tropics (2017)
Mounded shell deposits dominated by the mudflat bivalve Anadara granosa are highly visible features on the north Australian coast. Because of their distinctive, often monumental, features they have been a focal point for research into hunter-gatherer groups in these coastal environments. Interpretations of these mounded deposits have oscillated between those concerned with the functioning of prehistoric economic systems and those invoking ceremonial and ritual behaviours. In this paper we review...
Ritual Cave Utilization in the Middle Usumacinta Region: Socio-political Implications of Ritual Cave Use at the Maya Residential Sites Associated with Piedras Negras (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper, I will examine the significance of ritual cave use in the emergence and development of Classic Maya polities. Caves are critical settings to understand the diversity of ritual practices and the involvement of such contexts within socio-political systems. My work in caves in the Middle Usumacinta Valley will further our understanding of...
Ritual Cave Utilization Near Tenosique in Tabasco, Mexico (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. As part of the Middle Usumacinta Archaeological Project, I conducted reconnaissance in three caves with archaeological remains, named Santo Tomás, San Marcos, and Corregidora. The three caves are located in the Tenosique municipality in Tabasco, Mexico near the border with Guatemala. A...
Ritual Deposits within the Eastern Pyramidal Structure at Group D, Xunantuntich – Belize (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Between the 2012-2016 field seasons, the Mopan Valley Preclassic Project conducted investigations of an eastern pyramidal structure (Str D-6) at Group D, Xunantunich. Group D is a sacbe terminus architectural group which is connected to Xunantunich’s main plaza. The location of the sacbe suggests that Group D was part of an important ritual circuit. Over 5...
Ritual Fauna Use in an Elite Ancient Maya Burial: Examination of an Animal Long-Bone Cache in the Recently Discovered Royal Tomb at Xunantunich, Belize (2017)
Animal use in elite burials can provide a more holistic perspective on the importance of specific fauna as prestige goods or as status and power markers in the Maya world. This presentation discusses a discrete cache of animal long-bones located at the feet of a human burial recovered from the newly discovered royal tomb at Xunantunich during the 2016 field season of the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance (BVAR) project. Maya zooarchaeologists have long held that the use of specific...
Ritual Fires and Ancient Maya Termination Deposits at Naachtun (Guatemala): An Archaeobotanical Perspective (2017)
Termination rituals have been a well-documented practice among ancient Maya societies. Generally including the spread of broken artifacts on floors, the manipulation of ancestor bones, and the intentional destruction of architectural structures, termination deposits are believed to have served to symbolically "kill" a building at the time of its abandonment. Regardless of the nature or function of these different deposits, their frequent association with ashes, charcoal and burn marks clearly...