Belize (Country) (Geographic Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ryan Collins.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper explores methodological opportunities for comparative settlement survey by applying ground-penetrating radar (GPR) as an augmentative remote sensing lens. In the last decade, remote sensing in Mesoamerica has undergone a renaissance through the application of Lidar to survey the landscape, providing immense quantities of data on new potential...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Schaffer. Robert Carr.

This is an abstract from the "Advances in the Archaeology of the Bahama Archipelago" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Caves act as the mythological archetype and physical portals that validate the cosmogony-cosmology-eschatology spectrum of many past and present human societies. Among the prehistoric Lucayan-Taíno of the Bahamas, caves played an important role in both validating perceptions of the cosmos, but also the maintenance of ancestral...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Enrique Moral.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. After the arrival of a group of Hispanic Jesuits to the Mariana Islands in 1668, an ethnosexual conflict emerged between the colonists and the local communities (the Chamorros). After that conflict, Chamorro communities were relocated in new villages, the so-called reducciones, under the close surveillance of the Spanish colonial powers. This reduction brought...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ashley Gravlin Beman.

Many local ceramic wares in northwestern Nicaragua are, as of yet, undescribed. Excavations at the site of Cosmapa Oriental in the municipality of Chichigalpa, Department of Chinandega, Nicaragua were conducted by Dr. Clifford Brown of Florida Atlantic University in 2013. Analysis of the ceramic sample in 2015 revealed two occupational periods at the site: a Late Preclassic occupation related to cultures in El Salvador; and a Classic to Early Postclassic occupation, which include Las Vegas and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aubree Marshall. Gabriela Murphy. Gabriel Wrobel.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Caves Branch Rockshelter (CBR) is a large cemetery site in Central Belize used for burial by a rural Maya community during the Late Preclassic and Early Classic periods (~300 BC–AD 400). The CBR skeletal series is unusual in the region as it is large and appears to comprise a relatively complete mortality profile. However, due to poor preservation,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dmitri Beliaev. Simon Martin. Sergei Vepretskii.

This is an abstract from the "The Rise and Apogee of the Classic Maya Kaanu’l Hegemonic State at Dzibanche" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2017 previously unknown mid-sixth-century Kanul king K’ahk’ Ti’ Ch’ich’ Aj Saakil was identified in Classic Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions. He acceded as “high king” (kalomte) in AD 550 and was responsible for the defeat of Tikal in AD 562 and the expansion of Dzibanche hegemony through the Southern...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dmitri Beliaev. Simon Martin.

This is an abstract from the "New Light on Dzibanché and on the Rise of the Snake Kingdom’s Hegemony in the Maya Lowlands" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent studies of the inscriptions related to the Kaanul dynasty has revealed a new ruler named K’ahk’ Ti’ Ch’ich’. He is mentioned in various Maya sites (El Peru, Uaxactun, Naranjo) as a high king and overlord with a wide dominion. His accession in 550 CE is recorded on the wooden Lintel 3 from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark McCoy. Dion O’Neale. Christopher Stevenson. Thegn Ladefoged.

This is an abstract from the "2019 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of M. Steven Shackley" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Studies of obsidian artifacts from sites across Aotearoa (New Zealand) in the 1960s-80s, were critical to identifying a major decrease in mobility, just prior to the onset of endemic warfare, marked by the construction of thousands of fortifications by the ancestors of Māori. Unfortunately, initial enthusiasm was...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Theodore Kmiec.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ideological concept of the World Tree can be found in ancient and living cultures throughout the world. Many cultures located in Mexico and Mesoamerica have incorporated this tradition in their ancient indigenous art, ceremonies, and recorded oral histories. The ideology of a culture may evolve or transform due to internal and external factors over...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joe Watkins.

This is an abstract from the "Presidential Session: What Is at Stake? The Impacts of Inequity and Harassment on the Practice of Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Social sciences within the United States, like US society in general, are facing serious ramifications regarding issues related to equality and harassment. Gender equity, pay equity, and funding equity are all part of the problems being faced by professionals employed in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gelenia Trinidad-Rivera.

This is an abstract from the "Exploring Globalization and Colonialism through Archaeology and Bioarchaeology: An NSF REU Sponsored Site on the Caribbean’s Golden Rock (Sint Eustatius)" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Dutch Caribbean Island of Saint Eustatius has been a focal point throughout the Lesser Antilles and European economic development of the 17th and 18th century period. Food has always been a reflection of complex social and economic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicoletta Maestri.

This is an abstract from the "The Urban Question: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Investigating the Ancient Mesoamerican City" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One of the most pervasive changes in Mesoamerican early colonial period was the new form of urban and town configuration and their relations with the surrounding landscape. Native settlement abandonment, forced congregations, and changes in communication and trade routes profoundly...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Whittaker Schroder.

This is an abstract from the "Recent Archaeological Investigations in Chiapas, Mexico" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over three field seasons, the Lower Lacantun Archaeological Project has examined the political organization and settlement of the region surrounding the confluence of the Lacantun and Usumacinta Rivers in Chiapas, Mexico. This riverine landscape is unique in the Western Lowlands, presenting risks and opportunities related to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Hedgepeth Balkin. Arthur Joyce. Raymond Mueller.

From January-June of 2016, an interdisciplinary dissertation study was conducted in the lower Río Verde Valley, Oaxaca, Mexico which was designed to investigate how prehispanic settlement patterning was affected by environmental productivity. The Río Verde Settlement Project (RVSP) included a continuation of the regional full-coverage survey as well as a systematic sedimentological sampling program to examine regional variation in soil fertility. This paper focuses on the initial results of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Munson. Andrés Mejía Ramón. Lorena Paiz. Jill Onken. Jonathan Scholnick.

This is an abstract from the "To Have and Have Not: A Progress Report on the Global Dynamics of Wealth Inequality (GINI) Project" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Decades of settlement pattern research in the Maya lowlands has produced unparalleled datasets for studying processes of urbanization in tropical landscapes. Recent comparative studies support a view of ancient Maya cities as low-density urban systems, which may have created different...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amy Thompson. Keith M. Prufer. Clayton Meredith. Jillian M. Jordan.

Using a Human Behavioral Ecology (HBE) framework, the social and environmental factors that influenced community development have been modeled at Uxbenká, a Classic period Maya center located in the southern foothills of the Maya Mountains. This study focuses on settlement decision making dynamics using a chronological assessment of the expansion of settlements based on radiocarbon dating and ceramic typologies in conjunction with statistical analyses to test which factors influenced patch...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mario Castillo. Patricia Fournier.

Based on seminal contributions by Suzy and Paul Fish associated with full-coverage surveys and agave cultivation, this paper explores changes in regional settlement patterns in relation to land-surface morphology in the Tula region in Mesoamerica during the Classic to Postclassic periods (200 CE–1500 CE). Drawing on our field surveys, independent settlement data from the Tula Region, and landform segmentation and classification in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), this paper illustrates that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gregory Borgstede.

This is an abstract from the "Art, Archaeology, and Science: Investigations in the Guatemala Highlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper examines dynamic changes in Maya settlement patterns through a comparison of expansion and contraction of settlement patterns during the pre-Columbian, historic, and contemporary periods. In particular, it looks at when and why settlements are formed, within what is generally considered to be a single...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David M. Hyde. Michael Stowe.

The Medicinal Trail Reconnaissance and Mapping Project (MTRAMP) began in 2013 and just completed its fourth season in 2016. Those four seasons, plus the integration of previous mapping endeavors, has refined our understanding of the size and distribution of households and numerous landscape features that have been, or continue to be, the focus of excavations. Intensive survey and mapping of the Medicinal Trail locality has revealed, (a) that the largest, and most complex architectural groups are...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Stowe.

This poster presents the results of five field seasons of intensive survey and total station mapping at the Medicinal Trail Community, a Maya hinterland settlement in northwestern Belize. Mapping during the summer of 2017 has further refined our understanding of the size and distribution of households and numerous landscape features that have been, or continue to be, the focus of excavations. Refinements to the topographical mapping within the area has revealed several complex household groups...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Melvin Rodrigo Guzman Piedrasanta. .

This is an abstract from the "Provisioning Ancient Maya Cities: Modeling Food Production and Land Use in Tropical Urban Environments" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In Maya archaeology, agricultural cycles are the cornerstone of multiple research topics that intertwine daily life, ideology, political economy, and settlement systems. In archaeological research, land-use can be indicative of social organization and provisioning strategies. In this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Philippe Nondédéo. Eva Lemonnier. Julien Hiquet. Louise Purdue. Cyril Castanet.

The classic Maya site of Naachtun is actually composed by a monumental and public core zone of 35 hectares surrounded by an extensive residential area of about 175 hectares. The study of its settlement pattern along with geoarchaeological works focused on agrarian strategies specifically have shown the role of vacant spaces in shaping the settlement as an agrarian town. Mainly dedicated to agriculture since the beginning of Naachtun’s occupation in the Early Classic period and maintained until...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Miguel Fuentes.

I will discuss the settlement pattern transformation of the Arica Highlands during the Late Intermediate Period and the Late Period (XIV-XV centuries) and the role of Zapahuira Tambo and the Inca Settlement Network System and its relationship with local communities. The latter will be carried out from an architectural and spatial characterization of some of the main Incan and Local settlements of the area. Some of the data integrated in this discussion have been gathered in my current research...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Xanti Ceballos.

This is an abstract from the "Aguada Fénix and the Middle Usumacinta Region: Interregional Interactions and Social Transformations in the Middle Preclassic Period" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper examines the settlement patterns transition from the Middle Formative to the Classic period through a low-resolution lidar analysis in Southern Mesoamerica, over a 25 km2 area. Based on previous lidar research carried out by the Middle...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Felix Kupprat. Debra Walker. Verónica Vázquez López. Joshuah Lockett-Harris. Fernando Flores Esquivel.

This is an abstract from the "New and Emerging Perspectives on the Bajo el Laberinto Region of the Maya Lowlands, Part 2" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Calakmul is the largest site on the northern edge of the Bajo el Laberinto and has been investigated intensively since the 1980s. Previous research has produced valuable data regarding the general urban extent and the Late Preclassic monumental architecture surrounding the main plaza, as well as...