Belize (Country) (Geographic Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Megan O'Neil. Nawa Sugiyama. Gilberto Pérez Roldán. Laura Maccarelli. Yosi Pozeilov.

This is an abstract from the "From Materials to Materiality: Analysis and Interpretation of Archaeological and Historical Artifacts Using Non-destructive and Micro/Nano-sampling Scientific Methods" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper reviews our interdisciplinary study examining a set of carved deer bones comprising what appears to be a weaving or sewing kit for an ancient Maya royal woman bearing the Sa’ emblem glyph associated with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Daniel Koski-Karell.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Ile de la Tortue, Haiti, is perhaps more famously known as Tortuga for its association with the seventeenth century's Buccaneers. It was settled in prehistoric times by multiple cultural groups, given its Spanish name by Columbus, depopulated by enslavement of its indigenous population, settled by English Puritans, liberated by French Huguenots, became a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anthony Graesch.

This is an abstract from the "Archaeology Out-of-the-Box: Investigating the Edge of the Discipline" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeology has long sought to distance itself from the present, and despite a small corpus of novel and seminal research emerging over the last four decades, an archaeology that addresses the contemporary has remained only on the fringes of the discipline. Highlighting recent investigations in which the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Henderson. Kathryn Hudson.

Framing the lower Ulúa valley and adjacent regions as part of a southeastern Mesoamerican frontier has always entailed an interest in external relationships, especially those connecting frontier regions with the Maya world to which they were supposedly peripheral. The belief that the periphery was occupied by simple non-Maya societies, lightly "influenced" by their more civilized western neighbors, appeared early in the development of orthodox frameworks and continues to influence archaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Seth Quintus. Jeffrey Clark.

Star mounds, named for their star-like shape, have been an enigmatic feature class in the Samoan Archipelago. Researchers have posited several potential functions for these monumental architectural features, including grave and territorial markers, but their primary function appears to have been as surfaces for pigeon catching. But, excavations of these features have been few and data limited. Here, we review old as well as recent data on star mounds relating to their physical attributes (size,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lara Sánchez-Morales.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Under the precept of Historical Ecology landscapes are considered artifacts where the mediation of humans over environments accumulates over time leaving traces of these relationships in the form of sedimentological and paleobotanical records. Alluvial plains in the Neotropics are among the most important environments where humans first settled, beginning the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Warden. Benjamin Baaske.

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. Large collections of culturally significant material are often at a heightened risk of destruction simply due to their collective proximity. Organizations and individuals have begun to recognize the vulnerability of the artifact. The artifact is not something that can be easily copied and reprinted. Artifacts often possess a highly...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lucy Gill.

Traditional narratives within Nicaraguan archaeology, based on primarily ethnohistoric rather than archaeological evidence, have privileged the arrival of external actors from Central Mexico at the expense of indigenous developments and have emphasized imposed change rather than situated continuity. Especially given that as archaeologists, our primary sources are material culture, we should approach mobility from a materialist engagement with the flows and hardenings of matter, sensu Manuel De...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Lorey.

Archaeologists and researchers in heritage-based disciplines frequently study the complex interactions between human societies and natural environments. All too often, however, research proceeds from the premise that natural patterns, stressors and events promote direct cultural changes or adaptations on the part of human societies. Instead of perpetuating this linear and causal understanding of the relationships between nature and culture, this paper develops a new, holistic framework that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Mark. Justin Holcomb. David Carballo.

The diffusion and spread of material culture is a cornerstone of archaeological research, particularly understanding the variables which dictate the structure of dispersal. Recent evolutionary approaches have sought to address technological spread through mathematical modeling. One model, the reaction-diffusion model, suggests diffusion occurs at the population scale as a wave-of-dispersal. While previous researchers demonstrated the efficacy of this approach regarding the peopling of a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Damon Mullen.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Peopling of the Americas remains a provocative topic in both North and South American Archaeology. Speculation about who the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas were, where they came from, and how they got here, began the moment European explorers first encountered them. Current archaeological data and theory indicate humans had reached the landmass...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica MacLellan. Daniela Triadan.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We analyze 253 Late and Terminal Classic (c. AD 600-950) Maya ceramic figurine whistles (ocarinas) and fragments excavated at Ceibal, Guatemala, as materials of socialization. The figurines are mold-made and represent repeating characters. Based on mortuary contexts and other evidence, we argue they were used in household performances and associated with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Judith Ruiz. Viridiana Guzmán Torres. Emiliano Melgar Tísoc.

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. El sacrificio humano por medio del acceso de toracotomía bilateral transversa es una práctica ritual poco documentada a nivel osteológico en el área maya. En el presente trabajo se muestra a nivel microscópico y macroscópico tal evidencia, así como el tratamiento que se les dio a las victimas posterior al...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Olof Olafardottir-Hamilton. Rebecca Barzilai.

This is an abstract from the "In Search of Solutions: Exploring Pathways to Repatriation for NAGPRA Practitioners (Part IV): NAGPRA in Policy, Protocol, and Practice" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Before repatriation, NAGPRA practitioners need to track down all components of a collection to prevent their tribal partners from having to repatriate the same collections multiple times. This involves tracing often labyrinthine collection histories...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marina González-Varas. Antonio Pérez-Balarezo.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent archaeological findings in the neotropical region of South America are central to understanding the early adaptations of Paleoamerican populations to diverse ecosystems, especially tropical areas, between 14,000 and 9,000 BP — a period marked by significant paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic shifts. This study focuses on the critical role of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cameron McNeil. Edy Barrios. Bryce Brown. Richard Terry. Shanti Morell-Hart.

During the Late Classic period, the ancient community of Río Amarillo was actively engaged in the politics of the city of Copan, whether willingly or not. Some have suggested that the fertile bajos of the Río Amarillo East Pocket may have produced food for the city to its west, ameliorating shortages that could have arisen due to its rising population. Archaeological research conducted by the Proyecto Arqueológico Río Amarillo, Copan (PARAC) since 2011 has recovered information regarding both...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erlend Johnson. Ellen Bell. Marcello Canuto.

In this paper we contend that Copan fundamentally transformed the political structures and social institutions of centers in outlying areas as it expanded and integrated these regions. Evidence from our areas of study, the Cucuyagua and El Paraiso valleys, suggest that these regions had long lived autocthonous populations prior to Copan’s expansion into these regions in the Late Classic period. Using evidence from other non-Maya sites in Western and Central Honduras we contend that while varied...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Margherita Zona. Edouard Masson-MacLean. Carly Ameen. Camilla Speller. Keith Dobney.

This is an abstract from the "HumAnE Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pacific salmonids (Oncorhynchus spp.) are important economic and subsistence resources for contemporary and past indigenous peoples of the Pacific coast of North America. The seven recognised Oncorhynchus species each occupy different ecological niches and exhibit diversity in seasonal spawning and migratory behaviours. Although salmonid remains are ubiquitous at...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Samantha Ellens.

In a time when global travel was fairly restricted, citrus lime consumption extended across the Atlantic, regularly appearing in British advertisements and utilized in the global perfume and beverage markets. Following abolition, in 1834, limes and lime by-products became the chief export of islands like Montserrat and Dominica. In the case of Dominica, lime production gradually developed, and by 1875, many lime estates were yielding exceptional profits. The L. Rose and Lime Company was one of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Borislava Simova.

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. One of the earliest known examples of permanent architecture in the Maya Lowlands, a distinctive plaza-structure complex known as an E Group, is also one of the most commonly encountered architectural groups present within Preclassic sites throughout the region. The rapid adoption of permanent architecture and widespread...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kim Eileen Ruf. Marie Kolbenstetter.

This is an abstract from the "Materials in Movement in the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Matters of materiality and mobility across Central America have long been the subject of archaeological investigation concerning its precolonial past. In outlining the spectrum of material movements and their broader sociocultural implications beyond traditional archaeological narratives, this introductory paper seeks to explore the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul Gerard. Matthew Napolitano. Geoffrey Clark. Scott Fitzpatrick.

The initial human settlement of Yap, Western Caroline Islands (northwest tropical Pacific), is one of the least understood in Pacific prehistory, although new archaeological research is beginning to address this issue. Excavations at the southern site of Pemrang in Yap, western Caroline Islands (northwest tropical Pacific) have revealed multiple rich, well-stratified deposits of shell and pottery spanning the known occupation sequence of Yap and extended the date of early human activity by ca....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Karen Greig. Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith. Richard Walter.

Dogs were introduced to the islands of Australasia and the Pacific during human migrations and colonisations, but the timing and dispersal routes are unclear. To investigate these Oceanic dog introductions and movements, we generated complete or near complete ancient mitochondrial genomes from archaeological dog specimens from Thailand, Island Southeast Asia and Pacific islands, and from modern dingoes. When combined with additional published complete mitogenome sequences from modern dogs from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lorena Becerra-Valdivia. Katerina Douka. Thomas Higham.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The timing of early human presence in the Americas is a debated topic in First Americans research. The variable of time is, after all, fundamental in the study of human dispersal; it forms a base with which to elucidate spatio-temporal patterns, study applicable bio-cultural processes, and frame environmental data. As such, this investigation analyses current...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Stone. Caroline Kisielinski. Justin Tackney. Scott Fitzpatrick. Dennis O'Rourke.

This is an abstract from the "When the Wild Winds Blow: Micronesia Colonization in Pacific Context" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Initial settlement of Remote Oceania represents the world’s last major wave of human dispersal. While transdisciplinary models involving linguistic, archaeological, and biological data have been utilized in the Pacific to develop basic chronologies and trajectories of initial settlement, a number of elusive gaps remain...