Belize (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
376-400 (4,066 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Storeroom Taphonomies: Site Formation in the Archaeological Archive" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Galways Plantation collection, consisting of 28 boxes of artifacts excavated on Montserrat during the 1980s, was temporarily on loan in the United States when the Soufrière Hills Volcano erupted in July 1995. This catastrophic event led to the creation of an exclusion zone covering two-thirds of the island that...
Basic Mesoamerican stone-working: nodule smashing? (1980)
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...
Basin Enterprise: the Next Generations (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Legacies of The Basin of Mexico: The Ecological Processes in the Evolution of a Civilization, Part 1" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Basin of Mexico book elucidated for a broader audience the work and philosophy of William Sanders and his first generation of collaborators and students and has influenced many generations of Mesoamerican scholars since. We draw on the broad studies of long-term work carried out...
Bast Fiber Technology in the West Coast of South America: A Study of the Early Coastal Hunter-Gatherer's Fiber Production (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Histories of Human-Nature Interactions: Use, Management, and Consumption of Plants in Extreme Environments" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study presents the results of an archaeobotanical analysis of the hunter-gatherer’s plant-fiber technologies of South America’s west coast. Due to the extreme aridity of the Atacama Desert, the preservation of organic technologies is exceptional. I analyze a unique assemblage...
A Bath for 8,000 Gods: Atij and Similar Expressions on Classic Maya Monuments (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. Maya hieroglyphs are an invaluable source of data about the Classic period religion. However, when it comes to sweat baths, only a small subset of archaeologically investigated structures contains inscriptions. Therefore, any attempt to study this particular aspect of Maya ritual life should consider a...
The Battle of the Little Bighorn Gunshot Trauma Analysis: Suicide Prevalence Among the Soldiers of the 7th Cavalry (2018)
The Battle of the Little Bighorn cost the U.S. army 268 men, which accounted for just over one percent of its entirety. Many of the men were killed during battle by Native American firearms and bow and arrows (Scott et. al, 2002, pg. 12). It is possible that some men perished by their own hand or by friendly fire. Through osteological data provided by the State Historic Preservation Office of Montana as well as historical documentation, this presentation will provide an analysis of gunshot wound...
Bayamanaco and the Cayman: The Mythic origin of Manioc Cultivation, Amazonia-Antilles (2017)
Recent trace analysis of Greater Antillean culinary implements finds a paucity of evidence for manioc until late times. This is anomalous since it was believed that manioc accompanied the first truly horticultural and ceramic-producing groups, the Saladoids, from the Orinocan lowlands of South America through the Lesser Antilles to Puerto Rico at 800-500 B.C. Such late occurrence also contradicts the fact that manioc is a lowland cultigen, spanning northern tropical South America. Actual tubers...
Bayesian Analysis and Chronological Revisions in Southern Mesoamerica (2017)
The application of Bayesian analysis on radiocarbon dates from key sites in southern Mesoamerica has contributed to chronological revisions, which are leading to a re-evaluation of social processes among major political centers. Main challenges in this analysis include long occupation and mixing of old carbon in construction fills; poor preservation in the tropical environment; and the paucity of short-lived plant remains. Key steps in our application of Bayesian analysis on Mesoamerican...
A Bayesian Approach to the Interpretation of Andean Faunal Assemblages (2017)
Zooarchaeology offers a rich source of data for exploring a number of important questions, from domestication and subsistence to ritual practices and political economy. However, issues of equifinality frequently arise, making it difficult to interpret faunal assemblages as different agents and processes may create similar archaeological signatures. Researchers are often forced to make subjective choices when suggesting preferred explanations for their data. Such approaches are subject to human...
Bayesian Approaches for Chronology-Building in Maya Archaeology: Direct AMS 14C Dating of Burials in the Belize River Valley (2017)
Chronology-building in Maya archaeology has long been dominated by relative ceramic typologies based on excavations conducted in the 1950s, with date ranges temporally grounded by long-count calendar dates and a small number of imprecise radiocarbon dates. Higher-precision chronologies based on more recent methodological innovations in radiocarbon dating, including Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) 14C dating, Bayesian statistical modeling of radiocarbon dates, and ultrafiltration and XAD...
Bayesian Chronological Modeling Parameters for Establishing Initial East Polynesian Colonization (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Supporting Practical Inquiry: The Past, Present, and Future Contributions of Thomas Dye" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tom Dye was an early adopter and advocate for the application of Bayesian chronological modeling in Pacific archaeology. Since the 1990s, this chronology-building method has advanced our understanding of key cultural and demographic events through improved and diverse software options, better...
A Bayesian model sensitivity study of non-static diet-collagen isotope fractionations factors used to assess breastfeeding and weaning practices among fisher-gatherers populations, western Cuba (2017)
Reconstructing paleo-diets from bone-collagen isotope values (carbon and nitrogen) requires proper knowledge of diet-collagen isotopic fractionations (∆d13Cdiet-col, ∆d15Ndiet-col). While these isotopic fractionations vary considerably among previous human paleo-diet reconstructions, some more recent studies have successfully employed "non-static" dietary offsets. New research suggests that non-static diet-collagen isotope fractionations is best when attempting to reconstruct paleo-diets of...
A Bayesian Model-Based Comparison of Radiocarbon Chronologies for the Earliest Complex Societies in the Maya Lowlands (2017)
Sedentary agricultural villages, ceramic technology, and evidence for institutionalized socio-economic inequality first appeared in the Maya lowlands during the Preclassic Period (1200 cal BC – cal AD 300). The chronological details of these significant cultural developments between different regions of the lowlands remain unclear in many cases because of an emphasis on local ceramic typologies that are often difficult to correlate. We use a Bayesian framework to model high-resolution AMS 14C...
Bears Ears Archaeological Probability Models (2018)
Currently encompassing over 1,300,000 acres, Bears Ears is notable for abundant cultural resources and is in a renewed spotlight following the 2017 recommendation by the Interior Secretary to reduce its acreage. Archaeological probability models were recently developed for lands within the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management, Monticello Field Office, which encompasses the Bears Ears National Monument. Regardless of the outcomes of that process, these models were developed to help land...
Beautiful Virgins and Male War Captives: The Role of Sex Attribution in Ancient Maya Human Sacrifice at Midnight Terror Cave, Belize (2017)
The prurient element in the popular notion of the Maya sacrifice of "beautiful virgins" during the first half of the twentieth century (Frost and Arnold 1909; Willard 1926) appears to have made researchers wary of the topic of gender in study of human sacrifice. The interest in human sacrifice arose in the 1990s at the same time as the formulation of the warfare hypothesis for the collapse of Maya civilization (Demerast 1990) so that models of human sacrifice tended to assume that victims were...
Becan Reconsidered (2018)
BECAN RECONSIDERED -- Joe Ball’s early career centered strongly on Becan, which during the early 1970’s figured prominently in many interpretations of Classic Maya society and culture history. The initial Becan research predated our effective understanding of Maya inscriptions, the large-scale conflicts and alliances that affected the southern lowlands, and also the now-widespread data for climate change and the Classic "collapse". Because of its lack of inscriptions Becan has been...
Beekeeping in the Yucatán Hacienda: The Role of the Melipona beecheii in the Nineteenth-Century Rural Landscape from an Environmental History Approach (2024)
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. This paper examines the role of the stingless bee Melipona beecheii in nineteenth-century Yucatán and shows how the rise of the hacienda system played a contingent role in reshaping beekeeping practices and human-bee relationships. Using primary sources such as beekeeping manuals and...
Beekeeping, Ancestral Knowledge, and Interspecies Relationships: Exploring Place-Based Heritage in Yucatán (2024)
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. In her article “Saving the Other Bees,” Eve Bratman (2020) explores the successful reintroduction of beekeeping practices associated with the stingless species Melipona beecheii in the Yucatán Peninsula, which has resulted in the species thriving following near extinction. She...
Before the Aurora of Hegemony: How the La Corona Community Brooked the Kaanul Dynasty (2024)
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. By examining archaeological and epigraphic evidence from the northwestern Peten during the Classic period, we can gain valuable insights into the strategies used by the Kaanul dynasts to establish and maintain a unique regional hegemony in the Maya Lowlands. We focus on the site of La Corona where we have...
Before There Were Ceramics 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, Part II" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The 10,000 years before ceramics first appear is the longest epoch in the human occupation of Belize, and yet the least understood. Many fundamental cultural developments are first documented in what is now known as the Maya region, including management of tropical forest...
Beginning of Camelid breeding during the Formative period at the Pacopampa site, Peru. (2017)
Our research on faunal remains from the Pacopampa and the Kuntur wasi sites has shown that Camelid breeding began during the Late Formative period (800 – 500 BC) in the northern highlands of Peru. However, motives for the introduction and usage of these animals remain obscure. We conducted multi-disciplinary analyses of the camelid remains from the Pacopampa site to investigate breeding and utilization patterns of these animals. The Sr and O isotope values from tooth enamel showed that 17 of 18...
Beheading Bugs and Spearing Stags: Depictions of Animal Sacrifice in Mesoamerica (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Decipherment, Digs, and Discourse: Honoring Stephen Houston's Contributions to Maya Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The practice of human sacrifice is one of the defining traits of ancient Mesoamerica, at least according to the modern imagination. But painted objects, carvings, and codices reveal that nonhuman animals often served as sacrificial victims as well. Were some classes or species of animals...
Behemoths of the Bajo el Laberinto: The Development of Urban Reservoirs at Yaxnocah and Calakmul, 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. The Elevated Interior Region of the Maya Lowlands, including the area surrounding the sprawling Bajo el Laberinto, faced acute water availability issues that necessitated the annual capture and storage of rain water to support urbanization. Two large urban areas dominate ancient Maya settlement...
Being an Expert Witness in Mexico’s Heritage Management Process: Requirements and Issues (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Congress: Multivocal Conversations Furthering the World Archaeological Congress Agenda" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2022, the Mexican government introduced a new heritage management process, requiring the participation of expert witnesses to determine the property of Indigenous and Afro-Mexican communities’ knowledge, traditions, intellectual property, and heritage. Mexico’s experience with expert...
Bench Please: A Comparative Analysis of Bench Features in Mesoamerica (2018)
Archaeologists have argued for numerous functions of the bench features found throughout the Maya world ranging from utilitarian to ritual. During the 2017 field season at the Late Classic site of La Obra, excavations of a centrally-located structure revealed a bench standing approximately 50 centimeters from the structure floor and extending out approximately 150 centimeters from its northern wall. La Obra is a hilltop production site located approximately one kilometer northwest of the central...