Belize (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
601-625 (4,066 Records)
Recent field and laboratory archaeological findings in Bocas del Toro, Panama offer data that changes and amplifies our understanding of the prehistory of the region. Detailed paleoethnobotanical study, further zooarchaeological examination, preliminary ceramic thin-section analysis, and continuing ceramic analysis have all produced results that call in to question entrenched assumptions concerning the timing of settlement, the nature of the subsistence economy, trade, exchange and cultural...
Changing Patterns of Production and Exchange in "Borderland" Economies: The Case of the Classic Maya Civilization (2018)
Following the trajectory of the work of Rita Wright, recent research has focused on production, producers, and exchange in a "borderland" zone, the "frontier" between Classic Maya lowland city-states and less complex, but more diverse, polities of the resource-rich highlands to the south. These "borderland" studies led to insights concerning exchange, production, and the roles of elite managers and non-elite "labor". Archaeologists and economists examined the material culture of dozens of sites...
Changing Plant Economies and Diverse Plant Practices at Piedras Negras (2018)
Botanical residues recovered from the Piedras Negras kingdom have yielded rich information about activities and economies of ancient inhabitants. Data for this paper were derived from large-scale excavations targeting Classic Period craft production areas, defensive features, and dwellings. Evidence of agricultural practices as well as the collection of wild and fallow-dwelling plants has been revealed through charred seeds and other botanical residues. The recovered archaeobotanical remains...
Characterization of Local and Aztec Rule at Calixtlahuaca (2017)
The Aztec Empire has been characterized as both an example of relatively indirect rule and as a case of relatively collective rule, positions which are least superficially opposed. In this paper, I use ceramic data (INAA, petrography, and type classification) from multiple contemporaneous households at the provincial capital of Calixtlahuaca in the Toluca Valley to evaluate these two positions. I compare data from the time periods during which the site was under local rule and when it was...
Characterization of Mendoza and Cortezo Pigments: Communities of Practice and Ceramic Production in Precolumbian Panama (AD 1300–1500) (2024)
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. We present the results of an exploratory pigment characterization of the Mendoza and Cortezo Red-Buff ceramics. These ceramic styles produced from CE 1300 until the first part of the Spanish colonization tend to appear in association (Mendoza-Cortezo complex). Mendoza, distinguished for the ceramic plates decorated with polychrome...
Characterizing Pottery Fabrics Using Digital Image Analysis: An Investigation of the Socio-economy of the Late Postclassic Maya of Northern Yucatan (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Late Postclassic Maya Pottery from northern Yucatán sites, including Mayapán, was analyzed using petrographic, chemical, and surface features analyses, seeking patterns in ceramic technology and social interactions. New information was gained (Sánchez Fortoul, C.G , 2018) regarding the selection and processing of raw materials, ceramic production location and...
CHARATERIZATION OF CERAMICS UNCOVERED IN THE PAROTA RIVER BASIN AND LAKE SIRAHUEN BASIN, MICHOACÁN, MEXICO: FLUORESCENCE ANALYSIS IN ULTRA-VIOLET LIGHT AND PETROGRAPHY IN THIN SHEETS (2017)
This poster shows the results of the petrographic characterization of the ceramics found in the basins of the Parota River and Lake Sirahuen, two archaeological areas surveyed as part of the Proyecto Arqueología y Paisaje del Área Centro Sur de Michoacán. Fluorescence techniques applied are an induction of ultraviolet light and petrographic analysis in thin sheets; the first technique was used as an experimental test to identify variances in a very large sample and thereby to reduce to a viable...
Charismatic and Religious Aspects of Maya Rulership: An Interpretation of the Coronitas Temple Complex of La Corona (2018)
The Coronitas Group at La Corona presents a unique architectural setting, consisting of five pyramidal temples aligned in a north-south row and several attached structures. Excavations in this group have been carried out since the beginning of the project, providing important data concerning the function of these temples throughout the site’s occupation. A detailed chronological analysis has shown that this architectural complex was one of the main ceremonial areas of the site, evinced by not...
Charki and Red Currant Jam: Provisioning Extractive Industries in Republican Highland Peru (2017)
With the current boom in the archaeology of the colonial period in the central Andes, we risk losing sight of the potential for archaeological investigation of the colonial aftermath. Following important work further afield in the Southern Cone, I argue for the particular relevance archaeology could have in exploring trade liberalization, emancipation, and the new commodity booms of the 19th century. Drawing on the recent investigation of a series of Republican tambos (roadside inns) in the...
Charting Long-Term Social Stability in the Tres Zapotes Region: Theory, Method, and Settlement Patterns (2017)
In 2014 we initiated the Recorrido Regional Arqueológico de Tres Zapotes (RRATZ) to implement the NSF-funded project, "Long-term Social Stability in the Tres Zapotes Region." The goal of this project was to better understand the resilience of a tropical lowland polity through a millennium of political, economic, and environmental challenges, to document the preconditions that gave rise to this Olmec and Epi-Olmec polity, and to document the transformations that occurred in the wake of its...
Chasing the Cure: The Archaeology of Alternative Health Practices at a Tuberculosis Sanatorium (2018)
Eighty years ago, Cragmor Sanatorium in Colorado Springs, Colorado was a celebrated asylum for wealthy tuberculars and one of the premier facilities in the West. In its heyday, Cragmor housed some of the wealthiest patients in the United States. In the 1950s, the sanatorium contracted with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to treat Navajo women with tuberculosis. Once it became part of the University of Colorado system in 1965, much of the original history was subsumed under the growing campus but a...
Chemical Analyses of Obsidian from Classic Maya Paynes Creek Salt Works, Belize (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Paynes Creek Salt Works were an ancient Maya Classic Period (A.D. 300-900) salt industry located in a shallow salt water lagoon in southern Belize. The rise of the Paynes Creek Salt Works mirrored the growth in population at inland communities during the Late Classic Period (A. D. 600-900) where salt—a basic biological necessity—was scarce. The demand for...
Chemical Composition of Maya Slips: Analysis and Interpretation of Preclassic Sherds from Holtun, Guatemala Using pXRF Technology (2018)
Slip, a fluid suspension of clay that is applied to the surface of a piece of ceramic, allows for increased control over the functional and aesthetic properties of the finished vessel. The potter can select a slip to provide a more appealing color, texture, and/or luster to the vessel’s surface, while maintaining the favorable functional qualities of the paste.While slip color has long been used as an attribute for classification in the Maya lowlands, only recently have the raw materials of...
Chemical Indices as a Key to Context: The Use of pXRF to Reassemble Maya Mural Fragments from San Bartolo, Guatemala (2019)
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. The dissemination of wall paintings from the Late Preclassic period Maya site of San Bartolo, Guatemala, have focused on the in situ north and west walls of the buried chamber named Sub-1A. In contrast to their excellent...
Chemical Residues Analysis and Infrared Spectroscopy to Determine a Kiln´s Function from a Henequen Hacienda in Yucatan, Mexico (2017)
San Pedro Cholul was a henequen plantation and industrial facility, a hacienda estate, situated on the northeastern part of Merida city, Yucatán, México. Its principal development was during the last decades of the nineteenth century, known as Yucatan´s Gilded Age, and it was totally abandoned by the middle of the twentieth century. In 2015 we excavated a kiln facility in order to confirm its function as a lime production structure, to obtain archaeomagnetic dates, and to extract sediment...
Chemical residues in ceramic household containers of Santa Cruz Atizapan site in the valley of Toluca, Mexico (2017)
The results of analysis of chemical residues are presented in a set of 2469 samples of archaeological ceramic artifacts: 434 foreign vessels (Kabata 2010), 452 samples of various types of local vessels (Pérez 2002, 2009), 480 comales (Terreros 2013), 470 pots, pans, 334 cazuleas, 140 braseros and 159 sahumadores. The containers correspond to the Late Classic and Epiclasic lakeside site occupation of Santa Cruz Atizapán, in Mexico State. Residues of protein, carbohydrates, fatty acids, phosphates...
Chenopod data in two countries of South America: Advances in knowledge about the use of Chenopodium in Argentina and Chile from Early Holocene (9000-11000 BP) to Historical Times (250 BP). (2017)
Argentina and Chile are the most austral American countries where Chenopodium species are recovered in several archaeological contexts. In both countries from the north to central and south, various issues are addressed from these findings such as hunter-gatherers subsistence strategies and chenopod grain morphological changes. Multi-proxy methods are used based on pollen, macro and micro botanical remains analyses, and isotopic data. However scarce botanical evidence has carried an uneven depth...
Chert Extraction and Production in Resource-Rich Regions: Chert Economies among the Late Classic Maya of Western Belize (2018)
Global studies of raw material extraction permit us to examine the methods and involvement of different individuals in the extraction and production of lithic materials. One variable which can influence the organization of extraction and production is the abundance or scarcity of raw materials in a region. This paper addresses the extraction and production of chert materials among the Late Classic Maya (A.D. 600-900) in the lowland Maya region, specifically western Belize, a chert-rich area,...
Chert Tools from the Ta’ab Nuk Na Salt Works (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Underwater Maya: Analytical Approaches for Interpreting Ancient Maya Activities at the Paynes Creek Salt Works, Belize" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Assessment of a lithic assemblage excavated from the coastal Maya site of Ta’ab Nuk Na in southern Belize provides insight on economic and domestic activities. A reliance on imported chert tools from the north helps visualize links in the extensive coastal trade system...
Chiapa de Corzo: rutas de intercambio e interacción cultural entre las regiones zoque y maya (2018)
Chiapa de Corzo se distinguió como una de las principales capitales zoques en la Depresión Central de Chiapas por casi dos milenios, hasta su abandono a finales del periodo Clásico. Su localización sobre una meseta elevada, que dominaba el valle del río Grande o Grijalva, resultó estratégica en el control de una de las principales vías de comunicación y transporte de recursos entre la costa y las tierras altas mayas. El sistema de comunicaciones asociado al río Grijalva constituyó el eje de una...
Chibchan Enlightenment (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. This presentation explores interpretations of past Indigenous political complexity in the Isthmo-Colombian Area. The paper argues that a preoccupation with hierarchy carries unforeseen consequences for the epistemology of the area and proposes a critique; that the various societies of the area...
The Chicama Valley Archaeological Project (1989-2000) Revisited (2017)
Between 1989 and 2000, the Chicama Valley Archaeological Project, lead by Glenn S. Russell, Banks Leonard and Christopher Attarian, conducted archaeological survey and excavations in the lower Chicama Valley. This presentation will focus on a broad summary of settlement pattern change with reference to key excavation data that informs interpretation of the survey data. A focus will be how sociopolitical complexity developed in the context of control of irrigation systems. Approximately 25% of...
The Chicama Valley in Time and Space (2017)
The Chicama is one of the largest valleys of the Peruvian coast, was part of the "heartland" of Moche culture, and a frontier between different cultural and linguistic regions at the time of Spanish arrival. This paper will review past and recent research in the valley and and their problems and potentials. Particular attention will be paid to landscape archaeology and the history of irrigation systems and land use through time, themes to be addressed in the other papers of the session.
Chichen Itza 3D Atlas (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Chichen Itza is an extensive site containing a vast and distinctive corpus of monumental architecture, carved stone iconography, and painted murals. Since its initial excavation in 1913, artifacts have been collected and distributed widely between collections. In 2014, 2017, and 2022 the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM) conducted aerial...
Chichen Itza and the Early Postclassic International Style (2018)
Chichen Itza has long deserved an approach based on an analysis of the art and iconography of the site for its own merits rather than the continually frustrating analysis that results from attempts to project Late Postclassic religious stories on to the site. Effortlessly blending themes of paradise and militarism, Chichen Itza drew on a wide array of styles that appear in strikingly similar ways indicating the workings of an Early Postclassic International Style that simultaneously integrated...