Belize (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
876-900 (4,066 Records)
In the Postclassic Mixtec codices, the integral and integrative themes of place, emergence, and movement converge. Neglected in much of the scholarly literature on the sacred books of the Mixtec, the visual representation of supernatural and historical figures’ emergence and movement from place to place is an integral component of the codical narratives. Emergence and movement are tethered to and integrative with Mixtec portrayals of place, of various kingdoms through a standardized glyphic sign...
Cosmogonía y ritualidad en contextos funerarios de Tamtoc, SLP, México (2017)
En antropología, la muerte es considerada un hecho natural universal con expresiones socioculturales fundamentadas en la cosmogonía de cada grupo humano, y es a través de los rituales funerarios que se marca la conexión simbólica entre la vida y la muerte, que se expresa tanto en el plano material-biológico (cadáver y lugar de destino final) como en el espiritual (trascendencias, creencias y escatología); en tanto que, la muerte, como hecho objetivo y como hecho cultural ritualizado, delimita el...
Cosmology at Home: Ritual Caching within the Residences of Late Preclassic Noh K’uh, Chiapas Mexico (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Late Preclassic (400 BC - A.D. 200) site of Noh K'uh is located in the Mensäbäk basin, 30 kilometers west of the Usumacinta River. Noh K'uh was a small ceremonial center composed of several residential groups centered around a ceremonial plaza. Noh K’uh’s location near the western edge of the Maya lowlands placed the residents near contemporary...
Cosmology, Calendars and Horizon-Based Astronomy in Ancient Mesoamerica (2015)
Cosmology, Calendars, and Horizon-Based Astronomy in Ancient Mesoamerica is an interdisciplinary tour de force that establishes the critical role astronomy played in the religious and civic lives of the ancient peoples of Mesoamerica. Providing extraordinary examples of how Precolumbian peoples merged ideas about the cosmos with those concerning calendar and astronomy, the volume showcases the value of detailed examinations of astronomical data for understanding ancient cultures. The volume...
Costly Signaling, Cost Masking, and the Classic-Postclassic Transition: Slipped Ceramics and other Media in the Context of the Petén Lakes Region, Guatemala. (2016)
Costly signaling theory indicates that highly visible acts of public generosity and display, which exact costs not easily recouped, however, can provide social benefits to those engaged in such acts. Such signaling is associated with the strength or fitness of the provider. Analyzing slipped and fineware ceramics in display contexts, and obsidian use and architecture, this presentation explores how Maya elites and rural sub-elites engaged in costly signaling and modified their actions by cost...
Costs of Acquiring Lithic Materials in High Altitude Environments (Northwestern San Juan Province, Argentina): A GIS-Based Evaluation (2017)
Based on geo-archaeological studies on the Argentine–Chilean border in the southern Andes, a method is proposed for ranking lithic sources based on the quality of the material, cost of accessibility, and location along travel corridors. In the upper Las Taguas river valley (northwestern San Juan Province, Argentina, 5500–3700 masl), 32,622 lithic artifacts from 30 sites were analyzed to study the variation in the use of seven lithic sources between 10,000 and 500 cal BP. We ranked the time...
Costumbres funerarias en la época del contacto en la Huasteca Potosina (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Approaches to Cultural and Biological Complexity in Mexico at the Time of Spanish Conquest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. El contexto funerario de una mujer adulta nos muestra que, dentro de las conductas funerarias presentes entre las élites de Tamtoc, era tradicional ataviar al individuo con lujosos bienes procedentes de muy diversas regiones. Las costumbres funerarias y el estudio sobre el origen de los objetos de...
Costume and Identity in Pacific Nicaragua (2017)
Sixteen years of archaeological research along the shore of Lake Cocibolca in Pacific Nicaragua has yielded a wealth of material culture relating to domestic practice and mortuary rituals for the period from AD 500 to 1250. Among these are numerous objects of adornment, such as pendants, beads, and ear ornaments. Additional costume information is found on small ceramic figurines, primarily of females with painted decoration indicating clothing, hairstyle, tattooing, and jewelry. Based on initial...
“The Cottage,” a Small Viking Age Dwelling in North Iceland (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Small Dwellings on the Viking Frontier: New Research from Kotið, North Iceland" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster serves as an introduction and overview to a poster session on the archaeology of Kotið (“The Cottage”), a small dwelling established during the initial Viking Age settlement of Iceland in the late ninth century. Kotið represents a previously unknown and uninvestigated site type in the early Viking...
The Country and the City: Explorations of the Relationship between Río Amarillo and Copan, in the Copan Valley, Honduras (2018)
Cities and the communities in their hinterlands are inextricably linked, and yet the objectives of their inhabitants can be starkly different. The archaeological sites of Río Amarillo and Quebrada Piedras Negras shared a fertile plain along the Río Amarillo and Río Blanco Rivers. Several scholars have suggested that the arable fields here may have acted as a bread basket for the urban center to their west. Research at Rio Amarillo has yielded evidence of strong ties to Copan including...
The Cozumel Bee People, Social Ecology, and Landscape Management during the Late Maya Postclassic (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. Landscape management in Cozumel during the Late Postclassic resulted in a network of stone walls (albarradas) demarcating the entire island resembling the structure of a beehive. This paper presents a comparison of some features of the social ecology of Yucatec stingless bees and the...
Craft Production and Economic Integration in Hinterland Households (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Economic integration in hinterland communities has often been under theorized in Maya studies. Here I explore the evidence of craft production in several hinterland households as well as the implications for connections with social, political, and economic institutions. Households make decisions about crafting activities and respond to risks and stressors both...
Craft Production at Cerro Baúl: Unattached Specialization on the Wari Frontier (2017)
This paper presents preliminary analysis and interpretations of a craft production space located within a single residential patio group on the summit of Cerro Baúl, located in the Moquegua Valley of Peru on the Wari- Tiwanaku frontier. Excavations in a patio group located close to a Tiwanaku temple exposed a dense artifact midden which included obsidian points and debitage, shell and lithic beads, burnt ceramics, and bone. Evidence of subfloor offerings, marked by multiple cuy internments in...
Craft Specialization in the Hinterland: Lithic Tool Production within Dispersed Urban Landscapes at El Palmar (Campeche, Mexico) and across the Maya Lowlands (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dispersed urban landscapes are mosaics of individual interactions generated through a range of social and economic processes. Large-scale lithic production provides a lens for understanding the interconnected nature of economies between hinterland communities and central polities, yet it remains relatively underexplored in Classic period Maya society (AD...
Crafting and Trading along the Banks of the Telica: Artisan Communities and Regional Interaction in Eastern Honduras and Beyond (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Postclassic Mesoamerica: The View from the Southern Frontier" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper focuses on the regional role that two artisan communities, Chichicaste and Dos Quebradas, played as producers of pottery and obsidian blades within regional exchange networks. Chichicaste pottery has been recovered from many Honduran sites as well as from El Salvador and northern Nicaragua. The wide distribution of...
Crafting Chert Commodities at Santa Cruz, Yucatan, Mexico (2023)
This is an abstract from the "An Exchange of Ideas: Recent Research on Maya Commodities" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper discusses chert crafting at the site of Santa Cruz in northern Yucatan. Santa Cruz was a small town located only about 25 km from both Chichen Itza and Ek Balam and occupied almost exclusively during the Late/Terminal Classic period when both these cities were at their height. Surface collections in 2017 and...
Crafting Human/Hieroglyph Relationships in Classic Maya Contexts (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Crafting Culture: Thingselves, Contexts, Meanings" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The study of Classic Maya hieroglyphic writing (ca. AD 250-900, Mexico and Central America) has yielded rich understandings of texts in recent years through increasingly nuanced ways of reading, contextualizing, and interpreting hieroglyphs. Beyond examining hieroglyphic texts as culturally contextualized documentary sources, however,...
Crafting in a Non-elite Maya Household at Holtun, Guatemala (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The site of Holtun, in the central lakes region of the Maya lowlands, was occupied from the Preclassic through the Postclassic. Over 30 residential groups make up the northern settlement area on the periphery of Holtun where most of these surface residential structures date to the Late Classic and Terminal Classic periods. The non-elite household...
Crafting Process and Usage of "Axe-God" Jade Pendants in Pre-Columbian Costa Rica (2018)
The "axe-god" jade pendants form the majority of Costa Rican jade artifacts. These pendants were valued for their "celt like shape" and did not function as real axes. Interestingly, some pendants do have abrasions on their axe edges. Because of that, it has been proposed that prior to being reworked into a corporal accessory, some of these pendants had been used as real axes or other tools. The "axe-god" pendants consist of two parts; the superior part with decoration of human or animals, and...
Crafting, Identity, and Power: A Comparative Analysis of Late Postclassic Facial Adornment Use in Central Mexico (2017)
In pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica, individuals from diverse regions and social classes deployed facial adornments, such as ear spools and lip plugs, to materialize concepts of identity. Specifically, recent archaeological research at the Late Postclassic (AD 1250 to 1521) city of Tlaxcallan provides new insights into the role of facial adornments in a highly collective society. Tracing material sources reveals the inter-workings of regional and local economic interactions and local sociopolitical...
Crafting, Ritual, and the Constitution of Rural Complexity: Household and Community Practices of Distinction and Affiliation at Chunhuayum, Yucatán (2018)
As Maya archaeology has shifted away from urban-centric perspectives, recent research demonstrates that hinterland populations, like urbanites, were involved in diverse and shifting practices enabling them to build and negotiate complex relationships. Using a community approach, this paper examines non-agrarian activities practiced during the late Early and Late Classic (ca. 500 – 850 AD) by residents of Chunhuayum, a small yet socioeconomically diverse farming settlement located in northwest...
Crafting, Sharing, and Representing: The Molds and Figurines of Calakmul, Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Three-dimensional multi-line laser scanning reproduces highly accurate models that preserve measurable characteristics of portable artifacts such as figurines, whistles, stamps, and molds. Metrological analyses are revealing valuable information about manufacturing techniques, the crafter’s tool kit, the function of these artifacts, and the extent of...
Cranial Vault Modification in the Mariana Islands (2018)
Cultural flattening of the posterior skull, rare in the Mariana Islands, was recently observed in multiple human skeletons from a Latte Period site in Guam. Prior to this study, only one case of possible artificial cranial modification was reported for this region. The cranium of a young adult female from Songsong Village, Rota, was described as having "asymmetrical deformation in the occipital region consistent with artificial shaping practices." In a review of the ethnohistoric literature,...
Cream Wares of the Southeast Maya Periphery (2017)
Since publication on the compositional analyses of Copan ceramics by Bishop and Beaudry in 2004 several scholars have addressed the manufacture and distribution of cream wares similar to those that are found at Copan. The additional accumulation of data usually results in more insights and better source attributions, but at times the complexities of compositional analysis can mislead interpretation. This paper presents highlights of greatly extended sampling and uses a geochemical perspective...
Creating a Case for a Classic Period Provincial Polity at Pacbitun, Belize (2018)
The Late Classic period (AD 550 – 800) at Pacbitun, Belize brought about heightened prosperity evinced in a surge of architectural development and an increase in precious exotic materials. However, despite continued growth, by the close of the Late Classic Pacbitun’s affluence appears to have diminished considerably. To the north, settlements of the Belize River Valley also seemingly undergo a concomitant florescence and economic decline. Research suggests the pecuniary instability of the Belize...