Belize (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
301-325 (3,437 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me: What Have We Learned Over the Past 40 Years and How Do We Address Future Challenges" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Passage of federal environmental laws during the 1960’s forced otherwise autonomous bureaucracies to accept professions into their ranks that previously had no place. Public lands agencies like the Forest Service were required to employ archaeologists once the National Historic...
Attempt of Modelization of the First Settlements in America at Pleistocene Based on the New Archaeological Sequences in Piaui (Brazil) (2017)
The research our teams are conducting in the parc of Capivara in Brazil since 2008 lead to reveal 6 new Pleistocene archaeological sequences . The sites are all located within a 20 km area and stem from different sedimentary and topographic environments including: open air, rock shelter, cave at the bottom of cuesta or in karst. Each of the sites shows different sedimentary sequences, including different archeological horizons and different typo-technical compositions. The dating that we have...
Attractive Salt: What the magnetic susceptibility and stratigraphy of the Witz Naab and Killer Bee mounds reveal about ancient Maya salt production and economy. (2017)
Witz Naab and Killer Bee contain some of the last remaining above-ground mounds of a once-thriving salt industry in Punta Ycacos Lagoon, a large salt-water system in Paynes Creek National Park, Belize. Documented sea-level rise during the Terminal Classic has submerged the once thriving Classic period (A.D. 300-900) Maya salt works. Excavations and magnetic susceptibility were conducted as part of the author’s dissertation research at Louisiana State University (LSU). This excavation is part of...
Authentication of Museum-Curated Tsantsas Utilizing Next Generation Sequencing Technology (2017)
The Shuar, native to Northern Peru and Southern Ecuador, prepared shrunken heads to serve as trophies following battle, in response to their cultural beliefs. Authentic shrunken heads (tsantsas) were prepared in a precise manner and exhibit key morphological characteristics. Forgeries, including primates and inauthentic human preparations, were marketed to tourists and private collectors to profit from the "savage" image surrounding the Shuar. Inauthentic shrunken heads were prepared in a...
The Authentication of the Codex Maya of Mexico, Previously Known as the Grolier, through Scientific Analysis (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. After 45 years of polemic about the Codex Grolier, the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia of Mexico finally decided to undertake major scientific studies on this document to evaluate its authenticity. During...
Authorship and Practice in Guatemalan Archaeology through an Intersectional Lens (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Beyond Leaky Pipelines: Exploring Gender Inequalities in Archaeological Practice" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This intersectional study explores gender and nationality in the production and dissemination of knowledge in Guatemalan archaeology. We examine publication trends in the memoirs of Guatemala’s annual archaeology symposium between 1990 and 2019. As the country’s main venue of dissemination of archaeological...
Automated archaeological feature extraction from LiDAR. (2017)
Here we present preliminary results from a collaborative project between archaeologists and IBM research scientists focused on developing a cost-efficient algorithm for the automated recognition of archaeological features (objects) from LiDAR data. Our research focuses on challenges of: 1) multidisciplinary work integrating expertise from diverse disciplines, 2) identifying complex archaeological features in the context of a dense urban site in a rugged topographic setting, and 3) developing a ...
Automatic Identification of Shipwrecks Using Digital Elevation Data and Deep Learning (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The objective of this project was to create a deep learning model that uses digital elevation data to automatically identify shipwrecks. The model uses a convolutional neural network architecture and has a F1 score of 0.92. Deep learning modeling based on remotely sensed imagery is a rapidly expanding area of research within the field of computer science, but...
Avances en el estudio de la organización sociopolítica prehispánica en la región del Río Tampaón, S.L.P., México (2017)
El estudio de la organización política de la región de Tamtoc, tiene por objeto indagar en las relaciones que existieron entre los individuos, las formas en que ejercieron el poder político y la naturaleza y escala de su organización. Para realizar este propósito llevamos a cabo un programa de prospección arqueológica con el objeto de reconstruir los patrones de asentamientos y posible uso del antiguo paisaje. En esta ponencia presentamos los resultados de dos temporadas de trabajo en campo.
Avances y perspectivas de la conservación de edificios monumentales en Uxmal (2019)
This is an abstract from the "La Restauración de Monumentos Prehispánicos en México: Principios, Práctica, y Visión al Futuro" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Sin lugar a duda Uxmal fue el sitio más importante de la región Puuc desde el siglo VIII hasta el X. Cuenta con un área amurallada de 2.6 km2, en los que se distribuyen 11 grupos de arquitectura monumental. A principios del siglo XX la lógica de conservación fue intervenir los edificios que...
Aventura: An Introduction (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Households at Aventura: Life and Community Longevity at an Ancient Maya City" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Urban households anchor the first decade of research at the Maya site of Aventura, Belize, situating the daily lives of the city’s heterogenous residents. They also illuminate social, political, economic, and environmental factors that enhanced life in the community. Summarizing research results of the Aventura...
Aventura: Understanding Sustainable Cities (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Advancing Public Perceptions of Sustainability through Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As over half of the world lives in cities today, there is perhaps no more pressing question than: how can people create cities that are sustainable? Archaeology is uniquely suited to answer questions about the longevity of cities, because archaeologists excavate long expanses of human history. The social, political,...
Aventura’s Households from Commoners to Elites (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Households at Aventura: Life and Community Longevity at an Ancient Maya City" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Household archaeology provides a powerful lens to understand people, their daily lives, and the myriad social, political, economic, and environmental relations that link people, households, and communities to broader societies. For its first decade of research, the Aventura Archaeology Project conducted a study...
Aventura’s Watery Landscape: Communities of People, Water, Houses, and Ancestors (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Households at Aventura: Life and Community Longevity at an Ancient Maya City" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Water was essential for the longevity of ancient Maya cities, and Aventura was no exception. The site’s watery landscape consists of pocket bajos, defined as karstic depressions less than 2 km2 in area. While they are seasonally inundated today, this paper presents data from excavation, oral histories, and...
The Axis Connecting Classic Maya Economy and Ritual at Xunantunich, Belize (2018)
The ancient Maya formalized avenues of movement between and within urban centers through the construction of sacbeob that both defined space and connected places on the landscape. In this paper, we discuss the ways in which a formally constructed sacbe at Xunantunich functioned as an axis connecting economic and ritual activities. The architectural arrangement of Classic Xunantunich emphasizes a north/south directionality. The site’s sacbe, however, was constructed on an east/west alignment....
Aztec Aesthetics: Historical Reconstructions and Contemporary Cultural Recovery Movements (2017)
Since the 1960s, Mexicayotl communities––or communities focused on Mexican Indigenous revivalism––have pursued an Indigenous cultural recovery. In the United States, these efforts have gained traction among Danza Azteca communities who increasingly employ pre-Hispanic flutes, rattles, and other Mesoamerican instruments in their rituals and performances. Danza Azteca communities have drawn on lines of inquiry that parallel those of Robert Stevenson (1968: 17, 18), including the study of...
Aztec Militarism and Blood Sacrifice: The Archaeology and Ideology of Ritual Violence (2007)
J. Whittaker: Revisionist efforts attempt to refute accounts of Aztec sacrifice as “racist, colonialist” etc. But our understanding of large-scale sacrifice not based only on Spanish accounts, also arch evidence of ritual violence - experiments in heart excision, serological study of deposits, forensic analysis of skeletal remains, including numerous sites with evidence of peri-mortem mutilation and cannibalism, 170 crania from tsompantli skull rack at Tlatelolco associated with stone tools used...
Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political Control (1988)
J. Whittaker: Compiled from various sources. Atlatl predates Aztecs, although some myth claims they invented it, or credits god Opochtli. Surviving examples often ornate, perhaps for ceremonial occasions, ca. 2 feet long with hook and groove. Grips with loops, holes, or pegs. [Poor photo shows elaborate atlatl with apparently simple grip; codex drawing shows peg grips on atlatls used against Spanish] Darts made of oak and fletched, a variety of points used. Shown in art carried in hand, not...
Aztecs in the Empire City: The Rise and Fall of Ancient American Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1877–1914 (2018)
With the return of peace after the dislocations of the US Civil War, The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 by businessmen, civic leaders, and artists in New York. Unlike its European counterparts, the institution had no royal collections on which to build. Its ancient American holdings grew through gifts and purchases from diplomats, philanthropists, and collectors. By 1900, with the acquisition of the Petich Collection of some 1500 "Aztec," and "Toltec" works, The American...
The Baalche’ Group: An Investigation of a Preclassic Maya Palace at Yaxnohcah, Campeche, Mexico (2017)
As part of the on-going research into the development of socio-political complexity at the Maya site of Yaxnohcah, the Proyecto Arqueológico Yaxnohcah has been conducting investigations in the Baalche’ Group, a large courtyard group located at the center of the site. The group sits adjacent to many prominent architectural features, including a Preclassic period E-Group assemblage, a ball court, and a water reservoir. Radiocarbon dating and ceramic analysis has revealed that the Baalche’ Group...
"Back to the Soil": Community Archaeology and Heritage Tourism in Eleuthera, Bahamas (2016)
Over the past several decades there has been a great deal of archaeological excavation and analysis of both U.S. and Caribbean plantations. However, many of these research projects are designed to address archaeological research questions rather than some of the pressing problems faced by descendant communities concerning their heritage. In 1994, UNESCO launched their “Slave Route” project, with the aim of “contributing to a better understanding of the causes, forms of operation, issues and...
"Bai Kui", the True Garden; "Ava-Ti", the White Population: Horticultural Intensification in Lowland South America (2017)
The "true garden" or "Bai Kui" of the Kashinawá, Pano language speakers in the state of Acre, Brazil, is described here as an example of the original horticulture which occupied the arc of dry forests in southeastern Amazon. Improved forms of manioc, peanuts, and peppers evolved during 9,000 years of cultivation and were exchanged with farmers on the Pacific Coast to improve garden diversity in an ancient and far-flung cultural interaction sphere. The connectivity required for long-distance...
Bajo Hornos Reef, Veracruz: a depositional trap for ships and related cultural material (2013)
From the arrival of Cortes in 1519 until the 20th century, Veracruz was one of the most important ports in the Americas. In addition to its role in transatlantic trade, it also played an essential role in maritime relations between Mexico, the Antilles and the northern Gulf of Mexico. In the 80´s, late 90´s and 2010 diving surveys carried out at Bajo Hornos reef by the Underwater Archeology team (SAS) of the Mexican National Institute for Anthropology and History (INAH), yielded a variety of...
Balancing Public and Professional Interests in Archaeology from a State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) Perspective (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As the public increases its influence over how the discipline of archaeology defines its scientific and educational value, state-sponsored archaeological institutions, such as the State Historic Preservation Office, must continue to adapt to satisfy their professional and public audiences. In 2017, the Nebraska State Historic Preservation Office (NeSHPO)...
Balankanche Revisited: Some Preliminary Observations (2018)
With the discovery of passages sealed behind a blockage in 1959, Balankanche became the preeminent cave in Maya archaeology. Because so many of the intact vessels were incense burners and because of the Maya ceremony recorded as part of the investigation, Balankanche’s ritual function was never questioned even though at that time most caves were thought to be habitational. E. Wyllys Andrews IV’s monograph on the cave has remained one of the field’s best reports. In the summer of 2017, the Gran...