Republic of Guatemala (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
1,076-1,100 (2,898 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Finding Fields: Locating and Interpreting Ancient Agricultural Landscapes" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The significance of urbanization and royal centers in the development of productive agricultural systems and state formation has been minimized in the Hawaiian Islands. Today, thanks to several key methodological advances, especially remote sensing using lidar, we are closer than ever to an integrated and...
Figurines, Households, and Social Identities at La Blanca during the Middle Preclassic Period (900-600 B.C.E.) (2017)
La Blanca was one of two major regional centers during the Conchas phase (900-600 B.C.E.) of the Middle Preclassic period in the Soconusco region of Pacific Guatemala. Household differentiation and social stratification at Preclassic sites in this region can be explored by analyzing the distribution of ceramic figurines across elite and commoner households at La Blanca. Through an analysis of typological distributions of figurines from La Blanca, I provide insight into the production and...
Filling in the Maya Mosaic of Northwestern Belize: Survey and Mapping at MRP (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Ancient Maya Landscapes in Northwestern Belize, Part I" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For several decades, MRP (Maya Research Program) has been working to amass an enormous base of survey and mapping data from the Three Rivers (Blue Creek, Bravo, Booth’s) and upper La Lucha escarpment region of Belize. Over 50 archaeological sites have been precisely recorded using innovative technologies and techniques that...
Final Moments: Contextualizing On-Floor Archaeological Materials from Caracol, Belize (2018)
Excavations within various locales at Caracol, Belize have recovered artifactual materials on the floors of epicentral stone buildings that were associated with the latest occupation of the site epicenter. These deposits are the result of both "de facto" refuse and rapid short-term abandonment processes. In many cases, complete vessels and other artefactual remains were recovered from the floors of Caracol’s epicentral buildings. Other terminal deposits comprise thin sheet-like layers of broken...
Finding Prehistoric Sources of Ceramic Raw Materials in Ticul, Yucatán, Mexico: Traditional Knowledge, Materiality, and Religion (2017)
Up until the tourist market and piped water forever changed the practice of making pottery in Ticul, potters’ raw materials came from sources in a unique socially-perceived and spatially-restricted landscape that served them well for at least a thousand years. Revealed by ethnographic research, potters’ traditional knowledge and utilization of these sources indicated that the unique sources of potters’ clay, palygorskite, and pottery temper were ancient and dated to the Terminal Classic Period....
Finding the Right Niche: Altar, Throne, Stela, Sarcophagus? Overlap and Ambiguity in Olmec Large Stone Sculpture (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Sculpture of the Ancient Mexican Gulf Coast, Part 1" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Among the most diagnostic sculptures made by the Gulf Coast Olmec is the tabletop altar/throne. This sculpture is best known for its most common features: a wide, heavy cornice; a generally rectangular structure; and often, a niche in the front. Given the tabletop form, scholars originally interpreted these sculptures as altars, but...
Fine Dining and Social Position among the Classic period Maya and their Neighbors in Honduras (2017)
Drawing on the substantial body of information that has accumulated over decades of research on the kingdom of Copan and its southern and eastern neighbors, I address the question, What were the key components of Maya meals that turned dining into an important, flexible, and subtle way to embody status? This paper draws together information from a range of methods and bodies of data including ethnobotanical and archaeozoological studies, chemical analyses, research on human skeletal remains,...
Fire and Ash: Formative Period Environmental Chronologies in Eastern Mesoamerica (2017)
Recent dating work has led to revision of regional political chronologies in the Guatemala Highlands. In particular, key Middle and Late Formative phases now date as much as 300 years later than previously believed. This reanalysis brings these phases in line with significant environmental conditions stemming from volcanism and drought. In this paper, we present new high-precision chronologies for these environmental records, and compare these records against regional political chronologies in...
Fire and Death: Cremation as a Ritualised Funerary Practice in the Southern Brazilian Highlands (2017)
Archaeological evidence from southern Jê mound and enclosure complexes in the southern Brazilian highlands points to the development of a complex funerary ritual focused on the practice of cremation from 1000 BP onwards. Drawing upon bioarchaeological, ethnographic and ethnohistorical analysis, this paper discusses the role of cremation as a ritualised practice aimed at transforming the dead, their body and their relations with society. Patterns of similarities and differences in such practice...
Fire and feasting. The role of plants in Brazilian shellmounds funerary rituals. (2017)
Shellmounds occurring along most of the Brazilian coast, locally named "sambaquis", testify of an occupation dated from at least 8000 to c. 1000 years BP. Although traditionally considered as waste deposits, they are now largely recognized as funerary sites constructed by sedentary fishers. The development of archaeobotanical studies in the Southern/Southeastern Brazilian coast is demonstrating the consumption of a wide variety of wild and domesticated plants, pointing to a system of mixed...
Fire up the Uhmw: Deciphering Botanical Residues from Earth Ovens in Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia (2017)
In Pohnpei, Micronesia, the uhmw, or earth oven, is one important way of preparing food. These ovens are typically located in cookhouses next to residential sites. Pohnpeians use heated stones on the ground to cook food and cover items with large leaves while cooking. It is clear that umhw are a long-standing Pohnpeian tradition, as multiple examples have been found in the archaeological record. In this paper, we ask what botanical residues from uhmw can tell us about the prehistory and history...
The Fire Watchers: in search of master teachers (2010)
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...
Firing Strategies: Experimental Pottery Technology Programme for Belize (2017)
This report is a continuation of the Experimental Pottery Research Program I began in Belize in 2000 (Hankins 2009: 177-186). The scarcity of material evidence of pottery manufacture and firing signatures contributes to the relevance of different research strategies to expand our understanding of this technology. Firing pottery is challenging. The technology of constructing pottery is difficult, stressful, and requires constant attention. All the labor, skill, and planning can be lost in the...
First report of a dung beetle (Canthon cyanellus LeConte) found in an offering of the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan (2017)
We report for the first time, the presence of a species of dung beetle recovered from an offering found at the foot of the staircase of the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan. The dung beetle specimen was found on a copal (aromatic resin) ball and was identified as female of Canthon cyanellus, a copro-necrophagous scarab (Coleoptera: Scarabaeinae) by the presence of 4 clipeal teeth (exclusive characteristic of this species) and because its last abdominal sternite is continuous (characteristic of...
First Steps and Finishing Touches: Imaging Techniques and Ancient Maya Bone Craft Production (2017)
Although archaeology focuses on the things that endure, the means by which we study those things is constantly changing. Recent technological developments have revolutionized how we assess chronology, our abilities to identify smaller and smaller traces of organic and inorganic residues, and the ways we share our data among ourselves and with the public. This presentation details a series of imaging techniques, used alone and in combination, that reveal details of ancient bone crafting methods,...
"First, Be Humble": Reflections on Larry Zimmerman’s Impact on IUPUI and Indianapolis (2018)
Arriving in 2004, Larry Zimmerman made an immediate impact on our department, university, and the surrounding community, serving as one of the first public scholars of civic engagement at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis. In this talk we reflect on his influence on our research programs and students, the fostering of collaborations with the community and local organizations, and the establishment of our institution’s Native American Studies Program. Over 14 years, Larry...
Fish Butchering and Processing in Archaeology: Proposed Methods for Academic and CRM Analyses (2018)
Globally, fish are recovered from archaeological contexts, but often a thorough analysis for how fish were processed is often overlooked due to time constraints or a lack of attention paid when examining a faunal assemblage. While the butchering of medium to large mammals is often undertaken as part of a zooarchaeological analysis, fish bones are often ignored or cut marks missed. This can be due to a variety of factors, including limited time and varying levels of expertise. This project...
Fishponds and Aquaculture in the Ancient Hawaiian Political Economy (2017)
The political economy of ancient Hawai'i, prior to European contact in 1778-79, has often been characterized as based primarily on a "staple economy" with highly intensified forms of both irrigated and dryland agriculture. Less appreciated is the role of intensive aquaculture of two species (milkfish and mullet) using several kinds of often extensive fishponds. This paper explores the role and significance of such aquaculture in the late pre-contact Hawaiian political economy, drawing especially...
Five Decades of Paleoindian Archaeology (2024)
This is an abstract from the "*SE Big Data and Bigger Questions: Papers in Honor of David G. Anderson" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For over 50 years, David Anderson has investigated many aspects of the prehistory of North America, especially the American Southeast. At the start of his career, Clovis was considered the oldest evidence of a human presence in the Americas. Archaeological and genetic data now inform us that people were in the...
Flames, Ash, and Charcoal: Paleoethnobotanical Approaches to Understanding the Role of Fire in Postclassic Tarascan Ritual Practices (2017)
Although ethnohistoric sources provide many interesting clues regarding the importance of fire in Postclassic Tarascan rituals, these practices are still not well characterized by archaeologists. We know that fire was omnipresent in Tarascan society, not just for ordinary, daily needs (heating, cooking, light, etc.), but also in a seemingly diverse variety of ritual practice that ranged from the public cremation ceremonies of deceased rulers to more humble household rituals carried out on a...
Flint Artifacts in Salinas de los Nueve Cerros: An Approach to Production and Consumption (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents the preliminary data from a study that has been carried out on a considerable collection of flint artifacts from Salinas de los Nueve Cerros, Guatemala. These were uncovered during the excavations of the site over eight field seasons. Flint is a local resource in Salinas and it was widely used to produce many objects mainly used as cutting...
Flintknapping Experiments and Middle-Range Theory (2018)
The manufacture of stone tools in the present and careful recording of resulting flake debris over the past thirty years typified middle range theory building and allowed new insights into past human behavior, especially regarding mobility systems. Walter Klippel, best known for contributions to zooarchaeology, encouraged our going down a rocky path of middle-range theory building. Flintknapping experimentation has generated a great deal of individual data sets but the promise of "big data"...
Floors, an Archaeological Material: The Case of the Plaza de la Piramide del Sol, Teotihuacan, Mexico (2018)
Human beings have modified surfaces to make them habitable, with time they made other floors to give it a better finish. The process was recorded in the floors interiors; we can observe the materials used in its elaboration and how they changed through time. Additionally, we can conduct other studies which help us understand the time-frame between structures. Floors are a complex material and their study helps us identify social aspects seen in past studies of other materials such as ceramics,...
Flora, Ethnoecology, and Foodways in the Land of the Sky (2017)
Analysis of botanical residues recovered from the Río Verde Valley has yielded a wealth of information about activities of ancient inhabitants. Data from this paper were derived from large-scale excavations at the Terminal Formative urban center of Río Viejo, and the Terminal Formative outlying sites of Cerro de la Virgen and Loma Don Genaro. Evidence of agricultural practices as well as the collection of wild and fallow-dwelling plants have been revealed through charred seeds and other...
Flower & Song: Exploring Literacy in Postclassic Mesoamerica (2017)
The Postclassic codices of the Maya, Mixtec, and Nahua peoples have often been separated based on preconceived notions of literacy and language, with the Maya codices receiving an epigraphic approach while the Nahua and Mixtec receive an art historical approach. This division is largely arbitrary and based on Western assumptions of the nature of writing and its form, privileging scripts which lean towards the alphabetic as more advanced. Within these codices, the linguistic practice of...