Orange Walk (State / Territory) (Geographic Keyword)
976-1,000 (1,085 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ongoing research at El Pilar—an ancient Maya city located along the Belize/Guatemala frontier—has documented hundreds of landscape-modification features in the area surrounding the monumental civic center. The complexity and variety of these features, which include terraces, berms, quarries, check-dams, and aguadas, indicate the sophistication of Maya...
Territorial Strategies in Western Chiapas. (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper explores the different strategies used by a small polity to gain influence in long distance communication routes and access to resources and their changes through time. The research is based on spatial models and an archaeological survey conducted in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. The survey was performed in an area in between two major...
Testing a Multi-Modal Remote Sensing Approach for Detecting Ancient Maya Sites With Low-Resolution Data (2018)
In the absence of LiDAR and similar high-resolution data products, an alternative approach was developed to model and predict site location information from low-resolution, publicly available datasets such as ASTER, LANDSAT, and aerial photographs. Manipulating and combining the analyses of multiple datasets permits refinement of modeling and detection capabilities. A large database of known sites, in assorted topographic and vegetative conditions and degrees of exposure, was used as a...
Testing Methods of Microbotanical Analysis on Samples from the Copan Valley, Honduras (2018)
The Copan Valley in western Honduras has been the subject of a number of studies concerning human-environmental interaction, with particular emphasis on questions of ancient sustainable practices and whether or not land-use mismanagement contributed to the end of the Maya dynasty at Copan. The current PARAC project seeks to identify the range of foods consumed by the inhabitants of the Copan Valley during the Late Classic to Postclassic period. This paper will describe analyses conducted on...
Testing the Efficacy of Sulfur Isotopes from the Maya Site of Chulub (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Stable isotope analysis of carbon (13C/12C) and nitrogen (15N/14N) are often used to reconstruct ancient Maya diets. While these two isotopes provide us with a broad understanding of past subsistence practices, carbon and nitrogen are limited in their ability to differentiate freshwater and terrestrial based diets. Similar problems exist in other areas of the...
Testing the Stratigraphic Integrity of Shallow Deposits through Zooarchaeology at Lamanai, Belize (2018)
Identifying formation processes of shallow archaeological sites can be difficult. At Lamanai, Belize, the main problem consists of distinguishing between pre- and post-Spanish contact deposits buried at a depth of 10 to 60 cm. Evidence of interaction with the Spanish includes a few European objects and two Christian churches. However, identifying pre-contact deposits is more challenging. Maya archaeologists typically rely on ceramic typology to establish chronology, but the main pottery type in...
There Are Holes in Our Argument: Karst Landforms and Multispecies Flourishing in Northeastern Yucatan, Mexico (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Multispecies Frameworks in Archaeological Interpretation: Human-Nonhuman Interactions in the Past, Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper considers the development of agriculture and society in northeastern Yucatán, Mexico, drawing on evidence from lidar imaging, paleoethnobotany, and isotopic studies. We focus on geological features known as dolines, sinkholes, or rejolladas—round, low areas that dot the...
Thermal Identification of Groundwater Discharges within Saline Lagoons Surrounding Vista Alegre, Quintana Roo, Mexico (2018)
The Maya port and site of Vista Alegre carried political and trade importance in the Terminal Classic to Early Postclassic periods. Located in the Laguna Yalahau of northern Quintana Roo, Mexico, the site is built on a small and low elevation island surrounded by mangrove. Inland from the site are freshwater wetlands (sabanas), while the near-shore waters of the restricted circulation lagoon are hypersaline. A significant research question is how the inhabitants of Vista Alegre accessed potable...
"These, therefore, are our roots, our existence": Ancestral Roots as the Embodiment of Identity in K'iche' Maya Society (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Beyond Maize and Cacao: Reflections on Visual and Textual Representation and Archaeological Evidence of Other Plants in Precolumbian Mesoamerica" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the Title of Totonicapán, a sixteenth-century K’iche’ Maya text, the authors declare that the founders of their royal lineage were the “roots” from which they grew and were nourished, as a maize plant draws its sustenance from its roots:...
Thoughts on the Most Recent Katun of Archaeological Heritage Management 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. Archaeological heritage management (AHM) involves identifying, protecting, managing, and preserving material remains of past human activity. In Belize, the Institute of Archaeology-NICH oversees AHM, including archaeological permitting, artifact management (including...
Three Rivers Watersheds: Regional Water Resources of Northwestern Belize and Beyond (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Ancient Maya Landscapes in Northwestern Belize, Part II" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This research seeks to understand the interconnections and interactions of the water resources of Northwestern Belize, via its contributing Three Rivers Watersheds. The Three Rivers Watersheds drain Guatemala, Mexico, and Belize via the Rio Azul/Blue Creek, Rio Bravo, and Booths River systems. These Three Rivers merge to form the...
Three Walks Through Tzacauil: Engaging the Rural Landscape of Central Yucatán 2000 Years Ago, 1000 Years Ago, and Today (2018)
Tzacauil is a small archaeological site in the hinterlands of Yaxuná, a major center in the central Yucatán region of the northern Maya lowlands. Excavations of Tzacauil’s nine house groups suggest that a community formed here twice: first during the Late Formative period (250 BCE – 250 CE) and again in the Terminal Classic period (700 – 1100 CE). Both of these occupations coincide with population peaks at nearby Yaxuná. Judging by the ample open spaces surrounding the site’s house groups,...
A Thriving Non-Royal Lineage at Blue Creek; Evidence From a Sequence of Burials, Caches and Architecture (2002)
As the fortunes of the Maya city of Blue Creek (Belize) rose in the Late Preclassic and Early Classic, so did those of its elite, non-royals. In one elite residence, the Structure 37 Plazuela, we see evidence of a lineage marked by the interment of an early venerated ancestor, possibly its founder. Later, as this lineage became important on a community-wide basis and as the community itself grew in wealth and stature, another individual was interred nearby, bearing accoutrements of a shaman....
Through a Scanner...Darkly? LiDAR, Survey, and Mapping at the Ancient Maya Center El Pilar (2018)
Survey at the ancient Maya center El Pilar, along the border between Belize and Guatemala, has incorporated LiDAR imagery since 2013, allowing expansive – yet targeted – coverage of settlement beyond the monumental core. Successive field seasons have revealed a complex picture of landscape modification, resource extraction, and settlement concentration in different micro-environmental zones around the city center. Our fieldwork in 2017 had three foci: 1) explore and map the Amatal Supercluster,...
Tiempos de cera y miel: Iconografía, ecología y sacralidad de las abejas nativas en el Códice Madrid (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. La evidencia escrita más completa sobre el cultivo de abejas en el mundo maya procede del libro jeroglífico prehispánico denominado Códice Tro-Cortesiano. En los almanaques de las abejas que están en las páginas 89b y 103 a la 112 hay abundante información sobre diversos aspectos de la...
Ties to the Ancestors: Examining a Late Classic Household at Las Ruinas de Arenal, Belize (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. There has been a long history of settlement and household archaeology in the Belize River valley that has added significantly to our understanding of everyday people in the Maya lowlands. Recent studies that include LiDAR provide a broader landscape perspective. LiDAR can also be useful in determining labor investment in domestic architecture through...
Tikal's Missing Carved Wooden Lintel (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 1879, the Guatemalan Secretary of Agriculture Salvador Valenzuela saw the damage to the temples of Tikal by the removal of many of its carved wooden lintels, and observed that; “The beams of the doors of these towers, which form the lintels of the doors, were pulled out by a foreign doctor [Gustave Bernoulli] the year before last, and that which time...
The Time the Tikal State Emerged (2023)
This is an abstract from the "La Cuernavilla, Guatemala: A Maya Fortress and Its Environs" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the first centuries of the CE, the Maya Lowlands underwent many changes in its political landscape, which were caused by the abandonment of the main Formative centers, including El Palmar, which was the most powerful center in the Buenavista Valley. Taking advantage of these compulsive times, Tikal begins to become the...
To Eat, Discard, or Venerate: Faunal Remains as Proxy for Human Behaviors in Lowland Maya Terminal or Problematic Deposits (2018)
Deciphering middens, feasting, ritual, or terminal deposits in the Maya world requires an evaluation of faunal remains. Maya archaeologists have been and continue to evaluate other artifacts classes, but often simply offer NISP values for skeletal elements recovered from these deposits. To further understand their archaeological significance, we analyzed faunal materials from deposits at the sites of Baking Pot and Xunantunich in the Upper Belize River Valley. We identified the species, bone...
To Love and to Leave or to Never Have Loved at All?: Abandonment Deposits within the Late Classic Maya Palace at Actuncan, Belize (2018)
In 2012, excavations were conducted within a Late Classic noble palace at the ancient Maya site of Actuncan, located in western Belize. Remains of a large deposit of Terminal Classic materials were recovered from a corner of the palace’s primary courtyard. Based on its location on the courtyard surface and below collapse, the deposit was assumed to date to the period of the palace’s abandonment. The placement of this deposit was contemporary with Actuncan’s 9th-century renaissance as a...
“Toda la Gente”: Advocating an Intersectional Approach to Heritage Production (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Democratizing Heritage Creation: How-To and When" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Collaborative archaeological approaches recognize that partnerships between archaeologists and members of descendant communities can potentially democratize heritage production and foster a more inclusive—and thus more accurate—understanding of the past. Nevertheless, descendant communities are often themselves hierarchical. Inequalities...
The Toltec Diaspora as Political Action (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Movement of People and Ideas in Eastern Mesoamerica during the Ninth and Tenth Centuries CE: A Multidisciplinary Approach Part II" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological chronologies and material-culture evidence indicate large-scale migrations of Nahua peoples to eastern Mesoamerica in the ninth and tenth centuries CE linked to the collapse of the Toltec state at Tula Chico in about 850 CE. This event...
Tools Fit for a Queen: Interdisciplinary Study of a Set of Ancient Maya Weaving Implements (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. This paper reviews our interdisciplinary study examining a set of carved deer bones comprising what appears to be a weaving or sewing kit for an ancient Maya royal woman bearing the Sa’ emblem glyph associated with...
Toward an Ulúa World: Defining, Delimiting, and Interpreting Interaction Networks (2018)
Framing the lower Ulúa valley and adjacent regions as part of a southeastern Mesoamerican frontier has always entailed an interest in external relationships, especially those connecting frontier regions with the Maya world to which they were supposedly peripheral. The belief that the periphery was occupied by simple non-Maya societies, lightly "influenced" by their more civilized western neighbors, appeared early in the development of orthodox frameworks and continues to influence archaeological...
Toying with Classic Maya Society: Ceramic Figurine Whistles and Children’s Socialization at Ceibal, Guatemala (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We analyze 253 Late and Terminal Classic (c. AD 600-950) Maya ceramic figurine whistles (ocarinas) and fragments excavated at Ceibal, Guatemala, as materials of socialization. The figurines are mold-made and represent repeating characters. Based on mortuary contexts and other evidence, we argue they were used in household performances and associated with...