Orange Walk (State / Territory) (Geographic Keyword)
601-625 (1,092 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The practice of Mexican and Maya archaeology is yet to be affected by the postcolonial dialogues in the anglophone world that have discussed the terms of engagement between archaeologists and indigenous communities. Mexico is constitutionally conceived of as a multicultural nation, but the collective rights of indigenous communities are obscured under the...
The Maya are a People of Movement: An Isotopic Assessment at Chactemal (Santa Rita Corozal), Northern Belize (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Located in Corozal District in northern Belize, the coastal Maya archaeological site of Santa Rita Corozal, hereafter Chactemal, was continuously occupied from the Middle Preclassic (BCE 800–300) through the Late Postclassic (CE 1250–1532). While many sites in the Southern Lowlands experienced decline and abandonment in the Terminal Classic (CE 800–900),...
The Maya at Spanish Contact in the Lower Belize River Watershed (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology and the History of Human-Environment Interaction in the Lower Belize River Watershed" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Throughout the colonial period the Mérida-based Spanish administration organized and launched multiple entradas headed south into the Petén. These entradas ranged from relatively small groups of religious missionaries and their envoys, to private armies funded by opportunists seeking a...
Maya Ceramic Technologies for Avoiding the Catastrophic Failure of Cooking Pots (2018)
Maya potters in the towns of Muna, Mama, and Ticul have historically used a calcite crystal to temper cooking pots due to its perceived role in mitigating the negative effects of thermal shock. When a clay cooking pot begins to be used it is exposed to extreme temperature variations which lead it to experience catastrophic failure are a higher rate than many ceramic vessels used for other activities. In this paper we discuss the results of experimental archaeology using calcite crystals in...
The Maya Cranial Photogrammetry Project (2018)
The Maya Cranial Photogrammetry Project aims to create a large digital repository for the purpose of comparative shape analyses to test hypotheses relating to ethnic and political distinctions among ancient Maya groups. The shape of skeletons reflects a combination of genetic and environmental influences on development and thus comparison of skeletal variability provides an important means to reconstruct microevolutionary processes. In particular, because of its complex morphology the skull has...
The Maya Cranial Photogrammetry Project: A Look at Ethics and Best Practices (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Towards a Standardization of Photogrammetric Methods in Archaeology: A Conversation about 'Best Practices' in An Emerging Methodology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Maya Cranial Photogrammetry Project consists of a database of digitized crania that can be used to investigate questions related to biological and cultural histories. The shape of human remains reflects a complex interplay between the environment and...
The Maya Economy: Dual? Integrated? Embedded? Or All of the Above? (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Ancient Maya Embedded Economies" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper we argue that the complexity of Maya economic structures and the debates that ensue over their interpretation stem from the fact that manifestations of those economic structures vary so greatly across time and space in the precolumbian Maya world. Maya economies were both dichotomized along elite and commoner lines, while also integrated in...
Maya Funerary Diversity: A Nonlinear Perspective from Palenque, Chiapas (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Archaeological Investigations in Chiapas, Mexico" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ancient Maya land is characterized by a great diversity of funerary practices. The settlement of Lakamha’ (Palenque) sharply evidences such heterogeneity: pluralism is found in terms of places of inhumation, types of containers, number of people per grave, grave goods, postmortem treatments, positions, and orientations of the body....
Maya Funerary Practices and Their Significance in Reproducing and Maintaining Social Status and Identity: Evidence from Copan, Honduras, and Palenque, Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Susan Gillespie remarked the importance of human body and funerary ritual in the process of transmission of memory and legitimation of social status among Maya royalty. Would this process be visible in domestic contexts, too? To answer this question, I chose to study domestic funerary record, context where an archaeologist can find the reflection of collective...
Maya Inequality at Caracol, Belize: District-Level Urban Analysis within a Garden City (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2009 and 2013, LiDAR data collected for Caracol, Belize revealed the anthropogenic landscape of this Maya city. These data have advanced our understanding of water management, agriculture, markets, urbanism, and inequality at Caracol. Now with the analytical unit of the district – an urban administrative boundary of urban service provisioning within a city...
Maya Lithic and Metal Technologies 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" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over more than a century, archaeological research in Belize has contributed greatly to our understanding of past Maya stone and metal technologies. From the preceramic through the colonial periods (~11,000 BC−AD 1700), the analysis of flaked and ground stone tools recovered from...
Maya Monumental ‘Boom’: Spatial Development, Rank Ordering, and Planning Considerations at Alabama, East-Central Belize (2018)
In the 1980s, archaeological investigations by the Point Placencia Archaeological Project (PPAP) noted the rapid, single-phase development of monumental construction at the Maya site of Alabama in the Stann Creek District. Though never fully investigated by PPAP, this rapid, ‘boom-like’ development during the late facet of the Late Classic to Terminal Classic periods is being pursued in current investigations by the Stann Creek Regional Archaeology Project (SCRAP). This presentation, by...
Maya Obsidian Production and Exchange in the Southern Belize Region (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Permanent occupation of inland southern Belize began at the dawn of the Classic period and continued into the Terminal Classic. Excavations at Pusilha, Lubaantun, and Nim li Punit have recovered more than 5,000 obsidian artifacts that date to these periods. These have all been sourced using portable XRF and subject to metric and attribute analyses....
Maya Ossuaries: Body Processing and Collective Memory in the Terminal Classic (2018)
The allocation of space for the deceased is an integral component of understanding the relationship between a community and its mortuary practices. This paper explores how Maya ossuaries, or deposits with the commingled remains of multiple individuals, form a distinct body processing method that increases in frequency during the Terminal and Postclassic period in the Northern Maya lowlands. Data from salvage excavations of a Terminal Classic disturbed ossuary in the archaeological zone of...
Maya Paleoethnobotany and La Milpa: Evidences from Northwest Belize (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. Widespread terrace construction in the Lowland Maya region is often viewed as a response to increasing demands for food during the Late Classic. Such was the demand that terraces became integrated into the architectural arrangements of large urban entities, going so far as to be built right up to the edge of a settlement center....
Maya Pilgrimage to Interactive Places: Human Bones in Caves at Mensabak, Chiapas (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Archaeological Investigations in Chiapas, Mexico" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation focuses on the anthropology of pilgrimage as a journey to places outside of everyday realms. For Maya societies, pilgrimages are important for maintaining the relationships between people and nonhuman persons linked to the ritual landscape. In this context, the presence of human bones in caves around the lakes at...
Maya Political Economy: A Spatial, Temporal, and Contextual Analysis of Jade Deposits throughout the Southern Lowlands (2009)
Jade is a valuable tool for studying Maya political economy because it is not only geologically rare but socially and ritually significant. Control of jade acquisition, production, and distribution became a measure of the power, prestige, and authority of the increasingly competitive polity elites. However, there is no catalog of jade artifacts for the Maya region. Therefore, this study compiles jade data from eight Southern Lowland sites with well-documented collections, creating a publicly...
Maya Ritual Beverages: Unveiling the Ingredients for an Ancient Alcoholic Offering (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. Balché is a ritual beverage elaborated with honey and tree bark that, during many centuries, has been fundamental for Maya religious rituals in Yucatán, as documented in precolumbian codices, historical sources, and ethnographic research. Some information at the Madrid Codex indicates...
Maya Structures for Wet and Dry Seasons: Adaptive Strategies and Microenvironments at the Site of Chulub in the Crooked Tree Lagoon System (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology and the History of Human-Environment Interaction in the Lower Belize River Watershed" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study evaluates a water feature and two associated structures within the Late Terminal/Early Postclassic Maya site of Chulub in the Western Lagoon Wetlands near the island of Crooked Tree, Belize. The term “pocket *bajo” is a term used to describe water features that are similar to...
Mayan Cosmology Depicted in Ancient Murals: Understanding Gender, Death, and Religious Pedagogy in Mayan Civilization during Classical and Preclassical Era (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Research into ancient Mayan murals in San Bartolo, Bonampak, and Rio Azul demonstrates that the Mayans used paintings to educate people and to portray religious beliefs. The intricacy of their painting technique and the use of natural pigments elicit a durable, complex representation of the Mayan culture rooted in their cosmology of mystic deities called...
Mayan Spelling Conventions: Late Preclassic through Late Classic (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Coffee, Clever T-Shirts, and Papers in Honor of John S. Justeson" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper deals with the topic that inspired me to study with John Justeson: it traces the major spelling practices of Mayan writing from the Late Preclassic through the Late Classic periods. It employs the evidence from Late Preclassic and Early Classic inscriptions, some of which I have documented myself, as well as the...
Measuring Dimensions of Exchange and Economic Transition in Three Districts of Lower Dover, Belize (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although Hirth’s (1998) distributional approach has been recently applied to identifying markets at Classic Maya centers, much research still has yet to be done on the diversity and origins of Classic Maya modes of exchange. This picture is even less clear at small Late Classic (AD 600-900) Maya centers such as Lower Dover, Belize, where evidence for Hirth’s...
Media and Meaning in “The Maya Scribe and His World” (2023)
This is an abstract from the "A Celebration and Critical Assessment of "The Maya Scribe and His World" on its Fiftieth Anniversary" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Among Michael Coe’s many contributions to Maya studies with his landmark show and publication “The Maya Scribe and His World” was the observation that imagery on Classic Maya ceramics is different from imagery on carved stone monuments. Coe notes this gap between ceramic and stone...
Meeting Needs in the Ancient Maya Forest: A Model of Food and Shelter at El Pilar (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Maya land-use strategies, based on traditional agricultural methods documented by the Spanish conquerors and oppressed during the colonial period, have demonstrated a staunch resilience into the modern age. The milpa forest garden cycle demonstrates dynamic regeneration via an asynchronous cycling of open fields with annual crops, perennial succession...
Memory, Pilgrimage, and Social Life in an Ancient Maya City: Waka’s City Temple as a Compendium of Political History (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Vibrancy of Ruins: Ruination Studies in Ancient Mesoamerica" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Long-term research at Waka’s City temple (Structure M13-1) demonstrates it was an important locale for ritual commemoration by local people as well and those from afar. Extensive and diversely constituted deposits throughout the building’s surface demonstrate it was venerated publicly by non-elites throughout Waka’s final...