Orange Walk (State / Territory) (Geographic Keyword)
976-1,000 (1,092 Records)
Holtun, located in the central lakes region of the Maya lowlands, was occupied from the Preclassic through the Postclassic. To date the Holtun Archaeological Project has mapped approximately 13 groups in the site core and over 30 residential groups in the periphery to the north. The majority of these surface residential structures date to the Terminal Classic and Postclassic. The residential groups excavated to date vary in their proximity to the site core, number of structures, construction...
Terminal Classic Ritual Deposits and Reoccupation at Xunantunich, Belize (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ritual behavior during the Terminal Classic period (~AD 750-900) in the Belize Valley reflects the ecological and political concerns of the Maya during a time of prolonged drought and balkanization. Following their abandonment, some major regional centers were revisited, often in the context of pilgrimage. These activities left behind expansive deposits,...
Terminal Classic Terminal Deposits at Chan, Belize (2018)
This presentation examines a series of terminal deposits at the ancient Maya farming community of Chan in Belize, Central America. We propose a contextual analysis of terminal deposits to facilitate the development of archaeological interpretations that move beyond the static category of "problematical deposits." The terminal deposits at Chan are located in its community center, primarily in two locations: in the eastern temple and southern range structure of Chan’s central group. The deposits...
Terminal Deposits and Terminal Classic Collapse: An Analysis of the Proportional Distribution of Artifacts from Terminal Deposition Events at the Site of Baking Pot, Belize (2018)
Throughout the Maya Lowlands, archaeologists have identified Terminal Classic deposits associated with the final activities in ceremonial and domestic spaces. These features include concentrations of cultural material deposited in the corners of plazas and courtyards. At the site of Baking Pot, Belize, the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance (BVAR) project has identified several of these terminal deposits. This presentation will shed light on the types of artifacts that were deposited...
The Terminal Preclassic in Northern Belize Defined (2018)
Joseph Ball has devoted his professional career to masterfully determining how the ceramic complexes at one site related to those at another, generating models for Maya movements and prehistory from the identified similarities or differences between them. Following his example, this paper proposes to take the data from Cerro Maya in Northern Belize and correlate it with other sequences in the region to produce a carefully researched sequence for the region with specific attention to the...
Termination deposits at Aguateca and Ceibal, Guatemala (2018)
Excavations at Aguateca and Ceibal revealed a series of dense deposits associated with the ritual destruction of buildings. At Aguateca, such deposits were found in and around Structures M7-22 and M7-32 of the Palace Group, probable royal administrative-residential buildings. Excavators also unearthed similar deposits around Structures L8-6 and L8-7, temple pyramids in the Main Plaza. These deposits date to c. AD 810 when enemies attacked Aguateca. At Ceibal, dense deposits of broken objects...
Terraces, Quarries, and Berms, Oh My! Evaluating Land Use and Landscape Modification at the Ancient Maya City El Pilar (2021)
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...