Cayo (State / Territory) (Geographic Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Diane Slocum. Jaime Awe.

Xunantunich, an ancient Maya site in the Belize Valley, rose rapidly from a minor political center to a powerful regional polity during the Late Classic period (AD 600-900). Previous researchers suggested that this rapid rise was influenced by Xunantunich’s relationship with the more powerful polity of Naranjo in the nearby Petén Province of Guatemala. Their argument was based in part on a Late Classic period building program at Xunantunich resulting in a site layout that resembles that of sites...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Jackson. Joshua Wright. Linda A. Brown.

Archaeologists routinely engage with concepts of space and materiality as we inscribe meanings onto the architecture and objects left behind by past peoples. However, in doing so, we bring explicitly modern sensibilities to our interpretations. In this paper, we consider alternative interpretations of space and materiality as described by Classic Maya people (250-900 CE). We ask: In what ways do categorizations and interpretations of space at Maya archaeological sites change when traditional...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patricia McAnany.

This is an abstract from the "Decipherment, Digs, and Discourse: Honoring Stephen Houston's Contributions to Maya Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Theory—the workhorse of evidence—is a powerful engine that can revolutionize understanding or create a huge misstep. To theorize the past is to generalize principles and processes of human practice that surpass cultural boundaries. By participating in these larger networks of meaning,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christina Halperin. Jose Luis Garrido Lopez. Miriam Salas. Jean Baptiste LeMoine.

This is an abstract from the "Making and Breaking Boundaries in the Maya Lowlands: Alliance and Conflict across the Guatemala–Belize Border" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Maya archaeological site of Ucanal is located in Peten, Guatemala, close to the contemporary border with Belize. In Pre-Columbian times, the site also sat at the borders of some of the largest political centers, such as Caracol (Belize) and Naranjo (Peten, Guatemala)....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anna Novotny.

This is an abstract from the "Cooperative Bodies: Bioarchaeology and Non-ranked Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In ancient complex societies, unique social strata had differential access to food resources and likely relied on different food procurement strategies to meet their needs. This paper explores the extent to which cooperation was part of that strategy for the ancient Maya farmers of the Chan site, located in the Belize River...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Estela Martínez. Guillermo Martinez Mora. Patricia Olga Hernandez. Adrián Velazquez.

This is an abstract from the "Approaches to Cultural and Biological Complexity in Mexico at the Time of Spanish Conquest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. El contexto funerario de una mujer adulta nos muestra que, dentro de las conductas funerarias presentes entre las élites de Tamtoc, era tradicional ataviar al individuo con lujosos bienes procedentes de muy diversas regiones. Las costumbres funerarias y el estudio sobre el origen de los objetos de...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cady Rutherford. Marisol Cortes-Rincon.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Economic integration in hinterland communities has often been under theorized in Maya studies. Here I explore the evidence of craft production in several hinterland households as well as the implications for connections with social, political, and economic institutions. Households make decisions about crafting activities and respond to risks and stressors both...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelsey Sullivan. Kenichiro Tsukamoto. Jaime Awe.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dispersed urban landscapes are mosaics of individual interactions generated through a range of social and economic processes. Large-scale lithic production provides a lens for understanding the interconnected nature of economies between hinterland communities and central polities, yet it remains relatively underexplored in Classic period Maya society (AD...

DOCUMENT Citation Only J. Gregory Smith. Alejandra Alonso Olvera.

This is an abstract from the "An Exchange of Ideas: Recent Research on Maya Commodities" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper discusses chert crafting at the site of Santa Cruz in northern Yucatan. Santa Cruz was a small town located only about 25 km from both Chichen Itza and Ek Balam and occupied almost exclusively during the Late/Terminal Classic period when both these cities were at their height. Surface collections in 2017 and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dawn Crawford.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The site of Holtun, in the central lakes region of the Maya lowlands, was occupied from the Preclassic through the Postclassic. Over 30 residential groups make up the northern settlement area on the periphery of Holtun where most of these surface residential structures date to the Late Classic and Terminal Classic periods. The non-elite household...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Céline Lamb.

As Maya archaeology has shifted away from urban-centric perspectives, recent research demonstrates that hinterland populations, like urbanites, were involved in diverse and shifting practices enabling them to build and negotiate complex relationships. Using a community approach, this paper examines non-agrarian activities practiced during the late Early and Late Classic (ca. 500 – 850 AD) by residents of Chunhuayum, a small yet socioeconomically diverse farming settlement located in northwest...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Virginia Ochoa-Winemiller. Terance L. Winemiller. William J. Folan. Lynda Florey Folan.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Three-dimensional multi-line laser scanning reproduces highly accurate models that preserve measurable characteristics of portable artifacts such as figurines, whistles, stamps, and molds. Metrological analyses are revealing valuable information about manufacturing techniques, the crafter’s tool kit, the function of these artifacts, and the extent of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only George J. Micheletti.

The Late Classic period (AD 550 – 800) at Pacbitun, Belize brought about heightened prosperity evinced in a surge of architectural development and an increase in precious exotic materials. However, despite continued growth, by the close of the Late Classic Pacbitun’s affluence appears to have diminished considerably. To the north, settlements of the Belize River Valley also seemingly undergo a concomitant florescence and economic decline. Research suggests the pecuniary instability of the Belize...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Daniela Triadan. Takeshi Inomata.

This is an abstract from the "2023 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Timothy Beach Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The recently discovered site of Aguada Fenix in eastern Tabasco, Mexico, is one of the largest monumental constructions in Mesoamerica. It dates to the beginning of the early Middle Preclassic, around 1100 BC. The main complex consists of a rectangular plateau with an E-Group at its center and is delimited by 20 large...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Mixter.

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. The precolonial Maya city of Actuncan was occupied as a monumental center, then a city, for approximately 2,000 years from its establishment prior to 1000 BC until its abandonment around AD 900. As at any long-occupied urban center, the city grew when it thrived economically and politically, while it contracted and became...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kenichiro Tsukamoto.

This is an abstract from the "Regimes of the Ancient Maya" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Spatial and temporal heterogeneity of office titles and architectural styles in the Maya lowlands suggest that there existed diverse material, textual, and symbolic expressions that created, maintained, and modified regimes during the Classic period (ca. AD 250–900). The variation also signals that authority, power relations, legitimacy, and ideologies were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rani Alexander.

Cross markers that consist of a wooden cross supported by a stone cairn (multun) are among the most pervasive landscape features encountered in rural Yucatán. They delimit water sources, features along roadways and paths, agricultural parcels, and the entrances of rural towns. The cross markers show substantial formal variation and are associated with material evidence indicating diverse practices of veneration. Cross markers were first established in the sixteenth century after the Spanish...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christine Kray. Minette Church. Jason Yaeger.

This is an abstract from the "After Cortés: Archaeological Legacies of the European Invasion in Mesoamerica" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Spanish colonization of New Spain rested upon a pragmatic, yet conflicted, alliance between Cross and Crown. Following independence, many republican and neocolonial governments also relied on the soft power of the Church. In the 19th century, Yucatec Maya religious sentiments appear to have been indelibly...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carolyn Freiwald.

This is an abstract from the "Making and Breaking Boundaries in the Maya Lowlands: Alliance and Conflict across the Guatemala–Belize Border" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Present day conversations about migration focus on borders and limiting population movement with the presence of police, harsh regulations, and walls. This paper examines the concept of migration in the Maya region and what the past decade of isotope geochemistry research tells...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Georganne Deen. John Pohl.

This is an abstract from the "The Flower World: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Xochipilli, the Flower Prince, was widely revered through various manifestations as the patron god of the noble classes throughout southern Mexico. As such he was credited with patronage over palaces, royal marriages, feasts, wealth finance, and belief in an exclusive elite afterlife and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cristina Vidal-Lorenzo. Gaspar Muñoz Cosme.

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 I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the Late Preclassic, certain buildings in the Petén region began to incorporate complex iconographic programs on their façades. The friezes with central masks, carved in limestone and covered with layers of stucco, are particularly striking examples of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Julie Hoggarth. Jaime Awe. Brendan Culleton. John Walden. Douglas Kennett.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Gordon Willey’s pioneering work in the Upper Belize River Valley presented some of the first perspectives on household and community archaeology in the Maya Lowlands. Beginning with that work, scholars came to identify Postclassic occupation at sites along the Belize River, primarily at Barton Ramie and later at Baking Pot. However, the Barton Ramie...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sandra Balanzario Granados.

This is an abstract from the "New Light on Dzibanché and on the Rise of the Snake Kingdom’s Hegemony in the Maya Lowlands" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. El asentamiento prehispánico de Dzibanché, se localiza en el Sur de Quintana Roo, tiene una extensión aproximada de 60 km2, superficie que incluye las áreas destinadas a la producción de alimentos y áreas habitacionales. Dzibanché fue el asiento de la dinastía Kaanu’l, durante el periodo del...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Petrozza. Jason Yaeger. M. Kathryn Brown. Kit Nelson. Rachel Horowitz.

Archaeologists working in the Maya area frequently find dense deposits of artifacts that are classified ‘terminal deposits,’ ‘final deposits,’ or ‘problematical deposits’. These classifications may accurately reflect a deposit’s stratigraphic placement, but ultimately mask or even misrepresent the diverse social behaviors which led to the creation of such deposits. Excavations in the courtyard in front of Structure B-6 at Xunantunich, Belize, exposed a dense deposit of artifacts. Through...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ana García Barrios.

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. The Grolier exhibition commissioned by M. Coe in 1973 came to researchers as an inescapable reference that remains today. His studies on codex-style vessels, so defined by him, opened the door to new studies from different perspectives and approaches that are reviewed here. This study...