Cayo (State / Territory) (Geographic Keyword)
1,126-1,147 (1,147 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Excavations between 2004 and 2019 at the Medicinal Trail Hinterland Community in northwestern Belize have uncovered numerous special deposits from a variety of contexts including caches, termination offerings, exposed offerings, and problematic deposits (PDs). Caches and the offerings have been reported on extensively and are generally understood to have...
When Do We Eat? The Life Cycle of Indigenous Maya Food-Plants and Temporal Implications for Residential Stability (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For Maya agriculture, both ancient and modern, it is known that a wide range of time is needed between planting and harvesting of various plant species. While annual crops require less than a year to reach full productivity, perennial crops, particularly tree-crops, might require many years to begin production, and even longer to reach full productivity....
When You’re Feeling Blue: Maya Blue Fibers in Dental Calculus of Sacrificial Victims (2021)
This is an abstract from the "The Subterranean in Mesoamerican Indigenous Culture and Beyond" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Surveyed in 2008–2010, Midnight Terror Cave contains the comingled remains of at least 118 Maya sacrificial victims from the Classic period (250–925 CE). Although previous studies have shown Maya populations to have high dental caries rates and enamel hypoplasia corresponding with weening, the Midnight Terror collection does...
When, Where, and Wahy: Wielding the Wahy Over Time at El Zotz (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. In “The Maya Scribe and His World,” Michael Coe published some of the first detailed photographs of a series of vases depicting ghoulish, supernatural characters identified by the Maya as “wahy.” With names like “Deer Death,” “Head Louse Spider Monkey,” and “Red Bile Death,” Coe and...
Where the Temple Meets the Road: Salvage Burial Excavation in San Ignacio, Cayo District, Belize (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. No country is immune to crumbling infrastructure and (un)predicable weather that exposes archaeology. How we deal with these sudden assemblages and how we use the information gained from these quick and limited excavations can be a place of growth in our field. This can be most crucial in salvage burial excavations. The biological, especially the human,...
Whose Lime Is It Anyway? Burnt Lime as Commodity in the Classic Period Northern Lowlands (2023)
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. Burnt lime (calcium hydroxide) has been crucial for architectural, dietary, and other purposes in Maya society since as far back as the Formative period. The recent identification of hundreds of pit-kilns used for lime production in the Puuc region of the Yucatán Peninsula allows for an investigation of the socioeconomic...
Why Do Pictures Speak? Orality in Maya Hieroglyphic Writing (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Rollout Keepers: Papers on Maya Ceramic Texts, Scenes, and Styles in Honor of Justin and Barbara Kerr" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper investigates the relationship between Classic Maya text, imagery, and genre when quoted speech is introduced. Quotes can be attributed to speakers through “speech scrolls,” the quotative evidential particle, or the verb meaning “say.” When the latter two are used, they...
Witz Naab and Killer Bee Revisited: New Interpretations of Two Salt Mounds in Paynes Creek National Park, Belize (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Underwater Maya: Analytical Approaches for Interpreting Ancient Maya Activities at the Paynes Creek Salt Works, Belize" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Witz Naab and Killer Bee mounds are some of the few remaining onshore remnants of the Paynes Creek salt works. In this presentation, we will reexamine the interpretations of two salt mounds at the Paynes Creek Salt works. These excavations are part of a larger NSF...
Women’s Dress in Ritual and Non-ritual Contexts (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Role of Women in Mesoamerican Ritual" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dress is an important way people interact with others. Modern concepts of dress include the entire body and how people adorn or change it. Maya rituals use specific sets of dress elements to convey not only what is happening but also to ensure the ritual was done correctly. After a brief review of women’s dress, I identify dress in ritual and...
Women’s Hands in the Rock Art of Mensabak Lake, Chiapas, Mexico: An Approach from the Agency Theory (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Representations of hands in rock art is a polysemy motif registered among different archaeological sites in Chiapas, Mexico. Painted hands are a recurrent representation in the cliffs of Mensabak Lake in the Lacandon Rainforest, where these paintings were made by both positive and negative techniques. This paper will discuss the semantics of hand...
Woot There It Is: Ground-Truthing LiDAR Survey Results at El Peru-Waka’, Petén, Guatemala (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2016, a 91 square kilometer lidar survey was completed of the region surrounding the Classic Maya center of El Peru-Waka’, as part of the PACUNAM LiDAR Initiative. Visual analysis was then conducted from 2017-2018 by members of the Waka’ Archaeological Project (PAW) to identify new and previously recorded structures and other settlement features visible in...
Working toward a Lost Cause? Comparing Handheld XRF Analysis to Neutron Activation Analysis and Petrography Using Maya Ceramics from Holtun, Guatemala (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent research has demonstrated that Handheld (portable) X-ray fluorescence spectrometers (pXRF) have difficulty in consistently and accurately determining chemical composition of non-homogenous cultural materials such as ceramics. This is unfortunate as pXRF instruments have proven to produce accurate and consistent compositional data for other...
The Yaxhom Valley Survey II (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The second season of the Yaxhom Valley survey, conducted during the summer of 2018, continued its assessment of LiDAR imagery collected by an NSF-sponsored mission flown over the eastern Puuc region of Yucatan, Mexico. Our focus shifted to Muluchtzekel, which LiDAR revealed to be the dominant site of the entire valley. We covered approximately one square...
Yet Another Tale of Two Cities: Santiago en Almolonga and San Salvador in the Early Sixteenth Century (2018)
The first Spanish foothold in Guatemala took root during the first invasion of Guatemala led by Pedro de Alvarado in 1524 at the Kaqchikel city of Iximche. Historians regard this as the first capital of Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala. After its location at Iximche, Santiago had two sequential locations near Olintepeque and in Chimaltenango. The ruins of the first permanent Santiago de Guatemala, founded in 1527 in the Valley of Almolonga and destroyed in 1541, lie beneath the modern...
You Better Be-Leaf It: Microbotanical Remains Found in Dental Calculus of Individuals from Actun Kabul, Belize (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dental calculus (DC), the mineralized plaque or tartar on a tooth’s surface, is formed and fossilized during life. Foodstuffs and medicinal plants that people interact with in life can be caught in the DC matrix. Because DC fossilizes during life, researchers can decalcify DC and analyze the microbotanicals, proteins, and aDNA trapped inside....
You Can Bet on the (Rural) Farmer: Agriculture and Urbanism at Postclassic Mayapán (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Provisioning Ancient Maya Cities: Modeling Food Production and Land Use in Tropical Urban Environments" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In Mesoamerica, recent scholarship emphasizes the importance of urban smallholders, or intensive production by urban residents. The acquisition of regional lidar imagery of urban centers and surrounding landscapes reveals that the spatial limitations of production were often far more...
Yucatec and Gulf Coast Influences in Terminal Classic Western Belize: Examining the Evidence and Processes for Change (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 I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological investigations in western Belize have recorded a growing body of evidence that is indicative of non-central lowland Maya influences in this Maya subregion during the Terminal Classic period. Evidence for Yucatec and non-Maya influence in the...
A Zooarchaeological Analysis of Caves Branch Rockshelter and Sapodilla Rockshelter (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster provides an analysis of faunal materials from mixed deposits in both the Caves Branch Rockshelter (CBR) and Sapodilla Rockshelter (SDR) in Central Belize. This analysis continues previous research at the two sites from contexts spanning the Protoclassic to Terminal Classic temporal periods concerning ancient Maya ritual and mortuary behaviors. The...
Zooarchaeological Explorations at Aventura, Belize (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Households at Aventura: Life and Community Longevity at an Ancient Maya City" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents the results of a broad zooarchaeological analysis conducted on remains recovered from a variety of contexts at the ancient Maya community of Aventura (Corozal, Belize). Because this is the first analysis of faunal remains from Aventura, it provides valuable information about life in the...
The Zooarchaeology of Problematic Deposits: Ancient Maya Use of Fauna in Ritual Contexts at Group B, Xunantunich (2018)
Zooarchaeological data provides details on the social processes related to ritual artifact deposits in the Maya area. This poster provides the results of faunal analysis on materials collected during the 2016 and 2017 Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance project excavations of Group B at the site of Xunantunich. Our excavations focused on structures B1, B2, and B4, where multiple, and often layered, deposits of artifacts were located outside of the structures. Data collected includes,...
ZooMing through the Maya: An Approach to Assess Mammal Diversity in Lamanai and Marco Gonzalez (Belize) (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mammals are an essential part of the jungle world surrounding the Maya, both for their cosmovision and subsistence. Their identification in the archaeological record is essential to understand their complex role. This work, as a proof of concept, tested the application of Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) in Maya sites of Lamanai and Marco Gonzalez...
A Zoontological Approach for Examining the Role of Animals in Ancestral Maya Ritual and Society (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Animals played a fundamental role in mythology and religion among the ancestral Maya. Iconography often depicts animals, including humans dressed as animals, taking part in feasts and ceremonial performances. Archaeologically, the remains of these important animals are recovered from ritual contexts such as burials, altars, caches, and other special...