Belize (State / Territory) (Geographic Keyword)
1,051-1,075 (1,081 Records)
This project looks specifically at how the choices of Maya royalty and farmers in the face of environmental fluctuation affected their water control institutions. More generally this project looks how people in water institutions/systems respond to change.
Water management from the Maya Lowlands: Implementing archaeology in mutual aid (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The capitalist world system in place today has caused resource insecurity and social vulnerability for groups all over the world, pushing people to depend on bureaucratic leaders to solve these issues. The archaeological record, as well as some responses to recent disasters, shows the benefit of mutual aid-style networks of action allowing communities to...
Water Mountain, Ritual, and Maya Community Cohesion at Mensabak, Chiapas, Mexico (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. Maya established communities at Mensabak, Chiapas, instead of other adjacent lakes because of its impressive water mountain on an island where a major river is born. People traveled and pilgrimaged up the Tulijá River to live near Mirador Mountain (Chakaktun “red-hollow stone / cave-of water” in Lacandon Mayan) where they...
The Ways of the Maya: Salt Production in Sacapulas, Guatemala (1981)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the EXARC Bibliography, originally compiled by Roeland Paardekooper, and updated. Most of these records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us using the...
The Weaknesses of a Colonial Mindset: A Study of Indigenous Spirituality during the Maya Caste War (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A major feature of colonization of the Americas was the weaponization of the Christian faith. In colonial Latin America it was distorted and weaponized to push a political agenda of forced conversion upon Indigenous peoples. In the instance of the Maya Caste War, however, this idea was flipped on its head by Indigenous peoples who used their spirituality...
Weapons of the Sun: Centipedes and Fire Serpents in the Art and Symbolism of Ancient Mesoamerica (2018)
In a myth that provided a charter for Mexica domination of Central Mexico, the deity Huitzilopochtli defeated his foes with a spear-thrower in the form of a fire serpent, or Xiuhcoatl. While Huitzilopochtli was a being unique to the Mexica, the Xiuhcoatl is generally considered to derive from an earlier entity referred to as the Teotihuacan War Serpent. Although the influence of Teotihuacan symbolism on later cultures of Central Mexico is undeniable, the portrayal of solar deities with...
Wetland Maize Farming by 6000 BP Gave Way to Upland Farming with the Rise of Ancient Maya Settlements and Political Centers (2023)
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. Recent research in the American neotropics suggests that cultivation of plants for food began early in the Middle Holocene (ca. 7500 BP) and continued for millennia prior to the adoption of surplus agricultural production of domesticated staple foods by 5000 BP in South America and 4000 BP in the Maya lowlands. Data...
What a Cache! Ritual Activities at the Medicinal Trail Community, a Small Rural Maya Site in Northwestern Belize (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the 2023 field season, excavations uncovered evidence for ritual activities at Group M of the Medicinal Trail Hinterland Community, an ancient Maya farming village in northwestern Belize, near the political center of La Milpa. Initial survey and brief excavations from the 2017 field season indicated the group was atypical of architectural groups...
What Lies Beneath: The Significance of a Midden Burial in Exploring Differential Mortuary Treatment of the Maya at Palenque (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The PREP: Urban Life at Palenque Project 2023 field season brought about unexpected findings regarding household mortuary practices. Two atypical burials were uncovered: (1) an isolated, articulated right arm boxed-in by large stones at the entrance of residential structure J37; and (2) a complete primary burial discovered on the south side of the same...
What the Shell? Taphonomic and Cultural Modifications of Freshwater and Marine Shell from the Upper Belize River Valley (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Zooarchaeological analysis of both freshwater and marine shells from the Upper Belize River Valley is important to interpreting Ancient Maya daily lives. Shell analysis allows us to examine dietary practices and understand economy and trade between Belize Valley sites. This poster presents the results of an analysis of over 42,000 freshwater and 1,200 marine...
What's in That Incense Burner? A Study of Residues at Balamku (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Studies in Mesoamerican Subterranean Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. It is so widely accepted that the Maya burned copal incense in their rituals that the assumption has gone unquestioned. During the 2018 season, the Gran Acuífero Maya Project began a multi-year investigation of the cave of Balamku near Chichen Itza. The cave contains a large number of incense burners filled with burned material that...
What’s in a Name: Caches, Offerings, and Problematic Deposits from the Medicinal Trail Hinterland Community, Belize (2023)
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...
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...
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...