Belize (State / Territory) (Geographic Keyword)
901-925 (1,081 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Misinformation and Misrepresentation Part 1: Reconsidering “Human Sacrifice,” Religion, Slavery, Modernity, and Other European-Derived Concepts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ancient Maya E-Groups have been a subject of archaeological fascination for nearly a century, resulting in extensive literature on E-Groups. However, consistency in that literature is hard to find. In this paper, we review some problems with...
Slow Archaeology, Community Engagement, and Collaborative Knowledge Production in the Maya World (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological endeavors around the world have begun to emphasize ethical project design and community engagement. Several projects in Latin America are adopting Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) but the pace of adoption of recommendations from the Indigenous Critique and Black Feminist Anthropology remains slow. Parachute archaeology is still...
Slowing Down the Archaeological Process in Dolores, Petén, Guatemala (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Maya archaeology has always relied on the labor and expertise of field technicians hired from heritage communities across the modern nations of Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador. Some of these communities, like Dolores, Guatemala, have been continuously engaged with archaeological projects for several decades, granting its members...
The Snake Dynasty: What We Know and What We Don’t (2021)
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. Epigraphic discoveries of the last few years now make possible a fresh engagement with questions about the origins and development of the Snake dynasty, of its external political influences during both the Early and Late Classic periods, and of the multiple physical centers from which the dynasty...
Snake Queens and Political Consolidation: How Royal Women Helped Create Kaanul—A View from Waka’ (2021)
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. Our paper demonstrates the key role played by royal women of the Kaanul realm in fortifying and consolidating that realm’s power and hegemony in the seventh to eighth centuries CE. We draw upon archaeological, visual, and textual evidence from Waka’, including preliminary analysis of recently...
The Snake Queens of Waka’: Harnessing Sorcery and Divinatory Power in Service to Kaan (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Rise and Apogee of the Classic Maya Kaanu’l Hegemonic State at Dzibanche" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Our paper demonstrates the key role played by royal Kaan women in fortifying and consolidating Kaan’s hegemony in the seventh–eighth centuries CE. We draw on archaeological, visual, and textual evidence from Waka’, including a preliminary analysis of recently discovered Stela 51, and elsewhere across the realm....
Social Complexity of Peripheral Settlements on the Regional Capital of Ichkaansihoo (2018)
In the last decade, research done by "Proyecto Arquelogico Region de Merida" (PARME) on peripheral settlements of the Ichkaantijo area has had as a main objective to recognize and interpret the social organization of these ancient communities, that according to literature have been defined as rural settlements. Therefore, how is this area and the sites that constitute it characterized? What role did they play in the political and economic system? And, which cultural elements have witnessed...
Social Inequality and Cohesion through Rural-Urban Feasts at the Lowland Maya site of La Corona (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Lowland Maya feasts were critical for communal cohesion but also marked social distinctions among participants through differential display of status symbols and contributions. For these reasons they provide important insight on patterns of socioeconomic inequality and integration. In this paper I present material analyses data from Late Classic period (AD...
The Social Transformation of the Terminal Classic Maya to Postclassic Maya in Northern Belize (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Terminal Classic (AD 800-1000) and Postclassic (AD 1000-1500) periods of Maya civilization in northern Belize were times of significant change and social transformation. Changes and developments during the Terminal Class are visible archaeological at several northern Belizean communities including Colha, Lamanai, and La Milpa. We evaluate changes at...
Societal Cycling Influenced by Climatic Variability Among Early Agricultural Communities: Comparative Perspectives from Belize and Croatia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Global Perspectives on Climate-Human Population Dynamics During the Late Holocene" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological studies continue to highlight the extreme variability in sociopolitical responses to prehistoric fluctuations in climate, from the emergence to complete breakdown of hierarchical societies. These processes were likely more volatile among early farming communities with high degrees of...
Society in Flux: Migration and Kinship during Sociopolitical Change in the Southern Lowlands (2019)
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. In the midst of conflict and change people are instigators, bystanders, or unwilling victims of larger sociopolitical machinations. Those living in the Southern Lowlands in the prehistoric and historic periods were familiar with the results of fluctuations in the social...
The Sociopolitical Impacts of Agricultural Intensification and Water Management in Classic Maya Society (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Past, Present, and Future of Water Supplies" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A central issue for our understanding of Classic Maya society is how it managed to flourish despite scarce water resources, and limited access to agriculturally productive soils. More recent investigations confirmed that the adaptation strategies, which the pre-Hispanic Maya developed to overcome these obstructions, were less defined by...
Soil and Water Chemistry: Aguada Fenix, Tabasco and Northern Belize (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Preclassic Maya Social Transformations along the Usumacinta: Views from Ceibal and Aguada Fénix" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Most of the Yucatan has no vestige of rivers; humans and ecosystems rely on rainwater catchment and soil and ground water. Along the southern margins of the Peninsula, however, lie rivers in Belize and Quintana Roo to the southeast and Tabasco and Campeche to the southwest. This paper...
Soil Carbon Persistence and Influence in the Early Anthropocene of the Maya Lowlands (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. Coupled studies of Maya Lowlands soils and geoarchaeological exploration provide insight into neotropical soil and atmospheric carbon cycle dynamics in space and time, and soil carbon’s role in defining the Early Anthropocene. This paper tests the hypothesis that soil carbon persistence differs in time, space, and...
Soil Differences and Their Implications for Plaza Function and Site Organization at Maax Na, 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. In 2016 the Maax Na Archaeology Project systematically tested the soils of two major plazas at Maax Na, a large prehispanic site located in the Three Rivers Region of Belize. Tests in the West Plaza sought to determine whether phosphorus levels there supported its identification as a marketplace during the Late Classic (C.E....
The Soils and Geoarchaeology of Aguada Fénix and the Middle Usumacinta Region (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Aguada Fénix and the Middle Usumacinta Region: Interregional Interactions and Social Transformations in the Middle Preclassic Period" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Three years of soil, water, and lidar analyses for the Middle Usumacinta Region indicate a diversity of soils, paleosols, and several areas of wetland rectilinear features that indicate a range of wetland farming and other uses. For the soils, we...
Soils, Water, and Agriculture in the Maya Lowlands: Lidar and Paleoproxies Reveal New Perspectives on Complexity and Resilience (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. Questions of human subsistence, impacts, and response to environmental change have driven decades of research on ancient life in the Maya Lowlands. While traditional geoarchaeology and paleoecology methods have already documented a rich variety of agricultural and...
Something Different or More of the Same? Lowland Maya Polities and Regimes as Viewed from El Perú-Waka’, Guatemala (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Regimes of the Ancient Maya" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Classic period (250–900 CE) politics of the Lowland Maya have been the subject of intense debate among scholars for decades. Having long ago moved beyond unsupported models of peaceful theocracies and vacant ceremonial centers, investigators nevertheless continue to wrestle with characterizing the nature of Classic political structure. This paper will...
Sourcing Maya Lowland Chert Resources: A Multimethod Perspective (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Within the Maya region, chert artifacts remain one of the most common material types recovered from archaeological excavations and are a core line of evidence when reconstructing ancient economy. However, methods for sourcing of chert through Mesoamerica have largely been underutilized. Archaeologists are often left wondering how these artifacts moved...
Sourcing Stones: PXRF Use at Pacbitun (2018)
The Maya site of Pacbitun in Belize has produced large amounts of granite ground stone tools, debitage, and debris. Determining provenance is integral to reconstructing the chaîne opératoire of ground stone tool production at the site. Portable X-Ray fluorescence (pXRF) is becoming widely used in the field for quick and accurate geochemical assessments. Most prior archaeological work has focused on fine-grained materials, rather than coarse-grained rocks like granite. This project used geologic...
Space and Time for the Milpa-Forest Garden Cycle: A Model of the Ancient Maya Landscape of El Pilar (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Landscapes: Archaeological, Historic, and Ethnographic Perspectives from the New World / Paisajes: Perspectivas arqueológicas, históricas y etnográficas desde el Nuevo Mundo" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As a critique of the temperate prejudice of the tropics, we embrace the hypothesis that the Maya forest represents a domesticated landscape to examine the settlement and environmental patterns of the ancient Maya of...
The Space of Liminality: Between Ritual and Theater in Late Classic Ancient Maya Cave Rites (2018)
Performance theory recognizes that the boundaries between ritual and theatrical performances are often quite blurred, allowing shared methods of analysis between the two. While many have argued for a theater-state among the ancient Maya, few have ventured beyond the large ceremonies conducted in great plazas to consider the more esoteric nature of public, semi-public, and private rites taking place in the natural landscape. Ancient Maya caves were used exclusively as ritual spaces, yet there has...
The Spatial Distribution of Wealth throughout the Neighborhoods of the Late Classic Maya Polity of Lower Dover, Belize (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The formation of neighborhoods and their integration into polities necessarily involves changes to the wealth of their inhabitants, especially as certain economic activities such as craft production intensify. For example, households that were among the first in a community, especially in low-density agricultural communities such as those of the ancient Maya,...
Spindle Whorls and World Creation at Balankanche' Caverns, Yucatan (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster examines the implications of imagery identified as relating to Mesaomerican “Flower Worlds” on spindle whorls left in situ in Balankanche’ Caverns by actors who used the caverns in the Terminal Classic period (ninth and tenth centuries) to invoke ritual-mythic time within this underworld space that was seen as the place of human creation and...
Spinning Makes the World Go Round: Spindle Whorls from Nohcacab, Q. Roo, Mexico (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A spindle whorl was an integral tool in textile production, it had social, religious, political, and economic significance for the ancient Maya. The spindle whorls carried many roles such as functional tools, symbolic displays, gender, and status representations while interconnecting traditions, mastery, and the artistic expression of a weaver.