Belize (State / Territory) (Geographic Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Claire Ebert. Julie Hoggarth. Kirsten Green. Carolyn Freiwald. Jaime Awe.

The reconstruction of subsistence strategies using stable isotope analyses is integral to understanding the role of maize agriculture in the development and decline of ancient Maya society. Here we present stable carbon, nitrogen, and sulphur isotope data from over 230 radiocarbon dated human skeletal remains from western Belize dating from the Preclassic through Colonial periods (~1000 BC-AD 1700). Stable isotope data are also compared to paleoclimate proxy records to interpret the climatic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only George Bey. William Ringle. Tomas Gallareta N..

This is an abstract from the "Regimes of the Ancient Maya" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper examines the nature of northern Maya lowland statecraft, politics, and kingship and how they differ and parallel that of the southern lowlands. In keeping with the goal of the symposium this paper focuses on the concept of “regime” recognizing the Maya, especially when considering the northern and southern areas, created distinct political...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Johann Begel. Cédric Becquey.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mayan stelae and altars are a key epigraphic and iconographic source for understanding the political history of the Classic period (250-900 AD). Tikal produced a particularly large number of these monuments in a variety of architectural contexts: Twin Pyramids Groups, Plazas, Great Temples, residential groups and even remote areas, probably corresponding...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Doyle.

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. As a graduate student, Stephen Houston contributed references as well as two personal communications to the catalogue for The Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art, including drawing Linda Schele and Mary Miller’s attention to key details of an exhibition centerpiece: the Kimbell Art...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Garrison. Andrew Scherer.

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. Stephen Douglas Houston was drawn to archaeology and ancient scripts from a young age, fascinated by the rune stones of his mother’s native Sweden. While he is most widely seen as an epigrapher to outsiders, Mayanists recognize that he is, in fact, a world class field archaeologist that knows...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alejandra Roche Recinos. Andrew Scherer. Charles Golden.

This is an abstract from the "Ancient Maya Embedded Economies" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper we present the results of the analysis of nearly 42,000 chert and obsidian artifacts from sites in the Middle Usumacinta River region to examine economic production and exchange at the level of the polity. Our study includes a range of household and non-household contexts, revealing entanglements of the lithic economy within the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jacob Lozano.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Varying facets of ancient Maya visual expression have long documented cultural elements of identity, political relationships, and social organization. These components manifest in a spectrum of archaeological material and cultural remains. Within the abundant regions and polities, evidence suggests the existence of local artistic and scribal traditions....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard George. Douglas Kennett. Stanley Serafin. Marilyn Masson. John Krigbaum.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We examine the process of migration using strontium isotope ratios from human enamel to shed light on the organization of the Mayapán polity during the formation (1200–1250 CE), apogee (1250–1400 CE), and decline (1400–1500 CE) of the city (N = 58). Our results support consistent local aggregation within the Chicxulub Basin and immigration from across the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca Hill. William Ringle.

This is an abstract from the "The Bolonchen Regional Archaeological Project: 25 Years of Research in the Puuc" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper discusses excavations between 2006 and 2008 in the Grupo Chanchich at Huntichmul, Yucatán. Huntichmul is one of the larger sites in the eastern Puuc, with a strong Terminal Classic apogee. The Grupo Chanchich is of interest because it is a formal arrangement of C-shaped structures nestled in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Baaske. Kevin Austin.

The presentation of heritage sites is critically important to the perception of historical narratives. A key goal is to help both scholars and the general public to see heritage as dynamic and living. This project explores the visualization of archaeological excavations through preservation technologies, specifically photogrammetric data. Our study focuses on a patio group at the Maya site of Xno’ha (occupation dates range from the Late Preclassic to the Terminal Classic) in northern Belize, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jim Aimers. Elizabeth Graham.

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. The Maya site of Lamanai is strategically located in northern Belize on the New River, which connects the Caribbean coast to the interior of the Maya area. In the Preclassic period into the early part of the Classic, Lamanai pottery shows close connections...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Byron Smith. Marisol Cortes-Rincon.

Late Classic hinterland agronomy presents a compelling glimpse into the socioeconomic dynamics of production and demand in the Three Rivers region. This project focused on a prominent house-group located 350 meters east of the site of Dos Hombres which was known to exhibit intensive agricultural strategies as well as a specialized degree of stone working. Additionally, a series of four karst depressions bordered the site and likely leveraged moisture demand resulting from agricultural needs as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only J. Dennis Baldwin. Thomas Garrison. Rafael Cambranes.

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. The Buena Vista Valley (BVV), encompassing the ancient Maya communities of La Cuernavilla and El Zotz, has been the subject of years of extensive archaeological survey carried out by the Proyecto Arqueológico El Zotz (PAEZ). In 2017 and 2019, the Pacunam Lidar Initiative (PLI) acquired aerial lidar data over the entirety of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Asia Alsgaard. Erin Ray. Keith M. Prufer. Seth Newsome.

This is an abstract from the "Advances in Interdisciplinary Isotopic Research" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The impact of the agricultural transition in the Maya region is little understood. Excavations at two rockshelters in southern Belize, Mayahak Cab Pek and Saki Tzul, have uncovered intact deposits dating from Cal.12,000 to 1,100 BP with a continuous record of both human and fauna remains. Using carbon and nitrogen bulk tissue and carbon...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Megan O'Neil.

This is an abstract from the "Polychromy, Multimediality, and Visual Complexity in Mesoamerican Art" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Examining multiple media, this paper addresses depicted and actual surfaces in ancient Maya art in order to explore artistic engagements with surface, texture, and the sense of touch. It considers, for example, how certain artists rendered bodies, objects, and materials in manners conveying the look and feel of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Justin Bracken.

This is an abstract from the "Recent Research in the Petén Lakes Region, Petén, Guatemala" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The physical movement of people across the terrain is implicit to notions of migration, trade, and warfare. Numerous factors determine the specific paths taken by individuals and groups in motion, some physical and others conceptual. Tracing the physical conduits and limitations to travel across a particular landscape will...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Justine Shaw.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Following the widespread Terminal Classic florescence that saw booming occupations at every site in the Cochuah region of west-central Quintana Roo, Mexico, many settlements were entirely abandoned. However, some sites possessed late Terminal Classic populations, living in novel architecture yet continuing other Classic Maya material practices. One such round...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anabel Ford. Cynthia Ellis Topsey.

This is an abstract from the "Advancing Public Perceptions of Sustainability through Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Globally, the Mesoamerican and Maya Milpa is gravely misunderstood as primitive, called shifting cultivation by the sole focus on annual crops combined with the fallacy of fallow, accurately defined as an unseeded plowed field. The attention to the annuals ignores the intentional and patient development of perennials,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn Reese-Taylor. Armando Anaya Hernández. Nicholas Dunning. Verónica Vázquez López. Fernando Flores Esquivel.

This is an abstract from the "New and Emerging Perspectives on the Bajo el Laberinto Region of the Maya Lowlands, Part 2" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since 2011, a multidisciplinary team of researchers has been investigating the development of dense urbanism along the southern edge of the Bajo el Laberinto. Anchored by Yaxnohcah in the east and Pared de los Reyes in the west, the area was settled at ca. 900 BCE and occupied until ca. 1500 CE,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Ruhl.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Effective water management was key to settle in the Maya Lowlands, where scarce surface water is found. While numerous investigations have showed how complex systems had been organized in Maya sites, implying a great deal of attraction to them, new data, available through LidAR for example, indicates a much more decentralized reality, where household-scale...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David McCormick. Zachary Hruby. Olivia Navarro-Farr. Michelle Rich. Keith Eppich.

This is an abstract from the "Ceremonial Lithics of Mesoamerica: New Understandings of Technology, Distribution, and Symbolism of Eccentrics and Ritual Caches in the Maya World and Beyond" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Obsidian blades and related debitage from four elite tombs recently excavated at El Peru-Waka have the potential to answer the question of why and how the ancient Maya placed this material above, around, and sometimes within the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cara Tremain.

Ancient Maya polychrome vases, especially those that are decorated with elaborately painted scenes, fill the display cases and collection drawers of museums and galleries around the world. Unfortunately, the majority of these are unprovenienced and many also lack clear provenance. Furthermore, modern restorations and/ or falsifications further muddy our understanding and blur the line between authentic and inauthentic. In order to learn more about these ceramics, and help to restore some of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sherman Horn.

This is an abstract from the "Where Is Provenance? Bridging Method, Evidence, and Theory for the Interpretation of Local Production" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Middle Preclassic (1000 – 400 B.C.) Maya Lowlands were peppered with autonomous communities connected by webs of socioeconomic interactions at the local and regional scales. Increasingly complex social relationships were forged in Middle Preclassic centers and later developed into...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tomás Gallareta Cervera. Brett A. Houk.

Research on ancient Maya cities is generally modeled after large sites with massive architecture, dynastic burials, and written records documenting the activities of divine rulers. However, the development of these cities is the exception, rather than the norm, since the majority of Maya sites did not reach such enormous proportions, yet many of them likely qualified as cities from a functional standpoint. Hence, a research on non-massive cities, "from the bottom up," is crucial to understand...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Callaghan. Brigitte Kovacevich.

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 this paper we use frequency distributions of ceramic types and modes to identify and assess the presence and strength of permeable ceramic boundaries between sites in the northeastern Peten and west central Belize in the early Middle Preclassic through Postclassic periods. We...