Campeche (State / Territory) (Geographic Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Timothy Pugh.

The site of Nixtun-Ch’ich’ in Petén, Guatemala is the only known lowland Maya site with an urban grid. Such grids are composed of perpendicular streets forming quadrilateral city blocks. They are common elements of city planning as they increase the legibility of city space and the interconnectivity of occupants. The urban grid at Nixtun-Ch’ich’ is the earliest known in the Americas (ca. 800-500 BCE) and was built when social complexity was emerging in the Maya region. Like many Preclassic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Billie Follensbee.

This is an abstract from the "Textile Tools and Technologies as Evidence for the Fiber Arts in Precolumbian Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While considerable research has been conducted on the importance of textiles in Classic and Postclassic Mesoamerica, little study has been done on textiles among Early or Middle Formative period cultures, mainly due to scanty preservation. As noted in previous research, however, depictions of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Munson. Andrés Mejía-Ramón. Lorena Paíz Aragon.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the last decade, the use of lidar has dramatically changed our understanding of the size and extent of ancient settlements in the Maya lowlands. This technology, however, has yielded equivocal results in secondary-forest growth and recently deforested environments. In these settings, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) surveys facilitate a more effective and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Reed.

This is an abstract from the "Innovations and Transformations in Mesoamerican Research: Recent and Revised Insights of Ancestral Lifeways" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Sex and age factor into ancient diets. This poster revisits the largest single Maya polity paleodiet study using approaches that have been developed since the original data were collected, and to incorporate newer knowledge of Maya foodways in developing a better reconstruction of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Melanie Saldana. Michele Bleuze. James Brady.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 1993, a previously unknown composite material made of layers of finely woven cotton fabric saturated in ceramic slip were recovered by the Petexbatun Regional Cave Survey in the Cueva del los Quetzales, Petén, Guatemala. An analysis of the sherds was conducted by the Smithsonian Institution's Conservation Analytical Laboratory (now the Smithsonian...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Edward Jolie. W. Rex Weeks.

This is an abstract from the "The Ties That Bind: Cordage, Its Sources, and the Artifacts of Its Creation and Use" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ethnographic, iconographic, and archaeological records attest to the sophisticated and sumptuous textiles produced by Maya peoples in ancient and contemporary times. However, historical neglect of cordage industries in archaeology, combined with poor organic preservation and gaps in the ethnographic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Merideth Paxton.

This is an abstract from the "Animal Symbolism in Postclassic Mesoamerica: Papers in Honor of Cecelia Klein" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Dresden Codex is a Postclassic Maya document that is thought to have originated in the Yucatán Peninsula. The opossum figures in the panels at the tops of its section on the New Year (pages 25-28) are associated with the uayeb, the five nameless, unlucky days that mark the ends of the 365-day haabs. A...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Markus Eberl. Sven Gronemeyer. Claudia Marie Vela González.

In Classic Maya society, termination rituals were conducted to ‘kill’ buildings and artifacts, predominantly in elite contexts. The resulting deposits were rapidly deposited in intentionally damaged buildings. They contain dense artifact assemblages with exotic objects and refittable ceramic sherds. After burning them, the artifacts were covered with white marl. Here, we report the extensive excavation of non-elite Structure 5PS-12 at the outskirts of the Classic Maya capital of Tamarindito. Its...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dominique Michelet. Pierre Becquelin.

This is an abstract from the "Regimes of the Ancient Maya" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. With the publication of the influential “Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens” (Martin and Grube 2000) along with the convincing analysis of the Classic Maya political universe in terms of city-states (Grube 2000), a Classic Maya political regime model seemed to have been set up, relying on divine kingship based more on the domination of people than of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bridgette Degnan. Kaitlin Murphy. Brett Houk.

This is an abstract from the "Prehispanic Maya Marketplace Investigations in the Three Rivers Region of Belize: First Results" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the Late Classic period (600–850 CE), the ancient Maya had a robust market economy that connected people with goods through long-distance and local exchange networks. Marketplaces were an important institution serving a primary economic function while also stimulating social and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Stuart.

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. The historical importance of the Kaanu’l (Kanul) dynasty and its political networks is now well established. Dzibanche and Calakmul were its two principal centers over the course of the Late Classic period, and the sources we use for reconstructing its history come from many surrounding sites in the southern...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Caroline Parris.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Feasting is a commonly cited interpretation across the Maya area for middens which include large quantities of ceramics and animal bones. This poster takes a closer look at previously published Maya feasting contexts by further examining the functional make up of their ceramic assemblages. By moving beyond the standard open/closed or serving/storage functional...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sandra Balanzario Granados.

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. El sitio prehispánico de Dzibanché tuvo una ocupación continua, desde el periodo del Preclásico Medio-Superior hasta el Clásico Tardío (300 aC-800 dC). Ocupación que continuó con una población menor hasta el periodo del Clásico Terminal-Posclásico (900-1500 dC). Fue el asiento de la dinastía Serpiente “Kaanu’l”...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sandra Viskanta Khokhriakova. Alexandre Tokovinine. Dmitri Beliaev. Sandra Balanzario.

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. This paper presents some preliminary results of the first field season of 3D documentation of buildings, monuments, and portable artifacts from the archaeological site of Dzibanché in Quintana Roo, Mexico. Four building facades, 20 stairway blocks, nine miscellaneous sculpture fragments, and six...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nathan Wilson. Philip Arnold.

This is an abstract from the "El principio del fin, el inicio del principio: Arqueología de la transición del Formativo al Clásico en Los Tuxtlas, Veracruz, México" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper focuses on obsidian at the site of Teotepec, Veracruz, Mexico. Specifically, we discuss importation and consumption patterns during the Formative-Classic period transition (Late Formative to Early/Middle Classic period). Overall, the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael D. Glascock. Kylie Gannan. Thomas R. Hester.

This is an abstract from the "2019 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of M. Steven Shackley" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the late 1960s, Heizer and colleagues at UC-Berkeley began to use X-ray fluorescence to measure chemical fingerprints for obsidian artifacts from a number of sites in Mesoamerica. In their study of obsidian artifacts from the Olmec site of La Venta, they found that 93% of the artifacts were explained by five distinct...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jorge Ramos. Zachary Hruby. Xinwei Li.

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. Ongoing excavations in Structures 69C and 70W in the 8N-11 group of Las Sepulturas have uncovered pressure blade caches of great complexity and size. While blade caches are relatively common at Copan, these caches were excavated...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Phyllis Johnson.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists studying the Maya have traditionally considered obsidian to be a luxury good that was often tightly controlled by the elite during the Classic period. Archaeological evidence from the Classic Maya capital of Tamarindito in Guatemala challenges these long-held assumptions, however. At Tamarindito, multiple lines of evidence support the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gabriela Montero. Nathan Wilson. Lourdes Budar.

In this paper, we present the results of technological and visual sourcing analyses of over 1000 obsidian artifacts collected by the Proyecto Arqueológico Piedra Labrada (PiLab), directed by Dr. Lourdes Budar. The PiLab area of study, the eastern Sierra de los Tuxtlas, Veracruz, Mexico, includes the eastern flanks of the Sierra de Santa Marta and the adjacent coastal plain along the Gulf of Mexico, and has a long sequence of Prehispanic occupation. Despite this, and almost a decade of regional...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nathan Brownstein. Betsy Kohut. George Bey III.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In recent years, the use of portable X-Ray Fluorescence (p-XRF) spectrometers has become increasingly common to determine the geological sources of obsidian artifacts. This study used p-XRF to obtain trace elemental data for 354 obsidian artifacts from the sites of Huntichmul, Kiuic and Escalera Al Cielo in the Puuc region of the northern Maya lowlands. These...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nathan Wilson.

In this paper, I present new data on lithic production, consumption, and importation from the site of Teotepec, a large pre-Hispanic settlement located in the Sierra de los Tuxtlas region of Veracruz, Mexico. Like much of the Mexican Gulf Coast, the Prehispanic inhabitants of the Sierra de los Tuxtlas relied on non-local obsidian for most of their lithic needs. Using the results of recently completed technological and visual source analyses, I identify differences in production and consumption...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alejandro Pastrana. Annick Daneels. Silvia Domínguez.

During the Classic period (1st mill. CE), South Central Veracruz was a mosaic of microstates in which obsidian was scarce but available to everyone. Semi-intensive systematic survey in 400 km2 of the lower Cotaxtla basin showed occasional concentrations that led to propose two alternatives: state-controlled workshops obtaining and redistributing artifacts to resident population, or independent workshops servicing clients across borders, implying the existence of a market-based economy. Chaîne...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Shayna Lindquist.

This is an abstract from the "Olmec Manifestations and Ongoing Societal Transformations in the Tuxtlas Uplands: A View from Matacanela" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Matacanela’s chipped stone assemblage overwhelmingly is dominated by nonlocal obsidian, including both products and by-products of multiple reductive technologies. Overarching temporal trends and classification of Matacanela’s obsidian assemblage have previously been discussed within...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Zachary Hruby.

The position of Vista Alegre at the Northeastern edge of the Yucatan Peninsula, a gateway between the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, made it a strategic location for circumpeninsular maritime trade in Pre-Colombian times. A robust sample of obsidian artifacts from the Terminal-Postclassic transition increases our understanding of trade relations between the eastern and western sides of the Maya world. Technological and source analyses of obsidian artifacts from the site are presented to fill...

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

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One of the persistent difficulties in understanding Classic Maya (AD 250–900) economies has been the challenge of identifying the loci of production (e.g., workshops) and exchange (e.g., marketplaces), and thus interpreting how the two figured into local and regional economies. During the 2013 fieldwork at the site of Budislha, Chiapas, Mexico–a subsidiary...