Tabasco (State / Territory) (Geographic Keyword)
526-550 (879 Records)
The site of Early Xunantunich in modern day Belize provides the opportunity for a uniquely detailed case study in Preclassic Maya architecture. Thanks to a lack of Classic Period overburden, the Mopan Valley Preclassic Project has been able to conduct extensive excavations of early architecture at the site, documenting important ritual activities from this early time period which likely played a key role in the development of sociopolitical complexity in the region. This paper focuses on...
Monumentality and Horizontality in a Preclassic Cityscape (2018)
During the Preclassic, the inhabitants of Yaxnohcah, Campeche, Mexico constructed more than 13 civic architectural complexes, each at least 20 m in height. These civic complexes were situated throughout roughly a 36 km2 area in a carefully planned quadripartite arrangement. Alongside these imposing structures, the early Maya also built massive platforms for public gatherings, large centralized reservoirs, a radial network of inter- and intra-city roads, and extensive agricultural features. In...
The Monumentality of the Preclassic Maya of the Mirador Basin, Guatemala (2018)
Archaeological investigations in 51 ancient sites within the geographical confines of the Mirador Basin of northern Guatemala have identified an extraordinary emphasis on monumentality in art and architecture dating well into the Middle and Late Preclassic periods of Maya occupation. The structure and format of this phenomenon is replicated in early complex societies in other parts of the world, and suggests a consistent human behavior of predictable characteristics. The analyses and forms of...
Monumentality, Politics, and Power: Implications of Recent Investigations of Late Preclassic Public Architecture at Xunantunich, Belize (2021)
This is an abstract from the "The Preclassic Landscape in the Mopan Valley, Belize" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Late Preclassic period (~300 BC–AD 300) witnessed some of the most important changes in social and political roles in the Maya lowlands when an emergent elite class began to use art and architecture to publicly display their elevated status in society. Recent archaeological research at the hilltop center of Xunantunich, located in...
The Moral Community of Pa’ka’n during the Classic Period (2019)
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 Houston’s collaborative article on the moral community and changes in settlement at Piedras Negras, Guatemala proposed that long-term Precolumbian settlement changes should not simply be analyzed in terms of "agricultural potential, land tenure, and natural increase," but should...
Morir para renacer: Funerary Rituals of Pregnant Women in Chunhuayum, Yucatan (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The lives of women have been a focus of recent research in Maya Archaeology, finding that they fulfilled important roles as mothers, wives, priestesses, members of the elite and even as rulers. Within each social stratum, women lived diverse identities, however they shared similar biological processes, such as pregnancy, which was ruled by diverse beliefs and...
Mortuary Landscapes and Placemaking through Veneration at the Maya Site of Colha (2018)
Traces of veneration are sedimented within the landscape and the collective memory of its occupants, transforming these spaces into places. Such palimpsests become potent, which, in the case of mortuary landscapes, can manifest in increasingly complex burial rituals through time. The 2017 excavations at Colha revealed a series of 9 interments in the main plaza of the 2000 sector, yielding a minimum number of 13 individuals. This mortuary area initially utilized during the Middle Preclassic was...
Mortuary Practice and Placemaking: The Establishment of a Cemetery during the Preceramic-Preclassic Transition at Ceibal, Guatemala (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent investigations in the Amoch Group of Ceibal, a minor ceremonial complex located outside of the site epicenter, have provided new insights into the transition from the Preceramic to the Middle Preclassic periods in the Maya lowlands (ca. 1000 BC). Previous investigations in the civic-ceremonial core of Ceibal revealed an E Group dating to around 950...
Mortuary Vessels at the Maya City of El Peru-Waka' (2018)
Residential burials are useful tools that help archaeologists better understand domestic ritual practices at the household level. With the household acting as a unit of social identity, funerary practices help archaeologists relate said practices to prominent trends of the time. These include, but are not limited to social and religious structures, identity, power, and social reproduction. One of the many types of artifacts that often appear in Classic Maya burials that are significant to burial...
Mountain Lords: Divine Game Keepers of the Ancient Maya and their Mesoamerican Context (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Supernatural Gamekeepers and Animal Masters: A Cross-Cultural Perspective" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper explores a set of mythical narratives on Classic Maya pottery (550-800 C.E.), which involve Huk Si’ip, the divine keeper of animals, and Itzam Kokaaj, the celestial creator of animals. Most of these narratives form part of a larger theogony cycle where the elderly gods of animals, sky, earth, and fire...
Moving Off-Road: Traversing Taskscapes at Wari Camp, Belize (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Manifesting Movement Materially: Broadening the Mesoamerican View" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The study of movement has long been relegated to the background of archaeological investigations, as its materialization proves multifarious yet equally elusive. The resulting collection of archaeological "movement studies" generally focuses on the most formalized manifestation of movement: road systems. Yet at the...
Multi-Sited Field Curation Methods: The Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Digital Archive Project (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since 1988, the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project has actively excavated archaeological sites throughout the Belize River Valley, resulting in a plethora of archaeological material elucidating nearly 3,000 years of human occupation. Beginning during the 2017 field season, the BVAR Digital Archive Project aims to curate, consolidate, and...
Multiproxy and LiDAR Evidence for Intensive Maya Wetland Agriculture Along the Rio Bravo River (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Ancient Maya Landscapes in Northwestern Belize, Part II" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We present preliminary results from a newly discovered Maya wetland canal and raised field system found along the Rio Bravo River in Northwest Belize using airborne LiDAR. The LiDAR data reveals canals and raised fields in a very rectilinear pattern that suggest planning and organization for many kilometers down the floodplain near...
Myth, Ritual, and the Classic Maya Sweat Bath (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Heat, Steam, and Health: The Archaeology of the Mesoamerican Pib Naah (Sweat Baths)" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Sweat baths have been used in Mesoamerica for more than a millennium for humoral medicine, childbirth, and obstetrics, not to mention rituals related to death, birth, and rebirth. During this long period of time, they have held a relatively constant place in mythology; they are ancestral grandmothers who...
Natural and Anthropogenic Effects on Coastal Environments along the East Cape of Baja California Sur, Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Palaeoeconomic and Environmental Reconstructions in Island and Coastal Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Changes to coastal environments from natural and anthropogenic factors have influenced human subsistence and settlement patterns throughout the Baja California peninsula. These changes are visible both in the archaeological record and present-day human settlements. We discuss long-term human-environment...
Natural Corridor or Challenging Route? Rethinking Pre-Hispanic Communications across the Pacific Coast of Guatemala (2018)
The Pacific coast of Guatemala has long been regarded as a natural corridor that facilitated travel and trade, and served as a route of migration and invasion, connecting eastern Mexico, the Guatemalan highlands, and El Salvador, with further regions of Mexico and Central America. At first glance, the natural configuration of the coast seems to provide unobstructed passage, especially when compared with the rugged terrain of the adjacent highlands. The maps in many publications feature vague...
Navigating the Daily Lives in Plazuela Groups: Early Excavations in the López Plaza at the Classic Period Maya Site of El Palmar, Mexico (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The data presented in this paper are results from the 2022 field season at the López Plaza, a small plazuela group located within the site center of El Palmar. Fieldwork included test pit excavations, shovel test pits, and geophysical prospections. Lidar images show that the López Plaza has two separate plaza spaces and approximately eight structures and...
A Needle Is Not Always a Needle: Reevaluating Gender-Related Objects from Classic Maya Burials (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Weaving-related objects, mainly spindle whorls and needles, found in prehispanic Maya burials are usually interpreted as an indication of either the identity of the deceased or the activities carried out in life. Such a symbolic approach is valuable in tracking the construction of identity in funerary contexts. However, it can be misleading in some contexts....
Negotiations in the Ritual and Social Landscape of Actuncan, Belize (2018)
Our understanding of the ancient Maya is informed to a great extent by the material remains of ritual performance in both domestic and public contexts. Maya populations throughout Mesoamerica were united by a shared cosmology patterning the timing, location, and material aspects of ritual performance. Yet, ritual was not a static or rigid construct, dutifully replicated across populations. At the site of Actuncan, Belize, we find that aspects of domestic ritual cycles, - including form, content,...
Neighborhood Integration in Low Density Cities Which Follow a Divergent (‘Outside-In’) Urban Trajectory (2018)
One relatively understudied aspect of neighborhood integration in ancient cities relates to the divergent trajectories along which cities form. In some ancient cities, the urban periphery appeared as autonomous communities prior to the development of a center, representing an ‘outside-in’ model of urbanism. Such contexts provide a valuable case study for investigating neighborhood integration into cities, due to a clear comparative temporal threshold (before and after incorporation). This...
Neighborhoods and the Constitution of Authority (2018)
Archaeologists working on the question of integration of neighborhoods within cities or polities often begin by assuming the existence of centralized authority. Next, they move to consider the relationship between neighborhoods and such authorities. Researchers typically see this relationship as one of domination, independence, or something in between. The case of Chunchucmil, a large Maya site located in northwest Yucatan, Mexico, challenges this common approach to neighborhood integration. At...
New Advances in the Conservation of Monuments at Piedras Negras, Guatemala (2018)
In 2016, a pilot project began for the conservation of sculpted monuments including stelae, altars, and panels at the site of Piedras Negras, Guatemala. Since then, a team in conjunction with the international Proyecto Paisaje Piedras Negras-Yaxchilan has constructed new platforms with roofs to house the monuments, protecting them from further weathering, moisture, and biological agents. The results of the implementation of the innovative system—platforms of powdered lime and local stones,...
New Data on City Planning at Nixtun-Ch’ich’, Petén, Guatemala (2018)
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...
New Methods of Mound Detection in the Maya Lowlands: UAV Survey and Settlement Mapping at Altar de Sacrificios, 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. 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...
New Methods, Old Data: Reanalysis of Diets of the Copán Classic Maya Using Stable Isotope Mixing Models (2023)
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...