Tabasco (State / Territory) (Geographic Keyword)
926-950 (1,122 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Regimes of the Ancient Maya" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Data from investigations at the archaeological site of La Corona reflect the role that secondary sites had for political integration in the Maya lowlands. Comparing what the hieroglyphic texts suggest with what the material culture of the secondary sites indicates, it is possibly to assess the nature of La Corona political regime before, during, and after its...
The Significance of Debt to Household and Political Economies of Postclassic and Contact Period Maya Societies (2018)
Debt was important to late Maya societies in religious and political terms. This paper explores the many facets of debt that tied together household and regional economies, including bottom-up mechanisms employed by families and communities, as well as top-down institutions that garnered support for religious and political bureaucracies. Graeber’s distinction between moral and impersonal economies outlines a comparative continuum with profound implications for issues of human rights in the past....
Situating Early Xunantunich, Belize, in the Preclassic Landscape: A Synthetic Perspective from Structure F1 (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. Over the last five years, intensive investigations of Structure F1 at Early Xunantunich, Belize, have shed light on a dynamic and important time in the site’s early history. The monumental platform structure played an important role in the early ceremonial center, creating the site’s northern boundary, hosting large public rituals,...
Six Decades of Research into Ancient Maya Settlement in Belize (2024)
This is an abstract from the "“The Center and the Edge”: How the Archaeology of Belize Is Foundational for Understanding the Ancient Maya" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Nearly 60 years ago Gordon Willey’s team published "Prehistoric Maya Settlements in the Belize Valley," initiating the study of ancient Maya communities with a focus at Barton Ramie in Belize. The lead continues to this day with the first archaeological application of lidar by the...
Skull Offerings: The Koxol Offertory Assemblage in the Maya Area (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Skull offerings among the ancient populations of Mesoamerica are well documented by archaeological, ethnohistorical and iconographic sources. New finds in 2017, in the Lowland Maya Classic site of Naachtun (Guatemala) required intersite comparisons beyond the few well-known cases such as Uaxactun E-Group’s deposits. The association of a cached human skull and...
Slam Dunk: 3D Imaging in Belizean Cave Sites Using Hovermap System (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Subterranean in Mesoamerican Cultural Landscapes" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mapping is one of the most fundamental and important enterprises for cave archaeologists not only for research but also integral to cave management and heritage preservation. Using traditional cartography techniques is often a tedious and long-term project involving numerous field seasons and thousands of measurements. Capturing 3D...
The Sloppy Science of Ancient Maya E-Groups (2024)
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...
Social Reactors Project datasets
Datasets from various publications of the Social Reactors Project
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...
Society’s Cutting-Edge Crafters: Lithic Commodity Production at Cotzumalhuapa (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Lithic artisans were critical to society throughout the Americas prior to the introduction of iron by Europeans. On the Pacific Coast of Guatemala, where no local sources of chipped-stone imported obsidian was available, obsidian was used to meet social demand for cutting edges. Throughout time this demand was met by a mixture of importing finished tools...
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...