Central America (Geographic Keyword)
226-239 (239 Records)
Providing adequate lighting for subterranean work at a remote site in the Peten of Guatemala usually involves flashlights or gasoline generators and CFL lights on homemade power cords. Because of the cost of generators and the difficulty and cost of transporting fuel to the field site most tunnel work uses head lamps and flashlights. In an effort to be environmentally sensitive and to be more efficient the Holmul Archaeological Project has started using 12 volt LED light strips powered by a...
A Variety of Cerendipitous Discoveries (2015)
Research at the Ceren village archaeological site in 2013 and 2014 has made a variety of discoveries. The plant casts, made by pouring dental plaster into the voids, reveal much about agriculture in the middle of the rainy season some 1400 years ago. The maize plants were doubled over to dry the mature ears, but the Loma Caldera eruption occurred just before planting squash and beans. So what was that single mature squash plant doing in the milpa? What are the limits of preservation of weeds,...
The vast and secret museum of Chiriqui: Stripping the sharpness and beauty from obsidian (2015)
Prominent, recent explorations of the role of sensory data in archaeology detail the linkages of bodily senses, material objects, and remembering or forgetting to invoke the ‘vast and secret museum of historical and sensory absence’ in analyses. In this paper, I examine the residues and associations of chthonic power and senses that can cling in social memory to volcanic materials. This serves as a query for why an entirely useful material was not in use in the Chiriqui culture area that spans...
Volcanic ash in the ceramics of the greater Palenque Region and Usumacinta Drainage, Chiapas and Tabasco, Mexico (2015)
Knowledge about the movement of pottery with volcanic constituents throughout the northwestern Maya Lowlands, from Preclassic through Postclassic times is closely tied to sub-regionally specific resources of the Usumacinta Drainage—from its origin in the highland to the Gulf delta. Following pioneering work in the region by Blom, Berlin, Ochoa, and Rands, we focus on sites in the greater Palenque subregion and their links to sites along the Usumacinta and in the Chiapas Sierras. Although Karl...
Volcanos, Imagery, and Footpaths: Research in Costa Rica (2016)
Over multiple field seasons, Dr. Payson Sheets has led the Proyecto Prehistorico Arenal in the Northwest corner of Costa Rica. A landscape characterized by repeated volcanic eruptions has resulted in the preservation of prehistoric footpaths. Dr. Sheets established a methodology combining satellite imagery and archaeology that could differentiate between erosional, historic, and prehistoric footpath features. This paper will focus on this methodology and Dr. Sheets’ contribution to remote...
Water Mountains and Water Trails: The View from Northwest Peten (2016)
Vernon Scarborough’s path-breaking work on lowland Maya water management has focused attention on the way that the Maya conceptualized and utilized landscape and its water sources for political, religious and economic purposes. Research in northwestern Peten suggests that canoe traffic linked the site of El Achiotal adjacent to the Central Karstic Uplands to the San Pedro Martir River by way of the San Juan River commanded by El Peru-Waka’. The Mirador hill at Waka’ was conceived as a water...
Wearing Culture: Dress and Regalia in Early Mesoamerica and Central America (2014)
Wearing Culture connects scholars of divergent geographical areas and academic fields-from archaeologists and anthropologists to art historians-to show the significance of articles of regalia and of dressing and ornamenting people and objects among the Formative period cultures of ancient Mesoamerica and Central America. Documenting the elaborate practices of costume, adornment, and body modification in Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Oaxaca, the Soconusco region of southern...
West Mexico, the Missing Link with South America (2015)
Cultures in the Intermediate Area served as the catalyst for the potential connections that exist between north and south. Maritime trading routes were the most probable form of contact and dissemination of information and styles. Iconographic evidence points to contact between various people from Chupícuaro to San Agustin Their styles are but a few of the missing links for the interaction between cultures from north and south. SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society...
What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Precolonial Sites in Chontales, Central Nicaragua? (2017)
The Proyecto Arqueológico Centro de Nicaragua (PACEN), directed by Alexander Geurds, has recently conducted archaeological research in Chontales, Central Nicaragua. The main focuses of the study include the identification of the different types of settlements, understanding site and mound morphologies, as well as re-defining the regional pottery sequence. Therefore, the authors of this paper carried out a systematic full-coverage high intensity survey of a 52 square kilometer area, a complete...
When Provenience is Lost: Achievements and Challenges in Conserving the Historical St. John’s, Belize Skeletal Collection (2017)
Funding in small developing countries like Belize for archaeological research and post excavation curation remains one of our greatest challenges to preserving our tangible cultural heritage. The state of curation of human remains and artefact collections at St. John’s College in Belize City is a perfect example of what can go wrong when there is not established a properly funded and managed curation program both at the national level or the institutional level. This paper highlights the...
When Trash Becomes Treasure: A Postclassic Maya Obsidian Core Cache from Nojpeten (2014)
This paper examines an obsidian cache offering excavated near the corner of a Postclassic Maya platform structure in Nojpeten, on the island of Flores, Guatemala. The cache consists of approximately 190 obsidian prismatic blade cores and core fragments, but the original number of cores placed in the cache likely fell between 173 and 182, with a best estimate of 177, 178, or 180. The cores were found about 20 cm southwest of the structure in a circular concentration measuring approximately 35 cm...
Where is Temple? : Construction and Use of Ceremonial Group at Tayasal (2015)
Since the 1970s, a ceremonial group dating to the Late Postclassic period at the archaeological site of Tayasal has been excavated by several archaeological projects. These efforts have greatly contributed to the understanding of the Late Postclassic period and the Itza Maya communities in the Petén lakes region. The ceremonial group includes a Postclassic "basic ceremonial group" on the west and a probable Late Preclassic E-group on the east. Excavations revealed architectural arrangements and...
Why Pacific Nicaragua Should Not Be Considered Mesoamerican during Prehistory (2017)
During Pre-Columbian times, it is well-known that the societies of Mesoamerica developed monumental architecture with a high level of complexity. During this same period, much if not all of lower Central America never achieved higher complexity other than that of chiefdom level. Honduras is the one major exception. While the societies of Nicaragua had similar gods and ceramics much of this can be explained through other means. The gods that were similar were "lesser" gods and not the main gods...
Within and Between: A comparative discussion of Intra-site Variability and Hinterland Complexity at the sites of Yaxché, Yucatan and Cerén, El Salvador (2015)
Long-standing research at sites like Cerén exemplifies the increased interest in rural households and settlements and the shift away from the elite-centric nature of many earlier projects in Maya archaeology. Our expanding knowledge of ancient Maya hinterlands has allowed us to consider the heterogeneity that these smaller settlements displayed and revise our western binary perspective of "urban versus rural". Recent investigations by members of the Ucí-Cansahcab Regional Integration Project...