Central America (Geographic Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Lawrence. Kathleen Marsaglia. Scott Fitzpatrick. Thomas Wake.

Petrographic analysis of ceramic sherds can elucidate manufacturing techniques and exchange systems. We present the first mineralogical assessment via thin-section petrography of archeological ceramics collected from the Bocas del Toro province on the Caribbean coast of Panama. Examined sherds include surface finds collected from archaeological sites on Bastimentos Island and at Cerro Brujo on the mainland, and excavated samples from Sitio Drago, Isla Colon. Thin-section petrography of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carmen Ting.

This paper investigates the role played by Marco Gonzalez in the production and exchange of elite wares, as represented by the Zakpah ceramics, during the Early Postclassic period. Located in Ambergris Caye off the coast of northern Belize, Marco Gonzalez was occupied continuously throughout the Classic to Postclassic transition, with strong Early Postclassic (ca. AD950/1000–1200/1250) evidence yielding one of the largest Zakpah ceramic assemblages alongside Lamanai. By using various...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marisol Cortes-Rincon. Erik Marinkovich. Cady Rutherford. Spencer Mitchell. Kyle Ports.

This study investigates the nature and intensity of ancient Maya household economies in northwestern Belize. The primary focus will be centered on investigative ways in which settlement pattern data offers insight to understanding production systems in hinterland communities. The preliminary patterned relationship that emerged among settlement features and land resources allowed for the interpretation of land management strategies and production systems implemented in different environment zones...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Linda Howie. Heather McKillop. E. Cory Sills.

The pottery recovered from Late Classic Maya salt works sites can reveal important information about both the production and distribution of this highly valued trade item. Determination of the geographic origin of the serving vessels and storage jars recovered from salt works, for example, provides direct evidence of trade connections to other areas, as well as the geographic extent of the exchange networks through which salt was distributed. From local perspective, the technological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sagrario Balladares. Donald Byers. Leonardo Lechado.

Este tema estará referido a la preocupación de algunos investigadores, arqueólogos y antropólogos, nacionales y extranjeros, que trabajamos en la región caribeña de Nicaragua por las implicancias que tendrá la construcción del canal interoceánico en el caribe. Siendo que el área geográfica que se verá afectada posee en la actualidad un patrimonio vivo (comunidades originarias y étnicas) asentado en Punta de Aguila, lugar donde se pretende la construcción del principal puerto que dará inicio al...

DOCUMENT Citation Only R. Jeffrey Frost.

Contact era Spanish descriptions from central Costa Rica through western Panama offer compelling evidence that many indigenous settlements throughout the region were arranged as two spatially discrete parts, implying that these societies were similarly organized as two social groups. Documentary sources further indicate that there were at least three regionally distinct spatial arrangements of villages. Spatial patterns of settlements recorded in these documents closely resemble those identified...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mikael Haller.

Through the Parita Archaeological Research Project (PARP), we have investigated socioeconomic change in Central Region of Panama using several different scales of analysis. More specifically, we examined the relationship between episodes of social change and the following factors: sociopolitical organization, craft specialization and economic interdependence, and control and manipulation of trade goods, subsistence resources and ritual space. Despite the presence of some long-distance trade...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Freidel. Olivia Navarro Farr.

Classic Maya civilization witnessed the reigns of many great queens, but the greatest in the southern lowlands was Kaloomte’ K’abel of Waka’. She presided over the routes of conquest in western Peten during the seventh century wars of Yuknoom Ch’een the Great. During her lifetime she and her consort King K’inich Bahlam turned the power of the ancient Wite’ Naah Fire Shrine, it’s Moon Goddess, its Death God Akan, and its other gods to the conquest and subjugation of Tikal. She and her city knew...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark Willis. Eleanor Harrison-Buck. Chester Walker.

Saturday Creek is a sizeable Maya site center with an elite residence, three large pyramids, and two ballcourts. While much of the site core is in bush, most of the surrounding area has been cleared for agriculture. While the clearing makes for good visibility, the hinterland settlement has been subject to extensive bulldozing, repeated plowing, and removal of stone over the years, obscuring the smaller mounds and making it difficult to discern them on the ground. In less than two days, we flew...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Zachary Nissen.

During the comprehensive survey of the Maya city of Aventura, Belize, the Aventura Archaeology Project (AAP) identified 29 structures located within the confines of the site’s largest monumental plaza, the A Plaza. While Maya plazas tend to be open places for ritual performance and/or market exchange, the structures in Aventura’s A Plaza, constructed with "seemingly" no regard to the orientation and layout of the site’s other monumental architecture, suggests the possibility of an alternative...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Juan Melendez.

At the core of the ancient Maya site of El Perú-Waka’, Petén, Guatemala, an elaborate burial was discovered inside Structure M12-32 dated to around AD 600. The burial contained human remains of a ruler, who probably belonged to the centipede dynasty, known in the past as Wak. The diversity of artifacts placed with the ruler, including a greenstone mosaic, pyrite mirror, and an alabaster vessel, suggest not only that this person was wealthy, but also asserts the important influence of El Perú...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Omar Alcover. Charles Golden. Andrew Scherer.

Etic distinctions between "sites" and "landscape features" and the limits of pedestrian survey have long influenced how scholars in the Maya lowlands model social and political dynamics of the region. The adoption of remote sensing technologies, particularly LiDAR, has improved our ability to identify anthropogenic features over wider areas. Yet remote sensing data collection remains centered on known "sites" and data serving to further expand the mapped boundaries of ancient "cities,"...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lysanna Anderson. David Wahl.

Fire was arguably the primary tool used by the Maya to alter the landscape and extract resources. Opening of forest for agriculture, building, and extraction/production of construction material necessitated burning. While we understand the fundamental role of fire in Maya land use, there are very few records of prehispanic biomass burning from the Maya lowlands. Consequently, a limited understanding exists of natural fire regimes and patterns of anthropogenic burning in the tropical seasonally...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Zoe Rawski.

The site of Early Xunantunich in Belize provides us with a rare opportunity to conduct large scale investigations of Preclassic architecture due to its lack of Classic Period overburden. Since 2008, ongoing excavations at the site have yielded a wealth of information regarding Preclassic activities in the area. However, recent investigations of a monumental flat-topped platform at the site have illuminated issues with the ways in which we describe and classify these early structures. In this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aviva Cormier. Francisco Estrada-Belli.

Stable isotope analysis is a productive tool for understanding the migratory histories of past populations in various regions of the world, including the ancient Maya. This paper presents the strontium and oxygen isotopic ratio values of dental enamel samples as compared to the geographical location of burial to address questions of regional identity, population migration, and social complexity of the Maya at the archaeological site of Holmul and the nearby centers of La Suficaya, K’o, Cival,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Borislava Simova. David Mixter.

Across the Maya Lowlands, dedication ritual served a vital role in endowing public and household spaces with meaning and function. Through ritual, structures acquired the soul-force, or k’ulel, necessary to sustain activity within their walls. However, many structures lived (at least) two ritual lives: one associated with their original intended function, and a second following the abandonment of their initial use. We argue that through ritual resignification the original meanings of public...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rosemary Joyce.

In Central America, recent research crosses national boundaries that once divided archaeological analyses, including by identifying historically related ceramics with regionalized names. This paper argues for using contemporary concepts that do not tie us to the culture historical approach, with its equivalences of a people, a material culture, a language, and an identity, to fully understand emerging data. Culture history worked as a preliminary step to clarify relations in areas like...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Isuara Nereyda Alonso. Antonia Martínez. César Antonio Martínez.

Varios proyectos en marcha de capacitación e intervención están contribuyendo a la creación de un programa de conservación de campo sostenible para la arqueología de Copan. La construcción de un nuevo laboratorio para la conservación de la escultura y oportunidades para participar en talleres para personal local están ayudando a reforzar la misión del Instituto Hondureño de Antropología e Historia y las ONG en el resguardo y conservación de este Sitio de Patrimonio Mundial. En este esta...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Akira Ichikawa.

The establishment and refinement of chronology is a critical issue in archaeological practice worldwide. In the archaeology of the southern Maya area, Inomata et al. (2014) have currently proposed a new revised chronology for Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala, especially for the Preclassic period, using several calibrated radiocarbon dates and Bayesian statistics. They also highlight a new interpretation of the social process in southern Maya area. However, the data set for the southeastern Maya area,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Charles Golden. Andrew Scherer.

In "A Forest of Kings," Linda Schele and David Freidel painted a vivid picture of the lives and relationships of kings, queens and courtiers expressed in images and texts from the Yaxchilan kingdom during the 7th and 8th centuries AD. In the 25 years since that volume’s publication, refinements in epigraphic readings and archaeological research in the rural hinterlands surrounding Yaxchilan and neighboring capitals have greatly enriched our understanding of the political world of the Western...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph Orozco.

California State University, Los Angeles Archaeological Field Program in Central America conducted an investigation of a sinkhole containing a small grotto at the ancient Maya site of La Milpa, Belize in 2014. Excavation discovered that a rubble-cored platform had been built around the feature, formalizing the space and suggesting that it had functioned as a sacred landmark. During the excavations, a fairly dense concentration of sherds was encountered along with three dozen fragments of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Hotaling. William Saturno. Boris Beltran. Shintaro Suzuki.

Bioarchaeological analyses in the past have worked to investigate and contextualize human remains in the broader realm of ancient Maya mortuary practices. Offerings are a common component of Maya ritual; however, the role of human offerings is still not understood in its entirety. In the 2014 field season at Xultún, Petén, Guatemala, three sets of human remains were excavated within the Los Arboles structure, a pyramid complex to the north of the site. In this paper, I discuss the results of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Steve Fox. Jaime Awe.

The functions of cosmologically oriented structures within the site core of Ancient Maya sites have been analyzed by archaeologist throughout time. However, the role of terminus groups in relation to the function of site cores have received little attention. In this paper, we analyze the function of the Zopilote Complex, a Terminus group located south of the Cahal Pech site core. Excavations on Str. 1 at Zopilote uncovered two elite burials accompanied by evidence of human sacrifice....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Whitney Lytle.

Xunantunich Group D, an elite residential unit, has a fascinating history of construction and reuse between two temporally separated occupations. The group is set apart from other Xunantunich residential units by a sacbe connecting it to the site core and a large ancestor shrine acting as the architectural focal point of the group. The past three years of research at Group D has focused on the Late Classic ancestor shrine and the open courtyard directly in front of the structure with the goal of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anne Pyburn.

Variations in the architecture, settlement patterns, local environmental context, and occupational history of Maya archaeological sites are difficult to assess. Which differences are culturally meaningful? Which similarities indicate social relationships, and if so what sort of relationships? Which differences are simply a result of local climate and available building materials? In this paper I will examine some of the similarities and differences among the three Maya sites in North-Central...