Mesoamerica (Geographic Keyword)
1,326-1,350 (2,459 Records)
This talk compares methods used for the topographical mapping of the archaeological site of Matacanela. Specifically, we compare the results of the GIS processing of LiDAR data collected and distributed for no charge by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía with the results of traditional topographical mapping, undertaken using a Sokkia total station. For the purposes of project planning, the LiDAR data was processed, and maps were generated using GIS. These LiDAR-based data enabled...
Mapping Mayapán’s Archaeological Remains and Environmental Characteristics Using UAVs and Photogrammetric Software (2016)
The integration of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and photogrammetric data processing into existing field techniques simplifies and accelerates mapping and environmental reconstruction. Ongoing investigations in and around Mayapán face the common challenge of mapping archaeological and environmental features and attributes in the context of difficult terrain and dense surface cover. The 2015 field season depended on UAV photography and photogrammetric processing for site and excavation photos...
Mapping the Development of Commerce: Social and Economic Processes in Middle Postclassic period Sauce, Veracruz, Mexico (2017)
This study analyzes the spatial patterns of ceramics from 65 archaeological residential inventories from the center of Sauce and its hinterland to address the appearance of markets and the spatial structure of exchange during the Middle Postclassic period (A.D. 1200-1350) in south-central Veracruz, Mexico. For Postclassic Mesoamerica, the collapse of the Classic period states is identified as a factor in market development. However, economic development is rarely the result of a coherent...
Marine Fossils and Domestic Ritual in Maya Commoner Households: Two Neighborhoods in the Classic Maya City of Palenque (2016)
Marine fossils carried an important symbolic load for elites in the Classic Maya city of Palenque. Recent excavations demonstrate that marine fossils were intentionally employed in a variety of ways by commoners in hinterland domestic contexts as well. Despite a shared symbology, such use varied across the landscape: inhabitants of different neighborhoods had different practices surrounding these materials. The special significance of marine fossils in commoner households is particularly evident...
Marine mollusks as evidence of Mexica imperial expansion (2015)
Of the approximately 175 offerings uncovered in the Templo Mayor Project excavations (1978–present) of Tenochtitlan’s sacred precinct led by Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, 60 reportedly contained marine mollusks. Among them, 47 offerings, dating from 1440 to 1521 CE, were explored between 1978 and 2006, while 13, dating from the reign of Ahuitzotl (1486–1502), were recovered between 2007 and 2013. In the first group, 180 species were identified, including 119 endemic to the Caribbean, 41 to the...
Marine Resources and the Prehistoric Lowland Maya: a Comment (1972)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
Marine shells and green stones as funerary objects from Tomb II, Tingambato, Michoacán (2017)
A través de la historia, los rituales y formas de enterrar a los muertos han variado entre grupos culturales y regiones. Mesoamérica y particularmente su área occidente no fueron la excepción. En este territorio se han descubierto tumbas acompañadas de ofrendas desde épocas correspondientes al periodo Formativo y que, con el paso del tiempo, constituyeron verdaderas tradiciones funerarias. La zona arqueológica de Tingambato se encuentra en el límite sur del poblado que lleva el mismo nombre en...
Mas alla de la Arqueologia (2017)
Archaeological research frequently produces material elements we seek to safeguard for the benefit of future generations, a goal that requires organizational support and a mix of resources. When the research materials pass to the responsibility of communities or groups with limited preparation and resources for management of said materials, we encounter a serious disconnect between the accomplishments of research and the long-term viability of archaeological resources. In Mexico the long...
Masking Practices and Layered Identities in Offering 1 from Los Horcones, Chiapas, Mexico (2015)
Discovered in 2006, Offering 1 from Los Horcones, Chiapas represents a unique grouping of figurines deposited perhaps to commemorate the construction of Mound B1 from this site. Previous publication of this offering focused on deriving meaning from this cache based on its context and stylistic attributes. During the summer of 2014, the offering was reconstructed and new layers of meaning perhaps representing a more emic perspective on its meaning emerged. The offering, made up of masks and...
Material Culture and Chronology at Colha, Belize: Recent Findings and Future Directions (2018)
Lithics, ceramics, and other artifacts, recovered from the 2017 Colha, Belize field season, are utilized to gain insight into chronological developments and changes at the ancient Maya site. Maya material culture recovered from excavations at Colha are presented and interpreted by context. Each artifact category is briefly defined, described, and placed into a general site context. The estimated time range for the recovered material culture extends from the Late Archaic to the Late Preclassic....
Material Culture Change, Continuity, and Innovation at Postclassic and Early Colonial Achiutla, Oaxaca, Mexico (2015)
In this poster, I present results of an analysis of ceramic materials recovered from domestic contexts at the Postclassic and Colonial site of Achiutla, located in the Mixtec highlands of Oaxaca, Mexico. Materials from distinct household middens corresponding to the Postclassic and Colonial periods, respectively, facilitate intra-site comparisons of domestic ceramic assemblages, providing insights regarding cultural change and continuity at the micro-level over the course of the Spanish...
Material Culture Correlates of Polity Restructuring and Decline: Changes in Ceramic Production and Use at the End of the Late Classic Period in the Copan Valley (2017)
Features of material culture can be actively constructed and transparently manipulated to various sociopolitical ends, with the installation of elaborate monuments and possession of ornate goods making bold statements of power and authority. While other more common elements of material culture may provide perhaps less conspicuous commentary on the "state of the union," they can also be equally symbolic of the conditions under which they were created. This paper examines the material culture...
Material Transformations and Vegetal Ontologies in the Postclassic and Colonial Mesoamerican Flower Worlds (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Bringing the Past to Life, Part 1: Papers in Honor of John M. D. Pohl" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Prehispanic visual sources and colonial alphabetic texts provide rich descriptions of what scholars have termed "the Flower World" in Mesoamerica. This idealized celestial realm was filled not just with flowers, but an array of other precious substances, ranging from gemstones to precious metals, to bird feathers and...
A Materialist Perspective on Ancient Maya Flaked Stone Technology: Chert Blade-Core Artifacts from Caracol, Belize (2016)
Using a recently analyzed lithic deposit, from Caracol, Belize, this paper considers ancient Maya crafting from a materialist perspective. Through this perspective, we consider Caracol’s chert technology not as separate and distinct from obsidian, implicating a separate community of crafters, somehow less prestigious or knowledgeable, but rather, we argue that similarity in material properties enabled the utilization of identical reduction techniques. Those techniques in crafting were shared...
Materiality and Meaning in the Formative Gulf Lowlands (2016)
In Formative Mesoamerica the built environments of San Lorenzo and La Venta became unique topographic assemblages combining local and regional materials drawn from riverbeds, salt domes, nearby hills, and distant volcanic peaks. These sites can be viewed as microcosms of their regional landscapes, incorporating natural forms and geographic referents as a way to manifest elite authority over the natural and human worlds. Integrated into these architectural settings were large-scale sculptures...
The Materiality of Sound: Detecting Performing Patterns On Two Mesoamerican Bone Rasps (2017)
This presentation focuses on some results of an interdisciplinary study carried out on two scraping idiophones made of human bones from ancient Mesoamerica (omichicahuaztli). Both the instruments are today on exhibit at the Museo Nazionale Preistorico Etnografico "Luigi Pigorini" in Rome. The detailed analysis of the bone surfaces allowed us to reconstruct the taphonomic processes that affected the bones and the steps employed to transform them into musical instruments. Our research team...
Maya 2012. Prophecy becomes history. (2016)
The Houston Museum of Natural Science hosted an exhibit on the Maya 2012 phenomenon. This presentation reviews the various stages of preparing an exhibit from initial concept to cutting the ribbon. In particular, the speaker will address developing the storyline, object selection and marketing of the exhibit.
Maya Apocalypse 2012 in the Media -- The Cataclysm that Never Was. (2015)
December 21, 2012 was supposed to be the Maya apocalypse, the end of the world as we know it. In reality, it was only the end of one Maya calendar cycle of 5122 years -- the end of the 13th Baktun. Even at that, the Maya saw the ending of calendars as a renewal, not an end. But somehow, somewhere this event was interpreted as a coming cataclysm of immense proportion. In the popular press and online, the Maya apocalypse was imminent. How was the coming of this supposed event covered by the press...
Maya Architecture in the Northern Lowlands (2017)
It has long been recognized that ancient Maya architecture encoded sacred ideologies and replicated primordial landscapes through building forms and structural orientations. Many studies have focused on the architecture of the Southern Maya Lowlands, where rich textual sources exist and where an abundance of archaeological data aids in efforts to understand and interpret the meanings of architectural groups. We seek to augment interpretive frameworks with respect to the Northern Maya Lowlands,...
Maya Art and Civilization (1957)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
Maya Ceramic Production along the North Coast of the Yucatan Peninsula: Diagnostic Attributes Associated with Unslipped Wares at Viste Alegre (2015)
Along the northeastern portion of the Yucatan Peninsula prehistoric ceramic production practices included a variety of utilitarian forms. During recent work at the Maya coastal site of Vista Alegre, Drs. Jeffrey Glover and Dominique Rissolo recovered a high volume of unslipped plain and striated sherds. Due to the absence of complete vessels as well as the mixing of materials stratigraphically, classifying the sherds typologically has proven problematic. This paper examines and compares...
Maya Child Sacrifice Via Cranial Punctures (2017)
Our knowledge of Maya human sacrifice is drawn from iconographic representations and contact period Spanish sources. Unfortunately, the corpus related to child sacrifice is extremely limited. In 1971 David M. Pendergast described the burial of a child from Eduardo Quiroz Cave with traumatic perimortem holes in the parietals. Later, Brady reported on a second child with similar wounds. Both Pendergast and Brady interpreted the evidence as reflecting child sacrifice. The recovery of thousands...
Maya Dental Modifications: Insights from Ka’Kabish, Belize (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This research investigated the intentionally modified dentition found within chultuns at the Maya site of Ka’kabish, Belize. The site has a history spanning from the Middle Formative (800–600 BC) to the Postclassic (900–1500 AD) periods. The primary aim of this research was to closely examine the modified dentition, evaluate any dental pathologies present,...
Maya Downfall at Tikal. In: the Classic Maya Collapse (1973)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
Maya E-Groups and the Nature of Science -- Ours and Theirs (2017)
Maya E-Group architectural assemblages have attracted scholarly attention for about a century, and yet our ideas about them have become more muddled through time. Since the beginning of investigations in the 1920’s these structures have been thought to have had some astronomical function, but the exact astronomical significance suggested by archaeologists has changed though time. Today there is very little agreement about their meaning and function. In this presentation I will briefly review the...