Mesoamerica (Geographic Keyword)
1,801-1,825 (2,459 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Previous studies have illustrated the continuing relationship between the Maya area and the Basin of Mexico, especially with the presence of Maya iconography at the site of Teotihuacan. Maya imagery can be seen in diverse cultural materials such as ceramics and stucco-painted murals. For example, researchers have argued that the stucco-painted murals at...
The Presence of Sacrifice in Chichen Itza and Tenochtitlan: Two Faces of the Same Story (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Sacrificial and Autosacrifice Instruments in Mesoamerica: Symbolism and Technology" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In Chichen Itza and Tenochtitlan’s religious thought, sacrifice was a creative act closely related to cosmic genesis and world sense. This behavior is evident not only in the archaeological record but also in the iconography. Two of the most common artifacts associated with this ancient practice in both...
The Presence of Teotihuacan’s Iconography at Cacaxtla, Tlaxcala: A Reflection on Its Interpretations (2015)
The archaeological site of Cacaxtla, is located in the southwest of the modern state of Tlaxcala, Mexico. It has been explored uninterruptedly since 1975, and researchers agree that the site had a long occupation, reaching its height by AD 600-900, and being contemporary to other sites like Teotihuacan. Cacaxtla stands out for its mural painting and, in particular, for its iconography that combines many pictorial traditions from different Mesoamerican sites. In particular, Cacaxtla’s art draws...
Presentation and Representation: Ixiptla and the Material Agency of the Sculptural Image (2016)
Devotional sculptures and their attendant ritual interactions allow for pointed critical engagement with the very nature of images, both formally and in the intersection of art and sacra. To that end, this paper will explore the manner by which ixiptla (lit. representation), a type of central Mexican cult effigy, functioned to shape conceptions of space, place, and cultural identity in the Postclassic Period. By investigating their position within the visual milieu, I posit that, through their...
Presenting Order: Painting as Mythic Past and Mathematical Future in the Murals of San Bartolo and Xultun, Guatemala (2015)
Though the murals of San Bartolo and Xultun are located only 8km apart in the lowland forests of Guatemala they are separated by more than 800 years of Maya history and reflect very different relationships between society and the cosmos as well as between the artworks and their intended audiences. Where one publicly recounts episodes of Maya mythology and the idealized roles of both gods and kings in the creation and maintenance of cosmic order, the other painted within a private household...
Pride and Prejudice in the Maya Lowlands (2015)
Although they represent the foundation on which ancient Maya economies were predicated, Mayanists traditionally have ignored non-obsidian lithics in their entirety. We present an historical overview of how artifacts made of chert and related stones have been traditionally analyzed and documented in the archaeological literature of the Maya Lowlands, then examine the important contributions lithic studies have made in the past few decades. The institutionalized neglect of this material class...
Primacy of the Cave at the Sun Pyramid, Teotihuacan (2015)
Multiple lines of evidence indicate that the cave determined the definition of the Sun Pyramid. As the earliest monumental construction at Teotihuacan, it is hypothesized that the Pyramid/cave was built within a pan-Mesoamerican worldview that valued the mountain cave, including acknowledging artificial caves as caves, pyramids as mountains, and sacred space as created via engineered spatial relationships. Ceramics and radiocarbon dates indicate contemporaneous construction of and modification...
Primary Copper Smelting in Mesoamerica: A Case Study from Central Michoacán (2017)
Copper was the main metal produced and worked in Mesoamerica, but data for pre-modern primary production and processing remain elusive. Systematic research at Itziparátzico, a Late Postclassic location in Central Michoacán, Mexico, has located evidence of copper production areas where concentrations of smelting slag were recorded. The absence of metallurgical materials other than slag (e.g. crucible fragments, mould fragments, stock metal, metal prills, failed castings, part-manufactured objects...
Printing Ancient Music: The Maya Music Project’s use of 3D printing and Modeling for Public Outreach (2016)
3D models have the potential to bring archaeological data to life for the public in ways that were previously impossible. My research on ancient Maya musical practices is demonstrative of the various ways in which 3D technologies can create a tactile experience for the public as they learn about archaeology. This paper will highlight some of the ways in which the Maya Music Project will be using 3D models to increase public engagement with the subject. My preliminary experimental foray into...
The "Problem" in the Ecology of Images (2016)
In The Shape of Time (1962) George Kubler suggested that formal change results from a chain of solutions to problems that alter as the solutions accumulate. While this concept has been influential in studies on formal change, his notion of “problem” remains underdeveloped. This paper takes Kubler’s formulation of “problem” as a starting point for abducing meaning in works for which texts are lacking. By attending to the “problem” as the locus of dynamic change and the link to other social...
A Problematic Deposit from a Maya Hinterland Household: Chert, Sherds and Obsidian (2015)
A significant amount of recent study has been directed to what have been termed "problematical deposits." Although superficially similar to middens, they tend to have a ritual component that makes them distinct from simple trash pits, and as Houk (2000) indicates, they are often located at the centerline of monumental, ceremonial architecture ( Clayton et al. 2005; Houk 2000). The Tapir Group of the Medicinal Trail Community has an Early Classic "problematic deposit" that is located in the base...
Procedencia e Intercambio de obsidiana durante el Holoceno Medio en la Cuenca de México (ca. 6200-5000 calBP). Un análisis mediante pXRF (2015)
Se caracterizó mediante análisis de Fluorescencia de Rayos X (XRF) un conjunto de obsidianas obtenidas en las excavaciones en el sitio de Tepexpan, Edo. de México y San Gregorio Atlapulco, Xochimilco, D.F. (n=149), procedentes de los niveles precerámicos de ambos sitios, através del análisis de diversos elementos (Na, K, Ti, Mn, Fe, RB, Sr, Y, Zr, Nb y Ba); esto nos permitió conocer la composición química de cada uno de los artefactos líticos para posteriormente efectuar comparaciones con...
Producción y Consumo de la cerámica Coyotlatelco: el caso del valle de Toluca en el Epiclásico (2017)
La cerámica Coyotlatelco ha jugado un papel importante en el Epiclásico del Altiplano Central de México. Dicho complejo cerámico se constituye por formas de servicio como ollas, cazuelas, cajetes, platos y vasos, y exhibe características definidas por un alto grado de pulimento y decoración pintada en rojo sobre bayo, cremoso o blanco. Los resultados del análisis NAA y el estilístico, realizados al Coyotlatelco tanto de la cuenca de México como del valle de Toluca señalan que éste no parece...
Producers on the Lake: Late Aztec Lakebed Chinampa Communities of Lake Xochimilco (2015)
Recent historic imagery analysis combined with 1960-70s archaeological surface survey data in a geographic information system (GIS) has generated a detailed spatial model of chinampa beds, canals, and settlement mounds for a 1,010 hectare area of Lake Xochimilco distinct from remnant Xochimilco chinampas that persisted into historic and modern times. The delineated agricultural waterscape was characterized by an approximately 1:1 land to water ratio with narrow raised agricultural beds (3.75 x...
Producing an Empire: Household Production and Market Expansion at Postclassic and Colonial Xaltocan, Mexico (2016)
Archaeologists have long been interested in household production and consumption, regional economic interactions, and the development and expansion of trade networks, particularly with the rise of states and empires. This research, however, has often focused on top-down political-economic processes in which state-level elite actors condition economic activity. Put simply, “states”—and by extension, their leaders—intensify household craft production, facilitate exchange, and redirect the flow of...
Producing and Stretching Identity: Earspools and Childhood in the Maya Area (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Marking and Making of Social Persons: Embodied Understandings in the Archaeologies of Childhood and Adolescence" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Iconographic sources indicate that the wearing of earspools by ancient Maya peoples was so ubiquitous that it was an essential part of personhood, a status put into jeopardy when earspools were removed and replaced with paper in scenes of almost naked captives or of...
Production, Consumption, and Multicrafting in the Formative Mixteca Alta, Mexico (2016)
The importance of the household in domestic production and consumption has been demonstrated throughout Formative Mesoamerica. It is the success of the household’s domestic economy that determines its survival. Focusing primarily on lithic artifacts, we explore locations in Formative Etlatongo, in the Mixteca Alta of Oaxaca, Mexico, that represent production and consumption of lithic tools and objects. Using ratios that compare lithic frequencies with ceramic frequencies from the same contexts,...
Production, maintenance, and exchange in a young Maya community: Ceren, El Salvador (2016)
What is now El Salvador was devastated by the Ilopango eruption, probably in AD 536. A small group of Maya immigrants founded the Ceren village in the uncontested landscape some three decades later. Only about four generations lived in and constructed the functioning community before it was buried by the tephra from the Loma Caldera eruption in about AD 650. Production and maintenance activities of the recently discovered sacbe are presented, along with its various functions. Evidence indicates...
Profane Illuminations: Molded Maya Figurines in Comparative Context (2017)
In many ways, simple molded Maya figurines during the Late Classic period become ordinary objects, aided in part by the technological capability of reproduction through molds. Nonetheless, molds do not automatically create ordinary, accessible, everyday objects, and, in turn, ordinary objects are not without their ability to delight and affect the senses. This paper draws on newly collected ceramic production evidence from the site of Ucanal, Guatemala, as well as a compilation of research on...
Profile Drawings from Terrace S19 (2010)
This pdf file contains profile drawings from the structures and unit on Terrace S19, Cerro Danush, Dainzú-Macuilxóchitl, Oaxaca, Mexico
Profile Drawings Terrace O8, Cerro Danush (2015)
This .pdf contains profile drawings taken on Terrace O8, Cerro Danush, Oaxaca Mexico. The first page contains the excavation grid for reference. See project report for 2015 for more information.
Project Artifact Catalog, Terraces 08 and S25 (2015)
This file contains basic information on the sample of artifacts that were registered and cataloged from the 2015 excavations of Terrace S19 and O8 on Cerro Danush in Oaxaca Mexico
Project Muestrario/Registro Terrace S19, Cerro Danush (2010)
This pdf file contains a description of all of the materials stored in the project muestrario and registered with INAH. Materials come from the excavation of Terraces S19 and S20 on Cerro Danush.
Project Report 2008 (2008)
Project Report approved by the Consejo de Arqueología of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico. Covers the 2007-2008 Survey, Mapping, and Surface Collections at Cerro Danish, Dainzú-Macuilxóchitl
Project Report 2010 (2010)
Project Report to the Consejo de Arqueología of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, accepted in 2010. Project consisted of comprehensive excavations on Terrace S19 of Cerro Danush