Mesoamerica (Geographic Keyword)
1,951-1,975 (2,456 Records)
Recent studies about metal work in the Proyecto Arqueologia y Paisaje del Area Centro Sur de Michoacan gave us the possibility of analyze a wide sample of copper bells from different collections and in museums along this western state in Mexico. In this paper we will present a comparative analysis between our database of Michoacan’s copper bells with the ones found in the USA southwest and specially in Paquime, Chihuahua, focusing on the Period 2 (AD 1200-1300 to Spanish invasion) like the most...
Rio Amarillo: A Community on the Edge of the Kingdom (2016)
Situated along the frontier between Maya and non-Maya lands, Rio Amarillo reflects mixed allegiances in its architecture and artifacts, although its Late Classic ceremonial core is most strongly associated with Copan. While politically autonomous during the Early Classic, an inscription on an altar at the site demonstrates that this pre-Columbian town came under Copan’s power during the time of Ruler 12. The construction of an elaborately sculpted building during the reign of Ruler 16 suggests...
The Rio Viejo Weaver: Burial Practices, Osteobiography, and the Early Classic Collapse (2015)
The Early Classic (AD 250 – 500) in the lower Río Verde valley was marked by political fragmentation and significant transformations in social, political and economic relations following the collapse of a regional polity centered at Río Viejo. How the region’s inhabitants navigated these transformations remains poorly understood, although regional-scale evidence from settlement patterns and excavation indicates the abandonment of many communities and major changes in the way people engaged with...
The rise and fall of Maya kingdoms in the Holmul region (2015)
Research in the Holmul region of northeastern Peten has focused on Cival as its major political center during the Middle and Late Preclassic period since its rediscovery in 2001. The goals of this research continue to be inspired by several ideas expressed in Forest of Kings in 1990. Mainly, the rise of kingship in the Late Preclassic period, the interpretation of giant 'mask' sculptures on the facade of pyramids as backdrop for royal rituals as well as the interpretation of ritual caches. ...
Rising from the Ashes: Power and Autonomy at Ceren, El Salvador (2016)
On the side of a road in El Salvador in 1978, the life of Payson Sheets and the remains of the Classic Period Maya settlement of Cerén fatefully intersected. When Sheets first understood the actual antiquity of the site buried by volcanic ash to be 1,400 years old, what could not have been known was the decades of research that would ensue, nor the wide-ranging impacts that such findings would have for household archaeology, commoner studies, and archaeological method and theory. Sheets has...
Ritual activity at the Grazia Complex, Yaxnohcah (2017)
Yaxnohcah is located in southern Campeche, Mexico and had an important occupation from the Middle Preclassic to the Late Classic period (c. 600 b.c.e.-800 c.e.). The focus of this paper is the Grazia complex, one of the ten major civic-ceremonial groups. Grazia consists of two monumental platforms featuring a triadic group and a ball court. The complex is located about 2 km southwest of the center of the site. Excavations began in 2016, revealing the presence of several constructive phases,...
Ritual and Divination in Ancient Maya Dice Games (2015)
In this presentation I examine the dice games played by the ancient Maya and investigate the interpretation proposed by several Mayanists that these games were used primarily for divinatory purposes. I examine the archaeological contexts of these ‘patolli’ boards and review the substantial body of ethno-historical and ethnographic material from broader Mesoamerican contexts in order to scrutinize the interpretation that these games served as divinatory devices and to offer other interpretations...
Ritual Behavior in the Late and Terminal Classic: An Application of Ethnoarchaeology in the Southern Maya Lowlands to Terminal Deposits (2016)
In the Late and Terminal Classic periods (~750-900 B.C.) ancient Maya city centers in the southern lowlands changed in terms of population, political, and ritual climate. These changes resulted in marked emigration, depopulation of various city centers, and the fall of divine kingship. Across the Maya region, archaeologists have encountered heterogeneous surface deposits, many of which are associated with final occupational phases. Variously identified as problematic or terminal, I argue these...
Ritual constructions of the Mesoamerican Underworldview in the Caves and Cavates of the Southern Mexican Highlands: an exploration of changing functions and meanings. (2015)
This presentation explores the diachronic significance and variety of ritual uses assigned to caves and cavates by the peoples who lived in what is now Southern Puebla and Northern Oaxaca, Mexico from the Archaic through the Early Colonial Periods. The existence of distinct ritual complexes for different time periods suggests changing functions and meanings, which are inferred from archaeological artifacts, parietal pictograms and petroglyphs for different caves, and documentary sources. These...
Ritual Deposits at El Marquesillo, Veracruz: Examples of Long-Term Collective Social Memory (2016)
The settlement of El Marquesillo in Southern Veracruz was inhabited during the Mesoamerican Early Formative period, emerged as an Olmec center during the Middle Formative period, and remained occupied throughout the remainder of the pre-Columbian period. During the late Middle to early Late Formative period an Olmec monumental tabletop throne was ritually terminated and deposited. This interment was accompanied by two substantial offerings suggestive of a feasting event. More than a millennium...
RITUAL DIVERSITY AND SOCIAL IDENTITIES: A STUDY OF MORTUARY BEHAVIORS AT TEOTIHUACAN (2009)
The research presented here confronts the issue of ritual variation and its role in structuring the social dynamics of ancient Teotihuacan, a state that dominated central Mexico during the first half-millennium A.D. Most of Teotihuacan’s urban population lived in apartment compounds located across the city, but the nature of these co-residing groups is not well understood. Even less is known about how subordinate settlements beyond the city limits were organized and to what degree they...
Ritual Fauna Use in an Elite Ancient Maya Burial: Examination of an Animal Long-Bone Cache in the Recently Discovered Royal Tomb at Xunantunich, Belize (2017)
Animal use in elite burials can provide a more holistic perspective on the importance of specific fauna as prestige goods or as status and power markers in the Maya world. This presentation discusses a discrete cache of animal long-bones located at the feet of a human burial recovered from the newly discovered royal tomb at Xunantunich during the 2016 field season of the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance (BVAR) project. Maya zooarchaeologists have long held that the use of specific...
Ritual Fires and Ancient Maya Termination Deposits at Naachtun (Guatemala): An Archaeobotanical Perspective (2017)
Termination rituals have been a well-documented practice among ancient Maya societies. Generally including the spread of broken artifacts on floors, the manipulation of ancestor bones, and the intentional destruction of architectural structures, termination deposits are believed to have served to symbolically "kill" a building at the time of its abandonment. Regardless of the nature or function of these different deposits, their frequent association with ashes, charcoal and burn marks clearly...
Ritual Fires and Sacred Hearths: the management of wood resources in Postclassic Tarascan Society of the Zacapu Basin, Michoacán (2015)
According to ethnohistoric sources, fire played a central role in the ritual practices of Postclassic Tarascan society. To venerate Curicaueri, the fire god and the most senior-ranking deity in the Tarascan pantheon, sacred hearths were kept perpetually burning outside temples, and the cazonci (king) was personally responsible for obtaining the impressive quantities of wood necessary for this feat. Fuel acquisition for these fires was often embedded in other ceremonial activities, such as hunts...
Ritual in the "Great Household": Termination Deposits in Classic Maya Royal Residences (2015)
In a certain sense, the Classic Maya royal court can be seen as an expanded, intensified household, a comparative model for which can be found in the "Great Households" of early medieval Europe and elsewhere. Closely linked to governing political structures and notable for their size, complexity, and levels of expenditure and waste, royal courts mimic the patterns of interaction that define the household as an archaeological unit, but on a grander scale. This paper examines ritual at the "Great...
Ritual Landscapes and Cave Networks of Eastern Guerrero, Mexico (2017)
This paper presents an overview of the findings from the Formative period caves of Cauadzidziqui (pre-Olmec and Olmec-style paintings), Techan or Cave of the Governors (Olmec style monuments carved into the walls), and Ocotequila (Middle Formative painting), as well as Chiepetlan (Paleo-Indian, Late Postclassic-Early Colonial) and Cueva de las Lluvias (Classic period floor carvings). Also assessed is the importance of the locations chosen for Formative period caves in the sacred landscape of the...
Ritual practices at the Middle Preclassic site of Naranjo, Guatemala (2015)
The site of Naranjo, located in the Central Maya highlands of Guatemala has an important occupation that begins around 800 BC. Here, many important rituals took place, some of them connected to the calendar and others as part of pilgrimage activities. Naranjo was part of a wider network of interaction as documented in the ceramics, site layout, sculptural practices, and figurine inventory. By 400 BC, the site was abandoned and continued like that until the Late Classic when a specific ritual...
The Ritual Reuse of Maya Cave Shrines after Abandonment (2015)
Caves are among the most sacred geographic features in Mesoamerica and have been used throughout history as the setting for multiple ritual events. In this paper, the author looks at several shrines in central Guatemala that were rediscovered long after they were abandoned by the original ritual practitioners and regained importance. The renewed activity often reflects very different functions of the rituals performed there—in caves along a major trade route cutting through the region, for...
Ritual to the hills and water in Mejicanos, Amatitlán, Guatemala: the rock art evidence (2016)
The Mejicanos archaeological site is located on the side of a hill surrounded by other hills and a volcanic complex, in addition to beach to Lake Amatitlan. This situation apparently sufficed for implementation of major religions to water and hills as evidenced by the ceramic offerings deposited in the lake during the Classic period as well as the many petroglyphs found in the rocky site sets. These consist mainly recorded in the rocks and miniature representations of temples, usually with...
Ritualidad acuática en Media Luna y su relación con el juego de pelota (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Los Rituales del Juego de Pelota en la Costa del Golfo / Ballgame Rituals in the Gulf Lowlands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. El análisis del contexto arqueológico sumergido, Media Luna, localizado en San Luis Potosí, México, ha permitido profundizar en los ritos mortuorios y en los actos de oblación que las comunidades de Río Verde realizaban en torno al agua durante el periodo Clásico y Posclásico Temprano...
Ritualism and Metal Objects in Michoacan (2017)
The area of the current state of Michoacan has been considered one of the most important producers of metal objects during the Prehispanic period. These objects are always related to various rituals because of its peculiar characteristics of color, sound, shape and even smell. From the analysis of more than 1,800 metal objects from extensive collections, particularly at the Regional Museum of Michoacan and the State Museum of Michoacan, by the Project Archaeology and Landscape of the Center -...
Ritualized Shatter: Obsidian in a Ritual Context at La Milpa, Belize (2016)
During the 2014 and 2015 field seasons, the California State University, Los Angeles Sacred Landscapes Archaeological Project conducted an investigation of a collapsed chultun at the ancient Maya site of La Milpa. The collapse pit had a small grotto at the northern end and excavation uncovered a plaster and rubble cored platform enclosing the feature. The platform formalized the space and suggested that it had functioned as a sacred landmark. During the excavations, a fairly dense concentration...
The River Suchil Valley project, Zacatecas and Durango 10 years of its inception (2015)
This project pretends to understand the process of social complexity by studying the strategies of landscape use and prehispanic resource management throughout the first millennium AD in a territory occupied today by the municipalities of Sombrerete and Chalchihuites, in the state of Zacatecas and Suchil, in the state of Durango. In our presentation we are going to evaluate and define the results of our research on topics as bioarchaeology of the ancient inhabitants, hierarchy and complexity of...
Riverine and Maritime trade routes on Caribbean side of the Yucatan Peninsula. (2015)
Riverine routes from the Caribbean coast from Belize River north to Laguna Bacalar are examined in the context of the major centers, intensive agricultural fields, and patterns of production, transport and centers of power. By contextualizing our understanding of major sites in terms of the opportunities and limitations offered by the riverine transport systems, we can better understand the economic basis of how and why various important centers rose to prominence. Further, these trade...
Rockshelters and caves of Central-Northern Mexico: archaeological potential and limitations, sources for paradigms and landscape markers (2015)
Caves and rockshelters throughout the highlands and sierras of Central-Northern Mexico have always represented an important point of reference for prehistoric archaeology and were traditionally targeted as the most reliable contexts for the understanding of hunter-gatherer societies and the establishment of cultural-historical models. However, the paradigms created on basis of the excavation of such sites affected rather negatively the archaeological thinking in Mexican archaeology. Caves and...