Mesoamerica (Geographic Keyword)
2,076-2,100 (2,459 Records)
Underwater excavations were performed at Eleanor Betty in 2013 to assess sea-level rise, map preserved wooden architecture, and investigate the inundated shell midden associated with the site. A total of 39 sediment samples were subjected to loss-on ignition (the burning of sediment to obtain the percent of organic matter present) and microscopically sorted in order to identify and analyze organic and inorganic matter. All samples were high in organic content and contained an abundance of fine...
The Search for Sierra Red: Discerning Ceramic Diversity at Late Preclassic Yaxnohcah (2017)
The principal ceramic type for the Petén Late Preclassic period, first identified by Edith Ricketson in the 1930s, and dubbed Sierra Red three decades later, has just about the widest distribution of any ceramic type in the Maya lowlands. In particular, the omnipresent simple flaring walled bowl form is virtually synonymous with the period, yet, after five years of excavation at Preclassic Yaxnohcah, Sierra Red remains an elusive minor type. Middle Preclassic Um Phase is well represented as is...
Searching for Continuity in the Hinterlands: Households at Rancho San Lorenzo’s Floodplain North Settlement Cluster, Belize (2015)
In this paper I will summarize the results of the 2013 and 2014 field seasons at the Floodplain North settlement cluster, located within the Rancho San Lorenzo Survey Area in the Mopan River Valley, Belize. Investigations sought to identify continuous occupation from the Late Classic to Postclassic periods. Maya occupation at Rancho San Lorenzo peaked in the Late Classic, followed by a drastic decrease in population levels. However, pedestrian survey undertaken in 2013 revealed Postclassic...
Searching for Marketplaces at Blue Creek and Xnoha (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Prehispanic Maya Marketplace Investigations in the Three Rivers Region of Belize: First Results" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Marketplaces are a vital component for the economic interdependence of ancient Maya kingdoms. In our view, marketplaces were also definitional components of Maya central places of power as much as the presence of ostentatious presentations of architecture were. The Blue Creek Archaeological...
Searching for pathogens in a New World colonial epidemic burial (2016)
While methodological advancements in ancient DNA research have permitted the reconstruction of ancient bacterial genomes, pathogen detection has thus far been limited to capture-based approaches that carry with them a strong ascertainment bias. Such biases are reduced when historical or archaeological contexts implicate a particular disease, but examples of this are rare in the archaeological record. Ancient DNA could serve as an important tool for elucidating the biological consequences of...
Seasonal Rhythms and Quotidian Duties: Insights into the Impact of Environment on Structuring Daily Life Using El Eden Wetland, Quintana Roo, Mexico as a Case Study (2017)
All cultural groups must respond to and adapt within their surrounding environment, as was the case for the ancient Maya. The Maya area consists of various distinct ecological zones, from volcanic highlands through swampy bajos and across a dry karstic plain punctuated by wetlands, each providing distinct adaptation opportunities. Seasonal fluctuations provide further texture to the flow of each landscape. This paper explores and attempts to characterize the temporality of the ancient Maya...
Seasonality in Central Mexican Painted Images of Tlaloc: From Classic to Postclassic (2016)
Tlaloc, the rain god of Central Mexico, has different seasonal avatars in painted imagery. Colonial codices document these variants in veintena festivals recorded to help Spanish friars detect survivals of indigenous religion. Rainy season imagery shows Tlaloc associated with maize plants and agricultural fertility. In contrast, imagery of the dry season emphasizes Tlaloc’s mountain aspect, because the rain god withdrew into the mountains to hold back the rainfall. The priests performed mountain...
Seats and Domains of Sociopolitical and Sacred Power: Ritual Cave Use in the Southern Mexican Highlands. (2016)
Numerous caves in the Southern Mexican Highlands are found in remote locations far from settlements and presumably along boundaries between what were once Classic and/or Late Post-Classic period polities. These caves were recognized as unique features of the ritual landscape and differed in terms of location, difficulty of access, and entity venerated. While some caves seem to have had a more local, even domestic use, others were of inter-regional renown. Influenced by socioeconomic and...
Seeding the Clouds: A Model of Late Classic Puuc Political Process (2016)
This paper synthesizes the growing body of chronological, settlement, economic, epigraphic, and iconographic data generated from recent research to critically examine traditional models of a short Terminal Classic occupation for the Puuc. The Late Classic period (600-800 AD) was the period in which the political and economic systems of Puuc states crystallized. Settlement patterns suggest that land was a widely available resource during the seventh century, but that the rapid infilling of the...
Seeds for the gods: chía (Salvia hispanica) in Teotihuacan ritual offerings (2017)
Over the last decades, as a result of archaeological research inside of the Sun and the Moon pyramids in Teotihuacan, significant concentrations of chía (Salvia hispanica) seeds have been recovered in association with ritual contexts. This is particularly true in Offering 2, pit 59 of the Sun Pyramid and in Burial 6 of the Moon Pyramid. The archaeological artifacts were similar in both contexts, for example Tlaloc vessels, projectile points, pyrite disks and faunal remains, among others. In this...
Seeking Molecular Evidence of the Ritual Function of Unslipped and Monochrome Slipped Ceramic Types at Naj Tunich, Guatemala (2016)
A large portion of the ceramic assemblage recovered from the Maya cave site of Naj Tunich, Guatemala consists of unslipped and monochrome slipped ceramic types generally considered to be “utilitarian” or “domestic” wares. This identification is based upon type-variety analysis rather than any evidence of the actual use to which they were put. That these ceramics were deposited in conjunction with domestic activities is at odds with the widely accepted interpretation that the Maya employed caves...
seibalSim: toward modeling communities (not populations) of Early Formative Mesoamerica (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In "The Forms of Capital," Pierre Bourdieu writes: “[t]he social world is accumulated history, and if it is not to be reduced to a discontinuous series of instantaneous mechanical equilibria between agents who are treated as interchangeable particles, one must reintroduce into it the notion of capital and with it, accumulation and all its effects.” His attempt...
Selective use and technology of limestone and lime products employed in mosaic and stucco decorations in Ek´ Balam (2015)
This study comprises preliminary results of analyses made on different type of limestones employed in models and stucco supports, and other stone products used by the ancient Maya of Ek´ Balam. The ancient Maya technology results in high efficiency and durable materials appropriate for the architectural and decorative program at the site, which has positively influenced the preservation of this heritage. The study of mineral elements from various limestone, and lime products (sascab and kut)...
Serpents and Bowls: An Analysis of the War Serpent Vessel from Burial 61 at El Perú-Waka' (2016)
In 2012, Dr. Olivia Navarro-Farr and her team excavated the tomb (Burial 61) of a Maya ruler in a large ceremonial structure at the site of El Perú-Waka’ in Petén, Guatemala. A confluence of taphonomic, epigraphic, and ceramic evidence underscored the identification of these remains as likely pertaining to Lady K’abel, a queen already well known from texts associated with that ancient city. This poster will explore one of the artifacts found in Burial 61, called the War Serpent Vessel, placed...
Setting the Axis of the World: Investigations of World Tree Raising Ceremonies Throughout the Chronology of Mesoamerica. (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ideological concept of the World Tree can be found in ancient and living cultures throughout the world. Many cultures located in Mexico and Mesoamerica have incorporated this tradition in their ancient indigenous art, ceremonies, and recorded oral histories. The ideology of a culture may evolve or transform due to internal and external factors over...
Settlement and Mobility in Early Colonial Tabasco, Mexico (2021)
This is an abstract from the "The Urban Question: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Investigating the Ancient Mesoamerican City" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One of the most pervasive changes in Mesoamerican early colonial period was the new form of urban and town configuration and their relations with the surrounding landscape. Native settlement abandonment, forced congregations, and changes in communication and trade routes profoundly...
Settlement and Political Ecology in the Lower Lacantun River Landscape (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Archaeological Investigations in Chiapas, Mexico" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over three field seasons, the Lower Lacantun Archaeological Project has examined the political organization and settlement of the region surrounding the confluence of the Lacantun and Usumacinta Rivers in Chiapas, Mexico. This riverine landscape is unique in the Western Lowlands, presenting risks and opportunities related to...
Settlement at Matacanela: Preliminary Interpretations (2015)
In this presentation we discuss data collection strategies implemented in the Matacanela Archaeological Project and provide initial interpretations of these data. Field work, completed in the summer of 2014, consisted of systematic surface collection, geophysical survey, and mapping. This discussion focuses primarily on data acquired through surface collection. Using these data, we address the architectural organization of the site, identify possible areas of craft production, and site...
Settlement Beyond the Alluvial Plains: Recent Findings from the 2016 Río Verde Settlement Project (RVSP), Coastal Oaxaca, Mexico (2017)
From January-June of 2016, an interdisciplinary dissertation study was conducted in the lower Río Verde Valley, Oaxaca, Mexico which was designed to investigate how prehispanic settlement patterning was affected by environmental productivity. The Río Verde Settlement Project (RVSP) included a continuation of the regional full-coverage survey as well as a systematic sedimentological sampling program to examine regional variation in soil fertility. This paper focuses on the initial results of the...
Settlement data from the 1960-1975 Basin of Mexico Surveys (2014)
Data analyzed in Ortman, S. G., A. H. F. Cabaniss, J. Sturm, and L. M. A. Bettencourt, The Pre-History of Urban Scaling, PLOS ONE (Feb. 2014).
Settlement Development and Social Landscapes at the Classic Period Maya center Uxbenká (2017)
Using a Human Behavioral Ecology (HBE) framework, the social and environmental factors that influenced community development have been modeled at Uxbenká, a Classic period Maya center located in the southern foothills of the Maya Mountains. This study focuses on settlement decision making dynamics using a chronological assessment of the expansion of settlements based on radiocarbon dating and ceramic typologies in conjunction with statistical analyses to test which factors influenced patch...
Settlement Ecology in the Tula Region of Mesoamerica: A Local Landscape Perspective (2017)
Based on seminal contributions by Suzy and Paul Fish associated with full-coverage surveys and agave cultivation, this paper explores changes in regional settlement patterns in relation to land-surface morphology in the Tula region in Mesoamerica during the Classic to Postclassic periods (200 CE–1500 CE). Drawing on our field surveys, independent settlement data from the Tula Region, and landform segmentation and classification in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), this paper illustrates that...
Settlement Pattern Analysis at a Hinterland Community in Northwestern Belize: Results of the Medicinal Trail Reconnaissance and Mapping Project (2017)
The Medicinal Trail Reconnaissance and Mapping Project (MTRAMP) began in 2013 and just completed its fourth season in 2016. Those four seasons, plus the integration of previous mapping endeavors, has refined our understanding of the size and distribution of households and numerous landscape features that have been, or continue to be, the focus of excavations. Intensive survey and mapping of the Medicinal Trail locality has revealed, (a) that the largest, and most complex architectural groups are...
Settlement Pattern Excavations at Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala (1979)
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.
Settlement Pattern Transition from the Middle Formative to the Classic in Southern Mesoamerica and the Establishment of Veracruz and Maya Spheres through the Analysis of Low-Resolution Lidar (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Aguada Fénix and the Middle Usumacinta Region: Interregional Interactions and Social Transformations in the Middle Preclassic Period" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper examines the settlement patterns transition from the Middle Formative to the Classic period through a low-resolution lidar analysis in Southern Mesoamerica, over a 25 km2 area. Based on previous lidar research carried out by the Middle...