Mesoamerica (Geographic Keyword)
226-250 (2,459 Records)
At the site of Quen Santo, Guatemala, a hilltop center overlies an elaborate cave complex. First documented by Eduard Seler, the caves at Quen Santo have also been explored by modern-day archaeologists. Missing from modern analyses of Quen Santo, however, is a consideration of sculpture from the site: Seler recovered almost thirty stone monuments, most related to themes of death, ritual, and the ancestors. In this paper I explore the sculptural corpus of Quen Santo for the first time, arguing...
Art Objects Don’t Make Themselves! A Consideration of the Ik’ Style from the Petén Lakes Region (2016)
Art-making is an essential element of Mesoamerican culture. Asserting the primacy of the art object as a site of inquiry can provide a fascinating framework for organizing, imagining, and interpreting the past. This paper considers art objects produced during the Late Classic (ca. 600-900 CE) by the Maya Ik’ polity in Petén, Guatemala. The elaborately painted surfaces with naturalistic figures, realistic color schemes, and detailed hieroglyphic inscriptions about artists, patrons, and regional...
The Art of Interconnection: Chichen Itza and the Gulf Coast (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Movement of People and Ideas in Eastern Mesoamerica during the Ninth and Tenth Centuries CE: A Multidisciplinary Approach Part II" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We often talk about the connections between Chichen Itza and Tula, but these two great cities were far from alone in the ancient Mesoamerican world. In this presentation, I will explore artistic and architectural similarities between Chichen Itza and the...
The Art of Noise at Teotihuacan: The Conch Shell Motif in the Classic Period (2015)
Teotihuacan was a major cosmopolitan city located in the Basin of Mexico during the Classic Period (100-700 CE). The artwork has long fascinated but bewildered scholars, and despite the emulation of Teotihuacan’s recognizable artistic styles across Mesoamerica, we still understand relatively little about their artistic styles today. This paper aims to examine the conch shell motif from artwork at Teotihuacan, particularly visible in extant mural paintings. It will focus on investigating the...
THE ART OF PRESERVING SKINS IN THE GREAT TEMPLE OF TENOCHTITLAN (2015)
The use of animal fur in ancient Mesoamerica is well known due to the historical records, sculpture and painting. Archaeologically, it has been inferred by some evidence, as the presence and absence of certain animal bones and the cultural traces they present (abrasions, cuts and perforations, for example). In the offerings of the Sacred Precinct of Tenochtitlan, Mexico, there has been found a large number of skeletal remains of four classes of vertebrates (fishes, reptiles, birds and mammals)...
Articulating Economies in the Land of the Ik’ Lords: Evidence for Marketplaces and Multiple Modes of Exchange in the Late Classic Motul de San José Polity (2016)
More than a decade of research in the Motul de San José area has produced a rich corpus of household middens and domestic artifact assemblages reflecting a wide range of social statuses and occupations at a diverse set of local centers. This body of data permits a detailed bottom-up consideration of patterns of production, consumption, and distribution for a wide range of goods within and between member communities in the Late Classic Motul polity. This paper examines the evidence for...
Artifact Distribution Patterns Among Aztec Period Households in the Coatlan del Rio Valley, Morelos, Mexico (2015)
Using assemblages in over 4,000 4-x-4-m surface collection units from eight Aztec period sites in the Coatlan del Rio Valley of western Morelos, Mexico, I analyze the valley-wide distribution of plain ceramics, decorated ceramics, lithic artifacts, spindle whorls, and figurines in over 300 household middens to define functional artifact sets analogous to the "bundles of goods and services" of economic geographers. Cluster analysis, multidimensional scaling, and network analysis quantify flow of...
Artifact Distributions, Interaction Networks, and Social Complexity: Middle Preclassic development at Cahal Pech from a small-world perspective (2016)
The temporal position of the Middle Preclassic (c. 900 – 350 B.C.), situated between the earliest permanent settlements and hierarchically organized Late Preclassic polities, makes it a critical period for understanding the development of complex societies in the Belize Valley and the Maya Lowlands. From 2004 – 2009, the Belize Valley Archaeological Project’s excavations produced a trove of information on the Middle Preclassic occupation beneath Plaza B in the epicenter of Cahal Pech....
Artifactual Composition of Terminal Deposits from the Classic Maya site of Baking Pot, Belize. (2017)
Throughout the Maya Lowlands, archaeologists have identified Terminal Classic deposits associated with the final activities in ceremonial spaces. These features include concentrations of cultural material deposited in the corners of plazas and courtyards. At the site of Baking Pot, Belize, the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconaissance (BVAR) project has identified several of these terminal deposits. This presentation will shed light on the types of artifacts being deposited during these final...
Arts and Sciences of Ancient Plants at McMaster University (2017)
Since 2013, the McMaster Paleoethnobotanical Research Facility (MPERF) has explored questions surrounding the relationship between humans and plants, including plant cultivation and collection, consumption and social uses of flora, and interactions between people and landscape. Active projects address human-plant dynamics throughout different regions of Mesoamerica, South America, and Ontario, at time periods ranging from the Late Pleistocene through historic periods. With recent support from...
Ascendancy through Ancestry: Evidence of Late Classic Sociopolitical Change at the Ancient Maya Site of Pacbitun, Belize (2017)
The ceremonial architecture of Pacbitun’s epicentral plaza was recently discovered to have underwent a drastic early Late Classic (AD 550 – 700) transformation. The assemblage, originally designated as a Southern Lowland architectural archetype known as an E Group complex, was uniquely modified physically and adopted an intensive mortuary practice that seemingly altered the group’s function. The inclusion of several Late Classic elite interments suggests that Pacbitun’s ceremonial assemblage had...
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust : the role of wood in ancient maya funerary sequences (2017)
From 2014 to 2016, the intensive excavation of the residential unit 5N6 in Naachtun (Guatemala) has yielded 13 burials intricately linked with the evolution of the architecture. Put together, these funerary contexts allow for a fine-scale reconstruction of the local dynamics and everyday life in the unit. However, funerary archaeologists often fail to consider the burial itself as a micro-context, a combination of significant gestures and actions that can be analyzed using the same principles as...
Assessing Ceramic Production and Exchange in the Early Monte Albán State (Oaxaca, Mexico) (2015)
In this paper we present the results of an ongoing study of ceramic production and exchange in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, during the Late to Terminal Formative (500 BC–AD 200)—the period when the Monte Albán state formed and consolidated control over its hinterland and surrounding regions. We have found that adopting a multifaceted approach that combines chemical (INAA) data with detailed qualitative and quantitative mineralogical (petrographic) data enables us to differentiate cultural from...
Assessing Defensibility: Geospatial Analyses of Preclassic to Colonial Highland Maya Settlement Patterns (2017)
Postclassic Maya settlement patterns have long been explained in terms of the increasing defensibility in the transition from Classic period settlement patterns. Drawing on arguments for the increased militancy and conflict that characterized the Maya region in the wake of the Classic "collapse", this narrative has endured despite minimal cross-context, large scale assessment. This paper presents the results of a large-scale, in-progress diachronic geospatial analysis of Maya settlement...
Assessing Human-Animal Interactions in Mesoamerica: Ancient Maya Use of the Black-Throated Bobwhite (Colinus nigrogularis) (2017)
This paper examines human-animal interaction between the ancient Maya and the black-throated bobwhite (Colinus nigrogularis), a small quail resident to Central America. We provide a literature review of the occurrence of bobwhite remains in Maya faunal assemblages. Unpublished faunal analyses by the primary author, in conjunction with the published literature, suggest that the bobwhite, like many animals in Mesoamerica, was of greater importance to the Maya than as a mere dietary food. We...
Assessing Stable Isotope Data from Archaeological White-tailed Deer Remains as a Palaeoenvironmental Proxy at the Site of La Joyanca, Northwestern Peten, Yucatan Peninsula (2017)
The sociopolitical reorganization of the Maya that took place during the Terminal Classic (AD 850–1050) has been interpreted as being correlated to regional environmental change, specifically drought. However, few climate reconstructions come from the southern Maya lowlands where the decline occurred during this period. While most paleoenvironmental reconstructions lack a local, site-related signature and instead reflect regional trends, stable isotope analyses of herbivore faunal remains have...
At the Heart of the Serpent: Archaeology, Epigraphy, and Iconography at Calakmul, Campeche, Mexico (2016)
The metropolis of Calakmul has a pre-eminent place in Classic Maya history that is best understood from a multi-disciplinary perspective, combining the study of its extensive archaeological remains with that of its monuments, both in terms of inscriptions and imagery. This paper focuses on a hundred-year span, from the seventh and eighth centuries CE, which covers the reign of three of its best-known rulers. Representing the highpoint of the Snake kingdom’s “international” influence, this small...
At Yaxuna X Marks the Spot: Centering across in a Middle Formative Maya Landscape (2015)
From the placement of objects in household offerings, to monumental works of art and architecture, it is well known that the ancient Maya commemorated their cosmological center in a variety of ways. Even at the settlement level, quadripartite divisions of space are observed branching out from a central core giving modern researchers insight into the way ancient Maya peoples may have understood their world. At the Maya site of Yaxuná, Yucatan, Mexico investigations have made it apparent that...
Athens-Oaxaca y puntos intermedios: Steve Kowalewski´s influence in local archaeologists. (2015)
One of the major contributions of Dr. Kowalweski has been a dual impact in the development of Oaxacan archaeologists, and his model of engagement with communities where he has studied. Undoubtedly, Steve has been an example to follow in academia, his Valley of Oaxaca survey expanded on Ignacio Bernal´s pioneer study. He and his associates used the full-coverage strategy for the central valleys and replicated it in the Mixteca Alta. Steve has always been open to include Mexican archaeologists in...
Atlantis and the Hall of the Ancients (2015)
The enduring myth of Atlantis is an amazing example of probable history turned fable and developing a life of its own. While the subject is vast, a careful synopsis of new tales and discoveries will be presented and contrasted with the Hall of the Ancients - a purported repository of ancient documents believed to be located at Piedras Negras, Guatemala. Belief systems and archaeological data will be examined to understand the interplay between fact and fiction. SAA 2015 abstracts made available...
Attractive Salt: What the magnetic susceptibility and stratigraphy of the Witz Naab and Killer Bee mounds reveal about ancient Maya salt production and economy. (2017)
Witz Naab and Killer Bee contain some of the last remaining above-ground mounds of a once-thriving salt industry in Punta Ycacos Lagoon, a large salt-water system in Paynes Creek National Park, Belize. Documented sea-level rise during the Terminal Classic has submerged the once thriving Classic period (A.D. 300-900) Maya salt works. Excavations and magnetic susceptibility were conducted as part of the author’s dissertation research at Louisiana State University (LSU). This excavation is part of...
Audience and Ritual Context Associated with Painted Capstone and Codical Texts from the Northern Maya Lowlands (2016)
The northern Maya lowlands provide a rich corpus of painted texts associated with the interior and exterior walls of buildings; capstones serving to seal off vaulted chambers, which often contain burials; and painted screenfold books, or codices. In a number of cases, these texts and their associated pictorial component were painted to commemorate—or provide the template for—important rituals. Many of these rituals can be identified based on ethnohistoric sources, including Diego de Landa’s...
The Authentication of the Codex Maya of Mexico, Previously Known as the Grolier, through Scientific Analysis (2019)
This is an abstract from the "From Materials to Materiality: Analysis and Interpretation of Archaeological and Historical Artifacts Using Non-destructive and Micro/Nano-sampling Scientific Methods" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. After 45 years of polemic about the Codex Grolier, the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia of Mexico finally decided to undertake major scientific studies on this document to evaluate its authenticity. During...
Automated archaeological feature extraction from LiDAR. (2017)
Here we present preliminary results from a collaborative project between archaeologists and IBM research scientists focused on developing a cost-efficient algorithm for the automated recognition of archaeological features (objects) from LiDAR data. Our research focuses on challenges of: 1) multidisciplinary work integrating expertise from diverse disciplines, 2) identifying complex archaeological features in the context of a dense urban site in a rugged topographic setting, and 3) developing a ...
Avances en el estudio de la organización sociopolítica prehispánica en la región del Río Tampaón, S.L.P., México (2017)
El estudio de la organización política de la región de Tamtoc, tiene por objeto indagar en las relaciones que existieron entre los individuos, las formas en que ejercieron el poder político y la naturaleza y escala de su organización. Para realizar este propósito llevamos a cabo un programa de prospección arqueológica con el objeto de reconstruir los patrones de asentamientos y posible uso del antiguo paisaje. En esta ponencia presentamos los resultados de dos temporadas de trabajo en campo.