Mesoamerica (Geographic Keyword)
2,301-2,325 (2,459 Records)
Following an intensive socialization campaign, the Lake Atitlan Archaeological Project (PALA) conducted systematic surface collections for over 50 properties within the municipios of San Pedro and San Juan La Laguna in the southwestern Lake Atitlan Basin. These investigations identified more than 30 archaeological sites including three large population centers with monumental architecture, a large number of smaller ritual and domestic sites, and several individual rock art locations. Test...
Transformaciones e historia entre Michoacán y Guanajuato a partir de las plantas hidroeléctricas en el siglo XX (2015)
Se presenta una síntesis del uso del agua en la Cuenca del Lerma en su paso por el Bajío, en particular en donde se unen Michoacán y Guanajuato, así como su transformación en energía eléctrica. A partir de un repaso histórico, se toman en cuenta las obras realizadas para generar electricidad y sus transformaciones más significativas en relación con el paisaje que las alberga. Asimismo, se discute el cambio tecnológico implicado y el del paisaje que conllevó el uso social de la electricidad en la...
Transformations within an Ancestor Shrine: New Discoveries from Group D - Xunantunich, Belize (2017)
The concept of transformation is expressed by innumerable cultures and has been explored by archaeologists across the globe. The ritual act is often represented in Maya iconography as rulers and religious practitioners exhibiting their power through the ability to change into their animal uays. However, like individuals, spaces can undergo a process of ritual transformation. This paper examines the subject of transformation and how it is demonstrated through imagery and space within a Classic...
Transforming the body: fire in mortuary practices in ancient Michoacán, Mexico (2015)
Ethnohistoric sources from prehispanic Michoacán highlight the symbolic importance of fire for the Postclassic Tarascan state. The fact that Curicaueri, the principal Tarascan god, was a fire god and that cremation was used during the warriors’ and ruling elite’s funerary rites, emphasizes its symbolic and social importance. In this presentation, I will examine the different roles played by fire in ritual transformations of the human body. I will consider the ethnohistoric sources as well as the...
Transisthmian Ties: Epi-Olmec and Izapan Interaction (2015)
Beginning with Matthew Stirling, who in 1943 opined that "Izapa appears to be much more closely related to the earth-mound sites of southern Veracruz … than it does with sites in the Maya area," scholars have postulated ties of varying strength between Late Formative polities on either side of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Ceramic similarities have been noted between southern Chiapas and the Gulf Coast, but discussion of Late Formative transisthmian interaction has focused primarily on sculptural...
The Transition between Epiclassic to Early Postclassic in Western Mexico. Processes involved in the Sayula Basin (Jalisco). (2015)
The transition between Epiclassic and Postclassic period in Western Mexico it has been linked to the Aztatlan Tradition. The Sayula basin offer a great opportunity to explore the processes involved, the cultural assimilation and interaction between two contemporary major cultural components: one system with strongly local identity related to a major social structure part of the Epiclassics sites like Ixtepete, La Higuerita, Los Altos de Jalisco and furthermore like La Quemada (Zac). The other...
The Transition to Home Living in Middle America (2015)
In Middle America the transition from the Archaic to Early Formative period (ca. 2000-1400 BC) was marked by the first use of pottery and the construction of durable dwelling clustered in small hamlets or villages. These markers of year-round dwelling in one place represent a major transition in Early Formative times to neolithic lifeways and presumably lifeworlds. I review the evidence of the earliest houses known from highland and lowland regions of Middle America, with an emphasis on the...
A Transparent 3D Model of Temple 18 at Copán for Visualization and Research (2015)
The development of a clear approach to creating highly "transparent" (effectively displaying the argument behind a reconstruction) 3D models for visualization and research in archaeology is an ongoing process. The goal of this presentation is to address this problem with a use-case example of a 3D model of Structure 10L-18 (Temple 18, ca. AD 800) on the acropolis at Copán in Honduras. How can data be structured and applied to this 3D model in order to provide a user with a clear understanding of...
Tree Resin in Mesoamerican Religion: Blurring Ontological Boundaries in Ceremony and Beyond (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Beyond Maize and Cacao: Reflections on Visual and Textual Representation and Archaeological Evidence of Other Plants in Precolumbian Mesoamerica" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Copalli (copal) is an aromatic tree resin and a central figure in Mesoamerican ceremonies. Produced from various species of the Bursera genus, copalli is understood as the blood of trees and can be molded into figures or burned into thick...
Trends in late Holocene Climate Change in Central Mexico (2015)
Lakes in central Mexico are ideal sites for the study of late Holocene climatic trends. These lakes have high sedimentation rates and their sediments are rich in pollen, diatoms and other biological remains that allow reconstructions of past environmental, ecological and climatic changes. In these lakes, precipitation, concentrated during the summer months, is frequently more important than temperature as a long-term environmental control; however, both variables are connected by climatic...
Tribe Versus Chiefdom in Lower Central America (1985)
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.
Tribute from the Underworld: The Historical Ecology of the Maya Postclassic Fish Trade with Otoliths from Mayapán and Caye Coco (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Preliminary results are presented for the analysis of fish otoliths from the Maya Postclassic sites of Mayapán in Mexico, and Caye Coco in Belize. Fish otoliths are used investigate seasonality of fish harvest for the inland fish trade, and to contrast the diversity, trophic levels, and population structure of fish between both the archaeology sites, and...
Trono olmeca de Estero Rabón (2017)
En el sitio arqueológico Estero Rabón, se encontró un fragmento superior de trono olmeca en 1996. Actualmente está resguardado en el pueblo que asienta encima del sitio pero también se había olvidado en la comunidad académica. A través del Proyecto Arqueológico Estero Rabón, este trono fue analizado detalladamente para reconstruir la imagen total de él, ya que actualmente se ha perdido parte inferior del trono. En el inicio de este estudio se pensó que tenía una imagen parecida al trono de otro...
Truncated Initial Series from Xcalumkin (1983)
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.
Tula 2014: Reexamining Ball Court 2 through Cross-Cultural Comparisons with the Yucatan (2015)
The Proyecto de Investigación, Conservación y Mantenimiento para la Zona Arqueológica de Tula 2014, directed by Dr. Robert Cobean focused on the restoration of Ball Court 2. Today, the three major ceremonial centers exposed at Tula are the Palacio Quemado, Pyramid B and Pyramid C; these structures form an L-shape that faces the Adoratorio situated in the center of the plaza. The positioning and architectural dimensions of Ball Court 2 in Tula’s main precinct are almost exact with the largest...
Tunnel Vision: Results from the 2018 Investigations of Structure A7 at Xunantunich, Belize (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Despite nearly a century of archaeological investigation, the ceremonial center of Xunantunich, Belize has yielded little insight on the center’s earliest occupants and the architectural growth of the site through time. Previous research indicated that Xunantunich was initially settled as a small village during the Preclassic period (~1000 BC-AD 250), with...
Turning a Critical Eye on the History of Maya Cave Archaeology (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Studies in Mesoamerican Subterranean Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A major reformulation of the history of Maya cave archaeology has recently been proposed for the second half of the twentieth century. Jon Spenard, in his dissertation, has suggested that modern cave archaeology began to emerge during the Post War Period (1950 – 1980) based on work carried out in Belize. This paper takes a closer look at...
Turquoise mosaic skulls - understanding the creation of an object type (2017)
In 1932, Alfonso Caso and his team found a human skull decorated with turquoise mosaic tesserae during their well-known excavation of Monte Albán’s Tumba 7. To this day, this is the only artifact of this type to have been found in a documented excavation. Nevertheless, at least twenty turquoise mosaic-decorated human skulls are currently held in museums and private collections. Many of these have been considered forgeries, others are considered authentic. Within this group, there are clear...
Turquoise Sources and Source Analysis: Mesoamerica and the Southwestern U.S.A. (1977)
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.
Twenty Years of Historical Archaeology in the Yalahau and Costa Escondida Regions (2017)
Since the mid-1990s, members of the Yalahau and Costa Escondida projects have focused on historical archaeology in northern Quintana Roo. Our research has examined the remnants of the chicle (chewing gum), sugar cane and small-batch rum industries from the late 1800s. Although these sites are relatively recent, the production equipment and other artifacts have been picked through by later occupants, making it challenging to be able to reconstruct the historic record. In an attempt to overcome...
Twenty Years of Mesoamerican Obsidian Research at the EAF (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Elemental Analysis Facility at the Field Museum: Celebrating 20 Years Serving the Archaeological Community " session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Among the first materials compositionally analyzed at the EAF were obsidian objects from the Maya site of San José, Belize. Since then, we have analyzed tens of thousands of obsidian objects from Mesoamerica (primarily from the Valley of Oaxaca) as part of our study of the...
A Two Decade Assessment of Maya Cave Archaeology (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Subterranean" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Twenty years ago, Ann Scott presented "The Historical Context of the Founding of Maya Cave Archaeology" at the SAA meetings in Montreal documenting the history of Maya cave archaeology from the 1970s to its emergence as a self-conscious field in 1997. It is fitting, therefore, that this presentation considers the expansion the field has...
Two Figurines and a Conquest: Toltec and Aztec Warriors in the Sierra Sur of Oaxaca? (2017)
In this talk I will present a contextual and iconographic analysis of two unusual, yet almost identical, figurines of lavishly dressed warriors, reported from different sites in the Chontal Highlands of Oaxaca. While variations on mold-made solid figurines of armed individuals were common in Late Classic Oaxaca, the particular attributes of these figurines are more analogous to militaristic iconography emerging from Postclassic Central Mexico. Taking the figurines’ iconography and regional...
Tz’utujil Maya Ritual Practitioners, Embodied Objects and the Night (2017)
For contemporary Tz’utujil Maya ritual practitioners living in the highlands of Guatemala, the night is a particularly potent time and one to which they are inherently linked. Individuals often learn of their destiny to become ritual practitioners when they are first contacted by ancestral beings, known collectively as nawales, at night during dreams. Thereafter ancestral nawales and ritual practitioners enter into mutually beneficial social relationships that are mediated through sacred objects...
UAV-based 3D Modeling of Excavations in Mayapán’s Periphery (2017)
During our 2015 and 2016 field seasons, we mapped and created 3D models of numerous excavation sites in the region surrounding Mayapán in the Northern Yucatán. Complete horizontal excavations of several rural house groups were conducted. We used unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs/drones) to carry photographic equipment to collect both vertical and oblique photos as well as videos. The resulting images were processed in photogrammetric software to generate orthorectified airphoto mosaics and 3D...