Mesoamerica (Geographic Keyword)
2,326-2,350 (2,459 Records)
During our 2015 and 2016 field seasons, we mapped and created 3D models of numerous excavation sites in the Northern Yucatán. Several of these sites are located in Mayapan’s periphery and many were scheduled for destruction due to highway expansion. We used unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs/drones) to carry photographic equipment to collect both vertical and oblique photos as well as videos. In several areas we used both visible light and a near-infrared (NIR) cameras. The resulting images were...
UAVs for archaeology: the sky is the limit (2016)
The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) has seen a tremendous development over the last decade. The department of Geography of Ghent University has deployed these platforms to perform high-level research on the modelling of cultural heritage. The selection of a suitable system was mainly based on compactness and flexibility in terms of transportation and deployment, as well as cost-efficiency. The platform was deployed in various international field campaigns. The first campaign’s objective...
Un acercamiento al estudio de las pinturas rupestres en el Cerro Danush, Oaxaca. (2015)
La presente investigación tiene como objetivo mostrar el trabajo realizado en el cerro Danush localizado en la comunidad de San Mateo Macuilxóchitl de Artigas Carranza, Oaxaca; el cual tuvo como eje principal conocer las características que comparten los paneles de pintura rupestre de acuerdo a su ubicación en el cerro Danush, tomando en consideración las singularidades del paisaje. La importancia del estudio de las pinturas rupestres radica en que estas son una de las primeras...
Un complejo arqueológico en las márgenes del río Tehuantepec en la Sierra Sur de Oaxaca: El caso de Ladchixila (2017)
El presente estudio trata sobre trabajos realizados en la Sierra Sur de Oaxaca, localizado en los márgenes del río Tehuantepec, región en donde se establecieron grupos humanos dedicados a la caza, pesca, recolección de frutos y agricultura, con recursos naturales que fueron explotados, haciendo posible su establecimiento permanente, dejando plasmada su historia a través de elementos arquitectónicos, que para el año de 2015 fueron explorados arqueológicamente. El desarrollo de esta investigación...
Un estudio sobre la iconografía de los huesos grabados de la Mixteca Baja (2015)
Los huesos humanos grabados, encontrados como ofrenda en depósitos funerarios, representan un marcador especial del gremio sacerdotal de la sociedad del Oaxaca antiguo. Por un lado, al ser huesos humanos, establecen un lazo con los ancestros del grupo; por otro, la imaginería que muestran permiten establecer el tipo de rituales y oblaciones a los que estaban dedicados. Más aún, estos objetos eran considerados como reliquias y en algunos casos se les ilustra en la imaginería de los códices...
¿Un jorobado enano? Una pintura de bóveda en el sitio arqueológico de Sacnicté, Yucatán (2017)
El presente trabajo versa sobre la pintura de la tapa de bóveda 1 del yacimiento arqueológico de Sacnicté, Yucatán. En ella aparecen representados un par de personajes, uno ha sido interpretado como un enano jorobado en actitud amenazante. Al respecto pongo en duda este planteamiento, ya que analizando diferentes aspectos de la imagen como la posición, la postura, el gesto y las características de cada individuo, propongo que se trata únicamente de un individuo jorobado, que señala al otro...
Una propuesta de estilo entorno a la pintura mural de Ixcaquixtla, Puebla. (2016)
Con el hallazgo fortuito de una cámara mortuoria en Ixcaquixtla, Puebla (dentro de la mixteca). se pudieron registrar un conjunto de pinturas murales que hasta la fecha son únicas en la región. A pesar de contar ya con once años de haber sido descubiertas, los trabajos entorno a la pintura mural son escasos y los existentes se centran en determinan su contenido iconográfico. Con base en la anterior, nuestra presentación reflexiona y busca dar una propuesta estilística sobre la pintura mural,...
Under the Cover of Night: The Liminal Landscape in Ancient Maya Thought (2016)
For the ancient Maya, the landscape was wild, untamed, and dotted with caves, which were the darkest of spaces. On an empirical level, caves can reveal the ancient Maya experience of intimate darkness and nullified senses. Such experience belonged to the night, which was fraught with danger, temporally distant, and inhabited by a cast of anti-social beings. These beings belonged to the wilderness and dark forests that lacked internal order and spatial division. Much like the concept of chaos in...
"Under the Volcano": Assemblages, Causality and Volcanic Matter at San Pedro Aguacatepeque, Guatemala. (2015)
The colonial Maya community of San Pedro Aguacatepeque, located in Pacific piedmont Guatemala, sits on the eastern flank of the Volcan de Fuego, a long-active stratovolcano. The interventions of new materialist approaches, in particular Bennett’s notion of the "vibrancy" and influence of nonhumans in the unfolding of history, are brought into relief when considering the abundant historical entanglements between the Volcan de Fuego and Aguacatepeque. The regular flows and bursts emanating from...
Understanding Maya Rituals of Power in the Candelaria Caves, Guatemala: A View from the Polychrome Ceramics of the Early Classic (2018)
The Candelaria Caves System, with its approximately 18 km of passageways, forms the second largest underground karstic complex in the Maya Area. As result of their location at the highland-lowland transition and close to Great Western Trade Route, it was an important pilgrimage center for people of different cultural and geographical regions. The Early Classic period (A.D. 250-500) marked the introduction of polychrome ceramics, mainly Dos Arroyos-group ceramics, which played an important role...
Understanding Residential Space through Soil Chemistry in the Northern Maya Lowlands (2015)
Soil chemistry in the Northern Maya Lowlands has been an effective method at a variety of sites and in a range of contexts such as households, ballcourts, causeways, and ceremonial plazas. Recent chemical analyses of the Ucí-Cansahcab Regional integration Project (UCRIP) also revealed that the soils of the Yucatán, México, are testable using the in-field Olsen bicarbonate method to measure levels of extractable inorganic phosphate. When supplemented with distributional analyses of artifacts on...
Understanding the local communities through the study of lithics and communication routes in the Northwestern Maya Lowlands during the Classic Maya: recent studies in the region. (2015)
The region known as the Northwestern Maya Lowlands encloses a large geographic and cultural area that included and was part of a large system of exchange of goods, people and ideas. Archaeological evidence recovered in the region serve as evidence of the complex system of communication routes and local settlements that were part of local communities and practices. The communication routes and archaeological sites localized between the Usumacinta River and Tulija River serve as a case study of...
Understanding the World of the Scribe: Challenges and Opportunities of Cataloguing the Kerr Photographic Collection of Maya Art at Dumbarton Oaks (2023)
This is an abstract from the "A Celebration and Critical Assessment of "The Maya Scribe and His World" on its Fiftieth Anniversary" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The majority of photographs in “The Maya Scribe and His World” were taken by Justin Kerr. Kerr’s development of rollout photography transformed the field, allowing Maya ceramics to be documented and studied more easily. With the creation of the searchable online database Mayavase.com,...
Understanding variability in distribution and consumption in low-wealth households from the Classic period (2016)
This paper explores data on consumption of durable goods in Classic period domestic contexts both in cities (Chunchucmil, Tikal) and rural areas (Ceren, hinterlands of Izamal and Copan). The goal is to document variation in distribution systems across the lowlands. Though some of this variation may be due to the intensity of market systems, other variation may be due to the wealth and resourcefulness of individual households and some due to long-term trends in economic prosperity throughout the...
Understandings of Household Architecture at Night in the Middle Chamelecón Drainage, Honduras (2017)
Interpretations of Mesoamerican households tend to focus on activities that might rightly be associated with daylight hours and mostly informed by material culture that is moveable and multipurpose. However, intensive examinations of the non-movable or architectural composition of household settings have recently revealed even more about these diverse and socially complex domestic spaces. This examination initiates an analysis of the interaction between humans and their built-environment as it...
Underwater Archaeological Survey of Freshwater Lagoons in the Lacanja Basin, Chiapas, Mexico (2018)
The intrinsic relationship between human beings and bodies of water is unquestionable. Among the ancient Maya it has been observed that many of their agricultural cults were linked to existing bodies of water where they settled. In the Maya Northern Lowlands, multiple underwater archaeological studies of cenotes record this behavior as offerings of luxury items and human sacrifice are often recovered and noted. The Rancho Ojo de Agua archaeological project focuses on the basin of the Lacanhá...
Underwater Transect Excavations, Sediment Coring, Remoting Sensing at the Paynes Creek Salt Works (2017)
Following the discovery and mapping of over 100 salt works in a shallow, salt-water lagoon system, a collaborative, interdisciplinary research project was initiated with funding from NSF to examine the ancient landscape, sea-level rise, use of the wooden buildings for salt production and as residences, and reconstruct the underwater sites using 3D GIS. Sediment coring across the lagoon system identified red mangrove peat, an indicator of actual sea-level rise, as well as a plethora of pollen...
Unit-Stamped Red Jars in the Southern Lowlands: New Insights into Ceramic Production and Exchange (2015)
Monochrome red jars and bowls featuring unique unit-stamped designs have been excavated from Late Classic contexts throughout the southern Petén and the areas surrounding the Maya Mountains. Adorning apparently utilitarian vessels, these unit-stamps show both a consistency in size and application across their spatial range, as well as a great diversity in the preferred motifs depicted. Combining a new ceramic chronology developed at Lubaantun and data from across southern Belize and the southern...
The universe of ritual manifestations at Tak’alik Ab’aj (2015)
Archaeological record of 27 years of research at the ancient site Tak’alik Ab’aj at the southwestern pacific piedmont of Guatemala have summed evidence of a wide range of different ritual activities and patterns, which as well are represented through a huge diversity of materials and artistic or handicraft skills employed. The pivotal role of Tak’alik Ab’aj as a long distance trade center and precocious cultural and religious "mecca" with "international flair" is reflected in the materials and...
Upstream, Downstream, Sacred Worlds (2016)
Archaeological study of ancient water management has grown tremendously in recent decades. Vern Scarborough has contributed centrally to advances in this domain, in the Maya area of Mesoamerica, as well as in cross-cultural examinations extending to the U.S. Southwest, and more distantly, South and Southeast Asia. Even his early concerns with ancient American ballcourts and ballgames link to water, with regard to the watery underworld to which the courts were entry portals. Scarborough’s...
Urban Agriculture within the Valley of Oaxaca: Investigations and Implications of Agricultural Terracing at Monte Albán (2015)
The use of GIS to determine the spatial boundaries between terracing and the ceremonial center at Late Classic Monte Alban (250-700 CE), will validate or falsify current Late Classic population estimates. The determinants for what defines agricultural versus residential terracing and whether both types are present at Monte Alban, has been highly contested. Archaeological investigations yielding residential debris, does not indicate the total sum use of an individual terrace, nor does it indicate...
Urban Carnivores, Rural Vegetarians? Faunal discrepancies over time and space at Mayapan (2017)
A usually predictable attribute of Postclassic Maya settlements (in Belize and Yucatan) is the abundance of faunal remains relative to preceding Classic Period contexts. This discrepancy is not attributable to taphonomy or bone age, given the recovery of human bone from both periods and the abundance of fauna in even earlier Preclassic deposits. Robust forest environments, balanced human predation levels, and variable animal husbandry practices represent the best explanations for the wealth of...
The Urban Origins Project at Quiotepec-Oxtotitlán, Guerrero (2016)
The large Early to Late Formative site of Quiotepec-Oxtotitlán, best known for Oxtotitlán Cave and its associated Middle to Late Formative polychrome murals, is the site of on-going archaeological research since 2012 by the Urban Origins Project. Our goal is twofold: to develop a richly detailed documentation of the art and its physical and chronological context at Quiotepec-Oxotitlán and to investigate the political economic underpinnings of the artistic production and possible elements of a...
Urbanism and Domestic Life in the Tlajinga District, Teotihuacan: New Research (2016)
Teotihuacan’s Tlajinga district comprises a cluster of neighborhoods of primarily common status apartment compounds, covering approximately 1km2 in the south of the city. Previous investigations at one of them, 33:S3W1 or “Tlajinga 33,” provided valuable information concerning daily life in the urban periphery. The Proyecto Arqueológico Tlajinga Teotihuacan (PATT) has thus far involved excavations at two other compounds (designated 17:S3E1 and 18:S3E1) and along the southern extension of the...
Urbanism in the Purepecha Heartland at Angamuco, Michoacan (2016)
Despite over 70 years of research in the Lake Patzcuaro Basin of Michoacan, there has been limited work focusing on pre-Purepecha and Purepecha urbanism in the region. In this paper, we discuss how recent survey and excavation data from the ancient city of Angamuco (c. 250-1530 CE) is helping us to evaluate whether suggested urban models from different parts of Mesoamerica are applicable in western Mexico. Alternatively, is there evidence for a distinct type of west Mexican or Purepecha city?...