Mesoamerica (Geographic Keyword)
626-650 (2,459 Records)
Itzimte (municipio La Libertad, Department of Peten, Guatemala) is a medium-sized Maya site in the savanna region in Central Peten. It was first described by Theobert Maler in 1908 and later visited by Sylvanus Morley in 1915 and 1921. In 2002 it was studied by Atlas Arqueologico de Guatemala team leaded by Hector Mejia. Itzimte consists of 6 principal plazas and 16 dispersed patio groups occupying about 50 ha. Monumental corpus of the site included 20 stelae (10 carved) and 12 altars (4...
The Development of Sedentary Communities in the Maya Lowlands in a Comparative Perspective (2016)
It has long been known in the Andean region that the communal projects of temple constructions and public rituals played an important role in social formation during the pre-ceramic period. Recent archaeological investigations in Mesoamerica are revealing comparable processes. Various ceremonial centers in Mesoamerica appear to have developed before the establishment of maize agriculture and fully sedentary communities. At the lowland Maya center of Ceibal, Guatemala, a formal ceremonial complex...
The Development of the Feathered Serpent in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest (2016)
Mesoamerican and Southwestern researchers debate the origins, meanings, and influence of the feathered serpent. Some believe that the Southwestern horned serpent is derived from the Mesoamerican feathered serpent, while others believe the Southwestern serpent tradition developed largely independently from other regional traditions. Those contending that Southwestern and Mesoamerican serpents are connected rely on similar meanings of the serpents, such as its association with rain and fertility,...
Deviancy, an Alternate Means of Child Veneration at the Maya Site of Colha (2018)
The veneration of space is a process that at times incorporates deviant practices as a method of signifying key importance. The deposition of burnt infant remains and associated grave goods diverges from burial norms at the Maya site of Colha. In May of 2017, archaeologists with the Programme for Belize Archaeological project returned to the site after a multi-year hiatus. The burnt skeletal remains of an infant, between the ages of 1.5 and 2.5 were found in association with burnt pottery...
A Diachronic Interdisciplinary View of Maya Foodways (2017)
This paper reviews archaeological, iconographic, epigraphic, and linguistic evidence for Maya foodways, documenting both the remarkable stability of some traditions and the equally significant changes in others, mostly due to cultural contact, civilizational rupture, and generational shift during some two millennia of Maya history. Although hardly a frequent topic of Maya monumentality, with a few notable exceptions, numerous ceramic vessels, murals, and graffiti depict and/or hieroglyphically...
Did restructuring at the end of the Maya Classic period include the beginnings of private land tenure? (2016)
The archaeological study of land tenure in non-literate societies is methodologically complex. However, by examining situations before, during and after transitions, insight can be gained. The end of the Maya Classic period, complexes of field walls were built, especially in coastal locations. These appear to not have water control or land management functions but instead delineate space similarly to house lots in contemporary, but traditional, Maya villages. Land tenure at the center of Blue...
Diet and in-migration in the Tlajinga District of Teotihuacan: New insights from stable isotope analysis and AMS radiocarbon dating. (2017)
Thirty years ago, the apartment compound known as Tlajinga 33 (33:S3W1) in the southern district of Teotihuacan was extensively excavated, resulting in the recovery of over 100 individuals. A paleodemographic study of these individuals indicated that chronic morbidity was a serious health issue among residents. Additionally, previous geochemical analysis from 25 of these individuals suggested that at least 29% of residents grew up outside of Teotihuacan. Due to chronic health issues, the...
Diet and Migration in Coastal Oaxaca: Identifying Effects of Political and Social Collapse through the Utilization of Stable Isotope Analysis (2017)
This study reports on diet and mobility among people living in the lower Río Verde Valley, Oaxaca, Mexico, during the Late Classic (AD 500-800) and Early Postclassic (AD 800-1200) periods, specifically focusing on how political and social collapse affected subsistence practices, diet, and human migration. Archaeological evidence suggests that Río Viejo, the region’s largest urban center before AD 800, experienced multiple periods of political fragmentation and instability during its long...
Diet and mobility patterns of hunter-gatherers and full-time farmers from the Tehuacan caves of Tehuacan, Puebla (2016)
The transition between the diet of the hunter-gatherers and the full-time farmers is described on an individual level based on evidence from three ancient caves in Tehuacan, Puebla. The populations studied occupied the caves for almost 8000 years from 6800 BC to AD 1520. The reconstruction of their diet was done on the basis of stable isotopic values of δ13C and δ15N of the bone collagen as well as the δ13C and δ18O from bone-bioapatite and from a series of slices from molars, alternating on...
Dietary Implications from an Inundated Shell Midden at a Classic Maya Salt Work (2016)
During the 2013 field season, an inundated shell midden was excavated at the underwater ancient Maya salt production site of Eleanor Betty, one of the Paynes Creek Salt Works. Excavations revealed that the midden was located 16-30 cm below the sea-floor and extended both inside and outside of an underwater wooden structure. During the spring of 2015, analyses were performed to identify the shell species, assess the nature of the midden (cultural or natural), and evaluate dietary implications of...
Dietary Patterns in Mexico Between 6500 B.C. and 1580 A.D. In Man and His Foods (1973)
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.
Dietary Reconstruction at Chalcatzingo, a Formative Period Site in Morelos, Mexico (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.
Digging Ceren: Rounding up the Unusual Methods in Mesoamerican Household Archaeology (2015)
The site of Cerén, El Salvador holds a unique place for Mesoamericanists conducting household archaeology. Its extraordinary preservation fuels the imagination like few other sites can. The fragile nature of this archaeological site requires hyper-alertness, combined with methods for properly extracting and preserving information. The material remains of this deep under-earth site come to light with only the most intensive of excavation methods, many of which are unlike those commonly used at...
Digging into the Mesoamerican history in the Huastec region (2015)
The Huastec, in pre-Hispanic times, always has been considered as a cultural area within Mesoamerica, improperly researchers have taken this as a dogma, which makes that the general use of the concept damages the comprehension of what really happened. By this assertions, over a "Huastec culture", the understanding of this rich multi-cultural region, is complicated. The opinions derived from linguistics, ethnohistory, archaeology and anthropology become difficulties that shape the region into...
Digital Documentation of Ancient Ritual Landmarks: Modeling Senses of Place with Photogrammetry, LiDAR, and Virtual Tours. (2017)
Ritual karstscape archaeological research at the pre-Hispanic Maya site of Pacbitun, Belize, by the Pacbitun Regional Archaeological Project (PRAP) has included experimentation with a range of digital recording technologies. The overall goal of these experiments has been to better document ritual landmarks and the archaeological materials within them than has been possible with traditional recordation methods such as hand-drawn maps, photographs, and written descriptions. Our efforts have...
The Digital Evolution at Chan Chich, Belize (2017)
In 2012, the Chan Chich Archaeological Project transitioned from paper field forms to a relational database on iPads in the field and an iMac in the laboratory. Since then, the database has evolved each season, becoming more powerful and more useful with each modification. The project has also adopted Structure from Motion as a standard method for documenting excavations over the past three seasons. The digital revolution has not been without its difficulties, but the evolution of the database...
Digital Methods for Conservation in Underground Archaeological Contexts: A Case Study from the Copan Acropolis (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As site documentation methods become more high-tech and data-heavy, it raises issues of repeatability, access, and expense. In the case of the 3 kilometers of circuitous archaeological tunnels at the Classic Maya site of Copan, Honduras, it was imperative to document them in a manner that would be accurate, efficient, and accessible not only to scholars with...
Dinámicas poblacionales durante el Epiclásico (600 a 900 d.C.) entre la vertiente norte del río Verde-San Pedro y el Occidente de México (2015)
Se discuten los avances de las investigaciones realizadas en la vertiente norte del río Verde-San Pedro para destacar sus vínculos con las sociedades del Occidente de México en la época prehispánica. Para ello se mostraran las características que esta región comparte con el occidente y sus implicaciones para entender las dinámicas de interacción y movimientos poblacionales en el Epiclásico, destacándose las propuestas vigentes sobre la cronología. De igual forma se discutirá el posible impacto...
Direction, Gender, and Cosmology in the Pre-Columbian Textile Technologies of Mesoamerica (2017)
Despite the paucity of actual archeological textiles in Mesoamerica, alternative sources provide a picture of pre-Columbian textile technologies. These include: Colonial-era depictions and descriptions, tools, and especially continuities to ethnographic practice. Together, these reveal the centrality of textiles to these societies, and even hint at how textiles conceptually embodied and reflected indigenous cultural norms and notions. I argue that these sources suggest some hitherto...
Directional Glyphs in Maya Inscriptions and Codices (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.
Discerning Patterns of Intentional and Unintentional Movement of Human Bones in Maya Caves (2016)
The caves of Central Belize were used extensively by the Maya, primarily during the Late Preclassic and Classic periods (approx. 300 BC to AD 900). Archaeological investigations of human bone deposits in these caves typically seek to identify specific mortuary rituals, often based on analogy with ethnohistoric, epigraphic, and artistic sources, and to interpret these behaviors within broader sociopolitical and environmental contexts. However, because of the long history of cave use in the area...
Discordant Relationships: Household and Community at Callar Creek, Belize (2015)
From the Late Preclassic to the Late Classic period (400 BCE to 900 CE), the Mopan Valley of Belize was a complex political landscape and an arena of intense political competition. During this time, the Valley witnessed the sequential rise of three, closely-spaced, major centers – centers likely in direct competition with one another – as well as the establishment and abandonment of minor centers and settlement clusters. The Mopan Valley Archaeology Project recently completed excavations and...
The discovery of gold in the graves of Chiriqui, Panama (1919)
Scanned image of the book containing this Volume of the "Indian Notes" journal. This article, written in 1919, briefly describes the authors,Samuel Lothrop, first hand account of exploration and exploration of grave goods, specifically gold grave goods (the author claims that the excavation extracted a some of two million in gold images and dust).
A Discrepancy between Elite Office and Economic Status in the El Palmar Dynasty, Mexico (2016)
The identification of elite titles through epigraphic studies has raised new questions about the relationship between elite office and economic status. The present study focuses on a social group referred to by the title lakam, which was detected in the inscriptions of a hieroglyphic stairway at the El Palmar archaeological site. Our epigraphic studies revealed the involvement of lakam officials as emissaries in political alliances between El Palmar, Calakmul, and Copán, suggesting that they...
Disruption or Continuity?: Iconography on portable objects in Classic to Epiclassic Jalisco and Zacatecas (2015)
This study investigates the rarely studied iconography of Pseudo-Cloisonné vessels from Jalisco and Zacatecas through a comparison with earlier portable imagery. Recent interpretations of the shaft tomb figures of the Formative/Classic periods have begun to interpret their religious and political content and contextualize them archaeologically. But imagery in western Mexico takes a radical new turn in the Epiclassic period (AD 500-900), when the most elaborate iconography is found on the complex...