Mesoamerica (Geographic Keyword)
726-750 (2,459 Records)
This paper explores how the ancient Maya of the Yalahau region generated and used ecological knowledge of their unique wetland environment in the Preclassic period. We approach ecological knowledge generation as a process that arises within the context of observable seasonal environmental events and changing and evolving pragmatic goals. Using paleoenvironmental reconstructions, we isolate the key seasonal events that would parametrically structure how environmental capacities could be...
The Emic, the Etic, and the Electronic: Digital Documentation in Northwestern Belize (2017)
Twenty-five years of archaeological research in northwestern Belize have yielded a robust regional database, allowing a rich and diverse picture of ancient Maya life to emerge. As part of this research, multiple projects have recently adopted innovative digital technologies using new methods to record and envision ancient sites in novel ways. This paper presents some of the ways in which researchers have engaged with digital technologies that allow for the collection of new types of data, as...
Empire at Chichen Itza Revisited (2015)
In the chapter on Chichen Itza within the Forest of Kings, Schele and Freidel masterfully redirected a half century of research that had largely pressed the foreignness of the site. Instead, they revealed the city’s Maya impulses and explored how Classic period strategies of conquest warfare transformed to integrate a type of inclusive diversity. Their suggestions of Chichen’s willingness to incorporate their enemies into a grander regional system redefined Epiclassic conversations over Maya or...
Employing micromorphology at the Tlajinga district in Teotihuacan to investigate site formation processes and household activities (2015)
Recent excavations of the PATT (Proyecto Arqueológico Tlajinga, Teotihuacan) have explored two residential zones and the southern extension of the Street of the Dead in the Tlajinga district, located in the southern periphery of Teotihuacan. Excavations at the residential zones are directed at investigating neighborhood dynamics including social organization, craft specialization and domestic ritual. Excavation at the Street of the Dead are directed at evaluating the processes of urbanization at...
End of Classic Maya Culture: a Review of Recent Evidence (1964)
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.
Engaged Investigation: Archaeology within Copán’s past and contemporary neighborhoods (2015)
Generations of Copán archaeologists have revealed the secrets of royal tombs and hieroglyphic inscriptions, as well as explored humble households of the rural periphery. A new project brings together these two initiatives to study the diversity of settlement within one particular neighborhood of the ancient city. Growth and change in the San Lucas neighborhood are articulated with major political events at Copán’s center to assess the degree of state integration, and more importantly, when, how,...
Entangled Ideologies on the Pacific Coast: the Teotihuacan-style Maya censers from the Department of Escuintla, Guatemala (2017)
Teotihuacan-style censers from the Pacific Coast of Guatemala are seminal markers of "international" interaction and ideology during the Early Classic Period (250-550 CE). But the paucity of archaeological data for this artifact class and the lack of recent in-depth analysis of their iconographic narratives leave unexplored a potential body of material concerning interaction, identity, and ideological shifts in this gateway region of southern Mesoamerica. Data from archaeological investigations,...
Entanglement and Colonial Power: A Geophysical Case Study of Settlement Patterns at Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As the Spanish entered Guatemala in AD 1523, they did so with the aid of thousands of Indigenous warriors. Though often ignored in history, the role of these Indigenous allies was fundamental in colonizing and maintaining new territories for the Spanish Crown. These Indigenous conquistadors settled alongside the Spanish in the peripheries of their newly...
Entanglement of Memories in Mesoamerica and Applications in the Palenque Region (2016)
As social archaeologists, we have long affirmed the fluidity of social structures, yet we continue to experience proactive interference from the political economy lessons long embedded in our memory. Through the review of social memory applications in Mesoamerica, this paper discusses how the battle between the individual and the social approaches to memory fall victim to our current entanglements of memory. Building from this review, I will consider how incorporating applications of ArcGIS and...
Enter the Void: A GIS Analysis of the Visibility of Empty Spaces at Copan, Honduras (2015)
The concept of visibility: what or who is visible and who can see what, provides archaeologists with information about power, ideology, and interaction. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) allow us to quantify the visibility of archaeological features in landscapes and 3D visualizations and gives us a way to experience these past landscapes. In Maya archaeology, most visibility studies measure the visibility of monuments as a means to understand the role of architecture within ancient Maya...
Entorno a la sal y el agua: Los conjuntos residenciales en el sitio Salinas de los Nueve Cerros, Guatemala (2015)
Salinas de los Nueve Cerros was a large Prehispanic center located at the edge of the Maya lowlands. It was founded atop the only non-coastal salt source in the lowlands and because of this was one of the most important cities during the Classic period. The site covered an area of over 30 km2 with an occupation that spanned the Middle Preclassic (ca. 800 BC) through the Postclassic (ca. AD 1200). Previous archaeological projects focused on salt production in the site core, while the present...
Entre dos épocas: Laguna de los Cerros y la transición del Preclásico Temprano al Preclásico Medio (2017)
Laguna de los Cerros enclavado dentro de la región Olmeca, ha figurado al lado de tres grandes centros: San Lorenzo, La Venta y Tres Zapotes, aunque su posición en la jerarquía regional durante el Preclásico nunca se equiparó a ninguno de ellos. San Lorenzo y La Venta se han considerado como las grandes capitales del sur de la costa del Golfo, representativas del Preclásico temprano y medio respectivamente. En este sentido, Laguna de los Cerros tuvo una ocupación continua e importante durante...
Entre genes y memes: estudios de paleogenética de poblaciones en el México antiguo (2017)
El centro de México ha sido una región de convergencia y tránsito de ideas y mercancías desde la época prehispánica. Los grandes centros urbanos del Clásico y del Posclásico se caracterizaron por un constante trasiego que alcanzó desde el actual centro de México hasta Centroamérica. La intensidad de este intercambio desde épocas muy tempranas consolidó el complejo cultural mesoamericano principalmente identificado por la iconografía. Sin embargo no sólo las ideas y las mercaderías viajan,...
Entre ollas y metates: exploraciones en la cocina real de Kabah, Yucatán (2015)
Una de las partes más importantes dentro del espacio residencial, ya sea que se trate de la gente común o de la elite, es sin duda alguna el área donde se preparan los alimentos (K’óoben). En este trabajo hablaremos sobre la cocina encontrada en el Grupo Este de Kabah, el cual interpretamos como el complejo palaciego donde residió la familia gobernante al menos durante el Clásico Tardío-Terminal. Un análisis de las características del espacio construido, así como la presencia de 30 metates y...
Environment and Subistence. the Prehisotry of the Tehuacan Valley - Volume One (1967)
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.
Environmental and Socio-Environmental Dynamics in the Subtropical Maya Lowlands: Hydrosystems and Agrosystems of the Wetlands (bajos) around Naachtun (2016)
The eco-socio-system of the wetlands (bajos) situated around the city of Naachtun is studied in relation with the water and soil resources (availability, use, management), between environment, climate and societies. The objectives are to characterize the evolution of the hydrosystems and agrosystems during the last 3 millennia and particularly during the Classic Period. The approach is systemic and multi-scalar, based on interdisciplinary works with geoarchaeological, geomorphological,...
The Environmental Conquest of West Mexico: The Lake Pátzcuaro and Malpaso Valley Case Studies (2017)
Though the next century will bring great environmental challenges the impact of global warming pales in comparison to the dramatic environmental changes associated with European Colonialism, beginning in the late 15th century. Chief among them is the Conquest of the Americas involving the breakdown of millennial-aged systems of land engineering and tenure, compounded by depopulation, and the introduction of the Euro-agro suite. Throughout Central Mexico the initial century of Conquest...
The Environmental Dynamics of Colonial Mining and Metallurgy in the Bishopric of Michoacan, 1522 to 1810 (2016)
Mining and metallurgy played a critical role in the economic, political, and social development of Spanish American colonies, and although it has consequently received extensive attention by scholars, there have been very few studies of the environmental dimensions of these industries. The present work explores the impact of mining and processing of metal ores on the environment, for the mining districts located along the Bishopric of Michoacan (which included the modern states of Michoacan and...
Environmental Reconstruction at La Quemada, Zacateca, Mexico Through Stable Isotope Analysis of Leporid Bones (2015)
Reconstructing the interactions between past environments and the expansion and secession of complex societies plays an important role in our understanding of their social development. Stable isotope analysis of faunal bone is a useful tool in reconstructing past environments and can give insight into the social-environmental dynamics of past civilizations. In this poster we present results from the stable isotope analysis of leporid bones (N=79) excavated from stratified midden deposits in the...
The Epi-Olmec Conundrum: Looking for Answers in All the Wrong Places (2018)
Epi-Olmec is a nebulous term, adrift in both time and space. Weakly defined by a set of slippery contrasts - isolated from what came before and what comes after - the descriptor lacks robust categorization of its own. And yet in spite of this hollow terminology, the words "Epi-Olmec" themselves are so politically fraught that certain scholars have adopted the even more obfuscatory term "Isthmian", a label growing in popularity within the literature. This paper begins the process of defining...
The Epiclassic from the Mexica perspective: Stone sculpture evidence (2015)
The ways in which human societies create a sense of history and incorporate it into daily life varies through time. In the Late Postclassic Basin of Mexico for example, cultural groups perpetuated, but also abandoned aspects of the stories of their ancestors. The uses, causes and reasons for this practice depends on a combination of several factors. The use of the past and how it was conceived and incorporated into the perspective of the Mexica is of particular interest. Previous studies have...
The Epiclassic in Oaxaca (600-900 CE) (2015)
The centuries from 600 to 900 CE were unusually dynamic times in prehispanic Oaxaca. In the Valley of Oaxaca, population increased and elite Zapotec culture flourished as city-states formed at Monte Albán, Cerro de la Campana, Macuilxóchitl, Lambityeco and Jalieza, and then suddenly collapsed. Surprising connections with the Maya area appear such as Fine Orange and Plumbate pottery as well as possible iconographic and architectural elements, some of these channeled through Southern Isthmus sites...
Epiclassic in Southern Mesoamerica? Tradition, Innovation, and Reaction in Pacific Guatemala (2015)
The Early Classic ascendancy of Teotihuacan was felt strongly on the Pacific Coast of Guatemala, particularly at Montana and related sites on the coastal plain of Escuintla. The Teotihuacan downfall roughly coincided with the demise of those sites, and the rise of a new dominant center Cotzumalhuapa, around A.D. 650. The process seems to parallel the emergence of Epiclassic centers in highland Mexico, and differs in many respects from the Maya Highlands and Lowlands, where there are fewer...
Equifinalities and the Limits of Soil, Ecology, and Climate Knowledge in Maya History (2016)
We read history to understand the present and possible future worlds, but each situation that arises in time is unique. This paradox of history also fits natural science brought to bear on archaeology because often equifinality prevails, meaning there are several paths to the same ends we see in landscapes. These complicate our interpretations, both delightfully and disturbingly. Here, we address both the agronomic and climatic capriciousness of the variegated Maya puzzle. We consider terrace,...
ering the Past: Analysis and Interpretation of a Terminal Classic Deposit at the Cahal Pech Terminus Group (2016)
The Terminal Classic (AD 750-900/1000) Maya "collapse" remains one of the least understood and most debated aspects in Maya archaeology. One characteristic feature of Terminal Classic contexts in the Belize Valley are large surficial ceramic deposits and are located in the corners of plazas, in front of stairs, and in the doorways of public architecture. These types of terminal deposits have been attributed to numerous activities including termination rituals, feasting events, refuse disposal in...