Mesoamerica (Geographic Keyword)
951-975 (2,459 Records)
This poster examines burial construction in relation to landscape modifications in the Rio Bravo region of northwestern Belize. A geospatial analysis was conducted on burials and surrounding features, such as shrines, to determine the Maya social hierarchical system established during the Middle Preclassic, Late Preclassic, and Late Classic periods. This research addresses the interrelationship between altered landscapes and burial locations, which can yield insight into social control. Poor...
Geostratigraphy, Volcanology, and Chronology at Ceren: Implications of Dating the Ilopango and Loma Caldera Eruptions (2015)
Built upon a fine white volcanic tephra from the eruption of the Ilopango caldera and buried under tephra from an eruption of Loma Caldera, the Maya village of Ceren affords a unique opportunity to explore geostratigraphy, volcanology, and chronology in relation to vulnerability and resilience. The sheer volume and scale of the eruption of Ilopango caldera, known as Tierra Blanca Joven (TBJ), would have had decimated not only the Zapotitán valley in which Ceren is located, but also all of El...
Gestión arqueológica, estructura base en el redescubrimiento de Dainzú-Macuilxochitl. (2016)
Durante el proyecto de investigación Arqueológica Dainzú-Macuilxóchitl 2015, la gestión arqueológica ha permitido conjuntar la ciencia con la tradición. Partiendo de vincular a la comunidad con la investigación se ha logrado la reapropiación y el empoderamiento patrimonial, el fortalecimiento de la identidad, la reapertura del museo comunitario y el redescubrimiento de los zapotecos antiguos por los zapotecos contemporáneos. Los dos ejes de trabajo, mapeo y excavación, revelan algunos elementos...
Getting Carried Away - A Petroglyphic Litter Scene from Cenote Ceh' Yax, Yucatan, Mexico (2016)
During reconnaissance in a dry cenote at the small site of Ceh’ Yax, Mexico, members of the Central Yucatan Archaeological Cave Project discovered an in-situ monument incised with a petroglyphic scene depicting a dignitary seated within a litter. Although litters are not commonly shown in Mesoamerican imagery, they do appear on lintels, wall graffiti, codex-style Maya vases, and as ceramic effigies. This paper will present an analysis of Mesoamerican litter iconography which will demonstrate...
The Ghost of Functionalism (2017)
This paper considers the assumptions, limitations, and greater implications that a theory of integration-disintegration has for analyzing social change across space and time. It reviews the historical foundations of the concept of integration as it emerged in enlightenment social theory and considers how the concept of integration has been repeatedly and uncritically co-opted into various discourses of archaeological theory. An alternative framework for thinking about social change will be...
Gift of the Gods: A Mashup of the History of Mesoamerican Avocados (2023)
This is an abstract from the "An Exchange of Ideas: Recent Research on Maya Commodities" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The earliest avocados of the Americas were dispersed by extinct megafauna, and later by human populations, including Olmec, Maya, and Aztecs peoples. Prized for their flavor and rich caloric content, avocados were portrayed on Maya king’s tombs, served as the municipal symbol of ancient Mesoamerican cities, as a month in the Maya...
The Gilded Age in Eastern Yucatán, Mexico: the Age of Betrayal or the Rise of the Middle Class? (2015)
The social transformations produced by rapid industrialization and expansion of henequen production in the late nineteenth century in western Yucatan were not what happened in Maya-speaking communities further to the east. The Gilded Age in eastern Yucatan was attenuated because communities suffered the protracted aftershocks of the Caste War of Yucatan (1847-1901), which may have repressed wealth disparities instead of heightening them. In this paper, I examine the archaeology of haciendas and...
GIS, Identity, and the Sacred Landscape (2017)
GIS techniques are no foreigner to Mesoamerican studies though the hybridization of digital analytics and human identity is incomplete. In recent years suites of technologies have allowed for better visualization of data within archaeological projects. Though computer programs and higher profile data-gathering techniques have become widely embraced by the archaeological community, research should be rooted in cultural proclivities as well. By recording the complex shifts in topography via remote...
A Glimpse of the People of Altica: Osteological and Isotopic/Radiocarbon Analysis (2017)
Altica is the earliest-known settled village in the Teotihuacan Valley, and perhaps the only first-farming village site in the Basin of Mexico that has survived to modern times. Thus, it provides a rare glimpse into life during the Early-Middle Formative period. While only four burials comprising four individuals were recovered from pits dug into bedrock, each tells a unique story.Two individuals are older-aged females, the third, a middle-aged male, was accompanied by prestigious nonperishable...
Global Indigeneity in Southern Mexico and the Value of Social Archaeology (2016)
This paper explores the long-term history of the Nejapa region of southeastern Oaxaca, Mexico and the many groups of people and famous individuals that have called it home. Based on data derived from a variety of archaeological research methods, including archival documents, excavation, survey, oral history interviews, and collaborative research with contemporary residents, I argue that what might be viewed by some as a loss of indigenous identity in the present is rather a multiethnic...
GOBERNANTES Y CERÁMICAS CEREMONIALES DEL EDIFICIO DE LAS COLUMNAS DE EL TAJÍN. (2016)
Si hay algo que define el estatuto cultural del período Epiclásico en El Tajín, Veracruz, es la transición hacia modelos de gobierno que enfatizan la figura del soberano como el centro indiscutible de las relaciones sociales de la época. Es a estos nuevos gobernantes a quienes debemos de atribuir en el punto más alto de la antigua ciudad la edificación del Edificio de las Columnas y de su magnífico conjunto arquitectónico, además de la producción de un grupo de vasijas negras de forma...
Gold (Tumbaga) and Butterfly Symbolism (2017)
When metals were introduced in Mesoamerica ca. AD 850 they were used with both utilitarian and decorative purposes. Copper artifacts were turned into fishing hooks, tweezers, or axes. However, silver and gold were mostly used in jewelry production. Several deities were fashioned in gold as well as animals associated with gods. They included pendants, nose-rings, necklaces, etc. Warriors were also depicted as pendants, and there are examples in discs too. The context where the objects have been...
Good Neighbors: Investigating Maya Neighborhood Organization in Northern Belize (2016)
Socio-spatial constructs that loosely translate as "neighborhoods" are found within many indigenous Mesoamerican communities. Unfortunately, the phenomenon receives less attention and commentary by observers of contemporary lowland Maya place-making. Nevertheless, archaeologists have long suspected that ancient lowland communities possessed multiple spatial subdivisions; and, at long last, neighborhood archaeology would seem to be a growing focus of research. To date, however, the physical...
A Good, Old-Fashioned Patio-Group Raising: Domestic Architecture as Ritual among the Classic-Period Maya (2015)
As anthropological and archaeological scholarship attests, household ritual has a potent role in forging and maintaining sociopolitical relationships both within the household as well as with the communities, cities, and states of which it forms a part. Archaeological research in the Classic Maya area has revealed evidence of feasts, ancestor veneration, dedication and termination caches, and other ritual practices taking part within the limits of the house. The most substantial remnant of...
Granite and pXRF: An Experimental Approach to Nondestructive Sourcing of Ground Stone Tools (2015)
Portable x-ray fluorescence (pXRF) is a rapidly spreading yet controversial technology in archaeology. Current research on pXRF technology has produced marked improvements in calibration standards and accuracy of results. Previous studies using pXRF have focused primarily on obsidian and basalt; however with current advances in technology it is possible and necessary to test the applicability of pXRF to accurately characterize heterogeneous materials. This research proposes a methodology for...
A Granite Tool Producing Community on the Western Periphery of Pacbitun, Belize (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances in Ground Stone Studies in the Eastern Maya Lowlands" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Between 2012 and 2014, a small mound was excavated on the periphery of the Pacbitun site, a medium-sized ancient Maya center located in the Belize River Valley of west-central Belize. That mound revealed a record of the production of 4,000 granite mano and metates dating to the Late Classic period. Since those...
Graphic documentation of the mural painting in the sacred precinct of Tenochtitlan (2015)
From historical sources we know that the religious buildings of Tenochtitlan (1325–1521 CE) were richly polychromed. Architectural remains of the sacred precinct corroborate this information, as they still contain important remnants of the mural painting on their façades and interiors. Unfortunately, their state of conservation is quite poor, owing, on the one hand, to the particular pictorial materials and techniques utilized by the Mexica during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth...
Grave goods from the intact grave at BE-16-KH site (KOT-F unit) (2010)
This document includes both images and descriptions of grave goods found at the intact grave at BE-16-KH site (KOT-F unit)
Great Expectations: Negotiating Community at Ucanha, Yucatán, Mexico (2015)
Activities of all actors should be considered collectively given that communities were likely forged through a negotiation of needs and wants from the perspectives of rulers and subjects. Successful elite institutions would need to closely monitor these negotiations. If the needs of the general public were not met, elite institutions could be undermined. During the Terminal Preclassic, Ucanha, a secondary center connected to other monumental centers via an 18-km long causeway in the Northern...
The Great Maya Droughts in Cultural Context: Case Studies in Residence and Vulnerability (2014)
In The Great Maya Droughts in Cultural Context, contributors reject the popularized link between societal collapse and drought in Maya civilization, arguing that a series of periodic "collapses," including the infamous Terminal Classic collapse (AD 750), were caused not solely by climate change-related droughts but by a combination of other social, political, and environmental factors. New and senior scholars of archaeology and environmental science explore the timing and intensity of droughts...
The Great Tzotzil Dictionary of Santo Domingo Zinacantan, with Grammatical Analysis and Historical Commentary, Volume III: Spanish-Tzotzil (1988)
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.
The Great Tzotzil Dictionary of Santo Domingo Zinacantan, with Grammatical and Historical Commentary, Volume I: Tzotil-English (1988)
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.
Greenstone from Where? Petrographic and Microprobe Analyses of Greenstone Triangulates from Middle Preclassic Pacbitun, Belize (2016)
Artifacts made from green-colored rocks, including but not limited to jadeites, circulated widely in Mesoamerica during the Middle Preclassic (c. 900 – 350) and were imbued with cosmological significance and social value from early times. "Greenstone triangulates" form a distinct subset of these artifacts that have only been recovered from Middle Preclassic settlements in the Belize Valley. These roughly triangular objects are typically made from green-colored rocks that are visibly...
The Growth Trajectories of Mesoamerican Cities (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The growth trajectory of a city through time is responsive to both internal and external forces. The shapes of such trajectories provide information about a variety of social, political, and economic processes that operated in the past. We present and analyze data from both well-excavated cities and regional settlement surveys in Mesoamerica. The patterns we...
Guaymi Grammar and Dictionary: With Some Ethnological Notes (1962)
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.