Republic of El Salvador (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
1,601-1,625 (2,860 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Beyond Leaky Pipelines: Exploring Gender Inequalities in Archaeological Practice" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Many studies of women in the field of archaeology focus on academic institutions; however, more archaeologists are employed by the public and private sectors. In this paper, we examine the place of women holding positions in cultural resource management. By examining first-hand experiences of women in the...
Material Culture and Chronology at Colha, Belize: Recent Findings and Future Directions (2018)
Lithics, ceramics, and other artifacts, recovered from the 2017 Colha, Belize field season, are utilized to gain insight into chronological developments and changes at the ancient Maya site. Maya material culture recovered from excavations at Colha are presented and interpreted by context. Each artifact category is briefly defined, described, and placed into a general site context. The estimated time range for the recovered material culture extends from the Late Archaic to the Late Preclassic....
Material Culture Associated to Elite Females in 16th Century Puerto Rico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Primary Sources and the Design of Research Projects" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents a case study on how to approach the study of elite women in Puerto Rico during the 16th century using primary sources and archaeological evidence. The main objective of the research was to reconstruct aspects of the daily life of women through their cultural assemblages, as recorded during the early colonization of...
Material Culture Correlates of Polity Restructuring and Decline: Changes in Ceramic Production and Use at the End of the Late Classic Period in the Copan Valley (2017)
Features of material culture can be actively constructed and transparently manipulated to various sociopolitical ends, with the installation of elaborate monuments and possession of ornate goods making bold statements of power and authority. While other more common elements of material culture may provide perhaps less conspicuous commentary on the "state of the union," they can also be equally symbolic of the conditions under which they were created. This paper examines the material culture...
The Material Culture of Maroon Communities in the Early Circum-Caribbean (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Disentanglement: Reimagining Early Colonial Trajectories in the Americas" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper examines early maroon settlements of the Circum-Caribbean and is based upon original research in a wide assortment of Spanish archives, as well as archaeological investigations of African sites in the Americas. As in Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, in Spanish Florida, I find Africans readily adapted...
Material Encounters and Indigenous Transformations in Early Colonial El Salvador (2017)
Mapping and excavations of the Conquest-period and early colonial site of Ciudad Vieja, the ruins of the first villa of San Salvador, El Salvador, afford a view of material culture encounters and indigenous transformations in northern Central America. The Ciudad Vieja archaeological research has focused on material culture encounters between Spanish and indigenous populations in the realms of landscape, architecture, technology, economy, society, and religion. The time span for Ciudad Vieja runs...
A Material Science Consideration of New World Encounters: Multi-method Approaches to the Archaeology of the Caribbean (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Following a recent review of excavated materials from the island of Mona (Puerto Rico), this paper examines the transformation of cultural and technological practices brought about by New World encounters. We focus on the affective material conditions that emerge in the 16th century Caribbean by applying a materials science approach to the newly integrated...
Material Transformations and Vegetal Ontologies in the Postclassic and Colonial Mesoamerican Flower Worlds (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Bringing the Past to Life, Part 1: Papers in Honor of John M. D. Pohl" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Prehispanic visual sources and colonial alphabetic texts provide rich descriptions of what scholars have termed "the Flower World" in Mesoamerica. This idealized celestial realm was filled not just with flowers, but an array of other precious substances, ranging from gemstones to precious metals, to bird feathers and...
The Materiality of Migration (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeologies of Immigration and Refugee Resettlement" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper considers what archaeologists can contribute to contemporary issues through doing what we do best—analyzing material culture to create narratives. I use this approach to personify a particular group of liminal, stereotyped people whose anonymity is critical for their survival—undocumented migrants. This paper is part of a...
The Materiality of Sound: Detecting Performing Patterns On Two Mesoamerican Bone Rasps (2017)
This presentation focuses on some results of an interdisciplinary study carried out on two scraping idiophones made of human bones from ancient Mesoamerica (omichicahuaztli). Both the instruments are today on exhibit at the Museo Nazionale Preistorico Etnografico "Luigi Pigorini" in Rome. The detailed analysis of the bone surfaces allowed us to reconstruct the taphonomic processes that affected the bones and the steps employed to transform them into musical instruments. Our research team...
Materialización de las nuevas interacciones en la zona fronteriza entre Mesoamérica y el Área Istmo-colombiana durante el Postclásico Temprano: Un acercamiento desde Los Naranjos, noroeste de Honduras (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Materials in Movement in the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. En los territorios considerados como los márgenes fronterizos entre Mesoamérica y el Área Istmo-colombiana, la transición entre el Clásico y Postclásico (siglos IX-XII dC) corresponde a un periodo de reorganización de sus sociedades. Particularmente en el noroeste de Honduras se caracterizaron notables evoluciones en los centros...
Materializing ideas. Preliminary analysis of roof tiles images from the Nuestra Señora de Loreto I and San Ignacio Mini I missions (1610 – 1631) (2017)
In this paper we will be discussing the iconography of the roof tiles found in the primitive missions of Nuestra Senora de Loreto and San Ignacio Mini located in the region of the Guairá. The aim is to analyze the material and symbolic universe that circulated in the primitive Jesuits missions (1610 - 1631). In order to achieve this goal, we will first analyze the technologies of production, the iconographic types and interpret the possible meanings acquired in the representations shown on the...
Materializing Ritual: Sorcery, Transformation, and Divination in Greater Nicoya (2017)
Themes involving spiritual transformation have long been noted in the material culture of pre-Columbian Greater Nicoya, with standardized ritual imagery appearing in local Sapoá period (AD 800-1250) ceramic type-classes such as Papagayo and Pataky Polychromes. A recent iconographic re-evaluation suggests that at least some varieties from these ‘independent types’ were designed to work together, to complement one another in both ritual messaging and formal function. Here we focus explicitly on...
Maya Architecture in the Northern Lowlands (2017)
It has long been recognized that ancient Maya architecture encoded sacred ideologies and replicated primordial landscapes through building forms and structural orientations. Many studies have focused on the architecture of the Southern Maya Lowlands, where rich textual sources exist and where an abundance of archaeological data aids in efforts to understand and interpret the meanings of architectural groups. We seek to augment interpretive frameworks with respect to the Northern Maya Lowlands,...
Maya Child Sacrifice Via Cranial Punctures (2017)
Our knowledge of Maya human sacrifice is drawn from iconographic representations and contact period Spanish sources. Unfortunately, the corpus related to child sacrifice is extremely limited. In 1971 David M. Pendergast described the burial of a child from Eduardo Quiroz Cave with traumatic perimortem holes in the parietals. Later, Brady reported on a second child with similar wounds. Both Pendergast and Brady interpreted the evidence as reflecting child sacrifice. The recovery of thousands...
Maya Daykeeping: Three Calendars from Highland Guatemala (2009)
In Maya Daykeeping, three divinatory calendars from highland Guatemala - examples of a Mayan literary tradition that includes the Popul Vuh, Annals of the Cakchiquels, and the Titles of the Lords of Totonicapan - dating to 1685, 1722, and 1855, are transcribed in K'iche or Kaqchikel side-by-side with English translations. Calendars such as these continue to be the basis for prognostication, determining everything from the time for planting and harvest to foreshadowing illness and death. Good,...
Maya Dental Modifications: Insights from Ka’Kabish, Belize (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This research investigated the intentionally modified dentition found within chultuns at the Maya site of Ka’kabish, Belize. The site has a history spanning from the Middle Formative (800–600 BC) to the Postclassic (900–1500 AD) periods. The primary aim of this research was to closely examine the modified dentition, evaluate any dental pathologies present,...
Maya E-Groups and the Nature of Science -- Ours and Theirs (2017)
Maya E-Group architectural assemblages have attracted scholarly attention for about a century, and yet our ideas about them have become more muddled through time. Since the beginning of investigations in the 1920’s these structures have been thought to have had some astronomical function, but the exact astronomical significance suggested by archaeologists has changed though time. Today there is very little agreement about their meaning and function. In this presentation I will briefly review the...
Maya Lithic Economies at Piedras Negras, Guatemala: Production and Exchange in an Elite Architectural Complex (2017)
In recent years significant headway has been made to understand New World marketing systems. In contrast with the highly complex and easily identifiable market systems of the Mexican Highlands, ancient Maya systems of production and distribution have traditionally been assumed to have operated at the level of the household, and thus have been overlooked. However, recent work in the Maya area has shown the likely presence of production beyond the household at possible market areas. In this paper,...
Maya metals: A Comparative Analysis from Tipu and Lamanai, Belize (2017)
Investigations at the southern Maya Lowland sites of Lamanai and Tipu, Belize have yielded diverse assemblages of metal artifacts. These metals are from the Postclassic and Colonial (12th to 17th century) occupations at Lamanai and Colonial (mid-16th to early 18th century) contexts at Tipu. As a rare occasion to look at the similarities and differences between artifacts made of the same material from different sites, this research compares the forms, contexts, and technologies of metal artifacts...
Maya Monument Production: Techne and the Birth of Meaning (2017)
Analyses of sculptural practices of the Ancient Maya have centered on the final stages of production, namely the identities of sculptors, the locations of production, and the techne of sculptural practice. While the contributions of these analyses cannot be contested, there remains a poorly resolved understanding of when in the process of sculpture limestone gains its cultural significance. This paper presents data from recent excavations at a quarry workshop at Xultun where a stela still...
Maya Mortuary Practices over Time and Space: The Effects of Socio-Political and Environmental Change on Mortuary Practices and the Statistical Analysis of Trends in Mortuary Characteristics (2017)
Mortuary practices are created to convey something about the deceased individual, as well as their surviving relatives, but can also give insight into the religious, social, and political structure of the community. This paper focuses on Maya mortuary practices in Belize, and how/why those practices changed over the transition from the Formative period (2000 BC – AD 300) to the Classic Maya florescence (AD 300-800). Comparing differences of mortuary characteristics within and between...
Maya Palaces at Aguateca and Ceibal, Guatemala (2017)
Royal palaces at the medium-sized centers of Aguateca and Ceibal appear to represent a basic template for the spatial and functional configurations of Maya palaces. They exhibit simple square forms resembling smaller residential groups of lower status, indicating their primary function as residential complexes of the royal families. Administrative and ceremonial functions were likely merged with domestic ones. These palaces also provide information on the degree of spatial mobility. While the...
Maya Palaces: Royal Courts of the Ancient and Not-So-Ancient Maya (2017)
The Palaces of the Peten Campechano and the remainder of the Yucatan Peninsula represent single and composite, royal multipurpose households of varying shapes and sizes often associated with triadic relationships representing religious, civic, and military responsibilities. These relationships are manifest in structures at Calakmul, Oxpemul, Becan, Santa Rosa Xtampak, the triadic Monjas Quadrangle of Uxmal, Structure #385 of Dzibilchaltun, the triad of Noh Cah Chan Santa Cruz, El Palacio de...
Maya Peasantry: Crop Diversity Past and Present (2017)
For several years, peasant communities on the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, have not produced high enough maize-yields to sustain populations in the area. This is despite the fact that modern-day demographics are considerably lower than population estimates for the heights of Maya cultural development during the pre-Columbian era. Some scholars have argued that maize was not the sole staple for the ancient Maya. Root and tree crops are among the candidates for alternative staples given their...