Yucatan (State / Territory) (Geographic Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Antonia Foias.

This is an abstract from the "Regimes of the Ancient Maya" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper, I will explore how much we know about Maya politics during the Classic period (AD 250–950), in view of new perspectives that leave behind the centralization vs. decentralization debate. Rather than viewing Maya states as unitary, unchanging, and centralized or decentralized, new perspectives have revealed variation, multiple sources of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Adam King. Terry Powis. Jaime Awe. Gyles Iannone. Nilesh Gaikwad.

While absorbed residues are widely used to explore subsistence-related questions, more recent work has used them to examine the use of elite and ritual beverages. In this paper, we explore absorbed residues found in ceramic containers and bone tubes recovered from caves, burials, and caches in the Belize Valley. The ceramic vessels presumably held liquids consumed or otherwise used in rituals in these settings, while the bone tubes delivered substances to participants in those rituals as enemas....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary Morgan-Smith.

The accumulation of debt by Maya speaking laborers has long been understood as integral to Yucatán’s hacienda system in the 19th century. Though the contexts and nature of creditor-debtor relationships are variable and contested, evidence for debt is consistently present in documents related to large, corporate estates. But what does indebtedness look like beyond the hacienda on small-scale estates? In the absence of historical documents, or evidence of a company store, can debt be observed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Evan Parker. George J. Bey III. Tomás Gallareta Negrón.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Jade tadpole spoons and clamshell pendants represent some of the most symbolically charged items of wealth and power in formative Mesoamerica. The Tzimin jades are a newly discovered cache of these items from the Middle Preclassic (900 BC—350 BC) Maya village of Paso del Macho that offer additional context for assessing the function and significance of jade...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Milan Kovac.

In the beginning of the 20th Century Uaxactun was considered to be the cradle of the Maya civilization. Later, other monumental Maya centers were found and scholars lost interest for Uaxactun. The former popularity of Uaxactun was interpreted as just a coincidence because the first large excavations were carried out there. Newly identified important Maya sites were considered to be older and more interesting. The new archaeological project in Uaxactun has dealt with the Preclassic horizon of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Shannon Plank. Rafael Burgos. Scott Hutson. Yoly Palomo. Miguel Covarrubias.

In the Late Preclassic and Classic periods, several sites in the center of the northern Maya lowlands constructed buildings with distinctive megaliths. Izamal was the largest of these sites by far, and connected itself to other important sites with stone causeways that stretched up to 30 km long. Ucí, located approximately 35km to the northwest of Izamal, had its own long distance causeway which linked it to three smaller sites with monumental architecture. This paper combines data from two...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Diana Zaragoza.

Definir una región tan antigua y compleja como la Huasteca, implica conocer las características de los grupos humanos que la habitaron; en ella existen diversas manifestaciones culturales a través del tiempo; en esta ocasión presento un primer acercamiento al mundo simbólico que encontramos durante el período Posclásico. Inicié el estudio utilizando cuatro indicadores arqueológicos: Vasijas de cerámica, Concha labrada, Pintura Mural y Escultura. Lo primero que hice fue reconocer los símbolos que...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yamile Lira-Lopez.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Un basurero es parte de la vida cotidiana de una familia, allí se va depositando todos los desechos que en un tiempo fueron de utilidad, tanto restos de comida como utensilios. Por ello el hallazgo de un basurero prehispánico en un contexto habitacional es de gran importancia para reconstruir parte de la vida cotidiana de una familia: que tipos de vasija...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katherine Ort. Lilia Lizama.

This is an abstract from the "La Práctica Arqueológica en México en Tiempos de Crisis: Escenarios, Problemáticas Claves, Actores, Acciones y Propuestas" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. La ciudad de Puerto Morelos, Quintana Roo se ha convertido recientemente en un municipio y se esfuerza por promover el turismo sostenible en función de sus activos naturales y culturales y evitar el turismo de masas que ha afectado a otras partes de la Riviera Maya....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hirokazu Kotegawa.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. El sitio arqueológico de Estero Rabón fue uno de los centros secundarios de San Lorenzo y probablemente también de La Venta durante el Preclásico Inferior y Medio. Según los estudios previos de la cultura olmeca, los centros secundarios de estas capitales tenían su propia finalidad para sostenerlas. Así, Estero Rabón también se ubicó en un punto estratégico...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gabriel Torales Ayala. Lane F. Fargher.

This is an abstract from the "Landscapes: Archaeological, Historic, and Ethnographic Perspectives from the New World / Paisajes: Perspectivas arqueológicas, históricas y etnográficas desde el Nuevo Mundo" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Esta presentación resume los resultados de una investigación sobre la historia del paisaje de la costa noroccidental de Yucatán. A pesar de la evidencia arqueológica prehispánica, la información sobre las...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chantal Huckert.

La presentación se centra sobre figuras estelares de ojos emplumados, cruces, estrellas de tres o cinco puntas, y máscaras. Están pintadas y moldeadas en bajo relieve en la vestimenta y el cuerpo de representaciones humanas en barro que pertenecen a los tipos, rojo sobre crema, mayoide, sonriente y escultórico. Se identifican las variantes, procedentes de las culturas del centro de Veracruz, a la luz de formas análogas en las artes y los registros gráficos de Mesoamérica, referidos por los...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lori Phillips. Erin Thornton. Eleanor Harrison-Buck.

Reconstructions of ancient Maya animal use often emphasize the importance of terrestrial species, such as deer, to the overall diet. While these species played an important role, much less attention has been paid to the use of aquatic resources despite the presence of resource rich perennial wetlands in the Maya lowlands. To further understand this crucial area of the Maya-environment relationship, we investigated the site of Chulub located in the Western Lagoon Wetlands of Belize. This site...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Olivia Ellis. John P. Walden. Kyle Shaw-Müller. Claire E. Ebert. Julie A. Hoggarth.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Traditional anthropological perspectives depict feasting events as a way of promoting social cohesion, as well as reinforcing inequalities. As described by Spanish observers, Postclassic and Colonial (~AD 1280-1600) Maya elites hosted elaborate feasts to reward their followers’ loyalty. Similar events are shown on polychrome pottery, depicting Classic Maya...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Adrian Chase.

Ancient Maya cities possessed a unique urban form characterized by two factors: mixed agricultural land use within residential areas and dispersed households consisting of extended family groups. These two factors contributed to the low-density nature of Maya cities, and conditioned urban form and the structure of neighborhoods and districts. The requirements of top-down administration resulted in the creation of districts to delineate areas of provisioning for the city’s urban services....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Morgan McKenna. Gabriel Wrobel. Amy Michael. Amy Commendador. Patricia McAnany.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A stable isotope based dietary study, coupled with previously collected zooarchaeological and botanical data, expands our understanding of ancient Maya dietary variation in the Late and Terminal Classic periods in the Sibun River Valley of central Belize. A food web was created based on the analysis of stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios in plants and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bradley Russell. Stanley Serafin. Eunice Uc Gonzalez. Carlos Peraza Lope.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. With support from The National Geographic Society and The Waitt Foundation, the Mayapán Taboo Cenote Project conducted investigations at Cenote Sac Uayum, a sacred, water-bearing sinkhole located at the Postclassic Maya political capital of Mayapán, Yucatán, Mexico (AD 1150-1450). The work brought together an international collaboration of researchers from the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stanislava Romih.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The BVAR project has been investigating peri-abandonment deposits, also known as problematic or terminal deposits, at sites located along the Belize River in Western Belize. These investigations have focused on understanding the formation of such deposits as well as their significance across sites in the Belize Valley region. The project has employed a new...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stanislava Romih. Rafael A. Guerra.

The BVAR project recently renewed its investigations of peri-abandonment deposits at several sites along the Belize River in Western Belize. Also referred to as de facto refuse and problematic or sheet-like deposits, these cultural remains are predominantly recovered in palace rooms and courtyards in site cores across the Maya lowlands. The purpose of the BVAR investigations is to better understand the formation of such deposits as well as their temporal and spatial significance across sites in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Zachary Nissen.

This is an abstract from the "Households at Aventura: Life and Community Longevity at an Ancient Maya City" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cities are locations of diverse human interaction where persons from different families and social affiliations can gather, exchange goods, and participate in community events. However, the management of these diverse interactions and activities requires social and political systems that do not value the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Arianna Campiani.

This is an abstract from the "The Urban Question: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Investigating the Ancient Mesoamerican City" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper I will explore the extent of planning and its social dimension at the ancient Maya city of Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico. Between the seventh and ninth centuries, during the Classic period, the plateau where Palenque is located was extensively modified resulting in a prosperous,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Mixter.

This paper begins with a question: What does it mean to live amongst ruins? The literature on ancient Maya urbanism focuses to a large extent on how urban spaces are arranged and what this says about social and political organization. However, the long occupations of many Maya centers resulted in urban centers that reflect a palimpsest of decision-making over centuries rather than a single grand plan. Indeed, evidence at many Maya sites suggests that urban plans were reworked as buildings were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Melissa Burham.

This is an abstract from the "Preclassic Maya Social Transformations along the Usumacinta: Views from Ceibal and Aguada Fénix" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Excavations and geospatial analyses of outlying residential settlement at Ceibal, Guatemala, shed light on the relationships between ritual and urbanization during the Preclassic period. The site epicenter, which consists of an E-Group assemblage carved out of bedrock, was established around...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Barry Kidder. Jacob Welch. Scott Hutson. Shannon Plank.

Often overshadowed by the splendor of massive monumentality to the south, Late Preclassic life in the Northern Maya Lowlands is a period of material and social experimentation, a balancing act between emerging social differentiation and an ideology of communal integration. During the latter half of this period, the secondary site of Ucanha in Yucatán was physically integrated into a micropolity via an 18-km long sacbe and experienced the creation of integrative civic spaces, a population apogee,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicaela Cartagena. Sheldon Skaggs. Terry Powis.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeological site of Pacbitun is located in west central Belize between the ecozones of the Belize River Valley and the Mountain Pine Ridge. The ancient Maya occupied the site from the beginning of the Middle Preclassic (900 – 300 BC) and continuing through the Terminal Classic (AD 800-900). The use of geographic information systems (GIS) is becoming...