Chiapas (State / Territory) (Geographic Keyword)
1-25 (92 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The primary serving vessel at the sixteenth-century Spanish colonial site of Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador, is an indigenously produced brimmed plate made in the form of Italianate majolica. These vessels were produced in a Mesoamerican technological tradition and were painted with a modified version of designs found on pre-Hispanic Pipil pottery in southeastern...
Acoustic Effects at Las Cuevas Cave (Western Belize): An Archaeoacoustic Analysis of a Maya Cave (2018)
The site of Las Cuevas (western Belize) has been identified as a mid-sized, Late Classic ceremonial and administrative center. Interestingly, given the importance of caves in Maya religion, the underneath part of the site has a large cave system. Research so far on this cave has focused on aspects that are common in cave archaeology: 1/ structures - in this case on the one hand the series of platforms built around a central, sunk cenote and on the other the walls subdiving the narrow part of...
Alligators, Serpents, Pirates, and a Wedding: Ritualized Political Landscapes of the Oaxacan Pacific Coast, Mexico (2018)
Straddling maritime, lowlands, and highland environments, the neighboring Chontal and Huave ethnic groups occupy one of the most diverse landscapes in southern Mexico. For over five centuries this resource-rich territory served as a junction for Indigenous and European colonial encounters, where interethnic and intercontinental political alliances and conflicts came forcefully into play. In addition to leaving material remains scattered throughout the landscape, this political history was...
Ancient Obsidian Trade in Campeche, Mexico (2023)
This is an abstract from the "A Session in Memory of William J. Folan: Cities, Settlement, and Climate" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Those of us who were fortunate enough to work with Willie Folan all know that he was generous to a fault. I was invited first to study obsidian artifacts excavated by his team at the great Preclassic to Classic Maya city of Calakmul, and then to continue that work with later projects, including Postclassic...
The Archaeology of Indigo Production in Morazán, El Salvador (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The production of indigo dye dominated the economy of El Salvador for over 250 years, from the late sixteenth century decline of the cacao and balsam industries to the mid-nineteenth-century rise of coffee production. The Proyecto del Inventario de los Sitios Arqueológicos del Departamento de Morazán documented five indigo works (obrajes de añil) in 2015 and...
Archaic Period Lifeways on the South Pacific Coast of Mexico (2018)
Insights concerning human lifeways during the Archaic Period on the South Pacific coast come principally from archaeological investigations in Chiapas and Guerrero. These data are supplemented by coring programs that permit independent reconstructions of human-plant interactions. We present an overview of what we know and what compelling questions remain.
Architectural Conservation at Cuetlajuchitlán, an Archaeological Site in Northern Guerrero, Mexico (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One of the most successful ways in which we adapt to the environment is through the creation of architecture. This is the reflection of our aspirations and our achievements as a species; it is in architecture where we capture part of our cultural identity. In this sense, and as part of cultural identity, architecture can help us to observe and analyze the...
Arqueología del agua y las montañas: paisaje y patrón de asentamiento en la costa este de Los Tuxtlas. (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Regional and Intensive Site Survey: Case Studies from Mesoamerica" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Desde el año 2008 arqueólogos de la Universidad Veracruzana han realizado el estudio sistemático del corredor costero que se encuentra en la parte noreste de Los Tuxtlas. Bajo cobertura total del terreno, se ha recorrido una extensión de 300 km2, desde la Laguna de Sontecomapan al norte, hasta la Laguna del Ostión al sur,...
Art, Archaeology, and Chronology Building: Recent Investigations at Fracción Mujular (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Located on the Pacific Coast of Chiapas, Mexico, the site of Fracción Mujular is best known for its corpus of carved stone monuments. First investigated by Carlos Navarrete in the 1960’s, the site is characterized by multiple stelae and carved altars. Several of Fracción Mujular’s stelae contain circular glyphs which seem to associate the site with the nearby...
Artisanal Diversification or “Multi-crafting” as Economic Strategy among Upper-Class Extra-household Groups at Cotzumalhuapa (2021)
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. Various contexts in the sector of El Baúl, at the site of Cotzumalhuapa have been the subject of recent excavations to better understand the lithic industries of this urban center. These sectors were chosen for excavation due to the large surface scatters of lithic material indicating areas...
The Beginning of a New Epoch: The Transition to Post-dynastic Life in Río Amarillo, Copán Valley, Honduras (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Pre-Columbian Cultures of Honduras after AD 900" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Contrary to what is reported for post-dynastic Copan, where evidence supports abandonment and reoccupation of the area by a new population, in the Río Amarillo area of the eastern section of the Copan Valley ceramic evidence supports a continual occupation that clearly displays an overlap of types and modes from both Late Classic and...
Bonampak
Photos 1336-1344
Caminos a Los Horcones, Chiapas: An Least Cost Path Analysis of Early Classic Trade Routes (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the Early Classic Period (250-600 CE), the site of Los Horcones rose to become and important gateway community sitting strategically on the flanks of Cerro Bernal where it controlled the terrestrial trade route along Pacific Coast into the Soconusco region. Archaeological research of this important regional center has revealed a complex history of...
Cash Potting in Soconusco: The Case of Tohil Plumbate (2018)
Tohil Plumbate, defined by distinctive technology and distinctive decorative style, is found throughout Mesoamerica, with peak frequencies in the central and western highlands of Guatemala and strong representation at Terminal Classic Maya centers like Chichen Itza. INAA-based source determination and recent fieldwork link the technology to the Pacific coastal zone of eastern Soconusco, near the Chiapas-Guatemala border. Curiously, however, key stylistic features, especially effigies and fancy,...
The Cave and the Cross: Agricultural Subsistence, Rainfall Prediction, and Ritual in the Sixteenth-Century Mixteca-Puebla Region (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Subterranean in Mesoamerican Cultural Landscapes" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The inhabitants across the Northern Mixteca and the drier sectors of the Tehuacan Valley developed technological innovations to counter the effects of recurrent drought on subsistence. Among measures implemented to conserve soil and water there are terraces, dams, reservoirs, and canals, as well as seed selection and cultivation...
Ceramic Evidence of Normal and Anomalous Diffusion from Mesoamerica into Northwest Nicaragua (2018)
The ceramic record of Pacific Nicaragua can be interpreted as showing evidence of migration in the form of both normal and anomalous diffusion. Normal diffusion is seen in the Department of Chinandega through the ceramics of the early facet of the Late Preclassic Cosigüina complex, which derive from the Providencia Sphere. This ceramic sphere originates from the southern highlands of Guatemala and western El Salvador and now extends at least to northwest Nicaragua. The evidence of superdiffusion...
Cerro Coroban: A Contact Period Lenca Site in Eastern 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. The Coroban site, located on a highly-defensible summit in Morazán, El Salvador, was occupied by the Poton Lenca. The Lenca inhabited most of eastern El Salvador and western and central Honduras during the early sixteenth century Spanish Conquest. They spoke two or more languages with multiple dialects and belonged to distinct, albeit related, cultures. The...
Changes in Settlement, Resource Extraction, and Trade in the Lower Río Verde Valley, Oaxaca, Mexico, between the Late Classic and Late Postclassic Periods (CE 500–1522) (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Cholula to Chachoapan: Celebrating the Career of Michael Lind" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Michael Lind investigated major sociopolitical changes between the Late Classic and Postclassic periods in Oaxaca, particularly involving Mixtec and Zapotec peoples. His interpretations integrated both ethnohistorical and archaeological evidence. In the lower Río Verde Valley, an ethnohistoric record provides insight into the...
Classic through Postclassic in El Salvador (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Postclassic Mesoamerica: The View from the Southern Frontier" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Beginning with the first formal archaeological studies nearly a century ago, findings in the territory of El Salvador have been recognized as attesting to the establishment of Nahua migrants. This has commonly been interpreted, in conjunction with ethnohistoric accounts, as resulting from a single episode of what has been...
Complementary Economic Specialization in an Emerging Decentralized Exchange System: A Case from the Late Classic Naco Valley, Honduras (2018)
This paper describes the reuse of a small structure at Late Classic (CE 600-900) Site 426 in the Naco Valley, northwest Honduras. The structure shows evidence of being converted from residential use to firing ceramic vessels. The current interpretation of the structure’s reuse is that it emerged as a center of ceramic manufacture as power waned at La Sierra, the valley’s previous political capital. In this context, Site 426’s residents, along with their immediate neighbors, sought some...
Cotzumalguapa's Lithic Industry: Procurement, Production, and Distribution of Obsidian Artifacts of a Late Classic Mesoamerican Polity (2018)
Procurement, production, and distribution of raw materials loom large in discussions of prehistoric economies. Over the past three decades surface survey and excavations in and around the Late Classic polity of Cotzumalguapa revealed the presence of several obsidian dumps, the result of a large-scale lithic industry. These deposits contain production debitage from most phases of blade-core reduction but no nodules and relatively very little cortex, suggesting that obsidian came into...
The Cult of Xochipilli (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Flower World: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Xochipilli, the Flower Prince, was widely revered through various manifestations as the patron god of the noble classes throughout southern Mexico. As such he was credited with patronage over palaces, royal marriages, feasts, wealth finance, and belief in an exclusive elite afterlife and...
The Curious Pacific Coast Distribution of Tightly Wrapped Bundle Burials in the Middle Formative (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Coastal Connections: Pacific Coastal Links from Mexico to Ecuador" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Highly unusual tightly wrapped bundle burials of previously cleaned and carefully arranged disarticulated human bones dating to the Middle Formative have been discovered by archaeologists at three sites in western Jalisco, Mexico, one site on the Pacific coastal plain in far northern Sinaloa, Mexico and eroding out of the...
Early Postclassic Copper Objects from the Lower Rio Verde Valley, Oaxaca, Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Some of the earliest examples of metallurgy in Mesoamerica come from sites in the West Mexican region where metalworking, especially of copper objects, was introduced by Ecuadorian traders in the 600s-700s C.E. The recent discovery of copper items including bells and hammered copper sheets from Early Postclassic contexts (800-1100 C.E.) in the Lower Rio Verde...
Evaluating Prehistoric Migration in Pacific Coastal Nicaragua through the Analysis of Strontium Isotope Ratios (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Strontium isotopes are increasingly used to infer migration amongst ancient populations. The 87Sr/86Sr ratio in tooth enamel is primarily influenced by the underlying geology of the region where an individual resided during tooth formation in childhood or adolescence. Older geological formations tend to present a higher 87Sr/86Sr ratio, while lower ratios...