Chiapas (State / Territory) (Geographic Keyword)
26-50 (116 Records)
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...
Evidence of Maya Metalworking from Mensabak, Chiapas, Mexico (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Archaeological Investigations in Chiapas, Mexico" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Evidence of precolumbian Maya metallurgy is increasingly coming to light with numerous finds occurring in the Guatemalan highlands and the northern part of the Yucatan peninsula. In this paper, we present new evidence of Maya metallurgy from the Mensabak region of Chiapas, Mexico, that dates to the Late Postclassic / early Spanish...
Evidencias arqueológicas del “ika” tojolabal, una tradición ancestral (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Heat, Steam, and Health: The Archaeology of the Mesoamerican Pib Naah (Sweat Baths)" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. La ceremonia del temascal, el baño ritual prehispánico, está presente desde épocas remotas en muchos sitios arqueológicos de Mesoamérica hasta la actualidad. Para la etnia tojolabal es de gran importancia terapéutica relacionada con la salud del grupo familiar que habita en la casa, en especial la...
Feline Pedestal Sculptures, Cacao, and the Late Formative Landscape of Mesoamerica (2018)
Pedestal sculptures featuring supernatural felines with cacao drupes projecting from their foreheads dotted the Late Formative landscape of the Pacific slope and adjacent Guatemalan Highlands. In this paper we consider the implications of the replication of this sculptural form, its role in articulating an elite agenda linked to the production of cacao, and its pertinence to sites of varying scale and relative regional authority. A similar suite of meanings engaged with cacao and supernatural...
Flower Worlds of the Pacific Coast (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. One of the richest repertoires of Mesoamerican flower imagery comes from the Pacific coast of Guatemala. In this paper, I trace the temporal variations in religious beliefs and imagery related to portentous places of beauty known that modern scholars designated as "flower worlds." Lush...
Foreign Intimacies: Terminal Classic Shells, Novel Identities, and Gathered Elites (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Movement of People and Ideas in Eastern Mesoamerica during the Ninth and Tenth Centuries CE: A Multidisciplinary Approach Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For close to a century, a remarkable set of shells have been found archaeologically across the Maya region and beyond. Most likely shaped and incised in a single workshop, they present a decided paradox, depicting specific warriors and elites yet, on these...
Formative Ceramic and Obsidian Transitions at Salinas La Blanca (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Salinas La Blanca, located within the coastal estuary of the Soconusco region of Guatemala, was occupied from the Early to Middle Formative periods. This was a period of considerable cultural change, as Olmec influence on the Pacific Coast waned and regional centers developed more centralized power. This paper presents the results of a chemical compositional...
Formative Period Mesoamerican Cities and Low Density Urbanism (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Theorizing Prehistoric Large Low-Density Settlements beyond Urbanism and Other Conventional Classificatory Conventions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mesoamerica is one of only a handful of places in the ancient world where first-generation cities developed independently, and the lowland Maya cities of the Classic period are frequently cited as prime examples of low-density urbanism. Scholars now recognize that the...
Frayed at the Edges: Insights into Classic Period (250–900 CE) Maya Political Organization from the Southeast Maya Kingdom of Copan, Honduras (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Regimes of the Ancient Maya" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While ongoing research has clarified much about the strategies Classic period (250–900 CE) Maya rulers used to establish, integrate, and administer their Lowland Maya kingdoms, studies of frontier zones, such as the southeast edge of the Maya area, both provide insights into Maya political organization and highlight local challenges not faced by rulers in the...
From One Jar, Many Selves (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Ceramics and Archaeological Sciences 2024" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Red-on-Natural jars, characterized by nearly identical forms and decorations, were used by people of all ranks who lived in the adjoining Naco, middle Chamelecon, and lower Cacaulapa valleys of northwest Honduras from CE 600–1000. These vessels’ ubiquity suggests that those who used them participated in a community of practice that transcended...
Full-Coverage Survey in the Lower Río Verde Valley, Oaxaca, Mexico: Broad-Scale Insights on Human-Environment Relations (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. Regional survey in the lower Río Verde Valley, Oaxaca, Mexico has been ongoing since 1994. Our full-coverage approach resulted in extensive spatial coverage (224 km2) spanning the valley’s major physiographic zones (e.g., floodplain, piedmont, etc.). The coarse-grained data produced via this methodology is ideal for...
Geochemistry and Provenance of Late Formative Pottery from Chinandega, Nicaragua (2023)
This is an abstract from the "2023 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Timothy Beach Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We describe the Cosigüina ceramic complex from the coastal plain of the Department of Chinandega, Nicaragua. It dates from the Late Formative. We assign it stylistically to the Providencia-Miraflores ceramic spheres of western El Salvador and southeastern Guatemala. We used instrumental neutron activation analysis to...
Going Up, Coming Down: Ruins, Verticality, and Time in the Postclassic Mixteca (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Vibrancy of Ruins: Ruination Studies in Ancient Mesoamerica" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For peoples of the Postclassic Mixtec highlands, ruins of earlier civilizations were often found on mountaintops outside some of the most politically prominent communities in the region. These ruined hilltop sites came to be viewed as places of primordial origin and were sites of religious pilgrimage. In this paper, drawing...
Holocene Vegetation Changes and Fuel Use in the Honduran Highlands: The Anthracological Sequence of El Gigante Rockshelter (11,000–1000 BP) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Holocene pollen sequences have highlighted several episodes of vegetation opening in Central America since the Archaic period, which have often been related to the dispersal of nomadic slash-and-burn agriculturalists from the Central Mexican Highlands. However, few archaeobotanical data from archaeological sites have been available to date to examine...
In the Realm of Three Hills: Civic-Religious Architecture at Llano Grande, Copan, during the Late Classic Period (ca. AD 650–850) (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Mountains, Rain, and Techniques of Governance in Mesoamerica" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Copan Valley, located in western Honduras, has been inhabited by permanent communities since the Early Formative period (ca. 1400 BC). These early communities developed a lifestyle based on milpa agriculture, which continues today with the Ch'ortí Maya, the linguistic group that is the descendants of the ancient Copanecos....
Is the Study of Ancient Money Really So Difficult? (2018)
The difficulty that many economists and anthropologists have with studying ancient money lies with inadequate understanding of modern monetary systems. I briefly review the establishment of two currencies: the British pound in the 18th century and the US dollar in the 19th and why the establishment both currencies were political (not economic) constructs. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) economists analyze the current fiat currencies as political constructs and David Graber’s Debt: The First 5000...
Ixtepeque Obsidian and the Polity: a Network and Boundary Approach in Southeastern Mesoamerica (2019)
This is an abstract from the "I Love Sherds and Parasites: A Festschrift in Honor of Pat Urban and Ed Schortman" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Edward Schortman and Patricia Urban (2012) borrow theoretical approaches from Bruno Latour (1996), Giddens (1984), and Bourdieu (1977) to highlight networks of shared inter-elite interaction in southeastern Mesoamerica that interpenetrate ethnic and political boundaries. The following paper builds upon...
Izapa
Photos 2439-2456
Jade, Scepters, and Seats of Power: Symbols of Authority on the Central American Coast, 300 BC-AD 300 (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. This paper documents a widespread shift during the period from 300 BC-AD 300 toward symbolism associated with authority and rulership along the Pacific coast, throughout the region spanning between southern Chiapas and the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica. During this period, several notable changes in burial patterns,...
La excavación monumental en Yaxchilán e Iglesia Vieja, Chiapas, México (2019)
This is an abstract from the "La Restauración de Monumentos Prehispánicos en México: Principios, Práctica, y Visión al Futuro" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. La liberación por el medio de excavación y consolidación de los monumentos prehispánicos tiene una larga historia en la arqueología mexicana. Los métodos de las excavaciones de los conjuntos arquitectónicos de los sitios arqueológicos a cual definimos como la excavación monumental....
Landfalls, Sunbursts, and the Capacha Problem: The Case for a Pacific Coastal Interaction Community in Early Formative Period Mesoamerica (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. In the 1960s, Ford argued that the first Pacific coastal Mexican pottery should more closely resemble that of northern South America than of early highland Mexican wares of the Tehuacán tradition. In the 1970s and 1980s, Kelly argued that Colima’s Capacha phase represented one of several "landfalls" of technological and...
Landscape and settlements in Cuscatlán, El Salvador (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Several explorations were carried out in Cuscatlán (Amaroli 1986; Amaroli 1992; Velázquez & Hermes 1995; Barrera 2018; Arevalo 2018), where the Metropolitan Area of San Salvador (AMSS), El Salvador, now stands, including explorations resulting from archaeological rescues and projects based on the model of preventive archaeology (Bozoki-Ernyey 2007) along...
"Les Niveaux Céramiques au Honduras" Revisited: The Gulf of Fonseca in Regional Context (2018)
In 1966, Claude Baudez published a first attempt to compare ceramic typologies between different archeological areas of Honduras, published as Les niveaux céramiques au Honduras: une reconsidération de l'évolution culturelle (Baudez 1966). This article encompassed his research in the Gulf of Fonseca, where he spent a field season surveying and excavating sites in 1964-65. Fifty-three years later, this article still constitutes one of the most extensive descriptions of the ceramic assemblage of...