Central America and Northern South America (Geographic Keyword)

26-50 (158 Records)

Communities of Practice and Panamanian Majolica Production (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Ana Navas-Méndez. Daniel Pierce. Mary Ownby. Brandi MacDonald. Michael D. Glascock.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper deals with the production of Panamanian majolica in comparison with other colonial ceramics. Chemical and mineralogical characterization show the use of a distinctive recipe for the production of this colonial ware. These results are consistent with previous interpretations that imply the community of potters controlled the production of the...


Community Complexity and Collapse: A Settlement Analysis of the Ancient Maya Site Contreras Valley, Belize (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathleen Forward.

The city-state of Minanha, located in west central Belize, reached its zenith and most culturally complex stage by the Late Classic period, 675-810 AD. Only a century later, its royal court had "collapsed". Contreras Valley is a small farming community in the settlement region of Minanha. Decades of research at Minanha and the analysis of artifact frequencies from commoner households allows for a better understanding of the the intra- and inter-community social practices occurring at the site of...


Complexity during the Aguas Buenas Period of Greater Chiriquí: Initial Comparisons between El Cholo, Cantarero, and Pejeperro Sites, Southern Costa Rica (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Roberto Herrera. Francisco Corrales.

This is an abstract from the "Advances and New Perspectives in the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The development of precontact social hierarchy in southern Central America is a subject open to debate. For the Aguas Buenas period (300 BC–AD 800) of the Greater Chiriquí archaeological region, new data at the regional level (Costa Rica, Panama) indicate the appearance of centers with architectural complexity after AD 400. This...


Compositional and Technological Analysis of Panamanian Colonial Utilitarian Wares (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Ana Navas.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In Panama, as in other regions of the Caribbean and Latin America, several archaeologists have reported the presence of colonial utilitarian wares, also known as Colono-Indian ware, creole ware, and coarse hand-made earthenware. Previous research on this ware focuses on refining the typologies and identifying traits that could be related to African, Spanish,...


Connecting archaeology and ecology in northwest Belize (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicholas Brokaw. Sheila Ward.

This is an abstract from the "Ancient Maya Landscapes in Northwestern Belize, Part I" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Some archaeologists believe that a key to the success of ancient Maya civilization was sophisticated tailoring of agriculture and forestry to varied environments. Some archaeologists and ecologists also think that ancient forestry is reflected in the tree species composition of modern forests. Based on studies in northwest Belize we...


Continuity and Change in Chiriquí Period Village Organization (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only R. Jeffrey Frost.

Chiriquí Period (700-1500 CE) archaeological sites have been the subject of systematic scientific research for more than 50 years. However, archaeologists are only recently beginning to define and understand regional and temporal variations in artistic styles, settlement patterns, and village organization.  In this paper, I summarize emerging patterns in village placement, cemetery organization, and the construction of public space. Continuities in the elements of constructed spaces, such as the...


Crafting and Trading along the Banks of the Telica: Artisan Communities and Regional Interaction in Eastern Honduras and Beyond (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Virginia Ochoa-Winemiller.

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. This paper focuses on the regional role that two artisan communities, Chichicaste and Dos Quebradas, played as producers of pottery and obsidian blades within regional exchange networks. Chichicaste pottery has been recovered from many Honduran sites as well as from El Salvador and northern Nicaragua. The wide distribution of...


Crafting Process and Usage of "Axe-God" Jade Pendants in Pre-Columbian Costa Rica (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Waka Kuboyama.

The "axe-god" jade pendants form the majority of Costa Rican jade artifacts. These pendants were valued for their "celt like shape" and did not function as real axes. Interestingly, some pendants do have abrasions on their axe edges. Because of that, it has been proposed that prior to being reworked into a corporal accessory, some of these pendants had been used as real axes or other tools. The "axe-god" pendants consist of two parts; the superior part with decoration of human or animals, and...


A Cross-Comparative Study of Problematic Deposits from M13-1 at El Perú Waka’ and the North Acropolis at Tikal (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Hannah Bauer. Olivia Navarro-Farr.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological research on problematic deposits has provided a generic category for otherwise unexplainable bodies of evidence for ritual activity. This research focuses on data from two similarly constituted problematic deposits in the Maya area, one very well known from the North Acropolis at Tikal, and one lesser known from civic ceremonial structure M13-1...


Cueva Nordensjkold, Ultima Esperanza, Chile: A Late Pleistocene Faunal Assemblage (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Fabiana María Martin. Francisco Juan Prevosti. Luis Alberto Borrero.

Cueva Nordensjkold is a cave located in the Cerro Benitez, at Ultima Esperanza, Chile, above 150 masl, and accordingly beyond the highest stand of the Late Glacial Consuelo paleolake. The study of its Late Pleistocene faunal remains -Mylodontinae, Hippidion saldiasi, Camelidae, Panthera onca mesembrina and a large undetermined carnivore- is crucial for the understanding of the process of biological colonization of the Cerro Benitez area, where ephemeral Late Pleistocene human occupations were...


Cultural and Economic Interaction at Postclassic Guadalupe, Northeast Honduras (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Franziska Fecher. Markus Reindel. Peter Fux.

The Postclassic settlement of Guadalupe is located on the northeastern coast of Honduras, near Trujillo. With its location inside the interaction sphere between Mesoamerica, Lower Central America and the Caribbean, it lies within a culturally dynamic region that has received influences from various areas during different times. With respect to the Postclassic period, it has been demonstrated that access and distribution patterns of resources and goods changed and new networks of interaction...


Defensive Landscape and the Naturalization of Social Inequalities in Southwestern Colombia (2200–1800 BP) (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Hernando Giraldo Tenorio.

The prehispanic societies from the Cauca river Valley, Colombia, have been portrayed as classical examples of the development of political complexity caused by intergroup conflict for basic resources in constrained environments. However, the existence of warfare in the region itself has not been backed by strong archaeological evidence. The re-analysis of the earth structures of the archaeological site of Malagana, in southwestern Colombia, suggest the existence of regional warfare, which...


Domestication of the Cochineal (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Lauren Clark. Meradeth Snow. Mark MacKenzie.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Identifying the specifics of location and time of the cultivation and domestication of the cochineal beetle (Dactylopius coccus) in the New World has eluded archaeologists and ecologists for decades. The cochineal’s production of red dye from its rich storage of carminic acid has made this insect a notable element in the lives of pre-contact Mesoamerican and...


Economy, Exchange, and Power at Lomas Entierros, Central Pacific Costa Rica (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Yajaira Núñez Cortés.

This is an abstract from the "Advances and New Perspectives in the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Lomas Entierros is a primary center in Central Pacific Costa Rica, characterized by the presence of monumental architecture on top of a defensible hill, and the circulation of important amounts of imported ceramics. The architectural system combined elevated half-moon terraces with cobblestone walls, foundations, slopes with...


The Effects of ENSO on Travel along the Pacific Coast of the Americas (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard Callaghan. Alvaro Montenegro. Scott Fitzpatrick.

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. For decades, prehistoric contacts have been suggested between Ecuador and western Mexico, occurring from 400 BC, if not earlier, to the sixteenth century based on similarities in mortuary behaviors, ceramic technology, language, and ethnohistoric accounts, and other lines of evidence. However, the frequency of these...


El Diablo Rojo: An Olmec Rock Painting in Amatitlán, Guatemala (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Edgar Carpio.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Known as "The Red Devil" or the "Muñeco", a rock painting in Olmec style, located in the municipality of Amatitlán, department of Guatemala. This was reported at the end of the 70s of the last century and has been visited on numerous occasions by various specialists. In this paper we will present a synthesis of its discovery and the investigations carried out,...


El Gran Chiriquí desde Veraguas: dinámicas fronterizas y definición subregional (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Carlos Fitzgerald-Bernal.

Se presenta una re-evaluación de la frontera oriental del Gran Chiriquí y su relación con la sub-región de Veraguas del Gran Coclé en Panamá Central. A partir de hallazgos recientes de petrograbados en el sur de Veraguas y una revisión de la literatura, se reconocen las limitantes inherentes a una definición estática de fronteras culturales y se analiza la "chiricanidad" de la cultura material veragüense como ejemplo de las dinámicas históricas en la conformación de entidades regionales. Se...


El sitio arqueológico de Barrigón. Un cementerio precolombino del Gran Chiriqui (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Alvaro Brizuela Casimir. Gloria Biffano Marcial.

We present a review of the data obtained during the "Proyecto de Rescate Arqueológico Estí (PRAE)" that took place between 2000-2003 in the context of the environmental mitigations of the Estí hydroelectric project; and with special attention to the Barrigón site. Barrigón is a cemetery site from prehispanic times localized near to the Gualaca city in Chiriqui province (Panamá). This kind of "necropolis" was placed in the flat top of a little hill a few meters from the Barrigón river. We...


Entre Mesoamérica y el Área Intermedia, Patrón de Asentamiento Arqueológico en la Costa Nororiental de Honduras (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Oscar Neill.

La zona nororiental de Honduras en la época prehispánica, y su interacción con Mesoamérica al oeste, ha sido poco abordada. El patrón de asentamiento regional así como interno de cada sitio es igual poco conocido y muchas veces confundido con el área vecina al este. Los reconocimientos de superficie en esta década nos han brindado resultados preliminares sobre el patrón de asentamiento regional y de sitio de la costa nororiental, concretamente en la Cuenca del Río Cangrejal, el Bajo Aguan en el...


Evaluating Precolumbian Contact between Ecuador and Costa Rica: A Ceramic Approach (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Maria Masucci. John Hoopes.

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. Archaeologists have long noted similarities in ceramic technologies and traditions between Costa Rica and Ecuador. These are relevant for models of culture change, whether the result of direct interactions or parallel cultural processes in the emergence of social complexity. We test the alternatives of direct,...


Excavations at the City of the Jaguar (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Rodrigo Solinis-Casparius. Christopher T. Fisher. Anna Cohen. Juan C. Fernandez Diaz. Jason Bush.

The Mosquitia ecosystem of NE Honduras is a critical region for understanding past patterns of socio-political development and interaction between Mesoamerica and Central America. Caches of ground stone and other objects have long been noted for the region but have never before been systematically examined. Here we report on the recent partial excavation and consolidation of one of these deposits from the newly documented city of the Jaguar, Gracias a Dios, Honduras, constituting a deposit of...


Exploring Mobility and Multi-Directional Lifeways in Pre-Columbian Central America (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Frederick Lange.

To paraphrase the symposium organizers, for decades changes in the pre-Columbian material culture of Central America were attributed to either migration or conquest. When I began archaeological research in Costa Rica in 1969 the endless debate was about Mesoamerican influence. Technological and iconographic linkages were frequently cited, but rarely were the mechanisms of the proposed linkages adequately defined or demonstrated archaeologically. In 2008, perhaps unduly influenced by having moved...


Exploring the Social and Political Dynamics of Power Centers in Central Pacific Costa Rica (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Yajaira Núñez-Cortés. Francisco Corrales-Ulloa.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Central Pacific region is one of the least explored areas of Costa Rican archaeology. Recent research conducted at Lomas Entierros and Sardinal sites allow us to contribute to the understanding of the history of occupation in the area, but also to consider the emergence, occupation and abandonment of prominent political centers inhabited during AD...


Exploring trends in mortuary behavior among the ancient Maya of northwestern Belize (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Stacy Drake.

This is an abstract from the "Ancient Maya Landscapes in Northwestern Belize, Part I" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Studies of ancient Maya mortuary patterns have asserted that Maya burials do not adhere to a singular mortuary pattern (Ashmore and Geller 2005, Fitzsimmons 2009, Geller 2004, Ruz Lhuillier 1965, Welsh 1988). However, many of these same studies also suggest that a review of data specific to certain contexts (inter-site, time period,...


Expressions of Ideology and the Consolidation of Social Complexity through Jade and Jadeite Material Culture in Precolumbian Costa Rica (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Kim Ruf.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Using Costa Rican precolumbian jade, jadeite, and greenstone artifacts from the collections of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography, this study aims to amplify and widen the range of research carried out on the Isthmo-Colombian Area. It particularly seeks to examine and discuss the role of those objects as indicators of rank and prestige as...