Central America and Northern South America (Geographic Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Guderjan. Colleen Hanratty.

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. Lidar data from the 2016 survey and subsequent ground truthing and fieldwork in the settlement zone of the site of Xnoha have revealed a complex system of Linear Stone Boundary Markers surrounding house lots in residential areas surrounding the central precinct of the site. These are located on the tops of hills...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alejandra Roche Recinos. Javier Estrada.

Analysis of the production of imported lithic artifacts, especially obsidian and jade, has been important to recent research on the economic organization of the lowland Maya. However, the data for lithic production has come from a few key sites with clear evidence of workshops devoted to the working of such materials. Less attention has been dedicated to the diversity of obsidian and jade working within individual sites, much less across a given kingdom. This paper presents preliminary evidence...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Francisco Corrales-Ulloa.

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. The location of the Greater Chiriquí archeological region in southern Central America and the available and valuable resources in it (gold, coastal resources) were favorable for the emergence of a complex society that interacted with long-distance contacts for the acquisition of exotic goods. I highlight several places...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carmen Julia Fajardo.

En el marco de los estudios necesarios para obtener la licencia ambiental del Proyecto Hidroeléctrico Represa Patuca III se llevó a cabo el estudio arqueológico del área en donde se iban a realizar actividades de construcción de infraestructura. Se desarrolló el reconocimiento y prospección arqueológica sin pozos de prueba en 2007 y 2012 en la zona de embalse del proyecto hasta la cuota de 287 metros de altitud y el trayecto de la línea de trasmisión. Éste se realizó por secciones en la primera...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Justin Lowry. Skelly Skolnick. Adam Benfer.

This is an abstract from the "Reconstructing the Political Organization of Pre-Columbian Nicaragua" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Settlement patterns within Central America can lead to a better understanding of the political and social complexity of the region. Although this method has been extensively used across archaeological regions, Nicaraguan archaeology can benefit from this settlement analysis because of the inclusion of a GIS-based...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Karen Bruhns.

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. In the Terminal Classic and Early Postclassic, Mesoamerican cultures underwent not only political turmoil but also a general renaissance in terms of material culture, including urban planning, architectural forms, ceramics (such as Tohil Plumbate), and the growth of truly international cults such as those of Tlaloc and Xipe...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sharisse McCafferty. Geoffrey McCafferty.

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. Colonial sources describe interaction between central Mexican groups and Central American cultures, including possible migration and colonization, during the Postclassic period (900–1520 CE). Linguistic and art historical evidence has been used to support and reify this connection. A 20-plus year archaeological program by the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Larry Steinbrenner.

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. The beautiful polychrome ceramics of Pacific Nicaragua’s Sapoá period (800–1300 CE) have long been touted as the southernmost manifestation of the Mixteca-Puebla phenomenon in lower Central America. Traditionally, these ceramics have been treated as de facto cultural markers of two independent migrant groups of Mesoamerican...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lorelei Platz.

Mobility, as it relates to censers, can be discussed on both large and small scales; it includes the movement of iconographic concepts, the physical objects, and the material or organics burned inside the censer. Censers styles fluctuate across pre-Columbian time due to a wide variety of reasons, though the purpose remains the same, which is to burn incense. The singular function of censers makes it an exemplary artefact class for the discussion of mobility across geographical and cultural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rachel Egan.

The Tilarán -Arenal region of Costa Rica is one of the most volcanically active regions in the world. Despite the inherent hazard, people have occupied this region since the Paleo-Indian period (7000 B.C.). Numerous studies have explored volcanic eruptions as forcing mechanism that lead to culture; however, starting with the advent of sedentary villages during the Tronodora phase (2000-500 B.C.) until the arrival of Spanish in the 16th century, people maintained relatively small-scale,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Adam Benfer.

This is an abstract from the "Modeling Mobility across Waterbodies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While rivers, lakes, lagoons, and estuaries were commonly navigated in prehistory, the only well-established methods for modeling aquatic human movement are restricted to the open sea. A small handful of researchers have proposed methods and/or attempted to simulate travel in rivers and lakes, but these methods have not been consolidated into a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Wake. Lana Martin. Tomas Mendizabal.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeological materials recovered from a central burial mound at Sitio Drago, Panama are diverse and include many well-preserved vertebrate and invertebrate faunal remains. I examine these materials in context with the artifacts recovered in direct association with four coral slab tombs located at the heart of the site and then compare the observed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Josefina Vasquez Pazmino.

This is an abstract from the "Living Landscapes: Disaster, Memory, and Change in Dynamic Environments " session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The oral tradition of the Chilla landscape distinguishes two main stories: the first one portrays the apparition of the Virgin Mary, and the second one narrates the Mayan origins of its inhabitants. However, Chilla is in El Oro province, where a monumental pyramid and other neighboring sites correspond to the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark Plew. Louisa Daggers.

This is an abstract from the "Archaeology on the Edge(s): Transitions, Boundaries, Changes, and Causes" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. To assess Holocene dietary changes we conducted isotopic analysis of human and faunal remains from seven shell mounds in Northwestern Guyana. We used stable carbon 13C and oxygen 18O isotope compositions data to assess the degree of dietary constancy as a proxy for determining the likelihood of there being any...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alejandro Figueroa.

The physical landscape of Honduras was and continues to be home to a diverse group of indigenous groups, each with distinct cultural traditions, artistic styles, and sociopolitical configurations. In prehistory, this landscape was imbued with cultural meaning in a variety of ways, from the monumental to the perishable. This paper presents and discusses what we know about the rock art of central and southern Honduras, which contains a variety of iconographic rock art styles within a very limited...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Payson Sheets.

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. Small sedentary villages were established by about 4,000 years ago in the Arenal area of Costa Rica. The egalitarian nature of internal organization continued until the Spanish conquest, with no evidence of significant inequality developing, socially, economically, religiously, or politically. However, they were subjected to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Zoe Rawski.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the last decade, the Mopan Valley Preclassic Project has extensively investigated the Preclassic ceremonial center of Early Xunantunich, Belize. These excavations have yielded significant information regarding the construction of monumental architecture during the Middle and Late Preclassic periods, as well as data regarding early ritual activities and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only María Martínez-Polanco. Florent Rivals.

This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances in Zooarchaeological Methods" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cervids in Neotropics played a vital role in precolumbian subsistence strategies. The study of deer remains from archaeological sites, particularly their teeth, as biomarkers offers information about their behavior, environment, feeding preferences, and important events in their life history and by extension to the human groups that could...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carly Pope.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For several thousand years before the arrival of Spanish explorers in 1502, Bocas del Toro, Panama, was home to numerous vibrant cultures. However, this area has seen only sporadic archaeological study over the past century. While surveys and excavations have revealed several multi-period settlements, with complex, multiphase ceramic assemblages, Bocas del...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Juan Fernandez Diaz. Anna Cohen. Christopher T. Fisher. Ramesh Shrestha. Alicia M. Gonzalez.

In response to the widespread destruction caused by Hurricane Mitch in 1998, the US Geological Survey conducted an extensive survey of 15 modern cities in Honduras. This 2000 survey was carried out by the Bureau of Economic Geology of the University of Texas, and the resultant data were used to generate flood risk maps. The survey also produced the first lidar data collection of a Maya site; however, in the early 2000s, lidar algorithms were not capable of performing the same tasks as today. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carlos Fitzgerald-Bernal. Alvaro Brizuela-Casimir. Freddy Rodriguez-Saza.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. New interpretations of Precolumbian Panamanian archaeological sequences and regions are provided. Results from ancient DNA (aDNA) analyses of remains from the site of Panamá Viejo, Panamá, are compared with a multiple burial found in the vicinity of La Pintada in Coclé, Panamá. The Panamá Viejo materials are classified as haplogroup A2 and include...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Scott Palumbo.

The Bolas region presents one of the earliest steps toward the monumentality and complex social patterns that characterize later World Heritage sites in Greater Chiriquí. The forces and factors associated with these social changes remain incompletely understood. This paper shares the results from recent shovel test survey in the Bolas region and offers observations on broad social trends from the Formative period onward. Particular attention is paid to Mosca, another large and monumental site in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Debora Trein. Thomas Hart.

Terrace construction for agriculture was integral to the survival and growth of ancient Maya centers in the Lowland Neotropics. Terraces supplied communities with food for consumption and trade, materials for construction and goods production, and plants of medicinal and ritual significance. Research into ancient Maya agricultural practices has been largely situated in wetlands contexts, known to be sites of extensive landscape modification for agricultural purposes. Nevertheless, terraces are...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sergio García Piedra.

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. El Museo del Jade y de la Cultura Precolombina del Instituto Nacional de Seguros, exhibe 2040 piezas arqueológicas de piedras verdes (*jades). A pesar de la limitada información contextual, posee un gran potencial para comprender la manufactura y uso de los colgantes de piedras verdes en Costa Rica. A partir de la última...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lindsay Powell. Zachary Hruby.

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. The rather diminutive site of Rio Amarillo, located to the north of the Copan city center, is well known as a subsidiary site that was somehow involved in the movement of goods between the Motagua and Copan Valleys. After the collapse of the Copan Dynasty, large civic-ceremonial structures were abandoned and the people that remained,...