Mesoamerica: Maya lowlands (Geographic Keyword)
201-225 (778 Records)
In the early 2000s, Mesoamerican archaeologists adopted the "dynamic" model of state organization, positing that political centralization strengthened and diminished over time. Such fluctuations are due primarily to the inherent tension between the institutions of kinship and kingship, and consequent struggle for power in political, economic, and religious spheres. I argue that the intermediate scale of the neighborhood is best suited for analyzing how local- and state-level power structures...
Dzibanché: The Capital of the Kaanul (Snake) Kingdom Seen through Lidar (2021)
This is an abstract from the "New Light on Dzibanché and on the Rise of the Snake Kingdom’s Hegemony in the Maya Lowlands" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dzibanché is an archaeological zone in southern Quintana Roo encompassing several large ceremonial complexes, Dzibanché, Tutil, Kinichna and Lamay connected by causeways. According to contemporary texts, it was the early capital of the Kaanul (Snake) kingdom with vast hegemonic influence across...
E-Groups and Classic Maya Ritual: Recent Investigations at Tz’unun, Belize (2019)
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. Maya E-groups served as foci of political and ritual practices from the Preclassic through Terminal Classic. In addition to the hallmark western pyramidal and eastern range structures, these groups are often populated by a number of ancillary structures. This paper details recent investigations of one such structure located at the...
Eagles, Falcons, and Vultures: The Birds on the Platform of the Eagles and Jaguars at Chichen Itza (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Animal Symbolism in Postclassic Mesoamerica: Papers in Honor of Cecelia Klein" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. All sixteen birds carved on the sides of the Platform of the Eagles and Jaguars at Chichen Itza have been traditionally identified as eagles. Because each pair of birds flanks a large relief of a seated jaguar holding a heart, it has been assumed in the past that the platform celebrated military orders like...
The Ear Ornaments of the Ancient Maya (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. More than mere accessories, the earflares that ancient Maya peoples donned were essential. Nothing indicates this more than the fact that their ornamental use was not limited ears; indeed, elite bodies dripped with them. Stelae from Tikal and Cobá depict rulers with long strings of them around their necks. Some earflares, as with an example from Pomona, are...
Early Political Changes in La Corona: Architecture and Function in the Palace Complex (2018)
Over the past decade, the La Corona Archeological Project has been investigating the site’s palace complex, focusing primarily on its final construction phases. The focus is common in lowland Maya archaeology because of the relative ease of conducting extensive excavations on terminal phase architecture. However, at La Corona, major tunneling efforts have also explored the earlier architectural phases of the palace. As a result, the project has identified three construction phases that date to...
Eccentric Production Techniques and Caching Practices at Xunantunich, Belize (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Ceremonial Lithics of Mesoamerica: New Understandings of Technology, Distribution, and Symbolism of Eccentrics and Ritual Caches in the Maya World and Beyond" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Though identified at sites throughout Mesoamerica and the Maya Lowlands, eccentric lithics remain poorly understood and understudied. These esoteric artifacts, however, are very important to understanding the ritual expression of...
The Economic Relationships of Epicentral and Peripheral Households at Piedras Negras, Guatemala. (2018)
More than half a century of archaeological and epigraphic research at Piedras Negras has produced one of the best understood epigraphic corpus in the Maya region and provided archaeologists with a plethora of information related to the nature of rulership, courtly life, and the regional political landscape of the Classic Period. Despite this work, questions persist about the economic structure of Piedras Negras households. Here we present the results of recent investigations undertaken at...
Economy and Sociopolitical Change at Classic Period Carcol, Belize (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Ancient Maya Embedded Economies" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Maya economic systems were neither static nor simplistic. Research at Caracol, Belize, has shown that the site’s Late Classic inhabitants received the bulk of their goods and services from markets that were embedded within the city. Whereas some researchers have postulated the existence of a dual economic system for the Maya in which quotidian and...
The Effects of Households and Labor Requirements on Intracommunity Boundary Formation, Settlement Choices, and Neighborhood Functions in Modern and Prehistoric Communities (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cooperation is essential to labor networks in low-density agricultural societies. Household or neighborhood heads must learn to identify, select, and monitor raw materials, and estimate harvest times and transport costs. In addition, kin related groups must nurture allegiances to attract and reciprocate for labor to build houses, farm, and for other communal...
El Achiotal in Context: Settlement and Geopolitics in the Northwest Peten, Guatemala (2018)
This paper presents research carried out by members of the Proyecto Regional Arqueologico La Corona at the site of El Achiotal since 2009, with emphasis on new findings since 2015. Occupation at the site spans the Late Preclassic and Early Classic periods (roughly the 1st to 5th Centuries AD, with the possibility of some earlier occupation). An inscribed stela discovered in 2015 provides critical insight into the geopolitics of the Early Classic period and establishes greater time-depth for some...
El entorno sociocultural en los parques arqueológicos de Mérida, Yucatán, México. (2019)
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. A partir de 1970, la expansión de Mérida, propició una demanda de proyectos a partir de rescates y salvamentos arqueológicos. Esto permitió demostrar la ocupación prehispánica por medio de monumentos arqueológicos restaurados en espacios destinados a infraestructura...
El esfuerzo multidisciplinario de Arqueólogos Sin Fronteras del Mundo Maya Propuesta de un Plan para el Desarrollo de la Arqueología (2019)
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. En esta presentación se plantean tres cosas: (1) las problemáticas que se relacionan con la disciplina arqueológica en la península de Yucatán; (2) los grupos y sectores que participan en la búsqueda de su solución; (3) las alternativas y soluciones asi como el...
El Jobillo Settlement Cluster: A Classic Maya Neighborhood? (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Some significant social and spatial units of organization and analysis include neighborhoods, wards and zones. These intermediate scale units are important to understand Maya social organization and integration, especially in dispersed or sparsely populated regions such as La Corona’s in northwest Petén, Guatemala. This paper assesses criteria regarding the...
El Modelo Portuario de México como modelo de Administración Arqueológica en México (2019)
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. En esta presentación realzamos la importancia que tienen los sitios arqueológicos de menor tamaño que yacen en ruinas, que por la falta del recurso y políticas del sector público representan un nicho de inversión para la iniciativa privada. De aquí que, la...
An Elite Household in the Late to Terminal Classic Periods at Aventura (2023)
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. This paper examines an elite household, Group 48, at the site of Aventura, Belize. Group 48 is located east and adjacent to Group C, one of the six adjoining plaza groups that form Aventura’s city center. It is also situated at the north end of an intersite causeway and adjacent and south of the proposed salt...
Elite Maya Social Identity at a Hinterland Community: The View from Medicinal Trail, NW Belize (2018)
Social identification is the perception of oneness with, or belongingness to, some human aggregate. The definition of others and self is largely relational and comparative. Archaeologists demonstrate Maya elite identity by comparing them to non-elites in terms of energy expenditure in burial preparation, house and platform construction, access to luxury items, and cranial and dental modifications. Although non-elites include some urban residents and all hinterland residents, this study proposes...
Embedded Ancient Maya Economies (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Ancient Maya Embedded Economies" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ancient economies are intertwined with aspects of the daily life of individuals in both market and premarket economies. To more fully understand these relationships, we must explore the ways in which economic actions are embedded and entangled within social, political, and religious practices. We briefly discuss the history of the term and how we utilize...
Emblems of Authority: A Comparison of Preclassic and Classic Maya Inscribed Jade Adornment (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In antiquity, the use of prestige objects and adornment made of jade was a key aspect of Maya elite life which carried over from the Preclassic to the Classic period. The establishment of jade indicating high social status has shown to have begun in Mesoamerica with the Olmec, however the scope of this dissertation will focus only on the 1,800-year span of...
Embodied Identities and Moving Bodies: The Archaeology and Bioarchaeology of Ninth-Century Cultural Contacts from the Perspective of K’anwitznal (Ucanal), Guatemala (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. Fifty years ago, Maya scholars argued that peoples from the Gulf Coast invaded and settled several sites in the Southern Maya Lowlands in the ninth century, including the site of Ucanal. These invasions were thought to have led to the collapse of Southern...
An Empirical Study of the Economy of the Classic Maya Regal Palace of La Corona, Guatemala (2018)
This paper reports on the final results of a multi-facetted study of the northern section of the regal palace of La Corona. This study sampled (n=328) both plaster and soil in three adjacent patios and adjoining middens. The plaster samples underwent a geochemical analysis (ICP-MS), while the soil samples underwent flotation analysis which recovered macro-botanical remains and micro-artifacts. These results were then combined to traditional artifactual data derived from five middens excavated...
Emplacing a Classic Maya Ritual: Locating Deity Impersonation through Space and Time (2023)
This is an abstract from the "A Celebration and Critical Assessment of "The Maya Scribe and His World" on its Fiftieth Anniversary" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Michael Coe’s “The Maya Scribe and His World” (1973) and the 1971 Grolier Club exhibition for which it was produced marked the first sustained treatment of scribes and artists in scholarship on Classic Maya civilization. It also highlighted the wealth of information that ceramics and...
The End Is Nigh: Applying Regional, Contextual and Ethnographic Approaches for Understanding the Significance of Terminal "Problematic" Deposits in Western Belize (2018)
The discovery of cultural remains on or above the floors of rooms and courtyards at several Maya sites has been interpreted by some archaeologists as problematic deposits, defacto refuse, or as evidence for rapid abandonment. Investigations in the Belize River valley have recorded similar deposits at several surface and subterranean sites. Our regional and contextual approach to the study of these remains, coupled with ethnohistoric and ethnographic information provide limited support for...
The Environmental and Cultural Context of North American Turkey Domestication (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Questioning the Fundamentals of Plant and Animal Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) is the only native vertebrate animal domesticated in North America. As such, the history, timing and process of its domestication is critical to our understanding of past human-animal relationships in the ancient Americas. This paper summarizes recent advancements in reconstructing the...
Environmental History of the Petén Campechano (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. Paleoenvironmental inferences are based on pollen and geochemical data from sediment cores collected in Lakes Silvituc and Uxul, and Oxpemul Reservoir, near three archaeological sites that supported agricultural activity between ca. 900 BC and AD 750, under the control of the Kaan Dynasty. These sites show patterns...