Mesoamerica: Maya lowlands (Geographic Keyword)

576-600 (778 Records)

Raised Field Agriculture in the Maya Lowlands: Archaeobotanical Remains from Birds of Paradise (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Martha Wendel. David Lentz. Susan E. Allen. Timothy Beach. Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach.

Up until the late 1990s, researchers believed the Maya were solely reliant on slash and burn agricultural practices. However, discoveries of rectangular canal patterns in the margins of wetlands in the Maya lowlands of Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico shined light on a new agricultural practice: raised wetland fields. One example of wetland fields is found at the site Birds of Paradise (BOP) in the Rio Bravo region of northwestern Belize. The macrobotanicals recovered from the raised fields and...


A Re-evaluation of Yotholin Pattern-Burnished: Evidence of Early Preclassic Ceramics? (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Betsy Kohut. George J. Bey III. Tomás Gallareta Negrón.

In 1958, Brainerd first described "the earliest deposits yet to come from Yucatan"—composed primarily of narrow-mouthed jar fragments recovered from the lowest strata of excavations at the Mani cenote. This type, classified as Yotholin Pattern-Burnished, has a medium-fine paste and unslipped surfaces that had been smoothed or burnished in decorative patterns. Since then, similar wares have been recovered from Preclassic contexts at a number of other sites. Although Brainerd originally described...


Re-excavating Xno’ha: Aligning Maya Architecture across Seven Years of Archaeological Research (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Kevin Austin. Benjamin Baaske. Robert Warden.

This is an abstract from the "Ancient Maya Landscapes in Northwestern Belize, Part II" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Maya architecture at Xno’ha has been recorded digitally every field season since 2012 by the Blue Creek Archaeological Project in conjunction with the Center for Heritage Conservation at Texas A&M University. Through the application of preservation technologies such as laser scanning, it is now possible to juxtapose completely...


Recent Archaeological Work in the Kingdom of Sak Tz’i’ and the Santo Domingo-Lacanja Valley (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Scherer. Charles Golden.

This is an abstract from the "Dynamic Frontiers in the Archaeology of Chiapas" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Santo Domingo-Lacanja Valley hosted a number of small but important Classic period centers, including Bonampak, Lacanha, Plan de Ayutla, and Lacanja Tzeltal (seat of the Sak Tz’i’ dynasty). It was also an important corridor of travel between the major polities of Yaxchilan, Tonina, and Palenque, among others. Here, we review the...


Recent Building Excavations in the Triple-Courtyard "Palace" Group at the Ancient Maya Site of Pacbitun, Belize (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Karen Pierce. Mike Lawrence.

Adjacent to Plaza B at Pacbitun is a Classic Period "palace" complex consisting of three conjoined courtyards each ringed by elevated range structures, likely serving elite-residential and administrative functions. Previous excavations indicated initial construction in the Early Classic period with numerous modifications made in the Late Classic, and preliminary evidence of occupation or use into the Terminal Classic period. The Pacbitun Regional Archaeological Project has begun to explore this...


Recent Investigations of Maya Archaeological Site Looting in Petén, Guatemala (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Kirsty Escalante.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological looting in the Maya area has been an enduring concern for over 60 years. While many individual archaeological projects have worked diligently to record looting within their respective project areas, the recent application of lidar in archaeology facilitates the large-scale study of illicit digging in the forested Maya region for the first...


Recent Investigations of War, Economy, and Population at Piedras Negras, Guatemala (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Scherer. Charles Golden. Mónica Uriquizú. Griselda Pérez Robles.

This paper presents a synthesis of current results from the 2016 - 2017 research seasons at Piedras Negras, Guatemala with implications for understanding warfare, economy, politics, and population dynamics throughout the ancient kingdom. First, while project members had identified a series of fortified centers and palisades in the region’s hinterlands, the recent identification of fortifications in the near periphery of Piedras Negras makes it one of the rare polity capitals in the southern...


Recent Remote Sensing and Digital Documentation at Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Travis Stanton. Dominique Meyer. Jose Osorio. Jeremy Coltman. Karl Taube.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this poster, we present the results of a program of remote sensing and the digital documentation of the art and architecture of the Maya site of Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico. An aerial lidar survey performed in 2014 has aided in creating a more accurate map of the site. Detailed photogrammetry and ground-based liar, performed in the area open for tourism,...


Recent Research on the Formative and Early Classic Periods in the Yaxhom Valley, Yucatán (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Melissa Galvan. William M. Ringle. Betsy Kohut.

Previous investigations by the Bolonchen Regional Archaeological Project demonstrated that the Valle de Yaxhom, in the Puuc region of Yucatan, was a significant locus of monumental construction during the latter Middle Formative and early Late Formative. Two large acropoli, the Acropolis Yaxhom and the Acropolis Lakin, were previously mapped and tested, but the nature of accompanying residential construction remained unknown. Two other sites with megalithic architecture, Nucuchtunich and Nohoch...


Reconceptualizing Chichen Itza: The Gran Acuífero Maya Project (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Guillermo De Anda Alaniz.

During the summer of 2017, the Gran Aquífero Maya (GAM) project initiated an investigation at Chichen Itza designed to define the site around its aquatic resources. The project is based on my previous work at Cenote Holtun, located 1.6 miles west of Chichen Itza, which found that a line drawn between Holtun and Cenote Kanjuyum on the east pasted through the center of El Castillo. It has long been known that El Castillo is bisected by a line drawn between the Sacred Cenote on the north and the...


Reconfiguring Communities in the Postclassic at Aventura (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Eponine Wong. Kacey Grauer. Zach Nissen. Debra Walker.

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. Recent excavations have revealed that Postclassic Aventura was a very different place: both reverentially remembered and a home. In this paper, we review the evidence for human activity during the Postclassic period at Aventura. From identifications of Late Postclassic incensario fragments in surface material...


Reconstructing and Testing Ancient Neighborhoods at Caracol, Belize (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Adrian Chase.

This is an abstract from the "People and Space: Defining Communities and Neighborhoods with Social Network Analysis" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Neighborhoods in the past formed in urban contexts from the bottom-up through repeated face-to-face interactions. Through these shared social experiences and relational identity, neighborhood groups would possess a high potential for collective action, facilitating local solutions to issues facing...


Reconstructing Diachronic Changes in Subsistence, Wealth, and Economic and Ritual Practices through Animal Use at the Classic Maya Polity of Lower Dover, Belize (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Ian Roa. John Walden. Michael Biggie. Gavin Wisner. Rafael Guerra.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Maya archaeologists have traditionally used faunal analyses to examine questions about subsistence and ritual practices. We chart diachronic changes in patterns of faunal usage pertaining to four sociocultural dimensions: consumption, economic productions, wealth, and ritual at three districts surrounding the Late Classic (AD 600–900) Maya political center of...


Reconstructing the Ancient Maya Wetland Fields of the Central Rio Bravo, Belize (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Colin Doyle. Timothy Beach. Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach.

This is an abstract from the "2023 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Timothy Beach Part II" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Lidar acquired in 2016 in northwest Belize revealed an expanse of ~7 km2 of ancient Maya raised fields and canals along the Rio Bravo floodplain near the ancient Maya site of Wari Camp. This is half of all the wetland field area found from lidar in this region. Excavations and multiproxy data provide the first...


Recuperando el rompecabeza: Un análisis de la escalera jeroglífica de El Resbalón (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Clara Alexander. Sandra Balanzario. Alexandre Tokovinine.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. El asentamiento prehispánico de El Resbalón está ubicado en el sur de Quintana Roo y alberga la segunda escalera jeroglífica más grande conocida en el área Maya. El proyecto “Levantamiento digital de los bienes muebles e inmuebles de los sitios arqueológicos de Dzibanché, Ichkabal y El Resbalón”, en colaboración con el Instituto Nacional de Antropología e...


Redefining the Relationship Between the Surface and the Subterranean at Mul Ch'en Witz, La Milpa, Belize (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Christina Iglesias. Samantha Lorenz. Toni Gonzalez.

One of the many unsettled issues in chultun research is the relationship of chultunes to surface architecture. At Mul Ch’en Witz, located within the large Maya site of La Milpa in northwestern Belize, the chultunes are covered by low, rectangular rubble core platforms so that each is an architectural complex with both a surface and a subterranean component. This degree of formalization of the surface space had not been previously reported until recently at RB-25-A5, a collapsed chultun also...


Rediscovering Ancient Maya Blue Pigments / Redescubriendo los antiguos pigmentos maya (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Luis Manuel May Ku.

This is an abstract from the "Current Dynamics of Heritage Values in the Americas" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. El Azul Maya-Maya Ch´oj. Inicié con mi investigación hace aproximadamente dos años atrás tratando de pigmentar mis esculturas y cerámica con el Azul Maya. Tras cuatro meses de buscar la planta Ch´oj (Indigófera suffruticosa mil) al fin dí con ella. Cuando la encontré estaba en su período de floración y fruto, tuve que esperar a que los...


The Reemergence of Balamku as a First Order Sacred Landmark at Chichen Itza (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Guillermo Gerardo De Alaniz. Karla Ortega.

This is an abstract from the "Studies in Mesoamerican Subterranean Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the 2018 season, the Gran Aquífero Maya project began exploration of the cave of Balamku, located some 2.4 km east of Chichen Itza's site center. The cave is noteworthy in containing incensarios, manos and metates, and other artifacts identical to those in the back passage of Balankanche, only in greater numbers. The similarity...


A Reexamination of Postclassic Maya Cave Altars along the Central Coast of Quintana Roo (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Dominique Rissolo.

This is an abstract from the "Studies in Mesoamerican Subterranean Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The construction and ceremonial use of miniature temples, or shrines, in caves across the central coastal zone of Quintana Roo, Mexico is a well-documented tradition and one that has received recent scholarly attention. Also common in caves throughout the region was the siting of unenclosed altars in a range of different forms and styles....


Refugios y rituales: Conflicto en el Fortín Preclásico de Macabilero, Guatemala (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Ricardo Rodas. Omar Alcover. Mónica Urquizú.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Entre los grupos mayas; fortalezas, armas, y sistemas de murallas defensivas nos indican lo común que era el conflicto en las relaciones sociopolíticas de estas comunidades. En las Tierras Bajas occidentales, fueron pocos los sitios que alcanzaron un alto grado de desarrollo convirtiéndose en grandes centros urbanos para el Clásico. Dentro de la región, una...


Regional Agricultural Potential at the Aguacate Sites, Western Belize (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Fries.

This is an abstract from the "Provisioning Ancient Maya Cities: Modeling Food Production and Land Use in Tropical Urban Environments" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ancient Maya settlements of the Aguacate region of western Belize feature a dispersed settlement pattern spread across a highly varied landscape. Both soil and water resources are unevenly distributed across the region, interspersed with karst outcrops and ridges. Nonetheless,...


Regional Integration during the Late Preclassic in Ucí, Yucatán (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Daniel Vallejo-Caliz. Scott Hutson.

Regional integration as materialized by the connections created through sacbeob can widely transform political, economic and social institutions in the participant communities. Perceiving the process through dichotomies such as center-periphery or paramount-subordinate clouds the agency of the multiple stakeholders involved in the matter. Active manipulation of social systems by intermediate elites and the commoner population seems to have had a great influence on the general process of...


Regional Spheres of Gameplay: A Preliminary Comparative Analysis of Patolli, a Mesoamerican Board Game (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Tia Watkins. Rosamund Fitzmaurice. Christophe Helmke. Jaroslaw Zralka. Jaime Awe.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The precolumbian game of patolli was imbued with ideals of competition, risk, and ritual significance. The board game had a widespread presence across Mesoamerica throughout the Classic period (~ AD 250–820) and was often etched into the surfaces of monumental architecture. Recent excavations led by the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance project...


Regional Variation in Preclassic Maya Household Ritual and Social Organization: Investigations at the Karinel Group, Ceibal (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica MacLellan.

This is an abstract from the "Preclassic Maya Social Transformations along the Usumacinta: Views from Ceibal and Aguada Fénix" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent investigations at the Karinel Group, an early residential area at Ceibal, Guatemala, show that the roles household rituals played in the development of complex societies varied across the Maya lowlands during the Middle Preclassic period (c. 1000-350 BC). In northern Belize, rituals...


Remote Sensing of Constructed Landscapes in Northern Guatemala (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Griffin. Kelsey Herndon. Heather Hurst. Franco Rossi. Boris Beltran.

This is an abstract from the "Innovations and Transformations in Mesoamerican Research: Recent and Revised Insights of Ancestral Lifeways" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Maya sites of San Bartolo and Xultun, Guatemala, provide compelling evidence for ancient Maya agricultural interventions and shifting perspectives about the regional ecological landscape. The first line of evidence is visual: murals there catalog political and religious...