Mesoamerica: Maya highlands (Geographic Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Arthur Demarest.

This is an abstract from the "Art, Archaeology, and Science: Investigations in the Guatemala Highlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Prior to the Vanderbilt projects the Alta Verapaz was one of the least explored regions of the highlands with previous research limited to some test pits and cave explorations. With few known impressive constructions or monuments, the Alta Verapaz was assumed to be peripheral to both highland polities and the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Edgar Carpio.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In recent years the rescues carried out in Guatemala City, specifically between zones 7 and 11, have uncovered several deposits containing huge amounts of obsidian artifacts. During the excavations of the Lake Miraflores project located on the San Juan causeway, zone 7, a huge deposit containing thousands of obsidian artifacts was uncovered. This deposit...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephen Whittington. Robert Tykot. Karyn Olsen. Fred Longstaffe.

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. Analysis of human skeletal remains from the Postclassic Kaqchikel Maya capital of Iximché, Guatemala, supports the interpretation that many of the partial skeletal remains were trophies taken in war or were from war captives sacrificed at the site. Other, more complete, remains...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Babcock.

This is an abstract from the "Art, Archaeology, and Science: Investigations in the Guatemala Highlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The K’iche’an ethnohistoric documents posit movement of Chontal-Nahuan groups into, and conquest of, the central Guatemalan highlands. A list of K’iche’ rulers was used to establish a timeline for occupation of the archaeological sites of Chujuyub, Jakawitz, and Q’umarkaj. Accordingly coinciding with the fall of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Arkadiusz Maciej. Marcin Blaszczyk.

This is an abstract from the "The Maya Wall Paintings of Chajul (Guatemala)" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One of the major objectives of the Chajul Murals Conservation Project (COMUCH) was the consolidation and conservation of murals in several houses located at the modern town of Chajul inhabited by the Ixil Maya and located in the department of El Quiché, in western Guatemala. During our research carried out between 2015 and 2022, conservation...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eugenia Robinson. Marlen Garnica.

Archaeological survey of Cakhay, the largest Classic site (200-800 A.D.) in the Maya Kaq’chik’el area, was carried out in 2017 by the Proyecto Arqueológico del Área Kaq’chik’el (PAAK). The goal of the survey was to determine the limits of the site and survey its periphery. Reconnaissance of 20 sq km found that populations were nucleated on the hillside surrounding the defensive and religious center with some look out sites in the periphery. Within the center and the nucleus of the site,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eugenia Robinson. Ron Bishop.

This is an abstract from the "Art, Archaeology, and Science: Investigations in the Guatemala Highlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Research on the ceramic collections from Q’umarkaj housed at the Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University, provides an opportunity to apply Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis to pottery from the site. This research has the potential to delimit areas of ceramic production and trade in the Terminal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Boleslaw Zych. Dorota Bojkowska. Juan Luis Velásquez.

This is an abstract from the "The Maya Wall Paintings of Chajul (Guatemala)" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological, epigraphic, and ethnohistoric data indicate that Chajul was an important precolumbian center of the Ixil Maya. In this paper we present an overview of archaeological investigations conducted in the Ixil region sites. Moreover, we present the results of archaeological excavations conducted at Chajul in the 2021 season. This...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jose Raul Ortiz. Francisco Saravia.

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. During the Late Classic period, a distinct painting style in ceramics emerged in the northern Maya highlands of Guatemala, revealing both the mastery of artisans and the worldview of the Maya. The Chamá style, whose vessels were manufactured on the banks of the Chixoy River, shows clear...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lynneth Lowe.

Chiapa de Corzo se distinguió como una de las principales capitales zoques en la Depresión Central de Chiapas por casi dos milenios, hasta su abandono a finales del periodo Clásico. Su localización sobre una meseta elevada, que dominaba el valle del río Grande o Grijalva, resultó estratégica en el control de una de las principales vías de comunicación y transporte de recursos entre la costa y las tierras altas mayas. El sistema de comunicaciones asociado al río Grijalva constituyó el eje de una...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jackeline Quinonez.

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. In recent times, sweat baths are customary within Indigenous communities of the Guatemalan highlands; specifically, in the Ixil population, in places such as la sierra de Los Cuchumatanes, San Gaspar Chajul, San Juan Cotzal, and Santa María Nebaj. This region is known for its cold climate due to its...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ramon Folch.

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. Recent work documenting the stored artifacts in museums in Chiapas has led to the identification of large pottery urns, pots, and jars from the region of Comitan that share surprising similarities in manufacture and decoration. Dating to the Postclassic and Late Classic periods, it suggests that specialization was present in the Valley of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Victor Castillo.

This is an abstract from the "Art, Archaeology, and Science: Investigations in the Guatemala Highlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological investigations at Chiantla Viejo, in the western Guatemalan highlands, focused on studying how public ritual in spaces for communal gatherings mediated changes and continuities in small Maya communiies during the Spanish conquest. Excavations revealed a short occupation at Chiantla Viejo at the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Payson Sheets. Christine C. Dixon.

Volcanic preservation allows for detailed reconstructions of a variety of social relationships and material boundaries at Ceren. Service relationships are inferred from proximity of households associated with special-function structures, such as the religious complex, the sauna and the community governance center. These data show a social function of providing service relationships from each household to the community. Socioeconomic functions are also evident in the form of other...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Edgar Carpio.

Archaeologist Stephan Borhegyi contributed significantly to the development of archeology in Guatemala in the late 1950s and early 1960s with his investigations both in the highlands and on the Pacific Coast. He was a pioneer in underwater archeology at Lake Amatitlán and carried out studies at other sites around the lake. He also made important entries on different archaeological sites in the Highlands and on the Pacific Coast, particularly on the Bilbao site. In Guatemala, his works were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Santiago Juarez.

The site of Noh K’uh in Chiapas, Mexico is a mid-sized ceremonial center that is found near the boundary between the Southern Lowlands and the highlands of Chiapas. Abandoned during the Late Preclassic (400 B.C.- A.D. 200), the site of Noh K’uh has provided an opportunity to study the Late Preclassic settlement patterns without the overburden of later period remains. Recent investigations in 2016 and 2017 have provided new evidence that allows me to compare the construction techniques utilized...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Judith Ruiz. Eric Taladoire. Edith Cienfuegos. Francisco Otero. Gabriela Solis.

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. En este trabajo presentamos evidencia de sacrificio humano y tratamientos póstumos de victimas recuperadas en la antigua ciudad maya de Toniná, en el sureste de México. El deposito ritual data de Posclásico mesoamericano que comprende desde 950 hasta 1521 dC. El objetivo es conocer las huellas isotópicas de individuos que fueron parte del...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Akira Ichikawa.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper aims to report a new ritual deposit dated to the Late Classic (A.D. 600-900), unearthed at San Andres, El Salvador. The items in the ritual deposit include vessels, Spondylus shells, and two pieces of jade artifacts, one of which was decorated with a double-headed serpent. In this paper, I present new data obtained from our recent excavation and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aj Xol Ch'ok Hector Rolando. Mauricio Diaz Garcia.

This is an abstract from the "The Role of Women in Mesoamerican Ritual" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. En el contexto de pueblos invadidos y luego brutalmente colonizados en los territorios que conforman la actual República de Guatemala, las mujeres mayas juegan un papel fundamental en la preservación, transmisión y radicalismo de la cultura. Las mujeres mayas son las constructoras y guardianas del pensamiento, idiomas, valores, filosofías y...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Paris. Roberto López Bravo. Gabriel Lalo Jacinto.

This is an abstract from the "Ancient Maya Embedded Economies" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper examines the integration of small polity economies in highland Chiapas, and the ways in which polity size and proximity were factors. This region formed part of the western frontier of the Maya linguistic and cultural area, and has been characterized as a relatively autonomous economic and political periphery. Beginning in the Late Classic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brent Woodfill. Erin Sears.

This is an abstract from the "Art, Archaeology, and Science: Investigations in the Guatemala Highlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In April 2018, members of Proyecto Salinas de los Nueve Cerros were contacted by a local contractor who found something he said was of archaeological importance. Upon examination, he had uncovered the largest figurine workshop yet discovered in Mesoamerica. After receiving emergency financing from the National...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Catherine Nuckols-Wilde.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Preclassic niche monuments, found from Guatemala to Chiapas to Veracruz, portray anthropomorphic figures emerging from a high-relief cavity. Presently there is no extant study of niche monuments that assembles the entire corpus and situates them within a broader matrix of exchange via trade, interaction and linguistics. In this paper, I will present my...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Edgar Carpio.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents the preliminary data from a study that has been carried out on a considerable collection of flint artifacts from Salinas de los Nueve Cerros, Guatemala. These were uncovered during the excavations of the site over eight field seasons. Flint is a local resource in Salinas and it was widely used to produce many objects mainly used as cutting...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ángel Sánchez Gamboa. Caitlin Earley.

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 scarce glyphic corpus recorded in the Eastern Highlands of Chiapas makes it difficult to reconstruct dynastic lineages in this western frontier region of the Maya world; Chinkultic is the only case of study in which we find important epigraphic evidence. As a result, material culture and style are key elements to understand political...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Allen Christenson.

This is an abstract from the "The Role of Women in Mesoamerican Ritual" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. According to the Popol Vuh, the first truly successful human beings were created from maize by the goddess Xmucane: “The yellow ears of maize and the white ears of maize were then ground fine with nine grindings by Xmucane. Food entered their flesh, along with water to give them strength. . . . The yellowness of humanity came to be when they were...