Usumacinta (Other Keyword)
1-4 (4 Records)
For the Classic period, recent regional studies in the Usumacinta basin have proposed a mixed system of communication involving both waterborne and inland routes. Circulation of people and things along these routes depended on physiographic features as well as political boundaries. Several settlements located on strategic points along these itineraries could have controlled and/or facilitated the transit. Some of these sites, due to their proximity to the river course, might have been ports and...
Hilltops and States in the Usumacinta River Basin (2016)
The ordering of space has been a focus of state-building initiatives since the formation of the earliest centralized polities. Landscape archaeologists are especially well situated to contribute to discussions regarding how states succeed and fail to control diverse populations in topographically complex areas. During the Late Classic period, the Middle Usumacinta Basin supported numerous regional polities, including Piedras Negras and Yaxchilan, that vied for supremacy over terrain broken by...
Territorial attachments and border formation in the Upper Usumacinta river Basin. Discussing ceramic mobility within a fractured political and geographical landscape. (2015)
To date, archaeologists working in the Northwestern Maya Lowlands, specifically in the Upper Usumacinta region have focused their attention to ceramic variability and regional distributions trying to "picture" the degree of variability in the role of local centers in regional ceramic exchange systems. Nevertheless, little attention has been paid to territorial variability-for example, the distinction between contiguous and non contiguous territorial formations highlighted by recent regional...
The Upper Usumacinta Travel Corridor, A Game of Chutes and Ladders (2015)
Like other major rivers the Usumacinta had parallel land routes. Unlike most rivers the Usumacinta lies bound within whitewater canyons below Yaxchilan, cut off from its flanking trails except at gaps dictated by the geography. In the Classic Period, the river and its trails formed a ladder-like grid offering great mobility, but requiring tradeoffs between speed and safety. For both the ancient Maya and modern boatmen the Usu’ was a fast, efficient, and dangerous route to the lowlands. Two...