Maya: Classic (Other Keyword)
476-500 (857 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Regional and Intensive Site Survey: Case Studies from Mesoamerica" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A systematic mapping program conducted at Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico, revealed a considerable amount of archaeological as well as non-archaeological features distributed over the surface of several areas located in the site’s periphery. This program relied upon the traditional mapping method consisting in clearing the...
Mapping the Maya Hinterlands: A LiDAR-Derived Approach to Identify Small-Scale Features in Northwestern Belize (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper will discuss the processes and methods of relief visualization of LiDAR-derived digital elevation models (DEM’s) and classification of secondary data to identify archaeological remains on the Maya landscape in northwestern Belize. The basis of the research explores various GIS and cartographic techniques to visualize topographical relief. Graphic...
Marco Gonzalez, Ambergris Caye, Belize - Evidence for Salt Production (2018)
Investigations carried out at Marco Gonzalez, a Maya site on Ambergris Caye in Belize, were aimed at examining site formation processes, particularly the dynamics that led to dark surface and subsurface soils (Maya Dark Earths), which have a higher nutrient capacity than would be possible under natural conditions. Sediments of critical interest in soil formation were those deposited in the Late Classic period and associated with intensive processing. Features of the ceramics in the deposits as...
The Marketplace Next Door: Socioeconomics at Ximbal Che’, an Intermediate-Elite Maya Household at Yaxnohcah (Campeche, Mexico) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents new data from excavations at Ximbal Che’, an intermediate-elite residential group at the ancient Maya city of Yaxnohcah, located in southern Campeche, Mexico. Households have for decades been recognized as important loci for production, consumption, and social reproduction in ancient Maya societies. In recent years, studies of...
Materializing the Maya Collapse and Shifting Alliances during the Ninth and Tenth Centuries: Circular Shrines and Other “Mexicanized” Traits in Belize and Beyond (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. Across the Maya Lowlands, circular shrines have been reported that resemble smaller versions of the Caracol building at Chichen Itza. According to Ringle and colleagues (1998), Chichen Itza was one of many centers in a shrine network extending along the...
The MAUP and the Milpa: Analytical Scale and the Problem of Lowland Maya Sustainability (2023)
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. Researchers assess sustainability using spatial bounds, be they for a single community or the entire planet. But the specific boundaries we use matter greatly, because practices (and populations) that are unsustainable at one scale may be sustainable at another depending on a host of...
Maya Archaeological Heritage: Ethical and Methodological Challenges from the Mexican Practice of the Discipline (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The practice of Mexican and Maya archaeology is yet to be affected by the postcolonial dialogues in the anglophone world that have discussed the terms of engagement between archaeologists and indigenous communities. Mexico is constitutionally conceived of as a multicultural nation, but the collective rights of indigenous communities are obscured under the...
Maya Ceramic Technologies for Avoiding the Catastrophic Failure of Cooking Pots (2018)
Maya potters in the towns of Muna, Mama, and Ticul have historically used a calcite crystal to temper cooking pots due to its perceived role in mitigating the negative effects of thermal shock. When a clay cooking pot begins to be used it is exposed to extreme temperature variations which lead it to experience catastrophic failure are a higher rate than many ceramic vessels used for other activities. In this paper we discuss the results of experimental archaeology using calcite crystals in...
The Maya Cranial Photogrammetry Project (2018)
The Maya Cranial Photogrammetry Project aims to create a large digital repository for the purpose of comparative shape analyses to test hypotheses relating to ethnic and political distinctions among ancient Maya groups. The shape of skeletons reflects a combination of genetic and environmental influences on development and thus comparison of skeletal variability provides an important means to reconstruct microevolutionary processes. In particular, because of its complex morphology the skull has...
The Maya Economy: Dual? Integrated? Embedded? Or All of the Above? (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Ancient Maya Embedded Economies" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper we argue that the complexity of Maya economic structures and the debates that ensue over their interpretation stem from the fact that manifestations of those economic structures vary so greatly across time and space in the precolumbian Maya world. Maya economies were both dichotomized along elite and commoner lines, while also integrated in...
Maya Funerary Diversity: A Nonlinear Perspective from Palenque, Chiapas (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Archaeological Investigations in Chiapas, Mexico" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ancient Maya land is characterized by a great diversity of funerary practices. The settlement of Lakamha’ (Palenque) sharply evidences such heterogeneity: pluralism is found in terms of places of inhumation, types of containers, number of people per grave, grave goods, postmortem treatments, positions, and orientations of the body....
Maya Funerary Practices and Their Significance in Reproducing and Maintaining Social Status and Identity: Evidence from Copan, Honduras, and Palenque, Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Susan Gillespie remarked the importance of human body and funerary ritual in the process of transmission of memory and legitimation of social status among Maya royalty. Would this process be visible in domestic contexts, too? To answer this question, I chose to study domestic funerary record, context where an archaeologist can find the reflection of collective...
Maya Inequality at Caracol, Belize: District-Level Urban Analysis within a Garden City (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2009 and 2013, LiDAR data collected for Caracol, Belize revealed the anthropogenic landscape of this Maya city. These data have advanced our understanding of water management, agriculture, markets, urbanism, and inequality at Caracol. Now with the analytical unit of the district – an urban administrative boundary of urban service provisioning within a city...
Maya Lithic and Metal Technologies in Belize (2024)
This is an abstract from the "“The Center and the Edge”: How the Archaeology of Belize Is Foundational for Understanding the Ancient Maya" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over more than a century, archaeological research in Belize has contributed greatly to our understanding of past Maya stone and metal technologies. From the preceramic through the colonial periods (~11,000 BC−AD 1700), the analysis of flaked and ground stone tools recovered from...
Maya Monumental ‘Boom’: Spatial Development, Rank Ordering, and Planning Considerations at Alabama, East-Central Belize (2018)
In the 1980s, archaeological investigations by the Point Placencia Archaeological Project (PPAP) noted the rapid, single-phase development of monumental construction at the Maya site of Alabama in the Stann Creek District. Though never fully investigated by PPAP, this rapid, ‘boom-like’ development during the late facet of the Late Classic to Terminal Classic periods is being pursued in current investigations by the Stann Creek Regional Archaeology Project (SCRAP). This presentation, by...
Maya Obsidian Production and Exchange in the Southern Belize Region (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Permanent occupation of inland southern Belize began at the dawn of the Classic period and continued into the Terminal Classic. Excavations at Pusilha, Lubaantun, and Nim li Punit have recovered more than 5,000 obsidian artifacts that date to these periods. These have all been sourced using portable XRF and subject to metric and attribute analyses....
Maya Ossuaries: Body Processing and Collective Memory in the Terminal Classic (2018)
The allocation of space for the deceased is an integral component of understanding the relationship between a community and its mortuary practices. This paper explores how Maya ossuaries, or deposits with the commingled remains of multiple individuals, form a distinct body processing method that increases in frequency during the Terminal and Postclassic period in the Northern Maya lowlands. Data from salvage excavations of a Terminal Classic disturbed ossuary in the archaeological zone of...
Maya Paleoethnobotany and La Milpa: Evidences from Northwest 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. Widespread terrace construction in the Lowland Maya region is often viewed as a response to increasing demands for food during the Late Classic. Such was the demand that terraces became integrated into the architectural arrangements of large urban entities, going so far as to be built right up to the edge of a settlement center....
Mayan Spelling Conventions: Late Preclassic through Late Classic (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Coffee, Clever T-Shirts, and Papers in Honor of John S. Justeson" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper deals with the topic that inspired me to study with John Justeson: it traces the major spelling practices of Mayan writing from the Late Preclassic through the Late Classic periods. It employs the evidence from Late Preclassic and Early Classic inscriptions, some of which I have documented myself, as well as the...
Measuring Dimensions of Exchange and Economic Transition in Three Districts of Lower Dover, Belize (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although Hirth’s (1998) distributional approach has been recently applied to identifying markets at Classic Maya centers, much research still has yet to be done on the diversity and origins of Classic Maya modes of exchange. This picture is even less clear at small Late Classic (AD 600-900) Maya centers such as Lower Dover, Belize, where evidence for Hirth’s...
Media and Meaning in “The Maya Scribe and His World” (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. Among Michael Coe’s many contributions to Maya studies with his landmark show and publication “The Maya Scribe and His World” was the observation that imagery on Classic Maya ceramics is different from imagery on carved stone monuments. Coe notes this gap between ceramic and stone...
Meeting Needs in the Ancient Maya Forest: A Model of Food and Shelter at El Pilar (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Maya land-use strategies, based on traditional agricultural methods documented by the Spanish conquerors and oppressed during the colonial period, have demonstrated a staunch resilience into the modern age. The milpa forest garden cycle demonstrates dynamic regeneration via an asynchronous cycling of open fields with annual crops, perennial succession...
Memory, Pilgrimage, and Social Life in an Ancient Maya City: Waka’s City Temple as a Compendium of Political History (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Vibrancy of Ruins: Ruination Studies in Ancient Mesoamerica" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Long-term research at Waka’s City temple (Structure M13-1) demonstrates it was an important locale for ritual commemoration by local people as well and those from afar. Extensive and diversely constituted deposits throughout the building’s surface demonstrate it was venerated publicly by non-elites throughout Waka’s final...
Metabolomic Residue Studies of Foodways in the Motul de San José Polity, Petén, Guatemala (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Research in the Petén Lakes Region, Petén, Guatemala" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The subject of ancient Maya cuisine continues to fascinate researchers, but little is known about the “recipes” that may have been used by different people at different times across the Maya world. This study takes a metabolomic approach to residue analysis to compare flavors and preparation methods during the occupation of...
Metaphor in Precolumbian Mesoamerica: In Honor of John Justeson (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Coffee, Clever T-Shirts, and Papers in Honor of John S. Justeson" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. John Justeson is well-known for contributions to the documentation of Mesoamerican indigenous languages and writing systems. Justeson’s work on metaphor has received less attention, given that work on metaphor in precolumbian Mesoamerica is just now gaining traction. Justeson’s work stands out as being the first to adopt a...