Maya: Classic (Other Keyword)
551-575 (857 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists studying the Maya have traditionally considered obsidian to be a luxury good that was often tightly controlled by the elite during the Classic period. Archaeological evidence from the Classic Maya capital of Tamarindito in Guatemala challenges these long-held assumptions, however. At Tamarindito, multiple lines of evidence support the...
Obsidian Geochemical Sourcing at Huntichmul, Kiuic and Escalera Al Cielo in the Puuc Region, Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In recent years, the use of portable X-Ray Fluorescence (p-XRF) spectrometers has become increasingly common to determine the geological sources of obsidian artifacts. This study used p-XRF to obtain trace elemental data for 354 obsidian artifacts from the sites of Huntichmul, Kiuic and Escalera Al Cielo in the Puuc region of the northern Maya lowlands. These...
An Obsidian Workshop at Budsilhá Chiapas, Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One of the persistent difficulties in understanding Classic Maya (AD 250–900) economies has been the challenge of identifying the loci of production (e.g., workshops) and exchange (e.g., marketplaces), and thus interpreting how the two figured into local and regional economies. During the 2013 fieldwork at the site of Budislha, Chiapas, Mexico–a subsidiary...
Of Snakes and Masks: A Contextual and Iconographic Study of Ancient Maya Greenstone Mosaic Masks (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Dancing through Iconographic Corpora: A Symposium in Honor of F. Kent Reilly III" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We argue that ancient Maya portable mosaic masks, found in high-elite burials across the Maya Lowlands, could have, at some point during the Late Classic period (AD 550–800) and perhaps even earlier, been the ideal insignias of the Kaanul “snake” regime, which in ancient Maya writing is represented by the...
On the Place of Sa-ja-la Title Holders in the Classic Maya Regime (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Regimes of the Ancient Maya" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since they began to be discerned in the 1980s, much has been written about the political offices and roles of various secondary members of the Classic Maya court. In particular, the political office of sa-ja-la has come to be seen as that of a “governor” of smaller settlements within and between Classic Maya centers. However, the presumed role of sa-ja-la...
One Tamale, Four Digestions (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Thinking about Eating: Theorizing Foodways in Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Drawing from long-established fields in anthropology (structuralist, semiotic, identity-oriented, subsistence-focused, human ecological, and many others), food scholars have actively developed hybrid perspectives and novel pursuits. Here, I focus on four: modeling foodways linguistically, theorizing gastropolitik, situating the...
Ongoing Household Research at Hun Tun: An Ancient Maya Hinterland Settlement in Northwestern Belize (2018)
The ancient Maya site, Hun Tun is a Late-Terminal Classic commoner settlement located in northwestern Belize. Research at Hun Tun operates under the Programme for Belize Archaeological Project (PfBAP). Social complexity at the household level serves as a research theme for Hun Tun investigations. This paper addresses the ancient Maya commoners who lived in household contexts at Hun Tun while discussing how their role as a hinterland community contributed to ideas of household identity, social...
Ongoing Research at Hun Tun and Medicinal Trail Community: The Ancient Maya Hinterland of Northwestern 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. This paper discusses features and material culture from two hinterland settlements located in northwestern Belize, Hun Tun and the Medicinal Trail Community, east of the ancient Maya urban center of La Milpa. Residential groups include formal courtyards with "expensive" structures at one end of the continuum to numerous informal...
Only Murders in the Cavespace? Considering Archaeological Assumptions about Human Interments (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Misinformation and Misrepresentation Part 1: Reconsidering “Human Sacrifice,” Religion, Slavery, Modernity, and Other European-Derived Concepts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As if by default, deposits of human remains in caves and cenotes in the southern Maya Lowlands dating to the Late and Terminal Classic periods have been interpreted by many archaeologists as sacrificial victims. The position seems predicated on...
Open and Restricted Plaza of San Andres in the Zapotitan Valley, El Salvador (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Plazas are important spaces for the ancient Mesoamerican daily life. Despite this perception is shared among many scholars, in the Southeastern Maya area, especially in El Salvador, the study of plaza is limited. This paper focuses on San Andres, which was ceremonial center in the Zapotitan valley during the Late Classic period and has been identified two...
An Osteobiography of Skeletal Remains from Holtun, Guatemala (2018)
Excavations at the site of Holtun, Guatemala during the 2014 – 2017 field seasons yielded eighteen human burials from various temporal periods and site locations. Holtun was inhabited by the ancient Maya from the Middle Preclassic (1000 – 300 BCE) to the Terminal Classic Period (600 – 900 CE). Recent archaeological investigations have identified the Preclassic period at Holtun as a time characterized by increasing social inequality, but few burials have been recovered to infer the impact of...
An Osteobiography of Tomb Op. 42, Ent. 5 from Copán, Honduras (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Marking and Making of Social Persons: Embodied Understandings in the Archaeologies of Childhood and Adolescence" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This research constructs an osteobiological narrative of two females and a male from Copán, Honduras, who were placed together within a Classic period (AD 600–822) tomb in the residential group Salamar (8L-10) Op. 42. Utilizing mortuary and isotopic data, this case study...
Outside Looking In: The Piedras Negras Near Periphery Re-examined (2018)
Surveys in 1997 and 1998 recorded 89 Classic Maya sites with 254 structures in the near periphery of Piedras Negras, Guatemala. Twenty-five sites were test pitted and five were intensively excavated. Recent re-analysis of the ceramic, lithic and architectural data from these sites provides new insights into how the Late Classic Maya (A.D. 625-825) in the near periphery participated in the Piedras Negras kingdom. Population size and implications for conflict are considered. Comparison of material...
An Overview of the Dos Hombres to Gran Cacao Archaeology Project Soil Testing and Methodologies (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 aims at emphasizing the importance of soil science practice to archaeology thus adding a scientific analytical nature to the cultural nature of archaeology. This report explores this field application of pH and NPK testing in the Dos Hombres to Gran Cacao Archaeology Project area located in northwestern Belize. These types of testing are of...
Paleoecology and Geoarchaeology of the Buenavista Valley, Petén, Guatemala (2023)
This is an abstract from the "La Cuernavilla, Guatemala: A Maya Fortress and Its Environs" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We have studied the long-term environmental change and geoarchaeology of the Buenavista Valley in the region of El Zotz and La Cuernavilla in Guatemala’s Petén through multiple NSF grants from the 2000s to an NGS Grant for fieldwork in 2022. Past studies focused on the El Zotz reservoir, other regional reservoirs, dam...
Paleoenvironmental Research at Yaxnohcah, Campeche, Mexico (2024)
This is an abstract from the "New and Emerging Perspectives on the Bajo el Laberinto Region of the Maya Lowlands, Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. When the Proyecto Arqueológico Yaxnohcah began 13 years ago in 2011, some of our driving questions centered on the Bajo el Laberinto and the role that this enormous wetland played in the rise and development of what was to become the great city of Yaxnohcah: Why were the early inhabitants of the...
Paleoethnobotanical Remains from an Early Classic Maya Tomb at Buenavista del Cayo, Belize (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the tropics, paleoethnobotanists often face challenging preservation environments, making most of the macrobotanical specimens that we analyze those that are preserved through processes of carbonization. This preservation issue is often framed as limiting the questions we can ask and the interpretations we can make about ancient Maya relationships with the...
Papa Was a Rolling Stone: Migration Stories from the Three Rivers Region, NW Belize (2019)
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. A robust body of literature on ancient Maya migration exists, showcasing their intrinsically mobile nature. Interestingly, while migration inquiries have been conducted in urban centers throughout the ancient Maya world, it is less well understood how people moved around more rural landscapes. For the ancient Maya inhabiting...
Pasado, presente y futuro de la conservación del patrimonio edificado de la región serrana de Yucatán: Kabah, Sayil, Xlapak y Labná (2019)
This is an abstract from the "La Restauración de Monumentos Prehispánicos en México: Principios, Práctica, y Visión al Futuro" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. El sureste mexicano tiene una larga tradición en intervenciones de restauración de edificios monumentales. Estos trabajos se iniciaron desde principios del siglo pasado, con la intención de conservar los majestuosos edificios que se encontraban en pie y que fueron dados a conocer al mundo...
Pathways and the Power of Organizational Process: Defining Polity at Wari Camp, Belize (2018)
The ancient Maya community of Wari Camp was organized into a quincunx pattern of four quarters delineated by the intersection of two inter-cardinal alignments. One was formed by a series of "temple-on-the-east" groups running northwest to southeast. The other consisted of a massive, northeast-to-southwest trending drainage modified for foot traffic. At their intersection stood an uncarved stela. Other stelae marked crossroads, while pairs of temple groups stood at entrances into the drainage...
Pathways to Power for Classic Maya Sub-royal Elites (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Bringing the Past to Life, Part 1: Papers in Honor of John M. D. Pohl" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. John Pohl’s research is groundbreaking in its analysis of the supporting characters in Mesoamerican royal courts. Secondary elites (including the nobles, priests, merchants, and artisans of the court) vied for power using innovative tactics that worked outside the traditional systems of inherited authority. Pohl’s...
Paul Gendrop’s Río Bec, Chenes, and Puuc Architecture: New Insights after 40 Years (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While certain Northern Maya Lowland architectural characteristics remain constant for these three peninsular stylistic “entities” defined by Paul Gendrop, such as few dynastic hieroglyphic monuments, ballcourts or E-Group complexes, the past forty years have revealed many new, insular features: zoomorphic mask elements adorning massive monumental...
People-Plant Negotiations in Two Rejolladas at Yaxuna and Joya, Yucatán (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Rejolladas have long been identified as sites of specialized agricultural and ritual practice across the northern Maya lowlands. However, archaeological investigations of these cavernous, soil-rich features have been sporadic until relatively recently, and there is still much to be understood about the way people engaged...
Persistence of the Anthropocene in the Maya Lowlands (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Maya Lowlands have been a focus of human development across millennia, and the impact of Maya civilization on this tropical environment has been a focus of sustained research and intense debate. It has become common to discuss environmental crises and societal collapse in the region as analogous to contemporary socio-environmental problems. However, the...
A Petrographic Analysis of Ceramics from the Prehistoric Maya Site of Hun Tun in Northwestern Belize (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A petrographic analysis was conducted on sherd samples from the small prehistoric Maya site of Hun Tun, located in the hinterlands of the larger elite polity, La Milpa, in Northwestern Belize. Hun Tun contains a chultun, an archaeological feature in the ground which was filled with a clay which was lacking in inclusions. Dr. Robyn Dodge, the archaeologist who...