Maya: Classic (Other Keyword)
701-725 (857 Records)
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. In Maya archaeology, agricultural cycles are the cornerstone of multiple research topics that intertwine daily life, ideology, political economy, and settlement systems. In archaeological research, land-use can be indicative of social organization and provisioning strategies. In this...
Settlement Pattern and Land Use Dynamics at Naachtun: Shaping an Agrarian Maya Town (2018)
The classic Maya site of Naachtun is actually composed by a monumental and public core zone of 35 hectares surrounded by an extensive residential area of about 175 hectares. The study of its settlement pattern along with geoarchaeological works focused on agrarian strategies specifically have shown the role of vacant spaces in shaping the settlement as an agrarian town. Mainly dedicated to agriculture since the beginning of Naachtun’s occupation in the Early Classic period and maintained until...
Settlement Patterns and Chronology in Calakmul and Its Surroundings (2024)
This is an abstract from the "New and Emerging Perspectives on the Bajo el Laberinto Region of the Maya Lowlands, Part 2" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Calakmul is the largest site on the northern edge of the Bajo el Laberinto and has been investigated intensively since the 1980s. Previous research has produced valuable data regarding the general urban extent and the Late Preclassic monumental architecture surrounding the main plaza, as well as...
Shell Midden Zooarchaeology and Paleoecology of Guaimoreto Lagoon, Northeast Honduras (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent research documents resource use and ecological change at the Selin Farm site, a group of around 30 well-stratified house and shell mounds occupied AD 300 – 1000 near the Guaimoreto Lagoon on the northeast coast of Honduras. A 4.5 m high shell mound with excellent preservation of vertebrate and invertebrate remains provides a full view of landscape...
Shellfish Harvesting, Subsistence Strategies, and Human/Environmental Interactions in the Río Champotón Drainage, Campeche, Mexico (2018)
With regional occupational continuity from the Middle Formative through Postclassic Periods, the Río Champotón drainage provides an ideal case study to examine long-term change in ancient Maya subsistence strategies and human/environmental interactions during two and a half millennia of human occupation. This poster presents the results of analysis of an assemblage of over 13,000 shell artifacts generated by the Champotón Regional Settlement Survey during seven seasons of research in the Río...
The Shifting Political Landscape of the Mopan Valley: A Diachronic Perspective (2018)
The Mopan River valley of Belize is home to five closely spaced Lowland Maya ceremonial centers with extensive settlement occupying the landscape between. From south to north, the ceremonial centers are Arenal, Early Xunantunich, Classic Xunantunich, Actuncan, and Buenavista del Cayo. Archaeological evidence suggests that each of these centers was initially occupied by the Middle Preclassic, but they had distinct histories, evolving into ceremonial/political centers at different times, from...
Shifting Regimes at La Corona: Political Resilience of Classic Maya “Secondary” Center (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Regimes of the Ancient Maya" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Data from investigations at the archaeological site of La Corona reflect the role that secondary sites had for political integration in the Maya lowlands. Comparing what the hieroglyphic texts suggest with what the material culture of the secondary sites indicates, it is possibly to assess the nature of La Corona political regime before, during, and after its...
Six Decades of Research into Ancient Maya Settlement 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. Nearly 60 years ago Gordon Willey’s team published "Prehistoric Maya Settlements in the Belize Valley," initiating the study of ancient Maya communities with a focus at Barton Ramie in Belize. The lead continues to this day with the first archaeological application of lidar by the...
Skull Offerings: The Koxol Offertory Assemblage in the Maya Area (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Skull offerings among the ancient populations of Mesoamerica are well documented by archaeological, ethnohistorical and iconographic sources. New finds in 2017, in the Lowland Maya Classic site of Naachtun (Guatemala) required intersite comparisons beyond the few well-known cases such as Uaxactun E-Group’s deposits. The association of a cached human skull and...
Slam Dunk: 3D Imaging in Belizean Cave Sites Using Hovermap System (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Subterranean in Mesoamerican Cultural Landscapes" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mapping is one of the most fundamental and important enterprises for cave archaeologists not only for research but also integral to cave management and heritage preservation. Using traditional cartography techniques is often a tedious and long-term project involving numerous field seasons and thousands of measurements. Capturing 3D...
The Sloppy Science of Ancient Maya E-Groups (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. Ancient Maya E-Groups have been a subject of archaeological fascination for nearly a century, resulting in extensive literature on E-Groups. However, consistency in that literature is hard to find. In this paper, we review some problems with...
Slowing Down the Archaeological Process in Dolores, Petén, Guatemala (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Maya archaeology has always relied on the labor and expertise of field technicians hired from heritage communities across the modern nations of Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador. Some of these communities, like Dolores, Guatemala, have been continuously engaged with archaeological projects for several decades, granting its members...
The Snake Dynasty: What We Know and What We Don’t (2021)
This is an abstract from the "New Light on Dzibanché and on the Rise of the Snake Kingdom’s Hegemony in the Maya Lowlands" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Epigraphic discoveries of the last few years now make possible a fresh engagement with questions about the origins and development of the Snake dynasty, of its external political influences during both the Early and Late Classic periods, and of the multiple physical centers from which the dynasty...
Snake Queens and Political Consolidation: How Royal Women Helped Create Kaanul—A View from Waka’ (2021)
This is an abstract from the "New Light on Dzibanché and on the Rise of the Snake Kingdom’s Hegemony in the Maya Lowlands" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Our paper demonstrates the key role played by royal women of the Kaanul realm in fortifying and consolidating that realm’s power and hegemony in the seventh to eighth centuries CE. We draw upon archaeological, visual, and textual evidence from Waka’, including preliminary analysis of recently...
The Snake Queens of Waka’: Harnessing Sorcery and Divinatory Power in Service to Kaan (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Rise and Apogee of the Classic Maya Kaanu’l Hegemonic State at Dzibanche" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Our paper demonstrates the key role played by royal Kaan women in fortifying and consolidating Kaan’s hegemony in the seventh–eighth centuries CE. We draw on archaeological, visual, and textual evidence from Waka’, including a preliminary analysis of recently discovered Stela 51, and elsewhere across the realm....
Social Complexity of Peripheral Settlements on the Regional Capital of Ichkaansihoo (2018)
In the last decade, research done by "Proyecto Arquelogico Region de Merida" (PARME) on peripheral settlements of the Ichkaantijo area has had as a main objective to recognize and interpret the social organization of these ancient communities, that according to literature have been defined as rural settlements. Therefore, how is this area and the sites that constitute it characterized? What role did they play in the political and economic system? And, which cultural elements have witnessed...
The Social Dynamics of Ceren's Household Gardens (2018)
The Late Classic Maya village of Joya de Ceren’s extraordinary preservation by the Loma Caldera eruption allows for a unique opportunity to not only understand what plant species the ancient inhabitants utilized in their daily lives but also how the cultivation of these plants shaped the social and economic environment. While Cerén has spectacular preservation of extensive outfields of maize, manioc, and numerous weedy species, this paper will focus on the cultivated spaces surrounding the...
Social Inequality and Cohesion through Rural-Urban Feasts at the Lowland Maya site of La Corona (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Lowland Maya feasts were critical for communal cohesion but also marked social distinctions among participants through differential display of status symbols and contributions. For these reasons they provide important insight on patterns of socioeconomic inequality and integration. In this paper I present material analyses data from Late Classic period (AD...
Social Responses to Volcanic Eruptions: Comparative Studies in Central America and Japan (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Equity in the Archaeology of Disaster, Past, Present, and Future" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Volcanic eruptions are hazardous events that affect past cultural and historical trajectories. However, despite several catastrophic eruptions having been recorded, some populations have chosen to continuously live in hazardous environments. Based on a long-term archaeological perspective, this paper shows human response,...
Society in Flux: Migration and Kinship during Sociopolitical Change in the Southern Lowlands (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Making and Breaking Boundaries in the Maya Lowlands: Alliance and Conflict across the Guatemala–Belize Border" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the midst of conflict and change people are instigators, bystanders, or unwilling victims of larger sociopolitical machinations. Those living in the Southern Lowlands in the prehistoric and historic periods were familiar with the results of fluctuations in the social...
Society’s Cutting-Edge Crafters: Lithic Commodity Production at Cotzumalhuapa (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Lithic artisans were critical to society throughout the Americas prior to the introduction of iron by Europeans. On the Pacific Coast of Guatemala, where no local sources of chipped-stone imported obsidian was available, obsidian was used to meet social demand for cutting edges. Throughout time this demand was met by a mixture of importing finished tools...
The Sociopolitical Impacts of Agricultural Intensification and Water Management in Classic Maya Society (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Past, Present, and Future of Water Supplies" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A central issue for our understanding of Classic Maya society is how it managed to flourish despite scarce water resources, and limited access to agriculturally productive soils. More recent investigations confirmed that the adaptation strategies, which the pre-Hispanic Maya developed to overcome these obstructions, were less defined by...
Soil Carbon Persistence and Influence in the Early Anthropocene of the Maya Lowlands (2023)
This is an abstract from the "2023 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Timothy Beach Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Coupled studies of Maya Lowlands soils and geoarchaeological exploration provide insight into neotropical soil and atmospheric carbon cycle dynamics in space and time, and soil carbon’s role in defining the Early Anthropocene. This paper tests the hypothesis that soil carbon persistence differs in time, space, and...
Soil Differences and Their Implications for Plaza Function and Site Organization at Maax Na, 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. In 2016 the Maax Na Archaeology Project systematically tested the soils of two major plazas at Maax Na, a large prehispanic site located in the Three Rivers Region of Belize. Tests in the West Plaza sought to determine whether phosphorus levels there supported its identification as a marketplace during the Late Classic (C.E....
Soils, Water, and Agriculture in the Maya Lowlands: Lidar and Paleoproxies Reveal New Perspectives on Complexity and Resilience (2024)
This is an abstract from the "“The Center and the Edge”: How the Archaeology of Belize Is Foundational for Understanding the Ancient Maya, Part II" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Questions of human subsistence, impacts, and response to environmental change have driven decades of research on ancient life in the Maya Lowlands. While traditional geoarchaeology and paleoecology methods have already documented a rich variety of agricultural and...