Maya: Classic (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Damien Marken. Olivia Navarro-Farr. David Freidel.

This is an abstract from the "Regimes of the Ancient Maya" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Classic period (250–900 CE) politics of the Lowland Maya have been the subject of intense debate among scholars for decades. Having long ago moved beyond unsupported models of peaceful theocracies and vacant ceremonial centers, investigators nevertheless continue to wrestle with characterizing the nature of Classic political structure. This paper will...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Payson Sheets.

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. The ancient Ceren sweat bath was a communal facility of notable sophistication, especially for a commoner village. Household 2 supported its functioning with ollas full of water, pine kindling, and presumably structural maintenance. Loma Caldera’s phreatomagmatic eruption phases, with lava bombs, caused...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Graham Goodwin. Heather Richards-Rissetto. Kristy Primeau. David Witt.

Researchers have been applying Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to examine the roles of visibility and movement in archaeological landscapes around the world. However, few studies have investigated the role sound potentially played in structuring experience in ancient cities. To begin to fill this gap, this paper builds on our initial investigations to develop new geospatial and virtual reality (VR) methods to examine ancient acoustics. For the ancient Maya, sight and sound worked in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Justin Tran. Jason Woo. Thomas Crimmel. Anabel Ford. Sherman Horn III.

This is an abstract from the "Landscapes: Archaeological, Historic, and Ethnographic Perspectives from the New World / Paisajes: Perspectivas arqueológicas, históricas y etnográficas desde el Nuevo Mundo" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As a critique of the temperate prejudice of the tropics, we embrace the hypothesis that the Maya forest represents a domesticated landscape to examine the settlement and environmental patterns of the ancient Maya of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Holley Moyes. Kelsey Hanson. Erin Ray.

Performance theory recognizes that the boundaries between ritual and theatrical performances are often quite blurred, allowing shared methods of analysis between the two. While many have argued for a theater-state among the ancient Maya, few have ventured beyond the large ceremonies conducted in great plazas to consider the more esoteric nature of public, semi-public, and private rites taking place in the natural landscape. Ancient Maya caves were used exclusively as ritual spaces, yet there has...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kyle Shaw-Müller. John Walden. Michael Biggie. Abel Nachamie. Qiu Yijia.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The formation of neighborhoods and their integration into polities necessarily involves changes to the wealth of their inhabitants, especially as certain economic activities such as craft production intensify. For example, households that were among the first in a community, especially in low-density agricultural communities such as those of the ancient Maya,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gabrielle Vail.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster examines the implications of imagery identified as relating to Mesaomerican “Flower Worlds” on spindle whorls left in situ in Balankanche’ Caverns by actors who used the caverns in the Terminal Classic period (ninth and tenth centuries) to invoke ritual-mythic time within this underworld space that was seen as the place of human creation and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elisandro Garza.

This work offers a brief discussion on the importance of Spondylus princeps and Spondylus calcifer in the ceremonial, and economic life of ancient Copan. Archaeological contexts at the site indicate that the uses of Spondylus, either as non-worked valves, or finished artifacts was restricted to a small high-status sphere of Copan society. Additionally, contextual data indicate that the Spondylus was used in a least three ritual activities: as offering in burials; caches; and canceling of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only George Bey. William Ringle. Tomas Gallareta N..

This is an abstract from the "Regimes of the Ancient Maya" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper examines the nature of northern Maya lowland statecraft, politics, and kingship and how they differ and parallel that of the southern lowlands. In keeping with the goal of the symposium this paper focuses on the concept of “regime” recognizing the Maya, especially when considering the northern and southern areas, created distinct political...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Melissa Dods. Olivia Navarro-Farr. Karen Alley.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation is a large-scale comparative case study of two distinct regions to see how their use and control of water was similar given their environments but different from social, political, and cultural perspectives. Specifically, I examine the sociopolitical nature of Angkor Wat as an expression of ancient Khmer culture and the Classic Maya city of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Johann Begel. Cédric Becquey.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mayan stelae and altars are a key epigraphic and iconographic source for understanding the political history of the Classic period (250-900 AD). Tikal produced a particularly large number of these monuments in a variety of architectural contexts: Twin Pyramids Groups, Plazas, Great Temples, residential groups and even remote areas, probably corresponding...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Doyle.

This is an abstract from the "Decipherment, Digs, and Discourse: Honoring Stephen Houston's Contributions to Maya Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As a graduate student, Stephen Houston contributed references as well as two personal communications to the catalogue for The Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art, including drawing Linda Schele and Mary Miller’s attention to key details of an exhibition centerpiece: the Kimbell Art...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Garrison. Andrew Scherer.

This is an abstract from the "Decipherment, Digs, and Discourse: Honoring Stephen Houston's Contributions to Maya Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Stephen Douglas Houston was drawn to archaeology and ancient scripts from a young age, fascinated by the rune stones of his mother’s native Sweden. While he is most widely seen as an epigrapher to outsiders, Mayanists recognize that he is, in fact, a world class field archaeologist that knows...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alejandra Roche Recinos. Andrew Scherer. Charles Golden.

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 present the results of the analysis of nearly 42,000 chert and obsidian artifacts from sites in the Middle Usumacinta River region to examine economic production and exchange at the level of the polity. Our study includes a range of household and non-household contexts, revealing entanglements of the lithic economy within the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jacob Lozano.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Varying facets of ancient Maya visual expression have long documented cultural elements of identity, political relationships, and social organization. These components manifest in a spectrum of archaeological material and cultural remains. Within the abundant regions and polities, evidence suggests the existence of local artistic and scribal traditions....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca Hill. William Ringle.

This is an abstract from the "The Bolonchen Regional Archaeological Project: 25 Years of Research in the Puuc" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper discusses excavations between 2006 and 2008 in the Grupo Chanchich at Huntichmul, Yucatán. Huntichmul is one of the larger sites in the eastern Puuc, with a strong Terminal Classic apogee. The Grupo Chanchich is of interest because it is a formal arrangement of C-shaped structures nestled in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Baaske. Kevin Austin.

The presentation of heritage sites is critically important to the perception of historical narratives. A key goal is to help both scholars and the general public to see heritage as dynamic and living. This project explores the visualization of archaeological excavations through preservation technologies, specifically photogrammetric data. Our study focuses on a patio group at the Maya site of Xno’ha (occupation dates range from the Late Preclassic to the Terminal Classic) in northern Belize, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Byron Smith. Marisol Cortes-Rincon.

Late Classic hinterland agronomy presents a compelling glimpse into the socioeconomic dynamics of production and demand in the Three Rivers region. This project focused on a prominent house-group located 350 meters east of the site of Dos Hombres which was known to exhibit intensive agricultural strategies as well as a specialized degree of stone working. Additionally, a series of four karst depressions bordered the site and likely leveraged moisture demand resulting from agricultural needs as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only J. Dennis Baldwin. Thomas Garrison. Rafael Cambranes.

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. The Buena Vista Valley (BVV), encompassing the ancient Maya communities of La Cuernavilla and El Zotz, has been the subject of years of extensive archaeological survey carried out by the Proyecto Arqueológico El Zotz (PAEZ). In 2017 and 2019, the Pacunam Lidar Initiative (PLI) acquired aerial lidar data over the entirety of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Heather Richards-Rissetto. Amy E. Thompson.

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. Ancient Maya agricultural practices varied based on heterogenous landscapes across the Maya Lowlands. While such variations may cause hesitation in comparative models, we find utility in assessing such differences to understand dynamic past human behaviors. Following the methods...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Megan O'Neil.

This is an abstract from the "Polychromy, Multimediality, and Visual Complexity in Mesoamerican Art" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Examining multiple media, this paper addresses depicted and actual surfaces in ancient Maya art in order to explore artistic engagements with surface, texture, and the sense of touch. It considers, for example, how certain artists rendered bodies, objects, and materials in manners conveying the look and feel of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Diane Chase. Arlen Chase.

The sub-tropical forests that once covered the ancient ruins of much of Mesoamerica are being rapidly removed due to modern subsistence practices. Yet, archaeological and ecological research shows that this is not the first time that extensive human-caused deforestation has occurred in this region, minimally representing the third iteration of such an event. Analyses of lake-cores and remote sensing imagery provide evidence for extensive land clearing around 1000 BCE and again after CE 250, with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anabel Ford. Cynthia Ellis Topsey.

This is an abstract from the "Advancing Public Perceptions of Sustainability through Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Globally, the Mesoamerican and Maya Milpa is gravely misunderstood as primitive, called shifting cultivation by the sole focus on annual crops combined with the fallacy of fallow, accurately defined as an unseeded plowed field. The attention to the annuals ignores the intentional and patient development of perennials,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn Reese-Taylor. Armando Anaya Hernández. Nicholas Dunning. Verónica Vázquez López. Fernando Flores Esquivel.

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. Since 2011, a multidisciplinary team of researchers has been investigating the development of dense urbanism along the southern edge of the Bajo el Laberinto. Anchored by Yaxnohcah in the east and Pared de los Reyes in the west, the area was settled at ca. 900 BCE and occupied until ca. 1500 CE,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Ruhl.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Effective water management was key to settle in the Maya Lowlands, where scarce surface water is found. While numerous investigations have showed how complex systems had been organized in Maya sites, implying a great deal of attraction to them, new data, available through LidAR for example, indicates a much more decentralized reality, where household-scale...