Maya: Classic (Other Keyword)
201-225 (857 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Intentional dental modification for aesthetic purposes relating to personal ornamentation and social identity have been widely documented in the Maya region in the form of dental filing and labial drilling for dental inlays. Dental modifications for therapeutic purposes, however, are rarely documented. Though rare, evidence for chipping, scraping, and...
Dentition, Kinship, and Status in the Mopan-Macal Triangle: Small-Sample Insights into Classic Maya Social Organization in Central Western Belize (2018)
Classic Maya social status is more complex than an elite verses non-elite dichotomy. Research suggests that a "middle" status group exists. However, the social segment from which they arise is unknown. This study focuses on individuals from the urban center of Buenavista del Cayo who are below the ruling elites in the "middle" rungs of social status, and those from the neighboring farming community of Guerra who are recognized as nonelites. Previous research suggested that no biological affinity...
The Desakota as a Model for Understanding Dense Urban-Agrarian Settlement among the Ancient Maya (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Large-scale surveys using lidar and other remote sensing technologies have revealed that Maya urban centers were much larger in both settlement area and number of features than previously thought, while also incorporating various forms of large-scale anthropogenic landscape modification for the purposes of intensive agricultural production. These findings...
Detection of Water Management Systems Using LiDAR at Las Abejas, 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 2016, the PfBAP (Programme for Belize Archeological Project) employed airborne LiDAR (light detection and ranging) remote sensing technology to map the project area in northwestern Belize. The PfBAP has used LiDAR data to detect and analyze anthropogenic modifications created by the ancient Maya. With this data in hand, we have generated a map with which to...
A Diachronic Analysis of Gender Based Mortuary Practices in the Belize River Valley (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Burial practices can offer important insights into gender roles within ancient Maya society. We present the results of a diachronic analysis of osteology, grave goods, burial architecture, and contextual data from 108 burials from the Belize River Valley polities of Baking Pot, Blackman Eddy, Cahal Pech, Lower Barton Creek, and Lower Dover. Analyses of grave...
Did the Maya Care about the Precession of the Equinox? (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. Updating progress on a collaborative project with the honoree, John Justeson, regardng the study of the use of Maya long numbers in the inscriptions.
Digging the Scene: More on the El Perú-Waka’ Burial 39 Figurines (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Mesoamerican Figurines in Context. New Insights on Tridimensional Representations from Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ancient Maya resurrection ritual depicted by the 23 ceramic figurines methodically arranged by mourners at the feet of the deceased ruler interred in El Perú-Waka’ Burial 39 continues to be a source of intriguing information about the Classic Maya. More recently, extensive examination...
Digital Dig Kits: Portable Affordable Archaeology for Twenty-First-Century Fieldwork (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent advances in lidar technologies have been profound for archaeology, amplifying the subdiscipline of digital archaeology. However, lidar units, both aerial and terrestrial, have remained cost prohibitive until recent products by Apple including the iPad and iPhone Pro series. These products are among the first consumer electronic devices with built-in...
Digital Methods for Conservation in Underground Archaeological Contexts: A Case Study from the Copan Acropolis (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As site documentation methods become more high-tech and data-heavy, it raises issues of repeatability, access, and expense. In the case of the 3 kilometers of circuitous archaeological tunnels at the Classic Maya site of Copan, Honduras, it was imperative to document them in a manner that would be accurate, efficient, and accessible not only to scholars with...
Digitizing Archaeological Data from the Dos Hombres to Gran Cacao Archaeology Project (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A wealth of digital data is produced during an archaeological excavation and because so much of the fieldwork is unrepeatable, once the site is fully excavated, the digital records must be archived in a manner that best facilitates reuse. This paper presents the ongoing undertaking of digitizing data for the Dos Hombres to Gran Cacao Archaeology Project...
Digitizing Previously-Recorded Archaeological Survey Areas on a Budget: How Technical Illustrations in Inkscape Are Advancing the Field (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This research aims to examine nuances between site ranking, placement, and correlations to environmental zones in northwestern Belize. This study used a variety of technological tools such as Inkscape, a Scalable Vector Graphics (.svg) software and ArcGIS to provide in-depth analyses of the dynamic interactions of the ancient Maya at the household level....
Directed Movement at Ancient Maya Centers (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Manifesting Movement Materially: Broadening the Mesoamerican View" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Is there a right way to enter a Maya center? A correct order to the viewing and experiencing of the place? How did the physical act of moving through a center inform the understanding of that place, its leaders, oneself? This paper presents the results of several seasons of fieldwork at the Belizean sites of Xunantunich...
The Disembodied Eye in Maya Art and Ritual Practice (2021)
This is an abstract from the "New Perspectives on Ritual Violence and Related Human Body Treatments in Ancient Mesoamerica" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ritual use and display of skulls, digits, and femurs is well documented in Mesoamerica. But except for the heart, few sources describe how organs and soft body tissues were curated during the brief time they could been have been viable for manipulation or display. Nevertheless, there is rich...
Distributed Site Cores and Low-Density Urban Settlement at the Site of Zibal, Belize (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The sites of Zibal and Kich’pan Uitz in western Belize, recorded as minor Maya centers by the Aguacate Regional Archaeology Project, have recently been investigated via remote sensing, survey and test excavation. As a result, we see that these two clusters of monumental structures, along with their secondary nodes, are located in a continuous fabric of...
Documenting Archaeological Tunnels within the Copan Acropolis, Part 2: Geospatial Data and Structural Modeling of Temple 16 (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. At the Classic Maya city of Copán, Temple 16 is one of the most prominent structures; however, it is rapidly deteriorating along with other buried structures and archaeological tunnels. Inside Temple 16 are various structures and tombs including Rosalila, a uniquely preserved temple, as well as Oropendola, Clarinero, and Tortola, all of which cover earlier...
Documenting Archaeological Tunnels within the Copan Acropolis: Advances in Architectural and Geospatial Recording for Conservation (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Investigations within the Copan Acropolis have provided an unprecedented source of data bearing on Copan’s origins as the capital of a Classic period Maya kingdom. The excavations conducted over years by multiple research programs in partnership with the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History resulted in extensive tunnel exposures of stratified...
Documenting Domestic Economies in the Eastern Maya Lowlands through Obsidian Exchange (2023)
This is an abstract from the "An Exchange of Ideas: Recent Research on Maya Commodities" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Households composed the most basic unit of economic production and consumption in ancient Maya societies, and articulated directly with broader social and political processes. In addition to organizing daily tasks and agricultural production, households served as a point of engagement in the domestic economy for the acquisition...
Domestic Activity Areas in a Late Classic Residential Courtyard Group at Chan Chich, Belize (2018)
Households represent a foundational element of any society. The everyday activities that occur within domestic spaces construct and reinforce the social, economic, and political framework upon which societies are built. The 2017 field season of the Chan Chich Archaeological Project saw the first explicit study of domesticity and everyday life at the ancient Maya site of Chan Chich with investigations of final phase domestic activity areas in Courtyard D-4. This Late Classic residential group...
Domestic Contexts for Chipped Stone Eccentrics in the Maya World (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Ceremonial Lithics of Mesoamerica: New Understandings of Technology, Distribution, and Symbolism of Eccentrics and Ritual Caches in the Maya World and Beyond" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While most ceremonial lithic items, or eccentrics, are found in elite burial and ritual caches, others are found in more mundane contexts, such as fill and household middens. We examine artifacts recovered from households at the...
Domesticated Forests? Interpreting Agroforestry Practices from Diachronic Trends in Firewood Collection at the Classic Maya City of Naachtun (2018)
What can be drawn from anthracological data to infer long-term socio-environmental dynamics among ancient Mayas is a question that has received little attention. At Naachtun (Northern Peten, Guatemala), we studied charcoal remains from archaeological contexts in relation with pedological data to reconstruct forest resources and land management through time. Since the beginning of Naachtun's occupation at the end of the Preclassic period (≈ AD 150), domestic firewood economy seems to have been...
Double-Headed Serpent in the Southeastern Maya Frontier: Late Classic Deposit Unearthed from San Andres, El Salvador (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 aims to report a new ritual deposit dated to the Late Classic (A.D. 600-900), unearthed at San Andres, El Salvador. The items in the ritual deposit include vessels, Spondylus shells, and two pieces of jade artifacts, one of which was decorated with a double-headed serpent. In this paper, I present new data obtained from our recent excavation and...
Down By the River Side: A LiDAR-Based Settlement Survey in the Belize River Valley (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 focuses on the use of lidar technology, in combination with traditional pedestrian ground survey methods, to compare ancient settlement patterns and activity areas in contrasting environmental zones, alluvial floodplains and karstic hills, in the upper Belize River Valley. The paper also describes the capabilities and accuracy of LiDAR technology...
"Down to Earth": The Primacy of the Terrestrial (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. The concept of the Critical Zone makes clear that our future depends on the layer between the atmosphere and bedrock: the earth—which tellingly also serves as the name for our planet. Our Earth’s soils record the past and structure the future. Tim and Sheryl have worked in many places in the world, but I know them...
Drought and Cultural Instability (2023)
This is an abstract from the "2023 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Timothy Beach Part II" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Geologists and biologists work with archaeologists to address compelling questions about cultures of the past. Earth scientists who study tree rings, ice cores, speleothems, and lake sediment cores can provide information about the paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental contexts in which ancient cultures developed,...
Drums in the Deep: Archaeological Context and Contemporary Acoustics of Ceramic Drums Recovered from Late Classic El Perú-Waka’, Guatemala (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ceramic drums appear in Classic Maya art, being carried in the hand or nestled between the legs of Native American musicians. However, they have received scant, if quite detailed, attention in the scholarly literature. This presentation seeks to expand our knowledge of these ancient musician instruments using a number of complete and partial drums recovered...