Maya: Preclassic (Other Keyword)
76-100 (166 Records)
Lithics, ceramics, and other artifacts, recovered from the 2017 Colha, Belize field season, are utilized to gain insight into chronological developments and changes at the ancient Maya site. Maya material culture recovered from excavations at Colha are presented and interpreted by context. Each artifact category is briefly defined, described, and placed into a general site context. The estimated time range for the recovered material culture extends from the Late Archaic to the Late Preclassic....
Metabolomics in the Study of Ground Stone Tools (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological ground stone tools used for food processing have proven to be rich sources of residues, in particular microbotanicals such as pollen, phytoliths, and starch grains. This data adds to the studies of tool function, foodways, and other lines of archaeological inquiry. To date, ground stone has not been the target of chemical residue analysis,...
Middle Preclassic Ceramic Distribution in Western Belize: A Comparative Study from Early Xunantunich (2021)
This is an abstract from the "The Preclassic Landscape in the Mopan Valley, Belize" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The value of ceramic sherds and vessels to the archaeologist extends far beyond the chronology of a site. Ceramic production and distribution data, for example, reveal information about ancient lifeways, ideologies, and movement across a landscape, ultimately telling us more about the people behind the pottery. In this paper, I will...
Middle Preclassic Chipped Stone Caches at Ceibal and Holtun, Guatemala (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. During the late Middle Preclassic period (700-350 B.C.) at Ceibal, common objects in ritual deposits in the public plaza shifted from greenstone celt caches to other artifacts, including obsidian prismatic-blade cores. Like...
Middle Preclassic Greenstone Caches from Paso del Macho, Yucatan (2018)
Complex ritual deposits dating to the Middle Preclassic period are rarely encountered in Yucatan, and typically have only been recovered from disturbed contexts. Excavations along the center axes in the plaza of the Middle Preclassic village of Paso del Macho in the Puuc region of Yucatan have yielded a series of offerings spanning from the early Middle Preclassic to the cusp of the Late Preclassic. Three different floor sequences were each associated with several offerings. The forms of the...
Middle Preclassic Marine Shell Production and Ritual Deposition at the Sites of Blackman Eddy and Las Ruinas de Arenal, Belize (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. Marine shell was a highly valued long-distance trade material for the ancient Maya beginning as early as the Middle Preclassic. Symbolically, marine shell represented the watery underworld and was often used in ritual offerings that reference cosmological ordering of the world. Evidence for Middle Preclassic marine shell bead...
Middle Preclassic Occupation and Architecture of the Mirador Basin, Guatemala (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Multidisciplinary Investigations in the Mirador Basin, Guatemala" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological excavations and technical analyses in the Mirador Basin of northern Guatemala have provided a new perspective of the origins and dynamics of incipient Maya civilization. Data relevant to settlement patterns, sampling strategies, demographic distributions, chronological evaluations, DNA and isotope...
Middle Preclassic Settlements in the Petén Lakes Region of 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. Proyecto Itza has recently resurveyed a large area to the south of Lake Petén Itzá in Petén, Guatemala, extending from Lake Salpeten to Laguna Perdida. The work utilized a variety of methods including total station mapping, photogrammetry, and lidar (conducted by the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping). The goal of the...
Mineralogical and Chemical Properties of Preclassic Maya Ceramics from Colha, 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 examines the question of whether or not Preclassic Maya exploited volcanogenic ceramic raw materials, which have refractory properties such as thermal conductivity, resistance to thermal shock, abrasion, chemical weathering, and thermal decomposition. Scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-rays, energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence, and...
Minor Temple Groups, Water Management and Community Formation at Ceibal, Guatemala (2018)
Recent investigations of reservoirs associated with minor temple groups at Ceibal, Guatemala shed light on the role of water management in intermediate-level sociopolitical organization in ancient Maya society. Over the course of the Late and Terminal Preclassic periods (ca. 350BC-AD200), as Ceibal grew into an urban center, minor temples were built at regular intervals around the site core. These temples were the centers of local communities that were integrated primarily through ritual...
Monumental Architecture of Yaxha and Nakum (Northeastern Guatemala) during the Middle and Late Preclassic Periods (2018)
Yaxha and Nakum are two important Maya centers located in northeastern part of Guatemala. Recent research carried out by different projects at both sites indicate that during the Preclassic period Yaxha and Nakum rose to power and became important polities that had many examples of monumental architecture such as E-Groups, triadic complexes, ballcourts, causeways and other constructions. The scale of monumental architecture documented at Yaxha indicates that it was one of the largest Late...
Monumental Displays: Ritual Performance and Preclassic Architecture at Early Xunantunich, Belize (2018)
The site of Early Xunantunich in modern day Belize provides the opportunity for a uniquely detailed case study in Preclassic Maya architecture. Thanks to a lack of Classic Period overburden, the Mopan Valley Preclassic Project has been able to conduct extensive excavations of early architecture at the site, documenting important ritual activities from this early time period which likely played a key role in the development of sociopolitical complexity in the region. This paper focuses on...
Monumentality and Horizontality in a Preclassic Cityscape (2018)
During the Preclassic, the inhabitants of Yaxnohcah, Campeche, Mexico constructed more than 13 civic architectural complexes, each at least 20 m in height. These civic complexes were situated throughout roughly a 36 km2 area in a carefully planned quadripartite arrangement. Alongside these imposing structures, the early Maya also built massive platforms for public gatherings, large centralized reservoirs, a radial network of inter- and intra-city roads, and extensive agricultural features. In...
The Monumentality of the Preclassic Maya of the Mirador Basin, Guatemala (2018)
Archaeological investigations in 51 ancient sites within the geographical confines of the Mirador Basin of northern Guatemala have identified an extraordinary emphasis on monumentality in art and architecture dating well into the Middle and Late Preclassic periods of Maya occupation. The structure and format of this phenomenon is replicated in early complex societies in other parts of the world, and suggests a consistent human behavior of predictable characteristics. The analyses and forms of...
Monumentality, Politics, and Power: Implications of Recent Investigations of Late Preclassic Public Architecture at Xunantunich, Belize (2021)
This is an abstract from the "The Preclassic Landscape in the Mopan Valley, Belize" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Late Preclassic period (~300 BC–AD 300) witnessed some of the most important changes in social and political roles in the Maya lowlands when an emergent elite class began to use art and architecture to publicly display their elevated status in society. Recent archaeological research at the hilltop center of Xunantunich, located in...
Mortuary Landscapes and Placemaking through Veneration at the Maya Site of Colha (2018)
Traces of veneration are sedimented within the landscape and the collective memory of its occupants, transforming these spaces into places. Such palimpsests become potent, which, in the case of mortuary landscapes, can manifest in increasingly complex burial rituals through time. The 2017 excavations at Colha revealed a series of 9 interments in the main plaza of the 2000 sector, yielding a minimum number of 13 individuals. This mortuary area initially utilized during the Middle Preclassic was...
Mortuary Practice and Placemaking: The Establishment of a Cemetery during the Preceramic-Preclassic Transition at Ceibal, Guatemala (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent investigations in the Amoch Group of Ceibal, a minor ceremonial complex located outside of the site epicenter, have provided new insights into the transition from the Preceramic to the Middle Preclassic periods in the Maya lowlands (ca. 1000 BC). Previous investigations in the civic-ceremonial core of Ceibal revealed an E Group dating to around 950...
Naturalizing Authority: Sociopolitical Inequality and the Construction of Monumental Architecture at Early Xunantunich, Belize (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the last decade, the Mopan Valley Preclassic Project has extensively investigated the Preclassic ceremonial center of Early Xunantunich, Belize. These excavations have yielded significant information regarding the construction of monumental architecture during the Middle and Late Preclassic periods, as well as data regarding early ritual activities and...
Negotiations in the Ritual and Social Landscape of Actuncan, Belize (2018)
Our understanding of the ancient Maya is informed to a great extent by the material remains of ritual performance in both domestic and public contexts. Maya populations throughout Mesoamerica were united by a shared cosmology patterning the timing, location, and material aspects of ritual performance. Yet, ritual was not a static or rigid construct, dutifully replicated across populations. At the site of Actuncan, Belize, we find that aspects of domestic ritual cycles, - including form, content,...
New Data on City Planning at Nixtun-Ch’ich’, Petén, Guatemala (2018)
The site of Nixtun-Ch’ich’ in Petén, Guatemala is the only known lowland Maya site with an urban grid. Such grids are composed of perpendicular streets forming quadrilateral city blocks. They are common elements of city planning as they increase the legibility of city space and the interconnectivity of occupants. The urban grid at Nixtun-Ch’ich’ is the earliest known in the Americas (ca. 800-500 BCE) and was built when social complexity was emerging in the Maya region. Like many Preclassic...
New Methods of Mound Detection in the Maya Lowlands: UAV Survey and Settlement Mapping at Altar de Sacrificios, Petén, Guatemala (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the last decade, the use of lidar has dramatically changed our understanding of the size and extent of ancient settlements in the Maya lowlands. This technology, however, has yielded equivocal results in secondary-forest growth and recently deforested environments. In these settings, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) surveys facilitate a more effective and...
The Origins of Sociopolitical Complexity in Western Belize: Investigating Preclassic Occupation in the Site Core of Xunantunich (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Previous studies in the Maya area indicate many lowland Maya site cores developed gradually with continuous construction and modifications extending back to the Preclassic era (1200 BC–AD 300). In spite of this developmental sequence, few sites exhibiting Preclassic transition phases have been intensively investigated. One example is the Belize Valley site...
Overview of Archaeological Investigations in the Middle Usumacinta Region (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Preclassic Maya Social Transformations along the Usumacinta: Views from Ceibal and Aguada Fénix" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Middle Usumacinta Archaeological Project started investigations in the Department of Tabasco, Mexico, in 2017. Its main objectives are to examine the relationship between the residents of the Maya lowlands and those of the Olmec region and to trace social change during the Preclassic...
A Paleoethnobotanical Analysis of Ceramic Residues from Caches and Burials at the Lowland Maya Site of Holtun, Guatemala (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Among the Maya, plant-based foods were not just important for sustenance but also had ritual meaning, especially emphasized when placed in graves and caches. Food offered during ritual performances created a reciprocal relationship between living individuals, their ancestors, and the gods. This poster will present the paleoethnobotanical results from...
Partialities of Power at Uci, Yucatan, Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Beginning in 2008, the Uci/Cansahcab Regional Integration Project has investigated the causes and consequences of the construction of an 18km long causeway that connected four ancient Maya sites with monumental architecture in the Late Preclassic period. This paper presents the results of recent excavations at Ucí, the largest site along the causeway and the...