Maya: Preclassic (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Munson. Andrés Mejía-Ramón. Lorena Paíz Aragon.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Estevan Ramirez. Jaime Awe.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Takeshi Inomata.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Lentz. Stephanie Meyers. John Jones. Nicholas Dunning. Kathryn Reese-Taylor.

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. Yaxnohcah was a major civic-ceremonial center of the ancient Maya world, especially during the Preclassic period (1000 BCE–200 CE). Environmental data from excavations provided important insights into the interaction between the ancient inhabitants of the polity and the surrounding Neotropical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kimberly Batres. Neil A. Duncan. Lana Williams. Brigitte Kovacevich. Michael Callaghan.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kimberly Batres. Neil Duncan. Lana Williams. Brigitte Kovacevich. Michael Callaghan.

This is an abstract from the "Holtun: Investigations at a Preclassic Maya Center" session, at the 89th 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 paper presents the paleoethnobotanical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Scott Hutson. Daniel Vallejo Caliz. Shannon Plank.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Santiago Juarez.

This is an abstract from the "Recent Archaeological Investigations in Chiapas, Mexico" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Late Preclassic (400 BC–AD 250) ceremonial center of Noh K’uh was designed in a quincunx pattern to commemorate the importance of cardinality and cosmological symbols. This kind of architectural design was commonplace in Preclassic Mesoamerica, as the earliest populations shaped their ceremonial spaces in reverence to natural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Lawrence. Cathy Costin. Kathleen Marsaglia. Michael Love. Hector Neff.

The Middle Preclassic (900-600 BCE) was a critical time of political and social centralization in the Guatemalan lowlands. Of particular interest is La Blanca, one of the first polities to rise and show signs of regional influence and potential urbanization. To reconstruct everyday life I am using excavated ceramic refuse to observe dynamics surrounding three households. This, in turn, elucidates elements of La Blanca’s political economy associated with the manufacturing and production of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kaitlin Ahern.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation focuses on examining Preclassic and Classic period plazas at Cival and Holmul in Guatemala to provide greater insight into the role of public spaces and ceremonies in the Central Maya Lowlands. Estimated plaza capacity and population estimates are used to determine how plazas were utilized at both Cival and Holmul, for functions such as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Takeshi Inomata.

This is an abstract from the "Constructing Chronologies I: Stratification and Correlation" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists working in the Maya area face multiple challenges as they develop chronological studies. First, many sites are complex urban centers with diverse types of structures and areas. Second, these sites commonly have long occupation, involving migrations, destructions of buildings, and recycling of construction...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Barbara Arroyo. Javier Estrada. Gloria Ajú.

This is an abstract from the "Ancient Mesoamerican Population History: Demography, Social Complexity, and Change" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The population estimates from the Preclassic period for the site of Kaminaljuyu located in the Maya Highlands were the result of regional surveys conducted by the Pennsylvania State University research program in the 1970s. Since then, Guatemala City urban sprawl has impacted the site conservation....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Carr.

It is well established that the ancient Maya favored certain orientations for the buildings in their major urban centers. In the southern Maya lowlands, an orientation of 14° clockwise from the cardinal directions is particularly common. How did the ancient Maya find this orientation? What was their surveying technique? Lidar from many sites shows that this orientation was not limited to major constructions. The smallest residential structures and patio groups, structures spread throughout the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Debra Walker.

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. A decade of research at Yaxnohcah informs our current understanding the Central Karstic Uplands and lays the groundwork for continuing research in the greater Bajo el Laberinto region. This paper summarizes the sometimes surprising results of ceramic analysis at the site, while acknowledging the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Gilstrap. Michael Callaghan. Daniel Pierce.

This is an abstract from the "Where Is Provenance? Bridging Method, Evidence, and Theory for the Interpretation of Local Production" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Formal studies of archaeological pottery have moved far beyond traditional typological approaches through applications of complementary instrumental analyses, borrowed mainly from the Natural Sciences. No contemporary study of archaeological pottery is complete without some form of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kazuo Aoyama.

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. I discuss the results of a diachronic analysis of lithic artifacts collected from Ceibal, Guatemala, in order to elucidate long-term patterns and changes in the Preclassic and Classic Maya exchange, craft production and ritual practices. The interregional exchange of large polyhedral cores of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kaitlin Crow. Norbert Stanchly.

Archaeological excavations within the Belize River Valley region have produced robust faunal assemblages that have increased our understanding of the Maya use of animals during the Preclassic. At Pacbitun, located on the southern periphery of the Valley, large scale horizontal excavations are providing insights into animal utilization during the Preclassic period at the site (1000 BC – AD 300). These investigations have probed into plaza floors, residential and ceremonial platforms, as well as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Justin Bracken.

A third season of fieldwork at the fortified site of Muralla de León has expanded the scope of coverage for the project by mapping and excavating nearby hilltop occupations on the shores of Lake Macanché. The work serves to contextualize the space contained by the site’s enceinte, a physical barrier that serves also as a boundary feature. Earlier investigations into the site interior and the ramparts of the enceinte itself begged for a comparative data set, as the significance of a barrier...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary Jane Acuña. Carlos Chiriboga. Varinia Matute. Francisco Castañeda.

The site of El Tintal, located in northern Petén, Guatemala, provides early evidence of monumental construction, initiating with the large-scale transformation of the landscape in preparation for the site’s ceremonial core, followed by construction programs consisting of pyramids, elevated causeways, and a diversity of hydraulic features. Recent investigations at El Tintal have shed light on its Preclassic settlement, organized around what we propose was an ancient lagoon which settlers...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alessandra Villarreal.

Understanding the organization of ancient ceramic production and distribution patterns can provide archaeologists a means of exploring past economies. Recent studies have shown that petrographic analysis can be operationalized to detect variability in production recipes, distribution of production groups across a landscape, and even producer-specific material choices. Ceramicists working in the Maya lowlands have demonstrated the benefit of using petrographic analysis in conjunction with other...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kazuo Aoyama.

This is an abstract from the "Aguada Fénix and the Middle Usumacinta Region: Interregional Interactions and Social Transformations in the Middle Preclassic Period" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper discusses the results of my diachronic analysis of lithic artifacts collected in Aguada Fénix and its neighboring sites in the Middle Usumacinta region, Mexico, in order to elucidate one aspect of long-term changing patterns in the Preclassic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Clarissa Cagnato.

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. Paleoethnobotanical evidence, in conjunction with other archaeological data, provides key information regarding ancient practices. This paper presents the results of microbotanical analyses —specifically the study of starch grains—carried out on diverse Preclassic Maya archaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Callaghan. Brigitte Kovacevich. Rachel Gill. Karla Cardona.

Recent research in the Maya lowlands has shown that "E-Group" architectural complexes were intricately tied to the development of complex society during the Middle Preclassic period (900 BC – 300 BC). First identified at the site of Uaxactun, Guatemala, E-Group complexes consist of a western radial platform and eastern range structure. For many years Maya archaeologists believed E-Groups functioned primarily as celestial observatories. However, recent data have shown E-groups were the locus of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Smyth.

Some of the earliest and largest monumental architecture in the Puuc Hills are found at the Maya center of Xcoch. Noted by John Stephens in 1841 as a large city with a deep water cave and gigantic pyramid, Xcoch is among a host of Puuc sites now dated to the Preclassic period. An interdisciplinary research program at Xcoch and vicinity from 2006 to 2013 revealed Preclassic Maya community patterns, megalithic architecture, and material culture for a developing complex society. Massive high...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Josephine Thompson. Carlos Morales. Richard Hansen. Ross Ensley.

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. A new model of Preclassic settlement patterns has emerged with the use of lidar to document a large-scale landscape in northern Guatemala. These patterns include highly sophisticated man-made hydrographic features, monolithic transportation networks, extensive residential complexes, and monumental civic complexes...