Maya: Postclassic (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrea Ogaz. Samantha Lorenz. Toni Gonzalez.

Excavations at Mul Ch’en Witz uncovered a series of chultunes just below the escarpment on which the ceremonial core of La Milpa is located. Of the six chultunes identified during the 2017 field season, Chultun 3 has produced the most cultural material. In addition to several complete vessels excavated, human bone fragments were recovered. The remains, found next to the chultun capstone, revive questions surrounding the mortuary function of chultunes. Dennis Puleston, among others, considered...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Annabeth Headrick.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The city of Chichen Itza has defied attempts to identify individuals who ruled the city and its basic political organization. Scholars once argued for a shared governance system called multepal, basing this assertion on glyphic references to a series of people who apparently jointly held power. Subsequent scholarship challenged this assertion, as revised...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joel Palka. Fabiola Sánchez.

This is an abstract from the "Dynamic Frontiers in the Archaeology of Chiapas" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A small rural stopover site in the frontier along overland Late Postclassic (ca. 1300–1500 CE) Maya and Aztec trade and travel routes was identified at Mensabak, Chiapas, Mexico. This site is similar in function to rural Old World and Andean caravan stop overs, such as caravanserai and way stations, where travelers and traders obtained...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gregory Borgstede.

This is an abstract from the "Art, Archaeology, and Science: Investigations in the Guatemala Highlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper examines dynamic changes in Maya settlement patterns through a comparison of expansion and contraction of settlement patterns during the pre-Columbian, historic, and contemporary periods. In particular, it looks at when and why settlements are formed, within what is generally considered to be a single...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Verna Gentil.

The ancient Maya port site of Conil is located in the modern community of Chiquilá on the north coast of Quintana Roo, Mexico. In 1528 Francisco de Montejo, a Spanish conquistador, reported that Conil was a large town consisting of 5,000 houses. William Sanders was the first archaeologist to work at the site in 1954, but the site core was not formally mapped until 2005 by Glover. Further work was conducted in 2014, 2016, and 2017 as part of El Projecto Costa Escondida (PCE). Data collection and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marilyn Masson.

Debt was important to late Maya societies in religious and political terms. This paper explores the many facets of debt that tied together household and regional economies, including bottom-up mechanisms employed by families and communities, as well as top-down institutions that garnered support for religious and political bureaucracies. Graeber’s distinction between moral and impersonal economies outlines a comparative continuum with profound implications for issues of human rights in the past....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eva Martinez.

This is an abstract from the "The Pre-Columbian Cultures of Honduras after AD 900" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ceramics have been the most reliable indicator of social interactions in eastern Honduras. However, these material indicators have also been described sometimes as being rather homogeneous throughout the region. On the other hand, some scholars point out intraregional variations regarding eastern Honduran ceramic assemblages and what...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Manda Adam. Iyaxel Cojti Ren. Fred Valdez, Jr..

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Terminal Classic (AD 800-1000) and Postclassic (AD 1000-1500) periods of Maya civilization in northern Belize were times of significant change and social transformation. Changes and developments during the Terminal Class are visible archaeological at several northern Belizean communities including Colha, Lamanai, and La Milpa. We evaluate changes at...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mauricio Díaz García. Cameron L. McNeil. Agapito Carballo. Samuel Pinto. Reina Hernández.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The site of Río Amarillo, on the far eastern side of the Copan Valley, was integrated into the economy of the Copan polity during the Classic period. However, the groups surrounding the core of Río Amarillo long outlasted both Copan’s center and the secondary center of Río Amarillo. This paper will explore the ceramic evidence from the hinterlands to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jim Aimers. Elizabeth Graham.

This is an abstract from the "The Movement of People and Ideas in Eastern Mesoamerica during the Ninth and Tenth Centuries CE: A Multidisciplinary Approach Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Maya site of Lamanai is strategically located in northern Belize on the New River, which connects the Caribbean coast to the interior of the Maya area. In the Preclassic period into the early part of the Classic, Lamanai pottery shows close connections...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Justine Shaw.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Following the widespread Terminal Classic florescence that saw booming occupations at every site in the Cochuah region of west-central Quintana Roo, Mexico, many settlements were entirely abandoned. However, some sites possessed late Terminal Classic populations, living in novel architecture yet continuing other Classic Maya material practices. One such round...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carrie Tucker. Jeffrey B. Glover. Dominique Rissolo.

Coastal communities in the Maya Lowlands played a myriad of roles in the ebb and flow of political, economic, and social formations over the past 3000 years, yet these roles have remained along the periphery of Maya studies. Though ever present, Maya coastal sites were atypical – perhaps even idiosyncratic – in terms of how they were imagined and lived-in by the Maya. Critical to our understanding of these coastal settlements is the material culture traded and utilized by the occupants of these...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dominica Stricklin.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study applies isotopic analyses of carbon (ẟ13Ccoll) and nitrogen (ẟ15Ncoll) from bone collagen, with carbon (ẟ13Cap), oxygen (ẟ18O), and strontium (87Sr/86Sr) to faunal remains excavated from a peri-abandonment deposit at the ancient Maya site of Xunantunich during the Terminal Classic period. Peri-abandonment deposits represent a distinct phenomenon in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Janine Billadello. Anarrubenia Capellin Ortega.

The Copan Valley in western Honduras has been the subject of a number of studies concerning human-environmental interaction, with particular emphasis on questions of ancient sustainable practices and whether or not land-use mismanagement contributed to the end of the Maya dynasty at Copan. The current PARAC project seeks to identify the range of foods consumed by the inhabitants of the Copan Valley during the Late Classic to Postclassic period. This paper will describe analyses conducted on...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Arianne Boileau.

Identifying formation processes of shallow archaeological sites can be difficult. At Lamanai, Belize, the main problem consists of distinguishing between pre- and post-Spanish contact deposits buried at a depth of 10 to 60 cm. Evidence of interaction with the Spanish includes a few European objects and two Christian churches. However, identifying pre-contact deposits is more challenging. Maya archaeologists typically rely on ceramic typology to establish chronology, but the main pottery type in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dominique Meyer. Eric Lo. Danielle Mercure. Patricia A. Beddows. Dominique Rissolo.

The Maya port and site of Vista Alegre carried political and trade importance in the Terminal Classic to Early Postclassic periods. Located in the Laguna Yalahau of northern Quintana Roo, Mexico, the site is built on a small and low elevation island surrounded by mangrove. Inland from the site are freshwater wetlands (sabanas), while the near-shore waters of the restricted circulation lagoon are hypersaline. A significant research question is how the inhabitants of Vista Alegre accessed potable...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Fowler.

This is an abstract from the "The Movement of People and Ideas in Eastern Mesoamerica during the Ninth and Tenth Centuries CE: A Multidisciplinary Approach Part II" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological chronologies and material-culture evidence indicate large-scale migrations of Nahua peoples to eastern Mesoamerica in the ninth and tenth centuries CE linked to the collapse of the Toltec state at Tula Chico in about 850 CE. This event...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Warden. Benjamin Baaske.

This is an abstract from the "Ancient Maya Landscapes in Northwestern Belize, Part II" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Large collections of culturally significant material are often at a heightened risk of destruction simply due to their collective proximity. Organizations and individuals have begun to recognize the vulnerability of the artifact. The artifact is not something that can be easily copied and reprinted. Artifacts often possess a highly...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Edy Barrios. Cameron L. McNeil. Mauricio Diaz Garcia. Antolín Velásquez.

This is an abstract from the "The Pre-Columbian Cultures of Honduras after AD 900" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent and ongoing research at residential groups at the sites of Río Amarillo and Quebrada Piedras Negras is providing a better understanding of the lives of commoners and of the population dynamics during the latter part of the Late Classic through the Postclassic Period. These sites share the second-widest pocket of the Copan River...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeff Bryant.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Preliminary results are presented for the analysis of fish otoliths from the Maya Postclassic sites of Mayapán in Mexico, and Caye Coco in Belize. Fish otoliths are used investigate seasonality of fish harvest for the inland fish trade, and to contrast the diversity, trophic levels, and population structure of fish between both the archaeology sites, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Maria Belen Mendez Bauer.

This is an abstract from the "Art, Archaeology, and Science: Investigations in the Guatemala Highlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In prehispanic times the tops of the mountains and volcanoes were used as natural markers of geographical spaces; many of these points served as referents in the construction of cultural landscapes based on the sacred. The valley of Quetzaltenango, in western Guatemala, is surrounded by ten prominent hills and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bradley Russell. Stanley Serafin. Eunice Uc Gonzalez. Carlos Peraza Lope.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. With support from The National Geographic Society and The Waitt Foundation, the Mayapán Taboo Cenote Project conducted investigations at Cenote Sac Uayum, a sacred, water-bearing sinkhole located at the Postclassic Maya political capital of Mayapán, Yucatán, Mexico (AD 1150-1450). The work brought together an international collaboration of researchers from the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stanislava Romih.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The BVAR project has been investigating peri-abandonment deposits, also known as problematic or terminal deposits, at sites located along the Belize River in Western Belize. These investigations have focused on understanding the formation of such deposits as well as their significance across sites in the Belize Valley region. The project has employed a new...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Ojeda Rodríguez. Jeffrey B. Glover.

Previous zooarcheological research has focused on knowing the patterns of wildlife exploitation in the different archaeological sites of the Maya area. In this sense, the present work intends to approach the different uses of the different species of animals in activities carried out by the pre-Hispanic Maya people located at the site of Vista Alegre, Quintana Roo, Mexico. The simple has c. 23,000 remains of fauna, coming from three architectural constructions: Structure 9 (Operation 3A),...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Hyde. Lauri Martin.

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. Data recovered from excavation of the residential Tapir Group at the Maya hinterland site of Medicinal Trail provides evidence for ancestor veneration and pilgrimage. For veneration, the Maya incorporated ancestors into their built environment through the ritual practice of physically including them in the architecture as...