Maya (Other Keyword)
101-125 (495 Records)
Small lithic flakes have been recovered from most Maya sites in Belize. They are often viewed as byproducts of the lithic manufacturing process. A closer analysis of small flakes recovered from four sites (Cerros, Chau Hiix, Maax Na and El Pilar) has found that while many of the flakes may have been removed during tool manufacture, the expedient tools themselves were used in a variety of household activities especially those associated with cutting or carving bone or wood. This poster...
The Complexity of Trash: Reframing Construction Fill (2017)
Mesoamerican archaeologists have traditionally, although not exclusively, viewed artifacts found in the context of construction fill as trash and devoid of primary contextual information, a view that has limited the questions that archaeologists are able to ask of these materials. This paper posits an alternative interpretation to the meaning of material culture used in construction fill, utilizing evidence from Formative period construction fill found at the site of Cahal Pech, Cayo, Belize....
Conil Revisited: Aerial Survey and Verification along Quintana Roo's North Coast (2016)
The site of Conil is located in the northern part of the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. Not far removed from the modern shore of Laguna Holbox, Conil appears to have been inhabited at various times between the Preclassic period and the present day. In AD 1528, the conquistador Francisco de Montejo reported that Conil was a large town of 5000 houses. First investigated by William Sanders in 1954, Conil has seen little in the way of research since that time. Recent research by members of the...
Considering Form and Meaning in Maya Mural Painting (2016)
The French sociolinguist Roger Chartier argues that “form produces meaning”: the physical arrangement and presentation of a text will influence a reader’s reception of it (2004). In other words, the process by which a reader assigns a text meaning, consciously or not, depends as much on the material or physical form through which the text was published, distributed and received as on its semantic content (Chartier 2004: 147). Elements such as format, layout, scale, and color give a text status,...
Consumer Culture at the 19th century Maya refugee site at Tikal, Guatemala (2017)
In the mid-nineteenth century Maya refugees fleeing the violence of the Caste War of Yucatan (1857-1901) briefly reoccupied the ancient Maya ruins of Tikal, Guatemala. These Yucatec speaking refugees combined with Lacandon Maya, and later Ladinos from Lake Petén Itza to form a small, multi-ethnic village in the sparsely occupied Petén jungle of northern Guatemala. The following paper will discuss the recent archaeological investigation of the historic refugee village at Tikal, with a focus on...
The Contents, Roles and Meanings of "Tribute" among the Classic Maya (2016)
Ethnohistorical accounts of tribute among the Yukatek Maya provide an impressive list of commodities in circulation at the time of Spanish contact while also affording a glimpse of the interwoven layers of socio-economic relationships underlying these acts of tribute and tax payments. This paper compares the Yukatekan configurations, both recorded and implied, with those intimated from the patterns of production and distribution of Classic period decorated ceramics. The study employs a...
The Contested Mosaic: Landscape and Livelihood in the Lacandon Rainforest (2021)
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. In this paper I explore the complex regional agroecological history of interaction of global and local social and biophysical forces that shape the landscape of an important tropical forest region of Mexico. This...
A Contextual Analysis of Special Finds from the Medicinal Trail site in Northwestern Belize (2016)
This poster details the findings from a contextual analysis of “special finds” artifacts collected at Medicinal Trail from 2004-2014. Medicinal Trail is a hinterland community in the Maya lowlands of Northwestern Belize, 5 km east of the large urban center of La Milpa. The special finds collected at Medicinal Trail include an assemblage of artifacts from a variety of non-perishable raw materials including clay, shell, and stone that do not belong to standard categories of ceramic, lithic, and...
Copán’s Preclassic Pioneers: New Evidence from the San Lucas Neighborhood (2016)
Recent work in the San Lucas neighborhood outside of Copán’s urban core discovered significant human occupation in the Late Preclassic period—centuries before the first king came to power. Construction materials, ceramic styles, obsidian tools, human remains, and radiocarbon dates from three households attest to the early and continuous settlement of this area in the foothills south of the Copán River. This paper reviews the evidence for San Lucas’s Preclassic population, and its significance...
Costly Signaling, Cost Masking, and the Classic-Postclassic Transition: Slipped Ceramics and other Media in the Context of the Petén Lakes Region, Guatemala. (2016)
Costly signaling theory indicates that highly visible acts of public generosity and display, which exact costs not easily recouped, however, can provide social benefits to those engaged in such acts. Such signaling is associated with the strength or fitness of the provider. Analyzing slipped and fineware ceramics in display contexts, and obsidian use and architecture, this presentation explores how Maya elites and rural sub-elites engaged in costly signaling and modified their actions by cost...
Cream Wares of the Southeast Maya Periphery (2017)
Since publication on the compositional analyses of Copan ceramics by Bishop and Beaudry in 2004 several scholars have addressed the manufacture and distribution of cream wares similar to those that are found at Copan. The additional accumulation of data usually results in more insights and better source attributions, but at times the complexities of compositional analysis can mislead interpretation. This paper presents highlights of greatly extended sampling and uses a geochemical perspective...
Creating the Center, Interaction in the Central Karstic Uplands during the Preclassic (2017)
From roughly 800 BCE, evidence supports the development of a widespread regional interaction sphere centered in the Central Karstic Uplands. This paper discusses specific data regarding the origins of this network and the subsequent integration of the Central Karstic Uplands as an economic force in the Maya lowlands. Scholars have long recognized the strong affiliations among the major cities that comprise this network during the Preclassic. Recently artifacts recovered from sites point to...
Creatures from the Lagoon: Maya Turtle Exploitation at Lamanai, Belize (2016)
Archaeological excavations at the Maya site of Lamanai, Belize, have resulted in the recovery of more than 10,000 remains of turtles dating from the Late Postclassic to the Early Colonial periods. This abundance of turtle specimens represents a unique opportunity to study Maya turtle exploitation at an unprecedented scale. Preliminary analyses of a sample of 2,400 bones recovered from domestic structures provide information on subsistence practices. The Maya primarily exploited river turtles,...
Critter Caching: Animals in Household Rituals at the Maya Site of Ceibal, Guatemala (2015)
With an occupational history spanning nearly two millennia, the Maya site of Ceibal provides a rare opportunity to study the remains of ritual practices and domestic activities at household groups over a long scale of time. This study examines the zooarchaeological remains, both bones and shells, recovered from household caches, burials, and middens from several peripheral locations around the Ceibal site epicenter. The diversity of household types and extended time frame provides an opportunity...
Crosscultural Archaeology and the Role of the Tropics in Informing the Present (2015)
The ancient Maya and Khmer developed in semitropical environmental settings, both having not dissimilar chronologies. Tropical ecological rhythms dictated their respective dispersed land-use patterning. To cope with seasonal abundant precipitation followed by 4-5 months of drought-like conditions, the Maya accepted cropping designs based on the limitations of extended ground storage while the Khmer located resources to elevated reaches of stilted housing; approaches conditioned by accelerated...
Crossing Ancient and Modern Borders: Territoriality in the Three Rivers Region (2015)
The lowland jungle environment of the Maya area presents numerous challenges to archaeologists in the study of ancient territoriality. Incomplete settlement survey data and fragmentary textual records hinder attempts to formulate comprehensive hypotheses comparable to those put forth for complex societies in other areas of the world. The Three Rivers Region of northeast Guatemala and northwest Belize is one area where some advancements may be made. Large portions of the region have been surveyed...
Curating Large Skeletal Collections: An Example from the Ancient Maya Site of Copan, Honduras (2017)
Bioarchaeologists draw data from the detailed study of human remains from archaeological contexts. The information embedded in the skeleton provides a powerful window into prehistory; informing us of past lifeways, health/disease, diet, kinship, migration, and conflict. The intimate relationship between the living and the dead is necessarily imbued with respect and an ethical responsibility to properly handle and curate the remains of those that we study. However, the conservation of skeletal...
Curation and Best Practice with Human Remains in Northwest Belize (2016)
As of the summer of 2015, approximately 135 burials have been recovered and investigated through the Programme for Belize Archaeological Project (PfBAP) in Northwest Belize. Within the 270,000 acres of land on which the PfBAP operates, approximately 60 archaeological sites have been recorded and investigated. As the number of burials increases with new site identification and investigation, a need for data consolidation and accessibility has arisen. We aim to make this data more attainable...
Dating Maya Classic Ceramics in Northwestern Belize via OSL (2016)
Twenty-four years of investigations conducted by the Maya Research Program at numerous Maya archaeological sites in northwestern Belize offers special opportunities for the investigation of the social and political dynamics at the end of the Classic period in this region. In this paper, we discuss the Late Classic time period, including rapidly increasing populations, political reorganization, declining soil quality, and expansion of agricultural systems. We discuss the specific responses that...
Debitage and Diminutive Domiciles: Late-Terminal Classic Lithic Production, Consumption, and Raw Material Availability at El Zotz, Guatemala (2016)
El Zotz is an ancient Maya site located in the contemporary Department of El Petén, Guatemala. Its influence on Classic Lowland geopolitics and the political fortunes of its elites are attested by inscriptions at home and abroad. Dwarfed by funerary temples and palace complexes, multiple small household groups dot the site’s periphery. This paper shifts the focus of analysis to populations located toward the opposite end of the sociopolitical spectrum through an analysis of lithic data recovered...
Decentralizing the Economies of the Maya West (2016)
Many reconstructions of Precolumbian Maya economies are based on a centralized model of exchange, in which major capitals acted as import and export hubs and centers of production, while royal courts provided some form of management for long-distance trade networks. Research in the Western Maya Lowlands, and particularly the Usumacinta River Valley, suggests that although during the Classic period (AD 250 – 810) powerful dynastic centers like Piedras Negras, Yaxchilan and their neighbors...
Decision-making and the Practice of Community Archaeology in southern Belize (2016)
In the Maya region, sometimes communities are not consulted about access to archaeological sites, research programs, or the management of local heritage once research is completed. Consequently, one source of inequality between archaeologists and local communities is access to decision-making as a form of cultural capital. By positioning ourselves as primary decision-makers, archaeologists can inhibit access to knowledge about the past. The Aguacate Community Archaeology Project, conducted in...
Defining a Late Classic Maya Granite Workshop at the Tzib Group, Pacbitun, Belize (2015)
The ancient Maya site of Pacbitun is centrally located between the major ecozones of the Belize River Valley and the Mountain Pine Ridge of West-Central Belize. Investigations in 2012 and 2013 began on a group of mounds, known as the Tzib Group, located outside of the core zone of Pacbitun in order to investigate what is now believed to be a ground stone tool workshop. The workshop produced grinding implements made from granite. Excavations in 2014 into the main mound of the group uncovered more...
Demystifying Southern Lowland Chultunes: The Ritual Space Hypothesis (2017)
This investigation’s working hypothesis is that chultunes, manmade subterranean features, served as ritual spaces in the southern Maya lowlands. The hypothesis is an outgrowth of my grounding in cave archaeology. Ethnographically, even subterranean features used for utilitarian activities, such as mining, come to have sacred meaning and this phenomenon can be documented in ethnohistoric sources. However, my hypothesis has not been tested. Dennis Puleston argued for a utilitarian function of...
The Development and Resilience of Complex Polity in the Southern Maya Lowlands: A Decade of Research at Uxbenká, Toledo, Belize (2017)
The original goals of Uxbenká Archaeological Project were to understand the geopolitical history of the polity in the context of wider regional developments during the Classic Period. Long suspected to be the earliest complex polity in southern Belize had intrigued archaeologists for decades based on its prominent locations between the Petén and the Caribbean Sea as well as its long history of descendant communities farming lands around the archaeological ruins. From 2008-2015 the Human Social...