Maya (Other Keyword)
26-50 (495 Records)
La documentación de los monumentos prehispánicos, ha sido uno de los objetivos principales de los investigadores de la cultura maya por la información que sus imágenes e inscripciones proveen sobre la historia, organización social y cosmovisión de los habitantes de las antiguas ciudades de Guatemala, México, Belice y Honduras. La documentación topométrica digital de alta resolución también conocida como escaneo en tres dimensiones (3D) representa una nueva fase en la investigación y...
Applied Digital Technologies and GIS Spatial Statistics at Tzak Naab, Northwestern Belize (2017)
The ceremonial center of Tzak Naab, located in the northern hinterlands of the major Maya city of La Milpa, displays many idiosyncratic and unique elements in its built environment that speak to the relationship of the site with the natural landscapes it inhabits. The site core is constructed on three large tiers which overlook the Dumbbell Bajo, a large seasonally inundated wetland. Within this area, aspects of (in)visibility are employed to control movement through—and perception of—space. We...
Archaeo-Tourism and Heritage Policies: What Works, What Doesn’t, and How to Move Forward—Case Studies from Belize and the United States (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological sites in the United States are governed by a complex network of state and federal regulations, sovereign tribal governments, and private landowners. This often leads to difficulties managing access to heritage sites and their research potential. In contrast, extant literature describes the efforts of the Belize Institute of Archaeology and...
Archaeobotanical Realities at Yaxnohkah: A Pollen Grain of Truth on Preclassic Land Use (2017)
Examination of sediments from several reservoirs at the Preclassic site of Yaxnohkah Campeche, Mexico reveals less that stellar pollen preservation, but still useful botanical data. Thus far, pollen grains show varying degrees of degradation, requiring the use of exacting extraction methods. Cultigens and economic taxa are abundant in the samples demonstrating that we are sampling in the right place, but cyclic wetting and drying has resulted in the loss of fragile taxa, skewing the botanical...
Archaeological and Epigraphic Indices of the Political Domination: A View from the Northwestern Periphery of the Kaanu’l Hegemonic State (2016)
The past decade has witnessed a revolution in our understanding of Classic Maya geopolitics, particularly in reconstructing asymmetrical interpolity relationships dominated by expansionist states. Employing variable political strategies, including both direct and indirect rulership, the Kaanu’l Dynasty dominated a large network of kingdoms across the Maya Lowlands. This paper examines the impacts of the expansion and dissolution of the Kaanu’l state in western Campeche, within the northwestern...
Archaeological Commitment to Participation: Discovering the Local to International El Pilar Community (2016)
The El Pilar community is dynamic and includes the most proximal villages, the general communities of Cayo and Peten, the nations of Belize and Guatemala, and from there the greater international community interested in the culture and nature of the tropics. From its first archaeological recognition in the 1980s, El Pilar was destined to be play a role in the conservation and development of the Maya forest. Large and imposing, with monuments straddling the political line that separates Belize...
Archaeology of Mothering in 19th Century Colonial Yucatán (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Women’s Work: Archaeology and Mothering" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The investigation of mothering naturally parallels that of childhood in archaeological literature. Arguments for the status of women as the last colonized population and childhood as a colonial construct make looking at mothering in colonial contexts compelling and necessary. In Spanish and British colonial Yucatán, it can be difficult...
Archaeology, Epigraphy and the Development of Long-term Alliance at La Corona, Guatemala (2016)
The integrated program of epigraphic and archaeological research at La Corona, Guatemala aims to document, analyze and understand the development of this highly unusual Maya center during of the Classic period. Known as Saknikte’ in ancient texts, La Corona served as the locus of a small court with its own dynastic history and exhibiting close and long-lasting familial and political ties with the far larger Kaanul or “Snake” kingdom centered at Dzibanche and Calakmul. Architectural excavations...
Archaeometry and the lime kilns (2015)
The characterization of the ring structures made during the past two years allowed strongly suggest the presence of kilns for lime production used by the Maya of the Classic and evidence of use in the Colonial Period. Archaeometric techniques used in this research were critical in the mineralogical characterization, dating and obtaining organic waste associated with the production of lime. In this paper I present the results of two years of work that allowed characterizing the limestone used...
Architectural Ambivalence: An Interpretation of the Nohoch Tunich Bedrock Outcrop Complex, Pacbitun, Belize (2015)
Archaeological investigations of the Nohoch Tunich Bedrock Outcrop Complex (NTC) located near the pre-Hispanic Maya site of Pacbitun, Belize, revealed a karst landscape that was heavily, yet subtly modified during the Terminal Classic period (A.D. 700-900). Analysis of construction techniques reveal that the modifications were made to conform to a purposefully crude aesthetic aimed at maintaining and enhancing the wilderness essence of the outcrop, while transforming it into a cultural space....
Architecture and Its Reflection of State Organization and Settlement Pattern in the Cochuah Region during the Terminal Classic Period (2015)
A change in architectural style is often a result of changes in power and political organization. During the Terminal Classic Period which the Cochuah region exhibited changes in the settlement pattern, in sites layout, and in architectural components. The organization of space, directions, the location and the architectural design of buildings underwent some changes during this period. All registered sites in the Cochuah region were occupied during this period. In addition to occupation...
Arquitectura Preclásica en el Grupo Balam Acrópolis Central de El Mirador, Peten (2015)
La Gran Acrópolis Central es el corazón del sitio arqueológico El Mirador, el cual presenta diferentes grupos de edificaciones de variada complejidad. Uno de ellos es el Grupo Balam con arquitectura del Preclásico Tardío. Se investigó los aspectos físicos, espaciales, funcionales, sociales e ideológicos a través de una secuencia arquitectónica minuciosa. El estudio permitió conocer no solamente los materiales y sistemas constructivos, las remodelaciones arquitectónicas, el arte en estuco...
Art and the Ancestors: Sculpture from the Cave Complex at Quen Santo, Guatemala (2015)
At the site of Quen Santo, Guatemala, a hilltop center overlies an elaborate cave complex. First documented by Eduard Seler, the caves at Quen Santo have also been explored by modern-day archaeologists. Missing from modern analyses of Quen Santo, however, is a consideration of sculpture from the site: Seler recovered almost thirty stone monuments, most related to themes of death, ritual, and the ancestors. In this paper I explore the sculptural corpus of Quen Santo for the first time, arguing...
Art Objects Don’t Make Themselves! A Consideration of the Ik’ Style from the Petén Lakes Region (2016)
Art-making is an essential element of Mesoamerican culture. Asserting the primacy of the art object as a site of inquiry can provide a fascinating framework for organizing, imagining, and interpreting the past. This paper considers art objects produced during the Late Classic (ca. 600-900 CE) by the Maya Ik’ polity in Petén, Guatemala. The elaborately painted surfaces with naturalistic figures, realistic color schemes, and detailed hieroglyphic inscriptions about artists, patrons, and regional...
Articulating Economies in the Land of the Ik’ Lords: Evidence for Marketplaces and Multiple Modes of Exchange in the Late Classic Motul de San José Polity (2016)
More than a decade of research in the Motul de San José area has produced a rich corpus of household middens and domestic artifact assemblages reflecting a wide range of social statuses and occupations at a diverse set of local centers. This body of data permits a detailed bottom-up consideration of patterns of production, consumption, and distribution for a wide range of goods within and between member communities in the Late Classic Motul polity. This paper examines the evidence for...
Artifact Distributions, Interaction Networks, and Social Complexity: Middle Preclassic development at Cahal Pech from a small-world perspective (2016)
The temporal position of the Middle Preclassic (c. 900 – 350 B.C.), situated between the earliest permanent settlements and hierarchically organized Late Preclassic polities, makes it a critical period for understanding the development of complex societies in the Belize Valley and the Maya Lowlands. From 2004 – 2009, the Belize Valley Archaeological Project’s excavations produced a trove of information on the Middle Preclassic occupation beneath Plaza B in the epicenter of Cahal Pech....
Assessing Human-Animal Interactions in Mesoamerica: Ancient Maya Use of the Black-Throated Bobwhite (Colinus nigrogularis) (2017)
This paper examines human-animal interaction between the ancient Maya and the black-throated bobwhite (Colinus nigrogularis), a small quail resident to Central America. We provide a literature review of the occurrence of bobwhite remains in Maya faunal assemblages. Unpublished faunal analyses by the primary author, in conjunction with the published literature, suggest that the bobwhite, like many animals in Mesoamerica, was of greater importance to the Maya than as a mere dietary food. We...
At the Heart of the Serpent: Archaeology, Epigraphy, and Iconography at Calakmul, Campeche, Mexico (2016)
The metropolis of Calakmul has a pre-eminent place in Classic Maya history that is best understood from a multi-disciplinary perspective, combining the study of its extensive archaeological remains with that of its monuments, both in terms of inscriptions and imagery. This paper focuses on a hundred-year span, from the seventh and eighth centuries CE, which covers the reign of three of its best-known rulers. Representing the highpoint of the Snake kingdom’s “international” influence, this small...
At Water’s Edge: Ritual Maya Animal Use in Aquatic Contexts at Cancuen (2015)
Excavations at the Late Classic Maya site of Cancuen (Petén, Guatemala) uncovered small-scale hydraulic systems including stone-lined canals and reservoirs within the site’s architectural core. The abundance of other nearby potable water sources, along with the elaborate form of the system demonstrate that it served an ideological rather than practical function. This interpretation is supported by the artifactual material deposited in the reservoirs, as well as by the fact that the hydraulic...
At Yaxuna X Marks the Spot: Centering across in a Middle Formative Maya Landscape (2015)
From the placement of objects in household offerings, to monumental works of art and architecture, it is well known that the ancient Maya commemorated their cosmological center in a variety of ways. Even at the settlement level, quadripartite divisions of space are observed branching out from a central core giving modern researchers insight into the way ancient Maya peoples may have understood their world. At the Maya site of Yaxuná, Yucatan, Mexico investigations have made it apparent that...
Attractive Salt: What the magnetic susceptibility and stratigraphy of the Witz Naab and Killer Bee mounds reveal about ancient Maya salt production and economy. (2017)
Witz Naab and Killer Bee contain some of the last remaining above-ground mounds of a once-thriving salt industry in Punta Ycacos Lagoon, a large salt-water system in Paynes Creek National Park, Belize. Documented sea-level rise during the Terminal Classic has submerged the once thriving Classic period (A.D. 300-900) Maya salt works. Excavations and magnetic susceptibility were conducted as part of the author’s dissertation research at Louisiana State University (LSU). This excavation is part of...
Balance of Trade, Balance of Power: Marine and riverine networks in Belize (2015)
The Caribbean sea, like the Mediterranean, was a facilitator of travel and communication. In the case of Belize, the relatively shallow waters of the coastal shelf sheltered water-borne Caribbean traffic, and the bevy of coral islands or cayes served as way stations for far-flung coastal trade. Essential to communities in the Maya area, however, was the transfer of goods from the coast to river and lake ports for inland distribution. In this presentation, we endeavour to summarise information...
Baseline Remote Sensing Survey of the Mayan Biosphere Reserve (MBR) in Petén Guatemala (2017)
The Fundación Patrimonio Cultural y Natural Maya (PACUNAM), a non-governmental-organization (NGO) from Guatemala, works for the promotion and preservation of cultural and natural patrimony contained within the Mayan Biosphere Reserve (MBR) in the department of Petén in Guatemala. To aid with their preservation and promotion goals, PACUNAM, has developed a plan to perform an airborne lidar and hyperspectral survey of nearly 14,000 km² of the MBR and neighboring regions over a three year period....
Belizean Jade: Why Such a Rich Periphery? (2016)
This paper addresses the question of the place of Belizean Maya jade artifacts within a broader Mesoamerican context. More specifically I examine the similarities between Belizean jade and other jade finds in different Maya areas. I discuss why a significant number of major jade finds have occurred in Belize while it is often considered to be on the periphery of Maya culture as well as examining the variations in the iconography of carved images on jade. I draw on evidence of recent finds and...
Beneath the Blue-Green Trees: Understanding the Built Environment of Yaxox through Lidar Analysis (2017)
The Upper Belize River Valley hosted a high density of ancient Maya settlement from the Early Preclassic Period onward, supported by abundant fertile alluvial floodplains. In addition to the handful of major civic-ceremonial centers spread along the valley, the region also sustained numerous middle-tier administrative, ceremonial, and residential loci. The site of Yaxox, strategically situated at the confluence of the Macal and Mopan rivers, provides an intriguing example of a minor...