Maya (Other Keyword)
201-225 (504 Records)
Peter Harrison's work in Maya archaeology was important in many ways. One of the most important, and perhaps overlooked, was the scale of focus at which he often worked. Single features, single rooms, single buildings, and single plazas: all of these are commonly uncovered when digging in Maya site centers. However, due to a lack of artifacts, analyses at these scales are not often conducted. Harrison's work exemplifies that much can be learned from small-scale architectural analyses and in that...
Hilltops and States in the Usumacinta River Basin (2016)
The ordering of space has been a focus of state-building initiatives since the formation of the earliest centralized polities. Landscape archaeologists are especially well situated to contribute to discussions regarding how states succeed and fail to control diverse populations in topographically complex areas. During the Late Classic period, the Middle Usumacinta Basin supported numerous regional polities, including Piedras Negras and Yaxchilan, that vied for supremacy over terrain broken by...
Hinterland Causeways in the Maya Lowlands of Northwestern Belize (2017)
This paper will present preliminary results of archaeological investigations concerning the spatial arrangement of hinterland causeways and their function within inter and intra-site exchange networks. This research is a subsidiary project of the Dos Hombres to Gran Cacao Archaeology (DH2GC) Project, a transect settlement survey analysis of hinterland communities situated between the sites of Dos Hombres and Gran Cacao, in northwestern Belize. A primary goal of this research is to explore the...
Holy lords and holy lands: territory in Classic Maya inscriptions (2015)
One of the significant challenges in dealing with indigenous classification systems is establishing continuities and discontinuities between Pre-Contact, Colonial, and Modern situations. The present paper addresses this question with respect to the concept of territory among the Ancient Maya, specifically, the speakers of Ch’olan and Yukatekan languages. It considers the corpus of Classic period inscriptions from the Southern Maya Lowlands as well as sixteenth and seventeenth century documents...
Household Economies in the Petén Lakes Region: Late Classic Ceramic Assemblages from Trinidad de Nosotros and Xilil (2016)
In this paper we present a detailed view of ancient Maya domestic economy from the perspective of household midden ceramic assemblages at two sites along the north shore of Lake Petén Itzá: Trinidad de Nosotros and Xilil. A highly successful method of midden prospecting was employed over the course of three field seasons, resulting in the excavation of more than 20 middens in 15 Late Classic residential groups across the two sites. Analyses of ceramics from these middens, including type-variety,...
Household Shrines, Caches, and Burials: The Role of Ritual in Domestic Economy at Dos Hombres, Northwestern Belize (2015)
Household economies have been addressed from several perspectives in northwestern Belize. The resource specialized community model (Scarborough and Valdez 2003; 2009) emphasizes locally available resources in production and consumption at the community scale. The model has great validity in the hinterland communities and is clearly evidenced in household investigations near Dos Hombres Belize in the form of the raw materials utilized in stone tool production. In addition, the function of...
Hun Tun Household Context and Social Complexity (2016)
The ancient Maya site, Hun Tun is located in northwestern Belize and serves as a platform of inquiry into social complexity at the household level. This paper addresses ancient Maya commoners in household contexts while discussing data that are pertinent to ideas of household identity, social formation, and household production by re-evaluating conventional notions of domestic space. The analysis of everyday objects in domestic contexts contributes to this discussion. Major archaeological...
The Iconography of a Late Classic Polychrome Maya Vessel from Petén, Guatemala (2017)
While elite Maya polychrome ceramics often contain images and inscriptions related to political actors, motifs on the majority of polychrome ceramics relate to important elements of ancient Maya cosmology. This poster analyzes the iconography on a Classic Maya polychrome vessel from Petén, Guatemala donated to the San Bernardino County Museum. The central figure on the interior of the bowl is a deer and a supernatural figure is painted on the inside wall. Terrestrial motifs are found on both...
Identifying Farming Strategies within Changing Regional Contexts at Tahcabo, Yucatán (2017)
Colonial- and national-period studies of agricultural practices in Yucatán can provide useful case studies to address current theoretical concerns in political ecology. Perspectives on livelihood strategies today are broadly comparable to household-level studies of economic activities accessible through archaeology, especially given historical archaeology’s attention to market integration and technological innovations. The time depth available through archaeological study complements...
Identifying the drivers of Central American rainfall shifts: implications for past, present, and future human behaviour (2017)
Yok Balum Cave’s location at the northernmost extent of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) combined with its abundance of aragonitic stalagmites makes the site an exceptional archive of paleoclimatic information. Additionally, Yok Balum Cave is located at the heart of the Maya Lowlands, and speleothem-based paleoclimate records from the site can provide invaluable information for archaeological research. Although the Yok Balum record and most other regional climate records strongly...
Identity and the Maya Mid-level Elite as a Proxy for Political Change (2016)
The nuances of identity theory can be a helpful in determining social stratification within a site and determining intrasite political processes. Archaeology is specially suited for identity studies due to the nature of material culture as an integral part in social practices. While individual identities are difficult to parse out under the best circumstances, analysis of artifact distribution across a site can yield insight into group identities and the practices that follow them. Designation...
Identity on the Edge of the Kingdom: the Artifacts, Residences, and Ritual Areas of Río Amarillo, Copan (2015)
Excavations at the site of Río Amarillo, an ancient Maya town, reveal a community with complex affiliations influenced by the waxing and waning of Copan’s power. While seemingly autonomous during the Early Classic period, the Late Classic inhabitants of Rio Amarillo’s ritual core from the time of Ruler 12 through the reign of Ruler 16 embraced important aspects of the ideology and identity of the Maya city of Copan. These affiliations extended to an elite residential sector where a censer with a...
IHOPE Maya: Linking lessons of the past to our present and future (2015)
Since 2007 the IHOPE Maya team has focused on synthesizing dynamic human-environmental interactions of the ancient Maya of southeastern Mexico and upper Central America (400BC-900AD). A series of great tropical societies, the Maya occupied a diverse range of tropical environments, adapting local strategies to meet varied subsistence, economic, political, and ecosystem service needs at large and small urban centers. Cycles of expanding populations, increasing despotism, and reliance on...
The Impact of Lawrence Straus on Mesoamerican Cave Studies (2016)
Lawrence Straus’ life work has focused primarily upon European cave archaeology, with most of his time spent in Spain. However his research within cave archaeology has in many ways aided the field of cave archaeology in Central America. Straus has both passively and actively helped in the advancement of Maya cave studies from his many roles in academia. As editor in chief for the Journal of Anthropological Research he aided in the publication of numerous seminal works that contributed to the...
Imperfect beeswax production in the land of honey—Yucatán, Mexico (2017)
Spanish encomenderos and friars demanded beeswax from their subjects in Yucatán, Mexico, during the early Colonial period. This wax was harvested from beehives infrequently used for wax production in pre-Hispanic times—instead the focus throughout the long history of beekeeping in the region was on honey. In fact, indigenous honeybees, from the genus Melipona, make an impure wax in low quantities, which would have made candle production difficult. These candles were important for Catholic...
Implications for Spinning Thread in a Marketplace at the Classic Maya site of Xunantunich, Belize (2017)
The identification of marketplaces among the Classic Maya has contributed to more complex understandings of their economies, but scholars are still working to determine the fundamentals and variations of Maya marketplace exchange across time and space. Recent investigations at the Classic Maya site of Xunantunich, Belize recovered a small assemblage of spindle whorls from the site’s Lost Plaza, a posited marketplace. This the only example among the Classic Maya to directly connect the activity...
In and Out: Initial Investigations from the Palenque Pool Project (2015)
Emblematic of Palenque’s ancient name, Lakamha’ or Big Water, the city is scattered with natural cascades and uniquely constructed aqueducts, bridges, and pools. In May 2014, the Palenque Pool Project began excavating and consolidating the largest of the three pools in the Picota Group, 1 km west of the site center. Prehispanic construction of the feature required the Maya to excavate through bedrock and below the water table. The main pool is equipped with entrance and exit drains as well as a...
In the Shadow of the Giant: Investigating the Rise and Fall of Settlement Groups Adjacent to Site Cores in the Belize Valley (2017)
Located directly across the Belize River from Barton Ramie, the recently discovered site of Lower Dover has been the focus of intensive research by the BVAR Project since 2011. The major foci of these investigations are to determine the relationship between Lower Dover, Blackman Eddy and Baking Pot, and to ascertain the development of the site within the sociopolitical landscape of the Belize River Valley region. In an effort to address the latter research questions, excavations have focused...
In this Chapel of Ritual: The Life and Death of Temple XIX at Palenque, Chiapas. (2015)
The excavation of Temple XIX at Palenque, Mexico from 1998-2002 garnered considerable attention primarily for the recovery of monuments with preserved inscriptions and iconography carved in stone and modeled in stucco. The fragmented state of several monuments, evidently victims of systematic mayhem in antiquity, preoccupied the excavators constantly as monument fragments were recovered from inside and outside the approximately 9 by 34 meter building. These monuments have now been consolidated...
In Too Deep: Excavations of a Partially Inundated Ancient Maya Salt Works at Wiz Naab, Paynes Creek National Park, Belize (2015)
Underwater survey and excavation in a large salt water lagoon between 2004 and 2013 revealed ancient Maya wooden buildings with briquetage—the broken pots from evaporating brine in pots over fires to make salt. Unexpected in the tropical landscape of Belize, the wooden buildings were preserved below the sea floor in mangrove peat, which created an anaerobic matrix. Elsewhere, historically and in modern times, the salt content of the brine was enriched by pouring it through salty soil—reducing...
Incoherent internationalism: Mayoid elements in the art of South-Central Veracruz (2015)
During the Epiclassic period, several discrete iconographic motifs and technical qualities were adopted by peoples of South-Central Veracruz that have close affinities to art of the greater Maya area. For example, some Rio Blanco modelled-carved bowls mimic the iconography of Tiquisate wares of Escuintla, Guatemala. Nopiloa figurines bare well-known ties to figurines from Campeche, Mexico. Apparently indicating an alternate direction of artistic influence, decorative motifs common on...
"An Indian Nation, whose Object Appears to be to Obtain Both from Britain and Mexico, the Recognition of her Independence": International Diplomacy, Trade, and the Maya of San Pedro (2018)
In 1810, British Honduras was a set of coastal settlements, served by the British Foreign Office rather than the Colonial Office, with only usufruct logging rights ceded by Spain in treaty negotiations of 1783/1786. The Foreign Office used the new independence of Mexico, the Federal Republic of Central America, and later Guatemala, as opportunities to renegotiate terms, arguing they were no longer bound by treaties with the now defunct New Spain. At the time of these renegotiations, some Maya...
Inequality and Gender in Spaces of Craft Production (2017)
This paper explores questions of inequality and gender in the Classic Maya world by examining the spatial relationships between and within local sites of craft activity. Pulling from recent archaeological work at the Classic period site of Xultun, Guatemala, we present research on two contexts that were connected to the production and use of limestone and lime plaster. In presenting this work, we discuss the broader social implications of these spaces as they relate to class and gender through...
Inland ports in Northwestern Peten, Guatemala, a preliminary assessment (2015)
Northwestern Petén is characterized by an extensive wetland system subject to flooding during the annual rains, connecting what appear as isolated bajos in the dry periods of the year into larger, intermittent drainage networks. The San Juan, Chocop and Xan rivers drain these flooded areas into the San Pedro Martir River, which flows west, ultimately joining the Usumacinta River. We hypothesize that El Achiotal, a Preclassic center located within these seasonally occurring flood lands, and the...
Inland, Urban vs. Coastal, Rural Salt Production in the Southern Maya Lowlands: The View from Salinas de los Nueve Cerros (2017)
Salinas de los Nueve Cerros is the only non-coastal salt source in the Maya lowlands. For over two millennia, Nueve Cerros’ residents produced massive quantities of salt that was commercialized throughout the western Maya world. Unlike the Caribbean saltworks, the salt here was contained within a large urban zone. The saltworks used a variety of techniques to make the finished product, boiling brine and leaching salt-laden soils as in Paynes Creek but also scraping the salt flats. Each of these...