Maya (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Samantha Seyler. Tiffany C. Fryer.

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Gateways to Future Historical Archaeology in Mexico and Central America", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. For scholars studying colonial Latin America the hacienda institution has become an index for certain sets of land and labor relations. This indexing enables scholars to make broad statements about processes such as indigenous dispossession and commercialization even though estates historically...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lauren Sullivan. David M. Hyde.

Archaeological research in northwestern Belize indicates a long history of occupation beginning in the Middle Preclassic and ending with abandonment in the Terminal Classic. The collection and analysis of ceramic and lithic data on a broad regional scale and across the entire range of settlement hierarchy allow for a comprehensive examination of social and political changes that occurred across the region. Stylistic changes in the ceramics, the continuity of lithic forms, and depositional...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nathan Meissner. David McCormick. Marc Marino.

This study presents new data from the site of Río Amarillo, Honduras focusing on the social aspects of craft production in the political sphere of Copán, Honduras (A.D. 400 – 900). Between 2011 and 2014, excavations led by the Proyecto Arqueológico Río Amarillo Copán (PARAC) have recovered large quantities of microcrystalline silicate artifacts, including nodules, debitage, and finished tools. Such data are important as they shed light onto the procurement strategies, methods of local...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Leah McCurdy.

Not all excavations reach to bedrock. In the Maya Central Lowlands, exposing bedrock can be difficult due to the longevity of occupational sequences and the sometimes confounding presence of thick, seemingly endless Preclassic marl floors. In some cases, our ability to reach and examine bedrock helps us to consider early living and ceremonial spaces, masonry and structural techniques, as well as potential emic connections of natural limestone mountains and cultural manifestations of limestone...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sheldon Skaggs. Christophe Helmke. Jon Spenard. Paul Healy. Terry Powis.

The rise of public monumental architecture in the Maya Middle Preclassic (900-400 BC) and the eventual development of divine kingship during the Early Classic (AD 250-550) constitute social processes that remain comparatively obscure. Nevertheless, they are increasingly illuminated as new empirical evidence is uncovered from research projects such as the Pacbitun Regional Archaeology Project. Ongoing work at Pacbitun, Belize, has brought to light considerable new information that can clarify...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marc Marino. Nathan Meissner. Lucas Martindale Johnson.

Lithic raw material acquisition and household flaked stone crafting continues to enable a better understanding of ancient Maya domestic economies. One such example at Santa Rita Corozal, Belize, seeks to determine how local households provisioned themselves and how Santa Rita Corozal articulated with other Chetumal Bay sites during the Late Postclassic Period (A.D. 1200-1530). Data presented in this paper challenge previous models of resource exploitation and exchange by suggesting that a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Wigley. Antonia Figueroa. Laura Levi.

This paper examines the construction of residential and ritual space at the prehispanic Maya site of Wari Camp, located in northwestern Belize in the Rio Bravo Conservation and Management Area. We explore the productive activities of temple and pair groups at the site through examination of lithic and ceramic material recovered from excavations conducted at the northern satellite of the site in 2012. In addition, environmental and soil data from the site provides insight into the relationships...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bretton Somers.

In 2005, eight Late Classic Maya sites with the remains of wooden posts were found beneath the surface of Punta Ycacos Lagoon in southern Belize. The presence of briquetage on the surface and embedded among the clusters of wooden architectural features implies association with salt production activity. This research employed a rigorous field survey, combined with mapping, sampling, and building a GIS. Detailed analysis of the spatial distribution of wooden posts was conducted to determine if...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kaylee Spencer. Maline Werness-Rude.

Site mapping has been a mainstay in the study of archaeological cultures. Following upon the heels of mapping efforts, which have grown increasingly precise as our own technology develops, scholars have studied site, building, and monument orientations to great effect. In the Maya region such investigations have shown how the Maya positioned themselves relative to the cardinal and inter-cardinal directions, natural aspects of the landscape, and/or other parts of the built environment at inter-...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Graham.

This is an abstract from the "Misinformation and Misrepresentation Part 2: Reconsidering “Human Sacrifice,” Religion, Slavery, Modernity, and Other European-Derived Concepts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Almost without question, “human sacrifice” is held as a legitimate concept by archaeologists—and the public. The concept is widely employed to explain aspects of Mesoamerican behavior. In this presentation, I argue that human sacrifice was never...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Thomas Guderjan. David Driver. Helen Haines.

This report provides an overview of six years of fieldwork and research at the Blue Creek site. At this stage the project is designed to be an investigation of the internal structure of a single Maya city, with consideration of the city's temporal and functional dynamics as well as relationships with its neighbors. This report summarizes the status of these efforts both topically and in terms of fieldwork accomplished and future field seasons.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carolyn Freiwald.

Bioarchaeologists often are faced with the challenge of managing field excavations and lab analyses of skeletal remains at the same time, along with student and staff training and curation of osteological remains. I present results from recent fieldwork at the Classic Maya sites Actuncan and San Lorenzo, Belize that were excavated using a method designed for non-osteologists. This includes complex burial deposits that were re-entered, secondary burials, and comingled and disturbed remains that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeffrey Dobereiner. Andrew K. Scherer. Charles Golden. Whittaker Schroder.

This paper explores the many sides of the natural and supernatural landscape surrounding the Classic period Maya kingdoms of Piedras Negras and Yaxchilan with a particular focus on how the rulers of these polities struggled with one another for control of movement across the broken terrain of hills, cliffs, valleys, swamps, and rivers that define the Middle Usumacinta River basin. The standard image of a rather homogenous landscape in the Maya lowlands is quickly dispensed with in the Middle...

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 Carolyn Freiwald. Timothy Pugh.

The earliest Spanish explorers in the 15th century brought ships stocked with European domesticated animals. Yet for nearly two centuries, the Maya living in Guatemala’s Peten Lakes region continued to rely on traditional wild animal species. A small number of cow and horse bones have been identified in Contact period contexts at Zacpeten and Tayasal, but significant changes in animal use are only visible after the Spanish began to build missions in the region during the early 1700s. We explore...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cameron Griffith. Nikolai Grube.

In this paper we present recent analyses conducted on the elaborate artwork in Actun Halal, an important ancient Maya cave site in western Belize. Actun Halal contains a wide variety of art forms, ranging from monumental modified speleothem sculptures four meters in height to small, detailed bas-relief sculptural works executed in layers of travertine only millimeters thick. Akin to the elegant scenes rendered in murals and on polychrome pottery vessels, the sculptural works in Actun Halal tell...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ramon Folch.

This is an abstract from the "Recent Archaeological Investigations in Chiapas, Mexico" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Following the work presented in SAA 2023 about identifying specialized potters in the Comitán Valley of Chiapas, a study of change brought by the Spanish conquerors is presented. The local potters had to innovate as their work was integrated into sugar cane processing via the molds or “pilónes” used to crystalize sugar as well as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Paris. Roberto López Bravo.

Although the famous "Maya collapse" in the 9th century A.D. destabilized many powerful Southern Lowland Maya Late Classic kingdoms, the small polities of highland Chiapas not only survived, but thrived. Excavations in the Central Highlands of Chiapas suggest that the small cities and towns in this region maintained their roles as political centers throughout the Late Classic-Early Postclassic period transition. Recent excavations at Moxviquil provide evidence for the economic and social...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Norman Hammond.

In 1979, the Pulltrouser Swamp project led by Peter Harrison and B.L.Turner II shared a field camp with the Cuello Project. With one group investigating a ridge-top Preclassic Maya community exploiting some wetland resources, and the other studying Maya wetland use and the nature of swamp-edge settlements, there was ample opportunity to compare and contrast fieldwork results. With overlaps in research interests, and some ad hoc sharing of expertise, the synergism was both social and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Shawn Morton.

For nearly two thousand years, the E-Group at Yaxnohcah served as this city’s spiritual and administrative heart. From the early facet of the middle Pre-Classic through the Terminal Classic, as the rest of the site grew, morphed, and ultimately fell into disuse, this group continued to be remodelled, refurbished, and rededicated. Further, in a stunning testimony to social memory, and after a period of clear abandonment, it became the focus of Post-Classic activity that included the erection of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Justine Shaw. Jennifer Mathews.

The CRAS and Yalahau Projects of Quintana Roo have shared a similar trajectory for many years: although both projects have focused several seasons on individual sites with detailed mapping, excavations, and artifact analysis, the broader goal has been to address large areas of coverage, with relatively few excavations conducted into buildings. Both projects have focused on site location, with the use of local peoples as consultants and guides. Both projects are in regions that are generally...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Leslie Perkins. Travis Stanton.

The island of Cozumel has long been known to have been a quintessential place in Late Postclassic Maya culture as the home to the shrine of Ix Chel, the lunar goddess of childbirth and fertility. Maya women of this period were expected to make the pilgrimage to the shrine at least once in their lives, which would have transformed the island into one of the most dynamic and multicultural social contexts throughout the late Maya world. Added to the fact that the island is the easternmost part of...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Ken Seligson.

A technical report to the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History regarding our 2015 Field Season excavations of Annular Structures. Funding provided by a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (BCS-1445437), the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Millsaps College.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary Miller.

Among the class of Late Classic Maya figurines generally considered to be from the Island of Jaina, molds were used to form entire objects as well as individual body parts. Molds may also have been taken of one finished figurine in order to generate a new object that would be slightly larger than the original, sometimes resulting in cascading generations of related works. Production techniques of the ceramic mold may also have been deployed for individual body parts, particularly the human...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephanie Lozano.

There is extensive evidence of the exchange that occurred between Teotihuacan and the Maya area and new evidence has continued to surface in recent archaeological literature and in museum collections. This paper has several main objectives, first to revisit the history of research and analysis of iconographic symbols and epigraphy within the Maya area that notes a Teotihuacan influence. Secondly, to point out that the Maya obtained Central Mexican symbols and writing not merely for their...