Maya (Other Keyword)
301-325 (495 Records)
Investigations in the western Petén lakes area have provided useful collections of pottery excavated from a variety of sites ranging from the Middle Preclassic to the Contact periods. This abundance has enabled intensive study of pottery from both macroscopic and compositional perspectives. This paper compares compositional results from Middle Preclassic and Postclassic pottery samples collected and analyzed by the authors. A comparison of petrographic analysis from thin sections demonstrates...
A Multiproxy Investigation of Maya Socio-political Territories: A Case Study from the Yalahau Region, northern Quintana Roo, Mexico (2015)
The Yalahau region in northern Quintana Roo, Mexico constitutes a unique physiographic landscape in the Maya area. The region is characterized by abundant freshwater wetlands, known locally as sabanas, which stand in marked contrast to the dry karstic plain of the northern Maya lowlands. The paper combines the results derived from surveys of the region’s settlements and its wetlands along with remote sensing data (in particular LANDSAT and LIDAR platforms) to highlight how multiple...
Muralla de Leon: Exploring the Fortifications (2015)
The summer of 2014 saw the return of archaeological investigation after a 30-plus year hiatus to Muralla de Leon, located on the shores of Lake Macanché in the Petén of Guatemala. Ringed by a partially-collapsed wall of varying height, the site appears to have been a locus of contestation at various eras of Maya history. A Postclassic temple assemblage within indicates occupation by the Kowoj, who were subsequently driven from the area by the rival Itzá. However, preliminary evidence dates...
Mythological Markers, Shifting Boundaries and Exchange in the Late Classic Copan Kingdom (2016)
Delimiting the “core” area of the Late Classic Copan kingdom may be enhanced through analysis of its shared mythology, associated with the ballgame. Placed at the geographic and social center of the royal compound, the main ballcourt of Copan established a narrative of mythological macaws, and a Macaw Mountain, that spanned the entire dynasty from the 5th-9th century CE. The geographic distribution of archaeological sites with stone macaw head ballcourt markers, all of which had Copador pottery...
Nested Hegemonies in the Holmul Region (2016)
The recent finds at Holmul has opened a narrow window on the hitherto largely unknown dynastic history of this medium-sized kingdom in eastern Peten and on the complexities of Late Classic lowland Maya hegemonic relations. We now have a royal tomb, a palace, and a funerary temple with dedicatory texts that can all be attributed with a certain degree of confidence to a single Late Classic ruler with ties to Naranjo and Kaanul (Snake Kingdom). This set of contextual information allows us to...
New Data on the Urban Grid at Nixtun-Ch’ich’, Petén, Guatemala (2016)
Gridded settlements are rare in the Americas and previously unknown in the Maya world until the Spanish conquest. Recent work has documented a modular orthogonal grid at Nixtun-Ch’ich’, Petén, Guatemala. The grid appears to have been imposed upon much of the site around 400-200 BCE. In other parts of the world, planned orthogonal grids are frequently associated with powerful central authority. If this were the case at Nixtun-Ch’ich’ then then this act of power is correlated with the emergence of...
New Frontiers in Wetland Archaeology: Mapping Maya Agricultural Systems with Lidar (2017)
Lidar has exponentially increased our knowledge of ancient agricultural systems and land use, especially within the Maya world. This paper explores a new Lidar dataset for the Maya Lowlands in Northwestern Belize where archaeological and geoarchaeological teams have studied ditched and raised field systems for over 25 years. Through surveys and excavations, researchers in Northwestern Belize have shed light upon the importance of Maya wetland agriculture, but questions of spatial scale still...
New Investigations at Holtun: A Preclassic Maya Ritual Center (2016)
The site of Holtun is located in the department of the Peten at about 12 km south of the site of Yaxha and 35 km from Tikal. Holtun is considered a civic-ceremonial center and is part of a Group of Preclassic epicenters located south of Yaxha Lake. This paper will summarize the results of the field and lab seasons from 2012-2015. We will also discuss the preliminary results of the analysis of radiocarbon, fauna, lithics, ceramics, and soils. The analyses suggest that Holtun was a Preclassic...
Nighttime Food of the Ancient Maya (2017)
Societies, present and past, consume particular foods at certain times of the day, and these foods often symbolize quotidian practices. Even in American culture, certain foods are taboo at certain times and in certain contexts, such as desert after breakfast or the increasing concern of healthy eating with respect to bedtime snacking. Food functions as a social vehicle beyond its nutritional value, and mealtimes or food events serve as occasions to reinforce culturally appropriate behaviors....
Nineteenth Century Maya Refugees and the Reoccupation of Tikal, Guatemala (2015)
After nearly millennia of isolation and abandonment, Tikal, the once mighty city of the ancient Classic Maya, was briefly reoccupied by Maya refugees fleeing the violence of the Caste War of Yucatan (1847-1901). While small, this village was comprised of a conglomeration of at least three different Maya speaking groups, seeking safety and autonomy in the frontier zone of the dense and sparsely occupied Petén Jungle. This remote region was exploited for centuries by groups escaping...
Nineteenth-Century Tobacco Economics and Lacandon Maya Culture Change (2018)
Tobacco became a major commodity in the Spanish colonies in the late colonial period. But the importance of tobacco increased in post-independence times when the new republics developed their economies and free markets. The ingestion of tobacco also reached new highs at this time. Lacandon Maya in the remote forests of Mexico and Guatemala entered globalization by mastering tobacco cultivation and exchange. The Lacandon produced superb, cheap tobacco that they traded for foreign goods. Tobacco...
No Direction Home; Refining the Date of Occupation at Tikal’s 19th Century Refugee Village. (2016)
In the latter half of the 19th Century, the ancient Maya ruined city Tikal was briefly reoccupied. The frontier village was established some time before 1875, and had a maximum population of 15 households comprised of at least three distinct Maya speaking groups. However, the site was again abandoned when archaeologists visited Tikal in 1881. Most of the inhabitants were reportedly said to be Yucatec refugees fleeing the violence and upheavals of the Caste War of Yucatan (1847-1901) that...
Non-mounded Architecture, Invisible Housemounds, and the Problem of Settlement Identification and Demographics in the Mirador Basin (2015)
In a landscape distinguished archaeologically by elite-dominated, often massive architecture, the small and unobtrusive is easily overlooked. Since its inception as a discipline, Maya archaeology’s principal focus has been cities and the buildings that comprise them. These buildings, often of extraordinary scale, are typically represented in the archaeological record by mounds. This phenomenon of architectural "moundedness" has conditioned Mayanists’ perception of settlement as a whole. Indeed,...
Obsidian Artifacts and Community Interactions at Tayasal (2016)
Lithic artifacts represent a major aspect of the archaeological record, and they are found in a wide variety of cultural settings. For the Maya lowlands, lithic analysis is particularly insightful for studying relationships between economics and society because stone was the dominant raw material used to produce tools at differing levels of social organization. The purpose of this presentation is to examine community connections at Tayasal using an interactionalist perspective. Through this...
The Obsidian Order at Copan: A Discussion of Science, Education, and Institutions in Late Classic Statecraft (2017)
This paper investigates an order of ranked specialists marked by title Taaj ("obsidian"), as they occur at Late Classic Copan. This "obsidian order" was first identified on a mural at the site of Xultun, Guatemala, where archaeological evidence revealed that its members held expertise in indigenous Maya sciences, ritual practice and codex book production. Since then, the Taaj have been identified at several Classic Maya centers besides Xultun—with the texts of Copan providing the most detailed...
Occupational History of Three Ancient Maya Saltworks in Paynes Creek National Park, Belize. (2016)
In this poster we present the results of archaeological research at three currently submerged Classic period Maya saltworks in Paynes Creek National Park, Southern Belize. Through the study of marine sediment columns, we document environmental and anthropogenic changes over time at these locations. By conducting macroscopic analysis, loss-on ignition, and microscopic characterization of marine sediment samples, we were able to identify the effects of human activities as well as sea level rise on...
Of Cenotes and Serpents: Modern and Ancient Cave Ritual at Mayapán, Yucatán, Mexico (2015)
The pairing of ritual architecture with sacred underground spaces is common throughout Mesoamerica and makes clear the importance that ancient inhabitants of the culture area placed on caves and cenotes. These spaces were home to powerful forces. The Late Postclassic Maya center of Mayapán (1150-1450AD) is known for its clear spatial associations between temples and cenotes. These temple/cenote complexes have been found both within and outside of the large defensive city wall. Cenote Sac Uayum,...
On the Back of the Crocodile: Extent, Energetics, and Productivity in Wetland Agricultural Systems, Northern Belize (2016)
Wetland agricultural techniques have been successfully employed in a variety of environmentally and climatically diverse landscapes throughout prehistory. Within the larger Maya region, these features figure prominently in the region comprised of Northern Belize and Southern Quintana Roo. Along the banks of the Hondo and New Rivers, the ancient Maya effectively utilized wetland agricultural practices from the Middle Preclassic to the Terminal Classic periods. A number of past archaeological...
The Organization and Economic Activity Related to the Extraction and Production of Utilitarian Tools in the Mopan Valley, Belize (2015)
A major topic of recent study about the ancient Maya is the role of elites and non-elites in the ancient Maya economy. Such studies have illustrated that different types of objects operated within varying economic modes; therefore the methods of production and distribution of diverse types of objects should be examined individually. This paper will examine the economic role of utilitarian chert tools in the Late to Terminal Classic Maya economy. This paper will utilize an examination of the...
The Origins and Identities of the Colha Skull Pit Skeletal Remains (2016)
The lithics production center of Colha in northern Belize provides skeletal evidence relevant to ongoing debates about the role of violence among the Maya of Central America. The Colha Skull Pit (Op. 2011) dates to the Terminal Classic period and consists of thirty individuals, represented only by cranial remains. The skeletal remains include both males and females and range in age from children to old adults. Cranial and dental modifications are prevalent in this feature and many of the skulls...
The Origins of Maya Civilization: New Evidence from Ceibal and Sites in the Middle Usumacinta Basin (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Preclassic Maya Social Transformations along the Usumacinta: Views from Ceibal and Aguada Fénix" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The analysis of new LiDAR data has revealed many previously unknown early Middle Preclassic sites in the Middle Usumacinta drainage. The sites are monumental in their extensions and consist of a large rectangular feature or platform oriented slightly east of north, delineated by low mounds...
Origins: Contextualizing the Beginning and Development of the PfBAP (2017)
The introduction of a large-scale regional project in northwest Belize began as a more modest endeavor in northeast Guatemala. How the Programme for Belize Archaeological Project (PfBAP) began, how it has modified through several decades, and what we anticipate as its future are discussed. A brief review of select projects within the PfBAP are mentioned as examples of overall program interests. Importantly, the PfBAP relationships with the Belize Government, local communities, and other entities...
An Orthogonal Grid at Nixtun-Ch’ich’, Petén, Guatemala (2015)
Nixtun-Ch’ich’ is a large archaeological site on the western edge of Lake Petén Itza in Petén, Guatemala. Recent remapping of the site revealed that its architecture was largely organized by an orthogonal grid. While most Maya sites exhibit some degree of urban planning, the organization of sakbes (roads) into an orthogonal grid has not been described elsewhere in the Maya world. The grid seems to have developed at Nixtun-Ch’ich’ in the Late Preclassic period. It is not yet known whether it...
Out With The Old and In With The New: The Termination and Reoccupation of Outlying Temples at Ceibal, Guatemala (2015)
Recent research in outlying residential groups at Ceibal, Guatemala has contributed to our understanding of ritual practices carried out by different segments of society. More specifically, the termination of minor temples located in the peripheries of Ceibal reveals information about ritual destruction and reutilization of ceremonial buildings in the Maya area. At the end of the Protoclassic period (ca. AD 1-225), many temples in outlying residential groups were completely buried and the nearby...
Overland Trade in the Central Maya Lowlands: the View from Trinidad de Nosotros, El Petén, Guatemala (2015)
Although the largest Classic Maya political capitals are frequently assumed to have served as the critical nodes in long-distance trade networks, empirical data from decades of research suggest that ancient Maya trade was more nuanced in its organization. This paper presents a view on Maya trade from the perspective of Trinidad de Nosotros, a port on Guatemala's Lake Petén Itzá. Trinidad's position, astride overland trade routes and intermediate between these routes and a major political...