Maya (Other Keyword)
51-75 (504 Records)
This paper introduces the Lowland Maya Territories: Local Dynamics in Regional Landscapes symposium that critiques the current model of territories as stable geo-political entities. We use data from the Actuncan Archaeological Project and other upper Belize River valley projects to suggest that territories were in flux, reacting and changing to social and political relationships. Territorial dynamism is driven by at least two processes: the social construction of place and the political...
Beyond Polychrome and Greenstone: FTIR and SEM-XEDS Analysis of Fine-Grained Remains from Two Ancient Maya Royal Tombs at El Perú-Waka’ (2017)
Ample evidence suggests Classic period Maya royal tombs were intentional arrangements of symbolically-charged objects and offerings. Because of this, critical examination of the entire array of a tomb’s contents is vital. Analysis of polychrome vessels, greenstone jewels, and human remains are certainly essential. Relative to these more well-preserved or spectacular components of a mortuary assemblage, small-scale or fine-grained remains have historically tended to be understudied or overlooked,...
Big Trash, Little Trash: A Comparison of a Late Classic Maya Feasting Deposit and a Household Midden (2016)
Feasting is often identified in the archaeological record based on the discovery of high ceramic frequencies and the presence of faunal remains in a concentrated area. While these characteristics can prove useful an initial identification of feasting behavior, further examination of the potential feasting assemblage and comparison with other types of archaeological deposits is necessary to fully support a feasting interpretation. This paper compares two deposits from the Classic Maya site of La...
A Bioarchaeological Analysis of Human Remains on the Summit of Tigre Pyramid, El Mirador, Guatemala (2015)
On the platform between the triadic group on the Tigre pyramid at the site of El Mirador, Guatemala, the Mirador Basin Project discovered human remains scattered over the upper platform of this pyramid associated with hundreds of projectile points, in both local chert and obsidian from Central Mexico. Additional artifacts included shell, bone, and large quantities of Early Classic ceramics. This presentation will focus on the osteological remains from this deposit. Skeletal analyses of the...
A Bioarchaeological Approach to Diversity and Complexity of Ancient Maya Society at Copan: Results from New Strontium and Biodistance Data (2015)
The UNESCO World Heritage Site of Copan is uniquely situated to address the question of migration and culture contact in ancient Mesoamerica. The city is nestled at the southeastern frontier of the Maya region and the western edge of culturally diverse Honduras. Copan was a dynamic urban city populated by peoples of various places of origin, affiliations, and identities. Research focused on the Copan human skeletal collection, the largest yet recovered in Mesoamerica, to explore the lives of...
The Bioarchaeology of Colonization and Missionization at San Bernabé, Lake Petén Itzá (2016)
The Spanish established the San Bernabé Mission in the heartland of the Itzá Maya area at Tayasal in the Petén Lakes region around 1710. Census data suggest that the mission was at the center of a multi-cultural community of 126 individuals in 1712, yet within three decades the population size had reduced by 70% potentially due to epidemics and flight. Excavations by the Tayasal Archaeological Project have recovered 46 individuals from 33 graves in the mission’s cemetery that shed light on what...
Biological distance among Huastec, Veracruz, and Maya groups (2015)
The people of the Huasteca region have a shared language history with the Maya region. This connection has long been of interest to Mesoamerican archaeologists and linguists. They also traded with other populations along the Gulf Coast, such as those in Veracruz. To date, biological evidence for these connections remains limited. We compared Huastec (n= 62), Veracruz (n= 47), highland (n= 29) and lowland Maya (n= 63) groups to evaluate the effects of shared language and economic exchange on...
Biomolecular Approaches to Documenting Ancient Maya Turkey Husbandry and Use (2016)
The turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) is the only domesticated vertebrate to originate from North America. Accurate reconstructions of turkey husbandry and use are thus critical for understanding the domestication process in the ancient Americas. Isotopic and genetic (aDNA) research has yielded substantial insights into the history of turkey use and domestication in the American Southwest, but such methods have not been widely used in Mesoamerica to date, despite the fact that all modern domestic...
The Birth of Ehecatl: The Cultural Origins of the Avian Wind God OF Central Mexico (2015)
One of the most striking deities of the Aztec pantheon is Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl, a duck-billed being embodying such ethereal concepts as rain-bringing wind and the breath of life. He is in jarring contrast to Quetzalcoatl, who although embodying the same concepts of wind, is a quetzal-plumed rattlesnake in Aztec thought. This study argues that in contrast to the plumed serpent, Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl constitutes a relatively recent introduction of an avian wind deity from eastern Mesoamerica into...
The Black, The Red: A Study of Two Maya Mural Pigments from the Petén Region (2017)
Black and red are foundational colors in Mesoamerican painting and scribal arts, often derived from easily accessible raw materials. Although their presence is ubiquitous, variations in chemistry and microscopic properties are data that tell a more nuanced story. This paper summarizes analysis of black and red colorants used in Maya wall paintings that contribute to observations regarding local traditions in manufacture, as well as individual variation in artistic practice. Reported results...
Blue Creek
Background—The Maya City of Blue Creek Blue Creek is an ancient Maya city (900 BC–AD 1000) in northwestern Belize, just south of the southern Mexican border. Annual investigations of the site have been under way since 1990. Except for four years, these were, and continue to be, directed by Thomas Guderjan. Consequently, we have access to all records and archives of the project and have an excellent relationship with the government of Belize. The ancient city of Blue Creek covers more than 100...
Booms, Busts, and Changing (Anti)Market Engagement in Pacific piedmont Guatemala (2015)
Located in the cacao-rich Pacific piedmont region of Guatemala, the colonial period Kaqchikel Maya community of San Pedro Aguacatepeque produced cacao for the Iximche Kaqchikel polity prior to colonization. With the 16th century global cacao boom that followed Spanish colonization, cacao producing communities in the region became critical sources of this increasingly desired regional and global exchange good. The bust of the global cacao market in the latter part of the century, coupled with...
British Ceramics at the Empire’s Edge: Economy and Identity Among Subaltern Groups in Late 19th-Century British Honduras (2017)
Following the outbreak of the Caste War in the Yucatán (1847-1901), a group of approximately 1,000 Maya migrated into northwestern British Honduras (Belize) and settled 20 small villages. Far from the principal population centers of the Yucatán, the Petén, and Belize City, the only other inhabitants in this region were logging gangs predominantly composed of descendants of African slaves who seasonally inhabited the mahogany camps of the Belize Estate and Produce Company’s (BEC) vast land...
Broadscale Machine Learning Model for Archaeological Feature Detection in the Maya Area (2023)
This is an abstract from the "2023 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Timothy Beach Part II" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Comprehensive maps of ancient structures across the Maya area of Central America can help archaeologists to deepen knowledge of past settlement patterns and regional interactions, potentially leading to enhanced understanding of thousands of years of Maya civilization. However, most Maya archaeological sites are not...
Building a Community: Late Classic and Postclassic Residential Structures at Rio Amarillo, Copan, Honduras (2015)
Rio Amarillo, an ancient town, rests 20 km east of the great Maya city of Copan in Honduras. In the last four years residences from the Late Classic and Postclassic period have been excavated at the site. Investigations of the residential buildings from Río Amarillo have allowed us to better understand the influences and allegiances of the inhabitants of this community resting on the margins of the Maya world. The architecture of the structures reflects ties to both Copan and to areas in the...
Building an Empire: Spanish Colonial Encounters with Maya Houses and Housebuilding (2018)
In the late sixteenth century, King Philip II of Spain sent out a request to the local administrators of his overseas colonies, asking that they complete a questionnaire designed to collect information about the lands he had conquered. The responses to this questionnaire, completed primarily between 1578-1586, form a set of documents now known as the Relaciones Geográficas. Question 31 asked respondents to describe the form and construction of the local houses and the materials used to build...
"Bundling the sticks": tallies in Classic Maya inscriptions (2016)
This presentation addresses a set of references to “sticks” in Classic Maya inscriptions, which have been traditionally interpreted as weapons. The available contexts, however, indicate that “sticks” were involved in tribute payment transactions. Although there is no archaeological evidence of these presumably perishable wooden items, the author highlights some visual and material data that support the use of tallies by the Maya. The discussion then centers on less straightforward textual...
Categorical Imperatives: Re-imagining the classificatory schema for Mayan ceramic vessels (2015)
Various systems of vessel classification have evolved through the need to address specific research questions from disparate sub-fields within Mayan studies. Recent work, however, has shown that these classificatory categories may be inadvertently biasing the interpretation of Mayan ceramics by presupposing aspects of use, function, and social context. Instead, these aspects should be matters of empirical study and validation derived from the vessels and their contexts rather than imposition by...
Cave 1 at the Site of at the site of Chawak But’o’ob: An Interpretation of Subterranean Space in Northern Belize (2016)
During the 2013 season, a team from California State University, Los Angeles worked with the Rio Bravo Archaeological Survey directed by Stanley Walling to conduct a preliminary assessment of Cave 1 (RB-47-142-X) at the site of Chawak But’o’ob. Located within the heart of the site’s public architecture, Cave 1 is surrounded by a ballcourt, a sweatbath and a sinkhole. Though our survey and excavation revealed utilization of the cave that differed from other areas of the Maya lowlands, its...
Central Peten Jato Black-on-Gray: A Look at Gray wares and Black Wares, Monkeys and Mortuaries (2016)
Jato Black-on-Gray is an extremely rare Terminal Classic pottery type in central Petén, typically recovered as mortuary furniture. It is a hybrid, combining typical Petén forms with aspects of color, decoration, and use borrowed from wares and groups such as Chablekal Fine Gray and Achote Black, more common in western and southwestern Petén. In particular, an incised monkey image on a Jato vase from Tayasal ties it to common motifs on Chablekal bowls, which are also from burial contexts but were...
Ceramic Chronology and Current Visions of the "Terminal Classic" and Collapse in the Southern Maya Lowlands: A Brief Desultory Philippic (2017)
Recent popular interpretations have proposed that the "Terminal Classic" in the southern lowlands was a gradual transition or slow multi-stage process or that many ninth and tenth century centers continued to prosper; or even have proposed a "What collapse?" scenario. Yet systematic site by site review of ceramic chronologies and evidence reveals that these characterizations and, indeed, the whole debate are poorly informed due to errors in ceramic typologies and limited understandings of the...
Ceramics and Polity at Motul de San José and its Periphery (2017)
Motul de San Jose entered its Golden Age during the Late Classic. It was located at a critical crossroads in the Central Peten Lakes region, sitting between the east-west San Pedro Martir River that connected it to the Western Peten kingdoms all the way to Yaxchilan, and a north-south route that tied it with Tikal in the north and Dos Pilas and the other Petexbatun centers in the south. The political alliances between Motul and these kingdoms were materialized through the gifting of Ik’ Style...
Ceramics of La Florida-Namaan: a Preliminary Report (2017)
The Guatemalan archaeological site of La Florida, located on the San Pedro River near the Mexican border, was home to the Classic Maya polity known as Namaan. Hieroglyphic inscriptions from La Florida and elsewhere reveal the polity’s widespread political contacts with sites in western Peten, Tabasco, and beyond, as well as a dynastic history spanning three centuries. While known to archaeologists since 1943, the site has only recently been the subject of a multi-year research project. In this...
Challenges and successes of some Mesoamerican exhibits in small university museums around the turn of the 21st century (2016)
Curating exhibits focused on Mesoamerican archaeology in two small university museums between 1993 and 2013 involved challenges with both similarities to and differences from those involved in curating blockbuster exhibits in large museums. Four exhibits included long-term and short-term installations, as well as traveling versions, and focused on the Maya, West Mexico, and Mesoamerica in general. Challenges were small budgets and staffs, negotiating loans and venues with staffs of other...
Changes in Ritual Practice: A Diachronic Example from Xunantunich, Group D (2016)
The Mopan Valley Preclassic Project has been conducting research at Group D, Xunantunich, a Late Classic elite residential unit with an eastern ancestor shrine. This research has significantly changed our understanding of the establishment and ritual re-use of this group. Recent investigations have revealed Late/Terminal Preclassic constructions including a small courtyard platform and an early structure buried within the Late Classic ancestor shrine. Thousands of ceramic sherds were...