Guatemala (Other Keyword)
1-15 (15 Records)
The Teotihuacan-style censers from Guatemala have received relatively little attention since the 1980s. Following upon earlier suggestions for a merchant-warrior presence in the Escuintla region, this study examines the butterfly imagery on a group of Teotihuacan-style censers in the national collections of Guatemala. This group of unprovenanced artifacts has research value because (1) its original imagery is intact, and (2) all have been sampled for paste analysis (instrumental neutron...
All in Good Time: the "New Highland Chronology" and the Sculptures of Kaminaljuyú, Guatemala (2015)
This paper considers the impact of the new highland chronology proposed by Dr. Inomata on prevailing interpretations of the stone sculptures of Kaminaljuyú. The revised chronology moves the archaeological record of Kaminaljuyú approximately 300 years forward, shifting the site’s sculptures to a wholly new cultural and chronological framework. This paper begins the process of re-contextualizing the art of Kaminaljuyú by investigating the ways in which the new chronology disrupts and/or supports...
American Pompeii: Old evidence on Late Classic ties between the Pacific Coast and the Antigua valley (2017)
An archaeological collection from finca Pompeya in the Antigua Guatemala valley provides significant information about Late Classic interaction with the adjacent Pacific coast. Excavated in 1893, the collection was eventually scattered to several museums in Germany, the United States, and Guatemala. However, it can be reconstructed from a photograph made not long after the discovery, and from newspaper reports that provide rough descriptions of the excavations. The objects themselves are still...
Assessing Defensibility: Geospatial Analyses of Preclassic to Colonial Highland Maya Settlement Patterns (2017)
Postclassic Maya settlement patterns have long been explained in terms of the increasing defensibility in the transition from Classic period settlement patterns. Drawing on arguments for the increased militancy and conflict that characterized the Maya region in the wake of the Classic "collapse", this narrative has endured despite minimal cross-context, large scale assessment. This paper presents the results of a large-scale, in-progress diachronic geospatial analysis of Maya settlement...
The Ceramics of Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala (1978)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
The Columbian Exchange in Mesoamerica: Early Colonial Documents and Zooarchaeology in Guatemala (2017)
At the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th century, the massive introduction of new animal species in the Americas put an unprecedented stress on both the environment and Native American societies. Although archaeological animal remains are often used to inform discussions on American-European transculturation in other areas, few such studies have been done in southern Mesoamerica. This talk will use historical sources and published zooarchaeological data to provide a first overview of...
Contribution of Stephan F. de Borhegyi to the Archaeology in Guatemala: Investigation in the Borhegyi’s Archives at the Milwaukee Public Museum (2018)
Archaeologist Stephan Borhegyi contributed significantly to the development of archeology in Guatemala in the late 1950s and early 1960s with his investigations both in the highlands and on the Pacific Coast. He was a pioneer in underwater archeology at Lake Amatitlán and carried out studies at other sites around the lake. He also made important entries on different archaeological sites in the Highlands and on the Pacific Coast, particularly on the Bilbao site. In Guatemala, his works were...
Entorno a la sal y el agua: Los conjuntos residenciales en el sitio Salinas de los Nueve Cerros, Guatemala (2015)
Salinas de los Nueve Cerros was a large Prehispanic center located at the edge of the Maya lowlands. It was founded atop the only non-coastal salt source in the lowlands and because of this was one of the most important cities during the Classic period. The site covered an area of over 30 km2 with an occupation that spanned the Middle Preclassic (ca. 800 BC) through the Postclassic (ca. AD 1200). Previous archaeological projects focused on salt production in the site core, while the present...
From Cacao to Sugar: Long-Term Maya Economic Entanglement in Colonial Guatemala (2016)
This paper explores highland Maya sugar production as a product of later colonial entanglement influenced by precolonial and early colonial innovations and traditions. In the mid-17th century, the colonial Kaqchikel Maya community of San Pedro Aguacatepeque is described as a producer of sugar. Hoewever, the community’s embrace of sugar cane production (and associated sugar products) emerged in a complicated manner: as a product of preexisting precolonial and early colonial cacao tribute...
Historical and Contemporary Archaeology as Border Thinking? Coloniality, Materialisms and Survivance in Guatemala’s Colonial and Recent Pasts (2024)
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. As noted the uncertain position of historical archaeology in Mesoamerica, particularly in Guatemala, has reified the divide between prehispanic and later colonial native histories in the region. At the same time, the archaeology of the recent/contemporary is especially neglected, obfuscating how...
La Florida/Namaan: a Classic Maya River Port (2015)
The Classic Maya polity Namaan is referred to in the inscriptions of several sites in Mexico and Guatemala, attesting to its importance as an ally by many neighbors. Namaan has long been identified as the site of La Florida, located on the San Pedro River in western Peten, Guatemala. This position lay at an intersection of routes connecting the large cities of central Peten to the fertile Tabasco Plain and the Usumacinta River Valley. Though many archaeologists and epigraphers have visited the...
Maya Lithic Economies at Piedras Negras, Guatemala: Production and Exchange in an Elite Architectural Complex (2017)
In recent years significant headway has been made to understand New World marketing systems. In contrast with the highly complex and easily identifiable market systems of the Mexican Highlands, ancient Maya systems of production and distribution have traditionally been assumed to have operated at the level of the household, and thus have been overlooked. However, recent work in the Maya area has shown the likely presence of production beyond the household at possible market areas. In this paper,...
Smoke Signals: Interpretations (2015)
This paper compares expressions of ritualistic concepts that can be found on images on censers and on other artistic creations, including monuments and documents. The research concentrates on Late Preclassic and Early Classic developments in the Guatemala South Coast and Highlands but also uses relevant information from other areas. One of the objectives is to trace continuities and changes in forms of rituals and the manner in which individuals participated in them. It is found that contrasting...
The Social and religious life of a Guatemalan village (1949)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
When Trash Becomes Treasure: A Postclassic Maya Obsidian Core Cache from Nojpeten (2014)
This paper examines an obsidian cache offering excavated near the corner of a Postclassic Maya platform structure in Nojpeten, on the island of Flores, Guatemala. The cache consists of approximately 190 obsidian prismatic blade cores and core fragments, but the original number of cores placed in the cache likely fell between 173 and 182, with a best estimate of 177, 178, or 180. The cores were found about 20 cm southwest of the structure in a circular concentration measuring approximately 35 cm...