Making and Breaking Boundaries in the Maya Lowlands: Alliance and Conflict across the Guatemala–Belize Border

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Making and Breaking Boundaries in the Maya Lowlands: Alliance and Conflict across the Guatemala–Belize Border," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Pre-Columbian social ties, political alliances, trade networks, and migrations were oblivious to contemporary geopolitical divisions, such as those between Guatemala and Belize. While a good deal is known about the major political players during the Classic period, it is a continual effort to flesh out the many shifting political, social, and economic formations and fissures in the Peten–Belize area of the Southern Maya Lowlands. This session seeks to bring together collaborations across the Belize–Peten divide to better understand the dynamic ways ancient and historic period Maya boundaries of belonging were formed and broken. We emphasize, in particular, the ways in which such affiliations, conflicts, co-existence, and movements were constantly changing, and as such, symposium papers cover multiple periods of Maya history.

Other Keywords
Maya: Classic • Social and Political Organization • Frontiers and Borderlands • Iconography and epigraphy • Colonialism • Ceramic Analysis • Bioarchaeology/Skeletal Analysis • Maya: Postclassic • Lithic Analysis • Maya

Geographic Keywords
United Mexican States (Country) • Belize (Country) • North America (Continent) • Peten (State / Territory) • Yucatan (State / Territory) • Orange Walk (State / Territory) • Cayo (State / Territory) • Corozal (State / Territory) • Belize (State / Territory) • Stann Creek (State / Territory)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-15 of 15)

  • Documents (15)
Documents
  • Ally, Client or Outpost? Examining the Relationship between Xunantunich and Naranjo in the Late Classic Period (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jaime Awe. Christophe Helmke.

    This is an abstract from the "Making and Breaking Boundaries in the Maya Lowlands: Alliance and Conflict across the Guatemala–Belize Border" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Investigations at Xunantunich indicate that this important site in the Belize River Valley, rose rapidly to regional prominence during the Late Classic Hats’ Chaak Phase (AD 670 – 780). While the social, political, and economic reasons for this late and rapid rise are still not...

  • Boundaries of the Past as Viewed through the Fences of Today: Shifting Methods of Archaeological Inquiry in the Southern Maya Lowlands (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ryan Mongelluzzo. Jose Garrido. Jean-Baptiste Le Moine.

    This is an abstract from the "Making and Breaking Boundaries in the Maya Lowlands: Alliance and Conflict across the Guatemala–Belize Border" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. An exploration of how modern borders of different kinds have influenced, and sometimes impeded, our understanding of ancient borders and territories. The Guatemala-Belize border has ramifications in terms of the ways in which scholars interact and how the archaeology is...

  • Breaking with Tradition? Terminal Classic and Postclassic Developments Across the Guatemala – Belize Border (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Eleanor Harrison-Buck. Timothy Pugh.

    This is an abstract from the "Making and Breaking Boundaries in the Maya Lowlands: Alliance and Conflict across the Guatemala–Belize Border" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Following the Classic Maya "collapse" a clustering of traits appear at sites in the Peten – Belize area of the Southern Maya Lowlands. These include new architectural forms, such as circular and colonnaded buildings and the introduction of distinctive portable goods such as...

  • Convergence Zone Politics and Cultural Affiliations at the Archaeological Site of Ucanal, Peten, Guatemala (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Christina Halperin. Jose Luis Garrido Lopez. Miriam Salas. Jean Baptiste LeMoine.

    This is an abstract from the "Making and Breaking Boundaries in the Maya Lowlands: Alliance and Conflict across the Guatemala–Belize Border" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Maya archaeological site of Ucanal is located in Peten, Guatemala, close to the contemporary border with Belize. In Pre-Columbian times, the site also sat at the borders of some of the largest political centers, such as Caracol (Belize) and Naranjo (Peten, Guatemala)....

  • Crossing Borders: What Isotope Geochemistry Reveals about Migration among the Maya (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Carolyn Freiwald.

    This is an abstract from the "Making and Breaking Boundaries in the Maya Lowlands: Alliance and Conflict across the Guatemala–Belize Border" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Present day conversations about migration focus on borders and limiting population movement with the presence of police, harsh regulations, and walls. This paper examines the concept of migration in the Maya region and what the past decade of isotope geochemistry research tells...

  • Entangled: The Shifting Networks that Linked the Classic Maya of Belize’s Mopan Valley to Adjacent Regions (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jason Yaeger. M. Kathryn Brown.

    This is an abstract from the "Making and Breaking Boundaries in the Maya Lowlands: Alliance and Conflict across the Guatemala–Belize Border" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Some Mayanists have eschewed the notion that Classic Maya polities were territorially based, arguing instead that they were constituted through networks of political alliances that were continually reinforced through gifting, diplomacy, and warfare. That idea is our springboard...

  • Erasing Borders: Integrating the Settlement Hierarchies of Central Belize and the Petén, Guatemala (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jean Larmon. Vilma Fialko. Lisa Lucero.

    This is an abstract from the "Making and Breaking Boundaries in the Maya Lowlands: Alliance and Conflict across the Guatemala–Belize Border" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the last 18 years, the Department of Conservation and Rescue of Prehispanic Archaeological Sites (DECORSIAP) in Guatemala has carried out extensive systematic surveys of the northeast region of Petén, Guatemala in order to better understand the internal and external...

  • Identifying Late Classic Political, Economic, and Cultural Affiliations at Pacbitun, Belize (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only George J. Micheletti. Sheldon Skaggs. Terry G. Powis.

    This is an abstract from the "Making and Breaking Boundaries in the Maya Lowlands: Alliance and Conflict across the Guatemala–Belize Border" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For the ancient Maya of Pacbitun, the onset of the Late Classic period (AD 550-800) signifies a time of exponential site growth and heightened prosperity. While this florescence is evident in the archaeological record, recent studies have begun to demonstrate that this affluence...

  • Komkom What May: The Ancient Maya Kingdom of Komkom in Time and Place (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Dorie Reents-Budet. Ronald L. Bishop. Christophe Helmke. Julie Hoggarth.

    This is an abstract from the "Making and Breaking Boundaries in the Maya Lowlands: Alliance and Conflict across the Guatemala–Belize Border" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Painted and carved pictorial pottery of the Classic Maya (250-850 CE) served primarily as ostentatious serving vessels at feasts and other principal celebrations. The vessels were masterful creations by accomplished artisans and are, for the most part, individualistic...

  • Political Alliances and Trade Connections Seen in Ceramic Record from the Classic period: the Perspective of the Maya Site of Nakum, Guatemala (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jaroslaw Zralka. Bernard Hermes. Carmen Ting. Christophe Helmke. Wieslaw Koszkul.

    This is an abstract from the "Making and Breaking Boundaries in the Maya Lowlands: Alliance and Conflict across the Guatemala–Belize Border" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological investigations at Nakum (an important Maya site located in northeastern Guatemala) brought about the discovery of many monochrome and polychrome ceramics in many different architectural contexts. The style of ceramics supplemented in many cases by mineralogical...

  • Politics of the Borderlands: An Epigraphic History (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Simon Martin.

    This is an abstract from the "Making and Breaking Boundaries in the Maya Lowlands: Alliance and Conflict across the Guatemala–Belize Border" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The region now divided by the national boundaries of Belize and Guatemala was once home to a broad range of political entities. Noticeably, large centers with monumental inscriptions in the western and southern portions contrast with smaller and far less textually verbose sites...

  • The Porous Boundary: Understanding Late Postclassic Belize-Petén Interactions through Lithic Technology (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Nathan Meissner.

    This is an abstract from the "Making and Breaking Boundaries in the Maya Lowlands: Alliance and Conflict across the Guatemala–Belize Border" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Late Postclassic and Early Contact Periods (A.D. 1400-1697) of central Petén and western Belize are typically characterized by intensive interaction and migration during a time of shifting geo-political divisions. One of the divisions in Belize known as Dzuluinikob (loosely,...

  • The San Pedro Maya and the Western Frontier of British Honduras (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Brett A. Houk. Brooke Bonorden.

    This is an abstract from the "Making and Breaking Boundaries in the Maya Lowlands: Alliance and Conflict across the Guatemala–Belize Border" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Having fled the violence of the Caste War in Mexico, the San Pedro Maya occupied nearly two dozen small villages in the forests of western British Honduras and northeastern Petén from the 1850s to the 1930s. Archaeological and archival information attest to the fact that the...

  • Society in Flux: Migration and Kinship during Sociopolitical Change in the Southern Lowlands (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Katherine Miller Wolf.

    This is an abstract from the "Making and Breaking Boundaries in the Maya Lowlands: Alliance and Conflict across the Guatemala–Belize Border" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the midst of conflict and change people are instigators, bystanders, or unwilling victims of larger sociopolitical machinations. Those living in the Southern Lowlands in the prehistoric and historic periods were familiar with the results of fluctuations in the social...

  • A Tale of Two Cities: Holtun, Holmul, and Permeable Ceramic Boundaries between Guatemala and Belize (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Callaghan. Brigitte Kovacevich.

    This is an abstract from the "Making and Breaking Boundaries in the Maya Lowlands: Alliance and Conflict across the Guatemala–Belize Border" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper we use frequency distributions of ceramic types and modes to identify and assess the presence and strength of permeable ceramic boundaries between sites in the northeastern Peten and west central Belize in the early Middle Preclassic through Postclassic periods. We...