Prehispanic Maya Marketplace Investigations in the Three Rivers Region of Belize: First Results
Part of: Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)
This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Prehispanic Maya Marketplace Investigations in the Three Rivers Region of Belize: First Results" at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.
With National Science Foundation funding, in 2022 a group of eight independent projects, assisted by several consultants, began collaborating to investigate the hypothesized existence of an integrated market system in the Three Rivers Region of northwestern Belize during the Late Classic period (CE 600–850). While such systems are best understood on a regional level, regional integration and other aspects of exchange are difficult to gauge in the absence of known marketplace locations, which remain an important missing component of premodern market research worldwide. The coordinated research had four overlapping goals, two theoretical and two methodological. The principal theoretical objective was to confirm the existence of suspected marketplaces in the region; the second was to examine the comparability of goods between these marketplaces, specifically ceramics. Methodologically, the main goal was to test the feasibility of the configurational approach in identifying actual marketplace locations by applying a cross-culturally developed set of archaeological indicators. Additionally, researchers sought to assess the potential for coordinated investigation and data sharing across neighboring projects to mitigate the limitations of the usual, narrower geographical scope and problem-solving focus of each individual archaeological project. While research and analyses are still ongoing, this symposium presents the first results.
Other Keywords
Maya: Classic •
Trade and exchange •
Political economy •
Paleoethnobotany •
Marketplace •
Lithic Analysis •
Survey •
Soil Chemistry •
Markets •
Ceramic Analysis
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 1-10 of 10)
- Documents (10)
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Ancient Maya Marketplace Investigations at Hun Tun (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Prehispanic Maya Marketplace Investigations in the Three Rivers Region of Belize: First Results" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper discusses preliminary data related to a potential ancient Maya marketplace at the Late Classic site Hun Tun. The Hun Tun Archaeology Project operates under the larger Programme for Belize Archaeological Project and within the modern geographic boundaries of the Rio Bravo...
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Commoner Agency, Hinterland Complexity, and Evidence for a Late Classic Commoner Marketplace in the Rio Bravo Basin, Northwestern Belize (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Prehispanic Maya Marketplace Investigations in the Three Rivers Region of Belize: First Results" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper considers preliminary evidence for a Late Classic period marketplace at the site of Chawak But’o’ob, Belize. Group E, one of the largest settlement groups at this eighth-century agrarian site, is characterized by a well-bounded, spacious plaza that is larger and otherwise unlike...
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Cultural Collaborations among Ritual, Economy, and Social Organization: Recent Investigations at the Site of Dos Hombres, Belize (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Prehispanic Maya Marketplace Investigations in the Three Rivers Region of Belize: First Results" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Evidence from the site of Dos Hombres in northwestern Belize is presented from multiple contexts revealing the cultural collaborations with ritual, economic, and social expression/s as they are manifest in and necessarily tied to material aspects of everyday life. Ongoing previous research...
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Exploring Prehispanic Maya Marketplaces in Northwestern Belize: NSF Project Overview and Preliminary MNAP Results (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Prehispanic Maya Marketplace Investigations in the Three Rivers Region of Belize: First Results" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The 2023–2024 field seasons witnessed the beginning of an ambitious NSF-funded project to investigate the possible existence of marketplaces in the Three Rivers Region of northwestern Belize. This project is innovative in leveraging information from long-running, independent research...
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Geochemical Analysis of Plaza Floors in the Three Rivers Region of Northwestern Belize (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Prehispanic Maya Marketplace Investigations in the Three Rivers Region of Belize: First Results" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ancient markets are difficult to identify as most utilitarian items and consumables were perishable. Our objective was to use geochemical analyses of extractable phosphorus and metallic residues in soils to distinguish the unique geochemical patterns of market plazas from other types of...
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Late Classic Marketplace Pottery Exchange in the Three Rivers Region (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Prehispanic Maya Marketplace Investigations in the Three Rivers Region of Belize: First Results" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The understanding of Maya marketplaces has long been hindered by the lack of archaeological data to support their identification. The ceramic data presented here serves as one aspect of an overarching project that uses a configurational approach and a set of cross-cultural marketplace...
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The North Plaza Marketplace at Chan Chich, Belize (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Prehispanic Maya Marketplace Investigations in the Three Rivers Region of Belize: First Results" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the Late Classic period (600–850 CE), the ancient Maya had a robust market economy that connected people with goods through long-distance and local exchange networks. Marketplaces were an important institution serving a primary economic function while also stimulating social and...
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Preliminary Analysis of Archaeobotanical Remains Recovered from Late Classic Maya Marketplaces in Northwestern Belize (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Prehispanic Maya Marketplace Investigations in the Three Rivers Region of Belize: First Results" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeobotanical analysis of Late Classic Maya remains is a rapidly growing field of study. While much has been written about the different types of plants that the Maya used, very little is known about how and where these plants were traded and their connection to regional integration and...
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Preliminary Results of Ancient Maya Marketplace Investigations at La Milpa, Belize (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Prehispanic Maya Marketplace Investigations in the Three Rivers Region of Belize: First Results" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. With support from a National Science Foundation Grant, fieldwork was conducted at the Ancient Maya site of La Milpa, located in the northwest corner of the Three Rivers Region. Archaeological matrix samples were collected from three areas within La Milpa for soil analysis as a method for...
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Searching for Marketplaces at Blue Creek and Xnoha (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Prehispanic Maya Marketplace Investigations in the Three Rivers Region of Belize: First Results" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Marketplaces are a vital component for the economic interdependence of ancient Maya kingdoms. In our view, marketplaces were also definitional components of Maya central places of power as much as the presence of ostentatious presentations of architecture were. The Blue Creek Archaeological...