“The Center and the Edge”: How the Archaeology of Belize Is Foundational for Understanding the Ancient Maya, Part II

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "“The Center and the Edge”: How the Archaeology of Belize Is Foundational for Understanding the Ancient Maya, Part II" at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In 1841, following his first historic trip to the Maya World, John Lloyd Stephens commented that between Belize City and the “inhabited part of Central America is a wilderness, unbroken even by an Indian path” and that “residence there is more confining than living on an island” (Stephens 1841:19). While spectacular architectural remains and carved monuments pertaining to the ancient Maya were almost immediately recorded in the center of the Yucatan Peninsula, coastal areas like Belize had yet to yield similar results. Thus, many early archaeologists automatically assumed that what became the modern country of Belize was peripheral or, at best, on the edge of ancient Maya development. For many researchers in the Maya area, especially in modern countries surrounding Belize, this perspective continues to be espoused with little attention being paid to the Belizean archaeological data. Yet, the archaeology that has been undertaken in Belize has contributed disproportionately and significantly to our collective knowledge of ancient Maya civilization. This session highlights the many contributions that Belizean archaeology has made to the broader area of Maya studies and demonstrates how research in Belize has been at the leading edge of scholarly debates on ancient Maya prehistory.