A geoarcheological study of the ancient quarries of Río Bec (Campeche, México)

Summary

The stone buildings of the Río Bec archaeological zone are a testament to the emergence of a new architectural tradition in the central Maya lowlands during the second half of the first millennium of our era. To understand this new architecture and the ways it has been conceived, a recent investigation has been carried out on the technological process involved in its production. Since construction practices can hardly be appreciated without considering the materials used by the builders, this investigation began with the study of the stones employed in Río Bec and the places from which they were obtained. Two different approaches have been followed. The first consisted in the lithostratigraphic and petrographic characterization of the limestone deposits that were exploited. The second was based on the examination of the distribution and configuration of the quarries surveyed and excavated during this study, as well as the documentation of all the traces of extraction discovered. The results of these works provided significant new data on building stone procurement in prehispanic times and, in particular, on the strategies and the technological choices adopted in Río Bec to extract stone.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Exploitation of Limestone in Ancient Mesoamerica   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage