Preclassic Causeways of the Mirador Basin, Guatemala

Summary

A vast system of inter-site highways (sacbes or sacbeob) traversed an inhabited countryside between the major urban centers of the Kan kingdom in the Mirador Basin. Development of this system began during the Middle Preclassic period and continued throughout the Late Preclassic period (ca. 600 B.C.– A.D. 150). Over time, these transportation routes branched and transformed within densely populated centers to become a network of elevated causeways, processional boulevards with ritual and cosmological significance, thoroughfares, and secondary roadways. In addition to transportation, communication, and ceremonial aspects inter-site and intra-site causeways functioned as critical elements of regional and localized water management strategies that integrated with upland terrace and wetland margin agricultural systems. Here we present some results from ongoing mapping and excavations of these impressive features of ancient Maya civilization that were conducted by the Mirador Basin Project during the past two decades of field study.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• The Mirador Basin: New Investigations and Conservation Programs

Keywords

Spatial Coverage