Late Classic Household Ceramic Production at Uxbenká, Belize

Author(s): Jillian Jordan; Keith Prufer

Year: 2015

Summary

Uxbenká, an Early Classic to Late Classic period Maya polity, is the most extensively excavated site in southern Belize. Recent ceramic analyses have succeeded in refining our understanding of the extent and duration of occupation at Uxbenká as well as its position in regional interaction spheres. Like other sites in the Maya Lowlands, we know very little about household ceramic production due to the lack of workshops and tools, probable seasonal production resulting in low volumes of finished products, and firing areas located outside structures where excavations are focused, making it difficult to identify these contexts in the archaeological record. Recent analyses of previously excavated ceramic and lithic assemblages from settlement groups located in the southwest periphery of Uxbenká’s hinterland revealed evidence of Late Classic (AD 600-800) household ceramic production. Evidence includes polishing stones, ceramic tools, and unifacially retouched chert flakes that may have been to scrape ceramic vessel walls. This poster presents the results of use wear analyses on ceramic production tools. These data, in concert with contextual and spatial data, provide information on household production and intracommunity interaction at Uxbenká.

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Cite this Record

Late Classic Household Ceramic Production at Uxbenká, Belize. Jillian Jordan, Keith Prufer. Presented at The 80th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, San Francisco, California. 2015 ( tDAR id: 397767)

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Keywords

Geographic Keywords
Mesoamerica

Spatial Coverage

min long: -107.271; min lat: 12.383 ; max long: -86.353; max lat: 23.08 ;