Building a Typology: The Formative Period Figurine Assemblage from Cahal Pech, Cayo, Belize

Summary

Nearly every excavation at the site of Cahal Pech has recovered ceramic figurines. The ubiquitous nature of these figurines in a multitude of stratigraphic levels illustrate the importance of a figurine industry during the Formative Period. A comparative analysis of figurine attributes in this collection, in addition to collections found at neighboring sites in the Belize River Valley, reveals a unique style of figurine representation not found in any other regional figurine style in Mesoamerica.

This paper discusses the unique attributes found on figurines from the Upper Belize River Valley and compares them to other, contemporary, figurine assemblages throughout Mesoamerica to illustrate the exclusivity of the attribute combinations found in this region. Taken together, the stylistic attributes associated with ceramic figurines such as eye style, mouth style, and ear spool demarcation form a unique typology of figurine representation that can be understood as diagnostic to the Upper Belize River Valley in general, and Cahal Pech in particular, during the Formative Period.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Exploring Two Thousand Years of Human Habitation in the Belize Valley: Situating Cahal Pech in Lowland Maya Prehistory

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