Pot Luck: Building Community and Feasting amongst the Middle Preclassic Maya

Summary

Ritual feasting as a practice by which sponsors create uneven social relations with other participants has been suggested to play an important role in establishing social hierarchies in many ancient societies including the ancient Maya. Feasting activities may have also been an important part of Preclassic communal building projects in the Maya lowlands. In this paper, we present data from Middle Preclassic special deposits associated with a series of early public platforms at the site of Blackman Eddy, Belize. Ceramic, faunal and botanical analyses support the interpretation that feasting activities occurred at these locations and appear to have been highly ritualized.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• The Social Uses of Food in Ancient Maya Culture

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15439