A Monumental Afterlife: Reconfiguration and Reuse at Aventura, Belize

Summary

Previous research suggests that the ancient Maya city of Aventura, Belize thrived during the Terminal Classic to Early Postclassic periods (800 – 1100 CE). During this period, occupants of the city constructed up to 27 buildings within the confines of the site’s A plaza. This paper presents the results of the 2017 test excavations of a sample of the A plaza buildings. Maya plazas are typically conceived of as large open places for ritual and political performance. However, these excavation findings suggest that this period was not static, and city occupants reworked their relationships to the monumental site core by reconfiguring the layout of the main plaza and reusing materials from earlier buildings. These practices of reconfiguration and reuse likely even continue into the later part of the Postclassic period. This paper considers how this transitional period at the site fits in with trends of reuse and reconfiguration throughout northern Belize and parts of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula during a period of instability and change across the Maya lowlands. Finally, it will theorize the impacts these actions and activities may have had on the daily lives of the city’s inhabitants.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22742