Tunnel Vision: Results from the 2018 Investigations of Structure A7 at Xunantunich, Belize

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Despite nearly a century of archaeological investigation, the ceremonial center of Xunantunich, Belize has yielded little insight on the center’s earliest occupants and the architectural growth of the site through time. Previous research indicated that Xunantunich was initially settled as a small village during the Preclassic period (~1000 BC-AD 250), with rapid growth in the epicenter beginning around AD 600 after a three hundred year gap in occupation during the Early Classic. This occupational gap is often used to question the timing of the center’s appearance on the Classic period political landscape of the eastern Maya lowlands. During the 2018 field season, the Xunantunich Archaeology and Conservation Project, in collaboration with the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project, carried out investigations of Structure A7 in the Xunantunich site core. The initial analyses of architectural data and cultural remains from this investigation indicate continuous occupation and monumental construction at the site from the Preclassic through the end of the Classic periods. These results provide a framework for exploring the role of the site as a major political power in the eastern Maya lowlands perhaps as early as the beginning of the Classic period.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 26215