Building a Frontier? Preliminary Investigations into a Late Preclassic Maya Triadic Temple Group

Summary

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

For the ancient Maya, the second century B.C. was a period of growth and consolidation; populations boomed, and a common set of cultural ideas spread across the Maya Lowlands. This expansion of ideas is evident in the widespread presence of chicanel ceramics, the spread of a unified Late Preclassic figural style found on mural and carved monuments, and in the construction of a common set of architectural forms. In the upper Belize River Valley, the adoption of these ideas is evident in the rapid construction of a major center at Actuncan, Belize that conforms to each of these cultural forms. This poster reports on preliminary investigations into the Triadic Temple group at Actuncan, Belize. Drawing on these data, I propose that Actuncan formed a cultural frontier, reflecting the furthest adoption of this full suite of ideas into the Belize River drainage. The broader implications of this frontier for Preclassic regional political processes will be discussed.

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): 24666