Moving Off-Road: Traversing Taskscapes at Wari Camp, Belize

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Manifesting Movement Materially: Broadening the Mesoamerican View" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The study of movement has long been relegated to the background of archaeological investigations, as its materialization proves multifarious yet equally elusive. The resulting collection of archaeological "movement studies" generally focuses on the most formalized manifestation of movement: road systems. Yet at the ancient Maya community of Wari Camp, the lack of constructed roadways (i.e., sacbeob) warrants a step back from roads to return to the fundamental questions of: 1) What constitutes movement? and 2) How does movement materialize archaeologically? In doing so, movement is theorized more broadly via the cultural rhythms of engagement between humans and things. This paper will explore the process of movement in the production of landscapes through the lens of Tim Ingold’s notion of "taskscapes". In doing so, taskscapes extend movement beyond the physical act of traversing space but constitutive of the daily, accumulated activities that come to craft fundamentally different landscapes, the communities that dwell therein, and the insidious powers at play in their development.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Manifesting Movement Materially: Broadening the Mesoamerican View   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24902