Situating Early Xunantunich, Belize, in the Preclassic Landscape: A Synthetic Perspective from Structure F1

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Preclassic Landscape in the Mopan Valley, Belize" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Over the last five years, intensive investigations of Structure F1 at Early Xunantunich, Belize, have shed light on a dynamic and important time in the site’s early history. The monumental platform structure played an important role in the early ceremonial center, creating the site’s northern boundary, hosting large public rituals, and potentially bearing associations with the emergence of a royal dynasty at the site in the Late Preclassic period. In this paper, we present the results of recent analyses that situate the structure’s history within a regional sociopolitical and economic context during the Middle and Late Preclassic periods. This context includes ceramic affiliations as well as other exchange networks of nonlocal materials such as obsidian, greenstone, and marine shell. Further, we synthesize the entire research program in light of these new findings, exploring the ways in which ritual performances in this space laid the foundation for increasing sociopolitical inequality during the Middle and Late Preclassic periods. These findings are further contextualized within the Early Xunantunich ceremonial center, as well as within the Preclassic Maya landscape more broadly. Finally, future directions are explored in order to identify how we might better understand this important early structure.   

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• The Preclassic Landscape in the Mopan Valley, Belize

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32400