Aventura’s Households from Commoners to Elites

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Households at Aventura: Life and Community Longevity at an Ancient Maya City" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Household archaeology provides a powerful lens to understand people, their daily lives, and the myriad social, political, economic, and environmental relations that link people, households, and communities to broader societies. For its first decade of research, the Aventura Archaeology Project conducted a study of urban households situated within a 1 km2 area of the city’s epicenter. Assessing Aventura’s urban households is key for understanding the operation of the city. This presentation provides an overview of 12 household excavations at Aventura, 11 conducted between 2016 and 2022 and one in 2007 by the Belize Institute of Archaeology. A range of households from commoners to elites were included in our sample to bring to light a picture of the diverse populace of the city. Detailed household studies allow us to envision Aventura as a dynamic and lived place. We examine domestic architecture, the use of space, and domestic artifact assemblages to showcase household life within the city, changes through time, and the role of households in facilitating the longevity of city and community. These households both shaped and were shaped by broader forces at Aventura and in the Maya world.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Households at Aventura: Life and Community Longevity at an Ancient Maya City   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36227.0