Mortuary Practice and Placemaking: The Establishment of a Cemetery during the Preceramic-Preclassic Transition at Ceibal, Guatemala

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Recent investigations in the Amoch Group of Ceibal, a minor ceremonial complex located outside of the site epicenter, have provided new insights into the transition from the Preceramic to the Middle Preclassic periods in the Maya lowlands (ca. 1000 BC). Previous investigations in the civic-ceremonial core of Ceibal revealed an E Group dating to around 950 BC, while the earliest known permanent domestic architecture dates to approximately 750 BC. These results suggest that many people residing in the area continued to lead a somewhat mobile lifestyle for centuries after a permanent ceremonial complex was built. In the Amoch Group, many burials have been found in a layer above bedrock that contains very little cultural material and no ceramics. Radiocarbon dating of the remains of some individuals reveal they date to 1000-800 BC, while preliminary isotopic analyses reveal some people came from outside the Ceibal area. The Amoch Group likely served as a cemetery around the time the ceremonial center was established, before many people adopted a fully sedentary way-of-life and began to use pottery. This burial practice represents an important step in transitioning to sedentism and for creating community identities.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36569.0