Agricultural Diversity in Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala: New Ideas on Environmental Resources

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Beyond Maize and Cacao: Reflections on Visual and Textual Representation and Archaeological Evidence of Other Plants in Precolumbian Mesoamerica" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Investigations carried out in recent years in various sectors of the Kaminaljuyu site have revealed relevant aspects of the use of local plants, their control, and distribution. Analysis of residues in ceramics allows us to know some data. Although the conservation of these remains is very precarious, it has been possible to find a relevant corpus to discover novel uses of remains that had not appeared in the archaeological record of the past. There are some representations of plants in ceramics and in the iconography of the site that confirm the data of the organic remains recovered. Despite the problems with conservation, some of these resources are found in elite contexts, allowing us to know the interaction of the plant world with social groups of higher strata. Examples of various plants illustrating their uses in ritual contexts have also been identified. However, much remains to be known to systematically establish changes in the landscape over time. This is an initial and ongoing study that will offer a glimpse of the plants and vegetation of the ancient society of Kaminaljuyu.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Beyond Maize and Cacao: Reflections on Visual and Textual Representation and Archaeological Evidence of Other Plants in Precolumbian Mesoamerica   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38097.0