Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Small Finds in the Collections of Maya Archaeological Assemblages of the BREA Project in Belize.

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This presentation addresses data from the Maya “small finds” category in the laboratory assemblage of collected and excavated materials of the Belize River East Archaeology (BREA) Project, which beginning in 2011 has been documenting and researching the cultural and environmental history of the Belize River drainage, comprising Preceramic period land- and resource-use, Maya settlements and landscapes, Spanish and British colonial contexts, and the Kriol heritage of current communities. Here I focus on material culture studies broadly, and object biographies more specifically, inspecting a range of categories of Maya material production. Among these are objects that have variously been referred to as fishing net weights or net sinkers, as well as objects described in the literature as perforated disks or interpreted as spindle whorls and weft weights. Using insights from ceramic ethnoarchaeology studies, this presentation examines ceramic small finds recycled from pottery sherds within a framework of depositional theory, use-lives of objects, and ceramic reuse behavior. The analysis of processes like discard and recycling within the context of pottery making, fishing technologies, and weaving, explores the links between material culture and social practice, with the goal of providing insightful queries into Maya ceramic production and economic specialization.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39465.0