Historic Tikal and its Final Ceramic Phase

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In the latter half of the nineteenth century the ruins of Tikal were briefly reoccupied. Refugees fleeing the Caste War of Yucatan (1848-1901 AD) cohabited with Lacandon Maya from the surrounding jungles and heavily Hispanized Itza Maya from the lakes of central Petén, Guatemala, to form a small multiethnic hamlet amongst the hulking ruins of the ancient Maya city. While the village was largely provisioned with cheap globally produced consumer goods from Great Britain and the United States, the most numerous artifact type discarded or abandoned by the historic villagers was a locally made ceramic ware. Tikal Project ceramicist Patrick Culbert assigned what he thought to be Tikal’s final ceramic phase (“Caban”) to the Early Postclassic (950-1200 AD) but admitted that it is “poorly defined.” This presentation explores Tikal’s Caban ceramic phase and offers an introduction to the historic ceramics of Tikal, utilized by the historic occupants of the city.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow