Early Middle Preclassic Occupations: Insights into the initial settlement in the Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin

Summary

This is an abstract from the "From Origins to Collapses:  New Insights in the Cultural and Natural Processes of the Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Systematic excavations throughout several decades in the Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin system have identified a strong presence of Middle and Late Preclassic occupations with monumental architecture and elaborate communication and logistics systems that exceeded the subsequent Classic period Maya. The early non sedentary occupation of the Basin however, is evident in the Archaic period, between 2600 and 2400 BCE, with a sedentary presence by 1000 and 800 BCE and manifestations of a cultural socio-economic complexity that reached an apogee by about 300 BCE. Excavations in the Trogón Group of the Tigre Complex at El Mirador have identified sealed deposits with ceramics, lithics, shell, bone, carbon, and soils dating to the pre-Mamom period from 1000 to 600 BCE. Analyses of the artifacts, together with Bayesian radiometric dating, indicate a consistency with similar early artifact assemblages from other areas of the Maya Lowlands, and demonstrate the early foundations of socio-economic complexity that led to the formation of a centralized, state-like polity.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• From Origins to Collapses:  New Insights in the Cultural and Natural Processes of the Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 53544