A Figurative Hacha from Buenavista del Cayo, Belize (original) (raw)
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The Ancient Maya Ceremonial Circuit of Cara Blanca, Belize
The Maya engaged sacred places that typically were isolated from permanent settlement, such as water bodies. They often are left largely untouched other than a minimal presence of non-residential features and buildings. Such places, which we are calling pilgrimage destinations, were connected via a ceremonial circuit, which we attempt to show was the case at the 25 pools of Cara Blanca, Belize. The Maya intensified their processions and ceremonies here during several prolonged droughts between c. 800-900 CE. Traditionally, the Maya walk ceremonial circuits to reaffirm their relationship with and rights to sacred, forested places. Pool 1 epitomizes one such destination with its Terminal Classic water temple (Str. 1), a ceremonial platform (Str. 3) with ceramic styles from throughout the Maya area and human caches, and M186, a group that includes a circular sweatbath. Excavations at Cara Blanca cenotes reveal a rich ceremonial life that appear to have revolved around water ceremonies along a ceremonial circuit. In the end, their supplications to gods and ancestors were to no avail, and Cara Blanca's visitors became part of the diaspora out of the southern lowlands.
Archaeology of Food and Foodways, 2022
The material plays a fundamental and active role in the social lives of people, from objects like containers or buildings to food and other consumables. In this paper, evidence from absorbed residues are used to explore the contents of an Ulúa-style marble vase found in a royal courtyard at the ancient Maya site of Pacbitun in west-central Belize. Those results indicate that the vase once held concoctions containing cacao, willow and possibly vanilla. Significantly, the results also confirm residues of the important Maya ritual drink balché, in an ancient container. By placing the vase and its contents in the history of Pacbitun, we demonstrate the important role of this object and its contents in dedicatory rituals practiced in this region; we argue that subsequent disturbance of the context and the vase in antiquity points to the fragmentation of kingship.
CLASSIC RITUALIZED LANDSCAPE AT LA MILPA, BELIZE
Art for archaeology's sake : material culture and style across the disciplines : proceedings of the Thirty-third Annual Conference of the Archaeological Association of the University of Calgary, 2005
Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology, 2020
In this paper, I discuss what is known of the Late Archaic occupation in northern Belize. The second millennium BC is the "Early Formative" for most of Mesoamerica but the subsistence and residential adaptation of the Maya lowlands residents up until ~1100 BC consisted of mixed foraging-horticulturalists with no ceramic containers or permanent villages. This means that an "Archaic" strategy persisted in the Maya area for almost a thousand years longer than elsewhere in Mesoamerica. I review evidence from the site of San Estevan where first ceramic-using (i.e., Swasey phase) villagers are documented with little evidence of their predecessors. Next, I review evidence of Archaic-period occupation on the west shore of Progresso Lagoon where maize, squash and chili peppers were cultivated by mobile foragers. Finally, I present plans to thoroughly document and date the second and third millennium BC occupation of Progresso Lagoon and explore how the global climatic change impacted the adaptation of forager-horticulturalists.