The Fifteenth-Seventeenth Century Lithic Economy at Progresso Lagoon, Belize (original) (raw)
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Spanish artifacts make up a tiny percentage of all artifacts found on the west shore of Progresso Lagoon, a Maya community in northern Belize occupied from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century. Textual references suggest that Spanish encomenderos distributed these objects as “gifts” during reduction and pacification efforts, but the careful distribution of these artifacts suggests specific political and economic choices made by Maya individuals. This article compares Spanish material culture from Progresso Lagoon with other Maya sites along the frontier of the Spanish colony, in an attempt to define how strategies of Maya consumption of foreign objects varied with intensity of colonial interaction, social status, and function. The consumption of Spanish artifacts at Progresso Lagoon suggests elite strategies for retaining legitimacy in the uncertain political and economic climate of the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries.
2009
This study examines Maya community change at the 15th-17th century occupation of Progresso Lagoon, in northern Belize. This community was known historically for its role in the 16th century anti-Spanish resistance movement of the Colonial Period. Yet aside from the addition of some Spanish artifacts at the site, there are few material changes that occur with the imposition of colonial rule. This study found that the most substantial changes at the site came during the 15th century, one hundred years before the Spanish arrival, because of Indigenous political and economic changes throughout the Maya lowlands. Indigenous Maya changes during the 15th century indicate increasing political instability, a declining economy, and a decrease in activities that promoted intra- and inter-community integration. I argue that these changes significantly affected the Colonial Period relationships between the Maya residents of Progresso Lagoon, the Spanish authority, and other Maya groups. This dissertation adopts a postcolonial perspective, in an attempt to illuminate the motivations and worldviews of the 15th-17th century residents at Progresso Lagoon. I argue that Colonial Period events must be viewed within a long-term historical perspective, particularly on colonial frontiers, where Indigenous people had less contact with Europeans. and the ability to interact with other semi-conquered or unconquered Indigenous groups. I suggest that we use the pre-colonial archaeological record to situate colonial events on a deep Indigenous timeline. To establish a deep history of pre-colonial change at Progresso Lagoon, I call on historical political economy and household archaeology. This allows me to explore the intersection between structural changes and everyday life, in both the Pre-Colonial and Colonial Periods. Using household archaeological data, I detail political, economic and social changes of the 15th century, and reflect on how these changes would have informed the decisions and actions of Progresso Lagoon residents during the Colonial Period.
The Maya sites of Marco Gonzalez and San Pedro are located on the southern end of Ambergris Caye, a limestone-based coral island off the coast of modern-day Belize. When combined, the archaeological settlements at these sites represent some of the longest occupations in coastal Belize. Evidence suggests the earliest occupation occurred at Marco Gonzalez in the Late Preclassic and extended into the Late Postclassic, while San Pedro's population thrived well into the Historic period. An analysis of the stone tools recovered from excavations at Marco Gonzalez and San Pedro and a study of the use-wear patterns on these artifacts has revealed that the Maya from both sites were primarily engaged in subsistence-based activities with a limited amount of small-scale craft production. Use-wear evidence suggests that the majority of these activities focused on the exploitation of local resources necessary in everyday Maya life. The activities included the acquisition of seafoods such as fi...
Ancient Maya communities in Belize are generally classified as producers or consumers of lithic artifacts, based on the idea that groups either specialized in the production of these artifacts or in their use. In reality, it is difficult to divide communities into just these two categories. Most communities contained both producers and consumers, and the middlemen, the traders. In fact, many households within communities switched between these roles at different times and as they used different raw materials. This paper looks at the evidence for producers, consumers and traders in the lithic industries of Cerros and Chau Hiix.
Lithic Production and Domestic Economy in an Ancient Maya Neighborhood at Chan Chich, Belize
During the initial mapping of Chan Chich, survey teams discovered three separate areas at the site containing lithic workshop debris. The largest of these comprised several small residential groups and four mounds of lithic debitage on a hill over 1 km southeast of the Main Plaza and on the opposite bank of Chan Chich Creek. Known as Group H, the house mounds and associated piles of tool-making debris afforded the opportunity to study craft specialization, domestic economy, and domestic architecture within the suburban settlement of the site. In 1998, the project conducted excavations at Group H to determine the nature and intensity of lithic production activities there. This paper summarizes those results and suggests that Group H represents an ancient Maya neighborhood.
This paper describes the recent discovery of a Spanish sword and olive jar in two separate cave sites in the Roaring Creek Valley in central Belize. Analysis of the sword and olive jar places their date of manufacture between the late sixteenth and the midseventeenth century. The socio-political environment that prevailed along the seventeenthcentury colonial frontier in Belize suggests that the sword may have been forcibly acquired by the Maya, whereas the archaeological contexts in which the European-made objects were discovered provide evidence for native ritual continuity amidst persistent proselytization efforts by the Spanish invaders.
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.
Ethnohistory, 2015
This article describes the recent discovery of a sword and olive jar of European origin in two separate cave sites in the Roaring Creek Valley in central Belize. Analysis of the sword and olive jar places their date of manufacture between the late sixteenth and the mid-seventeenth century. The sociopolitical environment that prevailed along the seventeenth-century colonial frontier in Belize suggests that the sword was acquired by the Maya by peaceful or bellicose interactions with Europeans, whereas the archaeological contexts in which the European-made objects were discovered provide evidence for native ritual continuity amid persistent proselytization efforts by the Spanish invaders.