scholarly journals BRIQUETAGE AND BRINE: LIVING AND WORKING AT THE CLASSIC MAYA SALT WORKS OF EK WAY NAL, BELIZE

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Heather McKillop ◽  
E. Cory Sills
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Analysis ◽  
Household Production ◽  
Classic Maya ◽  
Peat Bog ◽  
Sea Floor ◽  
Salt Works ◽  
Terminal Classic ◽  
Salt Industry ◽  
Late To Terminal Classic

Abstract Systematic flotation survey and spatial analysis of artifacts at the submerged salt work of Ek Way Nal reveal evidence of a residence, salt kitchens, and additional activities. Ek Way Nal is one of 110 salt works associated with a Late to Terminal Classic (A.D. 600–900) salt industry known as the Paynes Creek Salt Works. Wooden posts that form the walls of 10 buildings are remarkably preserved in a peat bog below the sea floor providing an opportunity to examine surface artifacts in relation to buildings. Numerous salt kitchens have been located at the Paynes Creek Salt Works by evidence of abundant briquetage—pottery associated with boiling brine over fires to make salt. As one of the largest salt works with 10 buildings, there is an opportunity to examine variability in building use. Systematic flotation survey over the site and flagging and mapping individual artifacts and posts provide evidence that the Ek Way Nal salt makers had a residence near the salt kitchens, along with evidence of salting fish for subsistence or surplus household production. The results are compared with ethnographic evidence from Sacapulas and other salt works.

The Difference a Marketplace Makes

2020 ◽  
pp. 387-402
Author(s):  
Bernadette Cap
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Classic Maya ◽  
Consumption Patterns ◽  
Urban Center ◽  
Terminal Classic ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Late To Terminal Classic ◽  
Activity Areas

Chapter 22 examines Classic Maya marketplace exchange from the perspective of the marketplace facility, which can differ or compliment from that which is learned from household-based studies of consumption patterns. Presented as a case study is the Late to Terminal Classic Maya marketplace in the urban center of Buenavista del Cayo where chert and limestone bifaces, obsidian blades, organics, and perhaps ceramics were available for exchange. Insights gained are that limestone tools were included as marketplace trade goods and that the vendors of the different stone stools were also the producers. The discovery of clay-covered wooden stalls that divided activity areas in the facility speaks to the level of commitment to this venture. The presence of a marketplace in the site’s architectural center was likely at the favor of or planned by rulers who would have been positioned to extract from it economic or social capital.

scholarly journals Salt and marine products in the Classic Maya economy from use-wear study of stone tools

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (43) ◽  
pp. 10948-10952 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather McKillop ◽  
Kazuo Aoyama
Keyword(s):  
Stone Tools ◽  
Classic Maya ◽  
Food Storage ◽  
Significant Activity ◽  
Virtual Absence ◽  
Salted Fish ◽  
Salt Works ◽  
Use Wear ◽  
Edge Wear ◽  
Late To Terminal Classic

Microscopic study of the edges of Late to Terminal Classic Maya (AD 600–900) chert stone tools from the Paynes Creek Salt Works, Belize, indicates most tools were used for cutting fish or meat or working hide, which was unexpected, given the virtual absence of fish or other animal remains at this large salt-production complex. Use-wear study shows that a minority of stone tools have edge-wear from woodworking. Our study suggests that salting fish was a significant activity at the salt works, which corresponds to Roman, Chinese, and other East Asian civilizations, where salt and salted fish were critical components of food storage, trade, and state finance. Based on analogy with modern Maya salt producers at Sacapulas, Guatemala, we provide estimates of the amounts of salt and salted fish produced at the Paynes Creek Salt Works and the implications for the Classic Maya economy. Salt cakes and salted fish were preserved commodities that could be stored and traded in the marketplace.

Trace Element Analysis of Obsidian Artifacts from a Classic Maya Residential Group at Nohmul, Belize

1984 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 815-820 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman Hammond ◽  
Mary D. Neivens ◽  
Garman Harbottle
Keyword(s):  
Neutron Activation Analysis ◽  
Trace Element Analysis ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Classic Maya ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Late Classic ◽  
Element Analysis ◽  
Residential Group ◽  
Terminal Classic ◽  
Before And After

Forty-nine obsidian artifacts from a Classic period residential group at Nohmul, northern Belize, have been analyzed by neutron activation analysis. The majority of the samples originated from Ixtepeque, and the remainder from El Chayal. Increasing prominence of the Ixtepeque source from the Late Classic into the Terminal Classic (i.e., before and after ca. A.D. 800) suggests greater use of a coastal distribution route known to have originated in the Formative and to have remained in use through the colonial period.

The Ballcourt Markers of Tenam Rosario, Chiapas, Mexico

1993 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Gerard Fox
Keyword(s):  
Gulf Coast ◽  
Classic Maya ◽  
Central Mexico ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Terminal Classic ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Blood Sacrifice ◽  
Late Postclassic ◽  
Maya Site ◽  
Coast Site

AbstractThis study is an iconographic analysis of ballcourt markers from the Late/Terminal Classic Maya site of Tenam Rosario, Chiapas, Mexico. The squatting posture of the two figures depicted on these markers, while rare in Lowland Maya art, is compared to Late Postclassic images of the earth deities Tlaltecuhtli and Tlaloc from Central Mexico. Contemporaneous examples of this posture are presented from the Gulf Coast site of El Tajin where squatting figures are associated with the rain god specifically and with the themes of ballgame sacrifice and regeneration in general. Tlaloc imagery in Classic Maya art is related to blood sacrifice as a complex, which includes both ritual warfare and autosacrifice. These forms of sacrifice are discussed as engendered categories in both Classic Maya and Aztec society. The Tenam Rosario markers are found to express themes that are consistent with ballgame symbolism throughout Mesoamerica, while conflating male and female aspects of blood sacrifice as regenerative ritual.

THE LONG GOODBYE: PROBLEMATIC POTTERY AND PILGRIMAGE AT CAHAL PECH, BELIZE

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
James J. Aimers ◽  
Jaime J. Awe
Keyword(s):  
Classic Maya ◽  
Projectile Points ◽  
Terminal Classic ◽  
Spindle Whorls ◽  
Valley Site

ABSTRACTInvestigations in the site core of Cahal Pech have recovered a range of data reflecting Terminal Classic Maya activity at this Belize Valley site. The materials, which were recovered in a tomb, a burial, and in epicentral plaza deposits, include a diverse assemblage of cultural remains including whole and partial vessels, projectile points, obsidian blade fragments, deer antlers, figurines, pottery flutes, spindle whorls, and jade beads. Similar deposits at other Maya sites in western Belize have been interpreted as evidence for de facto refuse or rapid abandonment. Contextual analyses of the Cahal Pech data suggest that the deposits are more likely associated with post-abandonment activity such as pilgrimage from the still-occupied periphery of the site.

MAYA HETERARCHY AS INFERRED FROM CLASSIC-PERIOD PLAZA PLANS

2004 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marshall Joseph Becker
Keyword(s):  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Rural Settlement ◽  
Classic Maya ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Terminal Classic ◽  
Lowland Maya

Recognition of architectural patterning among groups of structures at lowland Maya sites dating from the Classic period provides insights into the ways that residences and ritual complexes were organized. Each structured group arrangement, or Plaza Plan (PP), reveals an architectural grammar that provides the database enabling us to predict urban as well as rural settlement patterns. Wide variations in sizes among examples of residential PPs suggests that heterarchy was an important aspect of Classic Maya society. Examination of PP2 at Tikal indicates that a heterarchic pattern of organization existed. Heterarchy may relate to the fragility of the structure of lowland Maya kingship, and this may explain the gradual demise of states during the Terminal Classic and Postclassic periods and their replacement by re-emergent Maya chiefdoms.

PERFORMING POWER

2007 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miranda K. Stockett
Keyword(s):  
Political Power ◽  
Political Leadership ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Terminal Classic ◽  
Late To Terminal Classic ◽  
Terminal Classic Period

AbstractArchaeological research can draw on material remains to understand the ways that individuals may have expressed their identities in pursuit of specific goals. Here ritual performances in ancient Mesoamerica are considered for their role in shaping identities deployed to gain social and political power. The Late to Terminal Classic period (a.d. 650–960) site of Las Canoas, Honduras, is offered as a case study. In particular, the monumental Main Plaza Group at Las Canoas is examined as a spatial setting for the performance of rituals involving the use of incense burners and ceramic anthropomorphic figurines. These performances are argued to have facilitated the efforts of certain members of the community to take advantage of shifting political and economic alliances in the region and make a bid for power. Ultimately, however, their efforts to establish spiritual and political leadership did not endure.

Paleoecological Evidence of an Early Postclassic Occupation in the Southwestern Maya Lowlands: Laguna Las Pozas, Guatemala

2001 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin J. Johnston ◽  
Andrew J. Breckenridge ◽  
Barbara C. Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Classic Maya ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Maya Lowlands ◽  
Postclassic Period ◽  
Refugee Population ◽  
Terminal Classic ◽  
Early Postclassic ◽  
Maya Collapse ◽  
Terminal Classic Period

Magnetic, palynological, and paleoecological data indicate that in the Río de la Pasión drainage, one of the most thoroughly investigated areas of the southern Maya lowlands, a refugee population remained in the Laguna Las Pozas basin long after the Classic Maya collapse and the Terminal Classic period, previously identified by archaeologists as eras of near-total regional abandonment. During the Early Postclassic period, ca. A. D. 900 to 1200, agriculturalists colonized and deforested the Laguna Las Pozas basin for agriculture while adjacent, abandoned terrain was undergoing reforestation. After discussing the archaeological utility of magnetic analyses, we conclude that following the Maya collapse, some refugee populations migrated to geographically marginal non-degraded landscapes within the southern lowlands not previously occupied by the Classic Maya.

Terminal Classic Maya Heterodoxy and Shrine Vernacularism in the Sibun Valley, Belize

2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia A. McAnany
Keyword(s):  
Raw Materials ◽  
Close Association ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Classic Maya ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Terminal Classic ◽  
New Information ◽  
Materials Used ◽  
Sibun Valley

A monolithic view of Classic Maya society as dominated by divine rulers who inexplicably ceased to erect monuments with long-count dates during the ninth century is examined by reference to new information from Terminal Classic sites in the Sibun Valley of Belize. In this locale and elsewhere, the construction of circular one-room buildings — with striking associated artefacts — may be interpreted as signalling social tensions between the orthodoxy of Classic Maya divine rulers and the more heterodoxic beliefs and practices associated with circular structures built at the end of the Classic period. The round buildings are contextualized within the diversity of architectural expressions of the Sibun Valley and also within a peninsula-wide network of shrines. The chronological placement and character of the Sibun shrines is discussed by way of radiocarbon assays, obsidian sourced by INAA, and raw materials used for groundstone at sites throughout the valley. The presence of marine shell and speleothems — likely used as architectural adornment — found in close association with Sibun Valley round buildings permits discussion of the manner in which elements of the local effected a translation of heterodoxic tenets into vernacularized shrine architecture.

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