Postclassic Tool Production at Santa Rita Corozal

This chapter presents a case study of a previously excavated lithic sample from Santa Rita Corozal, considering stone tool production at two structures, 216 and 218. Both exhibit a higher number of Postclassic chert and chalcedony lithic artifacts than other contemporary structures excavated at the site. The authors use debitage analysis to reveal how two households crafted formal tools locally and visual sourcing analysis to better understand how these tools articulated with broader traditions of lithic craft production in a regional exchange network. In contrast to the commercial level of production exhibited at Colha, Belize, these households used a variety of source materials and produced a less standardized tool kit on a much smaller scale.

Shell Materials from Oxtankah, Quintana Roo

This chapter reports recent malacological research on Chetumal Bay, and particularly on the data from Oxtankah, Quintana Roo. The author collected species present in Chetumal Bay and compared these with archaeological collections from a series of excavations around Oxtankah. He notes that relatively few species are found in the muddy bay bottom itself and, while these were exploited for food, most of the broad range of species identified from archaeological remains stemmed from the Caribbean. A few Pacific species, obvious imports at Oxtankah, are also represented in the collections. Technological use wear studies of tool scars on worked shell objects and replication analysis of worked shells documents shell manufacturing techniques used at the site.

Regional Expressions of the Postclassic Effigy Censer System in the Chetumal Bay Area

This chapter describes the remains of Late Postclassic to Contact period pottery censers from Cerro Maya, Belize. Trace element studies reveal that these vessels were made nearby at the Late Postclassic political capital of Santa Rita Corozal and deposited at the site during pilgrimage ritual. The Cerro Maya material is compared to the Chen Mul Modeled effigy censers from Mayapán in northern Yucatan and elsewhere. Various deities were depicted on these censers, and these are compared to documentary evidence, such as in the Madrid Codex and the Dresden Codex, for their use in calendared public events linked to specific celebrations in the annual cycle. Iconographic detail on the Cerro Maya materials documents a distinct set of deities not present at Mayapán, especially the bee deity and the god of deer hunting.

An Expedient Pottery Technology and Its Implications for Ancient Maya Trade and Interaction

This chapter considers one of the crudest types of pottery ever produced by the ancient Maya, Coconut Walk Plain, a ware that has been interpreted to have been used in evaporative salt production along coastal lagoons and on Ambergris Caye in Belize. A series of similar types, including Rio Juan Unslipped, spans the Preclassic to the Postclassic periods, linking the long-lived salt trade to coastal communities such as Marco Gonzalez. The authors use recent advances in ceramic petrography to identify an imported temper in these poorly made wares that seems counterintuitive for an expedient pottery vessel. Their research suggests that coastal communities considered the entire bay area as a local resource procurement zone because canoe transport was readily available to procure distant resources.

Chetumal Bay in the Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries

Spanish documents imply that the Chetumal Bay region acted as a unified force to resist European colonization, yet archaeological data suggest that the experience of the Maya during the fifteenth to the seventeenth century (Late Postclassic through Colonial periods) was highly localized. Some communities, such as at Caye Coco on Progresso Lagoon, were in a state of unstable transition when the Spanish appeared. Their arrival elicited a variety of actions and reactions as local communities attempted to adapt to indirect colonial rule, and these settlements experienced differential rates of colonial control and conversion. In this chapter, the distinct experiences of three indigenous communities at Lamanai, Santa Rita Corozal, and the west shore of Progresso Lagoon are examined.

Visualizing Maya Agriculture along the Rio Hondo

Chapter 5 draws on a broad range of evidence to develop a view of what the agricultural landscape of the Rio Hondo basin, now on the Belize-Mexican border, must have looked like in the heavily populated Classic era landscape. The authors use Contact period Spanish accounts to describe trade in agricultural products–especially cacao, but also achiote and vanilla–that were particularly prized from this region. Ten years of research on the drained field agricultural systems, such as the Chan Cahal fields near Blue Creek, identified the timespan for commercial level production, and computer assisted analysis of aerial and satellite photographs are beginning to document the massive scale of this enterprise.

Sitting on the Dock of the Bay

In this chapter the authors examine change in interregional exchange networks across time. They focus on the movement of pottery across short distances between Chetumal Bay and the study site, Lamanai. The large urban center is 80 kilometers inland on the New River Lagoon. Rather than exotic goods, the authors isolate the movement of “redundant” material goods, presumed to have had less intrinsic value since they were produced locally in abundance. Using geological sourcing and petrographic analysis, they compare the origins of samples of Lamanai pottery in three transitional eras, the Terminal Preclassic, Terminal Classic, and Late Postclassic periods, to measure the connectedness of the trading communities. In terms of redundant ceramics, it appears the bay area influenced Lamanai at the Preclassic-Classic transition, while Lamanai provided a stronger influence on the bay area at the Terminal Classic–Postclassic boundary. At the time of European contact, Lamanai was again aligned with the bay area, particularly in terms of effigy censer distribution.

Noh Kah

This chapter, “Noh Kah: An Archaeological Site in Extreme Southeastern Quintana Roo,” describes the newly surveyed site Noh Cah as an example of the clustered dispersed settlement pattern known from throughout southeastern Quintana Roo. These mostly Early Classic sites do not have a single monumental core as is common in Petén. Rather they have multiple monumental cores arranged in clusters across a more dispersed landscape, possibly an advantageous arrangement for large scale cacao production. They are linked by line-of-site from pyramidal summits oriented on a predominately east–west axis that does not deviate beyond the angle of the summer and winter solstices. Epigraphic evidence from several of these sites links them to Early Classic Dzibanché and the powerful Kaanal dynasty that was located there.

The First Settlers on Chetumal Bay

Chapter 2 reviews recent data on the original settlement of the Chetumal Bay region. There is evidence for habitation in northern Belize during the Archaic and Preceramic periods on Progresso Lagoon and other parts of the interior, but the first evidence for settled life on the bay itself stems from the early Middle Preclassic period, specifically around Santa Rita Corozal in Belize and Oxtankah in Mexico. By the late Middle Preclassic a trading port was established on Tamalcab Island, indicative of organized community interaction and trade in highland imports such as jade and obsidian, probably exchanged for salt and other marine products. By the end of the Late Preclassic, the bay area population had increased dramatically, and both ports and inland centers exhibited monumental architecture.

Maya at the Edge of the World

This summary chapter weaves together the themes presented by various authors into a broader view of greater Mayab. The author draws on his wide experience excavating on Cozumel Island and in Yucatan, Belize, and Guatemala to link Chetumal Bay, situated on the eastern edge of the region, to more distant Maya polities across time and space. He follows the themes of waterborne travel, noted in new discoveries at El Achiotal, the precocious early development of a long distance exchange network at Yaxuna and elsewhere, the rise of the El Mirador polity in the Late Preclassic, and the fortunes of the Classic era Kaanal kingdom to link individual site histories to broader historical trends.