Ancient Maya Regional Settlement and Inter-Site Analysis: The 2013 West-Central Belize LiDAR Survey

During April and May 2013, a total of 1057 km2 of LiDAR was flown by NCALM for a consortium of archaeologists working in West-central Belize, making this the largest surveyed area within the Mayan lowlands. Encompassing the Belize Valley and the Vaca Plateau, West-central Belize is one of the most actively researched parts of the Maya lowlands; however, until this effort, no comprehensive survey connecting all settlement had been conducted. Archaeological projects have investigated at least 18 different sites within this region. Thus, a large body of archaeological research provides both the temporal and spatial parameters for the varied ancient Maya centers that once occupied this area; importantly, these data can be used to help interpret the collected LiDAR data. The goal of the 2013 LiDAR campaign was to gain information on the distribution of ancient Maya settlement and sites on the landscape and, particularly, to determine how the landscape was used between known centers. The data that were acquired through the 2013 LiDAR campaign have significance for interpreting both the composition and limits of ancient Maya political units. This paper presents the initial results of these new data and suggests a developmental model for ancient Maya polities

Ancient Lowland Maya neighborhoods: Average Nearest Neighbor analysis and kernel density models, environments, and urban scale

Many humans live in large, complex political centers, composed of multi-scalar communities including neighborhoods and districts. Both today and in the past, neighborhoods form a fundamental part of cities and are defined by their spatial, architectural, and material elements. Neighborhoods existed in ancient centers of various scales, and multiple methods have been employed to identify ancient neighborhoods in archaeological contexts. However, the use of different methods for neighborhood identification within the same spatiotemporal setting results in challenges for comparisons within and between ancient societies. Here, we focus on using a single method—combining Average Nearest Neighbor (ANN) and Kernel Density (KD) analyses of household groups—to identify potential neighborhoods based on clusters of households at 23 ancient centers across the Maya Lowlands. While a one-size-fits all model does not work for neighborhood identification everywhere, the ANN/KD method provides quantifiable data on the clustering of ancient households, which can be linked to environmental zones and urban scale. We found that centers in river valleys exhibited greater household clustering compared to centers in upland and escarpment environments. Settlement patterns on flat plains were more dispersed, with little discrete spatial clustering of households. Furthermore, we categorized the ancient Maya centers into discrete urban scales, finding that larger centers had greater variation in household spacing compared to medium-sized and smaller centers. Many larger political centers possess heterogeneity in household clustering between their civic-ceremonial cores, immediate hinterlands, and far peripheries. Smaller centers exhibit greater household clustering compared to larger ones. This paper quantitatively assesses household clustering among nearly two dozen centers across the Maya Lowlands, linking environment and urban scale to settlement patterns. The findings are applicable to ancient societies and modern cities alike; understanding how humans form multi-scalar social groupings, such as neighborhoods, is fundamental to human experience and social organization

Illuminating Sensory Archaeologies

Light has a fundamental role to play in our perception of the world. It meditates the relationship between people and things within space, and is crucial to our understanding of the material culture of past societies. This chapter introduces light as the core focus of the volume; its qualities and affordances in different contexts and (im)material environments; its design and manipulation; and its elusive properties. The introduction also outlines how the contributions are structured. Chapters serve as case studies to show how diverse spatial and temporal contexts can advance archaeologies of light and with light. The volume is divided into seven thematic parts, each of which explores how light enables or hinders interactions, materializes and is being materialized, animates and illuminates, accentuates and shadows, generates symbols, meanings, and systems, creates beliefs and phenomena, transforms rituals and traditions, structures spaces, and shapes atmospheres. The volume then closes with an Afterword by Tim Ingold, who comments on the chapters and reflects on the role of light and dark as a constitutive element of the things we see around us

THE USE OF GIS IN THE SPATIAL ANALYSIS OF AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL CAVE SITE

Although archaeologists traditionally have viewed geographic information systems (GIS) as a tool for the investigation of large regions, its flexibility allows it to be used in non-traditional settings such as caves. Using the example of Actun Tunichil Muknal, a Terminal Classic Maya ceremonial cave in western Belize, this study demonstrates the utility of GIS as a tool for data display, visualization, exploration, and generation. Clustering of artifacts was accomplished by combining GIS technology with a K-means clustering analysis, and basic GIS functions were used to evaluate distances of artifact clusters to morphological features of the cave. Results of these analyses provided new insights into ancient Maya ritual cave use that would have been difficult to achieve by standard methods of map preparation and examinatio

The Late Classic Drought Cult: Ritual Activity as a Response to Environmental Stress among the Ancient Maya

Beginning in the 1970’s there has been a steadily increasing number of archaeological, iconographic, and epigraphic studies regarding ancient Mesoamerican caves (Brady and Prufer 2005). The most important collective finding of these studies is the establishment of caves as sacred space and their almost exclusive use as ritual venues by Pre-Columbian people (Brady 1989; Stone 1995). While studies have been important in the establishment of caves as ritual space there has been little or no research that identifies temporal changes in ritual cave usage. Practice theory provides a broad framework in which to conduct such a study