Late Maya Mural Paintings from Quintana Roo,Mexico

Abstract

Six murals of exceptional interest were encountered during a recent survey of Maya sites in Quintana Roo, Mexico. Evidence presented here suggests that the murals are the latest to depict pre-Columbian subject matter in the Yucatan Peninsula.     

Radiocarbon Dating of Architectural Mortar: A Case Study in the Maya Region,Quintana Roo,Mexico

Abstract

The use of radiocarbon dating to analyze mortar and charcoal inclusions within mortar or plaster is a useful way to date the construction of architecture, particularly when options for other chronometric methods are limited. In the Yalahau region of northern Quintana Roo, Mexico, members of the Yalahau Regional Human Ecology Project have faced challenges in dating buildings made of large blocks of stone in the Megalithic architectural style. The Megalithic style poses serious problems for any analysis, as excavating into structures with stones weighing several tons can be dangerous, expensive, and time consuming. Additionally, there are no associated sculptures, texts with dates, or other traditionally accessible chronological markers. These factors have resulted in a reliance on a ceramic chronology despite the uncertainty of the dating of many ceramic types in this region, as well as the questionable contextual associations between recovered ceramics and architectural construction phases. Megalithic-style structures at the ancient Maya site of El Naranjal have residual mortar with charcoal inclusions left behind during the mortar-making processes that can be extracted and dated with AMS ¹⁴C methods. Several samples of mortar and charcoal were obtained from structures 1 and 10 from exposed exterior walls and an interior vault. The resulting dates confirm the date for the construction based on ceramics excavated from the same site.     

Innovation,diffusion, and culture contact: The holocene archaeology of Ghana

Stressing recent research, this review of Ghana archaeology highlights what we know of the advent of sedentism, agriculture, iron technology, and urbanism in Ghana and examines how certain patterns in Ghanaian prehistory depart from the expectations of the progressive evolutionary model that has framed our understanding of world prehistory. It is also argued that the archaeology of Ghana has much to contribute to current debates on the relationship between material culture and identity, and the impact of the Atlantic economy on non-European peoples, and to our understanding of cultural diversity in the past.     

Maya archaeology and the political and cultural identity of contemporary Maya in Guatemala

La colonización dejó en una posición desigual a las personas de ascendencia Maya comparada con las personas ladinas en los aspectos sociales, políticos, y culturales en Guatemala. Esta experiencia no es diferente de la de otras naciones indígenas en América Latina. Los personas Maya, así como otras naciones indígenas, tienen una historia de resistencia que ha continuado desarrollándose a medida que cada generación crea nuevas estrategias para superar su posición de desventaja. La arqueología puede ser usada para escribir una historia que provee beneficios esenciales o atribuye estereotipos perjudiciales a las comunidades Maya. Los/as arqueólogos/as que trabajan en Guatemala tienen el compromiso de ser más éticos/as con las comunidades en las que trabajan, particularmente en el campo de la interpretación y creación de teorías sobre la historia maya. Los Maya han sido afectados por los estudios realizados en arqueología y tienen und derecho inherente de forjar su propia identidad a través de la historia.

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Résumé Comparée aux hispanophones, la colonisation a laissé les Mayas dans une position inégale dans les domaines économiques, sociaux, politiques et culturels au Guatemala. Cette expérience n'est pas différente de celle des autres autochtones en Amérique latine. Comme ces autres groupes, les Mayas ont une histoire de résistance qui a poursuivi son développement alors que chaque génération a créé de nouvelles stratégies pour surpasser sa position désavantageuse. L'archéologie peut être utilisée pour écrire l'histoire procurant des bénéfices essentiels ou des stéréotypes négatifs des communautés mayas. Les archéologues qui pratiquent au Guatemala sont appelés à être plus éthiques à l'égard des descendants des communautés avec qui ils travaillent, en particulier dans le domaine de l'interprétation et de la création de théories au sujet de l'histoire maya. Les Mayas sont affectés par les connaissances produites en archéologie et ont le droit inhérent de forger leur propre identité à travers leur histoire.

     

Identities in the making: conservation,gender and race in the Maya Biosphere Reserve,Guatemala

This article examines how the daily discourses, practices, and performances of conservation projects are instrumental in mapping ways of life that are gendered and racialized. With the goal of bringing a feminist approach to the study of conservation, I present an ethnographic account of identities‐in‐the‐making in three conservation encounters in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, a protected area in northern Guatemala. In the first two encounters, I examine the ways in which gender and race are constituted in the relations between the Women’s Group for the Rescue of Itza’ Medicinal Plants and a United States‐based international environmental non‐governmental organization. The third encounter highlights the relations between the Women’s Group and myself, the researcher, to analyze how social‐science, through methods such as ethnography, is also implicated in (re)configuring social identities.     

Experiment in landscape: the Norfolk excavations of Marietta Pallis

The paper considers the geographies of scientific knowledge produced around a pool dug at Long Gores, Hickling, Norfolk, England in 1953. Designed by ecologist and artist Marietta Pallis as a swimming pool and symbolic site, the pool also became a scientific experiment in landscape, through which Pallis pursued general ecological principles and specific theories on the landscape history and ecology of the Norfolk Broads. The digging of the pool coincided with the publication of research establishing the broads' artificial origin in medieval peat diggings. The paper begins by developing arguments concerning the cultural geographies of scientific knowledge. We then trace Pallis's presentation of the pool as equivalent for the broads in its origins and development, her discussion of the relationship between pool, marsh and North Sea, the connection between Pallis and local scientific culture, and the pool's place in a landscape of ecological succession. The paper concludes with further theoretical discussion, and reflection on the remains of Pallis and her reputation.     

Spatial Autocorrelation and the Classic Maya Collapse: One Technique, One Conclusion

A pair of articles appearing recently in this journal (Whitley & Clark, Journal of Archaeological Science12, 377-395, 1985; Kvamme, Journal of Archaeological Science17, 197-207, 1990) apply spatial autocorrelation analysis to the distribution of terminal long-count dates from southern Lowland Classic Maya monuments. The authors employ similar techniques yet arrive at contradictory conclusions regarding the presence of geographical patterning in the collapse of the Classic Maya civilization in this region. Kvamme's contention, however, that Whitley & Clark conducted an inappropriate analysis and arrived at an erroneous conclusion is unsubstantiated. Both articles present appropriate analyses and report results which support the presence of spatial patterning in the Lowland Maya dates.     

回望曲村——山西晋文化墓地发掘历程

1963年,北大和山西开启了至今已近半个世纪的合作探索晋文化之路,从1980年至今,天马一曲村遗址的发掘持续进行了多次,以大量的材料,确凿的证据证明曲村—天马遗址是又一处西周晋国的都城,已发掘晋侯及夫人墓9组19座、陪葬墓、祭祀坑各数+座,车马坑1座《发现10座),发掘者确定这批晋侯墓葬属于晋国第二代国君燮父至第十代文侯共9位晋侯及其夫人之墓,这是迄今西周考古最重大的发现。它不仅证实了司马迁《史记·晋世家关于晋国世系记载的正确,复原了西周晋国的历史,还为西周考古提供了更为准确的分期标尺,而今天,在已经建成晋国博物馆的曲村遗址上,分别走过60年发展历程的北大考古专业和山西考古研究所的合作,注定会铸成一座丰碑,     

Maritime Archaeology and Maritime Heritage Protection in the Disputed Territory of Northern Cyprus

Between 1967 and 1974, the island of Cyprus was a centre of maritime archaeology in the eastern Mediterranean. Individuals such as Michael and Susan Katzev, George Bass, Jeremy Green and Richard Steffy were living on and visiting the island, and testing and developing methods still common in the discipline. The hostilities on Cyprus in the summer of 1974 and the implementation of international regulations limiting archaeological work in the northern portion of the island, however, had repercussions still evident today. This article summarizes past maritime archaeological work along the northern coastline, addresses the regulations limiting archaeological activity in the region and discusses a new training program licensed by the Nautical Archaeology Society aiding in the protection of the island’s maritime heritage representing approximately 10,000 years of activity.

At peace in the corn: Maya narratives and the dynamics of fieldwork in Guatemala

Between 1961 and 1996 civil war in Guatemala claimed the lives of an estimated 200,000 people, over 80% of whom (according to a United Nations Truth Commission) were Maya Indians. The experience of one Maya family, whose story is narrated, raises questions pertaining to continued insecurity, lack of justice, and uninvestigated crimes, the combined effects of which still haunt and charge community life throughout the countryside. Telling about the experience of one family also raises issues concerning the vicissitudes of representation and how fieldwork can, on occasion, yield unanticipated but rewarding returns.     

Maritime Archaeology and the Early Atlantic Trade: research at Elmina,Ghana

This article details recent maritime archaeological research off the town of Elmina in coastal Ghana. Founded in 1482, Elmina Castle was the first and largest European outpost in sub‐Saharan West Africa, and remained a centre of maritime trade for almost four centuries. Survey and diver investigations led to the discovery of several sites, including a shipwreck dating to the mid 17th century, which is characterized by a mass of trade goods, cannon and buried hull remains. A second Dutch vessel dating to c.1700 was documented after its discovery during dredging operations in the Benya Lagoon adjacent to Elmina. These sites present an opportunity to study ships and cargoes involved in the West African trade.