This report describes the results of a geochemical analysis using a mild acid extraction and indu... more This report describes the results of a geochemical analysis using a mild acid extraction and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectroscopy of 198 samples from plaster surfaces at the palace complex at Actuncan, a prehispanic Maya city located in a karst landscape of western Belize. Archeologists working in the Maya region of Central America often refer to many different kinds of building complexes as "palaces" without a clear understanding of how they functioned. Often, the rooms inside these structures are devoid of features and artifacts, making it difficult to infer how they were used. Geochemical characterization of inorganic residues on plaster floors as a means of prospecting for activity areas is therefore critical for studying the function and meaning of ancient Maya palaces. At Actuncan, due to the high degree of preservation of many of the floors, overlying plaster surfaces were able to be sampled, thus informing not only how the buildings were used, but how their uses changed over time. Multivariate quantitative modeling and spatial interpolation of the chemical data demonstrate that a variety of domestic, ritual, and possibly administrative activities took place in the palace complex, a finding that challenges previous assessments of palaces as primarily royal residential compounds.
A common property regime was established at the founding of the Maya site of Actuncan, Belize, in... more A common property regime was established at the founding of the Maya site of Actuncan, Belize, in the Terminal Preclassic period (175 BC-AD 300), which governed access to land until the Terminal Classic period (AD 780-1000). This interpretation is based on urban settlement patterns documented through household excavation and remote-sensing programs. Excavations of all visible patio-focused groups in the urban core provided data to reconstruct residential histories, and a 60,621 m 2 gradiometer survey resulted in a magnetic gradient map that was used to document buried constructions. Twenty ground-truth testpits correlated types of magnetic signatures to buried patio-focused groups and smaller constructions, including walled plots in agricultural field systems that were later exposed more fully through large-scale excavations. Combined, these methods provided data to reconstruct four correlates of land tenure systems: (1) the spatial proximity of residential units to land and resources, (2) diachronic changes in community settlement patterns, (3) land subdivision and improvements, and (4) public goods. Spatial analyses documented that houselots did not cluster through time, but instead became gradually improved, lending evidence to suggest the transgenerational inheritance of property rights in the Late and Terminal Classic periods.
Classic Maya Provincial Politics: Xunantunich and its Hinterlands, edited by Lisa J. LeCount and Jason Yaeger, pp. 1-19. University of Arizona Press, Tucson., 2010
... the Castillo's western frieze (Robin 1994) and burnt on a bench in Structure D-7 (Br... more ... the Castillo's western frieze (Robin 1994) and burnt on a bench in Structure D-7 (Braswell 1993). ... Str. B-5 Burial into floor Ceramic flute Pendergast and Graham 1981:17 Str. D-8 74HH/4 Burial 1 Ten small, plain lip-to-lip bowls Braswell 1994:219 Actuncan Str. ...
Across the Maya Lowlands, dedication ritual served a vital role in endowing public and private st... more Across the Maya Lowlands, dedication ritual served a vital role in endowing public and private structures with meaning and function. Through ritual, structures acquired the soul-force, or k'ulel, necessary to sustain activity within their walls. However, we suggest that ritual could also actively reinvent places within the cultural landscape. In fact, many structures live several ritual lives: the first associated with their original intended function, and subsequent ones associated with changes in their occupational history, particularly after they are abandoned. As such, the cultural landscape of a Maya city is constantly cast and recast as the cultural associations of its constituent parts are actively modified through ritual. The resignification of past cultural landscapes may be seen archaeologically in the adoption of new ritual patterns within old structures, aimed at challenging or extending meanings of durable structures within a shared language of ritual. Analyses of structure histories and veneration practices from three areas of the site of Actuncan, including an elite residential structure, a palace compound, and the plaza of the triadic temple group, elucidate how changing veneration practices modify Actuncan's cultural landscape from Classic period rule of divine kings to the post-royal occupation of the Terminal Classic period.
This report describes the results of a geochemical analysis using a mild acid extraction and indu... more This report describes the results of a geochemical analysis using a mild acid extraction and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectroscopy of 198 samples from plaster surfaces at the palace complex at Actuncan, a prehispanic Maya city located in a karst landscape of western Belize. Archeologists working in the Maya region of Central America often refer to many different kinds of building complexes as " palaces " without a clear understanding of how they functioned. Often, the rooms inside these structures are devoid of features and artifacts, making it difficult to infer how they were used. Geochemical characterization of inorganic residues on plaster floors as a means of prospecting for activity areas is therefore critical for studying the function and meaning of ancient Maya palaces. At Actuncan, due to the high degree of preservation of many of the floors, overlying plaster surfaces were able to be sampled, thus informing not only how the buildings were used, but how their uses changed over time. Multivariate quantitative modeling and spatial interpolation of the chemical data demonstrate that a variety of domestic, ritual, and possibly administrative activities took place in the palace complex, a finding that challenges previous assessments of palaces as primarily royal residential compounds.
This report describes the results of a geochemical analysis using a mild acid extraction and indu... more This report describes the results of a geochemical analysis using a mild acid extraction and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectroscopy of 198 samples from plaster surfaces at the palace complex at Actuncan, a prehispanic Maya city located in a karst landscape of western Belize. Archeologists working in the Maya region of Central America often refer to many different kinds of building complexes as "palaces" without a clear understanding of how they functioned. Often, the rooms inside these structures are devoid of features and artifacts, making it difficult to infer how they were used. Geochemical characterization of inorganic residues on plaster floors as a means of prospecting for activity areas is therefore critical for studying the function and meaning of ancient Maya palaces. At Actuncan, due to the high degree of preservation of many of the floors, overlying plaster surfaces were able to be sampled, thus informing not only how the buildings were used, but how their uses changed over time. Multivariate quantitative modeling and spatial interpolation of the chemical data demonstrate that a variety of domestic, ritual, and possibly administrative activities took place in the palace complex, a finding that challenges previous assessments of palaces as primarily royal residential compounds.
A common property regime was established at the founding of the Maya site of Actuncan, Belize, in... more A common property regime was established at the founding of the Maya site of Actuncan, Belize, in the Terminal Preclassic period (175 BC-AD 300), which governed access to land until the Terminal Classic period (AD 780-1000). This interpretation is based on urban settlement patterns documented through household excavation and remote-sensing programs. Excavations of all visible patio-focused groups in the urban core provided data to reconstruct residential histories, and a 60,621 m 2 gradiometer survey resulted in a magnetic gradient map that was used to document buried constructions. Twenty ground-truth testpits correlated types of magnetic signatures to buried patio-focused groups and smaller constructions, including walled plots in agricultural field systems that were later exposed more fully through large-scale excavations. Combined, these methods provided data to reconstruct four correlates of land tenure systems: (1) the spatial proximity of residential units to land and resources, (2) diachronic changes in community settlement patterns, (3) land subdivision and improvements, and (4) public goods. Spatial analyses documented that houselots did not cluster through time, but instead became gradually improved, lending evidence to suggest the transgenerational inheritance of property rights in the Late and Terminal Classic periods.
Classic Maya Provincial Politics: Xunantunich and its Hinterlands, edited by Lisa J. LeCount and Jason Yaeger, pp. 1-19. University of Arizona Press, Tucson., 2010
... the Castillo's western frieze (Robin 1994) and burnt on a bench in Structure D-7 (Br... more ... the Castillo's western frieze (Robin 1994) and burnt on a bench in Structure D-7 (Braswell 1993). ... Str. B-5 Burial into floor Ceramic flute Pendergast and Graham 1981:17 Str. D-8 74HH/4 Burial 1 Ten small, plain lip-to-lip bowls Braswell 1994:219 Actuncan Str. ...
Across the Maya Lowlands, dedication ritual served a vital role in endowing public and private st... more Across the Maya Lowlands, dedication ritual served a vital role in endowing public and private structures with meaning and function. Through ritual, structures acquired the soul-force, or k'ulel, necessary to sustain activity within their walls. However, we suggest that ritual could also actively reinvent places within the cultural landscape. In fact, many structures live several ritual lives: the first associated with their original intended function, and subsequent ones associated with changes in their occupational history, particularly after they are abandoned. As such, the cultural landscape of a Maya city is constantly cast and recast as the cultural associations of its constituent parts are actively modified through ritual. The resignification of past cultural landscapes may be seen archaeologically in the adoption of new ritual patterns within old structures, aimed at challenging or extending meanings of durable structures within a shared language of ritual. Analyses of structure histories and veneration practices from three areas of the site of Actuncan, including an elite residential structure, a palace compound, and the plaza of the triadic temple group, elucidate how changing veneration practices modify Actuncan's cultural landscape from Classic period rule of divine kings to the post-royal occupation of the Terminal Classic period.
This report describes the results of a geochemical analysis using a mild acid extraction and indu... more This report describes the results of a geochemical analysis using a mild acid extraction and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectroscopy of 198 samples from plaster surfaces at the palace complex at Actuncan, a prehispanic Maya city located in a karst landscape of western Belize. Archeologists working in the Maya region of Central America often refer to many different kinds of building complexes as " palaces " without a clear understanding of how they functioned. Often, the rooms inside these structures are devoid of features and artifacts, making it difficult to infer how they were used. Geochemical characterization of inorganic residues on plaster floors as a means of prospecting for activity areas is therefore critical for studying the function and meaning of ancient Maya palaces. At Actuncan, due to the high degree of preservation of many of the floors, overlying plaster surfaces were able to be sampled, thus informing not only how the buildings were used, but how their uses changed over time. Multivariate quantitative modeling and spatial interpolation of the chemical data demonstrate that a variety of domestic, ritual, and possibly administrative activities took place in the palace complex, a finding that challenges previous assessments of palaces as primarily royal residential compounds.
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