Kong F Cheong

The material plays a fundamental and active role in the social lives of people, from objects like containers or buildings to food and other consumables. In this paper, evidence from absorbed residues are used to explore the contents of an Ulúa-style marble vase found in a royal courtyard at the ancient Maya site of Pacbitun in west-central Belize. Those results indicate that the vase once held concoctions containing cacao, willow and possibly vanilla. Significantly, the results also confirm residues of the important Maya ritual drink balché, in an ancient container. By placing the vase and its contents in the history of Pacbitun, we demonstrate the important role of this object and its contents in dedicatory rituals practiced in this region; we argue that subsequent disturbance of the context and the vase in antiquity points to the fragmentation of kingship.

In recent years several studies have attempted to understand the use of caffeinated beverages in North America before the coming of Europeans using absorbed residues. These studies have focused on the two key plant sources of caffeine in North America: Theobroma cacao (cacao) and Ilex vomitoria (yaupon holly). The authors initiated a study to explore the possibility that one or both plants were used at the Mississippian period (900e1600 CE) center of Etowah in northern Georgia. In the process, a series of problems with methodologies in use were revealed. Key among those were limitations on the methods used to identify ancient caffeinated beverage residues, distinguish them from modern contamination, and differentiate residues made by each plant. In this paper we explore what our data from the Etowah site reveal about methodologies currently in use and make suggestions for future studies of residues created by caffeinated beverages in North America.

""Los pueblos mesoamericanos tienen una larga historia de uso del cacao que se extiende por más de 34 siglos, según lo ha confirmado la identificación de residuos de cacao en la cerámica arqueológica de Paso de la Amada en la costa del Pacífico, y del sitio olmeca El Manatí en la costa del Golfo. Hasta ahora no había evidencia comparable de San Lorenzo, la primera capital olmeca. El presente estudio de residuos de teobromina confirma la presencia continua y el uso de productos de cacao en San Lorenzo entre 1800 y 1000 a.C., y documenta las diferentes formas de vasijas utilizadas en su preparación y consumo. Además se expone un contexto de elite que revela el uso del cacao como parte de un ritual funerario para las víctimas de sacrificio, un evento que ocurrió durante el apogeo del poder de San Lorenzo.

Mesoamerican peoples had a long history of cacao use spanning more than thirty-four centuries, as confirmed by the previous identification of cacao residues on archaeological pottery from Paso de la Amada on the Pacific Coast and the Olmec site El Manatí on the Gulf Coast. Until now, comparable evidence from San Lorenzo, the premier Olmec capital, was lacking. The present study of theobromine residues confirms the continuous presence and use of cacao products at San Lorenzo between 1800 and 1000 BCE and documents assorted vessel forms used in its preparation and consumption. One elite context reveals cacao use as part of a mortuary ritual for sacrificial victims, an event that occurred during the height of San Lorenzo’s power.""

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Archaeological remains of ceramic musical instruments occur among pre-Columbian cultures across Mesoamerica. Sound artifacts recovered from the Maya subarea, for example, have provided an indication of the high order of musical sophistication for the ancient Maya. A brief review of the literature on the subject reveals artifacts unearthed from at least 40 sites. Investigation in 1986 and 1987 at Pacbitun, Belize, recovered a range of well-preserved ceramic musical instruments from Late Classic period elite and royal burials. Recent excavations in 2010 recovered an additional 12 artifacts. These will be described and discussed, as well as insights into their archaeological context, and a comparison will be made to similar artifacts found elsewhere in the Maya subarea.

Vestigios arqueológicos de instrumentos musicales de cerámica fueron hallados en las culturas precolombinas de toda Mesoamérica. Artefactos sonoros de la subárea maya por ejemplo revelaron el alto grado de sofisticación que la música debe haber tenido entre los antiguos maya. Una revisión breve de la literatura pertinente mostró que dichos artefactos han sido excavados en al menos 40 sitios. Las investigaciones llevadas a cabo en Pacbitun, Belice, en 1986 y 1987 descubrieron un buen número de distintos instrumentos musicales de cerámica bien preservados en entierros reales y de élite del período Clásico Tardío. Más recientemente, se encontró otra docena de artefactos sonoros más durante las excavaciones realizadas en 2010 en el lugar. En el artículo todos ellos son descritos y discutidos; además, se proporcionan datos sobre su contexto arqueológico y se comparan con artefactos similares descubiertos en otros sitios de la subárea maya.


Cheong, Kong F., Roger Blench, Paul F. Healy, and Terry G. Powis

2014    Ancient Maya Musical Encore: Analysis of Ceramic Musical Instruments from Pacbitun, Belize and the Maya Subarea. In Flower World: Music Archaeology of the Americas, Vol.3., edited by Matthias Stockli and Mark Howell, pp. 123-140. Ekho Verlag, Berlin.

This thesis reports on the 2010 excavations of the North Group and Eastern Court at the ancient Lowland Maya site of Pacbitun. It provides a construction history of the architecture and an analysis of associated artifacts, burials, and caches. The archaeological investigations demonstrate that the seven structures (Strs. 34-40) of this restricted access plazuela group were built in the Early Classic period, and renewed in the Late Classic period. Based on analyses of artifacts (ceramics and lithics), skeletal and faunal remains, and intra- and inter-site comparisons, the North Group functioned as a secondary elite domestic residential group. Reconstruction suggests that the inhabitants here were not commoners; instead, the occupants probably were related to the ruling elite of Pacbitun. Some of the evidence includes the central location and elevation of the North Group, the presence of red painted plaster surfacing, a burial with multiple ceramic musical instruments, and multiple dedicatory caches with exotic goods (e.g., marine shell, jadeite, "Charlie Chaplin" figures).

Cheong, Kong F.
2012  A Description of the Ceramic Musical Instruments Excavated from the North Group of Pacbitun, Belize. In Pacbitun Regional Archaeological Project: Report on the 2011 Field Season, edited by Terry G. Powis, pp. 15-29. Report Submitted to the Institute of Archaeology, National Institute of Culture and History, Belmopan, Belize.

Recent investigations of the North Group at Pacbitun have produced new evidence of ancient Maya musical instruments. Analysis of the architecture indicates that the first platform was constructed during the Early Classic period (AD 300-550) and expanded, to a total of seven structures composing a restricted access plazuela, before abandonment by the end of the Terminal Classic period (AD 700-900).The presence of burials, exotic goods, caches, musical instruments, as well as the spatial layout of the plazuela, suggest that the inhabitants of the North Group were sub-elites with special ties to the royal court of Pacbitun in the Classic period.
Paper presented at the 77th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Memphis, Tennessee.

Cheong, Kong F. and Andrew Snetsinger
2012  A Report of the Burials and Human Skeletal Remains from the North Group, Eastern Court, Pacbitun, Belize. In Pacbitun Regional Archaeological Project: Report on the 2011 Field Season, edited by Terry G. Powis, pp. 76-86. Report Submitted to the Institute of Archaeology, National Institute of Culture and History, Belmopan, Belize.

Cheong, Kong F.  2012 A Preliminary Analysis of the Faunal Remains from the North Group of Pacbitun, Belize. In Pacbitun Regional Archaeological Project: Report on the 2011 Field Season, edited by Terry G. Powis, pp. 87-93. Report Submitted to the Institute of Archaeology, National Institute of Culture and History, Belmopan, Belize.

Small anthropomorphic figurines from ritual cache context that date to the Late Preclassic and the Early Classic period, were excavated from various Maya Lowlands sites are known as “Charlie Chaplin” a label designated first by Sir J. Eric S. Thompson in the 1930s. The uses of these Charlie Chaplin figurines are widespread throughout the Maya subarea and in fact it is a shared pan-Mesoamerica ritual practice. Similar figurines were recovered from Teotihuacan, these figurines are also known as camahuiles in the Highlands of Guatemala, penates at Monte Alban, and Mezcala in the Guerrero area of Mexico. These humanoid carvings often portray human features like eyes, mouth, arms, hands, legs and feet, but some are abstract with simple incised lines representing heads, arms and legs only. These artifacts are often carved from materials such as marine shell, slate, jadeite and sometimes obsidian. This paper will examine and present the ritual uses and their context as well as possible meanings of these figurines based on recently excavated Charlie Chaplin figurines from the North Group of Pacbitun and also various studies conducted on these figurines.   



Paper presented at the 79th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in San Francisco, California.

Musical instruments occur among Pre-Columbian cultures across Mesoamerica. In the Maya subarea, specifically in the Belize River Valley, they are found at Baking Pot, Blackman Eddy, Cahal Pech, and Pacbitun. At the latter, in the 1980s, musical instruments were found in three elite graves in the Epicenter and dating from the Late Classic period. During the 2010 season a Late Classic burial with more than a dozen ceramic, wind instruments was discovered. These are described, and compared with those from elsewhere in the Valley, and across the Maya Lowlands. Possible roles of music in Classic Maya culture are examined.

Paper presented at the 76th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Sacramento, California.

The cursory treatment in the literature of ancient West Mexican music instruments and related figurines means little is known of their manufacture, sound producing capabilities, usage and social function. To enhance our understanding of these West Mexican instruments this paper presents a study of six ceramic vessel rattles from a private collection in Tala, and one from the collections at Los Guachimontones, Teuchitlan, Jalisco. The vessel rattles documented include examples in gourd, zoomorphic, and anthropomorphic shapes. Their broader cultural context is discussed based on a quantitative survey of collections of c. 1600 West Mexican ceramic objects, focusing in particular on the importance of the gourd as the archetypal vessel rattle.

El resultado de un tratamiento meramente somero de los instrumentos musicales y figurillas sonoras en los estudios sobre las culturas antiguas del occidente de México es que nuestros conocimientos de su manufactura, sus características acústicas, su uso y su función social han quedado bastante limitados. Para ampliar y profundizar nuestra comprensión de estos instrumentos el estudio presenta seis sonajas de una colección particular de Tala, Jalisco, más una que pertenece a las colecciones de Los Guachimontones, Teuchitlán, Jalisco. Las siete sonajas que hasta la fecha no han sido documentadas, son en su mayoría del tipo calabaza; no obstante, hay ejemplares zoomorfos y antropomorfos entre ellas también. Para resaltar su contexto cultural se
las relaciona con una base de datos sobre unos 1600 objetos cerámicos del occidente de México. La discusión enfoca la calabaza como la sonaja arquetípica.

ISBN 978-3-944415-35-2

The George Smith Site is located in Bartow County, Georgia and dates to the Middle Woodland Period (300 BC- AD 200). The Middle Woodland is perceived as a time of seasonal movement and occupational specialization for exploiting a specific resource niche. Over the past few decades, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have proven to be valuable tools to map and record spatial data, particularly settlement patterns and artifact density analysis. The spatial and distributional analyses of this data lead to a better understanding of various aspects of prehistoric occupational periods. This paper focuses on the implementation of GIS to survey and document the George Smith site.

Paper Presented at the 87th Annual Meeting of the Georgia Academy of Science at Columbus State University, Georgia, on March 27-28, 2010.

The Woodland Period in Georgia prehistory is transitional between the Archaic (9000-1000 BC) and Mississippian (AD 1000-1550) Periods. The Archaic is viewed as a time of population growth, increased sedentism, and reliance on plant resources while the Mississippian is seen as a time of complex agricultural chiefdoms. While we have a good understanding of the Woodland period in parts of Georgia, there are gaps in the archaeological record. At present, there is a lack of research on the Late Woodland Period (AD 700-900) in north Georgia. This paper focuses on addressing this problem through the excavation of the Holland Site, which has yielded significant diagnostic artifacts. This information will augment our current understanding and interpretation of this underrepresented time period in Georgia prehistory.


Paper Presented at the Southeastern Archaeological Conference 66th Annual Meeting in Mobile, Alabama.

The Woodland Period in Georgia prehistory is transitional between the Archaic (9000-1000 BC) and Mississippian (AD 1000-1550) Periods. The Archaic is viewed as a time of population growth, increased sedentism, reliance on plant resources while the Mississippian is seen as a time of complex agricultural chiefdoms. While we have a good understanding of the Woodland Period in parts of Georgia, there are gaps in the archaeological record. At present, there is a lack of research on the Late Woodland Period (AD 700-900) in central Georgia, specifically Paulding County. This Paper focuses on addressing this problem through the excavation of the Holland Site, which has yielded significant diagnostic artifacts and intact cultural features. This information will augment our current understanding and interpretation of this underrepresented time period in Georgia prehistory. This project was funded by the Department of Geography and Anthropology, Kennesaw State University.

Paper Presented at the 86th Annual Meeting of the Georgia Academy of Science at Spelman College, Georgia, on March 22-23, 2009.

Abstract:
For just over 100 years steamboats ruled the waterways of the southeastern U.S., providing necessary transportation of both people and goods. One of the last steamboats to navigate the waters of the Apalachicola, Chattahoochee and Flint River System was the Barbara Hunt (1929-1940). Her short life and lonely death at the confluence of these three rivers mirrors the rise and fall of the steamboat as a viable means of transportation through the changing technology of the twentieth century. Through ethnohistorical research and archaeological investigations by Brockington and Associates, the story of this once proud ship is now being retold.

The Barbara Hunt:
The Barbara Hunt was built in Osage City, Missouri in 1929. She was about 100 tons and measured 100 feet by 22 feet with a depth of hold of 4 feet. The Barbara Hunt was powered by a 137 horsepower engine. She was operated with a crew of five. She was a stern paddlewheeled towboat and her first home port was Saint Louis, Missouri. While in St. Louis from 1929 to 1938 she was owned by Bilhorn, Bower and Peters. In 1938 the Columbus Towing Company purchased the Barbara Hunt and brought her to serve in the Chattahoochee, Flint and Apalachicola River systems. Once in the southeast she carried out the same tasks as she had back in Missouri which was transportation of goods such as cotton, fertilizer and passengers. The Barbara Hunt served as a packet. A packet is the term given to a regular passenger route between a set series of destinations. The only known officers that served aboard the Barbara Hunt were Art Groves and George Antrainer. While in Missouri she was captained by Art Groves (1936-1938), and piloted by George Antrainer (1938). The records are unclear as to who her officers and crew were when she arrived in Columbus. Sometime around 1940 she was used by a gravel company located south of the town of Chattahoochee, Florida as a tug boat. It is unclear from the background research if the Barbara Hunt was sold to the gravel company, or just leased to them. On June 12, 1940, the Barbara Hunt sank along the Apalachicola River south of the Victory bridge close to Chattahoochee, Florida. She had been abandoned some time before this and allowed to sink unceremoniously into the river.

The Rise and Fall of River Traffic Along the Apalachicola River:
Long before well maintained roads, rivers served as the best economical way to transport goods and people throughout the interior of the southeast. The Chattahoochee, Flint and Apalachicola Rivers all served as major arteries that pumped the economic heart of the southeast. During the early 1800s the Apalachicola River began to rise in importance as steamships became the perfect instrument for navigating the sometimes shallow rivers due to their flat hulls which gave steamboats a shallow draft. Cotton was king for the Apalachicola River. Steamboats would transport massive amounts of cotton and other raw materials down to the mouth of the Apalachicola where it was offloaded, then goods were loaded that had been brought in via the Gulf of Mexico on ships. These goods were then transported back up the river to waiting consumers. When the railroads reached various major production areas in the 1850s the river transportation system started to see a decline. It was slow at first, but continued to worsen. After the Civil War and the decline in the importance of cotton in the south, the river transportation system suffered. But a final blow came in the early 1900s when the once happenstance roads of the southeast started to undergo a major improvement. During this steady decline in river travel, the United States Army Corps of Engineers continued working to keep the rivers a viable means of transportation and commerce. The Corps of Engineers dredged the rivers and later began a series of locks and dams to regulate the drastically fluctuating water levels in the river due to rainfall and drought. Once overland transportation vastly improved, the Apalachicola River along with many other rivers ceased to be a viable means of transportation.

Recent investigations at the Pickett’s Mill State Historic Site have yielded new insights into the Civil War battle that occurred in May 1864. Military and historical sources have documented that the major battle took place in a deep ravine, with Union troops positioned on the north ridge and Confederate troops on the south ridge. In the summer of 2007, a systematic program of metal detecting was employed to determine the nature and extent of the battle in the ravine. The main objective was to ground-truth the ravine that has been identified historically as the main battlefield. This is important because it will help the staff at Pickett’s Mill to better understand and interpret the battle and to enhance visitor experience. This paper describes the metal detecting program, its effectiveness in identifying and recovering military items, and the results of the archaeological field research. (This project was supported in part by the Department of Geography and Anthropology, Kennesaw State University)

Paper Presented at the 86th Annual Meeting of the Georgia Academy of Science and the 72nd Annual Meeting of the Florida Academy of Sciences at Jacksonville University, Florida, on March 14-15, 2008.

Integrated Socio-Ecological History of Residential Patterning, Agricultural Practices, and Water Management at the “Classical” Burmese (Bama) Capital of Bagan, Myanmar (11th to 14th Century CE): Report on the 2018 IRAW@Bagan Field Season. Edited by Gyles Iannone, Pyiet Phyo Kyaw, and Scott Macrae.

Trent University Occasional Papers in Anthropology No. 20
ISSN 0825-589X
Peterborough Ontario

https://irawbagan.wordpress.com/

Network theory may provide a useful framework for stimulating thinking about the underlying patterns of political, economic, social and religious organization in emerging first-generation states (e.g., Egypt, Mesopotamia, Indus Valley, China, Mesoamerica and the Andes). Some network theory principles- preference attachment, hub topology, and fitness- may suggest new ways of analyzing data. Our Presentation applies some network theory principles to a comparative database being developed at SFI to suggest new ways of thinking about early states.

Paper Presented at the Society for Applied Anthropology 74th Annual Meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on March 18-22, 2014.

What we know about Bagan derives almost exclusively from historical sources – namely retrospective chronicles, inscriptions, and changing architectural styles. To date, archaeological excavations have played a limited role in augmenting or challenging this traditional narrative. This is unfortunate, because small scale excavations within Bagan’s peri-urban settlement zone, and within the walled and moated “royal city,” have demonstrated considerable knowledge about the city’s past. This is especially true for the Pre-Bagan phase (600-1044 CE). This presentation documents what we think we know about the time “before Bagan,” using the established sources, and assesses this narrative using information from contemporaneous excavation levels. ပုဂံခေတ်ယဉ်ချေးမှုအခြျာင်းျို သမိုင်းအေေျ်လျ်မေားဖြစ်သည့် အစဉ်အလာရာဇဝင်မှတ်တမ်းမေား၊ ချောျ်စာမေား၊ နှင့် ခဖပာင်းလဲလာေဲ့သည့်ဗိသုျာပုံ စံမေားမှသာလေင် သိြျရသည်။ နှစ်သျ်တမ်း သတ်မှတ်ရန်အတွျ် ခရှးခောင်းသုခတ သနဆိုင်ရာတူးခြာ်ခလ့လာမှုမေားသည်အစဉ်အလာအဆိုအမိန့်...

The IRAW@Bagan project is aimed at developing an integrated socio-ecological history for residential patterning, agricultural practices, and water management at the classical Burmese (Bama) capital of Bagan, Myanmar (11th to 14th centuries CE). As part of this long-term research program investigations have been initiated in the Tuyin-Thetso uplands, located 11 km southeast of Bagan’s walled and moated epicenter. This mountainous area figures prominently in the chronicles of early Bagan, given that it was one of five places around the city that a royal white elephant carrying a Buddhist tooth-relic kneeled down, prompting King Anawrahta (1044-1077 CE) to build a pagoda (i.e., temple) there. Numerous 13th century religious monuments were subsequently built on the Tuyin Range. Recent explorations in these uplands have drawn attention to an additional feature of historical significance, a rock-cut tank located along the eastern edge of the Thetso-Taung ridge. Referred to by local villag...

ABSTRACTAbsorbed residue studies have been used in subsistence research for decades. Only more recently have the chemical methods employed been used to explore the consumption of ritual concoctions such as those including cacao, yaupon holly, and alcohol. In this article we use mass spectrometry to identify Datura residues in prehistoric contexts from western Mexico and the American Southeast. Datura is a genus of flowering plants that contain hallucinogenic alkaloids. Their use in both regions is known historically and still continues today. This study sampled 55 pottery vessels and 18 shell vessels using both a traditional burr method and a water-based sonicator sampling method. Datura residues were found in 13 pottery vessels and 14 shell vessels using both sampling approaches. These results demonstrate that it is possible to identify Datura residue in pottery and shell vessels and that the use of Datura extends back into prehistory in both regions. The form and decoration of pot...

The IRAW@Bagan project is aimed at developing an integrated socio-ecological history for residential patterning, agricultural practices, and water management at the classical Burmese (Bama) capital of Bagan, Myanmar (11th to 14th centuries CE). As part of this long-term research program investigations have been initiated in the Tuyin-Thetso uplands, located 11 km southeast of Bagan’s walled and moated epicenter. This mountainous area figures prominently in the chronicles of early Bagan, given that it was one of five places around the city that a royal white elephant carrying a Buddhist tooth-relic kneeled down, prompting King Anawrahta (1044-1077 CE) to build a pagoda (i.e., temple) there. Numerous 13th century religious monuments were subsequently built on the Tuyin Range. Recent explorations in these uplands have drawn attention to an additional feature of historical significance, a rock-cut tank located along the eastern edge of the Thetso-Taung ridge. Referred to by local villag...