Amy Gillaspie

The Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project is an archaeological field school operating in the Cayo District of Western Belize, and has excavated at multiple sites in Belize annually since 1988. In the past five years, the project has focused on excavation of peri-abandonment deposits, or deposits of artifacts built up during and after the abandonment of city centers during the Late Classic period of Maya history (approximately 750 – 900 AD). This poster will present data on two specific artifact types, ceramic figurines and musical instruments, that were recovered from peri-abandonment deposits at the site of Baking Pot, Cayo District, Belize. In looking at these figurines and instruments, this poster will first detail the iconography of the Baking Pot collection, which includes 214 items. Next, a brief discussion of the composition of the collection will be outlined, showing categorical differentiation of the items into groups of figurines versus instruments, hand-made versus mold-made items, and anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, and unknown representations (with unknown representations being undiagnostic fragments of these items). Finally, the poster will discuss hypotheses of ritual behavior, and conclude why these items were included in these specific peri-abandonment deposits made by the Maya of Baking Pot during the Late Classic.

Presentation for the Denver Chapter of the Colorado Archaeological Society's 2019 member's night on my internship with Denver Museum of Nature and Science and Paleocultural Research Group at the Magic Mountain site and excavations.

This paper examines 187 distinctive ceramic artifacts excavated from peri-abandonment deposits at the site of Baking Pot, Cayo, Belize between 2013 and 2017. These ceramic figurines and morphologic instruments were analyzed in an effort to better understand ritual acts in different spaces in Group B of the site core at Baking Pot. These artifacts were placed in deposits at the time that Baking Pot was being abandoned in the eight to ninth century CE. Our spatial analyses of the collection noted that over half of these artifacts were recovered in the corners of smaller, more secluded plazas, with fewer figurines recovered from the larger, more accessible public plazas. Chi-square tests were employed to determine if there is an association between different types of artifacts and public vs. private space in Group B, possibly signaling different types of rituals were conducted in different spaces during site abandonment. A brief discussion of ritual and the role it plays during these times of political and social change closes this paper. These studies help us to better understand one aspect of the Classic Maya of the Belize Valley during the pivotal period associated with the Classic Maya collapse.

This newsletter article provides information about the Astor House Community Archaeology Project. Targeted archaeological excavations at the historic Astor House were conducted in June and July 2021, with community tours in July. Here, we update the members of the Colorado Archaeological Society on the initial findings and progress of the project.

This paper reports the results of recent investigations of ceramic figurines and musical instruments from Classic Belize River Valley site of Baking Pot, located approximately 8 km northeast of the modern town of San Ignacio in the Cayo District of Belize. Analysis of the iconographic features of the Baking Pot collection indicate that the figurines and instruments are mostly mold-made items, with a division of mostly figurine fragments, fragments of musical instruments, or unknown fragmented items. A nearly equal division of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic items are present in the collection. Anthropomorphic fragments almost always include heads or headdresses and hair. A few arm or leg appendage fragment are present as well. Zoomorphic items are often heads as well, with dogs, bats, and birds frequently represented. Other items included in the collection include ceramic beads and censer fragments, but do not represent much of the collection. Lastly, some artifacts recovered were so fragmented and without explicitly diagnostic traits, and are counted in this analysis as unknown fragments, as it is unclear if they were instruments or figurines themselves, but clearly were not part of ceramic wares such as vases, bowls, plates, or other serving types.

In Spring 2021, a group of partners came together to start the Astor House Community Archaeology Project. These early project partners were Metcalf Archaeological Consultants, Denver Museum and Nature and Science, Foothills Art Center, and Statistical Research Incorporated, with other partners joining the project over the course of its work, including Community Connections, LLC. During three weeks of excavation, thirty volunteers joined the projected and excavated three large units and their extensions, which were targeted by incorporating GIS overlay of historic Sanborn maps with modern satellite imagery, as well as ground-penetrating radar. Over 20,000 individual artifacts were recovered from these units. Nearly half of the project volunteers have continued on into the artifact analysis stage and are with us presenting initial findings at this conference. This presentation will provide an overview of the project, the research goals, and early findings from these analyses.

This thesis considers ritual as it was used by the Classic Maya at Baking Pot, Belize, during the site’s abandonment circa 800-900 CE. Ritual was deeply woven into the daily life of the Classic Maya. This study reviews Classic Maya rituals and problematic deposits in order to address peri-abandonment deposits made by the community of Baking Pot during its abandonment. To understand aspects of the role ritual took at the time of site abandonment at Baking Pot, 207 ceramic “special finds” artifacts were analyzed, all having been excavated and recovered by the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project. A vast majority of the ceramic artifacts were recovered from peri-abandonment deposit excavations located primarily in the ceremonial architecture of Group B, with a smaller sample recovered from nearby domestic housemounds. The peri-abandonment deposits at Baking Pot and at sites in the greater Belize River Valley are complex and include a variety of material remains, but this thesis considers the special finds artifacts that compose the Baking Pot figurine collection in order to address rituals involved during site abandonment, their similarity to known Maya rituals, and their variability across contexts including ritual expression in different spaces of the site. This research finds evidence for activities related to termination rituals that lead to the buildup of peri-abandonment deposits during site abandonment. The figurines and other ceramic special finds artifacts analyzed here were consistently included in both terminal and peri-abandonment deposits. The artifacts that make up the Baking Pot figurine collection were deposited by the Ancient Maya in different locations throughout the site. By depositing items used in termination rituals, the Classic Maya were calling upon rituals they had enacted for centuries prior to abandonment, indicating that ritual held important roles for the residents of Baking Pot during a time of stress and uncertainty.

Excavated between 1973-1975, the Jones-Miller site in Eastern Colorado yielded the important recovery of nearly 41,000 Bison bones and just over 200 stone tools. 50 years of research since then has led to a nearly completed, unpublished manuscript on the findings at the site. Now tasked with preserving and sharing the items in this collection, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science is working to organize and catalog the Jones-Miller bone and lithics. This makes the collection more accessible to both the general public and researchers. Here, we discuss the steps taken to maintain intellectual control, preservation of information, and physical preservation of the faunal material. We show that during these processes this legacy collection becomes more available for new technological analyses and future zooarchaeological research, adding to the important conversation around both legacy collections and a better understanding of Paleoindian lifeways.