The Archaic period has not been as widely studied in Mesoamerica it other parts of the Americas. This problem stems from intractable issues such low archaeological visibility and high post-depositional disturbance. And, while existing data northern Belize indicates that foraging groups practiced diverse adaptations, little theoretical effort dedicated toward developing frames reference for understanding coupled human-landscape interactions ongoing during this period. Here, we outline a...

The concept of “big” data is nothing new to archaeologists; we have long made a profession collecting, organizing, and analyzing surfeit describing everything from minute artifact attributes landscape-wide environmental characteristics. Regardless this abundance, continue confront the self-same problem inherent in data, namely what analyses will actually help us use these advance understandings past human behaviors. With burgeoning remote sensing technologies archaeology faces wave but how...

Abstract While ubiquitous among ancient Maya sites in Mesoamerica, archaeological analysts frequently overlook the interpretive potential of ground stone tools. The often made these heavy, bulky tools coarse‐grained, heterogeneous materials that are difficult to chemically source, unlike obsidian. This paper describes an application handheld, energy‐dispersive X‐ray fluorescence (XRF) provenance artifacts (tools and architectural blocks) composed granite: a nonhomogenous, phaneritic stone....

Although much research has explored the transition to early village life in Maya Lowlands, comparatively less attention focused on ~6000-year period of Archaic occupation region. Initiatives like Belize Archaeological Reconnaissance (BAAR) Project were ground-breaking forty years ago, and firmly established an presence northern Belize. While interpretations lithic chronological sequences developed by BAAR are problematic, published results still widely cited support a growing body new this...

Buried architecture poses an interpretive challenge to field archaeologists the world over. The depositional sequence of site must be reconstructed through excavation and stratigraphic analysis, various phases construction use that occurred in past inferred. Effaced earthen-core (e.g., was once faced with a masonry outer layer is no longer present) constitutes heightened this regard, as events layers are not always clearly distinguishable, difficulty can compounded when such threatened decay...

Abstract Even though lithics in the Maya region have traditionally been relegated to appendices and tool-type lists, much has done move beyond this descriptive approach last decade. In article we highlight general themes of lithic studies since 2011, including economic production exchange, role ritual practice, use previously understudied raw materials forms, such as ground stone. Employing a temporal scope that encompasses their preceramic predecessors, explore gendered patterns research...

Abstract Often understudied by archaeologists, ground stone tools (GST) were ubiquitous in the ancient Maya world. Their applications ranged from household to ceremonial equipment and beyond. Little attention has been focused on chemically sourcing raw material used GST production, largely because these fashioned out of igneous or sedimentary rock, which can present characterization challenges. And, although portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) applied widely source obsidian, utility pXRF for...

Multiproxy data collected from the largest inland wetland in Belize, Central America, demonstrate presence of large-scale pre-Columbian fish-trapping facilities built by Late Archaic hunter-gatherer-fishers, which continued to be used their Maya descendants during Formative times (approximately 2000 BCE 200 CE). This is earliest facility recorded ancient Mesoamerica. We suggest that such landscape-scale intensification may have been a response long-term climate disturbance between 2200 and...

Thirty years ago, a seminal volume drew together leaders in the field who were working on quantifying diversity archaeological assemblages, <em>Quantifying Diversity Archaeology</em> (Leonard and Jones, eds. 1989). While several papers identified space as critical factor structuring diversity, this concept was largely unaddressed analyses presented remained intrasite scope. This certainly due, part, to analytic conceptual limitations of spatial analysis archaeology late 1980s. came out just...

The increasing sophistication and complexity of archaeological models has precluded easy testing such models, oftentimes requires assessments that can be as lengthy complicated the initial model design execution. Here, a multi-criteria decision-based developed to simulate hunter-gatherer land use decisions in Post-Glacial Netherlands is discussed. To approximate when where uncertainty occurs, sensitivity analysis implemented involves varying input parameter weights determine those parameters...