This study of chipped chert and chalcedony tools discusses the household lithic economy at the Late Postclassic-Early Spanish Colonial (ca. AD 1400-1700) Maya site of San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, Belize. It focuses on access to raw materials, tool types, tool production, tool use, and tool curation before and right after the arrival of the Spaniards. Este estudio de herramientas de s & iacute;lex y calcedonia talladas analiza la econom & iacute;a l & iacute;tica en el contexto dom & eacute;stico del sitio maya de San Pedro, en Cayo Ambergris, Belice, del per & iacute;odo Poscl & aacute;sico Tard & iacute;o hasta la primera parte de la & eacute;poca colonial espa & ntilde;ola (aproximadamente entre 1400 y 1700 dC). Se centra en la adquisici & oacute;n de las materias primas, los tipos y la producci & oacute;n de herramientas, el uso de herramientas y la conservaci & oacute;n de herramientas antes y despu & eacute;s de la llegada de los espa & ntilde;oles.

But it is more important — because more humanizing — for us to understand the actors of the past in their full complexity and humanity, just as we would like to be appraised by future historians. S...

Analysis of the two largest southern Maya lowland metal assemblages, from Lamanai (n = 187) and Tipu (n = 99), Belize reveals that Mesoamerican and European technologies were negotiated through the processes of recycling objects to create new forms and juxtaposing objects of different provenances for bodily ornamentation. Lamanai's occupants began acquiring metal as early as A.D. 1100 and then engaged in on-site metallurgy as early as A.D. 1450, continuing into the early seventeenth century. Tipu was a nexus for metals between the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. At both sites, metal objects were recovered primarily from human burials and midden deposits. A program of typological study and compositional analysis revealed forms shared between the sites but evidence of on-sitemetallurgy is supported only at Lamanai. Metals from these Maya communities, both centers of Spanish reduccion, demonstrate that the southern Maya lowlands was by no means a "refuge" from Spanish aggression.

Recent archaeometallurgical studies at the ancient Maya site of Lamanai, Belize have begun to reveal the nature of copper metallurgy in the centuries just prior to and during Spanish contact in the Southern Maya Lowland Area. More copper artifacts have been recovered from controlled archaeological excavations at Lamanai than at any other site in the Southern Maya Lowland area. A total of 187 copper objects dating to the 12th through 16th centuries AD have been recovered; among these objects are ingots or pigs, blanks, prills and a substantial number of mis-cast objects, many of which are bells. The archaeological contexts in which copper bells, axes, needles, fish hooks, rings, and clothing ornaments have been recovered will be summarised. Forming technologies used in the creation of Maya copper artifacts as well as their chemical compositions were studied using scanning electron microscopy and optical light microscopy. The results of chemical compositional and microstructural analyses will be presented and discussed in the contexts of larger social and economic spheres that were part of the Maya world just before and during Spanish contact in Belize.

The phenomenon of the Spanish Conquest of the Maya region suggests strongly that, in the process of socio-cultural transformation, religion' has no meaning as a concept with its own particular dynamic. There is no such thing as religious' change that is not also tied to other sorts of changes and indeed to continuity. One dramatic change was the adoption by whole communities, or large segments of communities, of Christian burial practice in which the body was placed in the supine position, head to the west, facing east. Christian burial is seen to represent religious conversion' but it was one of a broad sweep of changes in how power was gained and wealth appropriated, and the way in which killing was socially sanctioned through warfare. Evidence is accumulating from sites in Belize that a significant change in burial practice also took place at time of the Maya collapse in the ninth and tenth centuries. The question that remains to be answered is whether or not the new interment practices were part of a pattern which, like the burials of the Conquest period, reflected broader socio-cultural transformations.

Abstract We consider the archaeological contexts in which copper objects have been recovered at the ancient Maya site of Lamanai in northern Belize and the significance these objects had for the residents of the community during Postclassic (ca. A.D. 950–1544) and Spanish colonial (post 1544) times. More copper objects have been recovered from controlled archaeological contexts at Lamanai than any other site in the southern Maya lowlands area. Bells make up the majority of the assemblage during the centuries just prior to and during historical times, but high status objects such as rings and clothing ornaments found in elite burials dominate in the Early Postclassic period. All of these objects were imported from outside the Maya area. Utilitarian objects, including needles, axes, and fish books, are found in a variety of contexts during Late Postclassic and Spanish colonial times, as are bells and rings. Production materials, including prills, blanks, and pigs/ingots, in addition to mis-cast objects that are production failures, also appear during this time. Nearly all of the copper objects found at Lamanai are distinctly Mesoamerican in form and design, and based on metallurgical analyses it appears that manufacturing technologies were distinctly Mesoamerican as well. The presence of production materials and mis-cast piecesy along with the results of chemical compositional and microstructural analyses, support the idea that the Maya at Lamanai were engaged in the on-site production of copper objects by late precolumbian times.

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The Ancient Maya of the Belize Valley: Half a Century of Archaeological Research. JAMES F. GARBER (ed.). University of Press of Horida, Gainesville, 2004. xiii + 417 pp., 85 b&w illus., 4 maps, 14 tables, notes, biblio., index. $75.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-8130-2685-7. Reviewed by Scott E. Simmons In the half a century that's passed since Gordon Willey's groundbreaking work in the Belize Valley, the pace of archaeological research there has accelerated rapidly. The results of numerous, tightly focused research projects in the valley over the last five decades have greatly improved our understanding of the complex dynamic development of ancient Maya society. As Chase and Garber note in the first chapter of this edited volume, Willey's work revolutionized Maya archaeology by forcing researchers to reexamine their traditional elite-centric focus on Maya sites. This, in turn, lead to the development of settlement pattern studies and what has become an important subfield in the discipline today, household archaeology. Prior to his passing, Gordon Willey wrote chapter 2 of the volume, titled Retrospective. Willey's retrospective is a brief, anecdotal history of his work on settlement patterns in the valley and how he became involved in that research. This chapter is an invaluable contribution as it comes from the perspective of a pioneer of the kind of work that is now taken as essential in helping researchers understand the complexities of human social organization. Chapter 3 is a review of the Formative period history of the Maya site of Blackman Eddy. The work done by James Garber and his associates is important because up until their work beginning in the 1990s, little was known about the Formative period history of the Belize Valley. Specifically, this work is important in documenting the rise of cultural complexity during the Jenny Creek phase (900-300 B.C.), our understanding of which had been limited prior to excavations at Blackman Eddy. Garber and his associates' research at Blackman Eddy is also discussed in chapter 4. Their research suggests that the site was the seat of administrative power in the central Belize Valley by Middle Preclassic times. As Conlon and Powis point out in chapter 5, several centuries later there appears to be a relatively high level of interaction and integration between minor and major centers, such as Blackman Eddy, during Middle and Late Classic times. Lucero and her colleagues evaluate the relationships between Maya settlement and agricultural potential in the Valley of Peace area in chapter 6 using Fedick's (1995, 1996) predictive models. The authors found there was a high correlation between soils having great productive capacity and high settlement density, elaborate architecture, the presence of exotic trade items and overall site complexity. In chapter 7, Paul Healy and his colleagues discuss the Middle Formative period at Cahal Pech, an important administrative center in the upper Belize Valley. Research at Cahal Pech has demonstrated that the Middle Formative period witnessed tremendous growth in the scope of Maya cultural complexity, laying the foundation for the spectacular fluorescence we see at lowland Maya sites by the close of Formative times. David Cheetham presents information on the roles of terminus in lowland Maya site planning in chapter 8. His research is important in that it demonstrates that structure groups linked by causeways to site core areas were only spatially peripheral entities yet were functionally integral in the social and religious lives of the larger communities of which they were a part. In chapter 9, Joseph Ball and Jennifer Taschek present a developmental history of the important upper valley royal ceremonial center of Buenavista del Cayo. Ball and Taschek discuss Buenavista's long developmental history in the valley, from its Middle Formative origins to its abandonment by the end of the twelfth century. …

Researchers studying the Colonial period in the Maya lowland area recently have used ethnohistorical and archaeological information to better understand the complexities of Maya-Spanish interactions and the Spanish impact on traditional Maya culture. But the material objects that the Maya used during this time rarely have been analyzed in any formal or systematic ways. In this study I present the results of an analysis of the formal chipped stone tools from Lamanai and Tipu, two southern lowland Maya sites in Belize. Small side-notched chert, chalcedony and obsidian arrow points are the predominant tool form found in Late- Terminal Postclassic and Early Spanish Colonial period deposits at both sites. Variability in tool forms and manufacturing strategies exists both within and between each of the lithic assemblages, and the study of this variability can provide insights into Late Pöstclassic-Spanish Colonial Period Maya stone tool technology and, to some extent, the nature of Maya-Spanish interaction and the repercussions of Spanish colonial policies in Belize. Available ethnohistorical and archaeological information is considered together with observations on stone tool styles and discrete lithic-manufacturing attributes to better understand this little known Maya lithic technology.