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The Maya ruins of Belize include a number of well-known and historically important pre-Columbian Maya archaeological sites. Belize is considered part of the southern Maya lowlands of the Mesoamerican culture area, and the sites found there were occupied from the Preclassic until and after the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century.
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The Maya civilization was a Mesoamerican civilization that existed from antiquity to the early modern period. It is known by its ancient temples and glyphs (script). The Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas. The civilization is also noted for its art, architecture, mathematics, calendar, and astronomical system.
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Pusilhá is an archaeological site in Belize. The location of this Late Classic Maya urban complex, along the east and west flow of trade, made the city a major transfer point for economic activities in the whole region. In addition, the city gave archaeologists a historical view of a secondary Maya site. Large and extended excavation efforts have changed the overall picture of Maya social and political relationships between larger and smaller cities and challenged the prevailing view of conquest and absorption of smaller cities into the larger cities in the region. The research conducted at Pusilhá began in 1927 and continues to this day.
La Milpa is an archaeological site and an ancient Maya city within the Three River region of Northwest Belize bordering Mexico and Guatemala. La Milpa is located between the sites of Rio Azul and Lamanai. Currently, La Milpa lies within the nature preserve owned by the Programme for Belize, a non-profit organization. PfB acquired land for the preserve from the Coco-Cola Company, who purchased land in Belize in 1988 with the goals of tearing down the rainforest to create a citrus plantation, however donated the land to conservation and management project in 1990 and 1992. Following Caracol and Lamanai, La Milpa is the third largest site in Belize with the Main Plaza alone covering 18,000 square meters, making it one of the largest in the entire Maya region.
Baking Pot is a Maya archaeological site located in the Belize River Valley on the southern bank of the river, northeast of modern-day town of San Ignacio in the Cayo District of Belize; it is 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) downstream from the Barton Ramie and Lower Dover archaeological sites. Baking Pot is associated with an extensive amount of research into Maya settlements, community-based archaeology, and of agricultural production; the site possesses lithic workshops, and possible evidence of cash-cropping cacao as well as a long occupation from the Preclassic through to the Postclassic period.
Kʼaxob is an archaeological site of the Maya civilization located in Belize. It was occupied from about 800 B.C. to A.D. 900. The site is located in northern Belize in the wetlands of Pulltrouser Swamp in proximity to the Sibun River Valley in central Belize. Research has shown that Kʼaxob was occupied from the Late Preclassic Period to the Early Postclassic Period. This period in time and the site is characterized by specific ceramic types as well as agriculture and an increase in social stratification. Kʼaxob is a village site centered on two pyramid plazas and later grew in size during the Early Classic Period to the Late Classic Period. The site includes a number of household, mounds and plazas. Kʼaxob is mostly based on residential and household living but also has some ritualistic aspects.
Pacbitun is a Maya archaeological site located near the town of San Ignacio, Belize, in the Cayo District of west central Belize. The modern Maya name given to the site means “stone set in earth”, likely a reference to multiple fragments of stone monuments. The site, at about 240 m above sea level, is one of the earliest known from the southern Maya Lowlands, and was inhabited for almost 2000 years, from ca. 900 BCE to 900 CE. Strategically, it straddles a territory of rolling, hilly terrain between the Mountain Pine Ridge and the tropical forest covered lowlands of the Upper Belize River Valley.
Caracol is a large ancient Maya archaeological site, located in what is now the Cayo District, of Belize. It is situated approximately 40 kilometres (25 mi) south of Xunantunich, and the town of San Ignacio, and 15 km (9.3 mi) from the Macal River. It rests on the Vaca Plateau, at an elevation of 500 m (1,600 ft) above sea-level, in the foothills of the Maya Mountains. Long thought to be a tertiary center, it is now known that the site was one of the most important regional political centers of the Maya Lowlands during the Classic Period. Caracol covered approximately 200 square kilometres (77 sq mi), covering an area much larger than present-day Belize City, the largest metropolitan area in the country, and supported more than twice the modern city's population.
The Preceramic Period of Belizean and Mesoamerican history began with the arrival of the first Palaeoindians during 20000 BC – 11000 BC, and ended with the Maya development of ceramics during 2000 BC – 900 BC.
The Preclassic or Formative Period of Belizean, Maya, and Mesoamerican history began with the Maya development of ceramics during 2000 BC – 900 BC, and ended with the advent of Mayan monumental inscriptions in 250 AD.
References
- ↑ Iannone, Gyles (2005). "The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Maya Petty Royal Court". Latin American Antiquity. 16 (1): 27. doi:10.2307/30042485. JSTOR 30042485. S2CID 164100484.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Hills, Kendall Blair (October 2012). A Contextual Analysis of the Artifact Assemblage from the Epicenter of the Ancient Maya Site of Minanha, Belize (Masters of Arts thesis). Trent University. ProQuest 1180101482.
- 1 2 3 4 Iannone, Gyles (2005). "The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Maya Petty Royal Court". Latin American Antiquity. 16 (1): 29. doi:10.2307/30042485. JSTOR 30042485. S2CID 164100484.
- ↑ Iannone, Gyles (2005). "The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Maya Petty Royal Court". Latin American Antiquity. 16 (1): 31. doi:10.2307/30042485. JSTOR 30042485. S2CID 164100484.
- 1 2 Iannone, Gyles (2005). "The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Maya Petty Royal Court". Latin American Antiquity. 16 (1): 32. doi:10.2307/30042485. JSTOR 30042485. S2CID 164100484.
- 1 2 Iannone, Gyles (2010). "Collective Memory in the Frontiers: A Case Study from the Ancient Maya Center of Minanha, Belize". Ancient Mesoamerica. 21 (2): 360. doi:10.1017/S0956536110000258. S2CID 144492380.
- 1 2 3 Iannone, Gyles (2010). "Collective Memory in the Frontiers: A Case Study from the Ancient Maya Center of Minanha, Belize". Ancient Mesoamerica. 21 (2): 361. doi:10.1017/S0956536110000258. S2CID 144492380.
