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OPINIONS ON THE LOWLAND MAYA LATE ARCHAIC PERIOD WITH SOME EVIDENCE FROM NORTHERN BELIZE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 December 2021

Robert M. Rosenswig Open the ORCID record for Robert M. Rosenswig [Opens in a new window]
Robert M. Rosenswig*
Affiliation:
University at Albany—SUNY, Department of Anthropology, AS 237, 1400 Washington Ave., Albany, New York 12222, United States
*
E-mail correspondence to: [email protected]
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Abstract

The fourth millennium b.p. in the Maya lowlands provides an interesting case, with mobile, aceramic peoples documented, while ceramic-using villagers lived in other parts of Mesoamerica. Rather than ask why ceramic containers and village life took so long to reach the Maya lowlands, the question can be inverted to posit that a mixed horticultural-foraging adaptation was so effective that it persisted longer than elsewhere. I propose that the so-called 4.2 ka b.p. event was the ultimate cause of increased sedentism and the first adoption of ceramic containers in a limited number of regions of Mesoamerica. My musings are grounded in the comparisons of data from the Soconusco region of southern Mexico and evidence from northern Belize at Colha and Pulltrouser Swamp, as well as the Freshwater Creek drainage. I assume that proximate behavior must account for local adaptations and different rates of change in each region of Mesoamerica. Therefore, regional adaptation in northern Belize during the Late Archaic period provides the evidence with which to reconstruct local adaptation. Excavations and regional reconnaissance document a distinctive orange soil horizon at Progresso Lagoon associated with patinated chert tools and an absence of ceramics. Stone tool assemblages from the preceramic components of three sites in the region indicate a spatial separation of tool use and resharpening at island versus shore. Starch grains recovered from these stone tools indicate that preceramic peoples in northern Belize harvested maize and several other domesticated plant species. These data are consistent with local paleoenvironmental studies that document an extended period of horticultural activity during the fifth and fourth millennia b.p. prior to the adoption of ceramics. Lithic assemblages and associated dietary information from multiple sites provide glimpses of the data necessary to reconstruct Late Archaic period adaptation from a single locale. Such data will be required to understand the proximate causes for the transition to a more settled, village life.

Type
Special Section: The Preceramic and Early Ceramic Periods in Belize and the Central Maya Lowlands
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , Fall 2021 , pp. 461 - 474
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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