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Title: Preceramic Cultural History in Southern Belize and its Environmental Context.
This paper presents the environmental context for Early Holocene cultural developments in southern Belize and describes three archaeological sites that are producing evidence of human activities starting at the end of the last ice age and continuing until the advent of agriculture. It is well known that humans colonized Central America by at least 10,500 BC, and likely earlier (Chatters et al. 2014; Kennett et al. 2017). Central America formed a bottleneck for humans migrating from North to South America, and given its diverse geology, climate, and tropical resources it is not surprising that people successfully exploited this region throughout the Holocene. We focus this discussion primarily on the context for early humans in southern Belize, but also draw broadly on well-documented archaeological accounts from elsewhere in the region.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1632061
NSF-PAR ID:
10113267
Author(s) / Creator(s):
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Research reports in Belizean archaeology
Volume:
15
ISSN:
2079-1038
Page Range / eLocation ID:
241-251
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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