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1. The Ancient Maya of the Caribbean Coast: A View from Wild Cane Cay, Belize

   McKillop, Heather (January 2024, Mar Caribe)

   Lyell, Victoria (Ed.)

   There are contrasting models for the role of coastal trading ports in the Maya economy throughout prehistory, but particularly in the Terminal Classic (A.D. 800-1000). Hammond (1972) presented a model of obsidian trade from the Maya highlands to the lowlands, in which El Chayal source obsidian was transported via inland routes, whereas Ixtepeque obsidian was traded along the Caribbean coast and then inland via rivers to the southern Maya lowland cities. Healy et al. (1984) and McKillop et al. (1988) suggested that obsidian from both sources was transported along the Caribbean coast but that El Chayal was the dominant source used in the Classic period and Ixtepeque during the Terminal and Postclassic periods. Hammond (1976) suggested that offshore trading ports were used as transshipment stations between maritime and riverine routes. This model was adopted by various researchers (Andrews et al. 1989; Cobos 2023; Guderjan and Garber 1995; Graham and Pendergast 1989; McKillop 2004, 2005a). Cobos (2023) asserts that after the abandonment of inland cities in the southern Maya lowlands at the end of the Classic period, the northern Yucatecan city of Chichen Itza developed a redistributive economy based on tribute and controlled trading ports around the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico and Belize. In the Classic period, the island trading port of Wild Cane Cay was integrated into a regional network of trade between the coast and inland communities. The inland trade was anchored by the dietary need for salt, produced on the coast but absent inland where this basic dietary necessity was in demand. The pattern of coastal-inland trade was replicated along the Caribbean coast of Belize and the Yucatan. Abandonment of inland settlements at the end of the Classic period did not end coastal settlement. Evidence presented in this paper illustrates that Wild Cane Cay was as an independent trading port integrated into a regional marketplace economy and not a node on a redistribution/tribute route controlled by Chichen Itza. 

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2. New light on the use of Theobroma cacao by Late Classic Maya

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2121821119  

   Ford, Anabel; Williams, Ann; de Vries, Mattanjah S. (October 2022, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   Cacao seeds, Theobroma cacao , provide the basis for a ceremonially important Mesoamerican food. Past efforts to identify cacao in ceramics focused on highly decorative vessel forms associated with elite ceremonial contexts, creating assumptions as to how cacao was distributed and who could access it. This study examines 54 archaeological ceramic sherds from El Pilar (Belize/Guatemala) of Late Classic (600 to 900 CE) residential and civic contexts representing a cross-section of ancient Maya inhabitants. Identification of cacao in ancient sherds has depended on the general presence of theobromine; we used the discrete presence of theophylline, a unique key biomarker for cacao in the region. Analysis was done by grinding off all outside surfaces to reduce contamination, pulverizing the inner clay matrix, extracting absorbed molecules, and concentrating the extractions. In order to obtain especially high selectivity and low limits of detection, our study utilized the technique of resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionization coupled with laser-desorption jet-cooling mass spectrometry. This technique isolates molecules in the cold gas phase where they can be selectively ionized through a resonant two-photon process. Of the sherds analyzed, 30 samples (56%) were found to contain significant amounts of theophylline and thus test positive for cacao. Importantly, cacao is present in all contexts, common to all Maya residents near and far from centers. 

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3. Surplus Household production in the Classic Maya economy

   McKillop, Heather (April 2022, Seven Millennia of Salt making)

   Plata, Alberto (Ed.)

   Survey and excavation of wooden buildings and associated briquetage at the Paynes Creek Salt Works indicate salt was produced by households in salt kitchens at sites that were submerged by sealevel rise. The sites are underwater in a salt-water lagoon system on the southern coast of Belize, Central America. The wood was preserved in red mangrove (Rhizophora mangle) peat that provided an anaerobic matrix for building posts that were driven into the ground when the pole and thatch salt kitchens were built. Brine was increased in salinity by pouring it over salty soil in canoes, as evidenced by piles of discarded soil at the only two sites above water in the mangroves, as well as a wooden canoe. The brine was boiled in pots over fires in the salt kitchens. Salt cakes and salted fish were transported by canoe up nearby rivers to inland communities where salt was scarce. As salt cakes, they became commodities that could be stored, traded, or kept for subsequent transactions, as currency equivalencies. The implications for salt production in the Maya area during the Classic period civilization (A.D. 300-900) are discussed with reference to other salt works lacking wooden buildings. 

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4. Sea-level rise and settlement at Ek Way Nal: Coring the past

   Foster, Cher; McKillop, Heather; Sills, E Cory (July 2023, Research reports in Belizean archaeology)

   Excavations in the spring and summer of 2022 were carried out at the underwater ancient Maya salt work of Ek Way Nal in Punta Ycacos Lagoon, Paynes Creek National Park, Belize. Ek Way Nal provided salt to the ancient Maya during the Late and Terminal Classic periods (600-900 C.E.). In additional to excavations in buildings at the site, a 1 X 2 m unit was excavated to extract a sediment column for examining the relationship between the ancient Maya settlement at Ek Way Nal and sea-level rise. In this article, the excavations, extraction of the sediment column, and processing it for laboratory analyses are described. Field observations are discussed. Fine red mangrove root (Rhizophora mangle) and charcoal samples were extracted from the sediment column for radiocarbon dating. The results from the datum core excavation indicate that sea-level rise occurred before, during, and after the ancient Maya occupation at Ek Way Nal. 

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5. THE IMPORTANCE OF USING SEDIMENT CHEMISTRY TO INTERPRET ANCIENT MAYA SALT MAKING ACTIVITIES AT THE PAYNES CREEK SALT WORKS

   Sills, E Cory; McKillop, Heather (July 2023, Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology)

   Chemical analysis of soils and sediments are useful for finding activities and defining space not readily apparent in the artifact assemblage due to varied preservation. In the Maya cultural area, chemical analysis of anthropogenic and naturogenic terrestrial soils and marine sediments have been used to find activities that occurred at ancient Maya sites both inside and outside of buildings. The Underwater Maya project has adapted soil chemistry, usually conducted at terrestrial sites, to the submerged Paynes Creek Salt Works. The acidic red mangrove peat has remarkably preserved wooden posts that form the outline of buildings and botanical remains but does not preserve bone or shell. The differential preservation at the salt works could obscure the full plethora of activities taking place, under shadowing the complexity of production of salt for the Late Classic Maya. In this paper, we discuss the importance of soil and sediment chemistry analysis in the Maya are, methods for sampling sediment at the Paynes Creek Salt Works, and the chemical signatures of human activity that are most likely to occur at the salt works. 

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