Terminal Pleistocene Through Middle Holocene Occupations in Southeastern Mesoamerica: Linking Ecology and Culture in the Context of Neotropical Foragers and Early Farmers

Abstract

Data from rock shelters in southern Belize show evidence of tool making, hunting, and aquatic resource exploitation by 10,500 cal b.c.; the shelters functioned as mortuary sites between 7600 and 2000 cal b.c. Early Holocene contexts contain stemmed and barbed bifaces as part of a tradition found broadly throughout the neotropics. After around 6000 cal b.c., bifacial tools largely disappear from the record, likely reflecting a shift to increasing reliance on plant foods, around the same time that the earliest domesticates appear in the archaeological record in the neotropics. We suggest that people living in southern Belize maintained close ties with neighbors to the south during the Early Holocene, but lagged behind in innovating new crops and farming technologies during the Middle Holocene. Maize farming in Belize intensified between 2750–2050 cal b.c. as maize became a dietary staple, 1000–1300 years later than in South America. Overall, we argue from multiple lines of data that the Neotropics of Central and South America were an area of shared information and technologies that heavily influenced cultural developments in southeastern Mesoamerica during the Early and Middle Holocene.

Archaic Period Lithic Technology, Sedentism, and Subsistence in Northern Belize: What Can Debitage at Caye Coco and Fred Smith Tell Us?

“…In southern Belize, a beveled biface fragment and three, possibly four, Lowe points have been recovered from radiocarbon-dated Late Paleoindian–Early Archaic deposits, as have other types of chipped stone tools, such as choppers, awls, and various scraper forms (Prufer et al 2019, 2021). Expediently made stone tools and debitage occur throughout the occupation sequence, but stemmed points and bifacial thinning flakes are not found after about 6000 cal BC in these rockshelter deposits (Prufer et al 2021:30). The preceramic lithic assemblages in the southern Belize rockshelters consist mostly of expedient tools and debitage produced through hard-hammer percussion.…”

“…The date provided for the Lowe point (2210 cal BC; Beta-48992) by Pohl and coauthors (1996:359, Figure 3) may come from a depositional context that was disturbed, given the Early Archaic dates for this point type in southern Belize (Prufer et al 2019, 2021).…”

“…8000–1000 BC) were identified and their presence regionally documented (see Hester et al 1980, 1981; Lohse et al 2006; MacNeish and Nelken-Terner 1983a, 1983b; Zeitlin 1984; Zeitlin and Zeitlin 2000). Radiocarbon dates for some of the earliest occupations with abundant quantities of lithics come from caves and rockshelters, such as El Gigante in Honduras (Iceland and Hirth 2021; Scheffler 2008; Scheffler et al 2012); Los Grifos and Santa Marta in Chiapas, Mexico (Acosta Ochoa 2010; Acosta Ochoa et al 2019; García-Bárcena and Santamaría 1982; Lohse 2021; Santamaría 1981); and Mayahak Cab Pek, Saki Tzul, and Tzibte Yux in southern Belize (Prufer and Kennett 2020; Prufer et al 2017, 2019, 2021; Figure 1). In northern Belize, radiocarbon dates confirm the use of Archaic period stone tools, notably a hammerstone and a plano-convex biface with adherent cultigen starch grains (maize, squash, manioc, and chili pepper) at Caye Coco, an island site in the Freshwater Creek drainage (Rosenswig et al 2014:316, Table 2), and a stemmed Lowe point and a constricted uniface from organic wetland soil that also contained maize pollen at Pulltrouser Swamp 1 (Pohl et al 1996:359, 362, Figure 3).…”

“…) may come from a depositional context that was disturbed, given the Early Archaic dates for this point type in southern Belize (Prufer et al 2019(Prufer et al , 2021.…”

Ancient Lowland Maya neighborhoods: Average Nearest Neighbor analysis and kernel density models, environments, and urban scale

“…Ecologically, the Lowlands include mountainous regions, rolling foothills, fertile river valleys, patchy grasslands, steep escarpments, plains, wetlands, and coastal environments. Foragers moved into the region by 12,500 BCE, adapting to the diverse ecosystems, before eventually cultivating Zea mays (maize) as a staple crop and building small agricultural villages [ 80 , 81 ]. The earliest archaeological evidence for permanent masonry structures in the Maya Lowlands dates to approximately 1200 BCE [ 82 – 84 ].…”