Moreover, this mixing severely hampers reconstructions of diachronic change in stone-tool use in the rockshelter. Interpretations are complicated, however, by the severe mixing of deposits, which makes segregating the lithic artifacts into different reduction or use events nearly impossible. To test whether such a pattern exists, lithic data from Caves Branch Rockshelter and other rockshelters in Belize, specifically those in the Sibun Valley and the Ek Xux Valley, are compared. This rockshelter, located in the Caves Branch River Valley of central Belize, was primarily used by the ancient Maya from the Late Preclassic to Terminal Classic periods (AD 80–950) and may demonstrate a pattern of rockshelter usage by the Classic periodMaya. This paper discusses the technological and microscopic use-wear analyses of the chert debitage excavated from Deep Valley Rockshelter. The finds reveal a sophisticated knowledge of musical instrument construction and a high degree of creativity. A section documenting the types of aerophones present at Cahal Pech and Blackman Eddy and reviewing the contextual data will follow. Therefore, it is my purpose in this paper to suggest an open-ended typology of ancient Maya ceramic aerophones that uses more explicit criteria for classification. Standardized classification of ancient Maya ceramic aerophones would be beneficial to understanding more about the music that permeated many parts of ancient Maya society, including ritual and religion.
It is necessary that archaeologists, ethnomusicologists and archaeomusicologists use musical instrument classification terms and concepts correctly and with consistency. In fact, a common classificatory procedure has been to refer to flutes, ocarinas and whistles as the same instrument. Standardized classification of ancient Maya ceramic aerophones is lacking in literature pertaining to the musical practices of the ancient Maya. Such studies must explicitly seek out variability within this corpus as it is clear that even small sites may have served as important nodes within larger networks. We suggest that we have been remiss in treating such contexts in isolation, and that the scale of ritual studies within the Maya area needs to be expanded from those focused on individual deposits to broad analyses on the landscape or regional scale. Contexts discussed in this paper are of a decidedly ritual nature, including deep caves, tombs and burials, caches, and other deposits. We align our discussion with the related concepts of fragmentation and enchainment and apply these to a dataset derived from study of the ancient Maya of Belize. But what if this is a mistake? What if, in ignoring this question, we are failing to consider the socio-cultural role that the fragments themselves may have played? In this paper we address these questions, outlining a particular pattern of intentional breakage and the subsequent distribution of the resulting fragments across multiple distinct locales/individuals. These deposits also demonstrate a diverse subsistence pattern relying on a variety of small game and invertebrate resources.Īrchaeologists are often confronted with broken objects, and the recovery of only part of an object therefore rarely causes us to question why we have not recovered more. 14C dates of materials from Tzib'te Yux reveal that the earliest occupation of the rockshelter occurred in the late Pleistocene making it the earliest stratified archaeological deposit currently documented in the Southern Maya Lowlands. Methods of analysis of Pachychilus shells are also considered with particular emphasis on sample preparation when conducting carbonate polymorph analysis, concluding that boiling leaves no detectable signal in shell remains. FT-IR analysis of Pachychilus shells recovered from Tzib’te Yux Rockshelter demonstrate that shell materials were not subjected to burning prior to deposition and were likely processed in situ. Survey of the mountainous area south of Uxbenká revealed two previously undocumented rockshelters and two complexes of small cave sites containing artifacts possibly relating to performance of circuit rituals delineating space associated with maintaining political authority at the polity.
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