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PUBLIC ARCHITECTURE, RITUAL, AND TEMPORAL DYNAMICS AT THE MAYA CENTER OF BLUE CREEK, BELIZE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2004

Thomas H. Guderjan
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Criminal Justice and Anthropology and Maya Research Program, Texas Christian University, TCU Box 298760, Fort Worth, TX 76129, USA

Abstract

This paper summarizes more than a decade of excavations in the monumental core precinct of the Maya center of Blue Creek in northwestern Belize. Extensive and intensive excavations at Blue Creek have been undertaken since 1992. Consequently, a large database has been accumulated, particularly regarding the Early Classic period. Although occupation at Blue Creek dates to the Early Preclassic period (900 b.c.), complex society and, probably, the installation of Blue Creek's first king occurred at about a.d. 100, in the Late Preclassic period. For the next several hundred years, Blue Creek grew in population and complexity, finally being abandoned at some time in the ninth century a.d.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

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