Ritual Landscapes of the Caves Branch River Valley

Journal of Cave and Karst Studies, 2013

Archaeological investigations of the Overlook Rockshelter in the Caves Branch River Valley of central Belize offer a unique view of ancient Maya cave ritual through the complete recovery and analysis of all artifacts within the site’s two small activity areas. In general, the assemblage contains many of the same types of objects documented from other nearby caves and rockshelters. However, the nearly 1700 ceramics sherds showed almost no refits, demonstrating that sherds were deposited at the site individually, rather than as complete vessels. The human bone assemblage represents three or four individuals, with the majority of the bones comprising a single individual, and all of these were deposited as incomplete secondary interments. Analogies for this depositional behavior based on archaeological and ethnographic studies suggest that this rockshelter may represent a waypoint within a ritual circuit composed of multiple locations over which fragments of complete items such as ceramic vessels and secondary burials were spread.

… Maya lowlands: papers of the 2006 …, 2006

Cave studies have traditionally relied heavily on ethnographic or ethnohistoric analogy to understand the sacred context of M~soamerican caves. What is little understood are the behavioral processes that produced the artifact assembla?es In c~ves and the nature ofthe relationship between caves and their ancient users residing in surrounding surface sztes. Thzs study demonstrates that caves can provide information that is useful in broader research arenas. A Late Classic hiatus in cave use is described and correlated with regional sociopolitical stress. This correlation dem~nstrates th~f caves were not just venues for worshipping rain deities but were important political spaces that requzred protectIOn from enemies.

Peter Richards and John Front Cover: Photo of the female skeletal remains at Actun Tunich Hill Muknal (Photograph courtesy Jaime Awe).

Heart of Earth: Studies in Maya Ritual Cave Use, edited by James E. Brady, pp. 83-94. Bulletin No. 23, Association for Mexican Cave Studies, Austin, 2012

Journal of Cave and Karst Studies, 2013

Archaeological investigations of the Overlook Rockshelter in the Caves Branch River Valley of central Belize offer a unique view of ancient Maya cave ritual through the complete recovery and analysis of all artifacts within the site's two small activity areas. In general, the assemblage contains many of the same types of objects documented from other nearby caves and rockshelters. However, the nearly 1700 ceramics sherds showed almost no refits, demonstrating that sherds were deposited at the site individually, rather than as complete vessels. The human bone assemblage represents three or four individuals, with the majority of the bones comprising a single individual, and all of these were deposited as incomplete secondary interments. Analogies for this depositional behavior based on archaeological and ethnographic studies suggest that this rockshelter may represent a waypoint within a ritual circuit composed of multiple locations over which fragments of complete items such as ceramic vessels and secondary burials were spread.

Research conducted on the Northern Vaca Plateau in west-central Belize has discovered numerous caves that were utilized by the Maya. In particular, Ch'en P'ix appears to have been used for religious activities, including autosacrificial bloodletting. A constructed platform in the cave was excavated in 1998, and a nearly complete tripod plate (the Ch'en P'ix Tripod) was recovered. This plate depicts a seated single figure that appears to be catching blood dripping from his right hand, in a vessel held in the left hand, and on a loincloth spread in front of the figure. We think that the Ch'en P'ix Tripod was probably used for collecting blood scattered during ritual events conducted on the platform, and we offer the following interpretation. A platform was constructed within Ch'en P'ix (with a speleothem-bordered path leading from the entrance drop to this platform) that was used for ritual activities. One ritual activity involved bloodletting, and a plate depicting autosacrificial bloodletting (the Ch'en P'ix Tripod) was used during this ceremony. The Tripod plate not only depicts the scene, but we also think it was used for collecting blood during the ritual. Upon completion of the ritual, the plate was broken on the platform as an offering. These events might have taken place in Ch'en P'ix sometime during the Late Classic period.

Dissertation, 2002

This project investigates the use of the sacred landscape at two Classic Period (A.D.

Antiquity

The Central Belize Archaeological Survey (CBAS) was initiated in 2005 as a sub-project of the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance project (BVAR; directed by Jaime Awe) to investigate the prehistoric Maya cemetery site of Caves Branch Rockshelter. Subsequently, we began to survey other nearby cave and rockshelter sites (Hardy 2009) and to excavate the monumental civic-ceremonial centre of Deep Valley (Jordan 2008). CBAS became an independent project in 2009, with an increasing focus on sites in the neighbouring Roaring Creek Valley (Figure 1). This slight geographic shift was in part intended to expand bioarchaeological investigations to include dark zone cave contexts identified during the late 1990s by BVAR's Western Belize Regional Cave Project. In the area around these caves, we identified two large, previously unreported civic-ceremonial centres and a network of raised roads (sacbeob) connecting them and other sites. Our survey and excavations at Tipan Chen Uitz (Fig...