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The Prehistory of Belizelhammond Mon Down to the 10 M The Prehistoryof Belize NorrnanHammond Rutgers University New Brunswick, New Jersey Belize, CentralAmerica, has been the location of manyinnovative research projects in Maya archaeology.Over the past generationseveral problem-ori- entedprojects have contributedsignificantly to a new understandingof an- cient Maya subsistenceand settlement,and increasedthe knowntime span of Maya culture.An historicalreview of researchin Belize is followed by a resumeof the currentstate of knowledgeand an indicationoffuture research potential. Introduction in which flow the major perennial rivers, the Hondo and Belize, a small nation on the Caribbeancoast of Central Nuevo, and the smaller Freshwater Creek. The Hondo America, occupies part of the territoryin which the Maya is one of the principal rivers of the Maya lowland zone civilization flourished during the 1st millennium A.C., and has a basin draining northernPeten and part of south- with an apogee in the Classic Period of 250-900 A.C. ern Campeche, an area often dubbed the "Maya Heart- The political history of Belize over the past 200 years land" and containing major sites such as Tikal; the river as a British colony (known until 1973 as British Hon- has throughoutMaya prehistory acted as a corridor to the duras), and now as an independent nation, has engen- Caribbean. Several large lagoons interrupt the courses dered a history of archaeological research distinct from of the Nuevo and Freshwater Creek, and were foci of that in the Spanish-speaking countries that comprise the ancient Maya settlement. The coast of northern Belize remainder of the Maya area (Mexico, Guatemala, Hon- is swampy, with mangrove stands building seawards, and duras, El Salvador). This circumstance, together with the the relationship between the shoreline and the ancient work of several significant projects in Belize over the settlement pattern has demonstrably changed over the past generation, justifies an assessment of the prehistory past millennium. of Belize as it is currently understood. The southern half of Belize is dominated by the Pa- leozoic horstof the Maya Mountains, a massif comprised Geography of granites, metamorphosed sandstones, and other acidic rocks.2 The main divide Belize is ca. 290 km. from north to south and ca. 100 is at ca. 1100 m. and the highest point, Victoria Peak in km. east-west, lying within the Tropic of Cancer at the isolated Cockscomb Range, has an elevation of 1132 m. Outwash sands 16O-18O3OTNand 88°-89°w (FIG. 1). On the east it is from the massif cover large areas bordered by the Caribbean Sea, the mainland coast pro- of the surrounding coastal low- lands to form an infertile tected by lines of coral and mangrove islands called cays soil supporting a pine savanna locally termed "Pine and by a barrierreef. The Rio Hondo, and Chetumal Bay Ridge". This is not suited to arable farming and has into which it debouches, forms the frontier with Mexico supported little ancient or modern set- tlement, although exploited for on the north and NW, and surveyed alignments through hunting by the ancient Maya and the forest define the border with the Guatemalan De- utilized also by preceramic occupants of the country. Rivers in partmentof El Peten on the west. The Rio Sarstoon forms southern Belize are short and markedly the southern frontier with Guatemala, where the latter country extends to the Carribbean shore. ography of northern Belize,'' in N. Hammond, ed., Cuello Project 1978 Interim Report. Publications of the The Archaeologial Research Pro- Belize River divides the country into contrasting gram, Rutgers University 1 (New Brunswick 1978) 79-87. halves (FIG. 2): the northern consists of low limestone 2. C. G. Dixon, Geology of Southern British Honduras with Notes ridges trending SSW-NNE, separated by synclinal folds' on Adjacent Areas (Government Printer: Belize City 1955); idem, in A. C. S. Wright, D. H. Romney, R. H. Arbuckle and V. E. Vial, Land in British Honduras (Her Majesty's Stationery Office: London 1. Roy Charles McDonald, ''Preliminary report on the physical ge- 1959) 23-24. .S ._.Ji }',.,.,' .... '.,., : '.', : o 350 ThePrehistory of Belize/Hammond Dzibbt -/ ChichenItza o / Mayapan o W>w{*oot oo45 / !_._ YUCATAN :o:o:r:w:w:.:.:mi j'$ _._ Loltull Cave '. O ' , ' QUINTANAROO \ ,, \ ./ _ i'\,/ CX Bay of Campeche F '' U ii A i ':'^s nO ! Xt .S, , Sea PACIFIC Figure 1. The Maya area, showing the location of Belize and important sites outside it. Journal of Field ArchaeologylVol. 9^ 1982 351 Figure2. Topographyand ancientMaya sites in Belize. seasonalin flow; like those of the north, they debouch result of human interference in the past and possess a into the Caribbean,except for a few small tributariesof high proportion of economically useful species.4 In gen- the Pasion in the extremesw. eral, prehistoric settlements have been found most abun- The naturalvegetation of the limestoneareas is a trop- dantly in areas of limestone geology, free-draining soils, ical broadleafforest,3 becoming more open in the uplands and original broadleaf forest. The higher rainfall in the wherethe climate is subtropicaland giving way to pine south (where the climate is of Koeppen's Afw' type; in savannaon the mountainplateau and along the coastal the north it is Amw') during the May-to-December rainy plain. Several prominentplant associationswithin the season has led to the 25 m. contour being the baseline forest, including"Cohune Ridge" dominatedby Orbi- for most ancient habitation, while in the north it is com- gyna cohune (Dahlgren)and the aptly-named"ruinal" found in the vicinity of Maya ruins, are probablythe 4. J. D. H. Lambert and T. Arnason, "Distribution of vegetation on Maya ruins and its relationship to ancient land-use at Lamanai, Be- 3. Wright et al., op. cit. (in note 2) 29-31. lize," Turrialba 28:1 (1978) 33-41. 352 The Prehistory of BelizelHammond mon down to the 10 m. contourand not infrequentat around Tzimin Kax (Mountain Cow) in the western foot- lower elevations.5 hills of the Maya Mountains, which yielded information on settlement pattern as well as the small ceremonial Developmentof Archaeologyin Belize precincts and their monuments, l° were coupled with eth- The historyof Maya archaeologymay be dividedinto nographic work that detected pre-Columbian survivals five successiveperiods.6 During the periodsof the Span- in ritual and myth. l l Thompson followed this project by ish Travelers ( 1550- 1759) and Spanish Explorers one at the site of San Jose, north of the Belize River, (1759-1840) Belize remainedunnoted, and little atten- where between 1930 and 1936 he examined what he tion was paid to the area duringmost of the following explicitly hoped to have been an "average" ceremonial periodof the MajorScholars (1840-1924), althoughby center, in contrast to the coeval major projects of the the end of the l9th century the ceremonialcenters of C .I.W. at Uaxactun and Chichen Itza. 12 Thompson him- Lubaantun(Rio Grande) and Xunantunich (Benque self joined the C . I. W. staff in 1935 and remained a potent Viejo) had been reported,and the first importantexca- force in Maya studies until his death in 1975; during the vationin Belize was camed out in 1896 at SantaRita by early 1930s he promulgated the concept of the "cere- ThomasGann.7 From then untilthe mid-1920sGann did monial center" as an empty ritual precinct amid scattered most of the archaeologicalwork in the colony, in the rural settlement (in contrast to the "preindustrial city" intervalsof his careeras chief medical officer; he con- model then implicitly accepted), and saw it become the tinuedto be active until 1936, and produceda series of controlling model in Maya settlement studies for a reportswhich, althoughnot detailed,are still useful.8He generation. 13 also sentback large collections of materialfrom Nohmul, During the second part of the Institutionalperiod, after SantaRita, and other sites to museumsin Britain, and 1945, there were other innovative projects in Belize. severalother scholars made small collections from Belize Gordon R. Willey brought to Maya archaeology the set- in the years up to the Second WorldWar. tlement-pattern study techniques inspired by Julian H. Early in the lnstitutionalPeriod (1924-1970), nearly Steward and pioneered by Willey in the Viru valley of half a centuryduring which the dominantinstitution in north coastal Peru,l4 and used them to frame the first Mayaarchaeology was the CarnegieInstitution of Wash- regional settlement study in the Maya area, the Belize ington (C.I.W.) throughits Division of HistoricalRe- Valley project of 1953-1956.15 The focus of the project searchunder Alfred V. Kidderand SylvanusG. Morley, was the riparian residential zone of Barton Ramie, de- the British Museummounted one of its rare American liberately selected for its distance from any ceremonial expeditionsto the colony, exploringthe southernsites center. of Lubaantun(1926- 1927) andPusilha (1928- 1930) and The Belize Valley project became the model for a removingstelae and ceramicsto London.9Only prelim- quartercentury of regional surveys and settlement studies inaryreports were published. that have resulted in much wider knowledge of the dis- One of the Lubaantunstaff, J. Eric S. Thompson, tribution and nature of lowland Maya culture outside the returnedto Belize in 1928-1929 for the Field Museum major sites. Several investigations contributing to this of Chicago,and begana series of innovativestudies that new orthodoxy took place in Belize, making it one of the influencedMaya archaeologywidely. His excavations 10. J. E. S. Thompson, Archaeological Investigations in the Southern Cayo District, British Honduras. FieldMusAnthSer 17:3 (Chicago 5. Wright et al., op. cit. (in note 2) 110-115; Norman Hammond, 193 1). Lubaantun: A Classic Maya Realm. MonoPM 2 (Cambridge 1975) 111. 11. Idem, Ethnology of the Mayas of Central and Southern British Honduras. FieldMusAnthSer 17:2 (Chicago 1930). 6. Norman Hammond, Ancient Maya Civilization (Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick 1982) 33-66. 12.
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