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Selected Works

2015

Quintana Roo

Articles 1 - 8 of 8

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Jungle Rails: A Historic Narrow-Gauge Railway In Quintana Roo, Jennifer Mathews, Lilia Lizama-Rogers Nov 2015

Jungle Rails: A Historic Narrow-Gauge Railway In Quintana Roo, Jennifer Mathews, Lilia Lizama-Rogers

Jennifer P Mathews

Whereas much of this volume is focused on the ancient Maya, this chapter will highlight the historic chicle industry; the associated railway that traversed the northern corner of Quintana Roo, Mexico; and the recent documentation of the feature through archaeological fieldwork. We believe this to be an important slice of history in Quintana Roo because the lives of the modern Maya often lie in the shadow of their ancient ancestors. Since 1997, members of the Yalahau Regional Human Ecology Project have been studying the 40 km railway, which runs between the modern pueblos of Leona Vicario and Puerto Morelos (Mathews …


The Hidden World Of The Maritime Maya: Lost Landscapes Along The North Coast Of Quintana Roo, Mexico, Jeffrey Glover, Dominique Rissolo, Jennifer Mathews Nov 2015

The Hidden World Of The Maritime Maya: Lost Landscapes Along The North Coast Of Quintana Roo, Mexico, Jeffrey Glover, Dominique Rissolo, Jennifer Mathews

Jennifer P Mathews

At the northeast tip of the Yucatán Peninsula - where the Caribbean meets the Gulf of Mexico - lies a wild and largely unexplored coastline that bore witness to one of the greatest seafaring traditions of the ancient New World (Fig. 11.1). Maya traders once plied the waters of the Laguna Holbox in massive dugout canoes filled with goods from across Mesoamerica (Thompson 1949; Edwards 1973, p. 201; Romero 1991; Romero and Gurrola Briones 1991, 1995; Leshikar 1996). Each port was a link in a chain connecting people and ideas, and supporting the ambitions of city and state. Maritime trade …


Archaeologists Working With The Contemporary Yucatec Maya, Dominique Rissolo, Jennifer Mathews Nov 2015

Archaeologists Working With The Contemporary Yucatec Maya, Dominique Rissolo, Jennifer Mathews

Jennifer P Mathews

The nature of an archaeological project often requires that researchers establish a temporary residence in a local community. Concern for conditions that affect, and are affected by, their presence in this new place and space is often considered peripheral to the task of realizing research objectives. In fact, many archaeologists would admit to enjoying a certain sense of security in their perceived temporal, and therefore legitimized, dislocation from their object of study. In the most extreme cases, an archaeologist might resemble a geologist – extracting, observing, or examining symbolically inert physical material with little regard to contemporary cultural contexts.


The Yalahau Regional Human Ecology Project: An Introduction And Summary Of Recent Research, Scott Fedick, Jennifer Mathews Nov 2015

The Yalahau Regional Human Ecology Project: An Introduction And Summary Of Recent Research, Scott Fedick, Jennifer Mathews

Jennifer P Mathews

The Yalahau Regional Human Ecology Project was initiated in 1993 to investigate ancient Maya settlement patterns, land use, and political organization within a unique wetland-dominated environmental region of northern Quintana Roo, Mexico (see fig. 2.1). Although the Yucatán Peninsula has seen a great deal of archaeological research over the last several decades, the northeastern corner has been one of the least examined areas of the northern Maya lowlands. Prior to the initiation of the Yalahau project, little archaeological investigation had been conducted in the region beyond brief visits and preliminary investigations by Alberto Escalona Ramos in 1937 (1946), William Sanders …


Late Formative And Early Classic Interaction Spheres Reflected In The Megalithic Styles, Jennifer Mathews, Rubén Cárdenas Nov 2015

Late Formative And Early Classic Interaction Spheres Reflected In The Megalithic Styles, Jennifer Mathews, Rubén Cárdenas

Jennifer P Mathews

Interpreting the politics of the Late Formative and Early Classic periods has special challenges. This chapter examines the topic in the Yucatán Peninsula through the concept of the interaction sphere, as reflected in shared architectural styles.


Yalahau Region, Jennifer Mathews Nov 2015

Yalahau Region, Jennifer Mathews

Jennifer P Mathews

This 3,000-km² region is located in northern Quintana Roo, Mexico, in the northeastern corner of the Yucatan Peninsula. The boundary of this region runs from the north coast 75 km southward, is 40 km wide, and is defined primarily by its unique water resources. It is characterized by a karstic limestone platform that contains only a few small lakes and no surface rivers. Despite this, it has the most abundant water sources of the entire peninsula. First, it receives the greatest annual rainfall of the northern Maya lowlands (up to 2,000 mm), which recharges an underground aquifer and contributes …


A Tale Of Two Projects: Comparative Findings Of The Cras And Yalahau Projects, Jennifer Mathews Nov 2015

A Tale Of Two Projects: Comparative Findings Of The Cras And Yalahau Projects, Jennifer Mathews

Jennifer P Mathews

I have worked with Justine M. Shaw in the Yucatán peninsula for more than 20 years, and it is a real pleasure to see the summation of her project's work thus far in this edited volume. As codirector of the Yalahau Regional Human Ecology Project (with Scott Fedick), I have worked to the north of the CRAS project in the Yalahau region of Quintana Roo. The CRAS and Yalahau projects have shared a similar trajectory for many years. Although both projects have focused several seasons on individual sites (for example, El Naranjal, T'isil, Vista Alegre, and Xuxub in the Yalahu …


Quintana Roo Archaeology, Justine Shaw, Jennifer Mathews Nov 2015

Quintana Roo Archaeology, Justine Shaw, Jennifer Mathews

Jennifer P Mathews

Mexico’s southern state of Quintana Roo is often perceived by archaeologists as a blank spot on the map of the Maya world, a region generally assumed to hold little of interest thanks to its relative isolation from the rest of Mexico. But salvage archaeology required by recent development along the “Maya Riviera,” along with a suite of other ongoing and recent research projects, have shown that the region was critical in connecting coastal and inland zones, and it is now viewed as an important area in its own right from Preclassic through post-contact times. The first volume devoted to the …