La Milpa, situated in northern Belize, stands out as one of the region's largest archaeological sites, having served as the capital of an ancient Maya city-state. Its significance is indicated by extensive monumental architecture, with the epicenter covering approximately 8.8 ha. The site's corpus of monuments, comprising 23 stelae and several altars, underscores its prominence in northern Belize, rivaling the corpora of sites such as Nim li Punit and Caracol. Despite its remote location, La Milpa has garnered the attention of researchers, particularly since the first modern survey of the site in 1988. Subsequent studies—in particular, that by Nikolai Grube in the 1990s—has provided detailed analyses of the site's corpus of carved monuments. Recent efforts, including epigraphic documentation in 2019, serve to enhance our understanding of La Milpa's dynastic history through traditional epigraphic and computational photographic methods. Utilizing field observations, raking light photography, and 3D photogrammetric models, we have refined previous analyses and provide new insights into the iconography and textual segments of the monuments. Here, we present the results of these recent efforts as well as our new analyses of a selection of monuments.

In this study, I use the type-variety-mode analysis to define the diagnostic ceramic material for the Ik'hubil Ceramic Complex dating to the Terminal Classic (ca. a.d. 780–930/1000). The percentages of shared ceramic content indicate that multiple sites in the mid-to-lower Sibun Valley are members of an Ik'hubil Ceramic Sphere. My preliminary analyses of sites in the lower Belize River valley suggest that the Ik'hubil Sphere may extend across a broader area of north-central Belize during the Terminal Classic, discrete from the Spanish Lookout Sphere in the upper Belize Valley. Northern Yucatec traits are identified in ceramics and architecture in the eastern Sibun and Belize Valleys, along with marked changes in foodways. The presence of trading diasporas and more intimate social relationships, such as intermarriage, may explain this mix of local and hybrid forms of material culture introduced by the ninth century in this part of the eastern Maya Lowlands.

This article revisits a long-neglected site in Northern Belize, the Classic Maya settlement of El Pozito, located in the Orange Walk District. Investigations led by Mary Neivens and Dennis Puleston explored the site between 1974 and 1976, documenting its architecture and recovering a substantial quantity of artifacts. Afterward, events conspired to bring these investigations to a close, leaving the site in a half-century scholarly limbo. The research here seeks to rectify this. Combining extant field notes with sporadic publications and recently conducted ceramic analysis, the authors reconstructed El Pozito's sequence of construction, occupation, and usage over 20 centuries. This new research revealed a settlement of surprising complexity, combining aspects of urban functionality amid a landscape of rural complexity. This article argues that the best way to understand such complexity is through the conceptual lens of a “town.” Neither a city nor a dispersed rural settlement, El Pozito functioned as a critical node that connected local, agrarian Maya with each other as well as the whole of the Classic Maya world. In this way, the research here seeks to rehabilitate this site, rescue it from its scholarly limbo, and restore its place in understanding the complex pre-Columbian landscapes of Northern Belize.

This article points to the 1820s as a crucial period that saw a great reversal in the location of sovereignty in Belize. The article employs two inflection points—first, an 1822 case of ‘Indian’ slaves from Mosquito Shore, and second, slave desertion in 1825—to point to unprecedented challenges to settler sovereignty over slavery in Belize that arose during the 1820s. While British amelioration allowed the metropolitan government to bring frontier and borderland regions within its legal purview, thus challenging settler autonomy, the concurrent event of Central American emancipation provided enslaved people in Belize additional opportunity to desert their masters at a moment when restitution of runaway slaves became increasingly difficult. Yet, this essay is about more than just the fracturing of settler sovereignty over slavery. Rather it also illuminates how settlers responded to these challenges by using force, diplomacy, and the print media. The settlers’ most potent response was in portraying Belizean slavery as ‘benign,’ creating a surprisingly robust narrative that would endure for generations. The essay illuminates how emancipation and imperialism remained inextricably linked in borderland areas such as Belize, which straddled the boundaries between Spanish America and the British Caribbean.

Salt is an essential commodity; archaeological remains around the world attest to the importance of its production, exchange and consumption. Often located in coastal locations, many production sites were submerged by rising seas, including the Paynes Creek Salt Works on the southern Belize coast. Survey and excavation of these sites has identified ‘kitchens’ for brine boiling, as well as Terminal Classic residential structures at Ek Way Nal. The authors report the discovery of an earlier residential building alongside salt kitchens at the nearby site of Ta'ab Nuk Na. This finding indicates that surplus household production began during the Late Classic, when demand for salt from inland cities was at its peak.

We analysed 23 years of data on strandings of the Antillean manatee Trichechus manatus manatus in Belize, documented by the Belize Marine Mammal Stranding Network, to examine the threats to this population. A total of 451 stranding incidents were reported, of which 376 (83.4%) cases were verified. A total of 286 (63.4%) of the incidents occurred within Belize District, where the number of strandings has almost tripled since 2009. Watercraft collisions accounted for the highest number of strandings, with 131 confirmed cases, and is the leading cause of anthropogenic mortality for this population. Collision with watercraft is an emerging and major threat to manatees in Belize, and is correlated with increases in human activity, in particular associated with tourism. This finding of high levels of manatee deaths in Belize is consistent with trends previously reported for manatees in Florida and Puerto Rico. This work can provide guidance to detect and address similar patterns of mortality in other Antillean manatee populations across the species' range. There is a need for greater awareness of the threats facing the species and its habitat, for stakeholder partnerships to address these threats, implementation of legislation for the protection of manatees, and consistent enforcement of regulations to protect this population. Boating regulations, such as no-wake zones within areas of high manatee presence, as well as regulation of tourism boating activities, need to be implemented to reduce the threats to the species.

Despite the abundance of lithic debitage at preceramic sites in the Maya Lowlands, these data have rarely been studied in detail. We analyzed the chipped chert debitage from Caye Coco and Fred Smith, two Archaic period sites in the Freshwater Creek drainage of northern Belize, to evaluate strategies of lithic raw material procurement, stone tool production, and tool use. The technological and use-wear analyses of the debitage demonstrate that the sites’ inhabitants procured most of their tool stone from the Northern Belize Chert-bearing Zone (NBCZ) and relied on hard-hammer percussion to produce flakes for use as expedient tools and some crude bifaces and unifaces. Although similar patterns of raw material procurement and tool production are demonstrated at both sites, some differences exist, including bipolar reduction at Caye Coco. Based on use-wear analysis, the debitage at the island site of Caye Coco was primarily used for working wood, shell, and hard contact materials and for digging soil. On the shore at Fred Smith, most use-wear is consistent with working wood, plants, and hard contact materials, as well as digging soil. For both sites, analyses suggest the increasing importance of a horticultural subsistence strategy with reduced mobility and reliance on some cultigens that were locally produced.

Often understudied by archaeologists, ground stone tools (GST) were ubiquitous in the ancient Maya world. Their applications ranged from household tools to ceremonial equipment and beyond. Little attention has been focused on chemically sourcing the raw stone material used in GST production, largely because these tools were fashioned out of igneous or sedimentary rock, which can present characterization challenges. And, although portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) has been applied widely to source obsidian, the utility of pXRF for geochemically sourcing other kinds of stone remains underexplored. We present a small-scale application of pXRF for determining granite provenance within a section of the Middle Belize Valley in Belize, Central America. Belize is an ideal location to test chemical sourcing studies of granite because there are only three tightly restricted and chemically distinct sources of granite in the country, from which the overwhelming majority of granite for ancient tool production derived. The method described here demonstrates that successful and accurate geological characterizations can be made on granite GST. This cutting-edge sourcing technique has the potential to be more widely applied in other regions to reveal deeper connections between the sources of GST production and sites of consumption across space and through time.

We thank our colleague for his comment, address concerns raised, and encourage future collaborative research to answer important questions about the Middle Preclassic at Cahal Pech.

To understand Middle Preclassic social processes at Cahal Pech, we must consider the dynamic and complex record of architectural development in its entirety.

Recent excavations at the site of Gallon Jug, a minor center in northwestern Belize, revealed multiple patolli boards incised into a well-preserved plaster floor in an unvaulted platform. A significant artifact deposit was placed directly on top of the patolli boards. In this report we describe the architectural context, associated artifact deposit, and the patolli boards themselves.

Recent investigations at Cahal Pech, Belize, documented a previously unrecognized Middle Preclassic (700–500 cal BC) E-Group complex. Located in an open public plaza, the monumental complex likely functioned as a forum for communal public events. In the Late Preclassic, the E-Group was replaced by an ancestor shrine where several royal tombs are located, as well as buildings separating public civic space from private elite space. These shifts in monumental construction temporally track the development of ideological manifestations of power and provide evidence for the formalization of dynastic rulership by an emerging elite class.

Southern pine beetles (Dendroctonus frontalis Zimmermann) and symbiotic fungi are associated with mass mortality in stands of Caribbean pine (Pinus caribaea Morelet). This study provides a 12.7-year assessment of semiochemical mediation between southern pine beetle and Caribbean pine in relation to concentrations of 4-allylanisole (estragole, methyl chavicol) and monoterpenes measured by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry in different seasons in premontane and coastal pine stands of Belize and Guatemala. Individual trees and stands with >2.5% (relative mass %) of 4-allylanisole in the xylem oleoresin exhibited significantly less beetle-induced mortality than those with <2.5%. Changes in relative levels of 4-allylanisole and monoterpenes during this study are consistent with seasonal temperature and cumulative water deficit effects and suggest bark beetle attack of P. caribaea may intensify in the future.

The development of Middle Preclassic (900–300 BC) ceremonial architecture is receiving more attention by archaeologists conducting research in the Maya Lowlands. Although a few examples have been partially excavated, there is still a dearth of information on how and why monumental constructions were originally built. This is largely because early structures often lie below several layers of sequential architecture, making them difficult to locate. Even when Middle Preclassic architecture is identified, exposure is often too limited to fully investigate its form and function. A well-preserved and accessible Middle Preclassic platform would be a rare find and could greatly enhance our knowledge and understanding of the subject. At Pacbitun, Cayo District, Belize, such a discovery has been made beneath the artificially raised surface of the main plaza. To make the most of this opportunity, five seasons of excavation worked to expose this massive building in its entirety. In this article, we provide details concerning the structural design of the platform and its abandonment, as well as present potential architectural comparisons. We conclude by reevaluating complexity at Pacbitun.

Jadeite artefacts at Maya sites are normally associated with ritual and ceremonial locations, with high-quality jadeite reserved for elite objects. The discovery of a jadeite gouge with a wooden handle at a Classic Maya salt-working site submerged by sea-level rise—Ek Way Nal, Belize—is therefore unexpected and provides new information about the utilitarian use of this stone. The extremely high quality of this jadeite tool is particularly surprising, offering new insight into the Classic Maya exchange systems and the role of salt makers such as those based at Ek Way Nal.