RECYCLING AND RECONFIGURING: METALWORK OF MAYA COMMUNITIES AT LAMANAI AND TIPU, BELIZE

Abstract

AbstractAnalysis of the two largest southern Maya lowland metal assemblages, from Lamanai (n = 187) and Tipu (n = 99), Belize reveals that Mesoamerican and European technologies were negotiated through the processes of recycling objects to create new forms and juxtaposing objects of different provenances for bodily ornamentation. Lamanai's occupants began acquiring metal as early asa.d.1100 and then engaged in on-site metallurgy as early asa.d.1450, continuing into the early seventeenth century. Tipu was a nexus for metals between the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. At both sites, metal objects were recovered primarily from human burials and midden deposits. A program of typological study and compositional analysis revealed forms shared between the sites but evidence of on-site metallurgy is supported only at Lamanai. Metals from these Maya communities, both centers of Spanishreducción, demonstrate that the southern Maya lowlands was by no means a “refuge” from Spanish aggression.