The San Pedro Site: Late Postclassic & Historic Occupation on Ambergris Caye, Belize
Presentation
Overview
Overview
Description
The San Pedro site is one of roughly two dozen registered archaeological sites on Belize’s largest and northernmost island, Ambergris Caye. Several seasons of fieldwork have provided information on one of the few Late Postclassic Period (AD 1400-1550/1600) Maya occupations on Belize’s hundreds of offshore cayes. Although the upheaval caused by Spanish contact disrupted the movement of trade goods like chert from the mainland, the Maya of San Pedro he Maya there were still able to acquire obsidian blades, primarily from Highland Guatemala but possibly from central Mexico as well. The San Pedro site has also provided a glimpse of what life on the island was like for the mid to late 19th Century Caste War refugees who founded a small fishing village that eventually became San Pedro Town. Historical records relate that these refugees arrived on the island at different times in the mid to late 19th Century. One group fled from an army of Santa Cruz Maya insurgents who came to sack the town of Bacalar in southern Quintana Roo. Another group originated from a cluster of small fishing hamlets around the coastal Maya site of Tulum. The archaeological record reveals that the 19th Century occupants of the small fishing village that later became a town were well connected to the developing global economy. Dense historic midden deposits reveal a substantial number of 19th and early 20thCentury ceramic and glass wares from many parts of the world, metal objects, faunal remains, and a variety of other historic artifacts.
