Comparative Archaeology Database | Center for Comparative Archaeology | University of Pittsburgh
Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Faunal Dataset
This dataset complements the article Modelling Resilience: Zooarchaeological Insights into Subsistence Diversity and Land Use Practices of the Ancient Maya in the Upper Belize River Valley
(2025), Environmental Archaeology, 1-22, by Brett Meyer, Claire E. Ebert, Julie A. Hoggarth, John P. Walden, Ian Roa, Gavin B. Wisner, Katie K. Tappan, and Jaime J. Awe.
It provides faunal inventories associated with the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconaissance Project (BVAR). It provides faunal inventories from the field seasons 1988 to 2022 as well as integrated inventories from previously published faunal reports carried out by other authors.
Meyer, Brett (2025) Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Faunal Dataset. Comparative Archaeology Database, University of Pittsburgh. URL: <http://www.cadb.pitt.edu>.
Funding to collect the data presented here was provided by the University of Michigan Rackham Graduate School. The faunal remains were collected and exported under permits provided by the Belize Institute of Archaeology (IA/H/2/1/24(21)). Financial support for BVAR Project research has been provided by the Social Science Research Council of Canada and the Gordon Childe Fund of the University of London to Awe; the National Science Foundation through a Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant to Kennett and Ebert (Award ID 1450104), to Bermann and Walden (Award ID BCS- 1914638), and to Prufer and Guerra (Award ID BCS- 1743448), a NSF/UK Research and Innovation Grant (Award ID SBE-UKRI-2136662) to Hoggarth, and by the NSF Archaeology program (Award ID 1460369) to Hoggarth; the Rust Family Foundation to Ebert (RFF-2020- 135), Hoggarth (RFF-2020) and Walden (RFF-2020-127); and the Tilden Family Foundation.
The PDF file below contains the code definitions used throughout the data pages.
Numeric data are provided in two file formats. Comma-delimited .CSV files can be imported into spreadsheet, database, and statistical programs for manipulation and analysis. Excel spreadsheets are easier to browse, and can also be imported into many programs. The codes used in these files are defined in the PDF document found above. The numeric data files are as follows:
Faunal inventories from BVAR excavations between 1988 - 2022 by site. These inventories consist of the identifications of fauna made by Brett Meyer that is currently stored at the University of Pittsburgh as well as some in-field identifications made by Ian Roa.
Faunal inventories from previously published BVAR site reports. These inventories represent previous faunal analyses from earlier BVAR project members of fauna which has not been exported from Belize. The level of detail varied by report, so these inventories could not be seamlessly integrated into the larger dataset for each site. Generally, these inventories only contain taxonomic information and quantity. In some cases, more detailed information, such as element or side, was presented. These inventories integrate this data into our current catalog system to the extent possible.