Tamara Moore

The Importance of Being an E-Group: Investigating Structure D-1 at Ka’kabish, Belize

Using the excavation of Structures D-1 and D-4 at Ka’kabish, Belize as a case study, I will examine and question…

• Through detailed in-depth excavation, what can we learn about a Maya city that is not then reliant on interpretations surrounding the current understanding of E-groups?
• If an E-group layout was created after the Late Preclassic Period, is it then truly an E-group?

• Why are these alternate explanations not more widely suggested?
• With the timing considerations, why would later modernly perceived E-groups have been built in that arrangement? Even if they never served the archaeologist assigned meaning on an E-group, was that specific kind of arrangement still important to the Maya?

• What was the significance of the E-group arrangement to the Maya, that they would repeat the pattern across the lowlands?
  • Could the distribution and timing to E-groups be related to specific groups/family/political style that was then repeated as a means of legitimizing power and authority, especially when it was created outside of the Preclassic

My research aims not to question the existence of E-group, neither the importance that such arrangements had for the Maya, but rather to question the prevalence of a certain kind of arrangement that archaeologists have named, defined, and reported at multiple sites that have not then been verified through thorough excavation.

Education

• B.A. Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, 2017

• M.A. Anthropology, Trent University, 2020