28 Drones, Mapping, and Excavations in the Middle Belize Valley - Research Investigations of the Belize River East Archaeology (BREA) Project - Study overview

Sep 11, 2026

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The Belize River East Archaeology (BREA) project advances survey, mapping, and excavation work in the middle Belize Valley, with special attention on the ancient Maya site of Saturday Creek. Recent fieldwork remapped the Saturday Creek core using a Total Station and incorporated test excavations, while drone flights over surrounding agricultural fields exposed an exceptional concentration of mounds near the “E-Group.” Integrated mapping supports prior GIS and ceramic-distribution analyses, suggesting Saturday Creek formed a central landscape node linking east-west and north-south trade and communication from Classic through Colonial times.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryPosters

FormatPDF

Pages10

Reading Time4 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Study area and research focus

North-south overland routes and historical accounts

Drones and the Mapping of Saturday Creek

Drone-based mound density and E-Group focus

Integrating mapping with GIS and ceramics

28 DRONES, MAPPING, AND EXCAVATIONS IN THE MIDDLE BELIZE VALLEY: RESEARCH INVESTIGATIONS OF THE BELIZE RIVER EAST ARCHAEOLOGY (BREA) PROJECT Eleanor Harrison-Buck, Marieka Brouwer Burg, Mark Willis, Chet Walker, Satoru Murata, Brett Houk, Alex Gantos, and Astrid Runggaldier The Belize River East Archaeology (BREA) project has continued to focus on survey, mapping, and excavations of sites in the middle Belize Valley, particularly the ancient Maya site of Saturday Creek. Previously, we have suggested that Saturday Creek and its associated Hats Kaab “E-Group” marked an important crossroads in the middle Belize Valley. Here, we present an overview of our work this past season, which included re-mapping the site core of Saturday Creek using a Total Station and performing several test excavations. We also flew several unmanned aerial vehicles (otherwise known as “drones”) in the areas of cleared agricultural fields that surround the Saturday Creek site core. The drone mapping revealed an extraordinary density of mounds, particularly just north of the site core in the vicinity of the “E-Group,” indicating that this locale was a major focus of population aggregation in ancient times. The results of our mapping complement our previous GIS spatial analyses and studies of ceramic distribution patterns for this area in the eastern Belize Watershed. Combined, our studies leave little doubt that Saturday Creek and its vicinity marked a central node in the landscape, arguably because it served as a nexus between eastwest and north-south trade and communication networks from Classic to Colonial times. Introduction The eastern Belize River valley appears to have a long history that extends from the Formative period through Colonial times. Here, we report on investigations carried out this year during our fourth season of the Belize River East Archaeology (BREA) project. The BREA study area encompasses the eastern Belize watershed between Belmopan and Belize City (Figure 1) . We find that most of the ancient Maya settlement hugs the bank of the Belize River, likely because it served as the ancient “highway”between the coast and inland centers. While the main trunk of the Belize River serves as the anchor for our archaeological investigations, the Belize Watershed comprises numerous creeksand a large expanse of wetlands to the north. These bodies of water form a network of waterways that facilitated the movement of people and goods from Preclassic through colonial times (Harrison-Buck et al. 2012, 2013) . Ethnohistoric accounts suggest that while waterways were critically important, there were also several north-south overland routes that connected these rivers and creeks (Figure 2) . Previously, we have presented the results of a least-cost path analysis conducted along one proposed route, which we refer to as NorthSouth Route \#1 (Brouwer-Burg et al. 2014) . Elsewhere, we have suggested that Route \#1 Figure 1. Map of the BREA study area (map prepared by M. Brouwer-Burg) . may represent a north-south overland route used by the Spanish during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Buck et al. 2013; Harrison-Buck 2010; Harrison-Buck, Kaeding, and Murata 2013) . Ethnohistoric accounts suggest this route extended from the Chetumal Bay south to the head waters of the New River, Figure 2. Projected Overland Route \#1 (map prepared by M. Brouwer-Burg) . known as Ram Goat Creek, and that it went due south through swamp and pine savannah until it reached a partially submerged “natural bridge”of stone that the Spanish used to cross Labouring Creek (Jones 1989:138, 312 [Note 35]; see also Scholes and Thompson 1977:45) . The route then headed overland south to a point in the middle Belize River that we believe is in the vicinity of Saturday Creek (Harrison-Buck, Kaeding, and Murata 2013) . We have spent the last couple field seasons ground-truthing this route and this season filled in more of the gaps along this projected path, wh

FAQs

What methods did the BREA project use in its recent season?

The team remapped the Saturday Creek core with a Total Station, conducted several test excavations, and flew unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) over cleared agricultural fields surrounding the site core.

What did drone mapping reveal at Saturday Creek?

Drone mapping showed a very high density of mounds, especially north of the site core near the “E-Group,” indicating that this area was a major focus of population aggregation in ancient times.

How do the mapping results relate to earlier analyses?

The mapping complements previous GIS spatial analyses and studies of ceramic distribution patterns in the eastern Belize Watershed, supporting the interpretation that Saturday Creek and its vicinity formed a central node in regional networks.

Sep 11, 2026

Upload by Angel