About Us

The Chan site is an ancient Maya farming community located just outside of the modern day town of San Jose Soccutz in the Cayo District of Belize. The Chan site was occupied between 1000 BC and AD 1200, with major occupation falling between the Middle Preclassic and Terminal Classic periods (650 BC – AD 900). Since 2002 archaeologists from the US, Belize, and other countries have been collaborating on research at the Chan site to explore the roles that ordinary people played throughout the course of Maya history. The Chan project is permitted by the Belize Institute of Archaeology.

The Chan site was selected for study not because of any imposing monumental architectural remains, but for the ordinariness of the site. In many ways the Chan site is similar to other small farming communities that dotted the ancient Maya countryside. Archaeological research at Chan allows us to study the importance of daily life in a Maya farming community. The long, over 2000 year occupation history of Chan, provides the time depth necessary to understand the relationship between life in a farming community and larger changes in Maya society.

The Chan site is located in west-central Belize in a hilly interfluvial area between the Mopan and Macal branches of the Belize River. Chan is situated between a number of larger Belize River Valley civic-ceremonial centers such as Xunantunich, Actuncan, Nohoch Ek, Buenavista del Cayo, Cahal Pech, Dos Chombitos, Guacamayo, and Las Ruinas de Arenal. Through time the fortunes of these larger centers waxed and waned. Chan’s residents would have interacted both directly and indirectly with residents in a number of these neighboring civic-centers at different points in time.

During the late Late Classic period, around AD 670 to 830, the site of Xunantunich rises to prominence and becomes a polity capital in this part of the Belize River Valley. Chan is located only 4 km to the southeast of Xunantunich and was incorporated into the Xunantunich polity at this time. In the image above, you can see the main temple at Xunantunich (within the red circle), an imposing 45 meter high construction, looming in the hilltops in the distance from Chan. This is what Chan’s residents would have been able to see of Xunantunich each day as they worked in their fields and lived in their homes.

The Chan site covers 3.2 sq km of rounded hilly terrain. Across this area our settlement survey identified 287 households, over 1000 agricultural terraces, and a small community ritual center.

On the map above households are marked in pink and agricultural terraces in green. Most of the residents of Chan were farmers. But some families also made stone tools or quarried limestone blocks for building construction.

Chan’s farmers built both hill-slope and cross-channel terraces. Hill-slope terraces, as seen in the image above, allowed farmers to make use of the slope of a hill for agricultural purposes, as they built stone embankments retaining earthen fill along a hill slope to form field surfaces. Cross-channel terraces created similar field surfaces across a drainage or channel. Chan’s farmers drew upon detailed local knowledge of land and water to enhance soil management and increase yields through their terrace agriculture.

Most farmers at Chan lived in simple houses made of pole and thatch. Given that the organic remains of these pole and thatch building decay through time, all that remains today in the archaeological record of these houses are the stone platforms of the house foundations. The image above shows one such stone house foundation.

At a small community ritual center, Chan’s residents came together to perform rituals and bury important ancestors for over 2000 years. The most imposing architecture at Chan is a 5.6 meter high eastern temple.

Research at the Chan site is still ongoing. In this image archaeologists are excavating an administrative building at Chan’s ritual center. For more information on our research please visit our publication page.