Community resilience through change

In 2023, NRIP conducted survey research on a river island in the New River 2 km east of Aventura. LiDAR data obtained by AAP showed a small settlement on the island, and NRIP hypothesized that this may be a Postclassic Maya settlement occupied after the depopulation of Aventura. Ethnohistoric documents indicate the presence of an Indigenous Maya village on the banks of the New River in this location at the time of Spanish contact. Motivated by the interest of community members in the more recent past, NRIP ground-truthed the LiDAR and confirmed the presence of Postclassic and colonial artifacts.

With funding from the Society for American Archaeology, NRIP will conduct its second season of field work in 2025. The goals of this season are to better understand the extent of Postclassic occupation in the area and identify target locations for future excavations. Since the Postclassic and colonial periods were times with major environmental and sociopolitical stressors, we seek to understand how this community was able to remain resilient in the midst of these changes.