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Profile (from south) of human skeletal remains in Burial 16-1-2. Upper layers show Individuals 16-1-2a and 16-1-2b (light grey) and the remains in commingled secondary context of Individual 16-1-2c (dark grey). Individuals 16-1-2d and 16-1-2e/f are in the lower layers. Drawing by Taller de Bioarqueología/UADY.
Source publication
Following a brief introduction to mortuary practices in Prehispanic Maya society, we outline the analytical procedures followed during the excavation and laboratory investigation of five burial assemblages from the Late Classic period site of Xuenkal, Yucatán, Mexico. A detailed account of a sequence of primary and secondary interments is provided...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... was exhumed and relocated, suggests that its soft tissues had decayed long before this act took place. This multiple burial assemblage was contiguous with Burial 16-1-1 with the primary occupants of each arranged toe-to-toe. The fact that the interments were deposited in four distinct strata and that most were associated with secondary remains (FIG. 6), suggests a series of burial events, which may have stretched over a period of several decades, possibly centuries, although all associated ceramics (n56) are from the Cehpech ...
Citations
... RBCMA is highlighted in orange. Data fromCucina et al. 2015;Freiwald 2021; Locker et al. this study;Ortega-Muñoz et al. 2019, 2021aPrice et al. 2008Price et al. , 2010Price et al. , 2018aPrice et al. , 2018bPrice et al. , 2019Renson et al. 2019;Sierra Sosa et al. 2014;Somerville et al., 2016;Suzuki et al. 2018Suzuki et al. , 2020Tiesler et al. 2010;Trask et al. 2012;Wright 2005Wright , 2007Wright et al. 2010;Wrobel et al. 2017. ...
Population pressure and migration are often central features of many hypotheses related to ancient Maya population declines, abandonment episodes, settlement, and sociopolitical organization. The Rio Bravo Conservation and Management Area (RBCMA) in northwest Belize shows archaeological evidence for several depopulation and resettlement events. Working hypotheses for the region suggested that the population resettlement and apex of the Late Classic included high numbers of external immigrants. In this paper, we assess movement across ancient Maya settlements from the RBCMA to gauge whether rates of movement overlap with population fluctuations, as garnered by the archaeological record. We present strontium and oxygen isotope data from the dental enamel of 47 ancient Maya individuals recovered from five sites in the RBCMA. We identified seven individuals as being non-local to the region and show potential short-distance movements, where three individuals were local to the RBCMA but not the site from which they were recovered. Our research suggests that movement into and around the RBCMA was steady through time and indicates that rural spaces experienced more movement than their urban counterparts. This may be related to changing regional sociopolitical issues in more urban areas. These data provide insight into both the consistency of movement for the ancient Maya of northwest Belize and the role political activities may have played in prompting movement to more rural areas.
... As reviewed in Chapter 4.3 of Part IV, taphonomic analyses of mortuary practices are, of course, greatly enhanced when the bioarchaeologist is in the feld overseeing burial excavation. This is well exemplifed in Vera Tiesler and Andra Cucina's collaboration with the Yaxuna project where detailed taphonomic studies have been produced following the archaeothanatology approach spearheaded by Henri Duday (2009), resulting in nuanced understandings of mortuary ritual at the site that would otherwise not be feasible (Tiesler et al. 2010;Tiesler et al. 2017). A similar approach was taken by Gregory Pereira in his work at Balamkú (Pereira and Michelet 2004) and Río Bec (Pereira 2013) as well as by María José Gómez and colleagues' (2005) work at Champotón, Campeche. ...
... Biodistance research began in earnest in the frst decade of the 21st century as scholars brought new statistical approaches to the analysis of morphometric diferences (Aubry 2009;Cucina and Sierra 2003;Cucina and Tiesler 2004, 2008a, 2008bJacobi 2000;Rhoads 2002;Scherer 2007;Wrobel 2003). Andrea Cucina and his collaborators have been most active in carrying this work forward in the most recent decade (Cucina 2013(Cucina , 2015Cucina et al. 2010;Cucina and Ortega-Muñoz 2014;Cucina et al. 2015). ...
In this essay, we review the practice of bioarchaeology in the Maya area. Other chapters in this volume offer a more detailed look at particular methods and findings from the study of ancient Maya human remains. Here, we focus on how research in Maya bioarchaeology has been and continues to be structured and framed. Our focus is especially on the years following the inception of formalized bioarchaeology in the 1970s. For a review of prior decades of research on Maya skeletons, see the Introduction of this book and Chapter 1 of Part I. As we explore the practice of Maya bioarchaeology we ask a series of interrelated questions: How is research on ancient Maya skeletons structured? What is the practice of doing Maya bioarchaeology? How does that practice shape the questions asked of ancient Maya skeletons? We begin the chapter with a discussion of bioarchaeological work that focuses on a single or limited number of skeletons , what has come to be known as osteobiography. We then consider studies that have a more expansive scope, looking at site-based, intra-regional, and macro-regional analyses of Maya remains. We conclude with a discussion of some of the opportunities and obstacles facing Maya bioarchaeology, especially as they pertain to the curation of human remains. There exist other excellent reviews of Maya bioarchaeology that the interested reader may well wish to consult.
... The orientation, location, and condition archaeologists find the bones depend on the taphonomic processes affecting the body, which in turn depend on cultural and environmental factors. This approach establishes a sequence of taphonomic changes in funerary contexts, especially in the Maya region because of its tropical environment and the evidence in pre-Hispanic times of post-depositional intentional alteration of burials (Tiesler et al. 2013). ...
Mexicon 43.6, December 2021: 135-142
... Excavations at Pacbitun, Belize (Figure 1a; Powis et al. 2017) revealed two poorly preserved, carved human skulls (Micheletti and Stanchly 2014). After careful cleaning and restoration of the fragments, it became clear they were items of personal adornment, similar to others found at the nearby site of Pakal Na in the Sibun River Valley of central Belize (Harrison-Buck et al. 2007;Storey 2005Storey , 2014 and farther afield at Xuenkal, northern Yucatan (Tiesler et al. 2010) and Copan, Honduras (Storey 2005. ...
... Berryman (2007) cautions that many reports of sacrifice and trophy taking among the Maya presume that peri-and postmortem body manipulation indicates desecration, without including essential contextual information needed to distinguish such behaviors from the equally diverse and widespread set of reverential activities related to ancestor veneration (Beck and Sievert 2005;Scherer 2015;Tiesler et al. 2010). A widely cited example of such veneration practices comes from Colonial Yucatan, in which de Landa describes the practice of removing the heads of "old lords of Cocom" immediately after death. ...
Two modified skulls from Pacbitun, Belize, one with a glyphic text, match ancient Maya depictions of trophies fashioned from war captives and worn by elite warriors.
... Chase and A. Chase 1996;Healy et al. 1998). Interacting with the bones of the deceased is known from the archaeological and iconographic records at Tikal, Piedras Negras, Cahal Pech, and elsewhere (Awe 2018;Eberl 2005;Fitzsimmons 2009;Tiesler et al. 2010). ...
In this study, we employ multiple lines of evidence to elucidate the use of mortuary ritual by the ruling elite at the ancient Maya site of Cahal Pech, Belize, during the Early Classic and early Late Classic periods (AD 250–630). The interments of multiple individuals in Burial 7 of Structure B1, the central structure of an Eastern Triadic Assemblage or “E-group” style architectural complex, were in a manner not consistent with the greater Belize River Valley, the only multiple individual human burial yet encountered at Cahal Pech. The sequential interments contained a suggestive quantity of high-quality artifacts, further setting them apart from their contemporaries. Among these artifacts were a set of bone rings and a hairpin inscribed with hieroglyphs, some of the few inscriptions ever found at Cahal Pech. We analyzed regional mortuary patterns, radiogenic strontium values, and radiocarbon data to test hypotheses about who these individuals were in life, why they were treated differently in death, and to reconstruct the sequence of events of this complex mortuary deposit. We contend that the mortuary practices in Burial 7 indicate an attempt by the Cahal Pech elite to identify with cities or regions outside the Belize River Valley area.
... In her discussion of the role of taphonomy in Maya bioarchaeology, Tiesler (2004) reviews taphonomic considerations relevant to interpretations of Maya mortuary contexts, focusing particularly on the timing of disarticulation of different joints. Through careful consideration of the position of bones in situ following Duday's (2009) archaeothanatology approach, Mayanists have been able to reconstruct mortuary processes by identifying and distinguishing particular intentional (cultural) and unintentional (taphonomic) processes (Cook, 1999;Geller, 2014;Novotny & Kosakowsky, 2009;Scherer, Golden, Arroyave, & Pérez Robles, 2014;Tiesler et al., 2010;Wrobel, Helmke, & Freiwald, 2014). Other approaches involve consideration of differential representation of specific elements in commingled deposits to reconstruct patterns of post-mortem bone movement and manipulation (Duncan, 2009;Weiss-Krecji, 2011). ...
Human bones from the Maya mortuary cave of Je’reftheel in west‐central Belize show evidence of taphonomic modifications attributed to insects, with termites and dermestid beetles being the most likely culprits. This study represents the first detailed exploration of the effects of osteophageous insects on bones from the Maya area, and thus expands on recent efforts by other researchers working in the region to document taphonomic processes and distinguish them from intentional mortuary treatments.
... Bioarchaeological studies of osteological remains from numerous Maya sites reflect evidence for violent spectacle and human sacrifice, as well as more general evidence for violent trauma, of which state-sponsored warfare is one possible cause. Researchers have identified osteological evidence for flaying (Massey, 1989;Massey and Steele, 1997); decapitation (Buikstra et al., 2004;Whittington, 2003;Wurster, 2000); heart extraction (Tiesler and Cucina, 2006); trophy-taking (Duncan and Schwarz, 2015;Tiesler et al., 2010);dismembering (Martín and Vargas, 2007;Serafin and Peraza Lope, 2007); defleshing (Barrett and Scherer, 2005;De Anda Alanis, 2007;Hurtado Cen et al., 2007;Saul and Saul, 1991), parry fractures Nystrom et al., 2005); and depressed cranial fractures (Hooton, 1940;Serafin et al., 2014a;Tiesler and Cucina, 2012). ...
This article presents evidence from a mass grave at the Itzmal Ch’en administrative group, an outlying ceremonial center at the Postclassic period Maya political center of Mayapán, Yucatan, Mexico. The grave contains the remains of at least 20 individuals, likely the group’s elite patrons. The remains were subject to extensive postmortem treatment that included butchering, burning, and scattering, along with ritual paraphernalia and midden debris. The deposit is significant in the context of the city’s prolonged sociopolitical collapse, as radiocarbon evidence suggests that the deposit predates the final abandonment of the city. The shallow grave is instead associated with an ethnohistorically-documented period of internal conflict from between CE 1302 and 1400. More broadly, we evaluate the Itzmal Ch’en mass grave as a rare form of mortuary deposit in the Maya region, an example of desecration and ritual violence. The abandoned ceremonial plaza and grave site would have represented a macabre monument to a period of violent conflict in the city’s history that would have been visible to the city’s remaining occupants for the last half century prior to Mayapán’s final abandonment.
... Analyzing taphonomic processes within bioarchaeological excavations is a complicated and difficult endeavor. Recently, bioarchaeologists have turned to examining the decomposition of the human body in ancient burials (Tiesler 2010;Tiesler et al. 2007). To compensate for the challenges of analyzing necrodynamics and ostetaphonomy, a variety of data and field sources should be utilized to provide a cohesive and non-speculative analysis. ...
... Analyzing taphonomic processes within bioarchaeological excavations is a complicated and difficult endeavor. Recently, bioarchaeologists have turned to examining the decomposition of the human body in ancient burials (Tiesler 2010;Tiesler et al. 2007). To compensate for the challenges of analyzing necrodynamics and ostetaphonomy, a variety of data and field sources should be utilized to provide a cohesive and non-speculative analysis. ...
... Individuals from Xuenkal have an above average stature (163.16 cm for males) and low rates of osteomyelitis, but they have an above average incidence of hypoplastic defects (ie, Harris lines or enamel hypoplasia) and a caries rate of 24.1% (Tiesler et al. 2010), pathologies that are commonly ascribed to physiological stress during maturation and a carbohydraterich diet. Table 5 lists rates of caries and Table 6 shows incidence of porotic hyperostosis Maya skeletal collections, as well as those from Nojol Nah. ...
The 21st annual report of the Blue Creek Archaeological Project
