Black as Night, Dark as Death: Bioarchaeology of the Mesoamerican Subterranean

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cristina Verdugo.

This is an abstract from the "Black as Night, Dark as Death: Bioarchaeology of the Mesoamerican Subterranean" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The association of human sacrifice with the subterranean continues to be debated. The connection of sacrifice with ritual sites should hardly be surprising. The continued debate is partially due to the generally poor preservation of skeletal material in the Maya area and the lack of bioarchaeologist working...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Prout.

This is an abstract from the "Black as Night, Dark as Death: Bioarchaeology of the Mesoamerican Subterranean" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Between 1990 and 1993, the Petexbatun Regional Cave Survey investigated more than 20 caves surrounding the site of Dos Pilas, with six caves producing substantial human skeletal assemblages. This presentation focuses on Cueva de los Quetzales, the only one of the six not directly associated with Dos Pilas....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stanley Serafin.

This is an abstract from the "Black as Night, Dark as Death: Bioarchaeology of the Mesoamerican Subterranean" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cenotes are prominent features of the landscape of the Yucatan Peninsula. Among Maya populations, cenotes served, and continue to serve, varied purposes. Mayapán, a regional Postclassic (ca. 1150-1450 AD) Maya capital and urban center on the northwestern plains of the Yucatan Peninsula, contains a large...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ellen Fricano.

This is an abstract from the "Black as Night, Dark as Death: Bioarchaeology of the Mesoamerican Subterranean" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Deposition of human remains within subterranean spaces held a special cultural significance across Mesoamerica because of the importance of the sacred, animate Earth in Amerindian indigenous cosmology. The skeletal assemblage from Cueva de Sangre near Dos Pilas, Petén, Guatemala is one such example. Though...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Gonzales.

This is an abstract from the "Black as Night, Dark as Death: Bioarchaeology of the Mesoamerican Subterranean" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Cueva de Sangre, located some 2.5 km southwest of the central plaza at Dos Pilas, is the largest cave intensively investigated by the Petexbatun Regional Cave Survey with more than 3.2 km of passages mapped. With four entrances and passages running on multiple vertical levels, it is also the most complex...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Brooks.

This is an abstract from the "Black as Night, Dark as Death: Bioarchaeology of the Mesoamerican Subterranean" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the Late Postclassic period (ca. 1300-1600), Maya at Lake Mensabak, Chiapas, Mexico, buried their dead and placed their ancestors’ remains in specific cliff and cave shrines. Excavations and osteological analyses at these shrines have revealed that the majority of the individuals are adults, with an equal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Melanie Saldana.

This is an abstract from the "Black as Night, Dark as Death: Bioarchaeology of the Mesoamerican Subterranean" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The need for a subterranean bioarchaeology emerged in the 1990s in the midst of the great expansion of archaeological investigation of the subterranean. This revealed the inadequacies of previous analyses and conceptualizations of human remains in subterranean space. It was standard practice to refer to any...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amanda Jokela.

This is an abstract from the "Black as Night, Dark as Death: Bioarchaeology of the Mesoamerican Subterranean" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dos Pilas, Petén, Guatemala, a significant political and economic lowland Maya capital during the Late Classic Period (600-900 CE), saw intensive investigation of architectural surface features by the Vanderbilt University Petexbatun Regional Archaeological Project directed by Arthur Demarest in the early...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Osbjorn Pearson.

This is an abstract from the "Black as Night, Dark as Death: Bioarchaeology of the Mesoamerican Subterranean" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Bladen Paleoindian and Archaic Archaeology Project (BPAAP) has recovered human remains spanning approximately 9000 years in two sites in the Maya Mountains of southern Belize. To investigate changes in limb bone dimensions reflecting changes in biomechanical use across the change to surplus farming, we...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Esteban Rangel.

This is an abstract from the "Black as Night, Dark as Death: Bioarchaeology of the Mesoamerican Subterranean" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Rock shelters have played a significant role in Mesoamerican mortuary practices, serving as transitional spaces that embody both openness and a deep connection to the earth. Saki Tzul (ST) and Mayahak Cab Pek (MHCP), two prominent rock shelters located in the Ek Xux Valley of present-day Belize, exemplify...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michele Bleuze.

This is an abstract from the "Black as Night, Dark as Death: Bioarchaeology of the Mesoamerican Subterranean" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Subterranean bioarchaeology is a contextual construct that emerged from subterranean archaeological investigations, but its theoretical underpinnings have not been defined. The subfield is concerned with human skeletal remains recovered from funerary and non-funerary contexts from caves, rockshelters,...