Population Movements, Trading, and Identity along the East Coast of Postclassic Yucatan. Dental morphology, isotopic provenience analyses and body modifications in human series from El Meco, El Rey, and Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico
Author(s): T. Douglas Price; Allan Ortega; Andrea Cucina; James E. Burton; Vera Tiesler
Year: 2015
Summary
Different hypotheses exist for explaining population development and replacement on the east coast of the Yucatan peninsula after the so-called Maya collapse, one involving the presence of the Putun-Chontal folk fringing the Gulf Coast of Mexico. Here we examine these proposals through the lenses of conventional paleodemography, dental morphology, body modifications (dental decorations and head shaping) of human skeletal series from the Postclassic coastal trader settlements of El Meco, El Rey and Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico. We match these with the provenience profiles obtained from 87Sr/86Sr and d18O isotopic analyses in 37 individuals of the collection (both sexes) and put the data in broader contexts of social organization and regional population evolvement. The series from the core settlement of Tulum shows higher biological heterogeneity than the two other series, higher diversity in artificial head shapes and a small proportion of non-locals, stemming perhaps from the adjacent northern Peten area. Despite the limitations in sample sizes and diversity in contexts, our results echo broader trends in population movement and cultural cohesion along the Yucatecan coast.
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Cite this Record
Population Movements, Trading, and Identity along the East Coast of Postclassic Yucatan. Dental morphology, isotopic provenience analyses and body modifications in human series from El Meco, El Rey, and Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Allan Ortega, T. Douglas Price, James E. Burton, Andrea Cucina, Vera Tiesler. Presented at The 80th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, San Francisco, California. 2015 ( tDAR id: 396591)
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Keywords
Geographic Keywords
Mesoamerica
Spatial Coverage
min long: -107.271; min lat: 12.383 ; max long: -86.353; max lat: 23.08 ;