A ZOOARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD OF ANCIENT FISHES FROM THE MAYA: EVIDENCE FROM FISH BONES IN THE STUDY OF ANCIENT FISHERIES

Summary

Large bodies of water surround the Maya Area and its ancients inhabitants had close subsistence relations with the aquatic world by exploiting the resources that the this scenario provided them. In this sense, fishes were one of the animals widely exploited by the ancient Maya and whose zooarchaeological study helps to uncover questions and pose new queries about their social and environmental uses. This paper gathers information about the archaeological presence of such resources from various settlements in the Maya Area. The occurrence of such animals is documented in at least 56 Mayan settlements from the Preclassic Period to Colonial times. Fish remains belonged to least 78 species that were used for ritual, food and ornamentary purposes. Also it is evidenced the presence of a trade network between remote inland sites and coastal settlements. This corpus of information offers to explore a holistic zooarchaeological perspective of the ancient use of fishes and to lay the foundations of the ichtyoarchaeological studies in the Maya Area

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage