Ancient Maya Animal Use at El Mirador: Subsistence, ceremony, exchange and environmental resiliency

Summary

El Mirador (Peten, Guatemala) is among the largest Preclassic settlements in the Maya lowlands. The site has attracted attention due to its size and antiquity, but also for its location within a region containing few permanent or perennial water sources. This study presents a preliminary analysis of the site’s faunal remains to assess diet, ritual, habitat use and exchange. Comparison of the El Mirador data with other Preclassic faunal assemblages allows us to assess the degree to which animal use patterns were shaped by local environmental conditions or larger pan-Maya Preclassic dietary and ritual traditions. Although a large portion of the faunal remains date to the Late Preclassic (350 BC-AD 150), remains associated with a Late Classic (AD 600-900) re-settlement provides an additional opportunity to address diachronic variation in animal use, and how the local environment may have changed or recovered after nearly 500 years of human abandonment. The dataset is thus significant to documenting the timing/tempo of potential wildlife resiliency in the Maya Lowlands.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16062