Animal Use in the Last Maya Kingdom

Summary

The archaeological site of Flores is a small, lacustrine island located in Northern Guatemala. Despite lacking in physical size, the island has a lengthy occupational history, dating from the Preclassic Maya period through the present. Flores, which became a provincial capital during the late Postclassic, was able to resist Spanish rule until 1697 AD, making it the last Maya holdout. Given this distinction, the island has been under much archaeological scrutiny and the subject of many publications. However, there has yet to be a thorough, diachronic study of animal use at Flores, and how the site compares to other Maya lowland settlements. Due to its proximity to freshwater, Flores was in an area of great floral and faunal resource abundance. This study aims to not only taxonomically identify faunal remains recovered on Flores, but also searches for patterns possibly tied to shifts in the social, economic, and political landscapes, especially as it relates to the Classic Maya "Collapse" and the arrival of the Spanish. By understanding the history of animal exploitation and past ecological conditions, part of the answer to why Flores outlasted its contemporaries in regards to resistance to the Spanish is teased out.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22560