Animal Management of the Late Classic Maya at Copán, Honduras, Using Stable Isotope Analysis

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In the late nineteenth century, Harvard Peabody Museum excavations at the Classic Maya site of Copán, Honduras, identified a large deposit of animal bones in structure 10L-36, a platform located in the El Cementerio area of Copán’s Late Classic Palace Complex. Primarily associated with the eighth–ninth-century CE reign of Yax Pahsaj, 10L-36 is thought to contain the food waste of Copán elites and those who attended the royal complex. To date, little research has been conducted on the platform contents, but the application of archaeological science techniques to the 10L-36 faunal assemblage has great potential to reveal key information about the composition and procurement of animal products in elite Late Classic Maya diets. Here we apply zooarchaeological, ZooMS, and stable isotope (C, N) analyses to deer, rabbit, fowl, and dog remains within the 10L-36 assemblage in order to understand which species were primarily targeted for consumption and to explore potential evidence for maize foddering and management of domesticated and non-domesticated species.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36941.0