The Impact of Settlement Patterns on Health and Diet: Differences in Skeletal Pathologies and Stable Isotope Values at La Corona and El Perú-Waka’, Guatemala

Summary

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

Ancient Maya settlement patterns and density have come into focus thanks to site survey and, more recently, extensive lidar mapping. Settlement density zones suggested by recent investigations in northwest Petén, Guatemala, allow for interpretation of areas of higher and lesser settlement density and the comparison of those groups between sites of different scales. This paper presents data from a diverse skeletal sample at the sites of La Corona and El Perú-Waka’. El Perú was a large city with a dense, nucleated urban core while La Corona was a much less densely populated center. This research explores differences in rates of skeletal pathologies and stable isotope values to understand stress and access to food resources in urban versus nonurban communities. The results are integrated with existing knowledge about local resource management and subsistence practices to reconstruct health and diet in the Classic period Maya Lowlands.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37256.0