A Gender Paradox? A Case Study from the Ancient Maya

Summary

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

Bioarchaeology engages with past behaviors to answer sex and gender roles that are influenced by biological and cultural components leading to social presentation of the individual. The skeletal sample for this study focuses on 55 individuals from Copan, Honduras by incorporating available mortuary data, ceramic phases, dental development, physiological measurements, and stable isotopes. Mortuary data represent the context of material goods and iconographic detail about the individual's burial. Temporal control of ceramic phases helps narrow interment dates to specific time frames in ancient Copan's history to examine changes through time. Dental development can pinpoint when social childhood ends. Incorporating physiological skeletal measurements provides another insight into the body and help in the creation of biological profiles and link to the behavioral components of the physical body. Finally, isotopic elements can answer what gender manifestations can be observed (i.e., gender food behavior) linking it back to sex and gender theory of embodiment and difference in diet consumption. This research focuses on the results of the isotopic data linking to the question if there was gender food behavior from Copan’s Late Classic period (AD 600-822).

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): 37528.0