Ancient Maya Placemaking: An Isotopic Assessment of Ancestry, Memory, and Body Partibility

Summary

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

Migrations are a key feature of human populations past and present, and people moved across landscapes regardless of cultural affiliation, hierarchical structures, or place of birth. But, what does it mean when individuals and/or pieces of their remains are moved elsewhere posthumously? This paper builds upon discourse centered around social memory and place making to investigate how the of the fragmentation and subsequent movement of pieces of bodies after death interplays with ancient Maya settlement, ancestry, and legitimization. Using strontium and oxygen isotopes, I assess an Early Classic elite tomb at the site of Dos Hombres in northwestern Belize and argue that the ancient Maya incorporated both local and non-local individuals into memory, placemaking, and legitimization practices.

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): 37647.0