An Important Cave Skeletal Assemblage Sees the Light of Day: A Reanalysis of Dos Pilas

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Subterranean" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Petexbatun Regional Cave Survey, operating as a subproject of the Petexbatun Regional Archaeological Project from 1990 – 1993, was the largest Maya cave project ever conducted. Centered at the important site of Dos Pilas in the Department of Petén, Guatemala, the cave survey recovered a large and important human skeletal assemblage from six caves. The organization of the larger project featured many specialists in charge of analyzing particular aspects of the data, so the material was not controlled by the archaeologist who recovered it. As a result, the cave skeletal assemblage was never adequately analyzed.

Fortunately, the greater part of the skeletal assemblage is now housed at California State University, Los Angeles and is undergoing reanalysis. Each cave assemblage is being analyzed separately, reflecting the great variability in archaeological context and geomorphology. Preliminary reports on two of the caves will be presented in this session. While time does not permit the in-depth presentation of data here, we have already noted a good deal of information about the assemblage including skeletal pathology and the presence of juveniles across age categories. It is our goal that over the next few years, the entire assemblage will be analyzed and published.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Subterranean   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37814.0