Mapping Structural Vulnerability through Nutritional Deficiencies, Infection, and Burial Location at the Colonial Maya site of Tipu (AD 1543–1707)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Structural vulnerability, an individual or population's risk for adverse health outcomes, is the product of various financial, environmental, biological, and social variables. Factors including disease, food security, exposure to trauma, and social status all contribute to any individual's level of structural vulnerability. While clinicians make modern determinations of structural vulnerability, determining archaeological levels of structural vulnerability requires a more theoretical approach. Tipu, a colonial Maya site in central-western modern-day Belize, was occupied from the Postclassic (~ AD 900) until AD 1707. The site sat at the edge of the Spanish colonial world, providing Tipuians with a buffer from the traditional disease, death, and warfare narrative. Despite Tipu's distance from major colonial powers in the northern Yucatán, decades of research at the site have suggested a varied social experience for those living on the colonial frontier. This poster explores how structural vulnerability can be used in bioarchaeological investigations and, specifically, how structural vulnerability can shed light on burial patterning for the over 500 individuals interred at the site of Tipu.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38018.0