A Zoontological Approach for Examining the Role of Animals in Ancestral Maya Ritual and Society

Summary

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

Animals played a fundamental role in mythology and religion among the ancestral Maya. Iconography often depicts animals, including humans dressed as animals, taking part in feasts and ceremonial performances. Archaeologically, the remains of these important animals are recovered from ritual contexts such as burials, altars, caches, and other special deposits in elite contexts, suggesting the symbolic value of animals enhanced status relationships. This project combines theoretical approaches from social zooarchaeology with stable isotope analyses of animal remains to provide a “zoontological” view of ritual variability in the upper Belize River Valley region of the Maya lowlands from the Middle Preclassic through Early Postclassic periods (900 BC–AD 1250). Zooarchaeological data suggest variability in faunal assemblages among polities, perhaps indicating unique ritual economic systems at each site. Multi-isotope analyses (C/N/O/Sr/Pb) of animal skeletal remains facilitate the reconstruction of individual animal biographies, including their diet and geographical origins. Samples of more than 15 species of mammals, reptiles, and birds from ritual contexts identify instances of purposeful animal management and possible exchange. By generating animal biographies, results suggest the potential for isotope analysis in directly addressing the strategic ways people involved animals in interactions between the living and cosmological worlds.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 41506.0