Theoretical Considerations in Maya Subterranean Bioarchaeology

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Black as Night, Dark as Death: Bioarchaeology of the Mesoamerican Subterranean" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Subterranean bioarchaeology is a contextual construct that emerged from subterranean archaeological investigations, but its theoretical underpinnings have not been defined. The subfield is concerned with human skeletal remains recovered from funerary and non-funerary contexts from caves, rockshelters, cenotes, chultuns, sascaberas and a host of natural and artificial subterranean chambers. At the heart of subterranean bioarchaeology is the recognition that the type of deposition must be determined on a deposit-by-deposit basis given the diverse and growing number of types of subterranean spaces. As such, the subfield heavily draws on archaeothanatology. One of the goals of subterranean bioarchaeology is to reconstruct the structure, organization, and ideology of past societies from the systematic analyses of human remains within their depositional context, which requires meaningful engagement with theory from the humanities, archaeology, and biological anthropology. This paper discusses theoretical considerations in subterranean bioarchaeology to help contextualize and guide interpretations of human osteological assemblages from subterranean spaces. Particular attention is given to non-funerary contexts because these deposits provide opportunities to explore the symbolic function and agentic capacity of deceased individuals in ritual spaces, and in certain cases reconstruct the health of people in antiquity without the constraints of the osteological paradox.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Black as Night, Dark as Death: Bioarchaeology of the Mesoamerican Subterranean

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 50152