Tracing Diet Diversity and Ecological Shifts in the Maya Mountains: Insights from Zooarchaeology

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Recent research into diet change in the Maya Mountains of Belize has pointed to environmental change as a critical factor. These shifts in diet were argued to have occurred as a lead up to the shift of populations in the Maya Mountains from archaeological patterns that characterize the Archaic in the region from those of the Pre-Classic Maya communities. These shifts have been interpreted as evidence for an increased reliance on maize agriculture in the years leading up to the transition into the Pre-Classic. But what is less clear is the role of climate change in diet change during the late Pleistocene through the middle Holocene, a period which covers the Paleoindian and Archaic periods in the region. Using zooarchaeological evidence from the site of Maya Hak Cab Pek this study was able to determine the potential role that environmental change had on faunal procurement strategies by foragers during the Middle to Late Holocene in the Maya Mountains of Belize.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51708