Cremation Mortuary Practices of Hunter-Gatherers from Belize during the Late Pleistocene and the Late Holocene

Summary

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

We examine cremation mortuary practices from Saki Tzul and Mayahak Cab Pek, two rock shelters located in the Maya Mountains of southern Belize. The sites date from 12,000-3700 cal B.P. spanning the Late Pleistocene to the Late Holocene. We build on performance theory and issues of identities to look at the life course of the individuals and the different stages of cremation rituals. We do this by reconstructing the biological profile of the individuals, examining thermal alterations, posthumous treatment of the bodies, and broader archaeological information from the sites. Preliminary results highlight the variation in cremation rituals between different individuals. The data suggest that most cremation contexts contain partial individuals; many may be secondary interments. Some individuals were highly burned while others were not, suggesting different levels of pyrotechnological efficiency and/or resource accessibility. The results glimpse the many ways foragers treated, buried, and memorialized their dead.

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): 53347