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Southern Lowland Maya Archaeology and Human Skeletal Remains

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Southern Lowland Maya Archaeology and Human Skeletal Remains 2 SouthernLowland Maya Archaeologyand Human SkeletalRemains: Interpretations from Caracol (Belize),Santa Rita Corozal (Belize),and Diane Z. Chase Tayasal(Guatemala) One classof data that is crucial to archaeologi- oretical difficulties involved in making intersite cal interpretations of prehistoric populations, comparisons. 1 their health, status,and demographicpatterns, is that derived from human burials. These are recoveredin what, at first glance,appear to be Caracol, Santa Rita Corozal, sizeablequantities in most excavationsat most and Tayasal: Temporal and Maya sites (Chase1994; Saul and Saul 1991, Skeletal Samples Tourtellot 1990a;Welsh 1988). Yet. how much Caracol, the largestof the three sites,is located do we know about the actual remains of the in the Vaca Plateauof Belizein the foothills of ancient Maya and how can excavatedsamples beused to defineancient populations? . the Maya Mountains at an elevation of over' 500 m. Long-term large-scaleexcavation was The sitesof Caracol,Santa Rita Cocozal,and started at Caracci in 1985 and hastaken place Tayasal are all Maya sites '° the southern every year since then (Chaseand Chase1987; lowlands. Each of these sites, however, is lo- D. Chase and A. Chase 1994). The earliest cated within a distinctive geographicarea and maintains a different history of human occu- pation. Investigationsat each site have.added I The author acknowledgesthe problems in comparing important information to our views of the health among archaeological populations as identified ancient Maya and, when taken together, pro- by Wood et al. (1992}. This discussion, however, will vide greater insight into both a broader in- place greater emphasis on an equally important phe- nomenon: determination of sampling problems through terpretation of the nature of ancient Maya correlation of osteological remains with other archaeo- populations and the methodological and the- logical information. 15 ~ settlement at the site epicenter dates to approx- oats are represented in these burials. At tbe turn , of the present century, Thomas Gann (1900, ~', imately 300 B.C. and occupation continued 1911, 1914, 1918}recovered an additional26 ' until about A.D. 1100. However, the primacy occupation of Caracol was during the Classic burials representirig 28 individuals at Santa ~ Rita Corozal (Chase 1982). ' period, or from A.D. 250 to 900, with a popu- lation peak occurring at approximately 650. Tayasalis located in the heart of the Maya y Population estimates based on housemound lowlands on the tip of a peninsulathat juts into f counts indicate that minimally 115,000, and Lake Petenltza in the northern part of modern- f more probably almost 150,00O,.people lived at day Guatemala. Tayasal and its surrounding t: the sire in 650 (A. Chase and D. Chase 1994a). region were occupied continuously from the ,; The total burial samplerecovered rhus far at Middle Prcclassicthrough the Classicand Post- ,;' Caracol consists of 183 recorded interments classicperiods. Excavationand reconnaissance t (171 with data retrieved by means of excava- were undertaken by the University of Pennsyl- }~ tion) representing more than 300 individuals.: vania in 1971 and 1979 (A. Chase1983, 1985, ;( More than 80 of Caracol's investigated inter- 1990). This work recovered51 burials repre-1' ments are located in formally constructed tombs. scnting 56 individuals. This total also includes i Half a country away to the north in Belize two tombs. Eight additional burials represent- J; is Santa Rita CorozaJ. Encompassed by, and ing eight individuals were excavatedat the or largely buried under, modern Corozal Town site early in this century by Carl Guthe (1921'J~ and its suburbs, this site is located directly on 1922). l Cbetumal Bay between the New River and the :1 RIo Hondo. Santa Rita has a vecy long and , 't Populati~nand Bunal SamplesHistory: Settlement -'' f'" , continuous history of occupation beginning at about 1200 B.C. Irs peak settlement, however, dates to the Late Postclassic period (A.D. 1200- It is common for reconstructionsof prehistoric ,' 1530) when population is estimated to have population to be basedon excavationdata, ex- , ~, elusive of skeletal or burial remains (d. Ash. " . reached betwee~ approximately 7000 and 11,000 people (D. Chase 1990). The Corozal more 1981; Culbertand Rice 1990). Generally ; Postclassic Project (Chase 1982; Chase and speaking, population estimates in the Maya 1 area are basedon counts of numbers of struc- " Chase 1988) excavated 134 interments, includ- I : tures at anyone site, with consideration being - . ing tWO formal combs, at Santa Rita Corozal from 1980 through 1985. Some 164 individ- given.t.o the possibility that not all .struccuresi are vIsible basedupon surfaceremams and tot. the likelihood that early occupation has not ' been adequately sampled at mu!tiphase sites. 'I :. 7Thc buri41 toulsrcflecud in this paper and in Table 2.3 are current through the 1994 season at Caracol, The structure counts, usually derived from re- .' Belize. Additional data gathered as a result of the 1995 and 1996 field seasons do not change the conclusions connaissanceand survey,are Euerhermodified presented here or significantly alter any percentages rel. to account for nonresidentialbuildings and for ative to Caracol burial practices. As of the end of the limited use-spansfor individual constructions. 1996 field seuon some 113 formal interments, repre- Excavation data are then utilized to estimate senting almost 400 individuals, are known from the site; 31 of these interments were distUrbed by loote£$; the total number of structures in use at any 7 empty tombs, presumably ooce used for burial, are given time. The resultant figuresare then multi- not included in this burial total. Addition41l1y, a budal plied by a standard number of individuals be- dating to approximately 600 B.C. is now known from the outlying Caracol core seuJemenr. lieved to havelived in any single Maya house- 16 Diane Z. Chase t . '.".:, :',, ">,:",,,/;:.:\ .":':'>/, ;::~,:'{;,,:,:,:: :',:>/ :',', . I ~ Table 2.1 SantaRita Corozal: RelativePopulation Basedon Burials and Settlement (Approximately 5 km 2) Percent Total Population Percent Basedon Basedon of Population Time Period Structures Structures n. Seenin Burials hold (usually 5 or 5.6 people) to arrive at the sites were occupied, however, revealsthe fact total projectedpopulation foc varioustime peri- that only an extremely small percentageof the ods and an overallpopulation trajectory. While total population alive at anyone time is repre- there are problemswith this method of popula- sented in a given skeletal population. Num- tion reconstruction, its general use and appli- bers of interments recoveredarchaeologically, cation in the Maya area provide a relatively though, maycarrdate proportionately withrela.- standardmethod for comparingexcavated sites. tive numbers of excavatedstructures per time Although not typically employed,a compar- period. Alternatively, they may not, thus indi- ison of relative population derived from skel- cating a greater possibility of sampling error. etal individuals, as opposed to structural dat- At Santa Rita Corozal (Table 2.1) when the ing, may be instructive in identifying places burials per time period are adjustedto indicate where skeletalsampling is inadequateor where maximum individuallifespans (likely overesti- problems exist in population estimates that mated at 50 years), the representativepopula- have beenmade using nonskeletaldata. Burial tion, as recovered in skeletal remains; is ex- samplesrecovered from the sites of Caracci, tremely small. For late facet Late. Postclassic SantaRita Cecoza!,and Tayasalcompare favor- Santa Rita, the time period for which we have ably in size with those collected at other low- the largest skeletal sampleas well as ethnohis- land Maya sites(see Welsh 1988). Any consid- torie information that can be correlated with eration of the total length of rime that given this estimatedpopulation peak, only .002% of SOUTHERN LOWLAND MAYA ARCHAEOLOGY 17 I ~ Table2.2 Tayasal-PaxcamanZone: RelativePopulation Basedon Burials and Settlement (Approximately 90 kmz) Percent Percent Total Population Percent Basedon Basedon Basedon of Population Time Period Structures Burials Structures n a Seenin Burials Middle Preclassic 4 .00 878 0 .000000 750-250 B.C. Late Preclassic 56 2.50 12,293 1 .000008 250 B.C.-A.D. 250 Early Early Classic 71 41.67 15,585 5 .000032 A.D. 250-400 Late Early Classic 85 83.33 18.658 10 .000179 A.D. 400-550 Early Late.Classic . 95 50.00 20,853 6 .000096 A.D. 550-700 Gte Late Classic 100 100.00 21,951 . 20 .000182 A.D. 700-950 Early Postdassic 37 45.00 8122 9 .000222 A.D. 950-1200 Middle Postdassic 76 35.00 16,683 7 .000084 A.D. 1200-1450 Late Postclassic 16 5.00 3512 1 .000057 A.D. 1450-1700 an ~ number of skelelaJindividuals- any contemporaneouspopulation was recov- A secondproblem in characterizingskeletal ered archaeologically.For Classicperiod Taya- populations derived archaeologicallybecomes sal (Table2.2) tbe figuresare evenmore dismal, evident when one looks at population trajecto- with only .000182% of the coeval population ries over time. Comparisons between popula- that existedat that area'spopulation peak being tion numbersderived from settlementresearch recovered.:for Caracol (Table2.3) eventhough and numbers of recoveredindividuals for spe- the burial sample of individuals dated to the cific temporal periods reveal severepoints of Late Classicis over ten times that of the Tayasal disjunction at some sites. In
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