New Perspectives on Human Sacrifice and Ritual Body Treatments in Ancient Maya Society INTERDISCIPLINARY CONTRIBUTIONS TO ARCHAEOLOGY Series Editor: Jelmer Eerkens, University of California, Davis, Davis, California Founding Editor: Roy S. Dickens, Jr. Late of University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina THE ARCHAEOLOGIST’S LABORATORY The Analysis of Archaeological Data E.B. Banning AURIGNACIAN LITHIC ECONOMY Ecological Perspectives from Southwestern France Brooke S. Blades EARLIEST ITALY An Overview of the Italian Paleolithic and Mesolithic Margherita Mussi EMPIRE AND DOMESTIC ECONOMY Terence N. D’Altroy and Christine A. Hastorf EUROPEAN PREHISTORY: A SURVEY Edited by Saurunas Miliasuskas THE EVOLUTION OF COMPLEX HUNTER-GATHERERS Archaeological Evidence from the North Pacific Ben Fitzhugh GATHERING HOPEWELL Edited by Christopher Carr and D. Troy Case A HUNTER-GATHERER LANDSCAPE Southwest Germany in the Late Paleolithic and Neolithic Michael A. Jochim NEW PERSPECTIVES ON HUMAN SACRIFICE AND RITUAL BODY TREATMENTS IN ANCIENT MAYA SOCIETY Edited by Vera Tiesler and Andrea Cucina REMOTE SENSING IN ARCHAEOLOGY Edited by James Wiseman and Farouk El-Baz THE TAKING AND DISPLAYING OF HUMAN BODY PARTS AS TROPHIES BY AMERINDIANS Edited by Richard J. Chacon and David H. Dye TRANSITIONS BEFORE THE TRANSITION Edited by Erella Hovers and Steven Kuhn A Continuation Order Plan is available for this series. A continuation order will bring delivery of each new volume immediately upon publication. Volumes are billed only upon actual shipment. For further information please contact the publisher. New Perspectives on Human Sacrifice and Ritual Body Treatments in Ancient Maya Society Edited by Vera Tiesler Facultad de Ciencias Antropológicas, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, Mérida, Mexico and Andrea Cucina Facultad de Ciencias Antropológicas, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, Mérida, Mexico Vera Tiesler Andrea Cucina Facultad de Ciencias Antropológicas Facultad de Ciencias Antropológicas Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán Mérida, Yucatán Mérida, Yucatán Mexico Mexico [email protected] [email protected] ISBN: 978-0-387-09524-0 softcover ISBN: 978-0-387-48870-7 hardcover e-ISBN: 978-0-387-48871-4 ebook Library of Congress Control Number: 2006937450 First softcover printing, 2008 © 2007 Springer Science + Business Media, LLC All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science + Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Cover illustration: (Figure 6.4 from book) Decapitation ritual on Santa Rita was wall, Mound 1. After Gann, 1900: Pl. 31 Printed on acid-free paper. 987654321 springer.com To Professor Arturo Romano Pacheco List of Contributors Guillermo de Anda Alanís William J. Folan Facultad de Ciencias Antropológicas, Centro de Investigaciones Históricas Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, y Sociales, Mérida, Mexico Universidad Autónoma de Campeche, Campeche, Mexico Jane E. Buikstra Center for Bioarchaeological Sherry A. Gibbs Research, Tourism Development Project, School of Human Evolution and Ministry of Tourism, Social Change, Belize Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA Eleanor Harrison-Buck Department of Archaeology, James H. Burton Boston University, Laboratory for Archaeological Boston, Massachusetts, USA Chemistry, Department of Anthropology, Christine Hernández University of Wisconsin Department of Anthropology, Madison, Tulane University, Madison, Wisconsin, USA New Orleans, Louisiana, USA Aleida Cetina Bastida Araceli Hurtado Cen Facultad de Ciencias Antropológicas, Facultad de Ciencias Antropológicas, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, Mérida, Mexico Mérida, Mexico Andrea Cucina Fred Longstaffe Facultad de Ciencias Antropológicas, Department of Earth Sciences, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, University of Western Ontario, Mérida, Mexico London, Ontario, Canada vii viii List of Contributors Lisa J. Lucero Mirna Sánchez Vargas Department of Sociology and Facultad de Ciencias Antropológicas, Anthropology, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, New Mexico State University, Mérida, Mexico Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA Stanley Serafin Patricia A. McAnany Department of Anthropology, Department of Archaeology, Tulane University, Boston University, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA Boston, Massachusetts, USA Rebecca Storey Cecilia Medina Martín Anthropology Department, Facultad de Ciencias Antropológicas, University of Houston, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, Houston, Texas, USA Mérida, Mexico Vera Tiesler Virginia E. Miller Facultad de Ciencias Antropológicas, Department of Art History, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, University of Illinois at Chicago, Mérida, Mexico Chicago, Illinois, USA Gabrielle Vail Carlos Peraza Lope New College of Florida, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Sarasota, Florida, USA Historia, Centro INAH Yucatán, Christine D. White Mérida, Mexico Department of Anthropology, University of Western Ontario, T. Douglas Price London, Ontario, Canada Laboratory for Archaeological Chemistry, Lori E. Wright Department of Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin Madison, Texas A&M University, Madison, Wisconsin, USA College Station, Texas, USA Table of Contents 1. New Perspectives on Human Sacrifice and Postsacrificial Body Treatments in Ancient Maya Society: An Introduction 1 Andrea Cucina and Vera Tiesler 2. Funerary or Nonfunerary? New References in Identifying Ancient Maya Sacrificial and Postsacrificial Behaviors from Human Assemblages 14 Vera Tiesler 3. The Creation and Sacrifice of Witches in Classic Maya Society 45 Lisa J. Lucero and Sherry A. Gibbs 4. Empowered and Disempowered During the Late to Terminal Classic Transition: Maya Burial and Termination Rituals in the Sibun Valley, Belize 74 Eleanor Harrison-Buck, Patricia A. McAnany, and Rebecca Storey 5. Posthumous Body Treatments and Ritual Meaning in the Classic Period Northern Petén. A Taphonomic Approach 102 Cecilia Medina Martín and Mirna Sánchez Vargas 6. Human Sacrifice in Late Postclassic Maya Iconography and Texts 120 Gabrielle Vail and Christine Hernández 7. Skeletons, Skulls, and Bones in the Art of Chichén Itzá 165 Virginia E. Miller 8. Sacrifice and Ritual Body Mutilation in Postclassical Maya Society: Taphonomy of the Human Remains from Chichén Itzá’s Cenote Sagrado 190 Guillermo de Anda Alanís ix x Table of Contents 9. Sacred Spaces and Human Funerary and Nonfunerary Placements in Champotón, Campeche, During the Postclassic Period 209 Araceli Hurtado Cen, Aleida Cetina Bastida, Vera Tiesler, and William J. Folan 10. Human Sacrificial Rites Among the Maya of Mayapán: A Bioarchaeological Perspective 232 Stanley Serafin and Carlos Peraza Lope 11. Nutrition, Lifestyle, and Social Status of Skeletal Remains from Nonfunerary and “Problematical” Contexts 251 Andrea Cucina and Vera Tiesler 12. Victims of Sacrifice: Isotopic Evidence for Place of Origin 263 T. Douglas Price, James H. Burton, Lori E. Wright, Christine D. White, and Fred Longstaffe 13. The Bioarchaeology of Maya Sacrifice 293 Jane E. Buikstra Subject Index 309 1 New Perspectives on Human Sacrifice and Postsacrificial Body Treatments in Ancient Maya Society: An Introduction ANDREA CUCINA AND VERA TIESLER 1.1. Human Sacrifice Our interest in sacrifice and sacrificial behavior received a boost in June 2001, during a visit to Professor Arturo Romano’s lab in Mexico City. There we were to examine the remains of a female Maya dignitary from the ancient Maya city of Palenque, Chiapas, called the “Red Queen.” The remains of the noble woman and her two companions had been discovered by archaeologists of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) 7 years earlier inside a sacrophagus tomb next to the Temple of the Inscriptions and now rested in the renowned anthropologist’s lab. Upon assessing the skeletons of the Red Queen’s attendants, we soon came across unmistakable and undeniable cut and stabmarks. The anatomical arrangement of the two skeletons inside the tomb implied that both corpses had been deposited on the ground before the chamber was sealed, each at one side of the sarcophagus. The forearms of one individual still appeared crossed behind the back. The joint skeletal and taphonomic evidence left little doubt on the violent treatment received by the Red Queen’s companions, thus providing novel insights into ancient sacrificial behavior surrounding noble funerary ceremonies (Cucina and Tiesler, 2006; Tiesler et al., 2002). Up until now, studies on sacrifice and sacrificial body treatments from the Maya archaeological record have relied heavily on indirect indications, such as multiple interments in supposedly nonfunerary contexts, irregular placings of skeletal remains, along with sex and age profiles, and nutritional status. The reasons for the dearth of published skeletal data on perimortem violence and related posthumous processing are numerous. The poor preservation