University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository Anthropology ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 5-1-2013 Spanish Missionization and Maya Social Structure: Skeletal Evidence for Labor Distribution at Tipu, Belize Lara Noldner Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/anth_etds Part of the Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Noldner, Lara. "Spanish Missionization and Maya Social Structure: Skeletal Evidence for Labor Distribution at Tipu, Belize." (2013). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/anth_etds/48 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Anthropology ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Lara Kristen Noldner Candidate Anthropology Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Dissertation Committee: Heather Edgar, Chairperson Osbjorn Pearson Keith Prufer Gabriel Wrobel i SPANISH MISSIONIZATION AND MAYA SOCIAL STRUCTURE: SKELETAL EVIDENCE FOR LABOR DISTRIBUTION AT TIPU, BELIZE by LARA K. NOLDNER B.A., Anthropology, University of Wyoming, 2004 M.S., Anthropology, University of New Mexico, 2008 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Anthropology The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico May, 2013 ii Dedication To Larry, Dani and Maria, for the love and support that are the foundation of my strengths, and the encouragement that surmounts my weaknesses. iii Acknowledgements This dissertation was made possible by the advisement and support of many anthropologists, who are both colleagues and friends. First and foremost, I thank my advisor and committee chair, Heather Edgar. Over the course of my graduate career she has encouraged me to rethink assumptions and develop legitimate research plans. She has provided me with invaluable employment opportunities that have boosted my experience and helped me define my career path. As both a friend and advisor, she has been a major source of self-improvement. Her guidance and confidence in me were vital to my success in graduate school, and will also serve me well in my future professional development. Whenever I have felt lost in the world of academia, I have looked to her for direction and found my path again. Many thanks to all my committee members for bringing their strengths to bear on this work. Ozzie Pearson, Keith Prufer and Gabe Wrobel have brought much appreciated insights to different aspects of this dissertation. Thanks to Ozzie for his advisement on technical aspects of the methods employed, for pushing me to produce sound results, and for his encouragement to share this work with the scientific community. He has been an influential teacher from the beginning of my graduate career. Keith inspired my interest in the Maya by encouraging me to join his field crew in Belize. His enthusiastic support of my research ideas and willingness to help in any way possible contributed greatly to the progression of this work, and his advisement on background information concerning the Maya is much appreciated. Thanks to Gabe for contributing his insights concerning Tipu and several sites from which comparative skeletal collections were analyzed. I greatly appreciate his enthusiastic support of this work and suggestions for improving it. He was also very accommodating when I was collecting data at Ole Miss. I am also grateful to Dr. Elizabeth Graham for sharing her insights and her latest manuscript concerning Tipu before the book was published. And many thanks to Thomas Davies for his time and efforts processing my 3D data with his newly developed software program. His work was a major, and much appreciated, help to my work. A special thanks goes to Dr. Joseph Powell for accepting me as his student in the first place, and initiating what has been a rewarding graduate school career. His faith and iv confidence in me was inspiring and encouraging at a significantly transitional and intimidating point in my life. I also thank the many people who helped me along the way in graduate school and throughout my dissertation data collection. Thanks to Erika Gerety for all her help with the technical aspects of getting through graduate school, and for generally keeping me in line. I greatly appreciate the invaluable experience opportunities I gained from my employment with the Maxwell Museum, and the knowledge imparted by the Anthropology Department's faculty. I thank the Anthropology Department for funding various aspects of my research. This dissertation was also generously funded by UNM's Graduate Dean's Dissertation Fellowship, and the Office of Graduate Studies. Thanks to the Belize Institute and Dr. Jaime Awe for accommodating my data collection in Belize. The hospitality of the Waight family was greatly appreciated. Julie Hoggarth was also extremely generous in helping me access skeletal collections in San Ignacio, and allowing me to work out of her home. Thanks to Dr. Mark Cohen and Justin Sabino at the State University of New York Plattsburgh for their hospitality and help during my collection of data from the Tipu skeletal remains. And thanks to Caitlin Stewart for her hospitality and helpfulness during my stay in Oxford, MS. Many thanks to my long term academic advisors and friends, Dr. Steve Cassells and Dr. George Gill. Dr. Cassells' engaging teaching style is what started my exploration of the field of Anthropology, and he has been a mentor from the beginning of my college career. Of the many field trips he took his students on, our trip to Grand Gulch, Utah was the trip that made me decide that Anthropology was the way to go. I have been hooked ever since. Dr. Gill inspired my interest in human osteology and bioarchaeology. He was an excellent advisor and highly influential in my pursuit of acceptance to graduate school. This dissertation was also made possible by the support of friends and family. Many thanks to Shamsi Daneshvari, Wendy Potter, Carmen Mosley, Andi Frey, Nicole Schneider, Corey Ragsdale and Tony Koehl for their friendship and encouragement. My graduate career was not only a time of professional development. The friends I gained have taught me a great deal about life and about myself. They have made Albuquerque my home away from home. v Finally, my greatest gratitude is to my family. I would not be where I am today without the love and support of Larry, Dani, and Maria. Every trip home and any time spent with them rejuvenates me. They are the source of my strength. They have cheered me on my whole life and their encouragement throughout my graduate career has been vital to my success. They have never doubted me, so I have never doubted myself. vi SPANISH MISSIONIZATION AND MAYA SOCIAL STRUCTURE: SKELETAL EVIDENCE FOR LABOR DISTRIBUTION AT TIPU, BELIZE by LARA K. NOLDNER B.A., Anthropology, University of Wyoming, 2004 M.S., Anthropology, University of New Mexico, 2008 Ph.D., Anthropology, University of New Mexico, 2013 Abstract The cultural and human biological outcomes of Spanish colonization of the Americas were diverse. This dissertation examines the effects of Spanish colonization on Maya social structure using skeletal evidence for the distribution of labor at Tipu, a mission site in west central Belize. Skeletal remains of indigenous Maya buried in the context of a church, and in accordance with European Catholic burial customs, were examined for enthesis development and the cross-sectional morphology (CSG) of upper and lower limb long bones. Nothing besides burial placement in relation to the church (inside or outside the walls) denotes social status among individuals. Bone functional adaptations were used to examine the distribution of labor at Tipu and determine whether activity patterns varied by burial placement, and therefore social status. The bone functional adaptations of samples of pre-contact Maya elite and non-elites were also examined to determine whether the activity patterns of high and low status individuals at Tipu varied in the same way as those of Classic/Postclassic Maya of different social tiers. A 3D laser scanner was used to measure the surface areas of entheses on the humerus, radius and ulna, as well as CSG of the humerus (at 35% of length), femur and tibia (at midshaft). Detailed in this dissertation are: 1) a pilot study testing the reliability of the new 3D method for quantifying enthesis development, 2) an investigation of the distribution of labor at Tipu using entheses as indicators of habitual upper limb muscle use, and 3) an investigation of labor distribution at Tipu using CSG as indication of habitual upper limb use and mobility patterns. vii The pilot study presented in Chapter 2 supports the use of the 3D method for quantifying enthesis development. Chapters 3 and 4 demonstrate that both patterns of enthesis development and CSG at Tipu suggest Maya social structure changed with missionization. The activity patterns of high and low status individuals did not replicate those of pre-contact elites and non-elites. In general, the activity patterns of Tipuans of different social status were more similar. There were no drastic differences in the bone functional adaptations of inside and outside burial groups. However, some notable exceptions to this finding in both enthesis development and CSG suggest there may have been some task specialization