A shaman's burial from an Early Classic cave in the Maya Mountains of Belize, Central America (original) (raw)
Related papers
Maya Cave Archaeology: A New Look at Religion & Cosmology by J. E. Brady & K. M. Prufer
Stone Houses and Earth Lords: Maya Religion in the Cave Context, edited by Keith M. Prufer and James E. Brady, pp. 365-379. University Press of Colorado, Boulder. (2005)
One of the major accomplishments of cave archaeology has been to champion a new view of Maya religion and cosmology. This has been accomplished to no small degree by embracing the explicit use of ethnographic analogy. Ethnographers have long recognized the fundamental role that caves, mountains, and springs play in social reproduction in communities across Mesoamerica, as well as the pervasiveness of religious specialists who engage indigenous deities in Maya social and political life and have long agreed that many types of religious expression have pre-Columbian antecedents Holland 1964; Vogt 1964). Ethnohistoric sources indicated that caves were fundamental features in Maya religious organization at the dawn of Spanish colonialism. Although Maya archaeologists have generally been hesitant in their explicit acceptance of analogy as a method, they often acknowledge similarities between the ethnographic present and the archaeological past (Culbert 1988; Gossen and
The use of caves by the Ancient Maya has been documented in the archaeological record to various degrees by scholars since the late 1800s. While there has been some research work on the use of caves by the Ancient Maya in the Maya Highland regions, as well as that of other pre-Columbian Mesoamerican peoples to the North in Oaxaca, Vera Cruz and the Valley of Mexico, the limestone bedrock that comprises much of the Lowland Maya areas in Belize, the Yucatán Peninsula, and the Petén region of Guatemala, has resulted a significant number of large karst features, many of which have only been " discovered " in the last 20-30 years. Early studies of Maya cave use often focused mainly on descriptive audits of cave sites and the materials found in caves, interpreted based on their perceived symbolic value to the Maya using post-Conquest ethnohistoric sources or modern Maya ethnographic studies. In recent years, significant speleoarchaeological survey work, a number of new cave " discoveries " in the Lowland Maya Regions, as well as advances in epigraphic interpretation, has contributed to a greater understanding of the ritual significance of the role of caves in Ancient Maya society-specifically with regards to how key cave ritual themes and components in the archaeological record can be understood in the broader context of Ancient Maya social, political, and ideological structures. This new research also has the potential to allow Lowland Maya cave archaeology to provide significant contributions to the overall understanding of Ancient Maya lifeways, by linking research findings to common themes and changes seen in the archaeological of surface sites in the Lowland Maya regions.
Regional Perspective of Ancient Maya Burial Patterns in Northwest Belize, Central America
This dissertation addresses common trends in ancient Maya burials recovered through excavations of the Programme for Belize Archaeological Project (PfBAP) in northwest Belize. The scope of this research includes 123 individuals (of the approximately 150 individuals that have been recovered through PfBAP excavations) from 12 different archaeological sites and 1,200 years of prehistoric Maya society (spanning from 400 B.C. until A.D. 900). My examination combines osteological and contextual information from these human burials in a bioarchaeological analysis of Maya mortuary practices. Biological sex, age at death, grave type, body positioning, grave goods, and other characteristics are compared across three main categories represented in the data: Site Type, Time Period, and Geographic Region. Additional data comparisons included in this dissertation consider the various burial characteristics mentioned above by sex and age at death of the decedents. By collecting and compiling 25 years’ worth of PfBAP burial data, this analysis successfully identified various trends in Maya burial practices in northwest Belize, many of which present opportunities for further research in the regard for life and death among these prehistoric peoples of Central America.
Journal of Cave and Karst Studies, 2013
Archaeological investigations of the Overlook Rockshelter in the Caves Branch River Valley of central Belize offer a unique view of ancient Maya cave ritual through the complete recovery and analysis of all artifacts within the site’s two small activity areas. In general, the assemblage contains many of the same types of objects documented from other nearby caves and rockshelters. However, the nearly 1700 ceramics sherds showed almost no refits, demonstrating that sherds were deposited at the site individually, rather than as complete vessels. The human bone assemblage represents three or four individuals, with the majority of the bones comprising a single individual, and all of these were deposited as incomplete secondary interments. Analogies for this depositional behavior based on archaeological and ethnographic studies suggest that this rockshelter may represent a waypoint within a ritual circuit composed of multiple locations over which fragments of complete items such as ceramic vessels and secondary burials were spread.
THE RITUAL USE OF A CAVE ON THE NORTHERN VACA PLATEAU, BELIZE, CENTRAL AMERICA
Research conducted on the Northern Vaca Plateau in west-central Belize has discovered numerous caves that were utilized by the Maya. In particular, Ch'en P'ix appears to have been used for religious activities, including autosacrificial bloodletting. A constructed platform in the cave was excavated in 1998, and a nearly complete tripod plate (the Ch'en P'ix Tripod) was recovered. This plate depicts a seated single figure that appears to be catching blood dripping from his right hand, in a vessel held in the left hand, and on a loincloth spread in front of the figure. We think that the Ch'en P'ix Tripod was probably used for collecting blood scattered during ritual events conducted on the platform, and we offer the following interpretation. A platform was constructed within Ch'en P'ix (with a speleothem-bordered path leading from the entrance drop to this platform) that was used for ritual activities. One ritual activity involved bloodletting, and a plate depicting autosacrificial bloodletting (the Ch'en P'ix Tripod) was used during this ceremony. The Tripod plate not only depicts the scene, but we also think it was used for collecting blood during the ritual. Upon completion of the ritual, the plate was broken on the platform as an offering. These events might have taken place in Ch'en P'ix sometime during the Late Classic period.