Abstract
Recent studies of dietary behavior have combined dental microwear and isotopic analyses in their investigation of both animal (Palombo et al. 2005) and human populations (Hogue and Melsheimer 2008; Pérez-Pérez et al. 2003). The purpose of this investigation is to determine the residential history of dedicatory burials from two nonresidential structures at the Maya site of Altun Ha, Belize, by integrating isotopic and dental microwear records. This approach brings together complementary data reflecting several periods in the life of an individual and thus provides a way to explore personal and group histories more thoroughly. Carbon- and nitrogen-isotope compositions (δ13C and δ15N) of bone collagen have been used previously to identify dietary differences between: (1) the two groups of dedicatory burials and (2) the dedicatory groups and known residents of the site (White et al. 2001a). Although striation microwear data also revealed differences in food consumption between the two sets of dedicatory burials, they were unable to distinguish dietary differences between the dedicatory burials and known residents of the site. When interpreted together, however, the isotopic and microwear data suggest that the diets of the dedicatory individuals changed shortly before their deaths. Although distinct diet and recent change in food consumption indirectly imply that these individuals had only recently become residents of the site, oxygen-isotope results (δ18Op) indicate that both local and nonlocal individuals are among the burials.
Placement of human burials in public architecture is not a practice unique to Altun Ha. Accordingly, we develop through this study a more general understanding of the Maya practice of human bone use in dedicatory contexts within public architecture. In addition to reviewing previous accounts of dedicatory practice within the Maya area, we also briefly explore various theoretical approaches used to explain the meaning and significance of this type of context in other cultures.
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Acknowledgments
This research was supported by two Ontario Graduate Scholarships, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, The Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Canada Research Chairs program. The authors thank David Pendergast and Linda Howie for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. We are grateful to Kim Law, Grace Yau, and Li Huang at the Laboratory for Stable Isotope Science and M. Mogharab-Rahbari at Particle Technology Research Western for their technical assistance. We also thank Peter Ungar for providing the Microware 4.01 image analysis software. This is Laboratory for Stable Isotope Science Contribution #249. The maps of Belize and Altun Ha were created using Esri ArcGIS, version 10. Thank you to Zoe Morris at The University of Western Ontario for generating the maps used in this article.
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Olsen, K., Cleland, S., White, C., Longstaffe, F. (2014). Human Dedicatory Burials from Altun Ha, Belize: Exploring Residential History Through Enamel Microwear and Tissue Isotopic Compositions. In: Wrobel, G. (eds) The Bioarchaeology of Space and Place. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-0479-2_7
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