The Bioarchaeology of Individuals

17. From Cradle to Grave and Beyond: A Maya Life and Death

17  d  From Cradle to Grave and Beyond A Maya Life and Death Pamela L. Geller Individual Profile Site: Bajo Hill (RB 25) Location: 3 km west-northwest of La Milpa, Río Bravo Conservation and Management Area, northwestern Belize, C.A. Cultural Affiliation: Pre-Columbian Maya Date: Late/Terminal Classic period, Tepeu 2–3 phase, ca. A.D. 700–900; based on ceramic analysis Feature: V42-B-13 Location of Grave: Under house floor, Structure 2, Group B Burial and Grave Type: Single primary inhumation tightly flexed on left side, north–south orientation; circular pit cut into floor with modification of underlying bedrock, filled with subfloor fill, sealed with plaster floor, and topped by an architectural feature—a masonry bench with construction fill comprised of red plaster chunks, lithics, sherds, marl, and cobble Associated Materials: Miniature ceramic jar, three hematite disks, obsidian blade, vertical headstone Preservation and Completeness: Poor preservation, skeletal elements highly fragmentary and incomplete; 12 teeth; eroded cranial fragments primarily from occiput; very eroded shafts of right and left femora, tibiae, humeri, and radius or ulna; very eroded fragments of right and left scapulae Age at Death and Basis of Estimate: 20–34 years, based on dental wear Sex and Basis of Determination: Probable male, based on robusticity of occipital and long bones Conditions Observed: Peg incisor (RI2), LEH on canines (one episode at 3–5 years) Specialized Analysis: None Excavated: June 1999, Programme for Belize Archaeological Project directed by Fred Valdez Jr., University of Texas–Austin Archaeological Report: Geller 1999, 2004; Saul and Saul 2004 Current Disposition: PfBAP field laboratory, Río Bravo Conservation and Management Area, northwestern Belize, C.A. 255 256 · Pamela L. Geller Feminist archaeology means writing the prehistory of people. This means social actors who have gender, personalities, biographies. —Ruth Tringham, “Engendered Places in Prehistory,” 183. Bioarchaeologists, those whose studies take the remains of people as their terminus a quo, are neither unfamiliar with nor hostile to the notion of peopling the past. On the contrary, Buikstra (2006: xix) reminds us that bioarchaeology as an outgrowth of American anthropology emphasizes “peopling the past.” Yet many bioarchaeologists’ efforts at peopling call to my mind Tringham’s statements about pasts comprised of “faceless blobs” (1991: 94). After reflecting upon her own archaeological work, Tringham realized that the material data she examined “had a richer role to play in archaeology than a passive reflection on human behavior” (1991: 98). That is, to truly and effectively people the past required critical evaluation of knowledge production and expansion of research concerns, which Tringham and her fellow feminist archaeologists proceeded to do. Since its fomentation, feminist archaeology has endeavored to people the past in three ways. First, in reaction to processualists’ limited focus on macroscale phenomena, feminist archaeologists take a multiscalar approach in their studies—from the quotidian and interpersonal to the long term and large scale (Conkey 2003: 870–71). Second, feminist archaeologists think about difference beyond dichotomy, exploring individuals’ identities as intersected by multiple , materially recoverable attributes. While sex and gender remain prominent concerns, practitioners also think about the ways in which these facets of identity intersect with age, race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality (e.g., Gilchrist 1999; Meskell 1999; Dowson 2000; Schmidt and Voss 2000). Conceptualizing identities as the complex outcome of varied characteristics allows for a more nuanced construction of past categories of personhood. The past is no longer comprised of “faceless blobs,” but encompasses diverse peoples whose identities were contextually contingent and mutable throughout their lives. Third, feminist archaeologists advocate alternative and creative ways to write the past, such as first-person anecdote, hypertext, and informed fiction (e.g., Spector 1993; Joyce et al. 2000; Dowson 2006). To do so, Conkey and Gero (1991: 22) remarked, undermines “cults of authority: the authority of statistics, of the passive voice, the exaggeratedly objective eye, the single line of evidence, the single cause, the only perspective.” Accordingly, a more vibrant and holistic prehistory materializes. With these lessons learned from feminist archaeology, critical evaluation of bioarchaeology’s peopling project reveals a shortcoming. Many researchers retain a preference for population research; they eschew the individual, an oversight that this volume seeks to remedy. This is not to say that population perspectives have failed to advance our understanding of the human condition . Posing population-based questions, bioarchaeologists have, for example, fruitfully explored the immediate and future effects of agricultural intensification on health status (Cohen and Armelagos 1984...