| Contents |
Osteobiographies in Mesoamerica: Their History and Scope / Gabriel D. Wrobel, Andrea Cucina -- Section 1: Ordinary Individuals. -- The Man of Macabilero: An Osteobiography of Perseverance / Andrew K. Scherer, Ricardo Rodas, Joshua T. Schnell, Mónica Urquizá, and Omar Alcover Firpi -- Life into Old Age: A Female Forager-Horticulturalist from the Middle Holocene in Belize / Emily Moes, Lexi O'Donnell, Ethan Hill, Mark Robinson, Douglas J. Kennett, and Keith Prufer -- Life and Death of a Middle Preclassic Individual from Aguada Fenix, Tabasco / Shintaro Suzuki, Fernando Gutiérrez Méndez, María Belén Méndez Bauer, Daniela Triadan, Takeshi Inomata -- Colonial Lifeways and Childhood Revealed through Osteobiographic Analysis at Cahal Pech, Belize / Kirsten Green-Mink, Claire E. Ebert, Jaime J. Awe, Carolyn Freiwald, Jelmer Eerkens -- Daily Life at the Border: Utilizing Osteobiography to Create Imagined Narratives of Two Colonists from the Villa de Salamanca de Bacalar / Allan Ortega Muñoz -- Life on the Colonial Frontier: A Maya Osteobiography from Tipu, Belize / Amy L. Hair, Peter Mercier, Mariah D. Biggs, Marie Elaine Danforth -- Section 2: Social Roles in Life. -- Osteobiography of a Postclassic Maya Shaman/Priest: The "Guardian of Maay*" from San Miguelito, Quintana Roo / Andrea Cucina, Sandra Elizalde, Allan Ortega-Muñoz -- A Teotihuacano in Monte Alban: Life history in a domestic group from an osteobiographic approach / Lourdes Mãrquez Morfín, Samantha Sharon Negrete-Gutiérrez, Aurora Marcela Pérez-Flórez -- Walking in the Mayab Land: The Life History of a Merchant from Caucel, Yucatan / Mónica Rodríguez Pérez, Ana María Padilla Dorantes, Andrea Cucina -- A Young Man, An Old Ritual, and Maya Ethnoscience / Della Collins Cook -- Section 3: Distinguished in Death: Postmortem Social Roles. -- Making a Place for Ancestors at Actuncan, Belize: An Osteobiography of a Maya Burial Ground / Carolyn Freiwald, Destiny Micklin, Kara A. Fulton, David W. Mixter, Lisa LeCount -- Death and Remembrance in Central Belize: An Osteobiography / Gabriel D. Wrobel, Eleanor M. Harrison-Buck, Carolyn Freiwald, Jack A. Biggs, Morgan McKenna, Satoru Murata -- A Pilgrimage of Bones: Using Osteobiography to Understand Rockshelter Use Along a Maya Ritual Circuit in Central Belize / Samantha H. Blatt, Amy R. Michael, Jack A. Biggs -- Recycling souls and Age-Fluid Ancestors: Osteobiographic Evidence from the Precolumbian Maya of Northwestern Belize / Pamela L. Geller -- Venerated Youth: Age at Death and Ancestral Status at the Chan Site, Belize / Anna C. Novotny -- Human Bones Converted into Artifacts at Teotihuacan / Abigail Meza, Federico Zertuche, Andrea Cucina -- Section 4: Impairment and Care. -- Blighted Childhood in Colonial La Antigua Guatemala / Paige Violet Wojcik Woolfolk, Rosalba Yasmin Cifuentes Arg ello, Della Collins Cook -- Living and Dying in the Pur'pecha Heartland: A Case of Possible Hypertrophic Osteoarthropathy from Angamuco, Michoacán, Mexico / Alex Garcia-Putnam, D. Eli Mrak, Melissa S. Murphy, Christopher T. Fisher -- Section 5: Forensic Biohistory. -- Tying the Knot Between the Maya Ruler Janaab Pakal and Lady Tz'akab Ajaw: A Family Osteobiography from Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico / Vera Tiesler, Erik Vel squez GarcíŁa -- An Osteobiographic Narrative of Copan's Early Royal Dynasty / Jane E. Buikstra, LP Traxler, EE Bell, and KA Miller Wolf -- Osteobiography: The Next Generation / John Robb |
| Abstract |
"A rapidly growing approach within bioarchaeology that focuses on understanding people of the past in their sociocultural contexts Drawing from a variety of sites throughout Mesoamerica, this volume presents a collection of osteobiographies, which analyze skeletons and their surroundings alongside historical, archaeological, ethnographic, and other contextual data to better understand the life experiences of individuals. This approach allows for a focus on the processes by which individual social identities are created, negotiated, and altered. In these chapters, contributors address what individual bodies reveal about their societies, what burials can tell us about the ways people were remembered, and what information about disease and health indicates about lifestyles. Each case study compiles a range of available data to gain insights into a specific time and place. Recreating the lives of individuals from locations in Belize, Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras, the volume includes descriptions of everyday activities, the social roles of priests and merchants, memorial practices, and many other spheres of human life.Mesoamerican Osteobiographies demonstrates how the diverse, culturally laden, and complex archaeological record of Mesoamerica can uniquely contribute to bioarchaeology, in part due to the region's many unusual and elaborate mortuary contexts. The different contributions in this volume show that the osteobiography approach can be integrated into existing research frameworks, both in Mesoamerica and around the world, to answer meaningful biocultural questions about the lives and deaths of ancient people."-- Provided by publisher. |
