New isotope data on Maya mobility and enclaves at Classic Copan, Honduras

Crossing the peninsula: The role of Noh Bec, Yucatán, in ancient Maya Classic Period population dynamics from an analysis of dental morphology and Sr isotopes

“…This suggests that, although mobility at Noh Bec was frequent, it tended to be limited to the region. This clearly contrasts with the evidence found by scholars in other parts of the Maya realm (Price et al, ; Scherer and Wright ; Sierra Sosa et al, ; Wright ), which revealed the presence of some foreigners from very distant territories in the Maya area.…”

“…Wright (), based on Sr ratios alone, similarly indicates that at Tikal during the Early Classic, a period when the city showed a meteoric growth (2012:343; Haviland, ), 17.5% of the inhabitants were of foreign origin. At Copan (Price et al, ), 44% of the individuals recovered by the PICPAC project from Quadrant 10 are of foreign origin. Such a high frequency of foreigners (which includes the presence of two kings) suggests that this was an enclave of Maya foreigners at the site.…”

New evidence for an early settlement of the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico: The Chan Hol 3 woman and her meaning for the Peopling of the Americas

“…The isotopic composition of tooth enamel is based on food and liquids consumed during infancy and does not change chemically during the life of the individual, and rather little during death. Therefore, the tooth enamel composition measured here should provide a fingerprint on the provenance (place of birth/youth) of the individual [48,61,62]. The value of 87 Sr/ 86 Sr of 0.708878 is close to the ones previously determined for areas located within 40 km distance to Tulum (0.7087 to 0.7091) [49,63] and is also close to the one of modern seawater.…”

Los mayas y los otros: integración y distinción cultural en el paisaje urbano y rural de Copán

“…Las diferentes prácticas culturales que pudieron haber servido de marcadores étnicos abarcan la producción cerámica (Viel 1999), la arquitectura (Sharer y Traxler 2006) y la deformación craneal (Suzuki 2015, p. 251-263). Además, estudios bioarqueológicos recientes han confirmado que Copán recibió grandes cantidades de migrantes a lo largo del periodo Clásico, tanto de las tierras bajas mayas, como de las tierras altas de la actual Guatemala y de la región centroamericana al este de Copán (Price et al 2010(Price et al , 2014Miller 2015, p. 207-233;Suzuki 2015, p. 187-220). Ante este panorama no solo debemos cuestionar qué tan representativo es Copán para "la cultura maya", sino también por qué hemos tardado tanto tiempo en abordar este tema.…”