The identity and worship of humain remains in rockshelter shrines among the Northern Lacandons of Mensabäk

Abstract

The present bioarchaeological and taphonomic investigation focuses on the skeletal remains deposited on surfaces of Lacandon rock-shelter sanctuaries around the Mensabäk lagoon in Chiapas (in particular the ones of Sak Tak and Mensabäk). The Lacandon locals still identify these remains with their ancestors and deities. Here we examine the minimum number of individuals, the age-at-death and sex profiles of those who comprise the assemblages, and their skeletal indications of physiological stress, trauma and cultural modification. Equally distributed between males and females, the series are made up of mainly middle-age adults, with subadults noticeably missing. Al preserved skulls express the effects of cradleboard use (tabular erect form). The pathological conditions recorded in this study appear as criba orbitalia and porotic hyperostosis in the skull, and periostal reactions in the long bones; however, the secondary nature of the deposit limits the possibility of making specific diagnoses.

Material Encounters and Indigenous Transformations in the Early Colonial Americas

“…In a recent analysis of skeletal remains from a burial site in the Mensabak area of the Lacandon forests in Chiapas, Cucina et al (2015) concluded that the remains displayed evidence of violent deaths and wounds caused by metal weapons such as machetes and swords. Maxine Oland and Palka (2016, 480) note that the Mensabak region was an unconquered zone and that this type of violence was a result of the use of acquired metal tools in "local indigenous conflicts."…”

The perduring Maya: new archaeology on early Colonial transitions

“…Their remains show violent deaths, such as a machete or sword cut to the face that cleanly removed the left side of a lower jawbone, a machete cut to a leg, a fall or blunt force trauma to the head, and scalping or flesh removal on the head with a metal knife (Cucina et al . 2015). This violence probably stemmed from local indigenous conflicts over the shifts in trade and the acquisition of metal tools, demarcation of agricultural land in a contested region, changes in demography and social organisation and political transformations following economic and demographic changes during the Spanish Colonial period (Hill 1996).…”