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Stature Change in Prehistoric Maya of the Southern Lowlands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Marie Elaine Danforth
Marie Elaine Danforth*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS 39406-5074
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Abstract

Since the 1950s, a decline in stature has been offered as evidence of increasing nutritional stress in prehistoric Maya populations, particularly during the Late Classic collapse. A review of the extant skeletal data, however, reveals very inconsistent support for such a decline. The primary explanation for the variation may reside in the small number of skeletal series that have representatives of more than one time period. Other possible explanations include methodological problems associated with stature reconstruction, reliability in sex determination, and variation in health response according to site size and location.

Desde los 1950s, una reducción de estatura ha sido presentada como evidencia de deficiencas nutricionales entre las poblaciones prehistoricas mayas, especialmente durante el collapso al fin del período Clásico tardio. Sin embargo, un repaso de los datos osteológicos no provee soporte consistente para tal reducción. Una explicación primaria para la variación en estatura pueda ser que existen pocos series de esqueletos con individuos procedentes representantes de más de un período temporal. Otros posibles factores incluyen problemas metodológicos en la estimación de la estatura, un nivel bajo de reliabidad en la determinación del sexo, y variación en salud según el tamaño de población y la ubicación de los sitios.

Type
Articles
Information
Latin American Antiquity , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , September 1994 , pp. 206 - 211
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1994

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