Earth offerings among the Classic period Lowland Maya: burial and caches as ritual deposits

Abstract

One of the functions of archaeology is the reconstruction of the cultures of societies which no longer exist. The examination of material and data on the lives of these people also includes a concern with their ritual behaviors, which allow us to understand how they may have viewed the world. In the Maya world the reconstruction of ritual (Pohl, 1981) is a particularly interesting undertaking since we have recovered so much information which reflects this aspect of their ancient social behaviors. What is peculiar in studies of the Maya realm is the dearth of attention being paid to mortuary behaviour at a time when the archaeology of death (Chapman et al., 1981) is of major interest to archaeologists throughout the world. Perhaps it is not surprising that mortuary customs among the Maya have not been a special concern as they have been in other parts of North America since burials are generally recovered in the

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