HUMAN SKELETAL REMAINS OF THE ANCIENT MAYA IN THE ...

19or deposition of human remains within a cave represents a pan-Mesoamericanphenomenon that occurred before the rise of the Maya culture. Moreover, the placementof human remains in caves clearly demonstrates an act of intentional deposition within asacred context. However, the interpretation of these remains focus around the Maya aspractitioners of sacrificial acts and/or a people that ritually venerated their dead. As weshall see in the following descriptions, the archaeological context, age and sexdistributions, the position and treatment of the remains, and the presence of associatedgrave goods, are a few of the considerations that must be examined when determiningthe agents responsible for the deposition of human remains in the context of a cave.Gordon’s CaveThe four caves first explored and investigated by George B. Gordon in the late19 th century are located 3 km north of the site of Copán in the Sesesmil River Valley,Honduras. Gordon’s (1898) initial investigations of Cave #3 documented ceramics thatdate to the Middle Preclassic and a chamber, which contained a large quantity of humanremains. In 1983, several members of the Proyecto Arqueologico Copán, Phase IIrevisited Cave #3 in order to reexamine the cave’s stratigraphy and collect pollensamples (Rue et al. 1989). Their archaeological efforts produced evidence of the cave’sminimal Late Classic utilization and confirmed the use of the third chamber as a possibleossuary for the cremated remains of several individuals (Rue et al. 1989:398). Ananalysis of the skeletal material estimated 68 individuals: 22 adults and 46 juveniles.More than half of these subadults (24) were less than one year of age (Rue et al.1989:398).