Maya Diets of the Rich and Poor: Paleoethnobotanical Evidence from Copan

1991 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 269-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
David L. Lentz

Analysis of plant remains recovered from excavations at Copán in western Honduras has provided substantive data regarding agroeconomic systems of the prehistoric inhabitants. The time span of the deposits ranges from the Gordon/Uir phase (900-400 B. C.), which may have been non-Maya, to the Coner phase (A. D. 700-900+), which encompasses the collapse of the Classic Maya cultural manifestation in the valley. Several traditionally recognized mesoamerican cultigens were identified including corn, beans, and several species of Cucurbitaceae. In addition, remains of a number of economic tree species were discovered, suggesting a reliance on arboriculture as part of the subsistence strategy. Pine charcoal predominated in all deposits and may have been the preferred wood for fuel and construction. Analysis of edible-plant-species distributions from low- and high-status Late Classic dwellings using the Shannon-Weaver index revealed that elite individuals had a higher diversity of available foods, a situation that may have led to nutritional stress among lower-status individuals and, ultimately, social unrest.

1967 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 316-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Haviland

AbstractThis paper presents an analysis of stature of the prehistoric population from the Maya site of Tikal, Guatemala. From this analysis, based on 55 skeletons from the Tikal burial series, three important conclusions emerge with respect to ancient Maya demography and social organization. (1) Tikal was settled by people of moderate stature, and this remained relatively stable over several centuries. A marked reduction in male stature in Late Classic times may be indicative of a situation of nutritional stress, which may have had something to do with the collapse of Classic Maya civilization. (2) Stature differences between those buried in tombs and others at Tikal suggest that, in the last century B.C., a distinct ruling class developed at Tikal. This simple class division of rulers and commoners may have become more complex in Late Classic times. (3) There was a marked sexual dimorphism in stature between males and females at Tikal. This is probably partially genetic and partially a reflection of relatively lower status for women as opposed to men in Maya society.


2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 497-509 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny L. Davis ◽  
Tony P. Love

Using 77 status-imbalanced dyads, we experimentally test the effect of status on identity stability, setting the stage for research on identity change. From an identity theory perspective, we hypothesize that those with higher status will maintain greater identity stability over the course of a task-oriented interaction than their relatively lower status partners. We further test the role of identity-discrepant information. Results indicate that higher status actors are better able to maintain stable identity meanings than those with lower status. However, this relationship dissipates when situational meanings contrast with high-status actors’ self-views. More generally, this indicates that high status positively affects identity stability, yet high-status actors remain vulnerable to situational inputs.


1984 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 815-820 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman Hammond ◽  
Mary D. Neivens ◽  
Garman Harbottle

Forty-nine obsidian artifacts from a Classic period residential group at Nohmul, northern Belize, have been analyzed by neutron activation analysis. The majority of the samples originated from Ixtepeque, and the remainder from El Chayal. Increasing prominence of the Ixtepeque source from the Late Classic into the Terminal Classic (i.e., before and after ca. A.D. 800) suggests greater use of a coastal distribution route known to have originated in the Formative and to have remained in use through the colonial period.


Author(s):  
AMY R. MICHAEL ◽  
GABRIEL D. WROBEL ◽  
JACK BIGGS

Author(s):  
Martin Jones

Twenty-five years after embarking on what was to become one of the major Iron Age excavations of the twentieth century, Barry Cunliffe was also reflecting on the endless cycle from Beltain, through Lughnasadh, to Samhain and Imbolc, and back to Beltain (Cunliffe 1995). While the journey to which Cuchulainn aspired was across the bosom of his bride to be, Cunliffe’s journey took him to a deeper understanding of the culmination of European Prehistory. The campaign he so impressively led at Danebury hillfort formed a critical leg of that journey; it remains a keystone to everyone’s understanding of Iron Age society. He was not alone among his research group in reflecting upon that annual cycle of seasons and feasts, which is preserved in various subsequent Celtic and Gaelic accounts; the principal archaeobotanist and archaeozoologist on the Danebury Environs Project incorporated them into their resumé of seasonal economic activities (Campbell and Hamilton 2000). Cunliffe had previously inferred, on the basis of an analysis he conducted with Poole (1995) of different patterns of erosion and infilling in the thousands of pits within the hillfort of Danebury, that Beltain and Samhain were the times of their ritual opening and infilling. These same pits provided the present author with one of the richest archaeobotanical data-sets I have had the opportunity to examine, and formed a cornerstone of my arguments about Iron Age agricultural production (Jones 1981, 1984a and b, 1985, 1991, 1995, 1996). The discussion and critique those analyses have generated are at least as valuable as the original publications themselves, and the most recent of them draws the debate in an interesting direction. In a meticulous and critical study, Van der Veen and Jones (2006) question a number of aspects of my original argument, and shift the emphasis from my own, which was upon relations of production, to a new emphasis upon relations of consumption. Whereas I had connected the plant remains within the pits to the toil of farmers, they speculated upon the celebrations of the feast.


2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (12) ◽  
pp. 1649-1672 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariline Comeau-Vallée ◽  
Ann Langley

The challenges of managing interprofessional boundaries within multidisciplinary teams are well known. However, the role of intraprofessional relations in influencing the dynamics of interprofessional collaboration remain underexplored. Our qualitative study offers a fine-grained analysis of the interplay between inter- and intraprofessional boundary work among three professional groups in a multidisciplinary team over a period of two years. Our contribution to the literature is threefold. First, we identify various forms of “competitive” and “collaborative” boundary work that may occur simultaneously at both inter- and intraprofessional levels. Second, we reveal the dynamic interplay between inter- and intraprofessional boundary negotiations over time. Third, we theorize relationships between the social position of professional groups, and the uses and consequences of competitive and collaborative boundary work tactics at intra- and interprofessional levels. Specifically, we show how intraprofessional conflict within high-status groups may affect interprofessional dynamics, we reveal how intraprofessional and interprofessional boundaries may be mobilized positively to support collaborative relations, and we show how mobilization within lower-status groups around interprofessional boundary grievances can paradoxically lead to further marginalization.


2015 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence Kaplan ◽  
David L. Lentz ◽  
Venicia Slotten ◽  
Payson Sheets ◽  
Angela N. Hood
Keyword(s):  

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (8) ◽  
pp. 191232
Author(s):  
Bradley D. Mattan ◽  
Jasmin Cloutier

Although high status is often considered a desirable quality, this may not always be the case. Different factors may moderate the value of high status along a dimension such as wealth (e.g. gender, perceiver income/education). For example, studies suggest men may value wealth and control over resources more than women. This may be especially true for high-income men who already have control over substantial resources. Other work suggests that low-income men and women may have different experiences in educational contexts compared to their richer peers who dominate norms at higher levels of education. These experiences may potentially lead to different attitudes about the wealthy among low-income men and women. In this registered report, we proposed two key predictions based on our review of the literature and analyses of pilot data from the Attitudes, Identities and Individual Differences (AIID) study ( n = 767): (H1) increasing income will be associated with increased pro-wealthy bias for men more than for women and (H2) income will also moderate the effect of education on implicit pro-wealthy bias, depending on gender. Overall, men showed greater implicit pro-wealthy bias than did women. However, neither of our hypotheses that income would moderate the effects of gender on implicit pro-wealthy bias were supported. These findings suggest implicit pro-wealthy bias among men and are discussed in the context of exploratory analyses of gender differences in self-reported beliefs and attitudes about the rich and the poor.


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