The Origins of Early Colonial Cows at San Bernabé, Guatemala: Strontium Isotope Values at an Early Spanish Mission in the Petén Lakes Region of Northern Guatemala

ABSTRACT

The earliest Spanish explorers in the 15th century brought ships stocked with European domesticated animals to the Americas. Yet for nearly two centuries, the Maya living in Guatemala’s Petén Lakes region continued to rely on traditional wild animal species. A small number of cow, equid, and pig bones have been identified in Kowoj and Itza Maya Contact period contexts at Ixlú, Nixtun Ch’ich’, Tayasal, and Zacpetén; however, significant changes in regional animal use are only visible after the Spanish began to build missions in the region during the early 1700s. We explore the introduction of European domesticates to the region at the San Bernabé mission near Tayasal using faunal, isotopic, and historic data. There were marked differences in mammal use, but a continued reliance on aquatic species such as turtles and snails. Animal acquisition strategies changed as well, with potentially significant impacts on local and regional land use and the daily lives of the Mayas.

KEYWORDS:

• Maya
• colonial
• zooarchaeology
• strontium

Acknowledgements

Acacia Leavitt, Shelby Hilton, and Jasmine Cross of the University of Mississippi Forensic Chemistry Program helped to prepare the isotope samples. Thanks to Kurt Gron for an excess of information on cow and pig teeth, to William Taylor for his help with horse remains, and to Laura Halverson and the UW-Madison Zoological Museum for their ongoing collaboration. Thank you also to two anonymous reviewers whose detailed reading of the manuscript resulted in substantial improvements to the study. We also thank Paul Fullagar and Drew Coleman of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Department of Geological Sciences, the T. Douglas Price Laboratory for Archaeological Chemistry at UW-Madison, the Instituto de Antropología e Historia, and members of the Proyecto Arqueológico Tayasal, including Yuko Shiratori, Evelyn Chan Nieto, Prudence Rice, and Miriam Salas for their contributions to this research.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Funds were provided by the National Science Foundation (US) (BCS-0917918 and BCS-1037927), Queens College of the City University of New York, the Research Foundation of the City University of New York (US), the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the University of Mississippi and the 2014 Sigma Delta Epsilon-Graduate Women in Science Nell I. Mondy National Fellowship.