MOVIMIENTOS POBLACIONALES DEL CLÁSICO TERMINAL EN CHICHÉN ITZÁ, A PARTIR DE LA MORFOLOGÍA DENTAL DE UN GRUPO DE NIÑOS SACRIFICADOS

Abstract

In 1967, excavations in Chichen Itza unearthed a chultun-like underground chamber containing bone remains of over 70 human individuals, mostly subadult males. This mortuary deposit has the characteristics of a post-sacrificial primary burial. Carbon-14 dating places these materials at around a.d. 1000, the time of Chichen Itza widest expansion as a regional capital city. Quantification of 1,066 permanent teeth indicates a minimum of 75 individuals (on the basis of left upper central incisors). In order to elucidate the biological affinity of these individuals, univariate and multivariate analyses of mesiodistal and bucolingual diameters were carried out and compared with materials from 16 Mayan sites from the Classic period; 14 dental morphological features were then compared to those of collections from 24 Classic Mayan sites, following standard procedures of the Arizona State University Dental Anthropological System (ASUDAS). Three multivariate analyses were carried out (mean measure of divergence, conglomerate analysis, and multidimensional scaling). Our evidence indicates that the children from the Chichen Itza chultun were not from either the Northern or Southern Mayan Lowlands or the Southern Highlands. They might have belonged to groups of foreign long-distance traders who settled in Chichen Itza from a.d. 800, and eventually came to dominate both maritime and inland trade routes throughout the Yucatan Peninsula.