Archaeologists have found evidence of wild animals being trapped and kept in captivity, including the predators sacrificed by the inhabitants of ancient Mesoamerican communities, sold and used to make tools.
New evidence from the Mayan city of Copan in Honduras showed that ancient Mesoamericans trapped and sold animals daily for ritual purposes. This is reported by Naua Sugiyama of George Mason University and his colleagues in a paper published in Plos One magazine.
In ancient Mesoamerican cultures, animals such as the cougar and jaguar were used for many purposes, including symbolizing status and power, as well as ritual sacrifices and resources for processing various products. The evidence for the use of wild animals in Mesoamerica dates back to the Teotihuacan culture (AD 1-550) in what is now Mexico. Archaeological finds associated with local animal husbandry have traditionally been underestimated due to the small number of domesticated game in the New World compared to the devastating influence of European livestock brought in in the 1500s. In this study, scientists analyzed archaeological specimens of wild animals excavated from five ritual sites in the Mayan city of Copan (426-822 CE) in Honduras.
The team analyzed the stable isotopes of the bones and teeth of the cougar, jaguar, and other unidentified felines, along with deer, owls, spoonbills and crocodiles, to determine the diet and geographic origin of these animals. Some of the felines tested, including the cougar and the jaguar, showed high levels of C4 intake, indicating a man-made diet, despite no evidence of captive breeding. Oxygen isotope levels in deer and felines indicate that some of the animal and derived craft products (such as skins) used in ritual practices were from remote regions of the Copan Valley.
A sketch of a necklace made of deer jaws and crocodile teeth from Burial VIII-36, Site A, Group 9N-8. Crocodile teeth are marked in blue / N. Sugiyama.
These findings support past research that wild animals were kept locked up by Mesoamerican cultures for ritual purposes, and also show that animal trading networks in Ancient Mesoamerica were more extensive than previously thought.
“In the bones of jaguars and pumas in the Mayan city of Copan, both the certificate of confinement and the vast trade networks that traded ritualized predators throughout the dynamic Mesoamerican landscape were coded,” concluded Sugiyama.
Vladimir Guillen
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