Morphological Variation Among the Historic Period Maya at Tipu, Belize

Introduction

The present study is part of the continuing analysis of a dataset composed of long bone measurements taken from the Colonial Maya cemetery population of Tipu, Belize. The results presented here compliment those from the recent discriminant function analysis by Wrobel, Danforth, and Armstrong (2002) using long bone robusticity measurements to document variation between sexes in the Tipu series. Because of the excellent preservation of these skeletons, the sex of many of the individuals could be estimated using reliable non-metric indicators from the pelvis and skull, which are preserved very rarely in prehistoric Maya remains. Statistical comparisons of long bone measurements from males and females sexed by pelvic indicators resulted in a set of equations that can be used to estimate the sex of fragmentary Maya skeletons. In an attempt to gain a better understanding of the Tipu population, the present study seeks to test for the presence of morphological variation between different groups of individuals using archaeological data related to status distinctions.

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