Biomechanical Investigation of Ancient Maya Warfare at Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico

Abstract

Despite significant advancements in the reconstruction of activity patterns from skeletal remains and growing scholarly interest in ancient warfare, few biomechanical studies have investigated weaponry use. We adopt a biomechanical approach to investigate who participated in ancient Maya warfare and the types of weaponry used at the Late Postclassic (ca. 1200-1450 A.D.) regional political capital of Mayapán located in northwestern Yucatán, Mexico. This has implications for the nature and scale of Maya warfare and the size of territories that could be controlled by Maya polities. Comparative Finite Element Analysis is a powerful, non-destructive method that can be applied to skeletal remains to model strain, stress and deformation of structures in response to a defined loading regime. Here, biomechanical data extracted using cross-sectional geometry were combined with Finite Element Analysis models of three ancient Maya humeri from Mayapán: one elite male, one elite female, and one commoner female. Models were created with loading conditions of archery and spear use to assess evidence for skeletal adaptation to habitual weapon use. Following suggestions by some Mayanists that elite status males were the principal participants in warfare, we hypothesized that the elite male humerus would exhibit lower strains than the two female humeri in all the loading conditions. This was supported by the Finite Element model results, with the exception of spear throwing. The elite female humerus showed similar trends to the elite male humerus, suggesting the possibility of elite female participation in warfare.