Sunday, October 26, 2025

Evanston Public Library

The Hidden Dead: Bioarchaeology of Ancient Maya Cave Ritual

By Dr. Gabriel Wrobel

Michigan State University

2:00 Social 2:30 Announcements and Lecture

Meeting Room Doors open at 2:00 PM for social time

 Zoom opens at 2:15pm CDT

Announcements and Speaker at 2:30

Our speaker had hoped to be in-person but now expects to have to do his talk via Zoom.

Use of caves by the ancient Maya appears to be ubiquitous. Archaeological explanations of Maya mortuary contexts in caves – in academic journals, television programs, and the popular press – have focused almost exclusively on sacrificial ritual. However, this rather sensationalist interpretation is not so clear-cut. This talk will cover some of the extensive pan-Mesoamerican corpus of ethnographic, ethnohistoric, epigraphic, iconographic, and linguistic sources to demonstrate how the Maya incorporated caves into their worldview and ritual. This talk then demonstrates the ways in which skeletal data can inform competing models of Maya mortuary cave use by highlighting recent bioarchaeological research in central Belize by the Central Belize Archaeological Survey (CBAS) Project.

Dr. Gabriel Wrobel is Professor of Anthropology at Michigan State University and director of the MSU Bioarchaeology Laboratory. He has carried out research on the ancient Maya in Belize for over 30 years and directed several archaeological field projects, most recently at the site of Sarteneja on Belize's north coast. As a Fulbright Specialist, he has presented workshops on digital heritage with students in Belize and is currently expanding that work in collaboration with the Belize Institute of Archaeology,  Ministry of Education, and educators local Maya and creole communities.

Our CAS Sunday meetings are free and open to the Public

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