Dr. Katherine A Miller Wolf

Ucanal was a major Maya center during the Terminal Classic period (830-1000 CE) with complex social, political, and economic relation-ships emerging after the "collapse" of the Classic Maya civilization. Recent excavations revealed unusual and surprising mortuary patterns that deviate from other cities. Most notably, large deposits of bone have been recovered spread across plaza floors and in dense, concentrated groups. Deposits contain isolated human skeletal remains that were relatively easy to remove from the body of a living or recently deceased person like teeth, the patella, and bones of the arms, hands, and feet. Moreover, many of the bones show evidence of subsequently being "worked" and in the process of being transformed into another object – something most often seen with faunal remains. Given the unique nature of this assemblage, a primary objective was to estimate sex and age of the isolated elements to reconstruct what may have occurred at the site. A total of 31 patella from Ucanal were examined and six metrics were collected from each bone (e.g. Buikstra and Ubelaker, 1994; Sakaue, 2008), veriܪed with IOE data, and statistically evaluated to reveal sexual dimorphism among the patella (t-test and Mann-Whitney’s U). The method was verified with comparative samples of patella from collections derived from other regional sites (Ambergris Caye, San Juan, Cac Balam, and Ek Luum). Sex can be estimated from the patella alone for the ancient Maya samples and the method has great potential use for isolated, poorly preserved remains from other similar contexts.