(ORDO NEWS) — Archaeologists have discovered the remains of an elite Mayan woman with an arrowhead stuck in her back.
Subsequent analysis showed that she could have been an archer and participated in battles on an equal footing with men.
The remains of an elite Mayan woman indicate that she probably died from an arrow in the back.
Scientists looked at ancient Mayan warfare, weapon types and combatants in the postclassic era (c. 1200-1450 AD).
The authors turned to the remains of three people found in the Mayan city of Mayapan in the northwestern part of the Yucatan Peninsula.
Previously, researchers have already established that some of the remains belonged to an elite male warrior, others to an elite woman, and still others to a commoner woman.
Mayan warrior
Unlike the commoner, the elite woman and man lay face down, and were probably killed by arrows. An obsidian tip was found in the man’s chest, and a flint tip pierced the woman’s shoulder blade.
However, this is not all. To find out if a woman could have been involved in combat, the scientists created models with archery load conditions to evaluate signs of skeletal adaptation to weapons.
Maya warfare is thought to have been fought mostly by men with elite status, so scholars have hypothesized that the male humerus would be better prepared for the stress of drawing a bow (both left-handed and right-handed).
The analysis showed that the bones of the male forearm were better adapted for archery than the bone of a commoner woman, but not an elite woman.
According to the researchers, their discovery means that high-ranking men and women “probably had a relatively similar level of skill in archery.”
“This supports the idea that this elite woman may have been involved in the war,” the authors conclude.
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