Before Kukulkán

This volume illuminates human lifeways in the northern Maya lowlands prior to the rise of Chichén Itzá. Using bioarchaeology, mortuary archaeology, and culturally sensitive mainstream archaeology, the authors create an in-depth regional understanding while also laying out broader ways of learning about the Maya past.

Vera Tiesler is a research professor for the College of Anthropological Sciences at the Autonomous University of YucatÁn. She is the co-editor of Janaab’ Pakal of Palenque: Reconstructing the Life and Death of a Maya Ruler and New Perspectives on Human Sacrifice and Ritual Body Treatments in Ancient Maya Society, and author of The Bioarchaeology of Artificial Cranial Modification: New Approaches to Head Shaping and Its Meanings in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and Beyond.
Andrea Cucina is an associate professor at the Autonomous University of YucatÁn. He is the co-editor of Janaab’ Pakal of Palenque: Reconstructing the Life and Death of a Maya Ruler and New Perspectives on Human Sacrifice and Ritual Body Treatments in Ancient Maya Society.
Travis W. Stanton is an associate professor and department chair at the University of California, Riverside, where he co-directs the PIPCY project currently ongoing at the site of YaxunÁ. He is co-editor of Ruins of the Past: The Use and Perception of Abandoned Structures in the Maya Lowlands and Ancient Mesoamerican Warfare.
David A. Freidel is a professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. He was the principal investigator of the Selz Foundation YaxunÁ Project.