282 death and burial practices: The Americas extremely elaborate At Spiro, Oklahoma, and Cahokia, Illinois, some bones of rulers were placed on the wooden litters on which they had been carried in life Persons of lower rank were accorded secondary burials in basketry coffins The grave goods at Spiro included shell drinking cups and ornaments, stone pipes carved into human effigies, and ornaments of copper imported from the area around Lake Superior Many of the objects were centuries old at the time they were buried One mound at Cahokia yielded two central figures, one placed above and the other below a bird-shaped cape made of thousands of shell beads Human sacrifices were later incorporated into this mound, including the bodies of young women from outside the Cahokia region—perhaps sent as tribute from vassals of the chief—and four young men whose hands and heads had been removed The Hohokam (ca 500–ca 1450) of present-day southern Arizona practiced complex burial ceremonies that changed over the course of the culture’s development From about 700 to 1150 cremation was the favored form of mortuary practice Along with the ashes of the dead, burials from this period contain stone tools, ceramic vessels, and shell ornaments Some of these items had been burned as well, perhaps to “kill” the objects to accompany their deceased owners After 1150 burial in the flesh became more common in the Hohokam region, although cremation was still practiced The people of the Mimbres culture, which flourished in present-day New Mexico between 750 and 1200, buried their dead under the floors of their stone and adobe houses A distinctive feature of Mimbres graves is the frequent placement of a painted pottery bowl over the head of the corpse Each bowl had a hole punched through it before inclusion in the grave Archaeologists speculate that this act was intended to “kill” the object and release its spirit into the afterlife to accompany the soul of the dead person Another possibility is that the pot with its hole over the head symbolized the emergence of the deceased into the next world The Anasazi, or Ancient Pueblo, peoples of the Southwest (ca 900–ca 1300) buried their dead in abandoned residential structures and separate cemeteries Burials were accompanied by offerings of ceramics, jewelry, or textiles Ritual specialists occasionally were buried with their ceremonial regalia In general, however, Anasazi burials not reflect vast differences in status between individuals The major exception to this pattern occurs at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, where a distinct ruling group presided over this religious and economic center from about 950 to 1100 In one stone building complex, a residential and ritual center known as Pueblo Bonito, several rooms contained very rich and complex burial sites In the most elaborate of them, two adult males had been Ceramic funerary urn, Zapotec style, Mexico, ca 250–750 (Courtesy, National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution [catalog number 163631]) laid to rest under a floor of wooden planks Above this floor the bones of 14 other people lay scattered about the room It is not clear whether the condition of the bones resulted from disturbance by robbers, secondary burial, or the dismemberment of human sacrifices to accompany the two men The site contained thousands of turquoise beads, ceramic vessels, wooden staffs and flutes, and baskets decorated with turquoise mosaic One of the two men had sustained severe head injuries at the time of death, which may indicate that he died defending the site Pueblo Bonito burials differ from those at smaller Chaco sites not only in the amount of grave goods but also in the extended position of the bodies Whatever their precise roles in Anasazi society, these inhabitants of Pueblo Bonito received exceptional treatment in death While commoners of the Classic Period (ca 200–ca 900) of Maya civilization usually were buried under the floors of their pole and adobe dwellings, the divine kings of the Maya were interred in elaborate stone tombs under pyramid-temples The dead of all social classes were venerated as ancestors by their descendants In the case of royalty the temples were the sites of elaborate rituals in which living kings sought vi-