GIS APPLIED TO BIOARCHAEOLOGY : AN EXAMPLE FROM THE RÍO TALGUA CAVES IN NORTHEAST HONDURAS

When confronted with osteological remains in cave environments, archaeologists must realize the significance of the skeletal material and appreciate the context of these remains. In Binford’s (1971) essay on mortuary practices, he assumes that a “burial” with all its associated attributes reflects the individual’s social persona and expresses the communal “debt” owed the deceased. Deep cave interments may result from a complex social context, or may simply document the fate of an unlucky adventurer, as in the case of prehistoric miners in Mammoth Cave (Meloy 1971). The deposition of bodies within vertical shafts or sinks may be the most convenient mode of interment for a local community, or this process may be a symbolic ritual (e.g., for returning the body of the deceased to the underworld). In either situation, the archaeologist must evaluate the remains from both cultural and biological frameworks within the context of the burial environment. Cave archaeologists and skeletal biologists should work together to devise logical, reliable, and efficient methods of data collection for the documentation of these unique archaeological resources. One useful system of recording karst mortuary facilities is within a geographic information system (GIS) framework enabling bioarchaeologists to reconstruct and examine the burial context outside the cave. This paper reviews Honduran cave mortuary practices, describe obstacles and confounding factors involved in cave bioarchaeology, and details the application of a GIS in the analysis of osteological remains from La Cueva del Río Talgua and Cueva de las Arañas in eastern Honduras. Finally, it summarizes the osteological data derived from Cueva de las Arañas.