Introduction

There are conflicting views on the importance of marine resources to the development of prehistoric complex societies in both Mesoamerica and Peru. Examination of the prehistoric exploitation of the large sea mammal, manatee, in the maya and circum-Caribbean areas (cf. Rouse 1964) focuses on factors that may have contributed to animal selection. Ecological, historic, ethnographic, and archaeological information on manatee are marshalled to reconstruct the expoitation of prehistorically more abundant manatee populations.

Isolating various factors that may have contributed to the selection of manatee and other animals for human consumption clarifies the dietary role of seafood. Did marine animals form the major part of the subsistence diet of coastal populations of these prehistoric complex societies as indicated at some sites (Hamblin 1980; McKillop 1984; Quilter and Stocker 1983; Pozorski and Pozorski 1979; Wing and Reitz 1982) or were land animals more important than marine animals (Osborn 1977; Wing 1978)?

Data for the maya and circum-Caribbean areas indicates that distance was an important factor in the selection of animals from land, riverine, estuarine, and/or marine zones (McKillop 1984; Wing and Reitz 1982). While land and/or riverine animals were the mainstay of the inland meat diet, seafood apparently formed a significant portion of the coastal meat diet. The decision to exploit particular animals depended largely on the reliable recovery of significant quantities of meat and/or fish.