Abstract
Burial of bodies within and beneath residential structures, which community members continued to use, was a widespread practice in the pre-Columbian Maya world. The idea that such proximity signals ongoing dialogue between living kin and their ancestors is now well established. Received wisdom would have us envision ancestors as powerful, sage, and elderly, however. What, then, are bioarchaeologists to make of the burials from these settings that contain youths? Osteobiographic study of several such burials from the Three Rivers region in northwestern Belize suggests that the conferral of ancestorhood was not contingent on an individual's age at death. Rather, from the burials of youthful decedents, researchers may glean information about the specificities of mourning, as well as broader cultural practices related to Maya beliefs about soul recycling and age-fluid ancestors.