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Animal exploitation patterns in the Maya area can be linked directly to Olmec groups from the Gulf of Mexico, where dog and deer were preferred over other species. Other terrestrial mammals that appear to have been exploited include rodents, such as the paca (Agoui paca), and the pecari (Pecari tajacu), among others. Coastal sites were involved in the procurement of marine and riverine food resources, including several kinds of turtles and fish. During the Early Pre-classic in the Maya region, meat procurement was carried out at a household level, and finally, dictated by the resources available at site level, hence, a great inter and intra-site variability is expected. The various degrees of landscape modification that came along with corn agriculture, may have made wild game more accessible; a practice known as ‘garden hunting’. Contemporary data reveal that Maya women take care of and breast feed orphaned young wild animals, including deer, peccary, and tapir, therefore some scholars have proposed that these animals were tamed and kept in controlled areas to assure their availability for rituals. One example comes from Seibal, where remains of round structures have been identified as pens. In this sense, recent isotopic analyses have shown that a few animals were fed almost exclusively on corn since they were young. However, isotopic data from deer remains at sites such as Lagartero, Copán, and Tikal, suggest that most of the deer obtained by the Mayas was hunted in the wild, and possessed very little index of corn consumption (Figure 3).

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