Before Kukulkán is a testament to the value of human osteological research to illuminate the cultural history of the ancient Maya, where skeletal remains are often deemed to be so terribly preserved as to be utterly useless. For too many decades, the study of human remains from Maya sites had been an afterthought, or seen as one more specialty to tick off on a large project, rather than a key element of archaeological project design. Advances in skeletal analysis methods have led to growing appreciation of the potential contributions of human remains to Maya archaeology, though these depend upon solid osteological analysis for appropriate application. Together, the authors of this volume on the ancient Maya city of Yaxuná, Yucatán, have demonstrated why human skeletal material should not be treated as simply one more class of material culture. By studying human burials, we are privileged to engage directly with individual participants of the past.

The volume is divided into two parts: “Living at Yaxuná” and “Yaxuná’s Dead.” In the first part, Chapter 1 recaps the cultural and excavation history of Yaxuná, emphasizing work by David Friedel's Selz Foundation project (1986–), an INAH project directed by Lourdes Toscano Hernández (1997–2001), and Travis Stanton and colleagues' Proyecto de Interacción Política del Centro de Yucatán (2007–). The chapter outlines the major excavation focuses, including brief mentions of burials encountered. I wished that it had given a better sense of the mortuary assemblage as a whole, to clarify what social subsets of the city are reflected in the sample.

Chapter 2 examines the genetic population biology of the skeletons as reflected in dental morphology. Andrea Cucina's statistical analysis of genetic relationships with other Yucatec cities finds the expected central Yucatec affiliations. The second part of the chapter describes stable strontium and oxygen isotope analyses of Yaxuná teeth, which identify 33% of the 32 sampled Yaxuná burials as nonlocals, most of whom likely originated from nearby sites in the Yucatán. This high proportion underscores for me the need to clarify exactly how a “local” range is defined, an essential issue that is not addressed here. Regardless, this chapter is an important contribution to this field of research, helping to flesh out the map of isotopic variability across the Maya area.

Chapter 3, “Growing up in Yaxuná,” provides the first data on the skeletal assemblage, including individual assessment of age at death and sex by burial for habitational contexts. I would have liked to see this earlier in the volume and for it to include all contexts in a single table. The chapter also details dental enamel defects and completed stature, both reflecting episodes of growth arrest. The authors draw comparisons with data they have collected elsewhere, but they do not cite datasets published by other researchers. Their findings suggest a relatively healthy population, acknowledging the challenge that status variability poses for such small samples.

Chapter 4 describes stable isotopic analyses of bone collagen for 24 Yaxuná burials as well as dental wear, caries, antemortem tooth loss, and porotic hyperostosis. The nitrogen isotopes show greater meat consumption during the Late Classic period, though most of the Early Classic skeletons are high-status nonlocal individuals. Dietary patterns among these varied identities are nicely explored in the chapter. Yaxuná diets stand out as the lowest in δ¹⁵N recorded anywhere in the Maya lowlands at this time, a surprise, given that they are primarily elites. Data from one skeleton described as a possible CAM plant feeder should likely be discarded as diagenetic, given its very low collagen yield. Consistent with other Maya sites, the results add to a growing database. Vera Tiesler's Chapter 5 describes cranial shaping and dental decoration as means by which the Yaxuná Maya expressed their individual and collective identities.

The second part of the volume, “Yaxuná’s Dead,” emphasizes the mortuary context of the human remains, with chapters focusing on habitational burials (Chapter 6), royal tombs (Chapter 7), and sacrificial or nonfunerary deposits (Chapter 8). The detail provided for domestic burials is a welcome read in such a volume, but it contrasts with the sparse skeletal detail in the chapter on the royal tombs. Chapters 7 and 8 are nice examples of the archaeothanatological approach that the authors espouse, but one comes away from Chapter 7 unsure of basic age/sex composition of the elaborate deposits. A highlight of the volume is the detailed presentation of the unusual mortuary context of B27, a skeleton that appears to have been articulated but so tightly flexed as to have been bundled like a prey animal, then placed in a rockshelter at the site's core. The final chapter spins together a rich contextual narrative that nicely integrates the burial rituals into the political history of Yaxuná and the Yucatán at large.

While the integration of archaeological and iconographic data with the skeletal analysis is the volume's clear strength, the voice of each author remains distinct. I wish that the press had taken a more proactive role in correcting numerous Spanglish constructions. For example, teeth are referred to as “dental pieces,” malnutrition as “carential conditions,” and conclusions are “founded” on data. These should have been easy for native English speakers to catch. Some unusual word choices, such as “insufflates” (p. 136), may simply send readers in search of a dictionary, but others are confusing. For instance, the histograms of Figures 3.1 and 3.2 are described as “bar sequences” (p. 73), and dental defects are reported as “frequency of affection” (p. 83). Figures 3.1–3.5 misidentify a (half) child skeleton as female. I am very sympathetic to the challenges of publication in another language; unfortunately, the abundance of these errors detracts from the quality of the volume and underscores the need for proofs to be viewed by all authors, a lesson that I, too, have learned the hard way.