Mesoamerica: Gulf Coast (Geographic Keyword)
1-25 (93 Records)
El corredor costero al este de Los Tuxtlas delimitado por las lagunas de Sontecomapan, y del Ostión, los volcanes de Santa Marta y San Martín Pajapan y el mar del Golfo de México, fue el escenario prehispánico de una alta densidad poblacional que entre su desarrollo contó con el emplazamiento de un complejo sistema portuario. Los recursos naturales que ofrecen los cuerpos de agua en esta zona sin duda fueron explotados para su consumo y comercio desde el Formativo Medio hasta el Clásico Tardío....
Arroyo Pesquero y su "otra" ofrenda (2018)
Desde el descubrimiento de una ofrenda masiva de objetos rituales hallada fortuitamente en un arroyo, el sitio Arqueológico de Arroyo Pesquero enclavado en el área nuclear olmeca ha generado una serie de discusiones acerca de la autenticidad de piezas dispersas en museos y colecciones privadas. Las piezas más representativas son máscaras y hachas de piedra verde con una iconografía propia de la cultura olmeca. Sin embargo, una parte del material del sitio se ha subestimado. Por Medellín Zenil...
Atributos y función de las deidades del Clásico en el Centro de Veracruz: una propuesta metodológica (2018)
Una constante en la Costa del Golfo es utilizar elementos de deidades del Altiplano (Tláloc por ejemplo) para interpretar las representaciones de seres con características sobrenaturales pertenecientes a esta área de estudio. Si bien, podrían existir rasgos iconográficos que justificaran esas semejanzas no podemos únicamente traslapar elementos similares entre unas imágenes y otras ya que sólo se obtiene una propuesta parcial sobre su interpretación y tal vez nos aleje de su significado...
Automated Detection of Gridded Canal Networks in Veracruz, Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ancient peoples of Classic Period Veracruz employed a suite of strategies for agricultural intensification aimed at increasing agricultural yields and managing seasonal rainfall. One common strategy involved the construction of gridded canal networks with alternating raised field platforms which drained water in the wet season and retained it in the dry...
Becoming Divine: Stone Sculpture and Deity Impersonation in Classic Veracruz Visual Culture (2018)
Recent study of an hacha from Classic-period Veracruz in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art reveals that hachas and palmas may have been used as costume elements in ritual performances related to the ballgame. As costume elements, these sculptures would have allowed actors to assume the identity of captives, rulers, or deities. This accords well with iconographic evidence of ballgame-related ritual performances in Veracruz, and suggests comparisons with artworks from other...
The Beginnings of Archaeological Administration and Labor at El Tajín, Veracruz, 1900-1938 (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the history and ethnography of archaeology, only recently has archaeological labor – both administrative and physical – become an area of interest. In the Mexican context, recent historical research has dated the emergence of institutional archaeology to the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz (1876-1911). However, there are few site-scale studies that explore...
Beyond First Encounters: Mechanisms of Social Transformation at the Colonial Port of Veracruz (2019)
This is an abstract from the "After Cortés: Archaeological Legacies of the European Invasion in Mesoamerica" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Port of Veracruz was significant not only as the landing site of Hernán Cortés, but also as a central gateway for European colonists and African slaves entering New Spain. First encounters between immigrants and natives had significant long-term consequences, but initial interactions were only a starting...
Bitumen as Stabilizer in Earthen Architecture of the Mesoamerican Gulf Coast (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Plant Exudates and Other Binders, Adhesives, and Coatings in the Americas" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Investigations on monumental earthen architecture in the Classic period La Joya site in Central Veracruz led to the hypothesis that a bitumen additive was used as a stabilizer in construction. The use of bitumen resulted in increased resistance to weathering in a humid tropical environment, as well as control of...
By the Sea Shore: Examining the Prehistoric Shell Industry of the Rio Grande Delta (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In North America the archaeologically defined prehistoric culture of the Rio Grande Delta is essentially unknown outside of the state of Texas. Even within Texas the culture of the Rio Grande Delta is poorly understood. Adding to this obscurity is the lack of cross-border communication or collaboration between researchers regarding the material culture of the...
Captive Birds and Pet Keeping in Ancient Mesoamerica: The Case of Scarlet Macaws from Vista Hermosa (Tamaulipas, Mexico, 1300–1500 AD) (2018)
In Mesoamerica, the tropical colourful birds were highly valued for their feathers. Among them, the scarlet macaw (Ara macao) provided bright red, blue and yellow feathers that were traded to the Central Mexican Highlands and, beyond Mesoamerica, until the American Southwest. As suggested by ethnohistoric records, some birds may have been maintained in captivity and harvested to supply the demand in feathers. In spite of examples of large-scale macaw management in the American Southwest, there...
Carbonized Wood Remains from the Matacanela Site, Veracruz, Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Olmec Manifestations and Ongoing Societal Transformations in the Tuxtlas Uplands: A View from Matacanela" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper describes the carbonized wood remains recovered from fifty-five heavy fractions of flotation from seven units and fifty light fractions of flotation from six units collected during the excavations of the Matacanela Site in Veracruz, Mexico. Environmental comparisons are...
Casta, Class, or Race? Social Transformations at the Colonial Port of Veracruz (2018)
The social structure of colonial New Spain underwent large-scale transformations following the Spanish conquest. Changes in social categories of identification evolved through an interplay between religious and civil administrators -- who attempted to control colonial populations -- and local social relationships of interpersonal interaction. I examine social relations and changing categories of identification at the colonial Port of Veracruz. Throughout the colonial period, Veracruz served as a...
Cerro de las Mesas Monument 2 (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Sculpture of the Ancient Mexican Gulf Coast, Part 2" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cerro de las Mesas Monument 2 is a colossal portrait head. Its flattened rear surface contains a relief-carved scene with a ruler in a broad-brimmed hat, vanquished captive with a calendric sign above his or her head, and a worn hieroglyphic text placed between them. In its entirety Monument 2 bridges the site’s Olmec heritage with...
Changing Patterns of Plant Use at Formative and Classic Period Matacanela (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Olmec Manifestations and Ongoing Societal Transformations in the Tuxtlas Uplands: A View from Matacanela" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although there has been much speculation about the nature of agriculture along the Formative and Classic period Gulf Coast of Mexico, the local and regional subsistence economies of these periods remain poorly understood, particularly for Classic-period sites. In this paper, we...
Children of Privilege: Infant Mortuary Practices at Late Postclassical Tamtoc Society (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Health and Welfare of Children in the Past" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Funerary practices identified in the Architectural Funerary Complex of La Noria in Tamtoc, SLP, have been interpreted as belonging to a space used to symbolize the social and possibly political importance of the individuals who were buried there during the Late Postclassical period (1350-1521 a. P.). Most of the burials correspond to...
Classic Veracruz Sculptures and Bodies in Fragments (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Sculpture of the Ancient Mexican Gulf Coast, Part 2" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As part of a larger study on Classic Veracruz fragmented bodies and sculptures, I sketch two case studies of contexts in which fragmented yokes, decapitated heads, and figurine body fragmentation come together in Protoclassic and Early Classic Tres Zapotes and Cerro de las Mesas.
Classic Veracruz Tuxtlas Polychrome Ceramics (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tuxtlas Polychrome ceramics of south-central Veracruz, Mexico occupy a visible presence in precolumbian museum collections. Boldly rendered deities and zoomorphic figures are the focal point of bowls, plates, and vases, their images alluding to a complex supernatural world. While well represented among the corpus of Classic Veracruz artifacts, these vessels...
Coastal Land Loss and the Future of Louisiana's Archaeological Record (2018)
This presentation examines the effects of land loss to the coastal archaeological record. Impacts observable at different scales (coast-wide, regional, and the individual archaeological site) demonstrate that our ability to understand Louisiana's past may be permanently altered. New directions for future research and community engagement are proposed.
A Comparison of XRF and Visual Sourcing Methods in the Identification of Guadalupe Victoria Obsidian at Matacanela, Sierra de los Tuxtlas (2018)
Several Pre-Classic assemblages in the Mesoamerican Gulf lowlands are characterized by obsidian from the Guadalupe Victoria source. Tools produced are characterized by flake-core reduction strategies. The combined visual characteristics of the source material and technology employed are important chronological indicators. But, general similarities in the appearance of the raw material and factors such as variable thickness create the potential for overlap with other sources, such as Pico de...
¿Cuáles son los monumentos olmecas del sitio Estero Rabón? (2018)
Uno de los grandes problemas de los monumentos escultóricos olmecas es que, para identificar la cronología y la cultura pertinente, la mayoría de ellos se ha perdido el contexto arqueológico. Por ello, existen algunos monumentos dudosos por su estilo y los de la procedencia desconocida en el corpus total de ellos. El sitio Estero Rabón es conocido como uno de los centros secundarios de San Lorenzo y fue reportado con la presencia de varios monumentos escultóricos olmecas. Sin embargo, casi todos...
Diamonds in the Rough: Olmec and Olmec-Related Occurrences of the Rhombus Motif and Its Variations (2021)
This is an abstract from the "The Precolumbian Dotted-Diamond-Grid Pattern: References and Techniques" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As ancient cultures throughout the world developed textiles, knotted and woven fabrics lent themselves to the development of geometric rhombus patterns, first as the diamond-shaped mesh of knotted nets and later as square patterns in twined gauze and plain-weave cloth. Further early experimentation in basketry and...
Digitally Augmented Survey of Southern Veracruz Using Open-Source LiDAR Data (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Regional and Intensive Site Survey: Case Studies from Mesoamerica" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In recent years, the Mexican Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI) released a LiDAR-based digital elevation module (DEM) that provides a mechanism to augment the area covered by pedestrian surveys. The DEM is of low resolution (5-m horizontal grid) compared to research-grade LIDAR studies in Mesoamerica,...
Dioses de Agua y Montaña. El paisaje ritual y las deidades enmascaradas de la costa este de Los Tuxtlas (2018)
El corredor costero al este de Los Tuxtlas, delimitado por los Volcanes de Santa Marta y San Martín Pajapan, el mar del Golfo de México y las Lagunas de Sontecomapan y del Ostión, es una zona que se caracterizó por la multiculturalidad y la variedad de patrones debido a la presencia de un sistema portuario que estuvo activo desde el periodo Formativo medio hasta el Clásico tardío (1200 aC-1000 dC). Así mismo, la presencia de estos elementos naturales que lo delimitan fue y sigue siendo el...
Dioses y gobernantes en El Tajin del Epiclásico (ca. 800–1000 d.C.) (2018)
Los gobernantes de El Tajin, aquellos pertenecientes al linaje de 13 Conejo, convirtieron al Conjunto Arquitectónico de el Edificio de las Columnas en la sede del poder político y religioso de la ciudad. Su autoridad se dejó sentir en buena parte de la llanura costera y en las montañas de Puebla y Veracruz. Tláloc se había convertido en númen de la clase política local y el culto al gobernante giraba en torno a esta deidad inmemorial. La ponencia explora el papel que tuvieron las divinidades...
Domestic vs. Elite Religious Cults: Revisiting the Huastec Tlazolteotl-Ixcuina Deity Complex (2018)
Pre-Columbian Huastec stone sculptures and clay figurines for the most part have been interpreted as deities and assumed to belong to the same religious cult. They also have typically been interpreted through a central Mexican lens and been identified as and associated with Late Postclassic central Mexican deities. Female figures in particular have been interpreted as Tlazolteotl, the central Mexican goddess of parturition, sexuality, and purification—a deity thought to be closely related to the...