Mesoamerica: Gulf Coast (Geographic Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alberto Ortiz Brito. Arlina Morales Guillen. Daira Hernandez Bellido.

This is an abstract from the "El principio del fin, el inicio del principio: Arqueología de la transición del Formativo al Clásico en Los Tuxtlas, Veracruz, México" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. En esta presentación se expondrán los resultados preliminares del Proyecto Arqueológico Nestepe/Cobata (PANCO), relacionados con la reutilización de monumentos olmecas en la región de Los Tuxtlas, durante la transición del periodo Formativo al Clásico....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alberto Ortiz Brito.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. After excavating Gulf Coast archaeological sites, Alfonso Medellin Zenil affirmed that Olmec monuments were carved during the Late Classic period (600-900 AD). He made this statement two decades after the second round table of the Mexican anthropology society, in which scholars agreed on placing the Olmec culture in the Preclassic period, based on...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gibránn Becerra.

This is an abstract from the "Los Rituales del Juego de Pelota en la Costa del Golfo / Ballgame Rituals in the Gulf Lowlands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Trabajos de investigación sobre arquitectura dañada del Juego de Pelota realizados en el Complejo Monumental de Tlalixcoyan, Centro de Veracruz, permitieron documentar ofrendas de dedicación y múltiples etapas constructivas durante el Clásico. En una de las etapas iniciales, los constructores...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marcie Venter. Lacy Risner.

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. The ballgame complex was an important component of the Classic Veracruz style that spanned the Late or Epiclassic period (AD 600–900) and that was concentrated along the Mesoamerican Gulf lowlands and extended into adjacent regions. The ballgame, however, has early roots, both in Mesoamerica in general and in Veracruz in particular. In...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Barbara Stark.

This is an abstract from the "Textile Tools and Technologies as Evidence for the Fiber Arts in Precolumbian Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The western lower Papaloapan basin in south-central Veracruz was subject to systematic survey and surface collection in several blocks of terrain. An initial analysis of spindle whorls from one survey block showed cotton-sized whorls were relatively abundant during the Classic and Postclassic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alfredo Saucedo. Carl Wendt.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Los Soldados has been considered by many to be a secondary center with respect to La Venta due to its proximity to the capital; however, in the absence of a tuned ceramic chronology for the Middle Preclassic, this cannot be corroborated. Over a number of seasons, the Arroyo Pesquero Archaeological Project has carried out excavations at Los Soldados, and among...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carl Wendt. Edgar Huerta. Hector Neff. Michael D. Glascock.

Recent compositional analyses of obsidian from Formative Period Mesoamerican sites have been used to trace obsidian to a number of Highland Mexican and Guatemalan sources, and documented shifts in sources through time. In this presentation, we report the results of a study that analyzed 401 obsidian samples excavated from the Middle/Late Formative period habitation site of Los Soldados, located 11 km from the Olmec capital of La Venta. Using three high precision techniques (LA-ICP-MS, XRF, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca B. Gonzalez Lauck.

The stone sculpture corpus originally found in La Venta is one of the most important collections of Olmec art in Mexico. It is currently exhibited in five different museums in Tabasco and Mexico City. The state of conservation of the almost 50 sculptures (whole and fragments) at the Parque Museo La Venta in Villahermosa are of particular interest because they have been exhibited in an open air museum for the last six decades. A summary of a recent and detailed study of the state of conservation...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rex Koontz.

This presentation investigates the narrative context of a Tajín region deity whose diagnostic characteristics include a large hank of hair and an extended upper lip. The figure appears in narrative scenes with the major Tajín deities, often playing what seems to be a subsidiary role. The most important association in these scenes is with a liquid-filled temple that plays a key role scenes of ballcourt ritual. The same deity appears in pars pro toto representations of sacrificial scenes with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Philip Arnold. Wesley Stoner.

This is an abstract from the "The Legacies of The Basin of Mexico: The Ecological Processes in the Evolution of a Civilization, Part 2" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Robert S. Santley was a junior, third author of the path-breaking The Basin of Mexico (Sanders et al. 1979). Nonetheless, his contribution to the volume was substantial, including co-writing almost 50% of the entire 500+ pages of text and producing almost all of the drawings and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kim Richter.

This is an abstract from the "Sculpture of the Ancient Mexican Gulf Coast, Part 1" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although the Huasteca belongs to the Mesoamerican culture area and the Gulf Coast region, some scholars have asserted that its culture, emblematized by its sculptural tradition, was isolated. The examination of Huastec stone sculptures from different periods reveals not only its links to other artistic traditions in Mesoamerica but...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joshua Englehardt. Michael Carrasco.

This is an abstract from the "Sculpture of the Ancient Mexican Gulf Coast, Part 1" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Through the lens of “conceptual convergence,” we examine the multiple symbolic strands that inform specific Gulf Coast sculptural images, focusing especially on the Tenaxpi Egg/Homshuk sculpture. This sculpture, excavated on Tenaxpi Island in Lake Catemaco, shows a figure sculpted on an egg-shaped stone. This image likely references...

DOCUMENT Citation Only María Eugenia Maldonado Vite. Kim Richter.

This is an abstract from the "Textile Tools and Technologies as Evidence for the Fiber Arts in Precolumbian Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the Postclassic period, the Huasteca region along the northeastern Gulf Coast was an important producer of textiles made of zapupe (the local name for ixtle, that is, agave or yucca plant fibers) and especially cotton as evidenced in early colonial manuscripts, such as the Codex Mendoza and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only María Andrea Celis Ng Teajan. José Ignacio Hernández Juan.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. La región de Capoacan, al margen del río Uxpana, a pesar de ser distinguida por ser el lugar de hallazgo de la escultura conocida como "El Luchador", definida por los arqueólogos como de tradición Olmeca, ha sido un área poco estudiada. Por tal motivo, en el año 2017 dio inicio una investigación sistemática, que continuó en 2018 por medio de un programa de...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joshua Englehardt. Michael Carrasco.

This paper explores theoretical and methodological issues associated with the etic conceptualization of Mesoamerican deity systems and the identification of individual supernaturals in cross–cultural contexts. It critically focuses on previous classificatory systems of Olmec deities. Iconographers often identify individual deities on the basis of defining attributes or material accoutrements, frequently extending these identifications across contexts (as in Covarrubias’ famous "evolution of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Diana Zaragoza.

Definir una región tan antigua y compleja como la Huasteca, implica conocer las características de los grupos humanos que la habitaron; en ella existen diversas manifestaciones culturales a través del tiempo; en esta ocasión presento un primer acercamiento al mundo simbólico que encontramos durante el período Posclásico. Inicié el estudio utilizando cuatro indicadores arqueológicos: Vasijas de cerámica, Concha labrada, Pintura Mural y Escultura. Lo primero que hice fue reconocer los símbolos que...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yamile Lira-Lopez.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Un basurero es parte de la vida cotidiana de una familia, allí se va depositando todos los desechos que en un tiempo fueron de utilidad, tanto restos de comida como utensilios. Por ello el hallazgo de un basurero prehispánico en un contexto habitacional es de gran importancia para reconstruir parte de la vida cotidiana de una familia: que tipos de vasija...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hirokazu Kotegawa.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. El sitio arqueológico de Estero Rabón fue uno de los centros secundarios de San Lorenzo y probablemente también de La Venta durante el Preclásico Inferior y Medio. Según los estudios previos de la cultura olmeca, los centros secundarios de estas capitales tenían su propia finalidad para sostenerlas. Así, Estero Rabón también se ubicó en un punto estratégico...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chantal Huckert.

La presentación se centra sobre figuras estelares de ojos emplumados, cruces, estrellas de tres o cinco puntas, y máscaras. Están pintadas y moldeadas en bajo relieve en la vestimenta y el cuerpo de representaciones humanas en barro que pertenecen a los tipos, rojo sobre crema, mayoide, sonriente y escultórico. Se identifican las variantes, procedentes de las culturas del centro de Veracruz, a la luz de formas análogas en las artes y los registros gráficos de Mesoamérica, referidos por los...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gerardo Gutiérrez. Kim Richter. Irad Flores.

This is an abstract from the "Ancient Mesoamerican and Andean Cities: Old Debates, New Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this presentation we explore political arrangements, settlement organization, and urban dwelling in northern Veracruz during the Postclassic Period. We use the spatial distribution of royal Huastec sculpture, and its placement within the sites. We aim to address Huastec cities and urbanism at the local level.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rocio Velasco Fuentes. Marisol Reyes Lezama. Mayra León Santiago. Everardo Tapia Mendoza.

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. Nopiloa y El Zapotal se localizan en una sub área cultural conocida como la Mixtequilla, en el estado de Veracruz, México. Durante las excavaciones, realizadas en los años 1940s y 1970s, en ambos lugares se recuperaron varios sahumadores y braseros, objetos cerámicos relacionados a prácticas rituales, en lo que...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gibránn Becerra. Marcie Venter.

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. En el año 2015, Venter dirigió un programa de excavación arqueológica en Matacanela. En la unidad 2, realizada al oriente del conjunto arquitectónico principal, se registró una secuencia estratigráfica que permitió documentar y distinguir dos momentos de ocupación en el área del...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Carrasco. Joshua Englehardt.

This is an abstract from the "Coffee, Clever T-Shirts, and Papers in Honor of John S. Justeson" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper we examine the complex iconography of the Papaloapan Stela (originally labeled by Stirling as Cerro de las Mesas Stela 2) with a particular focus on the narrative integrity of the tableaux, the depiction of speech, and the relationship between the visualization of language and possible glyphic texts. Our...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bradley Ensor.

The Mesoamerican Gulf Coast figures prominently in grand schemes of interregional population interactions from Olmec to contact eras. However, most models of exchange, migrations, or identities rely on samples from Southern Veracruz, the Usumacinta, and the southern Isthmus without considering the vast Chontalpa in-between. This paper synthesizes new and old data on sites, intrasite spatial organization, and material culture from the Mezcalapa Delta for a synopsis on prehispanic settlement...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Maria Reyes Parroquin.

This is an abstract from the "Mesoamerican Figurines in Context. New Insights on Tridimensional Representations from Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The smiling figurines found more than half a century ago in Mexico's Gulf Coast, have always captured researchers through their enigmatic smile. Through these scholars' work, we know they were possibly related to deities like Xochipilli or Quetzalcoatl, linked to the main city of El Tajin...