Early Formative (Other Keyword)
1-6 (6 Records)
The initial Early Formative period site of La Consentida was occupied between 1950 and 1550 calBC. This early village community on the western Oaxaca coast has produced evidence of some of Mesoamerica’s oldest known ceramics, mounded earthen architecture, and musical instruments but the site’s human remains have received little attention thus far. The people of La Consentida lived and died during a period of social and economic transformations, including the establishment of sedentary villages,...
Early Formative Public Architecture and Corporate Identity in the Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca (2017)
Public spaces appeared early in Mesoamerica, often linked to emerging communal identity and/or socio-political complexity. Their construction, and subsequent maintenance and renovations, reflect the collective effort of different social actors and corporate entities. In Mesoamerica, public space first appears during the Early Formative period (1500-900 BCE), a time of emerging socio-political complexity at sites such as San Lorenzo, San Jose Mogote, and Paso de la Amada. The arrangement and...
Evidence for the Emergence of Social Complexity in Early Formative Period Coastal Oaxaca, Mexico (2017)
The emergence of sociopolitical complexity, and its connections to other developments such as changing subsistence and domestic mobility, has been a central theme of archaeology for over a century. Mesoamerica has been no exception to this trend, and scholars of pre-Columbian Mexico and Central America have scrutinized socioeconomic correlates of changing political integration and centralization. One concept central to this research has been that of hereditary hierarchical inequality. In fact,...
Inscription, Replication, and Production of Olmec Imagery and Regional Identities (2017)
The Early Formative period exhibits dramatic transformations in imagery and identity throughout Mesoamerica. Focusing on a time period before techniques for mold made and mass produced objects had been achieved, this paper explores replications that involved copies, iterations, and emulations of designs and imagery. At select sites in Mesoamerica, objects have been documented with Olmec-style imagery, some of which have been linked to the Gulf Coast Olmec society; in most cases, the Olmec...
The Secret Life of Cacao in the Ecuadorian Upper Amazon (2017)
Genetic studies suggest that cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) domestication occurred in the Upper Amazon of southeastern Ecuador and northeastern Peru and was then transported by humans northwards to Central America and Mexico. As such, we should expect to find the earliest archaeological evidence of cacao use in the tropical forests of South America. This paper presents starch granule evidence for the early use of cacao from the Upper Amazon site of Santa Ana-La Florida during the Ecuadorian Early...
Shamans, Jaguars, Owls, Cosmograms, and Zygotes: Matapalo and the Origins of Late Valdivia Stone Plaques (2017)
The material record of Ecuador’s Early Formative Valdivia culture has long been approached from the perspective of a New World, particularly an Amazonian, shamanism incorporating foundational features of animistic ontology. More recently enigmatic stone plaques from Northern Manabí Province have been included in the non-secular repertoire of later Valdivia phases; however, their temporal and spatial associations remained poorly known. Investigations in the Coaque Valley clearly establish their...