The Subterranean in Mesoamerican Indigenous Culture and Beyond

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "The Subterranean in Mesoamerican Indigenous Culture and Beyond" at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Mesoamerican cultures proclaim the central importance of landscape in both architecture and iconography as pyramids and temples replicate hills and caves. These landscape features are magnets that attract people to them and structure activities around them. This session focuses on the subterranean and its influence on Indigenous culture in Mesoamerica and the Southwest. Subterranean features are particularly significant to archaeology in often holding purely ritual assemblages that represent the field’s best context for studying the archaeology of religion.