The Subterranean in Mesoamerican Cultural Landscapes

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "The Subterranean in Mesoamerican Cultural Landscapes" at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This session attempts to bring together the most recent studies and approaches to the Mesoamerican subterranean. The importance of the subterranean in Mesoamerican cultural landscapes is now well documented in the form of both natural caves and artificial, constructed chambers. The power attributed to the subterranean in native cosmology means that these landmarks are magnets that draw activities and settlement to themselves and thus become the focus of elaboration. Additionally, those elements closely associated with the sacred earth, such as cave formations, draw on that same power and thus are intrinsically significant artifacts that require greater interpretive attention when recovered in surface contexts