The Subterranean in MesoAmerican Sacred Landscapes: A Multidisciplinary Assessment

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "The Subterranean in MesoAmerican Sacred Landscapes: A Multidisciplinary Assessment" at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Because of the centrality of the sacred, animate Earth in Amerindian indigenous cosmology, subterranean landscape features are magnets that attract people to them and structure activities around themselves. Their importance is reflected in the increasing numbers of natural and constructed subterranean features incorporated into site cores. Many constructed spaces were produced through extractive activities that are only understandable as projects designed to create subterranean features. 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 outside of their natural context. Additionally, subterranean features are particularly significant in holding purely ritual assemblages that represent the field’s best context for studying the archaeology of religion. This session brings together the most recent studies and approaches to the Mesoamerican subterranean.

Other Keywords
Mesoamerica • Caves and Rockshelters

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-12 of 12)

  • Documents (12)
Documents
  • Altar Cave Ritual and Communion Sites: Evaluating a Connection Between Light and Dark Zones. (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Ratcliffe.

    This is an abstract from the "The Subterranean in MesoAmerican Sacred Landscapes: A Multidisciplinary Assessment" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ritual cave use is a popular subject in Maya archaeology, but whether proximate sites had linked use is unknown. Recent discoveries in Monkey Bay National Park- a protected area situated in the Maya Forest Corridor in central Belize- have led to new evidence of various ritual activities that took place...

  • Archaeology's Problematic Relationship with Artifacts: A Critical Examination of Implicit Assumptions in Maya Cave Archaeology (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeffrey Rosa Figueroa.

    This is an abstract from the "The Subterranean in MesoAmerican Sacred Landscapes: A Multidisciplinary Assessment" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. <html> Archaeology is invariably defined along the lines of the scientific study of material remains to reconstruct past human history. This would appear to make artifact analysis central to archaeological research. In the course of my research on the Midnight Terror Cave artifact assemblage, however, I...

  • Cenotes, Caves, and Rain Gods: The Sacred Geography of Chichen Itza (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeremy Coltman.

    This is an abstract from the "The Subterranean in MesoAmerican Sacred Landscapes: A Multidisciplinary Assessment" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One of the striking features of the Yucatan peninsula are the many cenotes that dot the landscape, a unique natural feature factored into the ritual and religion of the region’s inhabitants. The landscape itself, dotted throughout with these cenotes, form cosmograms that recall the primordial landscape...

  • Extra-masticatory Dental Wear: Subconscious Embodiment in a Late Classic Maya Sacrificial Assemblage from Midnight Terror Cave, Belize (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Marineh Mousalu.

    This is an abstract from the "The Subterranean in MesoAmerican Sacred Landscapes: A Multidisciplinary Assessment" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Marineh Mousalu, Chin-hsin Liu, Michele M. Bleuze, James E. Brady California State University, Los Angeles conducted archaeological surveys of Midnight Terror Cave (MTC), Belize between 2008 and 2010 as part of the Western Belize Regional Cave Project directed by Dr. Jaime Awe. The extensively modified...

  • The Future of Mesoamerican Cave Archaeology: What Are We Doing Now? Where Are We Going? (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Christina Iglesias.

    This is an abstract from the "The Subterranean in MesoAmerican Sacred Landscapes: A Multidisciplinary Assessment" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. All of the subterranean archaeologists currently active in the field, 10 received their doctorates between 2001 and 2015 during what I have labeled as the Period of Regional Cave Surveys in which cave surveys were conducted in conjunction with large surface projects. By and large those projects ended...

  • The Heart of Matlalcueye: Contemporary Nahua Cave Ceremonies in Huetziatl, Puebla, Mexico (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Extract.

    This is an abstract from the "The Subterranean in MesoAmerican Sacred Landscapes: A Multidisciplinary Assessment" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. At the center of Matlalcueye Volcano resides Huetziatl Cave, a landmark of profound significance for the surrounding pueblos of Puebla, Mexico. For Delfino, my guide to Huetziatl, the cave is a powerful shrine of pre-Hispanic and ancestral importance. As opposed to many of his Catholic neighbors, Delfino...

  • Navigating the Subterranean Landscapes of Quintana Roo, Mexico (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Loren Clark.

    This is an abstract from the "The Subterranean in MesoAmerican Sacred Landscapes: A Multidisciplinary Assessment" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The karst caves of Quintana Roo are characterized by their complex passages and dynamic morphology. Currently, these submerged systems are observed by divers who move weightless through the silent caves, haloed in the white gleam of their flashlights. This sits in stark contrast to how humans and animals...

  • A Reassessment of Chalchihuites Mining (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ernesto Morales.

    This is an abstract from the "The Subterranean in MesoAmerican Sacred Landscapes: A Multidisciplinary Assessment" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For the last fifty years, the Chalchihuites area of Zacatecas has been intimately associated archaeologically with mining. In the 1960s, Charles Kelley conducted a series of excavations at the site of Alta Vista along with his graduate student Phil C. Weigand. Over 800 subterranean features dating from...

  • Recessed Religion The Use of Symbolic Subterranean Features in a Ritual Context (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph Orozco.

    This is an abstract from the "The Subterranean in MesoAmerican Sacred Landscapes: A Multidisciplinary Assessment" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper reexamines sacred space, constructed as symbolic subterranean features by Native Americans of North America. A survey of archaeological literature suggests that although a ritual component is recognized within such sacred spaces, little importance is often placed on the construction and...

  • Results of ICP-MS Analysis of Speleothems Recovered from a Semi-Subterranean Feature at Chawal But'o'ob, Belize (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only James Brady.

    This is an abstract from the "The Subterranean in MesoAmerican Sacred Landscapes: A Multidisciplinary Assessment" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During an investigation conducted in conjunction with the Rio Bravo Archaeological Survey directed by Stanley Walling, a number of fragments of stalactites were recovered from a small, enclosed feature at Chawak But’o’ob, located in the Programme for Belize Conservation and Management Area. The feature,...

  • Understanding the Subterranean: An Examination of the Effects of Analogy in Maya Cave Studies (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Neil E. Kohanski.

    This is an abstract from the "The Subterranean in MesoAmerican Sacred Landscapes: A Multidisciplinary Assessment" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper explores the pivotal role of ethnographic analogy in archaeological research, with a focus on Maya cave ritual. While ethnographic analogy remains indispensable to the field, it faced heavy resistance from Processualists during the latter half of the twentieth century. This resistance led to...

  • Where Water Becomes Stone: A review and methodological considerations of speleothem sourcing via trace elements (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicholas Puente.

    This is an abstract from the "The Subterranean in MesoAmerican Sacred Landscapes: A Multidisciplinary Assessment" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Speleothems are secondary calcium carbonate formations that form within a cave as rainwater drips through the ceiling. Speleothems have been recovered from various surface and subsurface archaeological contexts. The simple, but important, fact that speleothems are cave formations provides a unique way to...