Materiality of Death at Cerro de Trincheras, Sonora: A Comparison of Ceramic Urn Funerary Practice in a Macro Regional Scale

Summary

Funerary vessel urns represent a unique variety among other manners of treatment of the dead in the North American Southwest (SW) and Northwest Mexico (NW). The ritual practice of packing human remains in ceramic vessels is considered as a well-defined cultural accomplishment. Particularly, the urn funerary practice, although with local variation in time and space, represents a wider social action that reflects a particular worldview in the conception of death. Depositing human remains in vessels has been recorded in different regions of the SW/NW. This paper is based on recent excavations at Cerro de Trincheras, Sonora, where a complex funerary practice in ceramic urns has been archaeologically recorded. A detailed analysis of funerary urns at Cerro de Trincheras has pointed out some aspects of materiality and symbolism. A broader framework is useful to compare the presence of funerary urns in other regions in the SW/NW. A macro regional analysis is made in order to comprehend the more essential aspects of the materiality of death. In this paper some archaeological sites in the SW/NW are analyzed in order to highlight the macro scale significance of this funerary practice.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Examining Webs of Social Relations: New Research in West Mexican Archaeology and West Mexico-U.S. Southwest Connections   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

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