The Southern Hummingbird, Give Me Five

Summary

Interactions, entry, timing - issues of the "First Americans" have been strongly debated. This paper sets these issues within the parameters of archaeology and recorded histories/reinactments by people that address some of these debates. Debated lately is outrepassé, reverse hinge, or overshot. This technique for reduction stone reduction is used in Clovis technology and it is particularly common in Nohmul, in a workshop under a Late Classic Meso American ballcourt, tlacho, a religious context. Huitzilopochtli, the Southern Hummingburd, or fierce little fighter, is celebrated within this context as he conquered the 400 Southerners - the gygantomachy. He is a culture hero with a helmet having a beak acting as a visor and his face painted blue and yellow, carrying a serpent-headed bomerang. The first animal represented in this conquest is the jaguar and this element shows up buried in an Olmec site. The jaguar is represented through sculputres/other art of the Olmec, a group thought to have originated the tlacho concept. The tlacho and ball court is documented throught Meso America and southwestern North America. Discussed are Colorado and Meso America in a theme of David versus Goliath in figures as they appear in art and outrpassé as a symbol.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords