Architecture and human sacrifice: political and ideological significance of the ritual deposits in monumental earthen architecture in South-Central Veracruz

Summary

Investigations at several of the thousands of pre-Columbian mounded sites along the southern Gulf coast of Mexico revealed the existence of monumental earthen architecture. These supposedly "simple mounds" resulted to be sunken plazas, pyramids, palaces, ball-courts, tombs and altars that were part of an urban layout. In high-ranking sites, buildings are recurrently associated with deposits reflecting several distinct rituals involving human sacrifice. Such findings bring added evidence for the extreme complexity of these societies' sociopolitical organization, and seem to contrast with the evidence available for both North-Central and Southern Veracruz in the Classic period.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Incidencia, articulación e innovación del conocimiento arqueológico en la Costa del Golfo mesoamericano: Organización Ideológica, Política y Ritual.

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