Changing Art? Changing Identity?: Visual Culture in Ancient Veracruz during the Late Classic-Early Postclassic Transition

Summary

Group identity is visible in the archaeological record in the form of discrete burial practices, site planning, ceramic and artifact assemblages, settlement patterns, and architecture. Yet notions of ethnic identity are multi-layered and complex; the more so during periods of intense migration and social upheaval . The Late Classic to Early Postclassic transition was one such period, characterized by observable changes in practices and materials. In Veracruz (at sites such as El Tajin, Las Higueras, and El Zapotal) researchers observe patterns of perceptible change, yet without major disruption. There is no consensus as to which players and processes precipitated these changes. Are they the result of shifting ideologies, economic patterns, power structures, populations, or some combination of factors? In this presentation I examine corresponding trends in the visual arts, exploring how color palette, canons of representation, the attributes and array of deities, depictions of costumes and headdresses, and graphic characteristics of hieroglyphic script contribute to our understanding of a changing regional identity.

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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