Rediscovering the San Martín Pajapan Volcano in the Gulf Coast of México: An Analysis of its Archaeological Context

Summary

San Martín Pajapan is one of the most important and prominent volcanos that constitute Los Tuxtlas mountain system of the Gulf Coast of México. From the Preshipanic period to the present time the San Martín Pajapan volcano has been considered a natural place of the landscape with cultural significance, which is indicated by the presence of archaeological remains on its summit. The most remarkable archaeological element of this volcano is a monumental Olmec sculpture, which iconographic attributes suggest that it could have been carved during the Preclassic period. However, most of the ceramic materials found in association with the sculpture were dated by Alfonso Medellín Zenil to the Late Classic period. The temporal difference between the Olmec sculpture and the ceramic materials points out a problematic of the archaeological context. In this paper I’ll present a revision of the archaeological remains of the San Martín Pajapan volcano to solve this problem. The results of this analysis indicate that, contrary to Medellín Zenil´s idea, the ceramic materials associated with the sculpture correspond to the Epi-Olmec and Protoclassic period of the Gulf Coast region.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21943