Coastal-Highland Interaction in Early Formative Period Mesoamerica: The Ceramic Affiliations of La Consentida

Summary

Early Formative period pottery from the site of La Consentida in coastal Oaxaca, Mexico, bears indications of both local developments and interregional influences. In previous papers, I have presented stylistic evidence for interaction between La Consentida and potters from distant West Mexican traditions such as Capacha and Opeño. While some of La Consentida’s decorated Tlacuache phase vessels suggest involvement in a system of long-distance interaction along Mesoamerica’s Pacific coast, more utilitarian wares such as globular jars and undecorated hemispherical bowls imply affiliations closer to home, specifically with Early Formative period highland assemblages of the Espiridión, Tierras Largas, and Purrón phases. In this paper, I discuss formal similarities between highland pottery and La Consentida’s Tlacuache phase assemblage. On the basis of these affiliations, I propose a model in which La Consentida’s diverse ceramics are explained as partly the result of the cooperating or even conflicting emphases of overlapping interaction spheres: one along the Pacific coast and one tying the coast to the southern and central Mesoamerican highlands. These patterns suggest that people at La Consentida both maintained some traditional practices of Red-on-Buff potters in adjacent regions and self-consciously participated in a coastal interaction network involving more superficial decorative styles.

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): 19958