Exploring Mobility and Multi-Directional Lifeways in Pre-Columbian Central America

Summary

To paraphrase the symposium organizers, for decades changes in the pre-Columbian material culture of Central America were attributed to either migration or conquest. When I began archaeological research in Costa Rica in 1969 the endless debate was about Mesoamerican influence. Technological and iconographic linkages were frequently cited, but rarely were the mechanisms of the proposed linkages adequately defined or demonstrated archaeologically. In 2008, perhaps unduly influenced by having moved to California in 2004, I floated the concept of a "southern Mesoamerican Wedge" a la Kroeber. This wedge paralleled the Pacific coast and while the Paleo and Archaic periods were almost invisible, by the early Preclassic almost identical ceramics are found in the Soconusco, beneath downtown Managua, and in the Arenal region of Costa Rica. And, in a pattern even more complicated than was ever described for the Takic Wedge, the southern Mesoamerican Wedge is also intersected throughout Central America with river drainages that for all intent and purpose connected the Caribbean with the Pacific and low, natural "roads" or "saddles" between the volcanoes that accomplished the same objective. Investigating these complex adaptations, particularly involving groups of differing linguistic or ethnic backgrounds, requires new research designs and multi-country research.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20928