Stone Figurines of the Middle Formative in Mesoamerica

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Sculpture of the Ancient Mexican Gulf Coast, Part 1" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The first reported green stone figurines from controlled excavations in Mesoamerica occur in Middle Formative (900–400 BC) contexts. Among the best known are those from Offering 4 at La Venta. Mid-twentieth-century excavations at La Venta, conducted by Mathew Stirling, Philip Drucker, and Robert Heizer, also produced the largest number of in situ figurines found. Few other examples have been found outside this site, in places like Arroyo Pesquero or Cerro de las Mesas. This presentation will address the range of objects reported with archaeological contexts, to observe the temporality, region where they appear, and their associated elements. A stylistic analysis on figurine will be presented and compared with the definition based on the observations made by various authors to see if all the objects can be included in the same style. In addition, we will distinguish similarities and differences in their final deposition, to observe possible relationships with documented Mesoamerican rituals for other regions and temporalities.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Sculpture of the Ancient Mexican Gulf Coast, Part 1   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 30912