The Constructed Subterranean Confronts Archaeology: Reviewing a Half Century of Ambivalence

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Subterranean in Mesoamerican Indigenous Culture and Beyond" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Archaeology has had an ambivalent relationship with the constructed subterranean dating back more than a half century. In the late 1960s, Good and Obermeyer investigated the cave at Oxtotipac, recognized it as man-made, and documented the fact that the material removed in the creation of the cave was used to construct a platform in front of the entrance. Nevertheless, Sanders labeled the Oxtotipac caves as quarries even though the heavy artifact concentration was totally inconsistent with that function. In the 1970s, John Fox recognized that the cave at Utatlan was constructed, was over 100 m long, and terminated under the central plaza but did not consider it important enough to map. In the 1980s, the cave beneath the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan was found not to be natural and many archaeologists flatly refused to believe it. Starting in the 1990s, large numbers of man-made caves were documented so their existence can no longer be questioned. It is important to call out the field on its long reluctance to accept man-made caves because we expect a similar reaction to the next revelation that small man-made subterranean chambers exist in the thousands across the Maya lowlands.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• The Subterranean in Mesoamerican Indigenous Culture and Beyond

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32013