The Mixteca-Puebla International Style as a Mesoamerican Marker in Postclassic Greater Nicoya: A Reevaluation

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Postclassic Mesoamerica: The View from the Southern Frontier" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The beautiful polychrome ceramics of Pacific Nicaragua’s Sapoá period (800–1300 CE) have long been touted as the southernmost manifestation of the Mixteca-Puebla phenomenon in lower Central America. Traditionally, these ceramics have been treated as de facto cultural markers of two independent migrant groups of Mesoamerican origin: the Chorotega, Otomangueans who arrived first and who are usually associated with the earlier-appearing Papagayo Polychrome (a ceramic type with apparent linkages to the southeastern Maya Periphery) and the Nicarao, later-arriving Nahuas who are commonly linked to the later-appearing Vallejo Polychrome, the ceramic type that demonstrates the most striking stylistic similarities to central Mexican “codex-style” art. This paper will reevaluate these traditional assumptions in light of evidence that both ceramic types were produced by potters working in a common potting tradition of likely Central American origin rather than in two distinct traditions of Mesoamerican origin.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• Postclassic Mesoamerica: The View from the Southern Frontier

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33054