Reconstructing Synchronous Ritual Events in a Central Honduran Chiefdom: An Analysis of Conjoined Artifacts

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Innovations and Transformations in Mesoamerican Research: Recent and Revised Insights of Ancestral Lifeways" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Reconstructing past ritual events is always a challenge under the best of archaeological conditions. Between cal AD 238 and 352 the ancient residents of the site of Salitrón Viejo accumulated an assemblage of carved jade and marble artifacts that were used in a series of ritual activities to dedicate the completion of their central civic-ceremonial precinct. Over 3,000 jade and marble lapidary objects were broken or interred intact in cache deposits as part of this celebration, making it one of the largest collections of high-value regalia recovered from in situ contexts in the New World. A large percentage of these offerings were intentionally broken while others were not. This study reconstructs the meaning and synchronicity of associated ritual events from the artifact conjoins (refits) of broken artifacts in these offerings.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Innovations and Transformations in Mesoamerican Research: Recent and Revised Insights of Ancestral Lifeways   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35644.0