Pieces of Bone and Pieces of Clay: Tableaus and Caches in Classic Period South-Central Veracruz

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

For more than eight decades, numerous ritually interred figurines and skeletal remains have been found in Classic Veracruz architecture. These caches contain tableaus of small, medium, and large-scale ceramic sculpture in conjunction with primary and secondary burials, and deposits of dismembered human bones. Ceramic figures enact scenes depicting captives, tribute, the Mesoamerican ballgame, and an underworld inhabited by deities and supporting players: themes concurrent with those found on Classic Veracruz narrative ceramics, mural painting, and architectural sculpture. Nevertheless, the jumble of bones and ritual destruction of clay objects in these deposits compound interpretations. For example, both clay and bone form munecas, or marionettes, that could be activated in macabre dances of the dead. Recent analysis by forensic anthropologist Vera Tiesler and her colleagues reveal that the elite male from Cerro de las Mesas Burial II-18 is in reality a collection of bones from disparate individuals. In this presentation, I examine entwined concepts of part and whole, bones and clay, sentient agency and material form. This analysis is further informed by the groundbreaking work of archaeologists Annick Daneels and Adriana Aqüero Reyes at La Joya, Veracruz, and recent studies by Julia Guernsey and others on human figuration and fragmentation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36606.0