Death Knows No Boundaries: Mortuary Patterns and Cross-Cultural Relations of Preconquest Central America

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Centralizing Central America: New Evidence, Fresh Perspectives, and Working on New Paradigms" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The characteristics and roles of the preconquest cultures that once existed in Central America have long been the subject of debate, the main focus of which revolves around the nature of their relationships to the surrounding Mesoamerican and Chibchan cultural areas. Largely accepted that no central complex society dominated this area, it has been suggested that there existed multiple “minor” cultures that reflected regional trends and participated in widespread trade networks. Due to the very nature of the universality of death and its prevalence within the archaeological record, patterns in mortuary practices provide an invaluable approach to inferring sociocultural attributes and interpreting cross-cultural relations. A survey of general mortuary patterns from preconquest El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and northern Panama are used to delineate regional and temporal patterns for Central America, as well as reflect on areas of interaction, exchange, and influence with the surrounding Mesoamerican and Chibchan cultural areas.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Centralizing Central America: New Evidence, Fresh Perspectives, and Working on New Paradigms   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38626.0