Building and Breaking Primordial Space at the Río Viejo Acropolis

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Checking the Pulse II, Current Research in Oaxaca Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Formative period civic-ceremonial facilities like the Río Viejo acropolis in the lower Río Verde Valley on the coast of Oaxaca emerged from the combination a wide range of elements: conceptual, material, environmental, infrastructural, human, and divine. Built rapidly in the first centuries of the Common Era, the multiple monumental structures comprising the acropolis were not only the site of temporary human actions, but also an active repository enveloping the physicality of human relationships with the other animate entities with which ancient people shared their world. Drawing on multiple seasons of excavation on the Río Viejo acropolis, this paper traces the acts and materials through which human-divine relationships unfolded in monumental space. Analysis focuses particularly on processes of breaking down—through burning, consumption, smashing, and discard. Combining ceramic analysis with small-scale geospatial analyses and broader observations of architecture and features, we assert that the creation of primordial spaces at Río Viejo involved the juxtaposition of creative and destructive action. Evidence suggests that engagement with the divine at the acropolis often involved discomfort, disorder, and destruction.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Checking the Pulse II, Current Research in Oaxaca Part 1   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 41590.0