The Piedras Rayadas of El Tigre, Honduras: Brokering Place and Cultural Memory

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Problem of the Monument: Widening Perspectives on Monumentality in the Archaeology of the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Grooved boulders seem to be an archaeological feature unique to El Tigre island in Honduras. Distributed around the small island, they are known locally as piedras rayadas, and feature in local oral histories. As durable traces, their meaning is everchanging, yet intimately bound to the locality of the island. In the most eastern point of the site of La Tigüilotada, sixteen piedras rayadas line a promontory on the edge of a cliff, along with petroglyphs. Material and malacological evidence suggest the use of this promontory in communal feasting. While the material associated with feasting seems to date to the earlier phase of occupation of La Tigüilotada (800-1200 CE), the piedras rayadas seem to date to the last occupation of El Tigre prior to colonization (1300-1600 CE). As such, the meaning of this place seem to have persisted through time, and through different sets of cultural values. In this setting, we propose to examine the monumentality of the piedras rayadas, both as place making devices and activators of cultural memory. Through this case study, we aim to engage with the concept of monumentality (1) in terms of (re)production of meaning and (2) as brokering past, present and future.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Problem of the Monument: Widening Perspectives on Monumentality in the Archaeology of the Isthmo-Colombian Area   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38007.0