Adversaries and Ancestors: A Comparison of Two Skull Caches from Northwest Honduras

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

At La Sierra, in the Naco Valley, the crania of five individuals were discovered in a niche at the front of a Late Classic (AD 600-950) house. Each skull was sitting on its own plate surrounded by obsidian blades. Sixteen kilometers to the southwest, at the site of El Coyote, an ossuary containing two interment episodes of at least fourteen individuals dating to the Terminal Classic (AD 950-1100) period was discovered next to a staircase leading to the main plaza. The skulls were placed near the outer edges of the chamber and the disarticulated postcranial remains piled in the center. Comparing these examples contributes to our understanding of the Mesoamerican tradition of manipulating human skeletal remains in order to affect sociopolitical processes among the living. We argue that human skeletal material-- skulls in particular--are part of a wider relational process. The perceived world and everything it contains is animated by the same essence. Maintaining a connection to this essence is a crucial facet of Mesoamerican ritual practice. In order to interpret the two deposits, we draw on their archaeological contexts, ethnographic and ethnohistoric evidence, and iconography to help us conceptualize the materialization of ritual practices involving the human body.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40466.0