Constructing Public Architecture and Power on the Northern Coasts of Puerto Rico: The Archaeology of the Precontact Ceremonial Complex of Tierras Nuevas

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Throughout Caribbean prehistory, the construction of public architecture in ceremonial contexts is linked to expressions of status and power over local communities and resources. The appearance of these features such as mounds and ballcourts (bateyes) are largely associated with the Early to Late Ceramic Period – broadly defined by long-distance cultural exchanges and continuing impacts from changing climates of the Late Holocene. The arrival of new cultural traditions and practices during this period alongside the physical impacts of atmospheric changes—wetter conditions, more intense storms, and rising sea-levels —likely posed a greater threat to existing resourcing strategies and settlement organizational patterns in coastal areas. The Tierras Nuevas Archaeological Project examines how social institutions solidified their power on the coast through the construction or transformation of public spaces and their uses amidst periods of changing social and physical conditions. This paper presents recent ceramic, lithic, and paleobotanical analyses recovered from the 2023 excavations of Tierras Nuevas, a ceremonial complex site located directly on the northern coast of Puerto Rico in order to shed light on the changing practices and uses related to pre-columbian public architecture.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 53400