Ancient Mexican Civilization Midterm

Glottochronolgy

Glottochronolgy

When did humans go from asia to america → Glottochronology (where do languages separate from)

• Happened in a big series (people crossed over slowly, overtime)

• Amerind, Inuit-Aleut, Na-Dene groups

• Often ice that forms between soviet union (near Siberia) and US

Monte Verde, Chile — T. Dillehay

• Open air site that is on fresh water creeks

  • Became a bog

• Wood and tools are preserved

  • Wooden tent stakes

• People were there for seasons at a time

  • Series of people who weren’t just hunting and gathering

  • Plants – healing plants

Naranjal Caves, Mexico; Hoyo Negro Cave; “Eve” of Naharón

• Whole series of caves

• Found underwater complex and different areas and elevations

  • Some were wet, some were dry

• Hoyo Negro Cave

  • Found megafauna (whale like creatures, giant sloths)

• Found skull → “Eve” of Naharón – 11,000 BCE

  • Teenager, injuries on body → fell to her death

    • Tumbled

  • DNA → related to indigenous people who live in this part of Mexico

Valsequillo — unifacial tools (vs. bifacial)

(near Pueblo, Mexico)

• 20 to 15,000 BC???

• Unifacial tools

  • Stone tools associated with pleistocene megafauna butcher site

    • Camels, horses

    • Hunting camp

• Didn’t find any bi-facial tools

• Found tools that only worked on one side

Tehuacan Valley — MacNeish

• Ajuereado phase, pre-8000 BCE

• Small groups of people

• People moving out

Clovis

• culture

• Tool

• Clovis are skillfully hand tool, bi-facial, with light and dark points

• Useful in hunting megafauna

• 9000 BCE

• After Monte Verde

• Technological change!

• Found in “kill sites”

  • Sites that show lots of planning

  • Trapping large animals

  • Can be easily killed from effective tools

Santa Isabel Iztapan

• Hunting megafauna → mammoths

  • Pushed into swamp

  • Leg stuck in swamp → made it easy prey

• Tools show how butchered and taken away (dismembered)

• Used rock/stone tools that came from 1000 miles away

  • Materials came from miles away

  • Migration routes near sources

• Numerous hunters involved in the hunting/killing

• Mammoths could weigh up to 8 tons

C. Brittenham — seeing and knowing

Nahuatl

McKenzie Basin corridor

Beringia/Bering Straits

• Humans entered the Americas through Beringia following the megafauna

• Holocene → time of rising temperatures

• Animals disappeared from archaeological record and traveled north

• Early hominins in the New World???

  • Shouldn’t be any

  • Not indigenous to the Americas

  • Smaller primates are in the Americas

• Area that would have been exposed during the glacial period (asis to usa [alaska])

  • Land Bridge

    • 1000 miles wide

• Exposed when glaciers were at its maximum event

  • Eastern asia

• Cold and dry

• Grasses

• Tundra environment

• Megafauna

  • Hunting and interacting with mammoths, giant sloths, horses, giant beaver

• When???

  • Limited data – sites are underwater

  • 40,000 BP 

  • 25,000 BP is an open time

    • Pretty much there since 8000 – ocean covers it

1. Beringia to McKenzie Basin Corridor, between Cordilleran and Laurentide glaciers

   1. Went into world of what they were leaving

2. Coastal water route

   1. Boats hugging the coast line going from one continent to another

3. Solutrean Solution

   1. Solutrean – 20,000-16,000 BCE

   2. Cactus Hill, VA – pre-12,000 BCE???

      1. Thick point technology

      2. Thin point technology

Solutrean Solution

Tequixquiac

• North of Mexico City

• Skull vanished and reappeared in 1956

• Appears to be a sacrum (body part) of an extinct camalete (??)

• Large dog or a wolf’s head

• Testing was done → 10000-8000 BCE

• Recently killed animal

• Truly ancient piece of art

• Shows that they didn’t just hunt or eat, but were thinking of other things

Aztecs in 1519

Tenochtitlan

• Aztec Capital

• Traces of how it might have looked

  • Reconstruction

  • Few bits have been supported and tested by archaeologists

• Templo Mayor was discovered by chance in the Spanish metro system → hit a major part by accident

  • Buried by modern day Mexico city

• Major cathedral in Mexico City → Aztec temple under that building

• BIG Aztec Capital (125000-200000 people lived here) – major, largest city in the world for its day, 5 times its size compared to London for its day

  • Not self sufficient

  • Food came in through entity (“Aztec Empire” or “Triple Alliance”)

• People’s houses were 1 story → lots of earthquakes in Mexico City

• Houses were designed around courts (inner court, etc)

• 11-13 million people were apart of this complex system (goods and materials)

• Tlatelolco

• All causeways from the mainland come into Tenochtitlán and into the ritual centers

  • Surrounding the sacred center are palaces of previous rulers

  • Associated themselves with a sacred space on this island

Triple Alliance (“Aztec Empire”)

“Calendar” or “Sun” Stone

Tlaltecuhtli or Tonatiuh??

• Used for sacred universe

• Powers that be in the civilization

  • Propaganda element

  • Aztecs were masters of using art like that

• 3.6 meters high

• Found in 1790 (buried and reburied, etc)

• Embodiment of Aztec universe

  • Cosmology

  • Time and space

  • Stone is showing our sun, 5th sun, but showing 4 other suns

• How is it displayed?

  • Shown vertical, could be horizontal/laid down

• Circular motifs

• In the center, major deity that is surrounded by two other symbols (Ollin – 5th sun)

  • Deity associated with the 5th sun

  • Solar deity? → Tonatiuh

  • Creature could be Tlaltecuhtli – earth deity (female)

    • Either side look like serpent heads, but could be hands

    • Looking to the earth

      • Full body sculptures show her looking up

• Movement – 5th sun is destroyed by earthquakes

• Showing previous sun (4)

• Would have been colored

• Celestial power (date: 13 re)

  • When the 5th sun was created

  • Dates come up every 52 years

  • 1427 → when the triple alliance comes off

    • Creation of triple alliance and creation of our sun

• Time and space

• Next 20 days in the calendar

• Aztec cosmology

Templo Mayor — E. Matos Moctezuma, L. López Luján — Tlaloc and Huitzilpochtli

• Templo Mayor was discovered by chance in the Spanish metro system → hit a major part by accident

  • Buried by modern day Mexico city

1978 up – E. Matos Moctezuma, L. López Luján

• People working at Templo Mayor

• Sacred precinct was surrounded by Coatepantli (snake wall)

  • Very restricted!! Very controlled!

• 70 or 80 buildings in the sacred precinct

  • Major pyramid [templo mayor, one specific construction in the sacred precinct] has been studied the most (double temple)

Templo Mayor: House of the Eagles

• Foot at the Templo Mayor

  • Attached to the Templo Mayor is the House of the Eagles

• Structures were adjacent to each other

  • Highest orders of Aztec warriors are allowed in

    • Eagle warriors

  • Maintaining materials that actually had eagle wings on it

  • Series of benches of human figures that are going to the same point

  • Human blood found → sat together and bled together, burned something together

    • Powerful space!

Templo Mayor: Tlacloc, Huitzilopochtli

• Double temple

• Left side/northern side – dedicated to Tlacloc 

• Right side/southern side – dedicated to Huitzilopochtli

• Tribal deity at the same level – propaganda merging two deities 

• Artistic programs

• Center of their world

• Physical center and conceptual center

• Solar and heat energy

• Grain for fertility and crops, warfare and sacrifices for power

  • Need both!

  • Shown through architecture

  • Expresses cosmic forces in Mexico

• 7 different building stages

  • Stage II shows double temple (dual temple) → idea of dual temple goes all the way back from stage II

  • 1390

    • No big major changes until 1428

  • 1428!!

    • Formation of alliance

      • Bigger than anything remotely than how the other stages have been

Coatepec: Huitzilopochtli; Coyolxauhqui (Mood Goddess); Coatlicue Tizoc Stone; “Calendar” stone

Huitzilopochtli

• Images of eagles and prey

• Most important art ever produced by the Aztecs

• Large stone disc

  • Coyolxauhqui, Coatlicue, and Huitzilopochtli

  • Dismembered → long bones sticking out of limbs, decapitated

• Found at base of stairs

• Snake mountain

• Context:

  • Aztec Earth deity (Coatlicue)

  • Ball of dust goes up her skirt and impregnates her

    • Already has daughter and 400 sons

  • Coyolxauhqui doesn’t like the idea of a new arrival (which is Huitzilopochtli)

  • Decapitate Coatlicue

    • Streams of blood form serpent head

    • As killing Coatlicue, Huitzilopochtli is born

      • Exiles 400 brothers to heavens

      • Sacrifices Coyolxauhqui and dismembers her and throws her body parts at the bottom of the snake mountain

• Everytime warriors were fed to the temple, it is a reenactment of light over dark or sun vs moon
  

Coatepec

• Snake mountain

• Snake curling around structure

Pleistocene Overkill — P. Martin

Theory of “Pleistocene Overkill”

• Paul Martin

• Focus on humans tracking animals result in overkill

• Holocene changed the animals in the environment

• Animals traveled north and changed

R. Scotty MacNeish

• Spent time looking for evidence of early domestication

• Focused in caves and rock shelters

• Most remembered for Tehaucán valley – many caves

Desert Culture

Tehuacán Valley

• El Riego Phase, 7-5000 BCE

  • 1st cotton!!!

  • Avocado

• Coxcatlán phase, 5-3400 BCE

  • Coyol palm

  • Maize? → was it domesticated during this time?????

    • Was actually domesticated after this time

    • Not a good environment for maize

    • Maize was not domesticated at Tehuacan

• Abejas, 3400-2300 BCE

  • Maize!!

  • Manos and metates!

  • Microbands formed macrosbands in spring

Abejas phase

• Abejas, 3400-2300 BCE

  • Maize!!

  • Manos and metates!

  • Microbands formed macrosbands in spring

3400-2300 bce

• Wild plants = 42 % of diet

• Domesticated plants = 25% of diet

• 1st dogs!

• Semi-sedentary

  • People are in the same place for a big chunk of the years

• Stone bowls

  • Don’t have pottery yet, but vessels are made out of stones

Xihuatoxtla — D. Piperno

• Xihuatoxtla – D. Peperno found early evidence of Teosinte 

• Wild bean distribution

  • Beans are domesticated

• Drier and higher lands

La Consentida, Oaxaca — G. Hepp

~ G. Hepp, 2022

~ lived experiences and archaeology of the senses

• Guila Naquitz and Gheo Shih, Oaxaca

Guilá Naquitz & Gheo Shih, Oaxaca (“dance floor”?) — J. Marcus/K. Flannery

Guila Naquitz

• Rock shelter

• Found series of different parts of the rock shelter that suggests occupations in microbands

  • Fall and spring

• Naquitz phase, 8900-6700 BCE

  • 20,000 fragments of plant parts

  • Acorn harvesting

• Guila Naquitz: Squash, 7900 BCE; maize, 4250 BCE

  • Squash was domesticated first!

  • Plants are slowly becoming part of the overall diet

Gheo Shih

• Open air sites, not rock shelter

• Microbands and families come together to make slightly larger groups

• Doing this beyond harvesting

Marcus/Flannery model

• Tracing “ritual” from Gheo Shih to the Zapotec state!

• Nomadic annual cycle of the Archaic era was good for the flexibility of ad hoc ritual, allowing dances, initiations, and courtship to take place whenever the largest group co-resided together

• Once permanent villages were established, solar and astral events could be used to schedule key rituals. Two calendars were in use by 2450 B.P.

• The first men’s houses served small descent groups, excluding only the uninitiated.

• Men’s houses gave way to temples, the more exclusionary rituals of which were controlled by part-time specialists. The increasingly sacred nature of temple activity led to rituals of sanctification, dedicatory offerings, and escalations in bloodletting and human sacrifice.

Nistamalization

Problems with Corn

• Lysine deficient – needs another plant to complete (beans)

• Solution – soak in alkaline (limestone – CaCO3) water = “masa” – softens kernels and cellulose, allows proteins to form linkages and become more available, reduces aflatoxins for mycotoxin contamination enriches calcium content

• Improves nutritional availability

• “Nixtamalization”

Nixtamalization

• The reason why corn was the way of life

Plant domestication — Flannery vs Hayden and Clark

• Highland vs lowland models

  • Flannery 1968

• Systems theory

• Balance between carrying capacity and nutritional needs

• Flannery – productive potential of domesticated plants;

• Seasonality and scheduling;

  • When will different resources be available, where, for how long??

• Human intentionality/response to environmental stress

  • tinkering with plants, they found stuff more reliable

  • Emergency situations (ex. More rain one year)

  • More reliable during the wet years

  • More used during the dry years

• More labor intensive

• Flannery – systems theory

• Hayden & Clark:

  • Social agency theory

  • Linked with aggrandizers’ strategies

    • How emergent leaders might have been driving this

  • Evidence from Soconusco

• Held big feasts and wanted to show objects that many people would not see

• First domesticated foods are actually things that were not staple foods

seasonality and scheduling

Valley of Oaxaca: Tierras Largas (M. Winter), San José Mogote (K. Flannery)

Valley of Oaxaca: Zapotecs

• Etla

• Tlacolula

• Valle Grande/Zimatlan

Valley of Oaxaca: chronology

• Guadalupe phase (800-700 bce)

• Rosario phase (700-500 bce)

• MAIa-c (500-200 bce)

• MAII (200 bce - ce 200)

• MAIIIA (ce 200-500)

• MAIIIB/IV (ce 00-800)

Espiridion phase pottery (earliest in Oaxaca)

Ecuador – 3000 BCE!

• Highlands: 

• Pox pottery (2000 bce), Guerrero

• Espiridion complex (pre-1600 bce), Oaxaca

• Origin of pottery – 3000 BCE

• Making pottery spread to the north reaching mesoamerica before 2000 bce

• Stone vessels came before pottery, as well as gourd

• Pottery looks like the inside of the gourd

  • Used already existing gourd containers to make pottery

Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca: Etlatongo (ballcourt!)

• Shows secondary sexual features

  • Breasts

  • not genitalia

  • Large upper legs

  • ex.) paint of right breast and left leg

  • Faces are round

Villages

• Post holes at Etlatongo!

• Plus – stones and adobes to support walls

• Typical house size: 3 or 4 meters x 5 or 6 meters

  • Interior space and exterior space

  • Interiors:

    • Cooking, hearth, fixed walls, make stone tools

    • Burned fragments or wattle and daub (clay)

    • Made by having a framework of wooden poles and daub would have been placed over them

    • Mats that they slept on

    • Thatched roof

  • Exterior:

    • Dooryard, apron

    • Note exterior features associated with house – household units may encompass 300 square meters

Tlapacoya-Zohapilco

~ ca. 2300 bce

~ 5 cm high

• From central Mexico

• Figure is made by fired clay, and is 5 cm high

• Explosion in figurines

• Artistry and manufacturing

Mazatán, Soconusco and the Mokaya — Early Formative

Barra phase:

• shift from residential mobility to sedentism

• increased emphasis on agriculture

• ceramic technology begins

• rapid population growth

• beginning of craft specialization

• paso de la Amada — 50 houses

Clark and Blake 1994

• what happens in Locona phase — chiefdom ca. 1400 bc

• voluntary “social contracts”

• coercion

• actor-based model; Giddens

The Mokaya and the Origins of Rank

• 2-tiered settlement pattern

• Elite and non-elite domestic architecture

• differential mortuary practices

• unequal access to sumptuary goods

• attached craft specialists

• redistribution within each large community

The Big 3 Olmec centers: San Lorenzo, La Venta, and Tres Zapotes (don’t need to know Zapotes)

San Lorenzo Horizon

• M. Covarrubias – mother culture

• I. Bernal/A. Caso, Olmec Empire? Founding civilization?

• Emulation Model, 1986 – Flannery

• Cultura Madre (mother culture)/Olmec priority VS Cultura Hermana (sister culture)/peer polity

• 700 hectares

• “Peer polity?”

• Problems with systems theory and noe-evolutionary perspectives?

  • These are societies in place… (check phone)

San Lorenzo Pottery

• Calzadas Carved

• Limon Incised

• Xochiltepec White and Conejo Orange (made from kaolin clay)

La Venta

• Salt dome

Early middle formative, 1000/900-600/500 cal BCE, “La Venta Horizon”

Complex A and Mound C/Complex C at La Venta

• Erosional panels

• Sacred mountain made by humans

Archaeologists: M. Stirling; M. Covarrubias; M. Coe; A. Cyphers

Matthew Stirling (GWU, ‘22!)

• Where do the objects come from?

• First to excavate at these sites

• Went back to where the colossal heads were found

Miguel Covarrubias

• Friends with Stirling

• Anthropologist and archaeologists

• Became obsessed with Olmec art

• Rescued the art and bought a lot of it → now in Mexico City

• Good visual perspective on Olmec art → people came from one civilization

Rise of San Lorenzo

• Coe’s “Gift of the Coatzalcoalcas” model (adaptation of Carneiro circumscription model) and importance of maize

  • Maize was an important part of the diet (but we know now that that it not entirely true)

• Stark’s “Social Dynamics Model”

• Cyphers 2012, 2019 RISK: de-emphasis on maize; “Island” Model, problems with optimization models??

  • Hub of communication

Cyphers – Islotes

• Soggy coastal plains as marginal 

• Investing energy to produce energy

• Production of surplus food

Mixe-Zaque (pom = copal)

Gulf Coast Olmec “Centers”

• San Lorenzo

  • Earliest one

  • Established during the same time as Mokayas

• La Venta

• Tres Zapotes

~ localized

• What does “ceremonial center” mean?

  • Sacrifice, ritual, religious activities

  • Urban center

What language did they speak? Mixe-Zoque

San Lorenzo horizon, 1200-900 bce (uncalibrated)

• M. Covarrubias – mother culture

• I. Bernal/A. Caso, Olmec Empire? Founding civilization?

• Emulation Model, 1986 – Flannery

• Cultura Madre (mother culture)/Olmec priority VS Cultura Hermana (sister culture)/peer polity

La Venta horizon, 900-400 bce

M. Helms

~ Acquisition Polities/Centers-out-there (horizontal) vs superordinate centers (vertical)

• Polities that are acquiring things that they want → often interacting with groups that are very different and have different interests

• Superordinate centers, not just horizontally located, but vertically

  • Forces that act like a world tree → underworld, earth, celestial

• Early middle formative, 1000/900-600/500 cal BCE, “La Venta Horizon”

Olmec style vs. Olmec culture? Cultura madre vs. cultura hermana?

Bliss figure; Kunz Axe; Brooklyn 1; Puebla 1; Mask 1 (were-jaguar — Covarrubias); Infant 1

Brooklyn 1

• Poses

Puebla 1

• Sculpted so there is tactile lines and naturalism

• Lines of costume

• Head is much bigger than the rest of the body

  • Anatomically wrong

• Red powder

Mask 1

• “Were-jaguar” – Covarrubias

• Hybrid aspects clear on mask

• Trapezoidal down-turned mouth

• Fierce expression

  • Snarling jaguar

• Lots of tropical forest animals incorporated into the art

  • Interested in hybrid!!

    • Interested in a jaguar who had human elements

“Infant 1”

• Or “SAF”? By C. Tate

• Are they showing little people?

• Showing babies with disabilities?

Ceramic hollow baby, Metropolitan

• Shown without any sexual characteristics

• Obese with showing skin

• Baby traits, but also adult traits

  • Baby putting fingers in mouth

  • Adult muscles

San Lorenzo (Veracruz); Red Palace; Group E; ilmenite beads

• Red Palace

  • Series of rooms organized around a patio with plaster walls and large basalt column roofs

  • Basalt drainage channel/system

    • Stone troughs with covers

    • Different liquids might have run through them

    • Monument 9

    • Monument 52

      • Surely an image of the rain deity (downturned mouth, cleft in head, war jaguar – jaguar characteristics with human characteristics)

  • It’s called red palace because of the sandy floor → completely covered with red pigments

• One of the rooms is a basalt workshop (basalt is used for statues/artwork)

  • Recycled or made in the workshop

    • Recarved into other things

• Ceremony artworks and burials/memorials

  • Sculptures found → possibly a colossal head?

  • Group E

• Ilmenite beads

  • Came from Chiapas

  • Crafts specialization

San Lorenzo Heads 1, 8, and 10; Head 2 as recycling (J. Porter)

El Rey (Head 1)

• San Lorenzo has many types of art

  • Colossal heads and monumental/altar (???? check phone)

• 10 colossal heads from San Lorenzo

• Extremely naturalistic

• 3 meters high!

• Weighs 3 metric tons

• Large staring eyes with iris indicated

• Flaring nostrils

• Emphasized lips

• Very focused, intense, stern

• Sense of will power created by the artist

  • Proportions of face

• Faces are of individual rulers → each are slightly different and wear different head gears

• Basic headgear → headband around eyes

• Basalt head stone with plaster or paint on them

SL Head 8

• Doesn’t show sign of destruction

• Totally round on the back

• Same expression

• Iris’ looked crossed

  • Crossed eye

• True eye with heavy lid

• Can see teeth in the mouth!!!

• Anatomy of the ear!

SL Head 10

• Standard head

• Iris in ball relief

  • Eyes on the viewer

• Under 6 feet tall

• Imonite beads on head dress 

  • Imonite beads with holes in them

• Animal paw on head dress

Head 2

• Very destroyed

  • Holes on nose and cheek

• Little pits → basalt, so natural

  • Materials popping out

• Heads are flat on the back

Llano de Jicaro

• Must of had rafts to build the sculptures and to carry the rocks

• Llano de Jicaro

  • Sculptures were roughed out and not fully finished until they went into San Lorenzo

Van Sertima and Afrocentrism vs Haslip-Viera, Ortiz de Montellano, and Barbour

Xochipala, Guerrero

Xochipala: The Beginnings of Olmec Art??

• Olmec from western mexico? → greenstone became important in later art

Xochipala “The Matron”

• Extremely realistic 

• 10 inches tall

• Well modeled figure

• Sense of a person’s body that we don’t normally get in Mesoamerican art

• Red pigment

Models for San Lorenzo: Coe (carneiro), B. Stark, A. Cyphers

J. Clark — Olmec political organization and Olmec “kings”; governmentality; Foucault

Olmec Monumental Art

• Clark; Stark

• Colossal heads and “altars”/thrones

• San Lorenzo

Potrero Nuevo/Loma del Zapote

Olmec Monumental Art

• San Lorenzo: centers, Secondary Sites and their Art

  • Loma Del Zapote/Potrero Nuevo

  • Cruz del Milagro

Cruz del Milagro - “The Prince”/Monument 1

The Prince, Cruz del Milagro

• Almost life size

• Just about a meter high

• Weighs under a ton

• Seated figure with crossed legs slightly bent over

• Slightly leaning over, younger male, usually holding a staff in their hands (this one is not holding a staff)

• L-shaped eyes

• Flushy lips

• Flared nostril

• Planet venus on head dress

• Interesting flap coming out of headdress 

• Figure can represent a sacred mountain/hill → shape of body bent over

  • Might actually be a secondary leader 

• Positioned at the site where two rivers meet

Olmec art — Beatriz de la Fuente

San Lorenzo Monuments 107 (Xibalba?), 34, 52, 10, 9

3 major themes of Olmec art:

• Importance of human body

• examples each excavated at San Lorenzo

1. Mythic Images

• SL Mon. 107 – Xibalba?

  • Feline creature with huge eyes

  • The paws are grabbing a ball relief as if it is pushing the figure down

    • Scrolls around figure

    • Scrolls = smoke from underworld

  • Creature that has access to the underworld → Xibalba

2. Supernatural Beings

• SL Mon. 52

  • Creature in pose

  • Cleft

  • Sideway V’s associated with rain

  • Downturned mouth

  • X on chest 

    • St. Andrew’s cross

  • Rain god?

  • Olmec maize god?

  • Folded element on head – folded paper on headdress?

3. Human Figures

• SL Mon. 34

  • 80 centimeters high

  • Kneeling statue

  • Sculpted on all sides → meant to see at all angles

  • Probably had perishable arms

    • Arms can be moved or manipulated

  • Tense lower body with moving arms

  • Leg is bent and foot under the booty

    • Looks like the statue is getting ready to get up

  • Not a static image

  • Ball-player costume elements

The Wrestler, Antonio Plaza

• Same size as Mon. 34

• Still has its head

• Human figure with contortion and energy

• Figure has beard

• Naturalistic ears

Arroyo Pesquero — Mask 1; C. Wendt

Las Limas — the Las Limas Hypothesis, D. Joralemon and M. Coe; pars pro toto

• Masterpieces found “accidently” on a farm

• Large greenstone sculpture

• Shows young man who has naturalistic body presenting a jaguar baby

• Probably had precious stones as his eyes, mouth parted open to show teeth

• Four in-sized reliefs on the knees and shoulders (5 entities showed)

• Pars pro toto?

  • Maize god? 

  • Abstract versions of entities

  • 5 deities

  • Matched up with Aztec deities

  • Tooth → shark tooth (found in graves)

    • Shark deity

El Azuzul — “the twins” — Popol Vuh

• Part of San Lorenzo where important people lives

• Found

  • 4 sculptures that slid down the embankment and arranged in a scene

    • Narrative in the way they were found and arranged

• Maya Popol??

  • Twins

    • Folded accordian headdresses

      • Ropes in headdresses (moving the sculptures)

  • Bent over

El Manatí - P. Ortíz and M. Rodríguez

• 10 kilometers from San Lorenzo

• Mangrove swamp → excellent preservation

  • Drained a lot of water

  • No evidence of

• Most likely a shrine site

• Jade arranged like flower petals

• Found a whole series of wooden busts!

  • About 10 of them

  • Upper torsos

  • 20 inches high

  • Wrapped in towels with bundles 

    • Bones are wrapped in there

    • Pointing

• Paint on wooden busts

• Olmecs made offerings at site overseen by a ritual process

• Found rubber balls!

  • Different sizes

Calzadas Carved; Limón Incised; Xochiltepec White; Conejo Orange

Calzadas Carved

• Bowls

• Deeply carved designs

Tlapacoya - C. Niederberger

Tlapacoya – Niederberger

• Flaming eyebrow

• Gum brackets with flaming eyebrows

Tlatilco — M. Covarrubias; C. Santasilia

Tlatilco – Covarrubias

• Buying whatever they were finding

• Rich a diverse art

• Double headed-figurines

  • “Janus head” → one head with two faces

• No genitalia

• Olmec style head

• Know nothing about the site

Las Bocas — Metropolitan Hollow Baby/pedigree label

Las Bocas

• Heavily looted!

• Red and white pot → fully complete!

• Metropolitan hollow baby

  • Rolls of belly and muscular

  • Olmec head

• “Pedigree” label

Cantón Carrality (Mazatán; Cherla and Cuadros phases), D. Cheetham; J. Clark

Cantón Corralito – D. Cheetham

• Loaded with Olmec style materials

“olmecization”

• Movement of Objects (Cherla phase, 1250-1100 uncal bce)

• Movement of Ideas (Cherla and Cuadros)

• Movement of People (Cuadros phase, 1100-950 bce) – “San Lorenzo Horizon”

San José Mogote (Valley of Oaxaca), K. Flannery

• Bench inside and sometimes a circular pit filled with lime (powder lime)

  • Powder lime and coffee – nicotine experience

• Very small!!!

Etlatongo (Mixteca Alta)

Valley of Oaxaca and Mixteca Alta

~ Chiefdoms? San Jose Mogote (SJM) and Etlatongo

~ 1400-1100 cal bce

INAA

Researchers used Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) to trace origin of 725 ceramic samples→ 15 regionally specific compositional groups; 3 groups remained unassigned.

• Pattern-recognition techniques used to identify compositionally homogeneous groups in data.

• Mahalanobis distances calculated to test elemental discrimination between groups.

  • cross-validated by removing each specimen from presumed group before calculating distance from group’s centroid.

  • Sherds belonging to more than one group in the same region excluded to prevent affecting centroid and variance-covariance structure.

• Pottery produced in regions like Mazatán (low chromium) and Tlapacoya (high chromium) showed clear chemical distinctions.

M. Helms and acquisition

~ Acquisition Polities/Centers-out-there (horizontal) vs superordinate centers (vertical)

• Polities that are acquiring things that they want → often interacting with groups that are very different and have different interests

• Superordinate centers, not just horizontally located, but vertically

  • Forces that act like a world tree → underworld, earth, celestial

• Early middle formative, 1000/900-600/500 cal BCE, “La Venta Horizon”

Reilly — Middle Formative Period Ceremonial Complex; shaman — nagual

Cascajal Slab

1000 cal BCE

• 62 glyphs/signs

• Studied by the best minds in the field

• Signs repeat themselves – sequences of signs?

• Could be writing!

Islotes and LiDAR — Ramírez-Núñez, Cyphers’ “risk” model

La Venta (Tabasco), Tonalá River, R. González Lauck

Complex A — “hidden” art and architecture; massive offerings

• Erosional panels

• Sacred mountain made by humans

• True tomb in mesoamerica!!

• Young individuals buried with extravagant things

• Individuals themselves were covered up

C. Brittenham — making, labor, memory, and ritual activation

quincunx

• Cerros pendants and pectoral arranged in quincunx pattern suggest quadripartition and concentric dualism crucial to ritual function

  • Hypothesis supported by Pomona Flare artifact from Belize

    • Pairs actor marked by k'in (Sun, day, light) w/ one marked by akbal (darkness)

quincunx glyph appears in Mayan writing system as be (path/road), symbolizing pathways of life, blood, and water

La Venta Altar/Throne 4; Quintuplet Altar/Throne (Altar 5)

Alta/Throne 4

• Younger men

• Niche is an earth monster mouth

Altar/Throne 5 – “Quintuplet throne”

• Holding a baby

• Two sets of babies on the side

  • Monstrous babies being held by humans wearing the mirrors on their chest

Stela; Stelae 1, 3, and 19 (Quetzalcoatl?)

Stela 1

• Figure in standing pose

• Earth-monster mob standing in giant niche

• Figure in a female → defined breasts and olmec skirt that covers the lower part of the body

Stela 3

• Two figures that seem to be communicating with each other

Stela 19

• Quetzalcoatl-Kukulcan??

• Feathers on it

• Early version of Quetzalcoatl, that the Mayans called Kukulcan

• Painted design

Guerrero Caves: Juxtlahuaca, Oxtotitlan

Teopantecuanitlán (Guerrero) — G. Martínez Donjuán

• This is one of the wetter parts of Guerrero, but still dry hills

• Areas near the rivers

• Site that has architecture going all the way back to the transition of San Lorenzo to La Venta horizon

• Sunken court

  • Two platforms and small space between them look like a ball court

• Monuments are three tons

  • Shaped like an upside “T”

    • Bulbous nose, downturned u-shaped mouth, complex headdress, cleft motif on top

Chalcatzingo — D. Grove; Mons. 1 (“El Rey”), 2, 21; “Gateway Community” — K. Hirth; “Frontier Art” — D. Grove

Chalcatzingo, Morelos

• Big volcanic plugs

D. Grove – Cantera phase, 700-500 BCE

• Carvings are being made

Mon. 1

• El Rey, but name not used anymore

• Earth monster

• Profile view of open ma, complete with an eye

• Smoke belching out of mouth

  • Smoke coming out of underworld

• Vegetation sprouting from the edges of this

• 4 sides and a center

• Staff or bar of some kind

• El Rey/the king is wearing a skirt

  • Could be a woman!!

Mon. 21

• Another figure of a woman → shows breasts and wearing skirt

• Raising a stele?

Oaxaca:

Zapotec

Middle Formative

San José Mogote (Monument 3, Structure 19)

K. Falnnery/J. Marcus — Direct Historical Approach (DHA), contextual analysis — animism

Monte Albán — Alfonso Caso

Alfonso Caso and Monte Albán

• Alfonso was there for 15 years

disembedded capital — R. Blanton 1976

Urcid and Joyce: new interpretation of Bldg L-sub/”Danzantes”

• Large stone slabs embedded in the platform feature bas-relief carvings.

  • nude males with slightly Olmec-like facial features, such as down-turned mouths

    •  "Danzantes" (dancers)

  • unusual, rubbery postures as though they are swimming or dancing 

  • Some figures elderly, with beards, toothless gums, or a single prominent tooth.

  • 300 known figures

  • Captives w/ genital mutilation→ blood in flowery patterns from wounds

    • closed eyes → corpses

    • Prob slain chiefs or kings, victims of early rulers→ nude assosiated w/ humilation

Late Formative

MAI (500-200 bce); MAII (200 bce-ce 200)

Classic

Early - MAIIIA (ce 200-500); Late - MAIIIB/IV (ce 500-800)

Building L-sub — Danzantes (dancers), Nadadores (swimmers)

Monte Albán Danzantes: 300 stone carvings of individuals, some w/ names next to them

• D-55, one of the danzantes, appears to be a leader, shown with two jaguar heads and several glyphs, suggesting he played a prominent role.

• ballplayers, depicted in various poses, less individualized compared to danzantes, w/ no obvious distinguishing features like names or glyphs

  • Some heads are carved directly into the rock above the site, remaining in their original positions, unlike other parts of the monument that were reconstructe

Monument J-41; Stelae 12 and 13

Building J, “conquest slabs” — see Codex Mendoza

• Stone-faced building w/ unique triangular ground plan pointing southwest

  • exterior of building features over forty reused inscribed stone slabs

    • depict an upside-down head with closed eyes and an elaborate headdress beneath a stepped glyph for "mountain" or "town"

Caballito Blanco

Dainzú — “ballplayers”; I. Bernal, H. Orr

• 2ndary admin center (have public architecture and art) → period 1  

  • Building A 

    • Using mass of hill for volume 

    • Series of ba relief sculptors of ball players 

      • Small balls in handn (unusal) w/ helmets

La Coyotera, Cuicatlán Cañada; skull rack? - C. Spencer, E. Redmond

• Dha says when zaptacsb conquered place they burred temple and did skull rack of warriors but problem is skulls dont have evidence of being placed on racks 

  • 1000 yrs earlier than any other skull rack

Tilcajete; creamware - C. Spencer, E. Redmon, C. Elson

• Before monte alban 2, another cite

• Seems to be a rival cite 

• Goes through several relocations 

  • In alban 2 

  • Uphill → more definstive 

  • Becomes 2ndary admin cite 

  • Cremewears = interaction 

• Oaxaca valley 

• Dainzu→ 2ndary admin center (have public architecture and art) → period 1  

  • Building A 

    • Using mass of hill for volume 

    • Series of ba relief sculptors of ball players 

      • Small balls in handn (unusal) w/ helmets

Predatory State or Zapotec Imperialism Hypothesis — Flannery and Marcus

San Francisco de Arriba — A. Workinger

MA III: doble escapulario; modified “talud/tablero”; TPA

• Doble escapulario

  • 2 layers of design above tablero 

  • Prob white w/ red trim 

    • w/ sun makes it blinding 

  • Playing w/ shadow 

  • Intergrtsing public space and engaging all senses 

• Talud/Tablero 

  • Sloping talud and vertical tablero 

• Temple patio alter (TPA) 

  • We dont have bilateral cemetery so they added TPA 

    • Also creating more private space for rituals 

• True classes – elaborate tombs 

• Connections w/ teotihuacan

North Platform; Teotihuacan barrio/control (M. Winter)

temple with an offering of fancy grayware serving vessels, possibly linked to ritual feasting and dedication ceremonies

MAIII (Stela 3; Lord 13 Owl Slab/series; Bazan Slab; Stela 1) vs NAIV monumental art: Noriega Slab; “genealogical register”

• Lord 13 owl figure 

  • Seated on throne w/ jaguar mask 

  • Presiding over defeated binded captives 

• III artistic programs all about exploits of leaders

Cociyo/Cojijo

Group of the Principal Couple (Grupo de la Pareja Principal; GPP): central group on the right side of the stream with 19 preserved sculptures

• Principal Couple

  • GPP-11: A woman, wearing a tight necklace and possibly tattoos/ woven garment

  • GPP-12: A man depicted as a ballplayer with a ball in each hand, possibly wearing a jaguar-head mask or having jaguar features.

  • Surrounding the couple are other figures, possibly family members:

• Associated Paintings:

  • GPP-A: A bald human head, possibly the deity "Flayed One".

  • GPP-B: Human head with a buccal mask, resembling the Zapotec deity Cociyo.

Tomb 104

• Rain deity of Cocijo w/ outreached hands 

• Go through large slap door

• 1 person w/ rich offerings 

  • And murals

• Figure imagergies from niche as though offerings do sustain it

Cueva del Rey Kong-Oy; nagual/tonal — M. Winter

Cueva del Rey Kong-Oy Cave → in Sierra Mixe (mountainous area in northeast Oaxaca), within San Isidro Huayapam (town of 1,000 inhabitants) + inhabited by Mixe ethnic group.

Mixe people likely sculpted figures in the Cueva del Rey Kong-Oy and lived in the Chuxnabán archaeological site for over 2,000 years

The Cueva del Rey Kong-Oy sculptures show humans with jaguar features (e.g., wearing jaguar masks or having jaguar tails), possibly representing shamans or religious specialists.

Cueva del Rey Kong-Oy 

• Winter 2020; cavers found it

• Sierra mixe 

• 65 sculptures; 46 humans, 15 animals

  • Packed earth sculptures 

  • Life size 

  • Places in 7 diff groups on terraces 

  • Man and women locked in place  

• Prob late formative 

• cave=underworld 

  • Cave as fertility/portal in underworld 

  • Uncommon to see genetailia so maybe this 

• Unusual for mesoamerican art depicting naked human genitalia