Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T11:46:41.872Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Shaft Tombs of Western Mexico: Problems in the Interpretation of Religious Function in Nonhistoric Archaeological Contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

R. E. Taylor
R. E. Taylor*
Affiliation:
University of CaliforniaRiverside, California
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The widely differing interpretations of the function of certain artifactual materials associated with the shaft-tomb complex of western Mexico are utilized to illustrate certain problems in the analysis of nonhistoric archaeological materials thought to be of religious significance. It is suggested that in the absence of some new model specifically designed to deal with the religious sub-system of nonhistoric societies and in the absence of interpretative data derived from relatively secure historical contexts, the only approach which seems justified, in light of our present level of knowledge, is to operate on the level of broad generalized statements of probability.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , April 1970 , pp. 160 - 169
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1970

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Berger, R., Ferousson, G. J., and Libby, W. F. 1965 UCLA Radiocarbon Dates IV. Radiocarbon, Vol. 7, pp. 336–71. New Haven.Google Scholar
Berger, R., Horney, A. G., and Libby, W. F. 1964 Radiocarbon Dating of Bone and Shell from Their Organic Components. Science, Vol. 144, No. 3621, pp. 999–1001. Washington.Google Scholar
Berger, R. and Libby, W. F. 1966 UCLA Radiocarbon Dates V. Radiocarbon, Vol. 8, pp. 467–97. New Haven.Google Scholar
Berger, R. and Libby, W. F. 1967 UCLA Radiocarbon Dates VI. Radiocarbon, Vol. 9, pp. 477–504. New Haven.Google Scholar
Berger, R. and Libby, W. F. 1970 UCLA Radiocarbon Dates X. Radiocarbon, Vol. 12, No. 1. New Haven, (in press)Google Scholar
Berger, R., Taylor, R. E., and Libby, W. F. 1966 Radiocarbon Content of Marine Shells from the California and Mexican West Coast. Science, Vol. 153, No. 3738, pp. 864–6. Washington.Google Scholar
Bernal, I. 1949 Exploraciones en Coixtlahuaca. Revista Mexico de Estudios Antropologicos, No. 10, pp. 5–76. Mexico.Google Scholar
Binford, L. R. 1962 Archaeology as Anthropology. American Antiquity, Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 217–25. Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Binford, L. R. 1967 Smudge Pits and Hide Smoking: The Use of Analogy in Archaeological Reasoning. American Antiquity, Vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 1–12. Salt Lake City.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corona, Nuñez, J. 1954 Diferences tipos de rumbas prehispanicas en Nayarit. Yan, Vol. 3, pp. 46–50. Mexico.Google Scholar
Corona, Nuñez, J. 1955 Tumba de El Arenal, Etzatlán, Jalisco. Instituto National de antropologia e historia, Direccion de Monumentos. prehispanicas, Informes 3. Mexico.Google Scholar
Covarrubias, M. 1957 Indian Art of Mexico and Central America. Knopf and Co., New York.Google Scholar
Disselhoff, H. D. 1932 Note sur le resultat de quelques fouilles archeologiques faites à Colima. Revista del Institute de Etnologia de La Universidad National de Tucuman, Vol. 2, pp. 526–37. Tucuman, Argentina.Google Scholar
Ekholm, G. 1940 The Archaeology of Northern and Western Mexico. In The Maya and Their Neighbors, edited by C. L. Hay and others, pp. 320–30. D. Appleton-Century Co., New York.Google Scholar
Furst, P. 1965a Radiocarbon Dates from a Tomb in Mexico. Science, Vol. 147, No. 3658, pp. 612–13. Washington.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Furst, P. 1965b West Mexican Tomb Sculpture as Evidence for Shamanism in Prehispanic Mesoamerica. Antropologica, No. 15, pp. 29–80. Caracas.Google Scholar
Furst, P. 1966 Shaft-Tombs, Shell Trumpets and Shamanism: a Culture-historical approach to Problems in West Mexican Archaeology. MS, doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Gifford, E. 1950 Surface Archaeology of Ixtlán del Río, Nayarit. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 183–302. Berkeley and Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Grosscup, G. 1961 A Sequence of Figurines from West Mexico. American Antiquity, Vol. 2, No. 3, Pt. 1, pp. 390–406. Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Kelly, I. 1938 Excavations at Chametla, Sinaloa. Ibero-Americana, No. 14. Berkeley.Google Scholar
Kelly, I. 1948 Ceramic Provinces of Northwest Mexico. In Cuarta Reunion de Mesa Redonda sabre Problemas Antropologicos de Mexico y Centra America, Sociedad Mexicana de Antropologia, pp. 55–71. Mexico.Google Scholar
Kelly, I. 1949 The Archaeology of the Autlan-Tuxcacuesco Area of Jalisco 11: The Tuxcacuesco-Zapotitlan Zone. Ibero-Americona, Vol. 27, pp. 1–291. Berkeley.Google Scholar
Kirchhoff, P. 1946 La cultura del occidente de Mexico a traves de su arte. In Arte Precolombia del Occidente de Mexico. Secretaria de Education Publica, Mexico.Google Scholar
Kubler, G. 1962 The Art and Architecture of Ancient America: The Mexican, Maya, and Andean Peoples. Penguin Co., Baltimore.Google Scholar
Long, S. V. 1966 Archaeology of the Municipio of Etzatlán, Jalisco; MS, doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Long, S. V. and Taylor, R. E. 1966a Chronology of a West Mexican Shaft Tomb. Nature, Vol. 212, No. 5062, pp. 651–2. London.Google Scholar
Long, S. V. and Taylor, R. E. 1966b Suggested Revision of West Mexican Archaeological Sequences. Science, Vol. 154, No. 3755, pp. 1456–9. Washington.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noguera, E. 1942 Exploraciones en “El Openo” Michoacán. 27th Congreso International de Americanistas, Vol. 1. Mexico.Google Scholar
Sears, W. H. 1961 The Study of Social and Religious Systems in North American Archaeology. Current Anthropology, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 223–36. Chicago.Google Scholar
Suess, H. E. 1965 Secular Variations of the Cosmic-Ray-produced Carbon-14 in the atmosphere and their interpretations. Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 70, No. 23, pp. 5937–52. Richmond.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toscano, S. 1946 El arte y la historia del occidente en Mexico. In Arte Precolombino del Occidente de Mexico. Secretaria de Educacion Publica, Mexico.Google Scholar
von Winning, H. 1958 A Dog Figurine from Colima, Mexico. The Masterkey, Vol. 32, No. 5, pp. 153–4. Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Willey, G. R., 1953 Archaeological Theories and Interpretation: New World. In Anthropology Today, edited by A. L. Kroeber, pp. 371–85. Chicago.Google Scholar