According to our reconstruction of the sociopolitics of tenth-century Chichen Itza, the polity was ruled by a paramount king who identified himself with the sun. A high priest, the second-ranking figure, stood by the king's side. A political and military elite, with an S-shaped serpent as its emblem, shared power with these top figures. Finally, the whole community of warriors was treated as a collective corps with important religious and political responsibilities. The iconography of the Temple of the Wall Panels depicts the initiation of jaguar knights by a warrior figure designated as Serpent Jaguar. The same individual, also represented and designated on the slab covering the cache buried in the upper temple, was assisted or controlled by personages who ranked above him. The panels illustrate the destiny of the jaguar-warriors after their glorious death, first as they accompany the rising sun and, later, as they transform themselves into birds. This interpretation appears very close to the destiny of the dead Aztec warriors as recounted by Sahagún and other chroniclers. The butterfly/bird theme, associated with warriors, indicates that similar beliefs were current at Teotihuacan. The Temple of the Wall Panels, too small to be a telpochcalli was probably a house used by warriors, as indicated by its images and its distinctive architecture, which are shared at the same site by the Temple of the Warriors.

Desecration of Punta de Chimino's ceremonial precinct around a.d. 430 was associated with the appearance of green Pachuca obsidian, pyrite mirror fragments, dart points, a Tikal-style vessel cache, and a peculiar grave with Mexican semblances. A structurally housed Protoclassic stela was removed in an apparent fire ritual and monumental masks adorning the E-Group range building were effaced in a termination rite involving large quantities of refuse. Disuse of the E-Group range building and unfinished refurbishment of the observatory pyramid suggest the site was promptly deserted. The forsaking of this time-honored ceremonial place coincided with reduced settlement in the Petexbatun region and abandonment of the nearby Pasión centers of Ceibal, Itzan, and Chaak Ak'al. Punta de Chimino's findings shed further light on these abandonments, suggesting that they were triggered by amplified central lowland involvement in Pasión River affairs by the end of the fourth century a.d.

An important episode in Mesoamerican mythical narratives involves the abduction or impregnation of a tightly guarded maiden by a disguised god, against the will of her father or mother. This action precipitates major creational events that variously result in the origin of the sun, the moon, and human sustenance. Relying on a comparative analysis of versions recorded throughout Mesoamerica, this paper explores (a) representations of this episode in Maya art, where the suitor sometimes takes the shape of an insect; (b) the magical role of weaving and spinning, a recurrent theme in this mythical sequence; and (c) the relevance of Maya narratives for the interpretation of related passages in central Mexican mythology and ritual. Classic representations evidence the myth's antiquity, while its numerous versions pose methodological problems, addressed in this paper through the analysis of synonymies in narrative, art, and performance.

La reutilización de esculturas es un proceso que ha ocurrido en diversas culturas alrededor del mundo. Eso puede obedecer a motivos económicos, rituales o simbólicos diversos. En este trabajo se demuestra la reutilización de esculturas no sólo como una práctica de la cultura olmeca, sino particularmente durante finales del período clásico en el sur de Veracruz y a partir de monumentos originalmente olmecas. Este fenómeno corresponde también a un crecimiento poblacional que ocurrió durante la fase Villa Alta del clásico terminal y postclásico temprano sobre sitios que habían florecido durante el preclásico. La modificación de los monumentos erigidos sobre los sitios permitía a los nuevos pobladores integrar nuevos mensajes y darles coherencia dentro de su sistema de creencias.

In recent years the development of metallurgy in West Mexico has received increasing attention in the field of archaeological and technology studies. Considering that the latter already include excellent descriptions and analysis of the ritual and sumptuary functions of metal artifacts, the present article focuses on the sacred symbolism of the metal resources and the metalworking process itself according to several indigenous cosmogonical narratives and other additional pictorial and alphabetical sources from sixteenth-century Michoacan and adjacent cultural areas. The available documentation clearly shows that a crucial role was attributed to the native god Tlatlauhqui Tezcatlipoca.

Many Tarascan settlements surrounded Lake Patzcuaro in Michoacan, Mexico, during the Late Postclassic period. A hierarchy of settlements existed from the capital of Tzintzuntzan to secondary administration sites and small tributary communities. Obsidian artifacts from the large site, Erongaricuaro, have been studied by the author. Analysis of the obsidian from this site highlighted particular patterns in the production and consumption of prismatic blades and large scrapers. Data from another site, Urichu, was collected and analyzed more recently. Urichu was a tributary center to Erongaricuaro during the Tarascan empire. Local and state elites inhabited both sites, and analysis of obsidian manufacture indicates that the sites may have had different functions. Obsidian from the sites also varies by source location. This too may indicate site function and the changing sociopolitical organization of obsidian production and use throughout the Tarascan empire.

Modeling Olmec participation in Early Horizon interaction networks requires better understanding of the relations of Gulf Olmec communities with one another as well as with contemporaries elsewhere in Mesoamerica. We compare pottery, figurines, and obsidian assemblages from a recently isolated Early Formative component at Tres Zapotes with contemporary assemblages from San Lorenzo and Macayal, both in the Coatzacoalcos basin. Our analysis indicates that village inhabitants at Tres Zapotes interacted with populations in eastern Olman but also forged their own economic and social ties with central Veracruz and the Mexican highlands. This evidence suggests a heterogeneous politico-economic landscape in which multiple polities of varying complexity participated in overlapping networks of interaction, alliance, and competition within and beyond Olman.

While scholars actively search for material and symbolic indications of Olmec influence outside the Gulf Coast, few have taken a close look at the variation and intricacies of Early Formative period material culture within the Gulf Coast region. The increasing body of data on houses in the Olmec heartland is beginning to allow comparisons and new kinds of analyses not previously possible in Olmec studies. Excavated materials from San Lorenzo phase (1200–900 b.c., radiocarbon years; 1400–1000 b.c.) households at El Remolino in the San Lorenzo region are analyzed in a preliminary attempt to evaluate the particulars of a San Lorenzo Olmec domestic assemblage in order to provide a baseline for future research. I compare quantities of different artifact classes, vessel forms, vessel orifice diameters, and pottery decoration to arrive at an understanding of a modest Olmec household inventory. Through this analysis, I argue that several of the San Lorenzo horizon markers cited as evidence of Olmec influence or migration elsewhere in Mesoamerica are quite rare in the Olmec heartland itself. Both Calzadas Carved and Limón Carved-Incised pottery decorations1 occur only in minute quantities (<1%) in the Remolino (and San Lorenzo) assemblage, and hollow white-ware figurines are entirely absent at this nonelite context. Except for its location 5 km from San Lorenzo, El Remolino would not qualify as an Olmec site based on the lack of artifact markers emphasized by archaeologists working outside of the Gulf Coast. I argue that we need a better idea of the range of Gulf Coast Olmec variation before we delve too far into discussions of Gulf Coast influence.

The earliest uses of Olmec greenstone (jadeite, greenstone, schist, green quartz, and others) accelerated the interregional exchange of technology and raw materials. These relationships provoked asymmetry between polities of different parts of Mesoamerica and within Olmec sites. There were stronger relationships between the Gulf Coast and Chiapas. In general terms, greenstone artifacts display an evolutionary process similar to ceramics and basalt sculpture in the emergence of complex society during terminal Early Formative times. This paper focuses on the exchange of technological choices and asymmetry between Gulf Coast of Mexico and the rest of Mesoamerica.

Interaction between the Gulf Coast Olmecs and various regions of Early Formative Mesoamerica remains debated and poorly understood. In Oaxaca, models have been dominated by neoevolutionary epistemology; interaction between the Valley of Oaxaca and San Lorenzo has been characterized by emulation or peer polity models. Data from the Valley of Oaxaca, the Nochixtlán Valley, and the Gulf Coast demonstrate that San Lorenzo was at a different level of sociopolitical complexity than its contemporaries. Previous comparisons between Olmec-style pottery in the Gulf Coast and Valley of Oaxaca are found to be problematic, and have led to the impression that Oaxaca villagers produced more of this pottery than did the Olmecs. Neutron activation analysis demonstrates the Gulf Coast Olmecs exported ceramics to Mixtecs and Zapotecs in Oaxaca, while receiving few if any pots in return, suggesting that new models and theoretical perspectives must be applied to understanding the relationships between Oaxacan chiefdoms and the nascent Olmec state at San Lorenzo. An agency perspective explores what Mixtec, Zapotec, and Olmec groups may have taken from these interactions and relationships and acknowledges both local and Gulf Coast understandings of “Olmec.” Such relationships may be characterized more by acquisition between regions, with San Lorenzo as a superordinate center.

Barrio Tepalcate, on the Los Perros River just outside Ciudad Ixtepec, Oaxaca, 18 km upriver from Laguna Zope, is one of the few Early and Middle Formative period sites known in the southern Isthmus of Tehuantepec region. Our salvage excavation in 2005 showed that the village covered no more than four hectares. It was probably one of several villages along the river in a two-tiered settlement hierarchy centered on Laguna Zope. The presence of Early Formative period ceramics suggests that the inhabitants of Barrio Tepalcate participated in the Early Olmec style horizon, although the design motifs on their pottery are simpler than those from San Lorenzo 150 km to the north. We found little evidence of imported ceramics from San Lorenzo, which may be due to the small size of the sample and the site, or to differences in how San Lorenzo interacted with highland sites, such as Etlatongo and San José Mogote, and Isthmian sites, such as Barrio Tepalcate. The Early Formative inhabitants of the southern Isthmus were members of the Mixe-Zoque language family, and specifically Mixe speakers by the Late Formative.

Portable “Olmec-style” objects appeared in several regions of Mesoamerica near the end of the second millennium b.c., most frequently in the form of ceramic figurines and carved-incised pottery vessels. The origins of this early Olmec style and significance of its distribution are vigorously debated, with the role of the Gulf Coast Olmec archaeological culture and its largest center, San Lorenzo, especially controversial with respect to both issues. While recent chemical compositional analyses show that Olmec-style pots were exported from the Gulf Coast to several other regions of Mesoamerica, in each place beyond the Gulf Coast they are vastly outnumbered by locally-made versions that may or may not be faithful to Gulf Olmec stylistic canons based on vessel forms, technical style of manufacture, and design criteria. The extent of stylistic conformity between pots made in the Gulf Coast and distant regions has direct implications in terms of the geographic origin, apprenticeship, and cultural membership (innate ethnicity) of the potters who made the vessels. I consider these issues by comparing the designs and forms of excised (Calzadas Carved) pottery made at San Lorenzo and Cantón Corralito, a possible settlement enclave of Gulf Olmec peoples located in the Mazatan zone of Pacific Coastal Chiapas some 450 km from San Lorenzo.

Practices and features that many researchers have identified as “Olmec,” even when found outside of the Gulf Coast of Mexico, supposed by some to be the heartland of an Olmec culture, are often a minority within local assemblages with vast differences in style and form. This is the case in Honduras, where objects identified as “Olmec” were clearly locally made. Thus they cannot be explained simply in terms of the import to Honduras of “Olmec” objects made elsewhere. This paper seeks to address the question, “what did it mean to the inhabitants of Formative period Mesoamerican villages to make and use objects whose stylistic features made them stand out as different from others in their own communities?” Drawing on data from original fieldwork at multiple sites in Honduras and reanalysis of museum collections, this paper proposes a model for understanding this phenomenon rooted in social theories of materiality, the phenomenological experience of personhood, and the creation of identity through entanglement with things.