ARKEO1200 Prelim 1

• 1. In the 1980 excavations, the idea of Clark that the area was a small settlement was refuted and it was proven that Star Carr was in fact a relatively large settlement. 
• 2. While Clark’s interpretation was that the site was a hunting camp, the 1980 excavations focused more on the cultural aspects of the people of Star Carr, making interpretations regarding ceremonies and rituals. 
• 3. Clark thought the accumulations of wood were artificial constructions such as platforms. In the 1980s and later on the 2000s, the archaeological community came to the conclusion that these were naturally accumulated woods. (As there were no posts and there was virtually no evidence that the wood had been worked. There was, however, one area in which worked wood and linear posts were found.)

• 1. Processualists: putting Chaco in a geographical context. The systematic relations of the Chaco canyon to the surrounding terrain. Inferences about ecology on one hand and social and economic relations on the other.
• 2. Post-processualists: belief systems, symbols, cosmography, social control and organization

• 1. 1860-mid 20th century: antiquarian appreciation for the colossal heads. Place Olmec style in time. 
• 2. 1955: Placing San Lorenzo in the context of its surroundings. Ecology of the San Lorenzo community and the Olmecs in general. Rather than generalizing for the entirety of Mexico, Sterling put effort into finding technical analyses that will contribute to the documentation of economies. (60s-today)

• 1. Colossal heads looking african: (noses and lips) has caused people to argue for trans-oceanic contact between the Olmecs and Africans. However, these features also exist as major components of the phenotypes of indegenious people in Mexico. Africa-supporters argue that those similarities came into these populations through the very connection. However, you could also argue that a significant african connection could be brought upon the African input after Cortez and the Spanish Invasion (slaves). 
• 2. Chinese connection: Olmec writings and shang writing seem similar. The combinations as they occur on the artifacts don’t have proper syntax, however.
• 3. Bark paper and bark cloth: Very specific chemical processes and tools are used in the processing of bark to turn it into the proper material. That technology exists all along the Pacific rim. (Micronesia, lower central america, south america) Is this indicative of distant contact? How similar is similar enough to infer contact rather than coincidence?
• 4. Plants: Sweet potatoes are botanically American plants. They’re also documented throughout Oceania and Southeast Asia. The only way to explain this is trans-oceanic contact. 
• 5. Kabak bottles (bottlegords): are African and are also seen in South America. The explanation is that these bottles (bottlegords) were brought to Mesoamerica through water circulation from Africa. However, the issue with this was that wild bottlegords didn’t have as thick of a skin as domesticated strains, and thus wouldn’t be able to withstand weeks of water exposure.
• 6. Concept of colors associated with directions: also happens in parts of South and East Asia. Associated with calendar cycles with the same meaning in the same position as their Asian counterparts (animals, similar sounding words) The issue with this is this sort of strong cultural interaction would not be possible as a result of a one-off sailboat finding its way to the Americas. If such a trans-oceanic contact occurred, there would also be archaeological evidence.

Very low agricultural potential of San Lorenzo indicates strong trade relations with surrounding area. Basalt, jade, obsidian, serpentine and magnetite were imported. Olmec style art was found in trade regions, indicating a two-way exchange of goods and ideas.

It negates the archaeological context of the artifact and thus limits our ability to make inferences about the society. For example, many and almost all of the smaller iconic artifacts belonging to the Olmecs have been looted.

• 1. Pueblo Bonito, due to its scale and complexity, is the main attraction for archaeologists. 
• 2. Mesoamerican architecture is characterized by artificial platforms, which is also seen in Pueblo Bonito. For some, this is an indication for a Mesoamerican presence. But there are limits to what a similar form may imply. There might be similar forms with different functions.
• 3. Architecture is fancy and very carefully done, quite a lot of very careful architectural engineering. As time goes on in Chaco, there’s less and less mortar and more and more stones to achieve stronger wall structures.
• 4. Pueblo Bonito and other sites were occupied for centuries and went through substantial renovation. The remains of these renovations are visible and indicate a changing of minds and the evolution of culture.

• 1. The ball game: Rulers use this to entertain people they want something from. There is also indications of feasts during the ball game. This is an indication of political centralization. (You could argue the same for Kivas in Chaco. However, ethnographic analogies show that Kivas are ceremonial or ritual in nature rather than political.)
• 2. Monumental art glorifying a leader. Unfortunately, we don’t have hieroglyphic text like we do for the Mayans to definitively determine the purpose and identity of these artifacts. However, what we can infer is that there were people who glorified themselves and had sufficient capacity for leadership to organize the labor required to produce monumental art for the glorification. 
• 3. The massive amount of labor required to construct San Lorenzo implies planning and organization efforts by a small group of leaders. 
• 4. Stele in La Venta show individuals wearing head-dresses jewelry etc. indicating high political power.
• 5. La Venta also has evidence of elite burials and other rituals.

They mark the beginning of a complex tradition of complex society in Mesoamerica. (1100-600 BC)

• 1. Includes analysis of Insect bits, pollen analysis, paleobotany.
• 2. Aims to answer the questions of: How do these people rely on their environment, what does the environment say about the people inhabiting it?

The study of the social, biological and cultural dimensions of people. In that sense, archeology can be said to be the anthropology of the past. Various departments work alongside archaeology (ex. Anthropology, landscape architecture, art history etc.) but think in various different ways.

• Anthropological archaeology is:
• 1. more comparative (draws comparisons across different world areas), 
• 2. more problem oriented (structures its research in terms of specific issues that have global significance),
• 3. more explicit about logic,
• 4. more inclined to generalize, more interested in explanation,
• 5. more interested in epistemology - especially in terms of social theory.
• What kind of changes can we detect happening, not what kind of life was lived, but why that kind of life was lived.

• 1. Until late 19th century 
• 2. Focused on the objects themselves for their particular aesthetic qualities. Wasn’t related to trying to understand what the objects meant about the past. (How to best display things, how they look, aesthetic appeal, collecting objects.) 
• 3. Set the stage for making classifications and mapping the distribution of the objects, which allowed for the actual study of archaeology to take place. “Antiquarian appreciation”

• 1. Beginning in late 19th century 
• 2. Tyler and Morgan.
• 3. Societies and cultures were thought to fit into various stages of cultural evolution and civilization development.  
• 4. A single developmental trajectory was hypothesized (convergent evolution of all societies). 
• 5. Scale and complexity was thought to increase as the civilization went along the stages of cultural evolution. 
• 6. Based on the assumption of seriation, things were expected to change in a regular way with a particular order.
• 7. Societal development is linear, there aren’t any trajectories. (Dismissiveness was observed when cultural evolutionists looked at early societies.)

• 1. Early half of the 20th century
• 2. History of cultures were thought to be nice discrete, defined concepts. 
• 3. Archaeologists were interested in classifying objects and putting them in discrete groups called “cultures”. 
• 4. Systematic description, chronology, normativeness. (tree ring dating, carbon14). 5. Changes in cultures were explained by migration events (which was, eventually, the “big smoking gun”)

• 1. 1960s-1970s
• 2. Binford, science model (hypothesis testing), epistemology, explicit problem solving mindset. (especially about ecology, democracy, economics - rarely about religion or social orientation),
• 3. Archaeology as a science with objective inferences. 
• 4. Processualism and its concerns seen most clearly in Chaco: interested in the larger context (such as the immediate environment, variation in the region as a whole, how do sites distribute themselves alongside landscapes, what does that tell you about the cultural processes going on). (Starr Carr: ancient ecology, local flora and its change throughout time) 
• 5. Various kinds of scientific and technological techniques used for examination. Well established and identifiable relationships between societal organization and materials.
• 6. Leslie White: Culture as an exosomatic environmental adaptation for humans. Thus, close study of the environment will reveal nuances about culture. (cultural ecology drove processual archaeology)

Systematic foundation for inference in processual archaeology.

Intuitive identification of objects through their contexts, imaging or comparison.

• 1. Post 70s
• 2. Rejection of the notion that everything needs to be purely scientific and objective. 
• 3. Skepticism about archaeology as a science and the objectivity that can be established through archeological analysis.
• 4. Less strained interpretation (takes on the issues of gender, social hierarchy, belief systems, kinship). Cognitive and gender archaeology are examples of this. 
• 5. The meanings behind how materials were used and their significance in the societies they belonged to.
• 6. Going beyond societies and studying significance at an individual level, including emotional, religious, political implications of objects.

Archaeology of the mind. A part of post-processual archaeology. Studies the role of ideology and social organization on the minds of people. Based on the notion that groups of people growing together in the same society develop a similar cognitive map (ways of perceiving the world) which impacts their material culture.

Ideas, arguments, hypotheses, speculations and thought experiments about how and why human societies - or elements of those societies - come to be formed, change, develop, or disappear over time.

Clark picked up ancient environmental analysis (through pollen) from Scandanvian and Danish archaeologists. Scandanavian archaeologists and climate historians had worked out a very substantial chronology for climatic changes in Northern Europe. Clark was interested in using this information in Mesolithic archaeology through environmental analysis.

Another important find in Star Carr was rolls of birch bark. It was argued by some that the platform found was an intentional chemical bath. This would also imply that the settlement period would extend into early summer, as this was the only time the water would be warm enough to facilitate the chemical reactions.

• 1. Antler tools are well preserved in waterlogged sites, as they’re organic material. There was a chronological difference in the distributions of the various shapes / types of tools excavated.
• 2. Based on the fact that most antlers were directly broken from the skulls of the red deer, It was hypothesized that the settlement was occupied during September-March when the deer carry their antlers.
• 3. The other naturally shed antlers on the site showed that the area was occupied in April as well, which is when red deer shed their antlers.Thus, Clarke hypothesized that Starr Carr was an early spring / winter settlement

• 1. They assumed that all of the antlers were acquired at the time of settlement (no antlers would lie around until they were picked up and made into tools). 
• 2. They also initially didn’t document where in the site these animal remains came from because it was assumed that the animal remains were uniform. Clark did, however, plot where the tools were excavated.

• 1. The absence of the generally meatiest bones suggested that the slaughter / hunting of the animal happened in another area.
• 2. Additionally, stone tools were distributed equally in the camp and tools for processing rather than hunting were found, which also wasn’t indicative of Starr Carr being a hunting camp. Based on this, Star Carr was identified as a basecamp rather than a hunting camp.

• 1. Starr Carr shows the substantial increase in technology, interactions within populations belonging to different families, shelter methods, constraints on populations and economic activities that occur during the transition to settled farming life.
• 2. Archaeologists knew that the mesolithic would include settlements on human societies for longer periods of time. However, Starr Carr exceeded the expectations of archaeologists in terms of the size of the population in Starr Carr and the extent to which the people were exploiting the environment.

• 1. Impact wounds indicate hunting groups were armed with projectiles such as arrows, javelins, thrusting spears or darts tipped with flint, bone or antler.
• 2. We lack archaeological evidence but decoys or callers, disguises (antler frontlets) may have been used based on the geographical and temporal context. (refer to ethnographic analogy)
• 3. Presence of processed fish bones is evidence for small fishing projectiles.
• 4. Fragmentation of bone animal bone assemblage, cut marks on bones during butchery, traces left on the flint tools indicate how the animals were processed.

• 1. Clark assumed that there was no chronological progression between faunal remains. He treated the assemblage as homogenous. 
• 2. Chatterton and Conneller argue that a patterned, formal deposition of animal remains was prevalent. Without spatial information, it is difficult to understand whether this is the case or what form this pattern took.
• 3. Spatial patterns would also aid in identifying activity zones, roles or presence of structures.

• 1. Well-defined, clear cut post holes with organic material within were identified. However, these holes could also be for different purposes such as drying / smoking fish, processing hides etc.
• 2. Higher concentration of animal bone and worked flint were present within the area bounded by the proposed central structure.
• 3. There was a difference in the chemical composition of the areas within the proposed central structure and outside the proposed central structure. This indicates the presence of a wall or barrier to physically bound the activities inside. While there’s no archaeological evidence for the walls or barriers, historical and ethnographic literature suggests that they were most likely made from reeds, birch bark, animal hides etc.
• 4. A geochemical gradient was present in presumed entrances.

• 1. there is one elite burial (Room 33) at Pueblo Bonito which is certainly different from all other burials recovered from the canyon. 
• 2. turquoise is found at small and great houses, the exotic macaws and specialized cylindrical vessels are found only at the 2 great houses. (hypothesized that Pueblo Bonito was occupied by a bisected society based either on matrilineal lineage or two hierarchical groups.)
• 3. however there's no evidence for monumental architecture, special markers for elite class such as headdress etc.
• 4. these structural complexity would require some level of planning and leadership, but whether this points to an elite class is questionable.

• 1. Despite the architecture and the higher frequency of goods with high values in certain places, we can’t come to conclusions about political power given to the “distinguished” group of people, as it could also just be economic power. 
• 2. It is possible that there were institutions at Chaco that involved some concentration of political power alongside a concentration of economic power. (cylindrical vessels (with cacao), turquoise (striking concentration in one of the rooms))
• 3. The nature of this distinction is unknown (could be claims for political power, lineage, economic power etc.)

• 1. Drought in early to mid 12th century, right at the time the people of Chaco stopped modifying the great houses and large-scale architecture ceases and the Chaco phenomenon came to an end.
• 2. The decision to leave Chaco is more likely to have been made by individual families rather than a simple, collective and general decision made by the society as a whole. Thus, there likely isn’t a single identifiable factor leading to the end of the Chaco phenomenon.

• 1. Many previous estimates gave high numbers but Windes focused on identifying purely residential spaces as opposed to simply counting the number of rooms and multiplying it by the average size of families, as the functions of the rooms weren’t known. 
• 2. Another approach was counting the metates, which serve primary economic functions. However, the issue is that they’re very affordable and may end up in excess.
• 3. Windes challenged previous assumptions by first making fire pits a measure of a single household. Firepits don’t move and the rooms that do have firepits only have one at a time. Thus, they can serve as a convenient and consistent marker of domestic space. 
• 4. While no fire pits on the upper floors of Pueblo Bonito could be identified, Windes assumed that the upper floors were not residential and thus didn’t contain any fire pits. 5. While the small population calculated was consistent with the seemingly limited farming potential of Chaco, it wasn’t consistent with the amount of labor that would’ve been required to build a site such as Pueblo Bonito.

The lack of farming potential of Chaco is thought to have been compensated with extensive and complex irrigation systems connected to garden beds and the extensive trade relations of Pueblo Bonito.

• 1. For: Claims of evidence of burning, pot polishing, bone breaking and cut marks on human bones matching animal butchering in 38 sites out of 75.
• 2. For: Deposits of highly processed bones associated with great houses indicating ritualistic behavior.
• 3. For: Chemical analysis of cooking pots and coprolite in Cowboy Wash indicates the presence of human myoglobin.

• 1. Against: Destruction of bones of people thought to be witches in Anasazi culture.
• 2. Against: Most bone evidence comes from poorly controlled areas that have been occupied after the Chacoans. 
• 3. Against: There is no ethnographic evidence for cannibalism.
• 4. Against: Rather than occasional occurrences of cannibalism, these were a part of the societal and cultural structure of the Anasazi.

• 1. Cannibalism could be because of starvation, ancestor worship or political terrorism.
• 2. Starvation isn’t very likely in the Chaco context.
• 3. The relationship of bones with the great houses may indicate the practice of cannibalism as a purposeful policy for social control. 
• 4. The relationship of bones with burial sites may indicate ritual cannibalism or human sacrifice.

• 1. Chacoans’ traded with the other mesoamerican societies in the greater region. They imported cacao and macaw feathers in exchange for turquoise.  
• 2. Theobromine, the chemical marker for cacao, is detected in the majority of the vessels. Most local and non-local vessels from unit-pueblo sites contained cacao traces. Done using mass spectrometry.
• 3. Elite vessels identified by their shape are examined in detail and contain theobromine.

• 1. Large, hollow, seated figurines and abstract naturalistic animals and zoomorphic images on vessels, bowls and bottles connect Puerto Escondido iconography to the “Olmec” style.
• 2. Reasons for the use of this iconography could be a way of symbolizing a new form of social inequality. (Makes sense, since such iconography is also connected to the consumption of luxury goods in Puerto Escondido as well).
• 3. Additionally, Olmec geometric motifs were used. 
• 4. It’s important to note that despite the use of similar symbolism, the meanings and interpretations likely differed due to differences in the temporal and spatial context of these communities. (what was metaphysical for the Olmecs was likely a way to establish social difference for Honduras)

• 1. A mother culture is a term for an earlier people's culture that has great and widespread influence on some later cultures and people. Though the original culture may fade, the mother culture's influence grows for ages in the future.
• 2. In the context of the Olmecs, this is the argument that the Olmecs of the Gulf Coast were the mother culture of all Mesoamerican civilizations. (Flannery and Joyce dispute this) (Richard Diehl and Michael Coe argue for this)

• 1. Stylistic similarities between the Gulf Coast and Mexican Highlands. Since Olmec centers have stone monuments and the highlands didn’t, it was assumed that the Gulf Coast was in the forefront with regard to being “civilized”.
• 2. San Lorenzo and La Venta had multi tiered hierarchical settlement systems that occurred nowhere in Mesoamerica until centuries later.  3. Coe argues that San Lorenzo is shaped like a giant bird flying East. 
• 4. The Olmec population was significantly larger than its contemporaries. (No data to support this, pure speculation)
• 5. The Olmecs had a highly sophisticated symbol system expressed in a coherent art style not seen anywhere else. 
• 6.The Olmec invented monumental stone carving, which later on became a defining characteristic of every Mesoamerican civilization.
• 7. “The Ball Game” finds its oldest known evidence in Olmec deposits.T
• 8. The first ritual use of rubber was observed in Olmec sites as opposed to the highlands.
• 9. The Olmecs had the most extensive trade routes and moved a greater amount / diversity of goods than their contemporaries.

• 1. Sister culture is a term for cultures whose interactions through the region produced shared attributes of religion, art, political structure and hierarchical society.
• 2. The collective interaction of many different cultures develop the subsequent ones without a dominant influence of one of them.
• 3. Sister culture within the context of the Olmecs argues that the Olmecs were a set of paramount chiefdoms that rose, peaked and eventually collapsed in a landscape of traditional and open chiefdoms.

• 1. The Olmecs fit into the characteristics of a chiefdom rather than a “colonizing empire” or “supremely politically dominant” based on ethnographic analogy. 
• 2. Every major chiefly center of the period 1150-450 BC had a substantial amount of hierarchically lower villages below it. The Olmecs were no different. 
• 3. The plateau upon which San Lorenzo rests is majorly shaped by natural erosion as opposed to platforming. 
• 4. Although monumental stone carving is the defining characteristic of the Olmecs, it’s questionable to what extent it can be considered an indicator of political complexity.
• 4. The ball game has been found in earlier sites. 
• 5. Each region has something it did first. Rubber trees are native to the Gulf Coast, which would explain why rubber was used there first. 
• 6. We have no quantitative evidence for how much was traded, especially for perishable goods. The argument that the Olmecs traded the most is speculative at best. 
• 7. Substantial interaction network connecting Mesoamerica (long distance interaction) were present long before Olmecs. This sets the stage for the Olmec period. You could argue that one of the things that provided the stimulus for the extensive Olmec network was the pre established interaction network prior to the Olmecs.

Star Carr: 9300 BC - 8400 BC

San Lorenzo: 1200 BC - 900 BC

La Venta: 800 BC - 400 BC

Chaco Canyon Great Houses: 800 AD - 1100 AD

Aztec Ruin: 1085 AD - 1100 AD

Casas Grandes: 1125 AD - something

• Pueblo Bonito
• Chetro Ketl
• Pueblo Alto
• Pueblo del Arroyo

• 1. ceramic sociology.
• 2. Another study involved the analysis of ancient DNA preserved in closed burial rooms and found that the 11 burials found in the same site were closely related in terms of the women in the family. This is an indication of matrilineage.

Absolute dating is the process of determining an age on a specified chronology. Absolute dating provides a numerical age or range in contrast with relative dating which places events in order without any measure of the age between events.

AMS is a process used to radiocarbon date samples. It involves accelerating sample particles to high kinetic energies and separating isotopes based on their difference in mass. It is much more accurate than alternative radiometric analysis’. Accelerator Mass Spectrometry is used to measure the amount of C14 in sample.

The Ancestral Puebloans were an ancient Native American culture that lived in the Chaco area. The Navajo, who were not their descendants, called them “Anasazi”, which meant "ancient enemies".

Context is the place where an artifact is found, Not just the place but the type of soil, the site type, and what the artifact was found with or in relation to.

Auroch is an extinct species of large wild cattle (cow) that inhabited Europe, Asia, and North Africa. It is the ancestor of domestic cattle and it was domesticated by humans.

An outlier in the Ancestral Pueblo region. Consists of structures in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of New Mexico. The closest outlier is the Salmon Ruins. The Aztec ruins date from the 11th to the 13th centuries. American settlers in the 19th century named them the "Aztec ruins" based on their erroneous belief that the Aztec civilization built them.

• 1. Processual transition: In a matrilineal society, the women would be expected to be learning how to do pottery (which was done almost entirely by women in Pueblan societies) in the presence of their relatives. 
• 2. Done by Hill and Longacre
• 3. Design elements and microstyles (form, painted designs) corresponding to various matrilineages would be expected in this case. Different styles were assumed to be marking distinct social groups. (Not very obvious things but the kinds of things that you might learn from an intense internship with a society.) 
• 4. This idea was met with significant critique; The main one was based on the fact that the idea was based on general trends that they extracted from ethnographic studies rather than detailed studies of how current Pueblo people make pots.
• 5. A lot of women in contemporary Pueblan societies learn to make pottery in surrounding neighborhoods. 
• 6. Another criticism was for the statistical analysis done.
• 7. In the end, this method and argument was dropped entirely.
• 8. This event changed the course of the development of theory in North American pottery done by processualists. Later on, post-processualists picked this analysis of societal mechanisms back up. This is an example of ceramic sociology.

The Basketmaker culture of the pre-Ancestral Puebloans began about 1500 BC and continued until about AD 500 with the beginning of the Pueblo I Era. The prehistoric American southwestern culture was named "Basketmaker" for the large number of baskets found at archaeological sites of 3,000 to 2,000 years ago.

• An interesting find at Star Carr was the significant amount of burned vegetation. The frequency at which plants were burnt suggested that this action was a purposeful action and a result of the manipulation of the plant population by human populations. Interesting questions could be how the people there figured this out and how this affected the population structure of the environment. 
• Also interesting for the case of domestication. Hmmmmm

• 1. Several vessels (pottery) were found and it was realized that these vessels were used to serve chocolate (cacao drink) for ritualistic, political, medicinal and economic value (cacao beans were of considerable value) in the Lower Ulua Valley. 
• 2. Chocolate drinks also had a substantial symbolic meaning.  It was known that the Lower Ulua valley was an important hub for cacao production and that cacao played an important role in Mesoamerican societies (theobromine marker was detected in various other vessels in Central Mexico etc.). 
• 3. However, it wasn’t previously known that cacao production went back as much as 1100 BC.
• 4. Residue was extracted from the surface of the pottery. Liquid and gas chromatography and mass spectrometry was used to identify theobromine and caffeine (caffeine gives a peak in the same location, so must be ruled out).

• As the shape of the earlier vessels did not lend itself to produce or contain froth, it is unlikely that chocolate was served in them. It is likely that beer made from cacao was served in these vessels. Vessels with larger heads, would be more likely to lend themselves to serving a chocolate drink. 
• 1. Beer: fermentation of pulp, throw away the seeds
• 2. Chocolate: fermentation of seeds, throw away the pulp
• This may indicate that the invention of chocolate was an unintended consequence of poor beer production.

Carter Ranch site is a pueblo famous for the pottery excavation that was analyzed by William Longacre.

• 1. There are many architectural and functional similarities between the sequential regional centers Chaco Canyon (900-1125), Aztec Ruins (1110-1275) and Casas Grandes (1250-1500). 
• 2. There appears to be meridian alignment in the three sites along 630 kms with a mere 1 km shift. 
• 3. Steve Lekson argues that the alignment of all three centers is intentional and symbolizes cultural continuity through meridian symbolism. 
• 4. This isn’t very controversial, as the alignment of artifacts to express cultural connection to the natural world is noted very often in various ethnographic records.
• 5. Additionally, the alignment would require a substantial amount of time and labor, making it very unlikely for the alignment to have occurred coincidentally.

• 1. The Chaco road system is a complex system of linear roads with sudden angular jogs.
• 2. Large amounts of broken pottery found on the sections of the Great North Road is interpreted as evidence for trade routes and traffic of perishable goods stored in these vessels.
• 3. Ethnographic evidence from the Hopi people is used to suggest that perhaps Chacoan people may have also visited places like Pueblo Bonito for religious purposes.

• 1. Chalcatzingo is a Mesoamerican archaeological site in the Valley of Morelos dating from the Formative Period of Mesoamerican chronology.
• 2. The site is well known for its extensive array of Olmec-style monumental art and iconography.
• 3. Located in the southern portion of the Central Highlands of Mexico, Chalcatzingo is estimated to have been settled as early as 1500 BCE.
• 4. The inhabitants began to produce and display Olmec-style art and architecture around 900 BCE.
• 5. At its height between 700 BCE and 500 BCE, Chalcatzingo's population is estimated at between five hundred and a thousand people. By 500 BCE it had gone into decline.

Chetro Ketl is an Ancestral Puebloan great house and archeological site located in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico, United States. Construction on Chetro Ketl began c. 990 and was largely completed by 1075, with significant remodeling occurring in the early and mid-1110s. Following the onset of a severe drought, most Chacoans emigrated from the canyon by 1140; by 1250 Chetro Ketl's last inhabitants had vacated the structure.

• 1. Societies based on hereditary differences in rank, in which the chief’s authority extends to satellite communities.
• 2. Chiefdoms are not monolithic in any way and cases of many different combinations of chiefdoms can be observed in various ethnographic contexts. (sedentary, pastoral, traditional (based on sacred authority), open (based on more secular power).
• 3. The Olmec region over time were characterized by archaeologists as chiefdoms. Some chiefdoms, by incorporating surrounding chiefdoms into their societal organization, may serve as a precursor of states.

• 1. The Olmec colossal heads are stone representations of human heads sculpted from large basalt boulders.
• 2. The heads are a distinctive feature of the Olmec civilization of ancient Mesoamerica.
• 3. All portray mature individuals with fleshy cheeks, flat noses, and slightly crossed eyes. The backs of the monuments often are flat. The boulders were brought from the Sierra de los Tuxtlas mountains of Veracruz.
• 4. Given that the extremely large slabs of stone used in their production were transported over large distances (over 150 kilometres), requiring a great deal of human effort and resources, it is thought that the monuments represent portraits of powerful individual Olmec rulers.

• 1. A coprolite (also known as a coprolith) is fossilized feces. Coprolites are classified as trace fossils as opposed to body fossils, as they give evidence for the animal's behaviour (in this case, diet).
• 2. In the case of Chaco canyon they were used to analyze human cannibalistic behavior by detecting myoglobin in Cowboy Wash, a Puebloan archaeological site. To what extent this evidence can be connected to Chaco Canyon, however, is questionable.

• 1. Called tree ring dating.
• 2. Based on the principle that trees add a yearly growth ring that varies in thickness depending on whether the year was dry (thin ring) or dry (thick ring). 
• 3. Overlaps in the ring patterns (thick vs. thin) from living trees and logs can be matched to date ancient structures. 
• 4. Limitation: Can only be used in limited sites that have used wood and timber.
• 5. Limitation: Can only go back as far as 12,000 years.

• 1. Happened in various geographic areas in the world simultaneously. 
• 2. Domestication was a very slow process. Many thousands of years of interactions between people and plants produced domesticated plant species. Domestication was a by-product of thousands of years of intense interactions between humans and plants. 
• 3. At no point was it intentional. The point of archaeology with regard to domestication is to speculate or figure out what those unintentional interactions might have been. (unintentional selection for certain aspects (tougher attachment, bigger cob, bigger seeds)
• 4. Ethnographically, sedentary populations aren’t generally seen without farming and the use of domesticated plants and animals. Thus, there isn’t much ethnographic information on non-farming settled human populations, as farming societies push out non-farming populations from areas with rich resources and farming activities also lead to the depletion of traces and artifacts left behind by non-farming sedentary populations.
• 5. However, that does not mean, in any way whatsoever, that a population must be employing farming and domesticated plants and animals for subsistence in order to be sedentary.

• 1. Examined prehistoric drug trade of cacao in Mesoamerica and propose the existence of extensive trade and interaction among the people of the American Southwest and Mesoamerica.
• 2. Detect presence of theobromine, the biomarker of cacao, in 50 out of 75 vessels used by the Anasazi, including not only elite vessels, but local vessels as well.
• 3. The importance of this is to determine the extent to which Mesoamerican influence played a role in the development of Southwestern cultural traditions.
• 4. Washburn = meth = drug trade = (wow)

• 1. Ethnoarchaeology is the ethnographic study of peoples for archaeological reasons, usually through the study of the material remains of a society.
• 2. Ethnoarchaeology aids archaeologists in reconstructing ancient lifeways by studying the material and non-material traditions of modern societies.
• 3. Ethnoarchaeology also aids in the understanding of the way an object was made and the purpose of what it is being used for.
• 4. Archaeologists can then infer that ancient societies used the same techniques as their modern counterparts given a similar set of environmental circumstances.

Exported items that are not commonly found in a geographical area. Macaw feathers, turquoise, cacao,jadeite, iron ores.

Fajada Butte is a mountain in Chaco Canyon. Naturally, due to how the stones have fallen, there is a different kind of sliver of light every solstice or equinox. This and the spirals and markings are thought to have been produced by Chacoans. (cosmography)

• 1. A great house is a large, multi-storied Ancestral Puebloan structure;
• 2. they were built between 850 and 1150. Archeologists differ as to their purpose, but they might have been residences for large numbers of people, or ceremonial centers that only priests occupied.
• 3. Archeologist Stephen H. Lekson (the same guy who did meridian alignment) has proposed that they might have been the palaces of Puebloan royalty, particularly those found at Chaco Canyon.

• 1. Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is a geophysical method that uses radar pulses to image the subsurface. This nondestructive method uses electromagnetic radiation in the microwave band and detects the reflected signals from subsurface structures.
• 2. GPR is used for survey methods and identifying archeological artifacts without excavating.

• 1. Iron ores are used in mirror (for aesthetics and fire starting) making and jade. Small ilmenite drilled prisms are found in large quantities.
• 2. Exact function is unknown, maybe some sort of drilling equipment, can be used to start fires or project images.`
• 3. found in La Venta

• 1. Isotope analysis is the identification of isotopic signature, the abundance of certain stable isotopes and chemical elements within organic and inorganic compounds.
• 2. Isotopic analysis can be used to investigate human and animal diets in the past, for food authentication, and a variety of other physical, geological, palaeontological and chemical processes. 
• 3. Used to identify myoglobin in coprolite in Cowboy Wash.

• 1. Jadeite is a bright green mineral frequently used in Olmec sculptures, “infantile figures” and masks.
• 2. Many chiefdoms carved jade, Where did it come from? Imported.

Argues for the sister culture theory in the context of the Olmecs.

A kiva is a room used by Puebloans for religious rituals and political meetings. Among the modern Hopi and most other Pueblo people, kivas are square-walled or circular, and underground, and are used for spiritual ceremonies. However, the function of these rooms has likely changed and ethnographic evidence can't be applied.

• 1. La Venta is a pre-Columbian archaeological site of the Olmec civilization located in the present-day Mexican state of Tabasco.
• 2. It is located on an island in a coastal swamp overlooking the then-active Río Palma.
• 3. La Venta was built from earth and clay, there was little locally abundant stone for the construction. Large basalt stones were brought in from the Tuxtla Mountains, but these were used nearly exclusively for monuments including the colossal heads, the thrones, and various stele (stele not present in San Lorenzo)
• 4. Jade was imported into La Venta alongside ilmenite. Iron ores are present here.

• 1. Stele (big tabular piece of stone set up vertically and usually has relief carving on its main face that represents a richly dressed person in Mesoamerica) are present in public spaces in La Venta unlike San Lorenzo. 
• 2. Head-dresses are almost as long as the figure. That is because the emblems that imply the lineage, role, identity of the individual is shown through the head-dress.
• 3.These are important because they’re similar to later political art in Mesoamerica that there is a lot more information available on. 
• 3. This brings about the opportunity / temptation to draw analogies, especially between the Olmec and the Maya. If we did that, the figures presented would be ancestors / rulers, set up in public spaces, legitimizing political power. 
• 4. We don’t have Olmec texts, or clear evidence of an Olmec writing system.

Known for his work in archaeological theory. He is credited for fundamentally changing the field with the introduction of processual archaeology in the 60s. He found the concept of ethnoarchaeology.

Magnetometry is the technique of measuring and mapping patterns of magnetism in the soil. Ancient activity, particularly burning, leaves magnetic traces that show up even today when detected with the right equipment.

An absolute dating method that uses the variation in the position of the Earth’s magnetic pole over time. Can be used up to 10,000 year ago.

Matrilineality is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which each person is identified with their matriline – their mother's lineage – and which can involve the inheritance of property and/or titles.

Mesolithic is the archeological period (Epi-Palaeolithic in the Near East / Archaic in Mesoamerica) that is the transition period between hunter gatherer societies and early farming societies. (paleolithic to neolithic).

• 1. Paleolithic (sharpened stones) tools to mesolithic (composite tools, handles, microlyfs, specific purpose) tools. 
• 2. Emergence of the crafts production of pottery.
• 3. Paleolithic populations tend to be small, whereas mesolithic populations are larger. One of the reasons for this is that it’s hard to keep track of multiple small children if you’re not settled. 
• 4. These occurrences are major trends seen in the transitional periods. The question is how these patterns might be related.

Fully settled life, subsistence systems that rely on domesticated plants and animals, population increase, economic changes, technological advancements

(2.5mil BC until 1100 BC) The world’s most recent period of glaciations. The end of pleistocene corresponds with the end of the Paleolithic age.

A type of stone grinding tool used for processing corn in mesoamerica. It is typically large and heavy, which makes it more common in sedentary societies. These were found in Chaco and were indicative of settlements.

Most of their diet relied on domesticated plants. In order to understand how intensive the agricultural activities were, population size and organization played a key role.

Monolithic refers to a society in which everyone shares the same belief system, the same kinship based myth of tribal origin, the same language with little or no cultural mixture and very few or no minority sub-groups in the same geographic region.

A small stone tool made of flint excavated in Star Carr. High frequency observed around presumed central structures. Clark noted the spatial distribution of microliths but not the faunal remains.

With this analysis, the composition elements can be identified. Since different pottery factories in ancient times mixed their clay with different materials, the composition can be used to identify the source of a pot. Used by Blomster for mother culture vs. sister culture debate.

• 1. Even though it’s glass, obsidian absorbs water based on temperature and the chemistry of the obsidian itself.
• 2. If you can figure out what the average annual temperature is and what the rate of hydration is for the particular kind of obsidian, you can cut the obsidian and determine microscopically how much of the obsidian has been permeated by water. 
• 3. The tricky thing is figuring out the rate of absorption of the obsidian and determining whether it applies to the whole of the obsidian or various parts in it.
• 4. This dating process is not a rapid process and takes a long period of time.

• 1250-1500 AD
• Regional center for long-distance trade in copper, shells, gems and tropical birds.

Used to refer to the location (in modern research, recorded precisely in three dimensions) where an artifact or other ancient item was found.

Pueblo Bonito is the most thoroughly investigated and celebrated cultural site in Chaco Canyon. Planned and constructed in stages between AD 850 to AD 1150 by ancestral Puebloan peoples, this was the center of the Chacoan world.

Pueblo del Arroyo is an Ancestral Puebloan great house and archaeological site located in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, in New Mexico, United States. The construction of Pueblo del Arroyo, located a few hundred yards from Pueblo Bonito, near Chaco Wash, began c. 1060 AD and continued for approximately thirty years. With three hundred rooms, it is the fourth largest great house in Chaco Canyon. American archaeologist Neil Judd excavated Pueblo del Arroyo from 1923 to 1926, uncovering approximately half the structure. In his opinion, it was built by a group from Pueblo Bonito who moved there due to overcrowding. There are fourteen kivas at Pueblo del Arroyo, but no great kiva has been found at the site.

• 1. Located in the lower Ulua valley.
• 2. The finds at Puerto Escondido, the excavation site, reveal a new society taking shape between about 1200 and 900 B.C. across an area stretching from Mexico to Honduras. 
• 3. People widely separated by geography, particularly a new, elite class, were forming long-distance contacts, sharing luxury goods and religious ideas and customs. The Olmec lived on the distant Gulf Coast of Mexico, not in Honduras.
• 4. Early Hondurans acquired well-known Olmec pottery, or the skills to make it, through long-distance trips.

• 1. Radiocarbon dating measurements produce ages in "radiocarbon years", which must be converted to calendar ages by a process called calibration.
• 2. Calibration is needed because the atmospheric carbon-14 to carbon-12 ratio, which is a key element in calculating radiocarbon ages, has not been constant historically.
• 3. Dendrochronology is used to develop a calibration curve. Dendrochronology (tree ring sequences) served as a natural archive to know about the concentration of C14 in the past.
• 4. Bristlecone pine and European Oak were used, as they live for a long period of time. Dead wood samples (dendro archaeological samples) and living tree samples from the same species are combined to go further back than the lifespan of trees.

The year value obtained by assuming the concentration of carbon-14 to carbon-12 remained the same using the half life of c14 is radiocarbon years. This starts from 1950, the invention of radiocarbon dating, and goes back.

• 1. The red deer masks were thought either to be of ceremonial or hunting purposes (in order to fool deer into thinking that they were facing other deer).
• 2. However, the fact that the antlers on the masks were slightly cut (possibly in order to prevent the mask from falling) would not serve the purpose of fooling deer.
• 3. Thus, ceremonial / ritual activity, particularly relating to shamanism, was hypothesized by post-processualists as the reason behind red deer masks.
• 4. However, no connection or assertion that this interpretation was better than others was present. Although this hypothesis is perfectly possible, it’s not exactly persuasive. 
• 5. Another hypothesis was based on the psychological effects of wearing red deer masks. It was thought that impersonating an animal for a long period of time changed one’s perception of self and perception of animals, thus deeming hunters more effective by enhancing their confidence and solidarity.
• 6. Another hypothesis was there was a ritual deposition of such objects into the lake (open lake). This was based on the archaeological record and the “fact” that these artifacts were only found in open water. In the 1980s, it was later on found out that the bones were not in open water, but were in the shore. Additionally, the seemingly equal distribution of these bones across big areas wasn’t indicative of deposition.

Used until the mid 20th century.Includes dating techniques that provide a sequence of “older” and “younger” rather than calendar dates. Examples include stratigraphy and seriation.

• 1. Assumes that the bottom layer is the oldest and the upper layers get progressively younger. 
• 2. Can be used across multiple sites as long as all include at least a portion of the same sequence. 
• 3. One of the most basic of these sequences is the Three Age System: stone-bronze-iron.Based on the law of superposition.

• A similar method to stratigraphy but is based on the popularity of certain artifact styles over time.
• Each artifact style has a period of low frequency, to high frequency, and then low frequency again.
• The beginning and end points of these popularity curves help put artifacts in chronological order.

• Methods of obtaining calendar dates for archaeological sites or fossil finds.
• Dendrochronology, radiocarbon dating, and potassium argon dating.
• Except for dendrochronology, yields dates with standard deviations, resulting in a time range within which a site or fossil can be places.

• There’s a trade-off between accuracy (scientific error) and covered temporal span.
• Not everything can be dated using the same method, each method has its own temporal limitation. (50,000 years for radiocarbon dating, as the half life of C14 is 5,730 years. After 50,000 years, the amount of C14 is too small to be accurately measured. ) However, 50,000 years is a generally good period of time, as it corresponds to around the time when neanderthals were being replaced by homo sapiens.

• Variation in solar activity (active sun = no cosmic rays = lower C14)
• Natural changes on earth (glaciations, volcanic eruptions etc.)
• Human activity (CO2 emissions)

Taphonomy refers to everything that happens after burial. Bioturbation, preservation status, modification of samples etc.

• The date achieved from radiocarbon dating refers to when the organism died. How does this correlate to the archaeological event of interest? Decide by how much the death of the organism predates the archaeological event.
• Example; reservoir effect: the organism will exchange carbon with water rather than the atmosphere. This means that marine organisms in deeper waters will look older than they actually are, as the C14 amount in water takes a longer time to equal ratio in atmosphere.

Organic samples only such as wood, charcoals, bones, shells, seeds, textiles.

• 1. San Lorenzo is located in the southeast portion of the Mexican state of Veracruz.
• 2. Along with La Venta and Tres Zapotes, it was one of the three major cities of the Olmec (it was the major center of Olmec culture from 1200 BCE to 900 BCE). 
• 3. San Lorenzo is best known today for the colossal stone heads unearthed there. In contrast to La Venta's swamp-like environs, San Lorenzo was situated in the midst of a large agricultural area.
• 4. There’s no evidence that it was politically dominant. What we know, however, is that it has the greatest amount of public monuments, importation (basalt) and altering of the topography. 
• 5. One of the few places where we get the emergence of a complex society in the tropical forest. (Olmecs represent the earliest complex society in the Americas) This civilization directly challenges the theory that the need to provide irrigation water brought about the need for state institutions and led to the formation of complex societies, since the issue here wouldn’t be how to get water but how to get rid of excess water. 
• 6. In most of Mesoamerica, monumental construction involves platforms upon which monuments are placed. In San Lorenzo, terraces are used to create dramatic locations for public buildings and monumental art. There, the natural topography is modified rather than the construction of platforms themselves. However, the same effect is achieved. 
• 7. The portrait heads (colossal heads) show up in San Lorenzo almost immediately. San Lorenzo was a residential area for 300-400 years before the appearance of the large monumental art. At 1100 BC, monumental pieces of art and public buildings appeared almost immediately.
• 8. Stone doesn’t exist in the immediate hinterland of San Lorenzo. Thus, the stone used in the construction of public places and the colossal heads was probably moved over large distances (60-100 km). There is some evidence of earlier sculpture in the period from 1400 BC until 1100 BC, but that isn’t to say that it is a representative sample of the development and evolution of Olmec stylistic features. 
• 9. San Lorenzo also has fancy architecture made of earth, adobe and with features made out of stone. (Stone pillars at the entrance, stone drains, stone infrastructure)

• 1. There are many depictions of hybrid creatures (people and cats, reptile people, reptile cats, bird cats, human jaguars etc.) in San Lorenzo. 
• 2. Matthew Sterling: the archaeologist working in the 30s and 40s, was the first to realize that Olmec stuff was substantially widespread and that it was likely to have been the first complex society in Mesoamerica.
• 3. Since human and feline combinations were so common, he invented an Olmec myth in which a jaguar copulated with an Olmec female and produced “were-jaguars”. “Seems like that position might not work well.” Jaguar eating a monkey rather than copulating with a woman. “Tells us more about Sterling than it does about Olmecs, in my opinion.” 
• 4. There’s a lot of Mesoamerican art that shows the transformation of humans into animal spirits under the influence of psychoactive substances. Such an interpretation is more likely.

9300 to 8400 BC

• 1. Author of Stag Nights and Horny Men
• 2. Argues that rather than a purely ecological hunting camp, which is what the processual archaeologists often paint it out to be, Star Carr is a site where necessity and metaphor overlapped, where curation and manipulation of the artifacts reveals that they possessed an emotional value that transcended their economic value. 
• 3. Considers the various interpretations that can be made regarding the red deer frontlets such as construction of mesolithic masculinity, shamanistic rituals, reproductive and territorial prominence, ritual collection and disposal to
• pay respect to the souls of the game animals. 4. Although this hypothesis is perfectly possible, it’s not exactly persuasive.

• Interpretation: Antler frontlets were used in shamanistic rituals connected to the fruitfulness of hunting, as Star Carr represents a place were metaphor and necessity overlapped. Rituals were performed to the soul of the game to the forest, board off malignant spirits, ensure a more fruitful hunt etc..
• Evidence:
• 1. Antlers were broken and strictly belonged to males, deeming them ineffective in fooling deer for the sake of hunting. 
• 2. Deliberate deposition implies cultural significance rather than pure economic use.
• 3. The sheer amount of ethnographic evidence regarding the use of animal masks and headdresses in rituals, especially those related to hunting can’t be ignored.

He worked on defining the Olmec pottery style and mapping its distribution and implications. Sister culture through neutron activation analysis

• Clark was interested in the typology of the stone tools almost from a cultural history perspective. He was interested in: 
• 1. the degree to which the types to which he could classify the tools in the Mesolithic sites
• 2. in Britain matched the classifications in Denmark, the chronology of the stone tools (environmental reconstruction and the use of Scandinavian reconstructions to determine the chronology of Star Carr / processualism), 
• 3. how Star Carr related to the proximal settlements and how the people spent their time throughout the year.

He argued for the “mother culture” interpretation of the Olmecs and argued that San Lorenzo was laid out to resemble a gigantic bird flying east.

Worked in Star Carr. Supports formal deposition alongside Chatterton.

Wrote People of Chaco.

Olmecs, sister culture alongside Flannery

• Did the first detailed expedition in Chaco.
• Was the first to excavate Pueblo del Arroyo and hypothesized that people from Pueblo Bonito moved there.

Argued for meridian alignment in Chaco. Hypothesized that great houses were residential spaces for Puebloan royalty.

• Angry anti post-procyssualist. 
• 1. He argues against Chatterton’s idea of deliberate deposition (ritual discard) in Star Carr.
• 2. He refutes this idea by arguing that the area that Mellars argues ritual discard occurred is beyond the reach of Lake Flixton’s waters.
• 3. Additionally, the items argued to be discarded by Mellars were small items, as opposed to other ethnographically documented sites where larger items were discarded.
• 4. He also argues that this idea of ritualistic deposition showcases the dangers of post-processualist thought with regard to the tendency to attempt to promote a fashionable and exciting interpretation while ignoring the many aspects of published archaeological data.

were-jahguar pervert

Did the first expedition in Chaco. Shot.

• 1. Settled life caused changes in the archeological record (materials used), social life (size of population, style of child care, social hierarchy due to land ownership) and technology. 
• 2. Settled life is not necessarily the consequence of domestication and the rise of agriculture, but it may be (for example holy areas or very rich areas may have settlement without agriculture). 
• 3. Small, light, multifunctional tools were preferred by nomadic communities. Material remains such as broken pottery, however, are indicative of settled communities, as pottery is heavy and easy to break, so not preferable for nomadic communities.
• 4. Broken pottery also shows the developing aesthetic preferences and potential for expression of a community.

• 1. Carbon in the environment exists in the stable forms C12 and C13 and the unstable form of C14.
• 2. All living organisms exchange carbon with their environment throughout their lives, and thus contain the same proportion of stable and radioactive carbon as their environment.
• 3. When they die, however, the carbon is no longer exchanged and begins to decay.
• 4. The extent to which the carbon has decayed allows us to identify when the death of the organism occurred. 
• 5. However, the assumption that the amount of radiocarbon in the atmosphere didn’t change throughout periods of time was proven to be incorrect and it was shown that the amount of radiocarbon in the atmosphere does vary substantially.
• 6. Through calibration using tree ring dating as a basis, a difference between radiocarbon years and calendar years was identified.

• 1. Due to the half-life of C14, there’s a limit to how far back we can go (about 50 thousand years)
• 2. The contamination of the artifact may lead to false readings.
• 3. It’s hard to know for sure whether the material being dated is associated with the archaeological feature of interest. 
• 4. There are series of uncertainties and potential sources of error within the analytical process and statistical estimation.

mindful sampling, careful storage, rigorous pre-lab treatment

Theory covers the “why” questions of archaeology, while methods and methodology cover the “how” questions. Theory refers to the various intellectual frameworks through which archaeologists interpret archaeological data. (antiquarianism, processual archaeology etc.)

• The past is intrinsically important and deserves to be studied.
• Knowledge of the past leads to better judgements about the future.
• Only archaeology has the time depth of many thousand years and is thus able to generate comparative observations about long term cultural processes. 
• Archaeology is the one medium of cultural revolution that will emancipate ordinary people from repressive ideologies.

Moore

Connections between Chaco Canyon and Mexico/Mesoamerica included copper bells, macaws, and cacao. Other items traded into Chaco Canyon included turquoise from sources in New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada, pottery from the Mogollon region, and shell jewelry possibly from the Hohokam region.

Solar and Lunar movements tracked in detail, ritual and practical use embedded (agriculture + ceremonial). Evidence: Wijiji sun watching station, corner windows, Fajada Butte spiral.

• 1. Many of the objects identified as “Olmec” outside the Gulf Coast of Mexico are locally produced rather than imported. 
• 2. Although previous explanations involve political domination and military control, these aren’t applicable to Honduras due to its geographical distance to the Gulf Coast.
• 3. Radiocarbon dating and stratigraphy of “Olmec” artifacts in Puerto Escondido reveal that they were the contemporaries of the Olmecs.
• 4. Large, hollow, seated figurines and abstract naturalistic animals and zoomorphic images on vessels, bowls and bottles connect Puerto Escondido iconography to the “Olmec” style.
• 5. Reasons for the use of this iconography could be a way of symbolizing a new form of social inequality. (Makes sense, since such iconography is also connected to the consumption of luxury goods in Puerto Escondido as well).
• 6. It’s important to note that despite the use of similar symbolism, the meanings and interpretations likely differed due to differences in the temporal and spatial context of these communities. (what was metaphysical for the Olmecs was likely a way to establish social difference for Honduras)