Identities, Experience, and Change in Early Mexican Villages

University Press of Florida

Florida A&M University, Tallahassee
Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton
Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers
Florida International University, Miami
Florida State University, Tallahassee
New College of Florida, Sarasota
University of Central Florida, Orlando
University of Florida, Gainesville
University of North Florida, Jacksonville
University of South Florida, Tampa
University of West Florida, Pensacola
IDENTITIES, EXPERIENCE,
AND CHANGE IN EARLY
MEXICAN VILLAGES

Edited by Catharina E. Santasilia,

Guy David Hepp, and Richard A. Diehl

University Press of Florida

Gainesville / Tallahassee / Tampa / Boca Raton
Pensacola / Orlando / Miami / Jacksonville / Ft. Myers / Sarasota
 Copyright 2022 by Catharina E. Santasilia, Guy David Hepp, and Richard A. Diehl
All rights reserved
Published in the United States of America.

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2022930654

ISBN 978-0-8130-6929-6

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System of Florida, comprising Florida A&M University, Florida Atlantic University, Florida
Gulf Coast University, Florida International University, Florida State University, New College
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We dedicate this book to Michael D. Coe (1929–2019)
to honor his passion for Mesoamerica
and his pioneering studies of the Formative period.
 Contents

List of Figures ix
List of Maps xi
List of Tables xiii
List of Abbreviations xv

1. Introduction: Identities, Experience, and Change in Early Mexican

Villages 1
Guy David Hepp, Catharina E. Santasilia, and Richard A. Diehl
2. Changing/Rearranging: Transformations in Identities and Sociopolitical
Organization in Early Formative Oaxaca 23
Jeffrey P. Blomster
3. Early Formative Gulf Lowlands Occupants: From Fictions to Factions 56
Philip J. Arnold III
4. Full Bellies, Ringing Ears, and Smoke in Their Eyes: The Sensations of
Social Change in Mesoamerica’s Early Formative Period 79
Guy David Hepp
5. New Approaches to Jadeite Usage in Formative Mesoamerica: Identifying
Olmec Portable Sculptures on the Gulf Coast 108
Henri Noel Bernard, Sara Ladrón de Guevara, Mayra Manrique, and José Luis
Ruvalcaba
6. Beyond Contortionists: Archaeological Indicators of Ritual Activities at
Tlatilco 129
Patricia Ochoa Castillo
7. Regional and Corporate Identities in Formative Period Western Mexico
158
Christopher S. Beekman
8. Tlatilco: The People of the Lake 194
Catharina E. Santasilia
 9. Refining the Middle Formative Chronology in Central Mexico:
Implications for the Origins of the Central Mexican Urban Tradition 224
Tatsuya Murakami
10. The Ceremonial Offerings of Cerro de la Virgen, Oaxaca: Identity,
Politics, and Religious Practice at the End of the Formative 258
Jeffrey S. Brzezinski, Vanessa Monson, Arthur A. Joyce, and Sarah B. Barber
11. Reflections on the Mesoamerican Formative Period 290
Richard A. Diehl

List of Contributors 315

Index 321
 Figures

2.1. Ballplayer figurine torsos 38

2.2. Typical ballplayer figurine 42
2.3. Front, profile, and rear view of ballplayer figurine 43
2.4. Divergent ballplayer figurines 44
2.5. Probable ballplayer figurine 45
4.1. Anthropomorphic figurines from La Consentida 88
4.2. Histogram showing excavation contexts of figurines and other
artifacts 89
4.3. Mesoamerican masks 89
4.4. Early Formative period musical instruments 92
4.5. Ballgames in Mesoamerica 94
4.6. Ritual cache 96
5.1. Principal votive axes 114
5.2. Jadeite axes from El Manatí site 118
5.3. Jadeite from Arroyo Pesquero 119
5.4. Normalized infrared spectra from Arroyo Pesquero 121
6.1. Season IV plan 133
6.2. Objects associated with the consumption of hallucinogens at
Tlatilco 136
6.3. Ritual specialists or shamans 138
6.4. Double whistle musical instruments 139
6.5. Burial 131, Season IV 142
6.6. Burial 154, Season IV 144
6.7. Objects associated with self-sacrifice and domestic ritual activities 145
7.1. Plan of TT.7, El Opeño, Michoacán 161
7.2. Vessels from the northern Magdalena Basin, Jalisco 164
7.3. South section of the Tequila I phase San Pedro mound, Magdalena
Basin, Jalisco 167
7.4. Olmec-style greenstone axe 167
7.5. Representations of the Old Fire God 176
8.1. Example of a burial from Season IV, Tlatilco 199
x · Figures

8.2. Tlatilco excavations from Season II 201

8.3. Chart of Early Formative figurines from Tlatilco 204
8.4. Skeletal/face mask 208
8.5. Tlatilco-Olmec ballplayer figurine head 209
8.6. INAA graphs 212
8.7. INAA groups 213
9.1. Published and proposed chronology of Central Mexico 228
9.2. Bayesian model of the chronological sequence at Tlalancaleca 232
9.3. Bayesian model of the chronological sequence in the Basin of
Mexico 234
9.4. Bayesian Models 1 and 2 of the chronological sequence at
Chalcatzingo 240
9.5. Bayesian Models 3 and 4 of the chronological sequence at
Chalcatzingo 242
9.6. Changes in ceramic forms 246
10.1. LiDAR map of Cerro de la Virgen 261
10.2. Relief maps from Cerro de la Virgen 262
10.3. Plan map of offering area in north patio of Complex A 266
10.4. Photographs of offering vessels and stone compartments in
Complex A 267
10.5. Photographs of offering in the middle level of Complex E 268
10.6. Photograph of offering deposits at Structure 1 269
10.7. Photograph of foot effigy vessel 271
10.8. Photographs of collections of stone slabs 272
 Maps

1.1. Map of Mesoamerica showing key Formative period regions and

sites 6
2.1. Map of central to southern Mesoamerica 24
5.1. Olmec region and sites 109
6.1. Map of the Basin of Mexico and northern Morelos 130
7.1. Partial map of Mesoamerica 160
7.2. Map showing major ceramic spheres in Early Formative
Mesoamerica 181
7.3. Map of language families and isolates in Mesoamerica at the time of
conquest 183
8.1. Ancient Lake Texcoco and Formative sites 196
8.2. Map of Central Mexico and Early Formative sites 197
9.1. Map of Central Mexico showing Formative sites and obsidian
sources 225
9.2. Site map of Tlalancaleca with picture of the circular structure 231
10.1. Map of the lower Río Verde valley with Terminal Formative period
sites 259
 Tables

1.1. Mesoamerican timeline 7

4.1. Relative frequencies of decorated pottery from primary midden
contexts 84
7.1. Chronological sequences 162
 Abbreviations

AMS Accelerator Mass Spectrometry

ANDREAH Non-Destructive Analysis Network for Studies in Art,
Archeology and History
EB/ER El Bajío/El Remolino
EFGLO Early Formative Gulf Lowlands Occupants
FEP Formative Etlatongo Project
FORS Fiber Optics Reflectance Spectroscopy
FTIR Fourier Transform Infrared
INAA Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis
INAH Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia
LANCIC National Laboratory of Sciences for the Research and
Conservation of the Cultural Heritage
LiDAR Light Detection and Ranging
masl meters above sea level
MAX Museo de Antropología Xalapa
MNA Museo Nacional de Antropología
MNI minimum number of individuals
PAAP Arroyo Pesquero Archaeological Project
PAX Proyecto Arqueológico Ex-Laguna de Magdalena
PLO-T Paso los Ortices–Texistepec
RMM Riverside Metropolitan Museum
SAA Society for American Archaeology
SNI National System of Researchers
SUA Southern Uto-Aztecan
UNAM Universidad Autónoma de Mexico
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
VCL vertical clinging and leaping
XRF X-ray fluorescence
 1
Introduction
Identities, Experience, and Change in Early Mexican Villages

Guy David Hepp, Catharina E. Santasilia,

and Richard A. Diehl

The topic of identity, or better yet identities, is not new in anthropology. The
formation of identities, which are probably best thought of as nested, situ-
ational, historically contextual, and performed, has historically been a cen-
tral theme uniting the social sciences (Appiah 2005; Butler 1990; Conklin and
Morgan 1996; Durkheim 1915; Fortes 1987; Harrison-Buck 2012; Weber 1930).
Archaeologists have treated identity and lived or embodied experience in vari-
ous ways, depending on the dominant theoretical trends of the day. At its ex-
tremes, this spectrum of approaches has created mutually incompatible per-
spectives. The processualist archaeology of the 1960s and 1970s tended to hold
such ephemera at arm’s length as dangerous forays into “paleo-psychology”
(Binford 1965:204). Postprocessualist thought emerging in the 1980s and 1990s
has considered identity and situated realities from the perspectives of gender
studies (Blomster, this volume; Brumfiel 2006; Conkey 2001; Conkey and Gero
1997; Hutson 2002; Joyce 2000; McCafferty and McCafferty 1994; Nelson 1997),
children and age in the archaeological record (Baxter 2008; Joyce 2000:35–37;
Kamp 2001; Lopiparo 2006), and agency and biographies of material objects
(Brzezinski et al. 2017; Hodder 2012; Joyce 2012; Mills and Ferguson 2008; Ol-
sen 2010; Viveiros de Castro 2004; Zedeño 2008, 2009). There is a case to be
made that archaeology is uniquely suited to this task, as its temporal depth
promotes insights into the longitudinal aspects of identity development. This
chronological depth, along with a focus on materiality and the senses in dif-
ferent temporal and cultural contexts, gives archaeology a unique perspective
among social science approaches. And while archaeologists may have only spo-
radic opportunities to explore how identity and personhood were experienced
by individuals in the past, the scalar nature of our studies is well positioned to
2 · Guy David Hepp, Catharina E. Santasilia, and Richard A. Diehl

examine them at the community level (see Harrison-Buck 2012; Holdaway and
Wandsnider 2008; Joyce 2004a).
Our goal in this book is to bring together an international group of scholars
exploring the development of social identity in a broad selection of Formative
period (2000 BCE–250 CE) Mexican communities. While the contributors do
not always share interpretations, we do share some common themes and inter-
ests, including interregional relationships, shifting identities, lived experiences,
and the exchange and movement of ideas from the Early Formative period
(2000–1000 BCE) to the transition to the Classic period (250–900 CE). Despite
a growing corpus of research, sociocultural developments during more than
2,000 years of the Formative period remain controversial topics in American
archaeology, as do their implications for later Mesoamerican history. While
these are topics that have certainly been considered by others, especially from
the standpoint of economic and ecological perspectives, we feel that less has
been said about the shifting nature of experiences and identities during this
critical period of social change.

Mesoamerican Identities

Mesoamerica in the Formative period is a research topic ripe for investigating

the interplay of changing identities, interaction, and lived experience as well as
the relationships of these to broader socioeconomic changes. While scholars
have discussed the archaeology of ethnicity broadly (Jones 1997) and regionally
specific Mesoamerican identities, particularly of later periods (Berdan 2008;
Berdan et al. 2008; King 2020; Rincón Mautner 2015; Stark and Chance 2008),
far fewer have attempted to do so for the Formative period (but see Arnold
1995; Lowe and Pye 2007). Scholars have long described Mesoamerica as a
land characterized by several ancient linguistic and cultural traditions. Out-
side the Maya region, two of the largest of these language families are Mixe-
Zoquean (note that Beekman [this volume] prefers the spelling Mije-Sokean)
to the southeast and Otomanguean to the west and north (Clark 1991; Hop-
kins 1984; Lowe 1977; Winter and Sánchez Santiago 2014). At times, one or
the other of these has been proposed as an “original” source of Mesoameri-
can culture. The Soconusco region of Pacific coastal Chiapas and Guatemala,
with its early ranked societies and communal labor projects, has been termed
a “core area” for the development of Mesoamerican culture by 1650 cal BCE
(Clark 1991:22; see also Blake and Clark 1999; Hill and Clark 2001; Love 2007).
Ceramics appeared there in the Barra phase by roughly 1900 cal BCE. These
“embarrassingly well decorated” (Lesure and Wake 2011:85) vessels are among
Mesoamerica’s earliest pottery (Clark and Blake 1994; Lowe 1975). The ancient
 Introduction: Identities, Experience, and Change in Early Mexican Villages · 3

peoples of Soconusco, referred to by some researchers as the “Mokaya,” were

likely Mixe-Zoquean speakers who interacted with their Gulf Coast neigh-
bors across the relatively flat topography of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (Clark
1991:13). Linguistic reconstructions suggest that the Gulf Coast Olmecs, prob-
ably the best-known civilization of the Early and Middle Formative periods,
were also Mixe-Zoquean speakers (Campbell and Kaufman 1976). Compel-
lingly, the Otomanguean and Mixe-Zoquean areas appear to correspond with
two great archaeological traditions of the Early Formative period, sometimes
termed Red-on-Buff and Locona, in reference to their differing ceramic styles
(Clark 1991; Winter 1992:27–28; Winter and Sánchez Santiago 2014).
The transitional phase from the semisedentary hunting and gathering of the
Archaic period (8000–2000 BCE) to the increasingly agrarian lifestyles of the
Early and Middle Formative was marked by a patchwork-style shift to perma-
nent farming communities using ceramic technologies for cooking, storage,
serving of comestible goods and display at public gatherings, and production
of iconographic artifacts and musical instruments (Clark et al. 2007; Lesure
and Wake 2011; Lohse 2010; Rosenswig 2015; Zizumbo-Villarreal et al. 2012).
Different areas of Mesoamerica also saw the first glimmers of social complexity
shortly after the beginning of the Formative period, including the Soconusco
region and, subsequently, the Olmec heartland of the Gulf Coast (Arnold III
2000; Killion 2013; Lesure and Blake 2002; Love 2002; Rosenswig 2011). The
nature of Mesoamerican social complexity is itself a matter of discussion, with
many scholars emphasizing the establishment of diverse forms of hierarchi-
cal inequality (Blanton et al. 1996; Clark 2007; Fargher et al. 2010; Feinman
and Carballo 2018; Flannery and Marcus 2012; Kowalewski 1990; Redmond
and Spencer 2006; Sanders and Nichols 1988; Sanders and Webster 1978; Spen-
cer and Redmond 2004; Sugiyama 2005), while others have begun to explore
the nature of complex heterarchical distinctions or otherwise critique the tra-
ditional model of the nuclear state (Arnold 1996; Crumley 1995, 2004, 2015;
Hepp 2022a; Joyce and Barber 2015; Kurnick and Baron 2016; Pauketat and
Emerson 2007; Smith 2003). Ideological developments in the Formative period
included strengthening panregional religious traditions stemming from deeply
shared cosmologies of the Archaic period or even earlier (Blomster 2002; Coe
1989; Estrada-Belli 2006; Flannery and Marcus 2000; Lesure 2004; Masson
2001; Sellen 2002, 2011; Taube 1995, 1996, 2000). All these changes accompa-
nied major shifts in subsistence economies as long-used domesticates became
increasingly important in Mesoamerican diets (Arnold III 2009; Blake et al.
1992; McClung de Tapia et al. 2019; VanDerwarker 2006; VanDerwarker and
Kruger 2012; Voorhies and Kennett 2011). A central organizing theme of this
volume, which is related to the origins of social complexity, is the degree to
4 · Guy David Hepp, Catharina E. Santasilia, and Richard A. Diehl

which interaction and movement among the various regions of Mesoamerica

helped to form the social networks and identities that appear to have blos-
somed during the Formative period (Blomster 2004; Englehardt and Carrasco
2019; Freidel 1979; Joyce 1993; Lesure 2004; Pool et al. 2010; Zeitlin 1982, 1994).
By the latter part of the Early Formative period (ca. 1400–1000 BCE), nu-
merous communities, including those on the Gulf Coast, in highland Oaxaca,
and in Central Mexico, were developing larger and more regionally influen-
tial settlements. The Olmec site of San Lorenzo rose to become one of the
first large, permanent settlements in North America (Cheetham 2010; Coe
and Diehl 1980; Hirth et al. 2013; Pool 2007; Symonds et al. 2002). Despite
evidence for language divergence among groups settled in increasingly per-
manent locales (Bartolomé and Barabas 1996:28–29; Campbell 2013; Hopkins
1984), material sourcing and iconographic evidence suggest that interaction
during the Formative period was crucial to cultural developments (Blomster
and Glascock 2010; Clark and Lee 2007; Ebert et al. 2014; Hepp 2019a; Hirth et
al. 2013; Joyce 2004b; Lesure 2004; Stark and Ossa 2010). The Formative period
also saw an increasing degree of standardization in evidence for cosmology.
The iconography of rain deities, for instance, became important in many differ-
ent regions (Covarrubias 1957; Estrada-Belli 2006; Flannery and Marcus 1976;
Sellen 2002, 2011; Taube 1995, 2000). Extensive evidence from places such as
Oaxaca and the Basin of Mexico indicates the exchange of goods and ideas be-
tween communities in different regions. Exchange partnerships, augmented by
increasing linguistic diversification among sedentary groups and the growing
demand for imported materials symbolizing status (including those of “Olmec
style”), were reflected in the changing identities and community dynamics of
the era (Blomster 2002; Blomster et al. 2005; Diehl and Coe 1996; Flannery and
Marcus 2000; Grove 1989; Killion and Urcid 2001; Pool 2007; Taube 2000; see
the chapters by Santasilia and Bernard et al., this volume).
Understanding the Formative period not only is critical for Mesoamerican
culture history but also informs basic global anthropological questions, includ-
ing the emergence of sedentism, agriculture, and complex polities (Banning
1998; Bar-Yosef and Belfer-Cohen 1989; Binford 1968; Boyd 2006; Clark 1991;
Flannery 1976; Flannery and Marcus 2012; Nelson 1995; Pauketat and Emerson
2007; Pearson 2006; Sanders and Webster 1978; Savard 2018). The Mesoameri-
can Formative period is frequently approached from the perspective of eco-
nomic and agrarian developments (Drennan 1983; Flannery 1973; MacNeish
1992; Sanders 1968), and identity and experience are often overlooked. The
common justification has been that nonliterate societies left little record of
how they saw themselves and their place in the world. One of our central goals
in this volume, therefore, is to challenge this assumption by closely examining
 Introduction: Identities, Experience, and Change in Early Mexican Villages · 5

the material record’s many potential lines of evidence for Formative period
Mesoamerican identities. Ceramic vessels and figurines, styles of dress, tradi-
tions of ritual practice, cuisine, linguistics, and the adoption of interregional
iconographic styles all offer potential insights. In fact, ancient Mexicans left
behind an extensive record of material evidence of their identities, including
concepts of their place in the cosmos.

Contributions to This Volume

The contributing authors take new and sometimes contrasting approaches to

the Formative period by exploring the roles of interaction and identity in Me-
soamerican social development. Map 1.1 depicts Mesoamerica with the key
regions and sites discussed in this collection. Table 1.1 provides the approxi-
mate dates of major periods in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican history. Individual
authors have been encouraged to deviate from these if necessary, as no one
chronology fits all regional contexts. Some authors base their chronologies on
uncalibrated radiocarbon dates, while others use calibrated dates. Dates are not
calibrated unless specified.
The chapters in this collection are roughly chronological and approximately
geographical in their order, beginning with the Early Formative period. These
first settled communities of Mesoamerica experienced shifts toward more for-
malized social inequalities than had existed during the preceding Archaic pe-
riod. Some recent evidence for this transition comes from research in highland
and coastal Oaxaca. The Mixteca Alta site of Etlatongo and its neighbors are
notable examples of a shift to a more established village life. The village itself
contains one of Mesoamerica’s earliest identified formal ballcourts (Blomster,
this volume; see also Blomster and Salazar Chávez 2020). Etlatongo is also
notable for its interactions with the Gulf Coast Olmecs (Blomster 2002). In
his contribution to this volume, Blomster offers a unique attempt to explore
the transient and effervescent nature of identity through the analogy of a well-
known pop star of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We think you
will agree that this treatment is a radically original take on these scholarly
discussions.
Research on Oaxaca’s Pacific coast since the mid-1980s has explored the
development of complex polities and ecological relationships dating from the
Early Formative through late Postclassic occupations of the lower Río Verde
valley (for example, Joyce 2010). The site of La Consentida in this region has
yielded radiocarbon dates associated with some of Mesoamerica’s earliest pot-
tery and mounded earthen architecture (Hepp 2019b). Food-processing arti-
facts, microbotanical traces, and stable isotopes in human remains demonstrate
Map 1.1. Map of Mesoamerica showing key Formative period regions and sites (prepared by Hepp).
 Introduction: Identities, Experience, and Change in Early Mexican Villages · 7

Table 1.1. Mesoamerican timeline

Time Period Date (calibrated)

Paleoindian 10,000+–8000 BCE
Archaic 8000–2000 BCE
Early Formative 2000–1000 BCE
Middle Formative 1000–400 BCE
Late/Terminal Formative 400 BCE–250 CE
Early Classic 250–600 CE
Late Classic 600–900 CE
Early Postclassic 900–1200 CE
Late Postclassic 1200–1519 CE

Note: Dates approximate. Regional chronologies may vary.

a broad diet incorporating maize but largely based on wild resources (Bérubé
et al. 2020; Hepp et al. 2017). Iconographic artifacts suggest a heterarchically
complex community (Hepp 2022a), while decorated pottery hints at rela-
tionships with distant West Mexico and perhaps even Ecuador (Hepp 2019a,
2022b). Musical instruments, remains of feasts, and ceramic masks suggest
that the human senses played a central role in profound Early Formative social
transformations (Hepp, this volume; Hepp et al. 2014; 2020). In his chapter in
this volume, Hepp attempts an in-depth exploration of the sensorial connota-
tions of these finds and their relationship to life in one of Mesoamerica’s first
settled villages.
The rise of the Olmecs at San Lorenzo constitutes one of the more significant
developments of the Early Formative period. It appears that San Lorenzo’s resi-
dents relied initially on wild aquatic and floodplain resources supplemented by
maize horticulture and that true agriculture did not appear in the region until
the Middle Formative period (for example, VanDerwarker 2006). This horti-
cultural economy helped to shape San Lorenzo’s social organization, settlement
patterns, and identity politics. The transition to the Middle Formative period
brought with it increased food production, including greater attention to maize
agriculture (Arnold III, this volume; see also Arnold III 2009:397). In his chap-
ter, Arnold III provides an updated take on the “Olmec Problem” by doubling
down on his critique of “agricentrism” in explanatory models for Mesoameri-
can social and economic developments in the Formative period. Specifically,
he suggests that we switch our perspective on the adoption of maize as a stable
resource: instead of treating it as an inevitable outcome of horticulture and
8 · Guy David Hepp, Catharina E. Santasilia, and Richard A. Diehl

foundational to later Mesoamerican social complexity, we should see it as a

radical disruption of already emerging complex social arrangements.
One key variable in discussions of Olmec cultural developments and inter-
regional influence is the famous “Olmec style,” which has been the subject of
considerable debate (for example, Blomster 2002; Flannery 1968; Flannery and
Marcus 2000; Neff et al. 2006). The Gulf Coast Olmecs were accomplished ar-
tisans, renowned for their extensive stone carving and especially their skill in
working hard stones such as jadeite. These achievements suggest levels of eco-
nomic specialization that were novel in Mesoamerica in the Formative period,
though their development was likely already under way by the first centuries of
the Early Formative period. Changes in manufacturing techniques and styles
make Olmec jadeite art a useful diagnostic marker of the development of the
craft and far-flung interregional exchange relationships. In their chapter in this
volume, Bernard, Ladrón de Guevara, Manrique, and Ruvalcaba provide a de-
tailed history of Olmec research as it pertains to modified greenstone, along
with some original results of greenstone typology and sourcing using new
methods such as Raman spectroscopy and X-ray fluorescence. The historical
review of Olmec studies alone would make the chapter a worthwhile contribu-
tion to the volume.
The site of Tlatilco, in the Basin of Mexico, was one node in a complex
exchange network in the late Early Formative and Middle Formative periods,
stretching across much of Mesoamerica and incorporating the Olmec center
of San Lorenzo. Though Tlatilco was destroyed by development and looting in
the early twentieth century, new data continue to emerge about the site in the
form of museum analyses and improved ceramic sourcing techniques. These
studies, along with considerations of Tlatilco in the context of its interaction
partnerships, offer insights into the site as a pre–San Lorenzo village and later
as a member of a pan-Mesoamerican exchange and interaction network. Un-
raveling the complex social relationships behind such material exchanges is a
critical task for researchers of the Formative period, as explained by Santasilia
(this volume). Santasilia also provides a valuable history of the research related
to Tlatilco, along with the results of her quest through numerous museum
collections housed across North America, to better identify what represents a
“Tlatilco style” in the late Early Formative period (Santasilia 2019).
Though Tlatilco is known primarily as a mortuary site, one burial in par-
ticular stands out, owing to the evidence it presents for specialized ritual prac-
tice or “shamanism.” Regardless of how one feels about the applicability of the
term “shaman” to diverse cultures and periods (see Walter and Fridman 2004),
rather than as a specific term for Siberian ritual practice (see Vitebsky 2006),
it is clear that many archaeologists believe that shamanism was common in
 Introduction: Identities, Experience, and Change in Early Mexican Villages · 9

the ancient Americas and had major implications for social dynamics on
many levels. Burials at Tlatilco reveal details of ritual practices, acrobatics and
contortionism, and relationships between humans and the divine as peoples’
cosmological perspectives changed, in part owing to increasing contacts with
the Olmecs (Ochoa Castillo, this volume). In addition to her exploration of
shamanism, Ochoa Castillo offers detailed evidence of mortuary practice and
assemblage-based discussions of this important early community in Central
Mexico.
While Central Mexican villages were apparently in extensive contact with
the Olmecs by the Middle Formative period, other Mesoamerican groups were
more cautious of these interregional influences. Such moments of resistance
can arguably tell us as much about the identity politics of the Early and Mid-
dle Formative periods as can evidence for adopting foreign styles (Stoner and
Pool 2015). The absence of substantial evidence for Olmec influence in West
Mexico, for example, does not demonstrate that the region was outside the
Mesoamerican cultural sphere or that it lagged in developing social complexity.
As Beekman (this volume) explains, emerging local traditions of social com-
plexity prompted the rejection of Olmec influence and adherence to a different
set of understandings. Beekman demonstrates that resistance to Olmec influ-
ence does not exclude West Mexico from discussions of Mesoamerica in the
Formative period, as the region was in extensive interaction with other areas,
including the communities of Tlatilco and Cuicuilco, generally sharing many
other elements of Mesoamerican culture with their neighbors to the south and
east.
Chalcatzingo, located in the Morelos highlands of Central Mexico, is no-
table for its Olmec-influenced carvings and has been considered an Olmec
outpost by some (see Grove 2000). When Chalcatzingo declined in power
and population at the end of the Middle Formative period, Tlalancaleca in
Puebla and Oaxaca’s Monte Albán experienced urban growth and developed
broader interregional connections. It appears that examining the practices and
beliefs behind acceptance, rejection, or resistance to interaction with outside
groups and resulting changes is an exciting new direction for Formative studies
(Murakami, this volume; see also Stoner and Pool 2015). Murakami presents a
refined chronology produced through Bayesian modeling for the site of Tlal-
ancaleca and its interaction partners, including Chalcatzingo. The greater tem-
poral precision offered by this radiometric refinement allows him to explore
periods of disruption and rearticulation of long-distance interactions.
By the end of the Formative period, some complex polities in Mesoamerica
were already centuries old. Ritual practice and cosmology in coastal Oaxaca,
for instance, demonstrated well-established participation in and resistance to
10 · Guy David Hepp, Catharina E. Santasilia, and Richard A. Diehl

regional influences by elites and commoners alike. The importation of prestige

goods along with the incorporation of interregional styles in the production of
stone masks demonstrates wide-ranging relationships, even while community
leaders prepared ritual offerings that were local, rather than regional, in their
salient influences. In their chapter in this volume, Brzezinski, Monson, Joyce,
and Barber explore the role of commoner strategies in negotiating political
change and cycles of integration and fragmentation at a regional scale. By ex-
amining the motivations of elites organizing communal labor as well as hin-
terland corporate entities of commoners continuing to practice hyperlocalized
traditions (such as caching practices), these authors offer a nuanced perspec-
tive on the multiple stakeholders and scales of influence involved in political
strategies of the Formative period.
In a culminating statement, Richard Diehl’s concluding chapter in this vol-
ume provides some perspective on the longue durée of research on the Meso-
american Formative period from his perspective as a leading scholar in the
field for many decades. Rather than offering a summary of the chapters per se,
Diehl puts things in context in terms of how far Formative studies have come
in approximately a century. From an early concern with typologies and chro-
nologies to more recent interests in identities, political strategies, and aspects
of cosmology, this field of research has seen significant developments. We are
grateful to have Dick Diehl involved with the project: his experience provides
balance and an intergenerational viewpoint in conjunction with the emerging
scholars gathered here.
This volume is an intentionally eclectic assortment of research on the Me-
soamerican Formative period. While the chapters represent a sample of recent
studies, they are not a random collection but rather a diverse set of perspectives
on shared themes. These chapters place particular emphasis on movement,
interactions, experience, and transformations in identity and social organiza-
tion, which represent key elements of emerging complex societies. Readers will
note that we have not included any chapters specifically concerning the Maya.
This was a conscious choice, owing in great part to the existence of several
recent publications on the subject (Doyle 2017; Ebert et al. 2017; Inomata et
al. 2013; Kurnick and Baron 2016; Traxler and Sharer 2016). While the Maya
and societies elsewhere in Mesoamerica maintained continuous contact and
interaction throughout the Formative/Preclassic period, developments among
ancient Mixe-Zoquean and Otomonguean speakers of western Mesoamerica
seem to have been especially critical in social changes of the Formative period.
These transformations underlay the emergence of social complexity, sedentary
lifeways, and reliance on agriculture throughout the Formative period in Me-
soamerica (Clark 1991; Josserand et al. 1984; Lowe 1977; Winter and Sánchez
 Introduction: Identities, Experience, and Change in Early Mexican Villages · 11

Santiago 2014). This volume assembles scholars with very different approaches
in a common goal: to examine shifting identities, experiences, and networks of
interaction in the Formative period that helped produce the complex civiliza-
tions of later Mesoamerica, one of humanity’s signal accomplishments.

Acknowledgments

We want to extend our thanks to the University Press of Florida for collabora-
tion on this project. It is hard to imagine any venue other than an edited vol-
ume that could have promoted the bringing together of such a diverse assort-
ment of papers. Our introduction and the volume as a whole benefited from
the commentary of Chris Pool, an anonymous reviewer, and our copyeditor,
Kathy Lewis. We are also grateful to the contributors for their dedication and
to the communities where we all work in Mesoamerica, without whom this
volume would be impossible.

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