Chapter 7

A Sprinkling of Culture

Contact and Connections between the Tuxtlas Region and the Coastal Maya

Philip J. Arnold III and Lourdes Budar

When J.E.S. Thompson offered his brief summary of Veracruz-Maya interaction, archaeological research in both areas was still in its infancy. Investigators struggled to place the newly defined “La Venta” culture in proper context, and the results of early fieldwork at Uaxactún and Chichén Itzá were still coming to light. And yet, despite the relative scarcity of data, it was already clear that a sprinkling of cultural contacts had washed over, and perhaps fertilized, Gulf lowlands development.

Here we offer an update to Thompson’s (1953) synopsis. Improved chronologies, better-established stylistic sequences, and new analyses allow us to identify linkages that were unknown more than six decades ago. These recent data underscore important connections, likely facilitated by maritime travel between coastal communities (e.g., Budar 2014). Such connections offer a stark contrast to the overland routes that linked the Gulf lowlands with highland Mexico (e.g., Santley 1989; Smith and Berdan 2003). The characteristics of such maritime interaction may have promoted particular opportunities and restrictions not apparent when considering contact primarily with inland cultures.

We begin our discussion with a historical review that contextualizes early understanding of interregional interaction in southern Veracruz. This overview underscores the early, Mayan-flavored orientation of early investigations. We then explore evidence for these connections using three data sets, each one emphasizing a particular time frame. First, we consider the development of the Stela-Base-Throne complex, a bundled phenomenon that appears to have originated during the Formative period and continued into the Classic period. We then turn our attention toward fine paste (i.e., untempered) pottery. This ware has played a particularly strong role in evaluating connections between the coastal Maya and other groups. Finally, we present information regarding hollow, mold-made figurines; their use spans the Classic and Postclassic periods. These figurine data especially emphasize coastal connections, revealing interaction between sites in Campeche, Tabasco, and Veracruz.

Background

The Sierra de los Tuxtlas is an isolated volcanic uplift that interrupts the low, continuous coastal plain of southern Veracruz, Mexico (figure 7.1). It is a region long recognized for its fertile land, lush tropical flora, and teeming fauna. Cotton, cacao, and tropical bird feathers were among the region’s products highly prized throughout prehispanic Mesoamerica. Moreover, the basalt stone that constitutes a large portion of the sierra provided excellent, accessible material for producing ground stone tools such as manos, metates, celts and, on occasion, larger stone monuments.

The Tuxtlas has also been characterized as a region whose cultural development owes much to outside influence. Several cultural forces, including Teotihuacan and the Aztec Triple Alliance, have been identified as affecting settlement in the Tuxtlas. On one hand, the magnitude of such influence has likely been overstated and recent studies seek to correct it (e.g., Arnold 2014; Budar and Arnold 2014; Stoner and Pool 2015; Venter 2012). On the other hand, treating the Tuxtlas as a cultural isolate would be an unfortunate and unnecessary overcorrection. It is clear that throughout the prehispanic era, the Tuxtlas affected, and was affected by, various pulses of cultural expression. One important line of investigation, therefore, is to identify the ebb, flow, and directionality of these interactions (e.g., Arnold and Pool 2008; Stark 1990; Stoner and Pool 2015).

For example, scholars have proposed that during the region’s Classic period (AD 300–900), the highland Mexican metropolis of Teotihuacan exerted considerable sway over settlements in the sierra (e.g., Coe 1965; Parsons 1978; Santley 2007). Researchers pointed to the Teotihuacan-associated talud-tablero architecture at Matacapan; the presence of green obsidian from the Sierra de las Navajas source in Pachuca, Hidalgo; and the presence of the “Reptile Eye Glyph” on stone monuments at Piedra Labrada. Several studies have treated the nature of this highland presence and have offered increasingly nuanced treatments of those contact (e.g., Arnold and Santley 2008; Budar and Arnold 2014; Pool 1992; Santley et al. 1987; Stoner and Pool 2015).

Occupation during the Late Postclassic (ca. AD 1300–1500) was viewed as influenced by the Aztec Triple Alliance. Geopolitical reconstructions based on ethnohistoric documents place at least a portion of the Tuxtlas under the thumb of the Triple Alliance (e.g., Barlow 1949; Gerhard 1993). Regional archaeological research at Totogal and Agaltepec has recovered material culture, such as Texcoco Molded pottery, that replicates external Aztec conventions (Arnold and Venter 2004; Venter 2008). Additional surveying has documented inscribed monuments that suggest an affiliation with the Triple Alliance (e.g., Urcid and Killion 2008).

Thus, much of the research attention given to occupation within the Tuxtlas has been directed toward connections with the Mexican highlands. It is noteworthy, however, that the lowland Maya (particularly as perceived in the 1920s–1940s) were generally recognized as providing the major impetus for Tuxtlas cultural development.

The early discovery of the Tuxtla Statuette (figure 7.2), with its inscriptions and long-count calendric notation, suggested to researchers that Mayan influence had reached—or actually commenced—in southern Veracruz. The Tuxtla Statuette is a portable greenstone sculpture that depicts a human wearing what appears to be an avian costume, including a waterfowl buccal mask and sporting a possible cape representing wings. More important, it includes several columns of inscribed glyphs and a long-count date. When the Tuxtla Statuette was first reported, Holmes (1907:701) concluded that “the inscribed figurine may be regarded as a probable relic of the former Maya occupancy of the region about San Andres Tuxtla.” Doubling down, other scholars, such as Sylvanus G. Morley, suggested that the glyphs and long-count calendrics were of a later date, but purposefully executed in a more archaic style (Diehl 2004:184; Morley 1946:41–42).1 The possibility that the writing was something other than Mayan was scarcely considered.

The discovery of the Tuxtla Statuette, in turn, provided an important impetus for the 1925 Tulane Expedition to Middle America. Frans Blom and Oliver La Farge undertook a journey that covered a considerable portion of southern Veracruz, including the Tuxtla Mountains. The expedition was designed to obtain information on “the history of the ancient Maya, the Maya country, the daily life of the Maya descendants, and the methods used in modern archaeological research” (Blom and La Farge 1926:4). The Sierra de los Tuxtlas was specifically targeted:

The great Maya cultural centers lay east of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. An outlying branch of Indians speaking a dialect of the Maya language is still found in the Huasteca, south of Tampico. Little is known about the link between these two, and it has long been desirable to investigate the region between the Maya proper and the Huasteca. The lack of information on the area between these two groups of the same language, and the existence of the Tuxtla Statuette was enough to warrant an expedition to the Tuxtla Mountains. To add to this, a photograph of a monolith had recently been received at Tulane University—a stone monument carved with figures that looked somewhat like Maya glyphs. This photograph was sent by a Mexican engineer, Sr. Rafael de la Cerda, of Mexico City, who had made some explorations in the region in question in search of petroleum. At a place called Piedra Labrada he had seen some other stone monuments. (Blom and La Farge 1926:17)

Blom and La Farge made their way through the Tuxtla Mountains documenting sites and sculpture where present. When the expedition arrived at Tabasco, they identified Maya influence on several of the La Venta sculptures. Notably, they also began to differentiate between the art style at La Venta and the sculpture noted during their travels through the Tuxtlas: “It might be well to summarize the discoveries at La Venta. We have here a collection of huge stone monuments, and at least one large pyramid. Some features of these monuments are similar to things seen by us in the Tuxtla region; other features are under strong influence of the Maya culture to the east” (Blom and La Farge 1926:90). In fact, La Venta’s perceived similarities with Maya style were considered so strong that the researchers were “inclined to ascribe these ruins to the Maya culture” (Blom and La Farge 1926:90).

Continued interest in establishing the extent of the ancient Maya throughout southern Veracruz also fueled part of the multiseason activities (1938–1946) directed by Matthew Stirling and funded by the National Geographic Society. Of course, these activities would ultimately revolutionize our understanding of the Olmec culture along the southern Mexican Gulf lowlands (e.g., Diehl 2004; Pool 2007). Nonetheless, when the project started, it was oriented toward investigating Maya civilization (Lyon 1997:8–9).

The fortuitous discovery of Stela C during Stirling’s first season at Tres Zapotes (Stirling 1939, 1943) promoted additional interest, as well as confusion, regarding a possible Mayan connection. The monument’s reconstructed long-count sequence placed it several centuries prior to anything dated from the Maya lowlands at that time. Moreover, Stela C was recovered on its side and had apparently been reset by a group unfamiliar with its original message. Thus, the cultural arena under question expanded to include chronological issues as well as geographical coverage. “Did the ancestor of both the Maya and the Huastec formerly live in southern Vera Cruz [sic]?” wrote Stirling (1939:135) following the first year of fieldwork. One year later, Stirling (1940:312, 333) jettisoned the attribution “Maya” and began to use the newly coined term “Olmec” to describe the prehispanic occupation at Tres Zapotes.

At the same time that Stirling (1939) started his research, Mexican archaeologist Juan Valenzuela, accompanied by Karl Ruppert of the Carnegie Institute, and topographer Agustín García Vega, began two seasons of fieldwork throughout the Tuxtlas. Valenzuela (1945a:83) noted that an important thrust of the project was to establish potential connection between the Tuxtlas and the known prehispanic cultures of Oaxaca and the Basin of Mexico. Moreover, the project was particularly interested in recovering information relevant to “the florescence of the great Maya culture” (Valenzuela 1945a:83).

Valenzuela’s (1945a) work at the site of Matacapan, with its evidence of potential Teotihuacan affiliation, set the stage for much later intensive investigations within the site and the surrounding region (e.g., Santley 2007). Nonetheless, Valenzuela (1945a:107) concluded his report of the first season with the observation that there also “existed a strong influence of the Maya culture, representing various time periods.” In fact, reporting on the results of his project’s second season, Valenzuela (1945b:93) confidently asserts: “It is undoubtable, moreover, that the most abundant and characteristic elements are from the great Maya culture.”

One final discussion of the southern Veracruz-Tabasco region is in order. Michael Coe’s (1965) influential overview for the Handbook of Middle American Indians covered the zone’s entire prehistory and provided a synthesis that is still useful over fifty years later. Coe was involved in his San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán research (Coe and Diehl 1980) when the Handbook piece was written, and his synthesis quickly dispelled any connection between the earlier Olmec occupation and a later Maya presence. Coe (1965) notes two Classic period waves of external influence in the region: an Early Classic (AD 300–600) expression that owes much to Teotihuacan, and a Late Classic (AD 600–900) “macrostyle” that “is highly Mayoid, under the cultural shadow of Late Classic Maya culture in Yucatan” (Coe 1965:705). In particular, he notes similarities in the figurine style between Mixtequilla examples and Jaina figurines. Coe (1965:707) also calls attention to similarities in the ceramics, especially as related to Z Fine Orange from Uxmal and Y Fine Orange at Uaxactún. Nonetheless, in Coe’s (1965:715) opinion, “the Late Classic of southern Veracruz-Tabasco strikes one as a peasant phenomenon, with no great art but with some amusing clay figurines.”

Thus, early investigations in the Tuxtlas and throughout southern Veracruz were directly tied to revealing the origins of the lowland Maya civilization. Evidence of early long-count dates, on both portable and installed sculpture, suggested that the “Mayan” calendar may have developed in southern Veracruz.

Sprinkles of Cultural Contact

As researchers undertook additional studies, they uncovered multiple lines of evidence that suggested cultural contact throughout the Gulf Coast lowlands. Below we consider aspects of three data sets, noting relationships through time and across space. The first, the Stela-Base-Throne complex, is the oldest of these phenomena and links the Tuxtlas to Pacific coast groups across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The second example involves fine paste ceramics, whose Late Classic distribution has been especially noted among lowland Maya scholars. Finally, we consider hollow, mold-made figurines. Also produced from an untempered paste, these portable images enjoyed widespread popularity starting at the end of the Classic period and continuing into the Postclassic.

Of importance is that this presentation underscores that such contacts are rarely unidirectional or all encompassing. Rather, segments of ideologies and material culture may be appropriated, reconfigured, and reintroduced. Cultural traits often move in multiple directions and are manipulated differently by active participants who are donors as well as recipients (see, e.g., Budar and Arnold 2014; Stoner and Pool 2015; Venter and Pool 2014).

The Stela, Base, and Throne Complex

The Stela, Base, and Throne Complex (SBTC) illustrates nicely how a consistent grouping of items characterized and linked the southern Gulf lowlands and portions of the Maya region. The SBTC is also an example of a sculptural corpus that appeared very early along the Gulf Coast, perhaps earlier than in the Maya zone. Without realizing it, Blom and La Farge (1926) initiated the study of the SBTC by recording individual pieces of sculpture over the course of their expedition. Their data allow us to reconstruct thirty-four possible examples of the SBTC (table 7.1). These documented cases range from Piedra Labrada to Chiapas, but in reality the SBTC easily extends into south-central Veracruz (e.g., at Tres Zapotes and Cerro de las Mesas; cf. Stirling 1943) (figure 7.3).

Table 7.1. Number of Stela-Base-Throne Complexes (SBTCs) at Selected Sites.

A sculptural complex is more than a work of art; it is also a representational code. Various elements create a visual discourse and can be understood when taken together. In this sense, the stela and base along with its throne and/or altar component appear to be one of those devices born in the Terminal Formative, possibly in the Soconusco region (Budar and Becerra Álvarez 2015). Specialists such as Guernsey (2006:31–32) suggest that the prototypes of the sculptural concept of “stela-base” can be traced back to earlier times when smooth basalt columns constituted an initial stela preform. Nonetheless, at La Venta, where the majority of studies situate the beginning of stela installation, the stela constitutes a radical innovation within the discursive model, combining the high relief of the central figure and the low relief of the secondary adjacent figures in a vertical position. Beginning with the Middle Formative, stelae were included in the public architectural program, giving them constant visual access. In Tres Zapotes, the installation of these monuments includes a component that would be fundamental to the later SBTC tradition: the insertion of long-count calendar dates.

The pattern of erecting stela in combination with other sculptural elements, whether bases or thrones, appears to be an innovation that is commonly installed in patios or plazas surrounded by mounds and platforms (Budar and Becerra Álvarez 2015). Unfortunately, when the individual elements of the SBTC are separated, it can be difficult to establish the discursive function of the whole; nonetheless, the case of Izapa is relevant, because here the majority of the monuments—especially the stelae, their bases, and altars—were found in situ (see, e.g., Norman 1976).

The stela of Izapa were arranged around different plazas and were found in approximately the same stratigraphic level (Lowe et al. 1982:159). This association suggests that that these monuments were all sculpted during the Guillén phase (350–50 BC; Lowe et al. 1982:23, 133). Similarly, Norman (1976:324) indicates that the monument grouping at Izapa exhibits a reduced stylistic evolution, which makes it likely that they are intended to be viewed as a unit. This unit integrates the space to produce images and messages from a singular sculptural and architectural program that demarcated the site’s sacred space (Guernsey 2006:30).

Following Reilly (1994), the installation in the centers of the site’s public architecture suggests that local elite adopted, manipulated, and implemented the SBTC. Such elite control is an essential and effective method to mark the political ideology, cosmology, and ritual actions of these leaders in a more permanent manner (Budar and Becerra Álvarez 2015). Guernsey (2006) has suggested that the SBTC personifies the central rituals of the fundamental authority, being analogs to the specialists that participated in the festivals and rituals.

We know that stelae had a commemorative function; their installation validated and legitimated important successes in time and space, integrating them into the historical development of the society (Budar 2010). The majority of these monuments alludes to political or religious events, or makes reference to individuals. However, one cannot discard the idea that these monuments could have served as a medium of political propaganda, highlighting the claim even more than the event. Stelae constituted the most effective means to create enduring discourse via a system of writing: births, marriage alliances, royal views, battles, conquests, captive taking, and leader’s enthronement, as well as astronomical events and religious observations. Early examples of stela with inscriptions are found in sites such as Tres Zapotes, Los Mangos, Cerro de las Mesas, and Izapa. Nonetheless, the apex of erecting monuments occurred during the Classic period with the greatest number found in the Maya region.

In the Tuxtlas, both Piedra Labrada and Matacanela offer documented cases in which elements of the SBTC contribute to discursive programs. Piedra Labrada is located in the coastal zone east of the Tuxtlas and includes occupation from the Middle Formative (Budar 2008). The case of Stela 1 at Piedra Labrada puts in perspective a complicated historical trajectory for the region. This SBTC involves a sculpture reminiscent of the columnar basalt common in the Middle Formative of southern Veracruz; however, the iconographic elements engraved on the stela are associated with the Middle Classic, particularly the emblems of Teotihuacan style, as well as the bar-and-dot numbering system.

Piedra Labrada Stela 1 (figure 7.4) contains a series of inscriptions that do not make much sense together, in that there is no other monument with the same iconographic pattern. The stela, carved on only one side, exhibits a reed bundle, the Reptile Eye glyph, the bar-and-dot number seven (although upside down, with the dots below the bar2), snake rattles, and two complete mat or plot symbols with a third that represents only the middle of the same symbol (Budar 2013).

The inscriptions on Piedra Labrada Stela 1 are, according to many scholars, an irrefutable marker of Teotihuacan influence (e.g., von Winning 1961). But the truth is that the majority of elements associated with Teotihuacan “writing” did not originate at Teotihuacan but rather they derived from other regions (Budar 2010; Taube 2001). For example, the “four-way hatching” glyph, the same that Blom and La Farge (1926:40–41) associated with the Maya “Pax” glyph, appears repeatedly on the monuments that Carlos Navarrete located during his investigations at Los Horcones in Cerro de Bernal, Chiapas (Garcia-Des Lauriers 2007; Navarrete Cáceres 1976). Like the Piedra Labrada stela, the Los Horcones monuments are associated with central highland glyphs as well as Mayan glyphs.

Three stela bases and an unworked stela also occur in other architectural complexes in Piedra Labrada. Unlike Piedra Labrada Stela 1, these monuments are not distributed across the central plaza but rather are located in a courtyard near the site’s Central Plaza 2. Moreover, the stela that remains on the site is undecorated; it contains no inscriptions nor details that could indicate that it was engraved, though, as has been proposed by other scholars, smooth stelae could have been stuccoed or painted, and this decorative material may have since eroded (Guernsey 2006:36; Parsons 1986:63). The important thing about this evidence is that, as seen in other sites in the Gulf Coast region, the SBTC is integrated into the central programs of public architecture.

The Reptile Eye glyph and the reed bundle have long been recognized by investigators as originating in the highlands, while the “four-way hatching” symbol has been attributed to the Maya (Budar 2013). Thus, Stela 1 at Piedra Labrada offers a combination of two traditions fused in a very particular way that also appears as a common trait in the Tuxtlas. This same combination of traditions is visible in Tuxtlas Polychrome (Arnold 2014; Coe 1965), in the local figurine tradition (see below), and in a carved stone block recently uncovered near La Perla del Golfo on the Santa Marta coast (figure 7.5).

The sandstone block measures 15 cm wide × 40 cm long and presents an iconographic combination that speaks to two traditions. It is divided into five vertical sections: three of which include figures that could be interpreted as ballplayers who wear belts in the form of yokes, an elaborate feather headdress, and ear spools. These figures correspond most closely to the style of south-central Gulf Coast; however, at the bottom portion of each of the three columns are divisions marked by two upper and lower lines. Between these lines is a small inscription rendered in a Mayan style that is repeated in the three sections. Alejandro Sheseña and Rogelio Valencia (personal communication, 2016) have identified the inscription as the logogram K’AY, or “singer,” which is composed of a human head accompanied by a virgule. Nonetheless, additional analysis is still required.

Matacanela, in the south central Tuxtlas, is the only other site that contains a group of monuments that can be considered to represent a SBTC. Blom and La Farge (1926:23) identified three “boxes” as elements of the sculptural complex, and that designation has remained (figure 7.6). Unfortunately, we lack the information that pertains to the early twentieth-century work of Seler and Sachs, who excavated these monuments at Matacanela, so we do not know how many sculptures made up this complex (Hanffstengel and Tercero 2003; Seler-Sachs [1922] 1996). Nonetheless, neither Blom and La Farge in 1925 (Blom and La Farge 1926) nor Juan Valenzuela and Ruppert in 1937 (Valenzuela 1945a) were able to identify any lids for these “boxes,” and none of these three sculptures are consistent in shape or size. Stone boxes had their heyday during the Postclassic period in highland Mexico.

We propose that these rectangular sculptures are not “boxes”; rather, the characteristics of these pieces better conform to a particular type of stela bases. In fact, Seler-Sachs ([1922] 1996:xi) noted that these sculptures included “squared incisions with a mortise hole, as if they had been pedestals for figures.”

We also recognize that neither group of investigators documented stela among the six other sculptures that they mention from Matacanela. Nonetheless, three possible scenarios (and not necessarily mutually exclusive) may account for this lack of mention: (1) between 1907 and 1925 the stela at Matacanela were moved, stolen, or destroyed; (2) the stelae may have been made of wood and decayed before they could be documented; or (3) the stelae were undecorated and did not attract the attention of the researchers. This latter possibility is not that surprising, given that several areas within Matacanela contain prismatic basalt blocks of different thicknesses and sizes on the site’s surface.

This case is not isolated, however, since Complex 2 at Piedra Labrada exhibits similar characteristic. Bases of stelae, similar in form to the sculpture from Matacanela, have been registered, but the stelae themselves were not recovered (figure 7.7). This makes Matacanela and Piedra Labrada the only two sites in the Tuxtlas known to contain the SBTC.

Tres Zapotes is probably the closet site to Matacanela that exhibits monuments that are associated with this sculptural complex. The celebrated Monument C from Tres Zapotes is an elaborately carved stone “box” excavated by the Selers in the early 1900s (Seler-Sachs [1922] 1996:x; see also Stirling 1943:18–21). A second, undecorated “box” (Monument B) was also recovered from Tres Zapotes (Stirling 1943:17–18).

As noted above, Stela C is a basalt monolith that on one side displays a large mask rendered with human traits and is associated with the Olmec style. The other side, however, provides a bar-and-dot calendar date of 7.16.6.16.18 (32 BC) making it the oldest, most complete long-count date recovered to date. This date also makes Stela C at Tres Zapotes a contemporary of the Guillén phase monuments installed at Izapa. According to Stirling’s data, the majority of these monuments was recovered from the flat areas of Mound Group 3 in the northern portion of Tres Zapotes and, at least in the case of Stela C, was associated with an “altar” (Stirling 1943:14).

Cerro de las Mesas is another site relatively close to the Tuxtlas that contains interesting characteristics in terms of the SBTC. Between 1939 and 1940, Stirling (1943) registered at least eighteen sculpted monuments, several of which were found in the so-called Monument Plaza, along with at least twelve stelae. These stelae include images of individuals accompanied by columnar glyphic inscriptions. It is worth noting that the time span recorded on the monuments is restricted to the period between AD 300 and AD 600,3 that is, the Early/Middle Classic in the Tuxtlas.

Cerro de las Mesas was one of the influential regional sites of central southern Veracruz and has demonstrated connections to the site of Totocapan, located in the northwestern portion of the Tuxtlas (Stoner 2011). Paradoxically, Totocapan has not produced evidence for the SBTC in its discursive devices. Similarly, the central portion of the Tuxtlas has not produced monuments that conform to this sculptural complex. Thus, it would appear that the SBTC configuration was only utilized on the eastern edge of the Tuxtlas and possibly extended into the low, inundated zone of central south Veracruz by a coastal route.

Fine Paste Pottery

Fine paste pottery (i.e., pottery lacking visible temper) is one of the more diagnostic ceramic wares in lowland Mesoamerica. By the 1930s, researchers within the Maya lowlands, particularly the Yucatán, identified fine paste pottery as a particular ceramic type that could be useful in identifying relationships between highland and lowland regions (Brainerd 1941). Subsequent studies provided finer-grained classifications of the ware and continued to emphasize fine paste pottery (especially what became called Fine Orange) as a useful reference for chronological placement and interregional contact (e.g., Berlin 1956; Bishop 2003; Bishop and Rands 1982; Jiménez Alvarez 2015; Smith 1956, 1958). Most of these studies suggest that fine paste pottery in their respective regions dates primarily to Late/Terminal Classic (ca. AD 800–900) and Postclassic (> ca. AD 900) periods. Moreover, most researchers seem to agree that the major production/consumption zone for this ware includes the coastal region of the Gulf of Campeche, stretching from central Veracruz through Tabasco and moving northward along the coast of the Yucatán (e.g., Brainerd 1941; Jiménez Alvarez 2015).

Readers could be forgiven, therefore, for thinking that the adoption of fine paste ceramics is primarily an “end-of-the-Classic” phenomenon. And while this characterization may be valid for the Maya region, it does not hold for the lowlands of southern Veracruz. According to Annick Daneels (2006:479) the use of untempered, kaolinite clays distinguishes Classic period southern Veracruz from the pottery assemblages that characterize the remainder of the state at this time. Excavated contexts in and around the Tuxtlas (e.g., Esquivias 2002; Ortiz and Santley 1988; Pool 1990), as well as to the north (Stark 2001) and south (Symonds 1995) of the uplift, reveal the presence of untempered pottery by the first half of the Classic period. Additional research across the coastal zone also implicates the Classic period adoption of this ware (e.g., Loughlin 2012; Sisson 1976; von Nagy 2003). Pool and Britt (2000) suggest that the Classic period appearance of untempered pottery in the Tuxtlas is associated with updraft kiln firing and the additional visual and tactile performance characteristics afforded by that pyrotechnology. Specifically, they suggest that a volcanic eruption at ca. AD 250 disrupted ceramic consumption and, in combination with new ceramic attributes informed by external influence, promoted selection for oxidized, fine paste wares (Pool and Britt: 2000:158).

Researchers have noted both temporal and spatial trends in the adoption of these fine paste wares along the southern Gulf lowlands and across the Bay of Campeche. For example, throughout southern Veracruz, pottery made from Fine Orange/Buff pastes generally precedes Fine Gray fabrics (e.g., Daneels 2006; Pool 1995). The Maya lowland sequences that depart from this pattern usually begin with a version of fine paste gray wares sometime after AD 750 (see, e.g., Bishop 2003; Bishop et al. 2005; Jiménez Álvarez 2015). As noted below, there is tendency for the ceramic sequence of southern Veracruz to move from Fine Orange to Fine Gray and then back to Fine Orange. Thus, the gray-to-orange transition within the Maya region simply captures the latter portion of a longer, oscillating sequence in play along the southern coastal lowlands.

At Matacapan, the beginning of the Classic period is marked by Fine Buff and Fine Orange pottery. Fine Buff (Matacapan Bayo Fino, Type 30) is considered to be a reproduction of a ware associated with Teotihuacan and often occurs as cylindrical tripod vessels (Ortiz and Santley 1988:100–114). Pool (1990:230–237) excavated a ceramic production area at Matacapan dated to Phase C, or the beginnings of the Classic period (ca. AD 300). This production context included the remains of a simple updraft kiln and produced a ceramic rim assemblage that exhibited almost 30 percent of Fine Buff sherds.

Additional research by the Matacapan Project (Arnold et al. 1993; Pool 1990; Santley et al. 1989) demonstrates that Fine Orange pottery (Matacapan Type 6) became increasingly common during the site’s Middle Classic occupation (ca. AD 450–650). Excavated production contexts, in addition to physicochemical analyses, clearly indicate that ceramics with Fine Orange paste were produced at multiple locales throughout the Tuxtlas (Arnold 2014; Pool and Santley 1992; Stoner and Glascock 2011).

Recent investigations at the site of Teotepec (Arnold and VanDerwarker 2008; Thompson et al. 2009) reveal that polychrome images rendered upon a fine orange paste also characterize occupation within the Tuxtlas by approximately AD 550. This type, known as Tuxtlas Polychrome (Matacapan Types 11 and 12; Arnold 2014; Coe 1965; Ortiz and Santley 1988), has been documented in deposits stretching from the western Lower Papaloapan Basin (Pool and Santley 1992; Stark 2001) to the Hueyapan region along the southern foothills of the Tuxtlas (Esquivias 2002). This ceramic is frequently associated with a Late Classic date (Coe 1965; Daneels 2006; Pool 1995), but excavations at Teotepec now indicate an earlier appearance for Tuxtlas Polychrome (Arnold 2014; see figure 7.8).

During the Late Classic in the Tuxtlas (ca. AD 650–900), Fine Gray pottery (Matacapan Type 1) achieves its maximum popularity and appears throughout southern Veracruz. Pool (1990:324–325) excavated a Fine Gray production context at Matacapan; these data suggest that Fine Gray manufacture may have exceeded that of Fine Orange at this time. A gray, fine paste pottery also appears in the Coatzacoalcos basin during this time period (Zapote Fine Orange to Gray, Coe and Diehl 1980:218; Type 25, Symonds 1995:299–300).

Nonetheless, Late Classic contexts from other portions of southern Veracruz indicate that pottery made from a fine orange paste continued to be popular. For example, the end of the Classic period in and around San Lorenzo (e.g., Coe and Diehl’s [1980] Villa Alta phase) is marked by the appearance of Campamento Fine Orange (Coe and Diehl 1980:214–217). Coe and Diehl (1980:216) recognized that Campamento Fine Orange “is somewhat different from all Fine Orange types described thus far for the Maya area and Tabasco” and also noted that it may have antecedents in the earlier types recovered from Tres Zapotes (Coe and Diehl 1980:213). Despite these observations, they concluded that Campamento Fine Orange “was ultimately derived from the Maya area” (Coe and Diehl 1980:216).

Stacey Symonds (1995) subsequently excavated Late Classic deposits near San Lorenzo in an attempt to clarify the character of the Villa Alta phase. As did Coe and Diehl (1980), Symonds (1995:329) concluded that Campamento Fine Orange (Symond’s Type 1) was not a product of local inspiration. Unlike prior assessments, however, Symonds emphasized the connections between Campamento Fine Orange and the Middle Classic Fine Orange from the Tuxtlas, as well as formal similarities with vessels from the Mixtequilla region to the northwest.

The region’s Postclassic pattern indicates a reversal (in the Tuxtlas) or a continuation (in other areas) to an emphasis on fine orange ceramics. Early Postclassic (ca. AD 1000) occupation at Isla Agaltepec is marked by Fine Orange ceramics (Arnold and Venter 2004), as is the contemporary presence in the Coatzacoalcos drainage (Coe and Diehl 1980; Symonds 1995:663–665). The resurgence of orange, fine paste pottery during the Postclassic is consistent with the patterns reported in other portions of the coastal lowlands (e.g., Jiménez Álvarez 2015; Smith 1958).

Finally, there appears to be a general north-to-south temporal trend along the Gulf lowlands reflecting the adoption and distribution of fine paste wares. As noted above, the earliest fine paste pottery within southern Veracruz marks the beginning of the Classic period. The timing of this association is well documented from excavation and survey from the Mixtequilla (Stark 2001) through the El Mesón region (Loughlin 2012:137) and Tres Zapotes (Pool 2003), and into the sierra as represented in its Río Tepango Valley (Stoner 2011:261) and the Río/Lake Catemaco regions (Arnold and McCormack 2002; Arnold and VanDerwarker 2008; Ortiz and Santley 1988; Pool and Santley 1992; Pool and Britt 2000; Santley and Arnold 1996).

Speaking from her vantage within the Coatzacoalcos drainage, Symonds (1995: 329) notes: “The regional settlement pattern and ceramic sequence appears to indicate that fine orange appeared first to the north and west of the lower Coatzacoalcos drainage, moving into this region in the late stages of the Middle Classic, developing into a full blown diagnostic of the Terminal Classic period as the population increased to its greatest density.”

It is also worth remembering that areas to the southeast of the Tuxtlas, such as the Río San Juan and Coatzacoalcos drainages, were largely depopulated during the middle portion of the Classic period (Arnold 1997; Borstein 2001, 2005; Symonds et al. 2002). Nonetheless, occupation along the Santa Marta coastline remained strong at this same time (Becerra Álvarez 2012; Budar 2014). This difference suggests that coastal movement, rather than overland interaction, was an important force during the middle centuries of the Classic period.

Research within the area of Champoton, coastal Campeche underscores this transition. Jerald Ek (2012) argues that fine paste ceramics first appear during the Champoton 5 period, starting approximately AD 700. According to his analysis: “The Champoton 5 phase reflects a radical reorientation to the Gulf Coast in terms of demography, direction of cultural influence, norms of ceramic production, trade networks, and economic organization . . . Fine paste groups produced in the lower Usumacinta region of Tabasco and as far as southern Veracruz are found in high frequencies and within a wide range of contexts, indicating increasing long distance exchange of ceramics” (Ek 2012:154). This transition is also associated with an overall change toward the occupation of coastal settlements and a subsistence strategy that moves away from agrarian pursuits and becomes increasingly marine focused (Ek 2012).

Finally, ceramics of fine orange paste that appear to have been produced in the Coatzacoalcos region have been identified at Cuncuén in Guatemala (Forné et al. 2010). This elemental identification comes from a sealed context that also included pottery from the Chablekal Group, a ceramic complex well dated to AD 700–800. This fine paste orange ceramic is tentatively classified as an example of Campamento Fine Orange (Forné et al. 2010:1157, 2013:54).

Mold-Made Figurines

Along with fine paste pottery, figurines produced using a nontempered clay fabric have also come to characterize connection across the Gulf coastal lowlands. These figurines are usually mold made and manufactured using the orange spectrum of the fine paste ceramics. On occasion, these figurines are also decorated with black chapopote or a distinctive blue paint, often referred to as Maya Blue (e.g., D. Arnold 2005; Coe 1965:705). Like their pottery counterparts, these distinctive figurines have long been recognized as possible chronological and/or cultural markers. Unlike the fine paste pottery, however, the main distribution of these figurines usually dates to the very end of the Classic and into the Postclassic periods.

Mary Butler (1935) was one of the first researchers to attempt a large-scale regional and temporal comparison of Maya figurines. Her analysis separated forms into a hand-modeled “Archaic” form that contrasted with presumably later “Mouldmade” [sic] examples. These latter examples, often rendered as whistles, were identified from collections that stretched from coastal Veracruz through Tabasco, into Campeche and the Yucatán (Butler 1935:641). Her initial assessment placed these mold-made specimens in the latter centuries of the first millennium AD.

Among the mold-made examples, Butler (1935:654–657) also identified three “Gulf Coast styles,” consisting of “Campeche,” “Tabasco,” and “Vera Cruz” [sic] respectively. Common among these three subgroups is a standing figure whose hands are either raised at shoulder level or held down by its side. Of note for the present discussion, Butler (1935:664) cites Lago de Catemaco, San Andrés Tuxtla, and Cerro de las Mesas as source locations for material in her comparison. Based on the data available, Butler (1935:659–663) concludes that Campeche, and particularly the Island of Jaina, may have been the origin for figurine styles later represented in Tabasco (especially Jonuta) and Veracruz.

Of course, Jaina Island, Campeche, is perhaps the most celebrated context for Classic- to Postclassic-period figurines along the Gulf lowlands (e.g., McVicker 2012:215). Corson (1976) presents an analysis of this material, including excavated specimens recovered by INAH projects spanning the decades of the 1940s through 1960s. Among the mold-made figurines that he identifies, the Campeche group (and its multiple variations) stands out as an especially widespread phenomenon across the Gulf lowlands. The Campeche group is in part distinguished by the appearance of a quechquemitl (often rounded with depicted embroidery), frequent use of a white slip, and a pose in which the female individuals stand with hands raised to the shoulders and palms facing outward while males are standing with hands down at their sides (Corson 1976:130, 139, table 4). This pose is first exhibited in an earlier Jonuta category (Corson 1976:table 1).

Corson (1976:157–160) specifically discusses possible connections between the Tuxtlas/southern Veracruz and Jaina as reflected in the figurines. He suggests that Campeche-style figurines reported from the southern Veracruz (e.g., Drucker 1943a, 1943b; Valenzuela 1945a, 1945b; Weiant 1943) likely originated along the northern Campeche coast (Corson 1976:159). In contrast, he also notes that the female pose with hands raised at shoulder level may have “originated in Veracruz and spread rapidly to the south and west, through the Tuxtlas and across the Tabascan plain, taking on a number of local expressions as it expanded” (Corson 1976:159). This observation underscores the multidirectionality that likely characterized interactions across the Gulf lowlands.

Marilyn Goldstein (1979:40) analyzed over 1,300 figurines from sites along the Gulf lowlands and private collections, using stylistic and technological criteria. She also conducted Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) on a small sample of these figurines. This analysis identified eight distinct clays used in figurine manufacture, potentially indicating seven discrete production areas (Goldstein 1979:52).

Among the specimens, Goldstein (1979:71–73) identified a “Style YV or ‘Veracruziano’” figurine style. As the name implies, these figurines are thought to have stylistic traits that relate them to southern Veracruz. Included among these traits are the use of molds, orange fine paste clay, and postures that include a standing “orant” stance (arms bent at the elbow, hands at should height with palms forward) and decorative huipils. Goldstein identified 120 “Veracruziano” figurines; unfortunately, over one-third of the sample was derived from unprovenienced private collections. The stylistic analysis suggests that a locus of manufacture might be identified “along the Campeche coast, between Jaina and Champoton,” though, due to the strong Veracruz influence, “the possibility of a more westerly site of origin cannot be overlooked” (Goldstein 1979:71). Based on their mold-made character, Goldstein (1979:105, 112) also suggests that these “Veracruziano” figurines likely postdate AD 750.

Goldstein’s (1979) neutron activation analysis failed to identify clearly a Veracruz provenience for any of the thirty-five sampled figurines. This result, however, is not overly surprising given the relatively small sample size for NAA coupled with the absence of provenienced Veracruz figurines from the original analysis. It is worth noting, nonetheless, that the lone YV figurine within the NAA sample appears as a single, extreme outlier within the generated dendrogram (Goldstein 1979:table VI). Goldstein (1979:70–71) refers to this specimen as “an untempered orange clay of distinctive chemical composition, grouping with no other tested samples.”

Figurines that correspond to the systems proposed by Butler (1935), Corson (1976), and Goldstein (1979) have been recovered from excavated contexts across southern Veracruz. In fact, Weiant (1943) used the term “Mayoid” to describe figurines recovered from the first season of excavation at Tres Zapotes. Several of his illustrated examples (Weiant 1943:pl. 41, p. 42) would fit comfortably within Butler’s (1935) C1 group, Corson’s (1976) Jonuta-Campeche Intergrading Series and Campeche A groups, or Goldstein’s (1979) YV stylistic group. Coe (1965:705) also noted a “macro style” across southern Veracruz that included many of the characteristics identified as “Mayoid,” although as mentioned earlier, he ultimately regarded these products as little more than “amusing clay figurines” (Coe 1965:715).

It is worth mentioning that hollow, mold-made figurines, produced with an untempered Orange-Buff paste and decorated with a white slip, have an early appearance within the Tuxtlas. One example was recovered as part of the La Joya archaeological project (figure 7.9) and dates to the Middle Classic period (ca. AD 450) (Arnold and McCormack 2002; Vásquez Zárate 2007). This figurine is very similar to a specimen excavated by Valenzuela (1945b:fig. 26) at the neighborhood of Belén Chico, just north of San Andrés Tuxtla. Moreover, San Marcos figurines from Tres Zapotes also conform to the suite of traits mentioned above and are estimated to span the Middle and Late Classic periods. Finally, the well-known Nopiloa and Sonriente figurine styles from south central Veracruz also date primarily to ca. AD 400–800 (see, e.g., Coe 1965; Medellín Zenil 1960).

Summary and Conclusions

These three examples of southern Veracruz connections with the Maya region span the Formative through Postclassic periods and incorporate two distinct pathways. The earlier, Formative period expression of the SBTC appears to extend across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, uniting occupations on both the Gulf lowlands and the Pacific coast. This route follows the pathway that Lee Parsons has dubbed the “Peripheral Coastal Lowlands” (Parsons 1978). Parsons (1978:25–26) used this terminology to underscore the region’s autonomy relative to both the Mexican highlands and the Maya lowlands; nonetheless, the unfortunate choice of terminology has done little to highlight the important, in situ cultural developments that characterized this region’s prehistory.

The Classic period along southern Veracruz is characterized by the early adoption of Fine Buff and Fine Orange pottery in and around the Tuxtla Mountains. This ceramic tradition also includes an appearance of the elaborate Tuxtlas Polychrome by early in the second half of the first millennium. The use of fine paste pottery, first for elite consumption and later for more popular use, spread along the Gulf lowlands by the latter part of the Classic period. Of course, we are not claiming that the Tuxtlas was responsible for exporting finished pottery across the adjacent Gulf lowlands; compositional analysis clearly demonstrates that fine paste ceramics from different Gulf lowlands regions were often manufactured from local clay deposits. Nonetheless, we do suggest that some of the inspiration for the appearance and popularity of this particular ware may have its origins within southern Veracruz.

Figurines, produced using molds and made from an Orange or Buff fine paste fabric, mark the end of the Classic period and spill into the Postclassic. The origin of these figurines is still murky; they may have become popular in the area around Campeche and been distributed westward to southern Veracruz, or they may have originated in southern Veracruz and moved eastward along the coast. Reports of figurine molds fragments come from sites in both areas, so the evidence for actual production remains ambiguous (e.g., Sanders 1963; Weiant 1943:106, pl. 43). Regardless, the distribution of this material clearly demonstrates a continued connection among the different ethnic groups that occupied the southern Gulf lowlands.

It should be clear, therefore, that myriad connections, through time and across space, united the southern Gulf lowlands with the coastal Maya region. While early work within the Tuxtlas may have overemphasized such interactions, it would be equally problematic to negate them entirely. Groups within the Tuxtlas obviously participated in far-flung interactions, both inland toward highland Mexico and seaward toward the lowland Maya. More than sixty years ago, Thompson identified a sprinkling of culture that linked groups across the Gulf lowlands. Ongoing research not only affirms that observation, but suggests that Thompson’s (1953:447) “chipechipes [sic] culturales” (cultural sprinklings) may have, on occasion, become a cultural aguacero—a downpour.

Notes

References