Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-8mjnm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T15:00:48.168Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Pyramids and Temple Mounds: Mesoamerican Ceremonial Architecture in Eastern North America*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Charles R. Wicke*
Affiliation:
University of the Americas, Mexico, D.F.

Abstract

Various scholars have considered the problem of Mesoamerican cultural influences in the eastern United States. They agree in general on a Mesoamerican origin for temple mounds. Eastern temple mounds are later than the earliest ones from Mesoamerica and, like them, are characterized by groups of four around a plaza, super-imposed construction, frequent eastward orientation of the principal platform of a group, and capping by a temple structure. The Huastec region of northeastern Mesoamerica seems to show the closest architectural similarities to the southeastern United States. At the same time, authorities do not concur on the origin of funerary mounds, which occur in the Preclassic of Mesoamerica at Aljojuca (Puebla), at La Venta (Tabasco), at Kaminaljuyu (highland Guatemala), and probably at many other sites. Many of these were constructed prior to the earliest burial mound sites in the United States. Since Chard has refuted the hypothesis of Asiatic origin for burial mounds, a Mesoamerican origin seems even more likely. Art motifs diffused along with the mound concept. Both are manifest in art that is considered to be hieratic, which points to possible migration of an elite group. How such diffusion took place remains unanswered, but the possibilities of maritime connections merit consideration. Contacts between Mesoamerica and the eastern United States appear to have been frequent, varied, and early.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1965

Access options

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

Footnotes

*

Part of this material was presented at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, November 21, 1963, San Francisco, California.

References

Armillas, Pedro, 1951, Tecnologίa, formaciones socio-económicas y religión en Mesoamerica. In The Civilizations of Ancient America, edited by Sol Tax, pp. 1930. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Barrett, S. A. 1933 Ancient Aztalan. Bulletin of the Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee, Vol. 13. Milwaukee.Google Scholar
Bennett, John W. 1943 Southern Culture Types and Middle American Influences. In El Norte de México y el Sur de Estados Unidos, pp. 223–41. Sociedad Mexicana de Antropologίa, México.Google Scholar
Bennett, John W. 1944 Middle American Influences on Cultures of the Southeastern United States. Acta Americana, Vol. 2, Nos. 1-2, pp. 2530. Mexico.Google Scholar
Bernal, Ignacio 1950 The Q-Complex Seen from Monte Alban. Mesoamerican Notes 2, pp. 8793. Mexico City College, Mexico.Google Scholar
Bernal, Ignacio 1959 Tenochtitlan en una lsla. Institute Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, México.Google Scholar
Caldwell, Joseph R. 1959 The Mississippian Period. In “Illinois Archaeology,” Illinois Archaeological Survey, Bulletin 1, pp. 33–9. Urbana.Google Scholar
Caso, Alfonso and Bernal, Ignacio 1952 Urnas de Oaxaca. México.Google Scholar
Chard, Chester S. 1961 Invention Versus Diffusion: The Burial Mound Complex of the Eastern United States. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 21–5. Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Coe, Michael 1956 The Funerary Temple among the Classic Maya. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 12, No. 4, pp. 387–94. Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Coe, Michael 1960 Archeological Linkages with North and South America at La Victoria, Guatemala. American Anthropologist, Vol. 62, No. 3, pp. 363–93. Menasha.Google Scholar
Drucker, Philip, Heizer, Robert F., and Squier, Robert J. 1959 Excavations at La Venta, Tabasco, 1955. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 170. Washington.Google Scholar
Du Solier, Wilfrido 1945 Estudio arquitectonico de los edificios huastecos. Anales, lnstituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, Vol. 1, pp. 121–46. México.Google Scholar
Ekholm, Gordon F. 1944 Excavations at Tampico and Panuco in the Huasteca, Mexico. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. 38, Part 5. New York.Google Scholar
Enciso, Jorge 1947 Sellos del antiguo Mexico. Mexico.Google Scholar
Fairbanks, Charles H. 1949 A General Survey of Southeastern Prehistory. In The Florida Indian and His Neighbors, pp. 5575. Inter-American Center, Rollins College, Winter Park.Google Scholar
Ferdon, Edwin N. 1955 A Trial Survey of Mexican-Southwestern Architectural Parallels. Monographs of the School of American Research, No. 21. Santa Fe.Google Scholar
Ford, James A. and Willey, Gordon R. 1940 Crooks Site, A Marksville Period Burial Mound in La Salle Parish, Louisiana. Department of Conservation, Louisiana Geological Survey, New Orleans.Google Scholar
Ford, James A., Phillips, Philip, and Haag, William G. 1955 The Jaketown Site in West-central Mississippi. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. 45, Pt. 1. New York.Google Scholar
Griffin, James B. 1949 Meso-America and the Southeast: A Commentary. In The Florida Indian and His Neighbors, pp. 7799. Inter-American Center, Rollins College, Winter Park.Google Scholar
Griffin, James B. 1952a Prehistoric Cultures of the Central Mississippi Valley. In Archaeology of Eastern United States, edited by Griffin, James B., pp. 226–38. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Griffin, James B. 1952b Radiocarbon Dates for the Eastern United States. In Archaeology of Eastern United States, edited by Griffin, James B., pp. 365–70. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Griffin, James B. 1960 A Hypothesis for the Prehistory of the Winnebago. In Culture in History, Essays in Honor of Paul Rodin, pp. 809–65. New York.Google Scholar
Haas, Mary R. 1958 A New Linguistic Relationship in North America: Algonkian and the Gulf Languages. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 231–64. Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Jennings, Jesse D. 1952 Prehistory of the Lower Mississippi Valley. In Archaeology of the Eastern United States, edited by Griffin, James B., pp. 256–71. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Jiménez Moreno, Wigberto 1959 Sίntesis de la historia prerolteca de Mesoamerica. In Esplendor del México Antiguo, edited by de Leonard, Carmen C., Vol. 2, pp. 10191108. Centra de Investigaciones Antropologicas de Mexico, México.Google Scholar
Lewis, Thomas M. N. and Kneberg, Madeline 1946 Hiwassee Island: An Archaeological Account of Four Tennessee Indian Peoples. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.Google Scholar
Lewis, Thomas M. N. and Kneberg, Madeline 1958 Tribes That Slumber. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.Google Scholar
Linne, Sigvald 1942 Mexican Highland Cultures. Stockholm.Google Scholar
Linton, Ralph 1936 The Study of Man. Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York.Google Scholar
MacNeish, Richard S. 1947 A Preliminary Report on Coastal Tamaulipas, Mexico. American Antiquity, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 115. Menasha.Google Scholar
Marquina, Ignacio 1951 Arquitectura prehispánica. Memorias del lnstituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, Vol. 1. México.Google Scholar
Mason, J. Alden 1935 The Place of Texas in Pre-Columbian Relationships between the United States and Mexico. Bulletin of the Texas Archeological and Paleontological Society, Vol. 7, pp. 2946. Abilene.Google Scholar
Meade, Joaquin 1947 Exploraciones en la Huasteca Potosina. In Proceedings 27th International Congress of Americanists [Mexico City, 1939], Vol. 2, pp. 1224. Mexico.Google Scholar
Muir, J. M. 1926 Data on the Structure of Pre-Columbian Huastec Mounds in the Tampico Region. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 56, pp. 231–8. London.Google Scholar
Orr, Kenneth G. 1946 The Archaeological Situation at Spiro, Oklahoma: A Preliminary Report. American Antiquity, Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 228–56. Menasha.Google Scholar
Perino, Gregory 1959 Recent Information from Cahokia and Its Satellites. Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 130–8. Fayetteville.Google Scholar
Phillips, Philip 1940 Middle American Influences on the Archaeology of the Southeastern United States, pp. 349–67. In The Maya and Their Neighbors. D. Appleton-Century Company, New York.Google Scholar
Pollock, H. E. D. 1936 Round Structures of Aboriginal Middle America. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 471. Washington.Google Scholar
Spaulding, Albert C. 1952 The Origin of the Adena Culture of the Ohio Valley. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 260–8. Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Spaulding, Albert C. 1955 Prehistoric Cultural Development in the Eastern United States. In New Interpretations of Aboriginal American Culture History, pp. 12-27. Anthropological Society of Washington, Washington.Google Scholar
Stirling, Matthew W. 1943 La Venta's Green Stone Tigers. The National Geographic Magazine, Vol. 84, No. 3, pp. 321–32. Washington.Google Scholar
Swanton, John R. 1943 Relations between Northern Mexico and the Southeast of the United States from the Point of View of Ethnology and History. In El Norte de Mexico y el Sur de Estados Unidos, pp. 259-76. Sociedad Mexicana de Antropologia, Mexico.Google Scholar
Thompson, J. Eric S. 1949 Canoes and Navigation of the Maya and Their Neighbors. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 79, pp. 6978. London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vaillant, George C. 1932 Some Resemblances in the Ceramics of Central and North America. Medallion Papers, No. 12. Gila Pueblo, Globe.Google Scholar
Vaillant, George C. 1938 A Correlation of Archaeological and Historical Sequences in the Valley of Mexico. American Anthropologist, Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 535-73. Menasha.Google Scholar
von Simpson, Otto G. 1960 Culture and Art. In City Invincible, edited by Kraeling, Carl H. and Adams, Robert M., pp. 419–36. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Webb, William S. and Baby, Raymond S. 1957 The Adena People, No. 2. Ohio State University Press, Columbus.Google Scholar
Wicke, Charles R. 1956 Los murales de Tepantitla e el arte campesino. Anales del Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, Vol. 8, pp. 117–22. Mexico.Google Scholar
Willey, Gordon R. 1958 Archaeological Perspective on Algonkian Gulf Relationships. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 265–72. Albuquerque.CrossRefGoogle Scholar