Reconstructions of Moche ritual sacrifice have relied heavily on iconographic depictions of elaborate rituals conducted on mountains and sacrifices at adobe temples. Scholars have categorized mountain scenes, proposed that Huaca de la Luna symbolized sacred mountains, and argued that one of the main mountain scenes entails the liberation of a figure known as Dios A. However, the large corpus of mountain iconography remains underanalyzed, and few existing publications incorporate data from mountainside sites. In this article, I propose a more specific Mountainside Sacrifice and Cave Opening mythic narrative encoded in these scenes, comparable to the Presentation Theme / Sacrifice Ceremony. I argue that future surveys and excavations must include thorough investigations of north coast mountains of Peru.

This article identifies a lunar day count in Zapotec inscriptions at Monte Alban. The lunar records that are accompanied by dates in the Mesoamerican 52-year cycle make it possible to determine intervals between recorded events. Seven placements of the resulting series of intervals in absolute time are consistent with dates of the lunar crescent’s first visibility at Monte Alban between 650 and 50 BCE; just one is also consistent with the seventeenth-century Zapotec calendar. The data show that Zapotec divinatory calendar dates likely began around noon, as in the sixteenth century, and that the return of the year-bearer on the year’s 261st day was celebrated in the afternoon by 222 BCE.

We examine the social role of dogs in the Central Andes using dog remains from Middle Horizon (AD 600–1000) Tiwanaku sites in the Moquegua Valley, Peru. We describe dog remains from domestic, cemetery, and temple contexts and provide life histories of two naturally mummified young dogs that Tiwanaku inhabitants intentionally buried in domestic households at the sites of Rio Muerto and Omo. We present morphological and morphometric values for the mummified dog from Rio Muerto, along with isotopic analyses of the bones, teeth, and hair from both dogs. The strontium (87Sr/86Sr) isotopic analyses indicate that both dogs had local origins. Isotopic analyses of carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) show that the Rio Muerto dog consumed a mixed terrestrial and omnivorous diet composed of both C3 and C4 foods, like that of humans from that site. The Omo dog consumed less C4 foods and more protein. Although some dog remains exhibit cut marks, there is no evidence that dogs were food animals. We interpret the intentional burial of the two dogs in domestic settings and the fragmentary remains as evidence that the Tiwanaku inhabitants of Moquegua considered dogs to be companion animals and possibly nonhuman persons worthy of respect after death.

In northwestern Belize, evidence of Late Postclassic Maya presence is limited to deposits indicating brief visitations to former city centers. Here, we present recent research at the sites of Kaxil Uinik and Ayiin Winik that has identified Late Postclassic ritual offerings at reset Late Classic monuments, as well as the first reported Late Postclassic altar in the region. These activities fit into a broad pattern of Postclassic veneration of early and long-lived locations on the abandoned landscape.

A hallmark of ancient Mesoamerican art and religion is the ability of ritual practitioners, sometimes called “shamans,” to transform. The Olmec were-jaguar is a well-known example of the phenomenon. Artifacts from different regions demonstrate that these beliefs involved many animal and spiritual entities and a porous boundary between humans and other beings. In this article, we examine the archaeology of ritual transformation in Preclassic or Formative period (2000 BC–AD 250) Oaxaca, Mexico. As links between the physical world and other dimensions, altered bodies reflect negotiated relationships among people, animals, ancestors, deities, and landforms. Traditional interpretations of transformational art have oversimplified the role of nonhumans in these processes by representing ritual practitioners as “impersonating” other beings; for example, by wearing masks. We draw on almost two centuries of archaeology, Indigenous history, and ethnography to demonstrate that the reification of separate cultural and natural worlds is a modern artifice that would be unrecognizable to ancient Oaxacans. It was via transformation that ancient Mesoamerican people intimately knew their world, engaged the senses, and acquired knowledge.

In this article we present and contextualize a potential example of early Mesoamerican dot numeration on a fragmentary Middle Preclassic ceramic figurine dating to 750–650 cal BC from the site of La Blanca, San Marcos, Guatemala. We begin with a brief discussion of numerical systems and their relationship to developments in early writing and graphic notation. We then situate the few known examples of Mesoamerican numeration that predate the Late Preclassic (300 BC–AD 250) period. From there, we pivot to the early urban center of La Blanca and its robust figurine tradition before turning our attention to the series of dots that mark this small ceramic object. We argue that this unique fragmentary figurine hints at the relationship between numeration, bodies, and identity in ancient Mesoamerican worldviews.

In this study, we analyzed a set of translucent green stones found at the Panamanian archaeological sites of El Caño and Sitio Conte. To characterize the samples, we used optical microscopy, portable X-ray fluorescence, UV-Vis-NIR spectroscopy, FTIR, and photoluminescence. These analyses identify the stones as emeralds and reveal geochemical signatures consistent with a Colombian origin. We then conducted a comparative stylistic technological assessment using cluster analysis, which included samples from Panama and other regions of the Isthmo-Colombian Area, as well as Ecuador. This analysis indicates that artisans modified some emeralds locally, while others may have arrived as finished or partially worked objects. Our findings validate the existence of complex interregional exchange networks in the Isthmo-Colombian Area between the eighth and tenth centuries AD. Within this context, the chiefdoms associated with the archaeological sites of El Caño and Sitio Conte (ca. AD 800–1000) played a significant role in stimulating regional trade relationships.

Long-term research at Waka’s City temple (Structure M13-1) demonstrates it was an important locale for ritual commemoration by local people as well as those from afar. Extensive and diversely constituted deposits throughout the building’s surface demonstrate it was venerated publicly by non-elites throughout Waka’s final occupations and gradual abandonment. Recent re-examinations of these materials confirm that they appear consistent with material assemblages from Waka’s domestic contexts. We can now also complement early insights that the building was important for Waka’s wider citizenry with deeper understanding of its earlier political significance and function; namely, that it formed a major component of the site’s political and ritual landscape for centuries, including playing a key role during the Early Classic Teotihuacan-Maya Entrada. Today the building’s fronting plaza continues as the locus for various pre-excavation ceremonies. Together, this paints a picture of a monumental center that remained vividly remembered for its political and ritual importance for centuries. In the context of the unifying theme of ruination studies and Indigenous perspectives on such landscapes, we consider this building to be an example of how landscapes remain animate and how memory is itself an animating force that sustains meaning and situates action.

By using satellite images, this study confirms 350 km of ancient roads, comprising 634 wide and 321 narrow roads, in southwestern Amazonia’s earthwork-rich landscape. The roads were straight, mostly under 500 m long, but with some extending several kilometers. They occurred most prevalently in areas of dense earthwork. Nested earthworks were more road-rich than simple ones, and roads were more common in structures with quadrilateral rather than roundish shapes. Geoglyphs typically featured wide ceremonial roads with start widths ranging from 15 to 40 m, sometimes wider, and gradual narrowing toward their distal ends. Mound settlements had narrow, short roads pointing in various directions, which may have been for everyday travel. They also presented narrow but long roads leading to distant destinations, occasionally spanning many earthworks. When the endpoint was observable, 39.7% of roads led to a riverine environment indicating access, 10.6% connected to other earthworks reflecting integration, and 49.7% faded into currently open terrain. Many roads starting from geoglyphs aligned with the cardinal directions suggesting a possible awareness of astronomical alignments in the construction of the ditched ceremonial enclosures. This study confirms that ancient roads provide key insights into past civilizations and are essential to the region’s archaeological heritage.

Human sacrifice is one of the most dramatic and enduring rituals known to ancient societies. Death of the victim represents the climax of the event because lethal violence produces vivid images that articulate power relations between the organizers, audience, and those sacrificed. This study reconstructs burial treatments, biological profiles, and trauma patterns on 49 human sacrifices excavated from the site El Pollo located 13 km from Chan Chan, the capital city of the Chimú Empire (AD 1050/1100–1450), in the Moche Valley, Peru. Children and adolescents (n = 31/37) exhibit cutmarks to the anterior chest, which mirror the victim profiles and patterning of skeletal trauma documented at other Chimú sacrificial sites. Sacrifice at El Pollo also involved opening the chest cavities of adult males, dispatching bound male captives, and administering incisions to victim torsos to release blood. Given the administrative capacity and imperial enterprises of the Chimú Empire, these data indicate that sacrifice at El Pollo was part of a highly systematic ritual program staged throughout the Moche Valley and overseen by ruling elites at Chan Chan. This study provides evidence that sacrifice was modified to suit the civic-ceremonial needs of the empire and supported imperial efforts of militaristic expansion.