West Mexican archaeology encompasses more than shaft tombs and figurines, and Shaft Tombs and Figures in West Mexican Society: A Reassessment is just the volume to make that case. Though focused on these better-known materials as an organizing device, this striking book applies a variety of disciplinary perspectives to address current research in the region. Readers who are merely curious about West Mexican archaeology or have abiding professional interest in the area will find that this edited volume is a high quality, beautifully illustrated, and highly recommendable text.
The careful use of “reassessment” in the title is appropriate. A primary goal was to confront the stereotype of a monolithic West Mexican “shaft tomb culture.” In so doing the contributors highlight the dynamic cultural variability of the region through specific archaeological cases, regional syntheses, and careful collection analyses. The excellent introduction offers a cogent historical essay on regional research. It situates the cultural variability of West Mexico in relation to widespread assumptions about Mesoamerica and provides an extended discussion of how the various chapters in the volume illustrate larger, current research trends. The summary chapter is also oriented to the field beyond the volume. Though not a synthesis of West Mexican archaeology, this book is engaging as both an introduction and assessment of research in West Mexico.
The volume is organized into four sections of three chapters each. The chapters are well conceived and are for the most part extremely readable. A strength of the volume is the multidisciplinary group of contributors, which includes Mexican, U.S., and European scholars at various stages in their careers who are affiliated with a variety of academic, government, and industry institutions. As a whole, the book is diachronic, dealing with the Formative, Classic, and, to a lesser extent, Postclassic periods.
The first section contextualizes new research in the region through case studies drawn from three disparate areas, with a focus on archaeology and bioarchaeology. Even within single sites, variation in mortuary treatment is notable. Because many tombs in the region have been looted, these excavations, skeletal analyses, and descriptions of funerary patterns provide missing social context for larger cultural interpretations. The chapters in the second section take a slightly broader perspective. From extensive excavations in Colima and two synthetic discussions of survey and related research in Jalisco, these chapters compare variation in tomb architecture, figures, and grave goods more generally. Notable patterns include the discovery of “mortuary” ceramics in non-mortuary contexts and the variability of burial context, tomb architecture, and tomb placement in different social contexts. For example, shaft tombs can be found in both public and residential locales. Clearly, people in ancient West Mexico made many different choices regarding funerary treatment, taking into account seasonality, social status, and gender.
The third section shifts to museum sciences with material and statistical analysis of extant archaeological and museum collections through the application of noninvasive techniques such as pXRF, ceramic authentication techniques such as identification of mineral staining and insect pupae, and statistical analysis of social identity markers.
The fourth section draws from art history; the chapters form a set of careful, minutely observed studies of three different figurine styles focusing on their production and the social information they communicate. All three contributors address questions of representation and the presentation of individuality, but as defined by unique skin modification, body paint, and status markers rather than specific bodily biological features as is typical in Western art. Like the earlier chapters, those in this section suggest that specific figurines do not necessarily represent the sex of the interred individuals and therefore are acting in other ways in the funerary context.
The editors and contributors of the volume are undoubtedly conscious of the ongoing concern that these materials are known primarily through collections because they are often looted and at times faked. The editors address this issue in the introduction and through Pickering's chapter in the third section; Robert Pickering makes a good case for the efficacy of his techniques in relation to the large number of authenticated ceramics he has studied in museum collections. This issue is also a theme in the more synthetic chapters, as the contributors grapple, successfully, with this burden in terms of sample selection and cultural patterns.
This is a terrifically well-illustrated volume, with high-quality, full-color photographs of the archaeological materials discussed in the text, including a copious number of figurines. The introduction contains two useful orientation maps; a number of other chapters also have maps and large data tables. Published in conjunction with the exhibition West Mexico: Ritual and Identity at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 26 to November 6, 2016, the book is a compilation of papers from a symposium held at the 2016 Society for American Archaeology meetings and “commissioned” chapters.
Christopher Beekman and Robert Pickering have delivered a striking, informative volume that is exactly what the title promises: a data-driven, culturally sensitive reevaluation of the most famous of the West Mexican archaeological materials. With its interdisciplinary approach and its emphasis on integrating the contributions with current research in West Mexico, the volume can serve as an introduction to the complexity of research and cultural expression in the region. But the text is also a springboard for future research in a region that still has numerous interesting and unanswered questions.
