Revealing Ancestral Central America - Smithsonian Latino Center ...

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6 Foreword Kevin Gover and Eduardo Díaz 8 Acknowledgments Ancestral Central America 13 Surrounded by Beauty: Central America before 1500 Rosemary A. Joyce 23 Dwelling in the Ancestral Joya de Cerén Village Payson Sheets Contents 33 Artisanry in Motion Christina Luke and Rosemary A. Joyce 45 Authority in Ancestral Central America John W. Hoopes 59 Between Beliefs and Rituals: Material Culture of Ancestral Costa Rica Patricia Fernández Collectors and Collecting 70 A New Dream Museum Ann McMullen 72 Minor Keith and the United Fruit Company Alexander Benítez 74 Adventurers, Dilettantes, and Looters Ann McMullen 76 Accidental Interests Ann McMullen 78 Promoting Heritage Alexander Benítez 80 List of Figures 88 References Cited
Foreword Kevin Gover (Pawnee) Director, National Museum of the American Indian Eduardo Díaz Executive Director, Smithsonian Latino Center Centroamericanos—they are the backbone of the Latino communities surrounding Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian’s own backyard. They hail from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Belize, Panama, and Costa Rica. They have a growing presence throughout the United States, yet representation of their cultural and social legacies in Latin American scholarship has remained largely marginalized by earlier focus on the political dominance, riches, and the epic drama of Mesoamerican and Andean empires. Through a partnership between the Smithsonian Latino Center (SLC) and the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), we have seized this opportunity to connect with our local Latino communities, many of which remain rooted in their indigenous heritage and history. Herein we honor the enduring, economically and politically stable cultural traditions of pre-Hispanic Central America through their exceptional material culture. Sharing this cultural patrimony and acknowledging its value is both our challenge and our responsibility, and we gladly take up the charge. The generation of this project occurred by accident, with a discovery at the NMAI of a vast collection of Central American archaeological objects by visiting staff researchers from the Smithsonian Latino Center. They realized that the NMAI was quietly caring for one of the largest and most significant collections of Central American archaeology in existence, with approximately 17,000 objects from the region. Astoundingly, this includes more than 10,000 intact vessels, embodying countless untold stories. The Central American Ceramics Research Project, or CACRP, is the Latino Center’s initiative to learn more about these works. Launched in 2009, the CACRP supported the two-year study, documentation, and identification of items in the NMAI’s Central American ceramics collections. This initiative has been the catalyst for other research and projects, such as an exhibition, based on a number of the objects that examine cultural diversity, complexity, and change across space and time; a series of public programs exploring cultural and scientific dimensions of the project; training opportunities for Central American museum staff; an interactive website; and this publication. All of this work springs from unprecedented new scholarship related to these objects, few of which had been previously studied or publicly exhibited. The objects highlighted in this book, largely drawn from the NMAI’s Central American archaeological collection, have much to say to us today. They testify to the complexity of long-lived 6 REVEALING ANCESTRAL CENTRAL AMERICA
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Page 8 and 9: governments and social systems, and
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Page 16 and 17: into the shapes of fantastic animal
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Page 26 and 27: Fig. 29 problems. Each household pr
Page 28 and 29: Fig. 34. Sauna maintained by Househ
Page 30 and 31: Fig. 37. Salúa bowl with monkey de
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Page 34 and 35: Artisanry in Motion Christina Luke
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Page 40 and 41: Fig. 53. Ulúa River vessel with vu
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Page 44 and 45: Fig. 59. Greater Nicoya bowl, AD 80
Page 46 and 47: Authority John W. Hoopes Authority
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Fig. 76. Central Caribbean/ Costa R
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Fig. 80. Greater Coclé (Cubita sty
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Between Beliefs and Rituals: Materi
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Fig. 84. Guanacaste- Nicoya pendant
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Beliefs and Rituals Today, a rich s
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Fig. 97. Bribri ceremonial rattle,
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Fig. 102. Greater Nicoya vessel wit
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69 collectors and collecting Collec
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Fig. 104 donation of other grouping
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Fig. 107 While constructing Costa R
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Fig. 110. Stone columns in situ, pr
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Fig. 114 Others developed far more
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Dr. Jorge Lines followed in the foo
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Fig. 52. See page 36. Figure 11. Ce
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Figure 40. Salua tripod vessel, AD
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Figure 73. Greater Coclé (Conté s
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Figure 105. Classic period Maya bow
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Fig. 87. See page 59. Guevara, Marc
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Sheets, Payson, David Lentz, Dolore
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Smithsonian
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