More Mobiliary Art from Northern Mexico:The Pelihal Collection

Abstract

In 1996, the first evidence of a mobiliary art tradition in northern Mexico was found at Boca de Potrerillos, Nuevo Leon, and reported in Plains Anthropologist. Now, the unsystematic collection of 103 incised stones from Pelillal, Coahuila confirms that at least two technically and iconographically distinct types of mobiliary art were produced by the prehistoric hunters and gatherers of north central Mexico. The simpler stones bear incised linear designs, some of which are comparable to the Lama San Pedro style at Boca de Potrerillos where they were dated to between 230 and 950 B.P At least 18 of the stones bear some portion of a butterfly-vulva form design, sometimes woven into a more elaborate and complex pattern, typical of the Coco nos style. The sexual connotations of the vulva form and the transformational implications of the butterfly theme suggest that these objects were used in puberty or fertility rites, probably during the Archaic period or Coahuila Complex, ca. 5 000 B.P