Not Growling but Smiling: New Interpretations of the Bared‐Teeth Motif in the Pre‐Columbian Caribbean

Abstract

Insights into the character of social relations are rare but exciting glimpses when it comes to archaeological populations. This paper uses a multidisciplinary combination of archaeological and evolutionary biological approaches to assess the social value of the bared‐teeth motif (BTM) in pre‐Columbian iconography of the Greater Antilles. Bared teeth feature on discrete artifact categories within the material culture of many different groups in the Taino culture area after AD 1000. This BTM, usually part of facial anthropomorphic or zoomorphic decoration, is used for bodily adornments and items associated with healing and shamanic practices. It has generally been interpreted as representative of death, aggression, or the shamanic trance. However, the motif has never been examined in terms of its signal value as a positive facial expression. Studies of facial expression in human and nonhuman primates have shown that the bared‐teeth expression is used in social contexts as an unambiguous signal of nonaggres...