Pyramids and Temple Mounds: Mesoamerican Ceremonial Architecture in Eastern North America

Abstract

AbstractVarious scholars have considered the problem of Mesoamerican cultural influences in the eastern United States. They agree in general on a Mesoamerican origin for temple mounds. Eastern temple mounds are later than the earliest ones from Mesoamerica and, like them, are characterized by groups of four around a plaza, super-imposed construction, frequent eastward orientation of the principal platform of a group, and capping by a temple structure. The Huastec region of northeastern Mesoamerica seems to show the closest architectural similarities to the southeastern United States. At the same time, authorities do not concur on the origin of funerary mounds, which occur in the Preclassic of Mesoamerica at Aljojuca (Puebla), at La Venta (Tabasco), at Kaminaljuyu (highland Guatemala), and probably at many other sites. Many of these were constructed prior to the earliest burial mound sites in the United States. Since Chard has refuted the hypothesis of Asiatic origin for burial mounds, a Mesoamerican origin seems even more likely. Art motifs diffused along with the mound concept. Both are manifest in art that is considered to be hieratic, which points to possible migration of an elite group. How such diffusion took place remains unanswered, but the possibilities of maritime connections merit consideration. Contacts between Mesoamerica and the eastern United States appear to have been frequent, varied, and early.