Ancient Middle America
Midsemester Exam, Fall 2011, Page 1
Anthropology 3618 Ancient Middle America
Midsemester Exam
13 October 2011
Version D
Answer the following FOUR (4) questions are provided by “James” in Moodle. These questions
are generated from the questions you submitted to the class Midterm wiki, plus the addition to
the pool of at least one current affairs question and a question allowing you make up and
answer a question of your choice.
Question 1
1. What, in your opinion, is the most plausible way for humans to have reached the
American continents? Describe what method (if not both) and why.
2. Compare what you consider the most plausible way with competing hypotheses
("theories") that you do not consider "the most plausible."
Question 2
The movie Excavations at La Venta was a film about the findings of the Olmecs at La
Venta. What were some of the artifacts and site features found, and how has this
evidence helped archaeologists put together what Olmec society and ideology might
have been like?
Ancient Middle America
Midsemester Exam, Fall 2011, Page 2
Question 3
Edit
Marks: 100
On 30 September 2011 National Geographic News ran the headline "Cannibalism
Confirmed Among Ancient Mexican Group". Read the article below, or on-line at
<http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/news/2011/11/110930-cannibalismcannibals-mexico-xiximes-human-bones-science/>.
Review and critique the National Geographic article from the point of view its
significance to the studies of Ancient Middle America.
What, in your opinion, is the primary value of this information to Ancient Middle
American Studies? Why?
Cannibalism Confirmed Among Ancient Mexican Group
Eating humans "crucial" to spiritual life of the Xiximes people.
Sabrina Valle
for National Geographic News
Published September 30, 2011
It's long been rumored that an ancient, isolated people in what's now northern Mexico
ate their own kind, in the hopes that they'd be able to eat corn later.
Now an analysis of more than three dozen bones bearing evidence of boiling and
defleshing confirms that the Xiximes people were in fact cannibals, archaeologists say.
The Xiximes believed that ingesting the bodies and souls of their enemies and using
the cleaned bones in rituals would guarantee the fertility of the grain harvest, according
to historical accounts by Jesuit missionaries.
The newfound bones prove that cannibalism, "was a crucial aspect of their worldview,
their identity," said José Luis Punzo, an archaeologist behind the new research.
(Related: "Cannibalism Normal For Early Humans?")
Eating Only Their Own
Ancient Middle America
Midsemester Exam, Fall 2011, Page 3
The mountains of what's now Durango state (map) were once home to some 5,000
Xiximes, as well as other indigenous groups.
It was only the Xiximes and the like-minded Acaxées who are said to have been
cannibals, though no archaeological evidence for the practice has been found for the
Acaxées, said Punzo, of the Durango office of the Mexican National Institute of
Anthropology and History (INAH).
"Through their rituals, cannibalism, and bone hoarding, they marked a clear boundary
between an 'us' and 'them,'" Punzo said—"us" being the Acaxées and Xiximes, and
"them" being everybody else.
The two groups fought and killed members of other groups, he said. But the Acaxées
and Xiximes ate only their own kind, specifically men. Other native groups and Spanish
colonizers were apparently ritually worthless, according to historical studies.
(Also see "Druids Committed Human Sacrifice, Cannibalism?")
Cave Cache of Boiled Bones
Some historians had derided the missionaries' reports of cannibalism as exaggerations.
But the bones found in Cueva del Maguey—a hamlet built inside a huge, cliffside
cave—should erase any doubts, Punzo said.
(Related: "Neandertals Turned to Cannibalism, Bone Cave Suggests.")
Tests showed that 80 percent of four dozen bones—found in houses dated to around
1425—bear marks and other evidence of being boiled and cut with blades of stone,
Punzo added.
The bones had been relatively untouched for centuries—a godsend for scientists made
possible by the isolation of Cueva del Maguey, deep in a pine forest and 8,530 feet
(2,600 meters) above sea level.
Circle of Life
For the Xiximes, the planting-and-sowing cycle was intertwined with a cycle of
cannibalism and bone rituals, according to the INAH report, announced at the 14th
Archaeology Conference of the North Frontier this summer in Paquimé, Mexico.
After each corn harvest, Xiximes warriors were deployed to hunt for enemies—and their
flesh.
Ancient Middle America
Midsemester Exam, Fall 2011, Page 4
Most of the time the Xiximes would prey on lone men from other villages working in the
fields. Other times, the Xiximes would engage small groups in forest battles, according
to the historical record.
The warriors would bring the dead victims back to the village, where Xiximes would rip
the bodies apart at the joints, taking care not to break the bones. In cases when
carrying a whole body was impractical, the head and hands would be removed and
brought back to the village, according to INAH's research.
Body parts were cooked in pans until the bones emerged clean. The flesh was then
cooked with beans and corn and eaten in a type of soup—part of an all-night village
ritual, complete with singing and dancing, according to missionaries' reports.
After the feast, the bones were stored for months in treasure houses. Then, in the runup to the annual planting season, the Xiximes would hang the bones from roofs and
trees—enticements to the spirits to help the crops along.
"For these practices," Punzo said, "they were called by Jesuits the wildest and most
barbarian people of the New World."
© 1996-2011 National Geographic Society. All rights reserved.
Question 4
In the movie "The Fifth World of the Aztecs" we learn of the versatility of the Aztec
people. It was also mentioned several times in class that the Aztecs are very often used
as the model for interpreting pre-Aztec peoples of all of Ancient Middle America. Cactus
was central in many ways to Aztec life. Please give three ways in which the Aztecs
utilized or related to the cactus plant, and discuss each of those three in terms of its
significance in interpreting Ancient Middle America.