What is this bizarre statue that anthropology researcher John Hodgson has discovered in the wilds of Mexico? It could change the way we understand early American settlers.
A release from University of Wisconsin explains what you're seeing in the sculpture:
The main figure on the tablet is depicted wearing an elaborate headdress, loincloth and ornate accessories, including a pair of large, comb-like ear ornaments, a rope-like necklace and a thick belt with a jaguar-head buckle. A face on the headdress includes features such as sprouting plants that identify it as a corn god. The tablet also includes a smaller secondary figure and a series of asymmetric zigzag designs that the authors suggest could represent lightning, local mountain ranges, or other features of the natural world.
"This is closely connected with agriculture and the cult of the corn god," [anthropologist Michael D.] Coe says, pointing out the zigzags. "Thunderstorms bring the rain."
The large sculpture was found in Ojo de Agua, which is:
the heart of the ancient Aztec province Soconusco, nestled in a bend of the Coatán River. It is the earliest known site in Mesoamerica with formal pyramids built around plazas.
Though it has not been worked very extensively as an archeological site, Ojo de Agua appears to cover about 200 hectares and is the largest site in the area from the time period 1200-1000 B.C. The limited work to date describes civic architecture consistent with a decent-sized planned settlement. The identified platform mounds are laid out in a deliberate alignment that may be relative to magnetic north.
"That's something we see later but to see it this early is pretty surprising," says Hodgson, who has been working at Ojo de Agua since 2003.
The site appears to have been occupied for 150 to 200 years before being abandoned for unknown reasons.