Abstract
Earlier generations of Mesoamerican scholars created figurine types and chronologies, laying the foundation for today’s archaeologists who have been linking figurines to household archaeology, gender studies, performance, materiality, embodiment, animism, political economy, agency, and identity. Scholars are establishing a figurine’s life history from clay procurement to manufacture, manipulation, and circulation; assessing the changes over time in the meaning and function of handmade and mold-made figurines; reembedding figurines into the dynamic, social, and animate world from which they emanated; and linking figurines to associated artifacts in the house, courtyards, caches, burials, and neighborhood middens.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References Cited
Abascal, R., Harbottle, G., and Sayre, E. (1974). Correlations between terracotta figurines and pottery from the Valley of Mexico and source clays by activation analysis. In Beck, C. (ed.), Archaeological Chemistry, American Chemical Society, Washington, DC, pp. 81–99.
Aimers, J. J., and Rice, P. M. (2006). Astronomy, ritual, and the interpretation of Maya “E-Group” architectural assemblages. Ancient Mesoamerica 17: 79–96.
Alberti, B., and Marshall, Y. (2009). Animating archaeology: Local theories and conceptually open-ended methodologies. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 19: 344–356.
Alex, B. A., Nichols, D. L., and Glascock, M. D. (2012). Complementary compositional analysis of Formative period ceramics from the Teotihuacan Valley. Archaeometry 54: 821–834.
Allen, C. J. (2016). The living ones: Miniatures and animation in the Andes. Journal of Anthropological Research 72: 416–441.
Álvarez, C., and Casasola, L. (1985). Las figurillas de Jonuta, Tabasco, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico.
Arnold III, P. J., and Follensbee, B. J. (2015). Early Formative anthropomorphic figurines from La Joya, southern Veracruz, Mexico. Ancient Mesoamerica 26: 13–28.
Atwood, R. (2013). Tomb of the vulture lord: A king’s burial reveals a pivotal moment in Maya history. Archaeology 66(5): 46–50.
Aveni, A. F., Dowd, A. S., and Vining, B. (2003). Maya calendar reform? Evidence from orientations of specialized architectural assemblages. Latin American Antiquity 14: 159–178.
Averett, E. W. (2015). Masks and ritual performance on the island of Cyprus. American Journal of Archaeology 119: 3–45.
Awe, J. J. (1992). Dawn in the Land between the Rivers: Formative Occupation at Cahal Pech, Belize and Its Implications for Preclassic Development in the Maya Lowlands, Ph.D. dissertation, Institute of Archaeology, University of London, London.
Awe, J. J. (2013). Journey on the Cahal Pech time machine: An archaeological reconstruction of the dynastic sequence at a Belize Valley Maya polity. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 10: 33–50.
Bailey, D. W. (1994). Reading prehistoric figurines as individuals. World Archaeology 25: 321–331.
Bailey, D. W. (1996). Interpreting figurines: The emergence of illusion and new ways of seeing. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 6: 291–295.
Bailey, D. W. (2005). Prehistoric Figurines: Representation and Corporeality in the Neolithic, Routledge, London.
Bailey, D. W. (2010). The figurines of old Europe. In Anthony, D. W., and Chi, J. Y. (eds.), The Lost World of Old Europe: The Danube Valley, 5000–3500 BC, New York Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University and Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, pp. 113–127.
Balkansky, A. K., Feinman, G. M., and Nicholas, L. M. (1997). Pottery kilns of ancient Ejutla, Oaxaca, Mexico. Journal of Field Archaeology 24: 139–160.
Bánffy, E. (1988). Anthropomorphic figurines in cult corners of Neolithic and Chalcolithic houses: Attempt at an interpretation. In La statuaria antropomorfa in Europa dal Neolitico alla Romanizzazione, Atti del Congresso la Spezia Pontremoli, pp. 41–46.
Barber, S. B., and Olvera, M. (2012). A divine wind: The arts of death and music in Terminal Formative Oaxaca. Ancient Mesoamerica 23: 9–24.
Barber, S. B., Sánchez, G., and Olvera, M. (2009). Sounds of death and life in Mesoamerica: The bone flutes of ancient Oaxaca. 2009 Yearbook for Traditional Music 41: 94–110.
Barbour, W. D. (1975). Figurines and Figurine Chronology of Ancient Teotihuacan, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY.
Barbour, W. D. (1998). The figurine chronology of Teotihuacan, Mexico. In Brambila Paz, R., and Cabrera Castro, R. (eds.), Los ritmos de cambio en Teotihuacán: Reflexiones y discusiones de su cronología, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City, pp. 243–254.
Barrera Rivera, J. A., Gallardo Parrodi, M., and Montúfar López, A. (2001). La ofrenda 102 del Templo Mayor. Arqueología Mexicana 8: 70–77.
Beeman, W. O. (1993). The anthropology of theater and spectacle. Annual Review of Anthropology 22: 369–393.
Beekman, C. S., and Pickering, R. B. (eds.). (2016). Shaft Tombs and Figures in West Mexican Society: A Reassessment, Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, Tulsa, OK.
Begun, E. (2008). The many faces of figurines: Figurines as markers of ethnicity in Michoacan. Ancient Mesoamerica 19: 311–318.
Benavides Castillo, A. (2009). Figurillas de Jaina, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City.
Bernal, I. (1958). Exploraciones en Cuilapan de Guerrero, 1902–1954, Informes 7, Dirección de Monumentos Prehispánicos, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City.
Bird-David, N. (1999). “Animism” revisited: Personhood, environment, and relational epistemology. Current Anthropology 40: 67–91.
Bishop, R. L. (2014). Instrumental approaches to understanding Mesoamerican economy: Elusive promises. Ancient Mesoamerica 25: 251–269.
Bishop, R. L., and Blackman, M. J. (2002). Instrumental neutron activation analysis of archaeological ceramics: Scale and interpretation. Accounts of Chemical Research 35: 603–610.
Bishop, R. L., Ruiz Guzmán, R., and Folan, W. J. (2000). Figurines and musical instruments of Calakmul, Campeche, Mexico: Their chemical classification. Los Investigadores de la Cultura Maya 7: 322–328.
Blomster, J. P. (2004). Etlatongo: Social Complexity, Interaction, and Village Life in the Mixteca Alta of Oaxaca, Mexico, Wadsworth, Belmont, CA.
Borić, D., and Robb, J. (eds.) (2008). Past Bodies: Body-Centered Research in Archaeology, Oxbow Books, Oxford.
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. by R. Nice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Brain, J. (1973). Ancestors as elders in Africa: Further thoughts. Africa 43: 122–133.
Bray, T. L. (ed.) (2015). The Archaeology of Wak’as: Explorations of the Sacred in the Pre-Columbian Andes, University Press of Colorado, Boulder.
Brinton, D. G. (1894). Nagualism: A study in Native American folk-lore and history. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 11: 11–73.
Broda, J. (1971). Las fiestas aztecas de los dioses de la lluvia: Una reconstrucción según las fuentes del siglo XVI. Revista Española de Antropología Americana 6: 245–327.
Broda, J. (2001). Ritos mexicas en los cerros de la cuenca: Los sacrificios de niños. In Broda, J., Iwaniszewski, S., and Montero García, I. A. (eds.), La montaña en el paisaje ritual, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City, pp. 295–317.
Brown, L. A. (2000). From discard to divination: Demarcating the sacred through the collection and curation of discarded objects. Latin American Antiquity 11: 319–333.
Brown, L. A., and Emery, K. F. (2008). Negotiations with the animate forest: Hunting shrines in the Guatemalan highlands. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 15: 300–337.
Brown, L. A., and Walker, W. H. (2008). Prologue: Archaeology, animism, and non-human agents. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 15: 297–299.
Brumfiel, E. M. (1996). Figurines and the Aztec state: Testing the effectiveness of ideological domination. In Wright, R. P. (ed.), Gender and Archaeology, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, pp. 143–166.
Brumfiel, E. M., and Overholtzer, L. (2009). Alien bodies, everyday people, and hollow spaces: Embodiment, figurines, and social discourse in Postclassic Mexico. In Halperin, C. T., Faust, K. A., Taube, R., and Giguet, A. (eds.), Mesoamerican Figurines: Small-Scale Indices of Large-Scale Social Phenomena, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, pp. 296–323.
Busby, C. (1997). Permeable and partible persons: A comparative analysis of gender and the body in South India and Melanesia. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 3: 261-278.
Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Gender, Routledge, London.
Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex,’ Routledge, London.
Butler, J. (1997). Performative acts and gender constitution: An essay in phenomenology and feminist theory. In Conboy, K., Medina, N., and Stanbury, S. (eds.), Writing on the Body: Female Embodiment and Feminist Theory, Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 401–417.
Butler, M. (1935). A study of Maya mouldmade figurines. American Anthropologist 37: 636–672.
Butterwick, K. M. (1998). Days of the Dead: Ritual Consumption and Ancestor Worship in an Ancient West Mexican Society, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado, Boulder.
Caso, A. (1942). Resumen del informe de las exploraciones en Oaxaca, durante la 7a y 8a temporadas 1937–1938 y 1938–1939. Actas del XXVII Internacional Congreso de Americanistas 1939, Vol. II: 159–187.
Castillo Aguilar, V., Neff, H., Bishop, R., Sears, E. L., and Blackman, M. J. (2008). Mujeres y contrahechos: Las figurillas moldeadas de la costa sur de Guatemala. In Laporte, J. P., Arroyo, B., and Mejía, H. E. (eds.), XXII Simposio de investigaciones arqueológicas en Guatemala, Instituto de Antropología e Historia, Asociación Tikal, Guatemala City, pp. 899–912.
Chapman, J. (2000). Fragmentation in Archaeology: People, Places, and Broken Objects in the Prehistory of South Eastern Europe, Routledge, London.
Chapman, J., and Gaydarska, B. (2007). Parts and Wholes: Fragmentation in Prehistoric Context, Oxbow Books, Oxford.
Charlton, T. H., Nichols, D. L., and Otis Charlton, C. (1991). Aztec craft production and specialization: Archaeological evidence from the city-state of Otumba, Mexico. World Archaeology 23: 98–114.
Chase, D. Z., and Chase, A. F. (1988). A Postclassic Perspective: Excavations at the Maya Site of Santa Rita Corozal, Belize, Monograph 4, Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute, San Francisco.
Cheetham, D. (2009). Early Olmec figurines from two regions: Style as cultural imperative. In Halperin, C. T., Faust, K. A., Taube, R., and Giguet, A. (eds.), Mesoamerican Figurines: Small-Scale Indices of Large-scale Social Phenomena, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, pp. 149–179.
Clark, S. (2003). Representing the Indus body: Sex, gender, sexuality, and the anthropomorphic terracotta figurines from Harappa. Asian Perspectives 42: 304–328.
Clark, S. (2009). Material matters: Representation and materiality of the Harappan body. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 16: 231–261.
Conkey, M. W., and Tringham, R. E. (1995). Archaeology and the goddesses: Exploring the contours of feminist archaeology. In Stanton, D. C., and Stewart, A. J. (eds.), Feminisms in the Academy, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, pp. 199–247.
Cook, A. G. (1992). The stone ancestors: Idioms of imperial attire and rank among Huari figurines. Latin American Antiquity 3: 341–364.
Corson, C. (1976). Maya Anthropomorphic Figurines from Jaina Island, Campeche, Ballena Press, Ramona, CA.
Cowgill, G. L. (2008). Versatile earth: A heritage of clay. Artes de México 88: 68–71.
Cox, J. L. (1998). Rational Ancestors: Scientific Rationality and African Indigenous Religions, Cardiff University Press, Cardiff, Wales.
Cruz, W. (1946). Oaxaca recóndita: Razas, idiomas, costumbres, leyendas y tradiciones del estado de Oaxaca, México, Oaxaca, Mexico.
Csordas, T. J. (1990). Embodiment as a paradigm for anthropology. Ethos 18: 5–47.
Csordas, T. J. (1994). Embodiment and Experience: The Existential Ground of Culture and Self, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Cyphers Guillén, A. (1993). Women, rituals, and social dynamics at ancient Chalcatzingo. Latin American Antiquity 4: 209–224.
De Lucia, K. (2010). A child’s house: Social memory, identity, and the construction of childhood in Early Postclassic Mexican households. American Anthropologist 112: 607–624.
De Lucia, K. (2014). Everyday practice and ritual space: The organization of domestic ritual in pre-Aztec Xaltocan, Mexico. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 24: 379–403.
Dieseldorff, E. P. (1926). Kunst und Religion der Mayavӧlker, Verlag von Julius Springer, Berlin.
Douglas, J. G. (2002). Hinterland Households: Rural Agrarian Household Diversity in Northwestern Honduras, University Press of Colorado, Boulder.
Drennan, R. D. (1976). Fábrica San José and Middle Formative Society in the Valley of Oaxaca, Memoirs No. 8, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Drucker, P., Heizer, R. F., and Squier, R. J. (1959). Excavations at La Venta, Tabasco, 1955, Bulletin 170, Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.
Duncan, W. N., and Schwarz, K. R. (2014). Partible, permeable, and relational bodies in a Maya mass grave. In Osterholtz, A. J., Baustian, K. M., and Martin, D. L. (eds.), Commingled and Disarticulated Human Remains: Working Toward Improved Theory, Method, and Data, Springer, New York, pp. 149–170.
Ekholm, S. M. (1979a). The Lagartero figurines. In Hammond, N., and Willey, G. R. (eds.), Maya Archaeology and Ethnohistory, University of Texas Press, Austin, pp. 172–186.
Ekholm, S. M. (1979b). The significance of an extraordinary Maya ceremonial refuse deposit at Lagartero, Chiapas. Proceedings of the International Congress of Americanists 8: 147–159.
Eller, C. (2000). The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Won’t Give Women a Future, Beacon Press, Boston, MA.
Estrada Balmori, E. (1949). Funeraria en Chupícuaro, Guanajuato. Anales del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia 3: 79–87.
Faugère, B. (2014). Las figurillas de barro de Chupícuaro, Guanajuato: Imágenes aisladas y escenas. Arqueología Mexicana 129: 24–29.
Feinman, G. M. (1999). Rethinking our assumptions: Economic specialization at the household scale in ancient Ejutla, Oaxaca, Mexico. In Skibo, J. M., and Feinman, G. M. (eds.), Pottery and People: A Dynamic Interaction, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, pp. 81–98.
Feinman, G. M., and Nicholas, L. M. (2011). Domestic craft production and the Classic period economy of Oaxaca. In Manzanilla, L. R., and Hirth, K. G. (eds.), Producción artesanal y especializada en Mesoamérica: Áreas de actividad y procesos productivos, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City, pp. 29–58.
Feldman, M. S., and Orlikowski, W. J. (2011). Theorizing practice and practicing theory. Organization Science 22: 1240–1253.
Filloy Nadal, L. (2013). La ofrenda 4 de La Venta: Un tesoro olmeca reunido en el Museo Nacional de Antropología, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City.
Flannery, K. V., and Marcus, J. (2005). Excavations at San José Mogote 1: Household Archaeology, Memoirs No. 40, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Flannery, K. V., and Marcus, J. (2012). The Creation of Inequality, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Flannery, K. V., and Marcus, J. (2015). Excavations at San José Mogote 2: The Cognitive Archaeology, Memoirs No. 58, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Foias, A. E. (1996). Changing Ceramic Production and Exchange Systems and the Classic Maya Collapse in the Petexbatun Region, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.
Follensbee, B. J. (2009). Formative period Gulf Coast ceramic figurines: The key to identifying sex, gender, and age groups in Gulf Coast Olmec imagery. In Halperin, C. T., Faust, K. A., Taube, R., and Giguet, A. (eds.), Mesoamerican Figurines: Small-Scale Indices of Large-Scale Social Phenomena, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, pp. 77–118.
Follensbee, B. J. (2014). Unsexed images, gender-neutral costume, and gender-ambiguous costume in Formative period Gulf Coast cultures. In Orr, H., and Looper, M. G. (eds.), Wearing Culture: Dress and Regalia in Early Mesoamerica and Central America, University Press of Colorado, Boulder, pp. 207–225.
Fonseca Ibarra, M. (2008). Figurillas: Identidades reconocidas, relaciones establecidas: Estudios de identidad de género en las figurillas antropomorfas de Teopancazco, Teotihuacan. Undergraduate thesis, Departamento de Arqueología, Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City.
Forouzan, F., Glover, J. B., Williams, F., and Deocampo, D. (2012). Portable XRF analysis of zoomorphic figurines, “tokens,” and sling bullets from Chogha Gavaneh, Iran. Journal of Archaeological Science 39: 3534–3541.
Fortes, M. (1976). An introductory commentary. In Newell, W. H. (ed.), Ancestors, Mouton, The Hague, pp. 1–16.
Freidel, D., Rich, M., and Reilly III, F. K. (2010). Resurrecting the maize king: Figurines from a Maya tomb bring a royal funeral to life. Archaeology 63(5): 42–45.
Furst, J. L. (1995). The Natural History of the Soul in Ancient Mexico, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.
Gable, E. (1996). Women, ancestors, and alterity among the Manjaco of Guinea-Bissau. Journal of Religion in Africa 26: 104–121.
Gallegos Gómara, M. J. (2011). ¿Vestidas o desvestidas? Esa es la pregunta: Iconografía y contexto de las figurillas del Formativo Medio en Tabasco. In López Hernández, M., and Rodríguez-Shadow, M. J. (eds.), Género y sexualidad en el México antiguo, Centro de Estudios de Antropología de la Mujer, Puebla, Mexico, pp. 195–216.
García-Heras, M., Reyes Trujeque, J., Ruiz Guzmán, R., Avilés Escaño, M. A., Ruiz Conde, A., and Sánchez-Soto, P. J. (2006). Estudio arqueométrico de figurillas cerámicas mayas de Calakmul (Campeche, Mexico). Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Cerámica y Vidrio 45: 245–254.
García Moll, R., Juárez Cossío, D., Pijoan Aguade, C., Salas Cuesta, M. E., and Salas Cuesta, M. (1991). Catálogo de entierros de San Luis Tlatilco, México, temporada IV, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City.
Gazin-Schwartz, A. (2001). Archaeology and folklore of material culture, ritual, and everyday life. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 5: 263–280.
Geller, P. (2012). Parting (with) the dead: Body partibility as evidence of commoner ancestor veneration. Ancient Mesoamerica 23: 115–130.
Gimbutas, M. (1974). Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe, Thames and Hudson, London.
Gimbutas, M. (1989). Women and culture in goddess-oriented Old Europe. In Plaskow, J., and Christ, C. C. (eds.), Weaving the Visions, Harpers, San Francisco, pp. 63–71.
Goldsmith, K. C. (2000). Forgotten Images: A Study of the Ceramic Figurines from Teotihuacán, Mexico, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Riverside.
Goldstein, M. M. (1979). Maya Figurines from Campeche, Mexico: Classification on the Basis of Clay Chemistry, Style and Iconography, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Art History, Columbia University, New York.
Goldstein, M. M. (1980). Relationships between the figurines of Jaina and Palenque. In Robertson, M. G. (ed.), The Third Palenque Round Table 1978, Part 2, University of Texas Press, Austin, pp. 91–98.
Gose, P. (2006). Mountains historicized: Ancestors and landscape in the colonial Andes. In Dransart, P. (ed.), Kay Pacha: Cultivating Earth and Water in the Andes, BAR International Series 1478, Archaeopress, Oxford, pp. 29–38.
Grigsby, T. L., and Cook de Leonard, C. (1992). Xilonen in Tepoztlán: A comparison of Tepoztecan and Aztec agrarian ritual schedules. Ethnohistory 39: 108–147.
Groleau, A. B. (2009). Special finds: Locating animism in the archaeological record. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 19: 398–406.
Grossman, J. W. (1969-70). A huaquero’s discard: Eleven associated molds from Huaca Facho, Peru. Ñawpa Pacha: Journal of Andean Archaeology 7/8: 29–39.
Grove, D. C. (1974). San Pablo, Nexpa, and the Early Formative Archaeology of Morelos, Mexico, Publications in Anthropology No. 12, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.
Grove, D. C. (ed.) (1987). Ancient Chalcatzingo, University of Texas, Austin.
Grove, D. C. (2008). Religión olmeca: Voces del pasado y direcciones futuras. In Uriarte, M. T., and González Lauck, R. B. (eds.), Olmeca: Balance y perspectivas, memoria de la Primera Mesa Redonda, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City, and New World Archaeological Foundation, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, pp. 135–144.
Grove, D. C., and Gillespie, S. D. (1984). Chalcatzingo’s portrait figurines and the cult of the ruler. Archaeology 37(4): 27–33.
Guilliem Arroyo, S., Vallejo Zamora, S., and Medina Pérez, Á. (1998). Ofrenda en el Templo Mayor de México-Tlatelolco. Arqueología 19: 101–117.
Gunnerson, J. H. (1957). Prehistoric figurines from Castle Valley. Archaeology 10(2): 137–140.
Hallowell, A. I. (1955). The self in its behavioral environment. In Hallowell, A. I. (ed.), Culture and Experience, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, pp. 75–110.
Hallowell, A. I. (1960). Ojibwa ontology, behavior, and worldview. In Diamond, S. (ed.), Culture in History: Essays in Honor of Paul Radin, Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 19–52.
Halperin, C. T. (2007). Materiality, Bodies, and Practice: The Political Economy of Late Classic Figurines from Motul de San José, Petén, Guatemala, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Riverside.
Halperin, C. T. (2009). Figurines as bearers and burdens in Late Classic Maya state politics. In Halperin, C. T., Faust, K. A., Taube, R., and Giguet A. (eds.), Mesoamerican Figurines: Small-Scale Indices of Large-Scale Phenomena, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, pp. 378–403.
Halperin, C. T. (2012). Figurine economies at Motul de San José: Multiple and shifting modes of valuation. In Foias, A. E., and Emery, K. F. (eds.), Motul de San José: Politics, History, and Economy in a Classic Maya Polity, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, pp. 139–166.
Halperin, C. T. (2014). Maya Figurines: Intersections between State and Household, University of Texas Press, Austin.
Halperin, C. T., Bishop, R. L., Spensley, E., and Blackman, M. J. (2009). Late Classic (AD 600–900) Maya market exchange: Analysis of figurines from the Motul de San José region, Guatemala. Journal of Field Archaeology 34: 457–480.
Hammond, N. (1972a). Classic Maya music, part I: Maya drums. Archaeology 25(2): 124–131.
Hammond, N. (1972b). Classic Maya music, part II: Rattles, shakers, raspers, wind and string instruments. Archaeology 25(3): 222–228.
Hammond, N. (1975). Lubaantun: A Classic Maya Realm, Monograph 2, Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
Harlan, M. (1987). Chalcatzingo’s Formative figurines. In Grove, D. C. (ed.), Ancient Chalcatzingo, University of Texas Press, Austin, pp. 252–263.
Harvey, G. (2006). Animism: Respecting the Living World, Columbia University Press, New York.
Haury, E. W. (1965). Figurines and miscellaneous clay objects. In Gladwin, H. S., Haury, E. W., Sayles, E. B., and Gladwin, N. (eds.), Excavations at Snaketown: Material Culture, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, pp. 233–245.
Healy, P. F. (1988). Music of the Maya. Archaeology 41(1): 24–31.
Hendon, J. A. (2003). In the house: Maya nobility and their figurine-whistles. Expedition 45(3): 28–33.
Hendon, J. A., Joyce, R. A., and Lopiparo, J. (2014). Material Relations: The Marriage Figurines of Prehispanic Honduras, University Press of Colorado, Boulder.
Hepp, G. D., and Rieger, I. A. (2014). Aspects of dress and ornamentation in coastal Oaxaca’s Formative period. In Orr, H., and Looper, M. (eds.), Wearing Culture: Dress and Regalia in Early Mesoamerica and Central America, University Press of Colorado, Boulder, pp. 115–144.
Hepp, G. D., Barber, S. B., and Joyce, A. A. (2014). Communing with nature, the ancestors and the neighbors: Ancient ceramic musical instruments from coastal Oaxaca, Mexico. World Archaeology 46: 380–399.
Hong, J. (2011). Virtual theater of the dead: Actor figurines and their stage in Houma Tomb No. 1, Shanxi province. Artibus Asiae 71: 75–114.
Horcajada, P., Roldán, C., Vidal, C., Rodenas, I., Carballo, J., Murcia, S., and Juanes, D. (2014). Archaeometric study of ceramic figurines from the Maya settlement of La Blanca (Petén, Guatemala). Radiation Physics and Chemistry 97: 275–283.
Hutton, R. (1997). The Neolithic great goddess: A study in modern tradition. Antiquity 71: 91–99.
Hvidtfeldt, A. (1958). Teotl and Ixiptlati: Some Central Concepts in Ancient Mexican Religion, Munksgaard, Copenhagen.
Ingold, T. (2006). Rethinking the animate, re-animating thought. Ethnos 71: 9–20.
Inomata, T. (1997). The last day of a fortified Classic Maya center: Archaeological investigations at Aguateca, Guatemala. Ancient Mesoamerica 8: 337–351.
Inomata, T. (2003). War, destruction, and abandonment: The fall of the Classic Maya center of Aguateca, Guatemala. In Inomata, T., and Webb, R. W. (eds.), Archaeology of Settlement Abandonment in Middle America, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, pp. 43–60.
Inomata, T. (2006). Plazas, performers, and spectators: Political theaters of the Classic Maya. Current Anthropology 47: 805–842.
Inomata, T., and Coben, L. S. (eds.) (2006). Archaeology of Performance: Theaters of Power, Community, and Politics, AltaMira Press, Lanham, MD.
Inomata, T., and Stiver, L. (1998). Floor assemblages from burned structures at Aguateca, Guatemala: A study of Classic Maya households. Journal of Field Archaeology 25: 431–452.
Insoll, T. (2008). Negotiating the archaeology of destiny: An exploration of interpretive possibilities through Tallensi shrines. Journal of Social Archaeology 8: 380–403.
Insoll, T. (2011). Ancestor cults. In Insoll, T. (ed.), Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Ritual and Religion, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 1043–1058.
Insoll, T. (ed.) (2017). The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Insoll, T., Kankpeyeng, B., and Nkumbaan, S. (2012). Fragmentary ancestors? Medicine, bodies, and personhood in a Koma mound, northern Ghana. In Rountree, K., Morris, C., and Peatfield, A. (eds.), Archaeology of Spiritualities, Springer, New York, pp. 25–45.
James, E. O. (1959). The Cult of the Mother Goddess: An Archaeological and Documentary Study, Praeger, London.
Jett, S. C. (1991). Split-twig figurines, early maize, and a child burial in east-central Utah. Utah Archaeology 4(1): 23–31.
Joyce, R. A. (1993). Women’s work: Images of production and reproduction in pre-hispanic southern Central America. Current Anthropology 34: 255–274.
Joyce, R. A. (1998). Performing the body in prehispanic Central America. RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 33: 147–155.
Joyce, R. A. (2000). Girling the girl and boying the boy: The production of adulthood in ancient Mesoamerica. World Archaeology 31: 473–483.
Joyce, R. A. (2003). Making something of herself: Embodiment in life and death at Playa de los Muertos, Honduras. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 13: 248–261.
Joyce, R. A. (2004). Embodied subjectivity: Gender, femininity, masculinity, sexuality. In Meskell, L., and Preucel, R. W. (eds.), A Companion to Social Archaeology, Blackwell, Malden, MA, pp. 82–95.
Joyce, R. A. (2005). Archaeology of the body. Annual Review of Anthropology 34: 139–158.
Joyce, R. A. (2007). Figurines, meaning, and meaning-making in early Mesoamerica. In Renfrew, C., and Morley, I. (eds.), Material Beginnings: A Global Prehistory of Figurative Representation, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge University, Cambridge, pp. 107–116.
Joyce, R. A. (2008). When the flesh is solid but the person is hollow inside: Formal variation in handmodeled figurines from Formative Mesoamerica. In Borić, D., and Robb, J. (eds.), Past Bodies: Body-Centered Research in Archaeology, Oxbow Books, Oxford, pp. 37–45.
Joyce, R. A. (2014). Ties that bind: Cloth, clothing, and embodiment in Formative Honduras. In Orr, H., and Looper, M. (eds.), Wearing Culture: Dress and Regalia in Early Mesoamerica and Central America, University Press of Colorado, Boulder, pp. 61–78.
Joyce, T. A. (1926). Report on the investigations at Lubaantun, British Honduras, in 1926. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 56: 207–230.
Joyce, T. A. (1933). The pottery whistle-figurines of Lubaantun. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 63: 15–25.
Joyce, T. A., Cooper Clark, J., and Thompson, J. E. (1927). Report on the British Museum Expedition to British Honduras, 1927. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 57: 295–323.
Kankpeyeng, B., Swanepoel, N., Insoll, T., Nkumbaan, S., Amartey, S., and Saako, M. (2013). Insights into past ritual practice at Yikpabongo, northern region, Ghana. The African Archaeological Review 30: 475–499.
Kaplan, F. (1958). The Postclassic figurines of central Mexico. M.A. thesis, Department of Anthropology, Columbia University, New York.
Kaplan, F. (2006). The Post-Classic Figurines of Central Mexico, Occasional Publication 11, Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, State University of New York, Albany.
Kaplan, L. N. (1956). Tonal and nagual in coastal Oaxaca, Mexico. The Journal of American Folklore 69: 363–368.
Kinnear-Ferris, S. (2007). A dated split-twig figurine from western Colorado. Kiva 72: 345–352.
Klein, C. F., and Victoria Lona, N. (2009). Sex in the city: A comparison of Aztec ceramic figurines to copal figurines from the Templo Mayor. In Halperin, C. T., Faust, K. A., Taube, R., and Giguet, A. (eds.), Mesoamerican Figurines: Small-Scale Indices of Large-Scale Social Phenomena, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, pp. 327–377.
Kopytoff, I. (1971). Ancestors as elders in Africa. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 41: 129–142.
Kosakowsky, L. J., and Robin, C. (2010). Contextualizing ritual behavior at the Chan site: Pottery vessels and ceramic artifacts from burials, caches, and problematical deposits. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 7: 45–54.
Kray, C. A. (2007). A practice approach to ritual: Catholic enactment of community in Yucatán. Anthropos 102: 531–545.
Kuijt, I., and Chesson, M. S. (2004). Lumps of clay and pieces of stone: Ambiguity, bodies, and identity as portrayed in Neolithic figurines. In Pollock, S., and Bernbeck, R. (eds.), Archaeologies of the Middle East: Critical Perspectives, Blackwell, London, pp. 152–183.
Langin-Hooper, S. M. (2011). Beyond Typology: Investigating Entanglements of Difference and Exploring Object-Generated Social Interactions in the Terracotta Figurines of Hellenistic Babylonia, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of California, Berkeley.
Lee, T. A. (1969). The Artifacts of Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas, Mexico, Paper No. 26, New World Archaeological Foundation Papers, Provo, UT.
Lesure, R. G. (2002). The goddess diffracted: Thinking about the figurines of early villages. Current Anthropology 43: 587–610.
Lesure, R. G. (2005). Linking theory and evidence in an archaeology of human agency: Iconography, style, and theories of embodiment. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 12: 237–255.
Lesure, R. G. (2011). Interpreting Ancient Figurines: Context, Comparison, and Prehistoric Art, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Lesure, R. G. (2014). Stylistic and chronological analyses of figurines. In Lesure, R. G. (ed.), Formative Lifeways in Central Tlaxcala, Vol. 1: Excavations, Ceramics, and Chronology, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, Los Angeles, pp. 259–314.
Looper, M. G. (2014). Early Maya dress and adornment. In Orr, H., and Looper, M. (eds.), Wearing Culture: Dress and Regalia in Early Mesoamerica and Central America, University Press of Colorado, Boulder, pp. 411–446.
López Austin, A. (1980). Cuerpo humano e ideología: Las concepciones de los antiguos nahuas, Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City.
López Austin, A. (1994). Tamoanchan and Tlalocan, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico City.
López Luján, L. (1994). The Offerings of the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan, trans. by Ortiz de Montellano, B. R., and Ortiz de Montellano, T., University Press of Colorado, Niwot.
Lopiparo, J. (2003). Household Ceramic Production and the Crafting of Society in the Terminal Classic Ulúa Valley, Honduras, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley.
Lopiparo, J. (2006). Crafting children: Materiality, social memory, and the reproduction of Terminal Classic house societies in the Ulúa Valley, Honduras. In Ardren, T., and Hutson, S. R. (eds.), The Social Experience of Childhood in Ancient Mesoamerica, University Press of Colorado, Boulder, pp. 133–168.
Lopiparo, J., and Hendon, J. A. (2009). Honduran figurines and whistles in social context: Production, use, and meaning in the Ulúa Valley. In Halperin, C. T., Faust, K. A., Taube, R, and Giguet, A. (eds.), Mesoamerican Figurines: Small-Scale Indices of Large-Scale Social Phenomena, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, pp. 51–74.
MacLaury, R. E. (1989). Zapotec body-part locatives: Prototypes and metaphoric extensions. International Journal of Anthropological Linguistics 55: 119–154.
MacNeish, R. S., Peterson, F. J., and Flannery, K. V. (1970). The Prehistory of the Tehuacan Valley, Vol. 3: Ceramics, University of Texas Press, Austin.
Mahoney, M. J. (2004). Teotihuacan-style figurines and ethnicity in the Oaxaca Barrio, Teotihuacan. M.A. thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada.
Malone, C., Barrowclough, D. A., and Stoddart, S. (2007). Introduction: Cult in context. In Barrowclough, D. A., and Malone, C. (eds.), Cult in Context: Reconsidering Ritual in Archaeology, Oxbow Books, Oxford, pp. 1–7.
Marcus, J. (1983). Zapotec religion. In Flannery, K. V., and Marcus, J. (eds.), The Cloud People: Divergent Evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec Civilizations, Academic Press, San Diego, pp. 345–351.
Marcus, J. (1987). Late Intermediate Occupation at Cerro Azul, Perú, Technical Report No. 20, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Marcus, J. (1989). Zapotec chiefdoms and the nature of Formative religions. In Sharer, R. J., and Grove, D. C. (eds.), Regional Perspectives on the Olmec, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 148–197.
Marcus, J. (1996). The importance of context in interpreting figurines. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 6: 285–291.
Marcus, J. (1998). Women’s Ritual in Formative Oaxaca: Figurine-making, Divination, Death and the Ancestors, Memoirs No. 33, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Marcus, J. (1999). Men’s and women’s ritual in Formative Oaxaca. In Grove, D. C., and Joyce, R. A. (eds.), Social Patterns in Pre-Classic Mesoamerica, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC, pp. 67–96.
Marcus, J. (2007). Rethinking ritual. In Kyriakidis, E. (ed.), The Archaeology of Ritual, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, pp. 43–76.
Marcus, J. (2009). Rethinking figurines. In Halperin, C. T., Faust, K. A., Taube, R., and Giguet, A. (eds.), Mesoamerican Figurines: Small-Scale Indices of Large-Scale Social Phenomena, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, pp. 25–50.
Marcus, J., and Flannery, K. V. (1978). Ethnoscience of the sixteenth-century Valley Zapotec. In Ford, R. I. (ed.), The Nature and Status of Ethnobotany, Anthropological Papers No. 67, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, pp. 51–79.
Marcus, J., and Flannery, K. V. (1996). Zapotec Civilization, Thames and Hudson, London.
Marcus, M. (1993). Incorporating the body: Adornment, gender, and social identity in ancient Iran. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 3: 157–178.
Marcus, M. (1996). Emblems of Identity and Prestige: The Seals and Sealings from Hasanlu, Iran: Commentary and Catalog, University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
Martínez López, C., and Winter, M. (1994). Figurillas y silbatos de cerámica de Monte Albán, Contribución 5, Proyecto Especial Monte Albán 1991–1994, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Oaxaca, Mexico.
McAdam, E. (1997). The figurines from the 1982–1985 seasons of excavations at Ain Ghazal. Levant 29: 115–146.
McAnany, P. A. (1995). Living with the Ancestors: Kinship and Kingship in Ancient Maya Society, University of Texas Press, Austin.
McCall, J. C. (1995). Rethinking ancestors in Africa. Journal of the International African Institute 65: 256–270.
McDermott, L. (1996). Self-representation in Upper Paleolithic female figurines. Current Anthropology 37: 227–275.
McIntosh, R. J., and McIntosh, S. K. (1979). Terracotta statuettes from Mali. African Arts 12: 51–91.
McVicker, D. (2012). Figurines are us? The social organization of Jaina Island, Campeche, Mexico. Ancient Mesoamerica 23: 211–234.
Meissner, N. J., South, K. E., and Balkansky, A. K. (2013). Figurine embodiment and household ritual in an early Mixtec village. Journal de la Société des Américanistes 99: 7–43.
Menzel, D. (1967). Late Ica figurines in the Uhle collection. Ñawpa Pacha: Journal of Andean Archaeology 5: 15–38.
Meskell, L. (1995). Goddesses, Gimbutas and “new age” archaeology. Antiquity 69: 74–86.
Meskell, L. (2008). The nature of the beast: Curating animals and ancestors at Çatalhӧyük. World Archaeology 40: 373–389.
Meskell, L., and Joyce, R. A. (2003). Embodied Lives: Figuring Ancient Maya and Egyptian Experience, Routledge, London.
Miller, M. E. (1975). Jaina Figurines: A Study of Maya Iconography, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Miller, M. E. (1988). The boys in the Bonampak band. In Benson, E. P., and Griffin, G. G. (eds.), Maya Iconography, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, pp. 318–330.
Mina, M. (2007). Figurines without sex: People without gender? In Hamilton, S., Whitehouse, R., and Wright, K. I. (eds.), Women in Archaeology, Women in Antiquity, Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, CA, pp. 263–282.
Moser, C. L. (1973). Human Decapitation in Ancient Mesoamerica, Studies in Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology No. 11, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.
Nakamura, C., and Meskell, L. (2009). Articulate bodies: Forms and figures at Çatalhӧyük. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 16: 205–230.
Newell, W. H. (1976). Good and bad ancestors. In Newell, W. H. (ed.), Ancestors, Mouton, The Hague.
Niederberger, C. (1976). Zohapilco: Cinco milenios de ocupación humana en sitio lacustre de la cuenca de México, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City.
Niederberger, C. (2000). Ranked societies, iconographic complexity, and economic wealth in the Basin of Mexico toward 1200 BC. In Clark, J. E., and Pye, M. E. (eds.), Olmec Art and Archaeology in Mesoamerica, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, pp. 169–191.
Norwood, L. W. (2016). Ancestors in clay: A case for portraiture in Lagunillas Style E figurines. In Beekman, C. S., and Pickering, R. B. (eds.), Shaft Tombs and Figures in West Mexican Society: A Reassessment, Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, Tulsa, OK, pp. 194–205.
Ohnersorgen, M. A. (2006). Aztec provincial administration at Cuetlaxtlan, Veracruz. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 25: 1–32.
Olson, J. (2007). A socioeconomic interpretation of figurine assemblages from Late Postclassic Morelos, Mexico. In Gonlin, N., and Lohse, J. C. (eds.), Commoner Ritual and Ideology in Ancient Mesoamerica, University Press of Colorado, Boulder, pp. 251–279.
O’Neil, M. (2012). Jaina-style figurines. In Pillsbury, J., Doutriaux, M., Ishihara-Brito, R., and Tokovinine, A. (eds.), Ancient Maya Art at Dumbarton Oaks, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC, pp. 399–403.
Otis Charlton, C. L., and Charlton, T. H. (2011). Sociocultural evolution and craft specialization: The case of the household-based fired clay industries of Otompan. In Manzanilla, L. R., and Hirth, K. G. (eds.), Producción artesanal y especializada en Mesoamérica: Áreas de actividad y procesos productivos, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City, pp. 227–259.
Overholtzer, L. (2012a). Empires and Everyday Material Practices: A Household Archaeology of Aztec and Spanish Imperialism at Xaltocan, Mexico, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.
Overholtzer, L. (2012b). So that the baby not be formed like a pottery rattle: Aztec rattle figurines and household social reproductive practices. Ancient Mesoamerica 23: 69–83.
Overholtzer, L., and Stoner, W. (2011). Merging the social and the material: Life histories of ancient mementos from central Mexico. Journal of Social Archaeology 11: 171–193.
Paddock, J. (ed.) (1966). Ancient Oaxaca, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA.
Paddock, J., Mogor, J. R., and Lind, M. D. (1968). Lambityeco Tomb 2: A preliminary report. Boletín de Estudios Oaxaqueños 25, Museo Frissell de Arte Zapoteca, Mitla, Oaxaca, Mexico.
Pickering, R. B., and Cuevas, E. (2003). The ancient ceramics of West Mexico: Corpse-eating insects and mineral stains help a forensic anthropologist and a chemist determine the authenticity of 2,000-year-old figurines. American Scientist 91: 242–249.
Plunket, P., and Uruñuela, G. (1988). Appeasing the volcano gods. Archaeology 51(4): 36–42.
Plunket, P., and Uruñuela, G. (1998). Preclassic household patterns preserved under volcanic ash at Tetimpa, Puebla, Mexico. Latin American Antiquity 9: 287–309.
Plunket, P., and Uruñuela, G. (2002). Shrines, ancestors, and the volcanic landscape at Tetimpa, Puebla. In Plunket, P. (ed.), Domestic Ritual in Ancient Mesoamerica, Monograph 46, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, pp. 31–42.
Pool, C. A., Ortiz Ceballos, P., Rodríguez Martínez, M. del C., and Loughlin, M. L. (2010). The Early Horizon at Tres Zapotes: Implications for Olmec interaction. Ancient Mesoamerica 21: 95–105.
Quirke, S. (1992). Ancient Egyptian Religion, British Museum Press, London.
Ramírez Urrea, S. (1993). Hacienda Blanca: Una aldea a través del tiempo en el valle de Etla, Oaxaca, tesis de la Escuela de Antropología, Universidad de Guadalajara, Mexico.
Rands, R. L., and Rands, B. C. (1965). Pottery figurines of the Maya lowlands. In Wauchope, R., and Willey, G. R. (eds.), The Handbook of Middle American Indians, Vol. 2: Archaeology of Southern Mesoamerica, Part 1, University of Texas, Austin, pp. 535–560.
Rappaport, R. A. (1971). The sacred in human evolution. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 2: 23–44.
Rappaport, R. A. (1999). Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Renaud, A. E. (1929). Prehistoric female figurines from America and the Old World. Scientific Monthly 28: 507–512.
Renfrew, C. (1969). The development and chronology of the Early Cycladic figurines. American Journal of Archaeology 73: 1–32.
Renfrew, C. (1985). The Archaeology of Cult: The Sanctuary at Phylakopi, British School of Archaeology at Athens, Thames and Hudson, London.
Reyna Robles, R. M. (1971). Las figurillas preclásicas, tesis de la Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City.
Rice, P. M. (1987). Economic change in the lowland Maya Late Classic period. In Brumfiel, E. M., and Earle, T. K. (eds.), Specialization, Exchange, and Complex Societies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 76–85.
Rice, P. M. (2009a). Mound ZZ1, Nixtun-Ch’ich’, Petén, Guatemala: Rescue operations at a long-lived structure in the Maya lowlands. Journal of Field Archaeology 34: 403–422.
Rice, P. M. (2009b). Late Classic Maya pottery production: Review and synthesis. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 16: 117–156.
Rice, P. M. (2015). Middle Preclassic interregional interaction and the Maya lowlands. Journal of Archaeological Research 23: 1–47.
Robin, C., Meierhoff, J., Kestle, C., Blackmore, C., Kosakowsky, L. J., and Novotny, A. C. (2012). Ritual in a farming community. In Robin, C. (ed.), Chan: An Ancient Maya Farming Community, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, pp. 113–132.
Rollefson, G. O. (1983). Ritual and ceremony at Neolithic ‘Ain Ghazal (Jordan). Paléorient 9/2: 29–38.
Sahagún, B. de (1950). Book 1: The gods. In Anderson, A. J., and Dibble, C. E. (eds.), Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain, University of Utah, Provo, and School of American Research, Santa Fe, NM.
Sahagún, B. de (1961). Book 10: The people. In Dibble, C. E., and Anderson, A. J. (eds.), Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain, University of Utah, Provo, and School of American Research, Santa Fe, NM.
Sandstrom, A. R. (1991). Corn is Our Blood: Culture and Ethnic Identity in a Contemporary Aztec Indian Village, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
Sandstrom, A. R. (2009). The weeping baby and the Nahua corn spirit: The human body as key symbol in the Huasteca Veracruzana, Mexico. In Halperin, C. T., Faust, K. A., Taube, R, and Giguet, A. (eds.), Mesoamerican Figurines: Small-Scale Indices of Large-Scale Social Phenomena, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, pp. 261–296.
Sandstrom, A. R., and Sandstrom, P. E. (1986). Traditional Papermaking and Paper Cult Figures of Mexico, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
Schieffelin, E. L. (1985). Performance and the cultural construction of reality. American Ethnologist 12: 707–724.
Schlosser, A. L. (1978). Classic Maya Lowland Figurine Development with Special Reference to Piedras Negras, Guatemala, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.
Schortman, E. M., and Urban, P. A. (1994). Living on the edge: Core/periphery relations in ancient southeastern Mesoamerica. Current Anthropology 35: 401–430.
Schortman, E, M., Urban, P. A., and Ausec, M. (2001). Politics with style: Identity formation in prehispanic southeastern Mesoamerica. American Anthropologist 102: 312–330.
Scott, S. (1993). Teotihuacan Mazapan Figurines and the Xipe Totec Statue: A Link between the Basin of Mexico and the Valley of Oaxaca, Publications in Anthropology No. 44, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.
Scott, S. (1994). Terracotta Figurines from Ancient Teotihuacan: Typology and Iconographic Themes, Ph.D. dissertation, University College, London.
Scott, S. (2001). The Corpus of Terracotta Figurines from Sigvald Linné’s Excavations at Teotihuacan, Mexico (1932 and 1934–1935) and Comparative Material, National Museum of Ethnography, Stockholm, Sweden.
Sears, E. L. (2006). Las figurillas mayas del Clásico Tardío de sistemas de los ríos de Usumacinta/Pasión. Los Investigadores de la Cultura Maya 14: 389–402.
Sears, E. L. (2016). A Reflection of Maya Representation, Distribution, and Interaction: Ceramic Figurines from the Late Classic Site of Cancuén, Petén Department, Guatemala, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Kentucky, Lexington.
Sears, E. L., Bishop, R. L., and Blackman, M. J. (2004). Las figurillas de Cancuén: El surgimiento de una perspectiva regional. In Laporte, J. P., Escobedo, H, and Arroyo, B. (eds.), XVIII Anual Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, 2004, Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología, Guatemala City, pp. 745-752.
Séjourné, L. (1966). El lenguaje de las formas en Teotihuacan, Siglo XXI, Mexico City.
Selbitschka, A. (2015). Miniature tomb figurines and models in pre-imperial and early imperial China: Origins, development and significance. World Archaeology 47: 20–44.
Sheils, D. (1975). Toward a unified theory of ancestor worship: A cross-cultural study. Social Forces 54: 427–440.
Sillar, B. (2004). Acts of god and active material culture: Agency and commitment in the Andes. In Gardner, A. (ed.), Agency Uncovered, University College London Press, London, pp. 153–209.
Sillar, B. (2009). The social agency of things? Animism and materiality in the Andes. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 19: 367–377.
Sillar, B. (2016). Miniatures and animism: The communicative role of Inka carved stone conopa. Journal of Anthropological Research 72: 442–464.
Simon, K., and MacGaffey, W. (1995). Northern Kongo ancestor figures. African Arts 28: 48–53.
Smith, M. E. (2002). Domestic ritual at Aztec provincial sites in Morelos. In Plunket, P. (ed.), Domestic Ritual in Ancient Mesoamerica, Monograph 46, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, pp. 93–114.
Smith, M. E. (2005). Aztec-style ceramic figurines from Yautepec, Morelos. Mexicon 27: 45–55.
Smith, M. E. (2016). At Home With the Aztecs: An Archaeologist Uncovers Their Daily Life, Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, New York.
Steadman, L. B., Palmer, C. T., and Tilley, C. F. (1996). The universality of ancestor worship. Ethnology 35: 63–76.
Sullivan, K. (2005). Making and Manipulating Ritual in the City of the Gods: Figurine Production and Use at Teotihuacán, México, Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc., Crystal River, FL.
Sullivan, K. (2007). Commercialization in Early State Economies: Craft Production and Market Exchange in Classic Period Teotihuacan, Ph.D. dissertation, School of Social Evolution and Change, Arizona State University, Tempe.
Swadesh, M. (1949). El idioma de los zapotecos. In Mendieta y Núñez, L. (ed.), Los zapotecos: Monografía histórica, etnográfica y económica, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, pp. 415–448.
Talalay, L. (1994). A feminist boomerang: The great goddess of Greek prehistory. Gender and History 6: 165–183.
Talalay, L. (2004). Heady business: Skulls, heads and decapitation in Neolithic Anatolia and Greece. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 17: 139–163.
Talalay, L., and Cullen, T. (2002). Sexual ambiguity in Early-Middle Cypriot plank figures. In Bolger, D., and Serwint, N. (eds.), Engendering Aphrodite: Women and Society in Ancient Cyprus, Monograph 3, Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute, American Schools of Oriental Research, Boston, MA, pp. 181–195.
Townsend, R. F. (1992). The Aztecs, Thames and Hudson, London.
Triadan, D. (2007). Warriors, nobles, commoners and beasts: Figurines from elite buildings at Aguateca, Guatemala. Latin American Antiquity 18: 269–293.
Tringham, R. E., and Conkey, M. W. (1998). Rethinking figurines: A critical view from archaeology of Gimbutas, the “Goddess” and popular culture. In Goodison, L., and Morris, C. (eds.), Ancient Goddesses: The Myths and the Evidence, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, pp. 22–45.
True, D. L., and Núñez Atencio, L. (1971). Modeled anthropomorphic figurines from northern Chile. Ñawpa Pacha: Journal of Andean Archaeology 9: 65–86.
Ucko, P. J. (1962). The interpretation of prehistoric anthropomorphic figurines. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 92: 38–54.
Vaillant, G. C. (1931). Excavations at Ticoman, Anthropological Papers Vol. 32, Part 2, American Museum of Natural History, New York.
Vaillant, S. B., and Vaillant, G. C. (1934). Excavations at Gualupita, Anthropological Papers Vol. 35, Part 1, American Museum of Natural History, New York.
Verhoeven, M. (2007). Losing one’s head in the Neolithic: On the interpretation of headless figurines. Levant 39: 175–183.
Victoria Lona, N. (2004a). El copal en las ofrendas del Templo Mayor de Tenochtitlan. Tesis de licenciatura en arqueología, Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, and Secretaría de Educación Pública, Mexico City.
Victoria Lona, N. (2004b). El copal en las ofrendas del Templo Mayor. Arqueología Mexicana 12: 66–71.
Villa Rojas, A. (1947). Kinship and nagualism in a Tzeltal community, southeastern Mexico. American Anthropologist 49: 578–587.
Viveiros de Castro, E. (2004). Exchanging perspectives: The transformation of objects into subjects in Amerindian ontologies. Common Knowledge 10: 463–484.
Viveiros de Castro, E. (2007). The crystal forest: Notes on the ontology of Amazonian spirits. Inner Asia 9: 153–172.
Vogt, E. Z. (1969). Zinacantan: A Maya Community in the Highlands of Chiapas, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Vogt, E. Z. (1976). Tortillas for the Gods: A Symbolic Analysis of Zinacanteco Rituals, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Walker, W. H. (1999). Ritual life histories and the afterlives of people and things. Journal of the Southwest 41: 383–405.
Weiant, C. W. (1943). An Introduction to the Ceramics of Tres Zapotes, Veracruz, Mexico, Bulletin 139, Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.
Weiss, G., and Haber, H. F. (eds.) (1999). Perspectives on Embodiment, Routledge, London.
Whalen, M. E. (1981). Excavations at Santo Domingo Tomaltepec: Evolution of a Formative Community in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, Memoirs No. 12, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Yamagata, M. (1992). The Shakadō figurines and Middle Jōmon ritual in the Kōfu Basin. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 19: 129–138.
Zedeño, M. N. (2008). Bundled worlds: The roles and interactions of complex objects from the North American Plains. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 15: 362–378.
Bibliography of Recent Literature
Arroyo, B. (2004). Of salt and water: Ancient commoners on the Pacific Coast of Guatemala. In Lohse, J. C., and Valdez Jr., F. (eds.), Ancient Maya Commoners, University of Texas Press, Austin, pp. 73–95.
Astor-Aguilera, M. A. (2010). The Maya World of Communicating Objects: Quadripartite Crosses, Trees, and Stones, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Averett, E. W. (2011). The ritual context of the Malloura terracotta figurines. In Toumazou, M. K., Kardulias, P. N., and Counts, D. B. (eds.), Crossroads and Boundaries: The Archaeology of Past and Present in the Malloura Valley, Cyprus, American Schools of Oriental Research, Boston, MA, pp. 133-147.
Beck, M. (2000). Female figurines in the European Upper Paleolithic: Politics and bias in archaeological interpretation. In Rautman, A. E. (ed.), Reading the Body: Representation and Remains in the Archaeological Record, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, pp. 202–214.
Biehl, P. F. (2006). Figurines in action: Methods and theories in figurine research. In Layton, R., Shennan, S., and Stone, P. G. (eds.), A Future for Archaeology: The Past in the Present, University College London Press, London, pp. 199–215.
Blomster, J. P. (2002). What and where is Olmec style? Regional perspectives on hollow figurines in Early Formative Mesoamerica. Ancient Mesoamerica 13: 171–195.
Blomster, J. (2009). Identity, gender, and power: Representational juxtapositions in Early Formative figurines from Oaxaca, Mexico. In Halperin, C. T., Faust, K. A., Taube, R., and Giguet, A. (eds.), Mesoamerican Figurines: Small-Scale Indices of Large-Scale Social Phenomena, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, pp. 119–148.
Budja, M. (2010). Ceramic trajectories: From figurines to vessels. In Jordan, P., and Zvelebil, M. (eds.), Ceramics Before Farming: The Dispersal of Pottery among Eurasian Hunter-Gatherers, Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, CA, pp. 499–525.
Butterworth, J. R. (2016). Lower Nubian C-Group Figurines: Corpus and Context, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Art History, Emory University, Atlanta, GA.
Claassen, C. (2002). Gender and archaeology. In Peregrine, P. N., Ember, C. R., and Ember, M. (eds.), Archaeology: Original Readings in Method and Practice, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, pp. 210–224.
Clear, K., and Plunket, P. (1998). Las figurillas de Tetimpa. In Brambila Paz, R. (ed.), Antropología e historia del occidente de México, XXIV Mesa Redonda, Vol. III, Sociedad Mexicana de Antropología, Mexico City, pp. 1841–1857.
Conneller, C. (2004). Becoming deer: Corporeal transformations at Star Carr. Archaeological Dialogues 11: 37–56.
DeLance, L. L. (2016). Enchaining Kinship: Figurines and State Formation at Cahal Pech, Cayo, Belize, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Riverside.
Feinman, G. M., and Nicholas, L. M. (2000). High intensity household-scale production in ancient Mesoamerica: A perspective from Ejutla, Oaxaca. In Feinman, G. M., and Manzanilla, L. (eds.), Cultural Evolution: Contemporary Viewpoints, Kluwer Academic/Plenum, New York, pp. 119–142.
Feinman, G. M., Nicholas, L. M., and Baker, L. C. (2010). The missing femur at the Mitla Fortress and its implications. Antiquity 84: 1089–1101.
Finamore, D., and Houston, S. D. (eds.) (2010). Fiery Pool: The Maya and the Mythic Sea, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.
Follensbee, B. J. A. (2000). Sex and Gender in Olmec Art and Archaeology, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Art History and Archaeology, University of Maryland, College Park.
Forbes, J. (2004). Ocarinas in the Maya world. BA honors thesis, University College London, London.
Gallegos Gómora, M. J. (2003). Mujeres y hombres de barro: Figurillas de Comalcalco. Arqueología Mexicana 11: 48–51.
Gillespie, S. D. (2001). Personhood, agency, and mortuary ritual: A case study from the ancient Maya. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 20: 73–112.
Gillespie, S. D. (2002). Body and soul among the Maya: Keeping the spirits in place. In Silverman, H., and Small, D. B. (eds.), The Space and Place of Death, Archeological Paper 11, American Anthropological Association, Arlington, VA, pp. 67–78.
Gonlin, N., and Lohse, J. C. (eds.) (2007). Commoner Ritual and Ideology in Ancient Mesoamerica, University Press of Colorado, Boulder.
Guernsey, J. (2012). Sculpture and Social Dynamics in Preclassic Mesoamerica, Cambridge University Press, New York.
Haarmann, H. (2009). Interacting with Figurines: Seven Dimensions in the Study of Imagery, Full Circle Press, West Hartford, VT.
Habu, J. (2004). Ancient Jomon of Japan, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Halperin, C. T. (2004). Realeza maya y figurillas con tocados de la serpiente de guerra de Motul de San José, Guatemala. Mayab 17: 45–60.
Halperin, C. T. (2014). Circulation as placemaking: Late Classic Maya polities and portable objects. American Anthropologist 116: 110–129.
Hamilton, N. (2006). The figurines. In Hodder, I. (ed.), Changing Materialities at Çatalhӧyük: Reports from the 1995–1999 Seasons, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge University, Cambridge, pp. 187–213.
Hendon, J. A. (2007). The engendered household. In Nelson, S. M. (ed.), Women in Antiquity: Theoretical Approaches to Gender and Archaeology, AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, CA, pp. 141–168.
Hendon, J. A. (2010). Houses in a Landscape: Memory and Everyday Life in Mesoamerica, Duke University Press, Durham, NC.
Hepp, G. D. (2009). Formative Period Figurines of Coastal Oaxaca, Mexico: Ancient Mesoamerican Ceramic Iconography from the Lower Río Verde Valley, VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, Saarbrücken.
Hepp, G. D., and Joyce, A. A. (2013). From flesh to clay: Formative period ceramic figurines from Oaxaca’s lower Río Verde Valley. In Joyce, A. A. (ed.), Polity and Ecology in Formative Period Coastal Oaxaca, University Press of Colorado, Boulder, pp. 265–299.
Houston, S. D., and Taube, K. (2000). An archaeology of the senses: Perception and cultural expression in ancient Mesoamerica. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 10: 261–294.
Houston, S. D., Stuart, D., and Taube, K. (2006). The Memory of Bones: Body, Being, and Experience among the Classic Maya, University of Texas Press, Austin.
Inomata, T., and Houston, S. D. (eds.) (2001). Royal Courts of the Ancient Maya, Westview Press, Boulder, CO.
Insoll, T., Kankpeyeng, B., and Fraser, S. (2016). Internal meanings: Computed tomography scanning of Koma figurines from Ghana. African Arts 49: 24-33.
Ivic de Monterroso, M. (2002). Resultados de los análises de las figurillas de Piedras Negras. In Laporte, J. P., Escobedo, H, and Arroyo, B. (eds.), XV Anual Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, 2001, vol. 2, Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología, Guatemala City, pp. 555–568.
Jennings, S. (2010). Mold-made figurines of the lower Río Verde Valley, Oaxaca, Mexico: Insights into popular ideology of the Classic and Early Postclassic, M.A. thesis, University of Colorado, Boulder.
Keller, C., and Carr, C. (2005). Gender, role, prestige, and ritual interaction across the Ohio, Mann, and Havana Hopewellian regions, as evidenced by ceramic figurines. In Carr, C., and Case, D. (eds.), Gathering Hopewell, Springer, New York, pp. 428–460.
King, H. (2016). Further notes on Corral Redondo, Churunga Valley. Ñawpa Pacha: Journal of Andean Archaeology 36: 95–109.
Klein, C. F. (ed.) (2001). Gender in Pre-Hispanic America, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.
Knapp, A. B., and Meskell, L. (1997). Bodies of evidence on prehistoric Cyprus. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 7: 183–204.
Lesure, R. G. (1999). Figurines as representations and products at Paso de la Amada, Mexico. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 9: 209–220.
Lesure, R. G. (2012). Figurine fashions in Formative Mesoamerica. In Papadopoulos, J. K., and Urton, G. (eds.), The Construction of Value in the Ancient World, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, pp. 370–391.
Lesure, R. G. (2015). Prehistoric figurine styles as fashion: A case from Formative central Mexico. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 25: 99–119.
Lomitola, L. M. (2012). Ritual use of the human form: A contextual analysis of ‘Charlie Chaplin’ figures in the Maya lowlands, M.A. thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Central Florida, Orlando.
Looper, M. G. (2009). To Be Like Gods: Dance in Ancient Maya Civilization, University of Texas Press, Austin.
Manzanilla, L., and Chapdelaine, C. (eds.) (2009). Domestic Life in Prehispanic Capitals: A Study of Specialization, Hierarchy, and Ethnicity, Memoirs No. 46, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Marcus, J., and Flannery, K. V. (2004). The coevolution of ritual and society: New 14C dates from ancient Mexico. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 101: 18257–18261.
Martin, L., and Meskell, L. (2012). Animal figurines from Neolithic Çatalhӧyük: Figural and faunal perspectives. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 22: 401–419.
Meskell, L. (1996). The somatization of archaeology: Institutions, discourses, corporeality. Norwegian Archaeological Review 29: 1–16.
Meskell, L. (ed.) (2005). Archaeologies of Materiality, Blackwell, Malden, MA.
Meskell, L., Nakamura, C., King, R., and Farid, S. (2008). Figured lifeworlds and depositional practices at Çatalhӧyük. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 18: 139–161.
Miller, M. A. (2002). The function of anthropomorphic figurines: A preliminary analysis. In Garfinkel, Y., and Miller, M. A. (eds.), Sha’ar Hagolan I, Oxbow Books, Oxford, pp. 221–233.
Mills, B., and Ferguson, T. J. (2008). Animate objects: Shell trumpets and ritual networks in the greater Southwest. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 15: 338-361.
Mina, M. (2008). Island histories, gender stories: A comparative view through Neolithic and Early Bronze Age anthropomorphic figurines from Cyprus and Crete. Medelhavsmuseet Focus on the Mediterranean 5: 171–186.
Mina, M. (2016). Was it a man’s world? Gender relationships at the transition to the Bronze Age in Cyprus. Near Eastern Archaeology 79: 140–147.
Mock, S. B. (ed.) (1998). The Sowing and the Dawning: Termination, Dedication, and Transformation in the Archaeological and Ethnographic Record of Mesoamerica, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Morris, C. (2009). Configuring the individual: Bodies of figurines in Minoan Crete. In D’Agata, A. L., and Van De Moortel, A. (eds.), Archaeologies of Cult: Essays on Ritual and Cult in Crete in Honor of Geraldine C. Gesell, The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Princeton, NJ, pp. 179-187.
Nanoglou, S. (2008). Qualities of humanness: Material aspects of Greek Neolithic anthropomorphic imagery. Journal of Material Culture 13: 311–334.
Nielsen, A. E. (2008). The materiality of ancestors: Chullpas and social memory in the late prehispanic history of the south Andes. In Mills, B. J., and Walker, W. H. (eds.), Memory Work: Archaeologies of Material Practice, School for Advanced Research Press, Santa Fe, NM, pp. 207-231.
Overholtzer, L. (2005). The kneeling Mexica woman: Evidence for male domination or gender complementarity? Senior honors thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley.
Peña Castillo, A. (2003). Las figurillas de terracota en el área maya. Los Investigadores de la Cultura Maya 11: 72–85.
Perry, E. M., and Joyce, R. A. (2001). Providing a past for bodies that matter: Judith Butler’s impact on the archaeology of gender. International Journal of Sex and Gender Studies 6: 63–76.
Peterson, J. (2016). Woman’s share in Neolithic society: A view from the southern Levant. Near Eastern Archaeology 79: 132–138.
Plunket, P. (ed.) (2002). Domestic Ritual in Ancient Mesoamerica, Monograph 46, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles.
Prufer, K. M., Wanyerka, P., and Shah, M. (2003). Wooden figurines, scepters, and religious specialists in pre-columbian Maya society. Ancient Mesoamerica 14: 219–236.
Rich, M., Freidel, D., Reilly III, F. K., and Eppich, K. (2010). An Olmec style figurine from El Perú-Waka’, Petén, Guatemala: A preliminary report. Mexicon 32: 115–122.
Rivero Torres, S. (2002). Figurillas Antropomorfas y Zoomorfas del Juego de Pelota de Lagartero, Chiapas, Universidad de Ciencias y Artes de Chiapas, Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Mexico.
Robb, J. E. (2008). Tradition and agency: Human body representations in later prehistoric Europe. World Archaeology 40: 332–353.
Rollefson, G. O. (2010). Charming lives: Human and animal figurines in the Late Epipaleolithic and Early Neolithic periods in the Greater Levant and Eastern Anatolia. In Bocquet-Appel, J.-P., and Bar-Yosef, O. (eds.), The Neolithic Demographic Transition and Its Consequences, Springer, New York, pp. 387–416.
Ruiz Guzmán, R., Bishop, R. L., and Folan, W. J. (1999). Las figurillas de Calakmul, Campeche: Su uso funcional y clasificación sociocultural y química. Los Investigadores de la Cultura Maya 7: 37–49.
Ruscheinsky, L. M. (2003). The Social Reproduction of Gender Identity through the Production and Reception of Lowland Maya Figurines, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Art History, Visual Art, and Theory, University of British Columbia, Vancouver.
Serra Puche, M. C. (2001). The concept of feminine places in Mesoamerica: The case of Xochitecatl, Tlaxcala, Mexico. In Klein, C. F. (ed.), Gender in Pre-Hispanic America, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC, pp. 255–284.
Soffer, O., Adovasio, J. M., and Hyland, D. C. (2000). The “Venus” figurines: Textiles, basketry, gender, and status in the Upper Paleolithic. Current Anthropology 41: 511–537.
Stark, B. L. (2001). Figurines and other artifacts. In Stark, B. L. (ed.), Classic Period Mixtequilla, Veracruz, Mexico, Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, SUNY at Albany and University of Texas Press, Austin, pp. 179–220.
Stinson, S. (2004). Household Ritual, Gender, and Figurines in the Hohokam Regional System, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson.
Stone, A. J. (2011). Keeping abreast of the Maya: A study of the female body in Maya art. Ancient Mesoamerica 22: 167–183.
Sugiyama, S., and López Luján, L. (2007). Dedicatory burial/offering complexes at the Moon Pyramid, Teotihuacan. Ancient Mesoamerica 18: 127–146.
Tantaleán, H., and Stanish, C. (eds.) (2017). Cerro del Gentil: Un sitio Paracas en el Valle de Chincha, costa sur del Perú, Publicaciones PACH, Lima, Peru.
Taube, R., and Taube, K. A. (2009). The beautiful, the bad, and the ugly: Aesthetics and morality in Maya figurines. In Halperin, C. T., Faust, K. A., Taube, R., and Giguet, A. (eds.), Mesoamerican Figurines: Small-Scale Indices of Large-Scale Phenomena, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, pp. 236–258.
Triadan, D. (2005). Las figurillas de Aguateca y su significado sociopolítico. Anales de la Academia de Geografía e Historia de Guatemala 80: 25–54.
Triadan, D. (2006). Five Fine Gray pottery bells from Aguateca, Guatemala. Mexicon 28: 75–78.
Tway, M. B. (2004). Gender, context, and figurine use: Ceramic images from the Formative period San Andrés site, Tabasco, Mexico, M.A. thesis, Department of Anthropology, Florida State University, Tallahassee.
Uruñuela, G., Plunket, P., Hernández, G., and Albaitero, J. (1997). Biconical god figurines from Cholula and the Codex Borgia. Latin American Antiquity 8: 63–70.
Valdés, J. A., Urquizú, M., Martínez, H., Paiz, H., and Díaz-Samayoa, C. (2001). Lo que expresan las figurillas de Aguateca acerca del hombre y los animales. In Laporte, J. P., and Escobedo, H. (eds.), XIV Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala 2000, Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología, Guatemala City, pp. 761–786.
Vásquez Zárate, S. R. (2007). Las figurillas cerámicas del Horizonte Formativo en La Joya-Comoapan, región de Los Tuxtlas, Tesis de la Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City.
Voigt, M. (2007). The splendor of women: Late Neolithic images from Central Anatolia. In Renfrew, C., and Morley, I. (eds.), Image and Imagination: A Global Prehistory of Figurative Representation, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge University, Cambridge, pp. 151–169.
Waraksa, E. A. (2009). Female Figurines from the Mut Precinct: Context and Ritual Function, Academic Press, Fribourg, Switzerland.
Wells, E. C. (2006). Recent trends in theorizing prehispanic Mesoamerican economies. Journal of Archaeological Research 14: 265–312.
Wu, H. (2005). On tomb figurines: The beginning of a visual tradition. In Wu, H., and Tsiang, K. R. (eds.), Body and Face in Chinese Visual Culture, Harvard University Asia Center, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 13–47.
Zweig, C. L. (2010). The Formative ceramic figurine collection from the site of Cahal Pech, Cayo, Belize, M.A. thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
Acknowledgments
I appreciate the encouragement and insights supplied by Gary Feinman and Douglas Price, and the excellent editing and information provided by Linda Nicholas. I also want to thank Leonardo López Luján and David Freidel as well as the seven anonymous reviewers who offered valuable ideas for improvement. I am grateful to John Klausmeyer for his marvelous artwork, which certainly enlivens any discussion of figurines.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Marcus, J. Studying Figurines. J Archaeol Res 27, 1–47 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-018-9117-7
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-018-9117-7