Themes of birth, life, and death: An analysis of Cerro Manatí, adjacent freshwater springs, and raw hematite at the Early Formative Gulf Coast site of El Manatí, Veracruz, Mexico

Social and material practices across Mesoamerica, from the Formative Period (2000 - 1000 BCE) to the 16th century, demonstrate an emphasis on the integration of topographic features, such as mountains, hills, caves, and bodies of water, with built environments to produce and express cosmic interconnectivity and order. In Mesoamerican practices, the most sought-after landform was a hill or mountain located near a body of water, which can be referred to as an altepetl. The earliest example of ritual activity in association with an altepetl in Mesoamerica is at the site of El Manatí, an Early Formative period site located in the lower Coatzacoalcos River basin in Veracruz, Mexico. At this site, Early Formative period peoples created a series of deposits within a springbed at the base of a large salt dome known as Cerro Manatí. Given their early date, much remains unknown about the meaning and significance El Manatí deposits. Yet scholars emphasize the relationship to the spring and hill at El Manatí, generally interpreting the site as sacred and the deposits as offerings related to “fertility and renewal.”

With focus on Bruno Latour’s conception of Actor-Network-Theory (ANT), this thesis examines the socio-material landscape of El Manatí, centering on Cerro Manatí and the freshwater springs. This thesis applies the three phases of ANT proposed by Latour in his book Reassembling the Social (2005) – “localizing the global,” “redistributing the local”, and “connecting sites” – to analyze the hill, springs, and depositional practice at El Manatí. Ultimately, this thesis argues that the altepetl at El Manatí reflects local concerns in a region defined by and dependent upon water; that the hill and spring at El Manatí embodied the ideal landscape for Early Formative period peoples in the lower Coatzacoalcos River basin; that the symbolic content of the landscape and the deposits at El Manatí evolved over time alongside natural processes and human engagement with the environment; and that by the final stages of deposition at El Manatí, ritual practitioners there associated the springs, hill, and hematite with the human womb and scenes of death, gestation, and rebirth.

Restricted to TTU community only. To view, login with your eRaider (top right). Others may request the author grant access exception by clicking on the PDF link to the left.