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CATHARINA E. SANTASILIA, GUY DAVID HEPP, AND RICHARD A. DIEHL (EDS.) 

2022, Identities, Experience, and Change in Early Mexican Villages. Gainesville: University 

Press of Florida, 350 pp. ISBN 13: 9780813069296 

 

The Mesoamerican Formative period is divided into three logical time periods (Early/Initial, 

Middle, and Late/Terminal) with absolute (radiometric) regional and site chronologies varying 

within the 2000 BCE-CE 250 timeframe. It is characterized by critical transitions in social, 

political, and economic dynamics, with the appearance of sedentary farming communities, 

pottery technology, long distance trade/exchange, and increasing social inequality fostering 

larger and more abundant settlements leading to the formation of cities. 

 

Editors Santasilia and Hepp are recent PhDs, while Diehl has retired recently. Sixteen 

contributors range from a student seeking her Master’s degree, a recent PhD, and younger and 

seasoned scholars. Four writers are from Mexico and two others are recently retired 

archaeologists. One-third of the contributors have direct connections to the archaeology program 

at the University of Colorado.  

The editors’ goal was to assemble an international group of scholars to explore the development 

of social identity in a broad selection of Formative period Mexican communities. This research 

topic is, they write, “ripe for investigating the interplay of changing identities, interaction, and 

lived experiences as well as the relationships of these to broader socioeconomic changes” (p. 2). 

The book, dedicated to Michael D. Coe (1920-2019), a pioneer of Formative period studies, 

contains the editors’ contextual essay, nine chapters of case studies, and concluding assessment. 

The narratives are accompanied by 48 figures, 12 maps, three tables, a list of 26 abbreviations, a 

set of brief author biographies, and a very useful 12-page index; each chapter has its own 

bibliography. The chapters cover diverse topics unified by recent research on Formative period 

social identity ranging from studies of individual archaeological sites to the assessment of 



ceramic figurines, an archaeometric study of portable greenstone objects, shifts in subsistence, 

and dynamic ritual and social modifications.     

Blomster focuses on the Early Formative Eatlatongo site in Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca and an 

assemblage of ceramic figurines, their distributions, and meanings. Using agency theory, he 

identifies two types of rubber ballgame players, redefines “individual” social identities, and 

relationships to Olmec art style. The Early to Middle Formative in the Gulf Coast is emphasized 

by Arnold III in his analysis of wild plant and animal subsistence resources, hunting and fishing, 

which precede incipient farming. He illustrates this transformation with several data sets from 

southern Veracruz, and postulates a diachronic model of settlement pattern, economic, and ritual 

changes where offerings became more formalized.  

 

Hepp reviews social changes during Early Formative coastal Oaxaca, focusing on sensorial 

applications of archaeological contexts and materiality at the village site of La Consentida. 

Sounds, smells, and other sensations are inferred to define the roles of feasting, public 

performance, and ritual practice. Bernard, Ladrón de Guevara, Manrique, and Ruvalcaba report 

their preliminary examination of Olmec greenstone portable sculpture, most of which lack 

archaeological context. They detail mineralogical characteristics of Mesoamerican jadeite using 

portable FTIR, FORS, and XRF technologies, from museum artifacts and new Arroyo Pesquero 

site finds. They conclude that the Olmec maintained continuous relationships with foreign 

groups who controlled the raw material source or its subsequent distribution. 

 

Regional and corporate identities in West Mexico are documented by Beekman, who notes that 

this huge region is not well-studied. Tombs at El Opeño, Michoacán provide evidence of 

offerings from widespread sources. Diachronic changes in social equality suggest a similar 

cosmovision between the west and central regions rather than the Gulf Coast; fire and earth 

deities prevailed, not Olmec water deities. At the Central Mexican site of Tlatilco, Ochoa 

Castillo documents ritual activities including shamanism (Burial 154). The pan-Mesoamerican 

ballgame, acrobatic figural representations, mortuary rituals, and osteological evidence are 

expressions of the cosmology. Santasilia concentrates on artifacts from 450 Tlatilco burials. 

Olmec influence toward the end of the Early Formative was minimal, as seen in ceramic 

ballplayer figurines, masks, and pottery. An analysis of 80 objects from a museum in Riverside, 



California shows affinities with the Chupicuaro, Guerrero site, demonstrating that Post-Olmec 

Tlatilco trade interests shifted over time from southwest to east and southeast.  

 

The “critical period” of Middle Formative in the Basin of Mexico and adjacent Puebla Valley is 

refined by Murakami, who examines the radiocarbon calibration curve problem (the “Hallstadt 

Plateau”), provides a chronological revision and new understanding of regional social 

transformations. His well-argued Bayesian modeling and recalibration, revisions to Chalcatzingo 

site chronology, combined with ceramic cross-dating, concludes that societies in Central Mexico 

did not face sociopolitical disruptions seen in the west and south. Chalcatzingo’s decline and 

associated population nucleation in the northeast Basin of Mexico stimulated the formation of 

the Classic period Teotihuacan state (250-650 CE).  

 

Brzezinski, Monson, Joyce, and Barber examine ceremonial offerings from the Cerro de la 

Virgen site on the Oaxacan Pacific Coast during the Terminal Formative. These artifacts reflect 

competing forms of political authority and the fundamental role of religion as a “crucible of 

tension.” Communal rituals, caching, burials, and mortuary goods illustrate status differences, 

political fragmentation, and eventually site abandonment. Diehl reflects on the Formative period 

in four ways (pp. 291-298): 1) its history; 2) the nature of the period (2000 BCE-AD 250); 3) 

studies characterizing the period, 1900-1960; and 4) research revealing the period 1960-1980, 

with new technologies, directions, and understandings 1960-present. The latter has a cultural 

evolutionary framework with supporting demographic and settlement pattern studies. The 1967 

Dumbarton Oaks Conference on the Olmec established a new research agenda. He observes that 

the new approaches employed by the authors examine several longstanding concerns about the 

Mesoamerican Formative. Lastly, Diehl comments on the nine contributions (pp. 298-308), 

concluding that Formative studies are thriving and in good hands. He laments the destruction of 

archaeological sites and foresees “several great syntheses of Formative Mesoamerica in the near 

future.”  

 

This unique approach to Formative studies provides a foundation for the reassessment of social 

identity complexities and interactions during this critical period in Mesoamerican studies which 

precede the rise of multifaceted states during the Classic period. Prior research focused on 



materiality and socioeconomics whereas this volume demonstrates how nontraditional 

approaches can lead to new perspectives and interpretations. The essays by Murakami, Ochoa 

Castillo, and Santasilia are especially outstanding. This volume joins other recent publications 

that demonstrate transformations during the Formative; especially Love and Guernsey (eds.) 

(2022) Early Mesoamerican Cities: Urbanism and Urbanization in the Formative Period; 

Delance and Feinman (eds.) (2022) Framing Complexity in Formative Mesoamerica; Doering 

(2014) “Mesoamerica in the Preclassic Period: Early, Middle, Late Formative” in Encyclopedia 

of Global Archaeology; Williams (2018) “Ancient West Mexico in the Formative Period” in 

Ancient West Mexico; and Ebert (2023) “The Formative Period in Mesoamerica” in Elsevier 

Reference Collection in Social Sciences. Diehl’s other syntheses have arrived.      

 
Charlie Kolb holds a B.A. in History from The Pennsylvania State University and earned his 
Ph.D. at Penn State in Anthropology and Archaeology focusing on, Latin America and Central 
Asia. From 1962-2018 he conducted archaeological  field work in Mesoamerica, Central Asia,  
and Northeastern North America. He taught for 24 years at Penn State, Bryn Mawr, and 
Mercyhurst University, retiring after 23 years as Senior Program Officer at the National 
Endowment for the Humanities. Kolb conducted archaeometric analyses on ceramics since 
1962, and served for 26 years as Associate Editor for Archaeological Ceramics of The Society for 
Archaeological Sciences Bulletin. Since 1965 he has authored 6 monographs, 169 articles and 
book chapters, 858 book reviews, and 63 encyclopedia contributions.  
 
Drs. Diehl and Kolb were undergraduate and graduate classmates at Penn State in the 1960s 
mentored by Bill Sanders. They both excavated and conducted extensive site surveys in 
Mexico’s Teotihuacan Valley. Dick worked on the Formative sites, while Charlie labored on the 
Classic period – their dissertations were on those subjects. 
 

© 2024 Charlie Kolb 

    


