Mesoamerica - Science topic

Ethnographically in Latin America, there are many references to the use of agouti/paca teeth as woodworking tools (chisels & gravers) and as portable tools, often worn around the neck in a manner easily confused as "ornaments". Most of these are however from South America rather than Mesoamerica. Additionally, piranha teeth were worn similarly for fine cutting, i.e., to make a groove in blowgun darts near the distal end to assist in having them break off in the animal so more of the poison can enter the bloodstream, important in monkey hunting as they will try to puck the projectile out. I am out of the US for an extended period of time away from my library to check additional references for some of these common ethnographic mentions of bone tool use. However look at the following for agouti & piranha teeth tools used into the modern era among populations that had access to steel tools as well: (Chagnon 1968:22; Holmberg 1969:26-27; Stirling 1938:85; Yde 1965:102-104, Fig. 27).should be good references and pictures among During my ethnographic fieldwork in Venezuela with Savanna Pumé hunter-gatherers, one of the oldest men in camp brought along a tamandua (lesser anteater) claw the he drilled and put a cord though as a back-up field knife. This was the only such use I saw in my fieldwork with the Pumé, and this man also employed other "back-up" gear uses such as additional mean to make fire that no other men employed.

Agouti teeth tools & piranha mandibles:

Chagnon, Napoleon

1968 Yanomamö: The Fierce People. Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York.

Holmberg, Allan R.

1969 Nomads of the Long Bow: the Siriono of Eastern Bolivia. American Museum Science Books, The American Museum of Natural History. The Natural History Press, Garden City.

Stirling, M. W.

1938 Historical and ethnographic material on the Jivaro. Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 117. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.

Yde, Jens

1965 Material Culture of the Waiwái. Nationalmuseets Skrifter Etnografisk Række 10, The National Museum of Copenhagen, Copenhagen.

Also see the following for other non-stone tool uses in Latin America:

Maybury-Lewis, David

1967 Akwê-Shavante Society. Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Miller, Tom O., Jr.

1979 Stonework of the Xêtá Indians of Brazil. In Lithic Use-Wear Analysis, edited by B. Hayden, pp. 401-407. Academic Press, New York.

Please check Harrison and Turner. They have written several articles about Maya agriculture.

You may want to check publications by Carlos Viramontes Anzures with a catalog of rock art  at semidesertic region in Queretaro and western limit of Sierra Gorda at Guanajuato

Will do!

Dear David and Francois,

Sorry I am late to answer.  I am new to Research Gate and do not know all of its functions yet.

Francois, I second David WC's thoughts that there was a developing central Mexican regional style in the Late/Terminal Formative, so Teotihuacan may have not been the stylistic core, especially if the stone figure dates to 200 BC, before any major occupation at the site.  The inventories of places like Cuicuilco, Tlalancaleca, and Xochitecatl are all good places to look.  Another possibility is that is could be an early incarnation of the Mezcala style, from Guerrero, as this style transfers to Teotihuacan (likely because finished pieces in non-jadeite greenstone are moving from there).

For Teo greenstone figures from the Moon Pyramid you could see publications by Sugiyama and colleagues I cite in the first article David WC mentions, such as this one: Sugiyama, Saburo, and Leonardo López Luján (editors)

2006 Sacrificios de consagración en la Pirámide de la Luna. INAH, México, D.F.

There is also ongoing work by Sergio Gomez at the Ciudadela and by Alejandro Sarabia and Sugiyama at the Sun Pyramid that have produced early (i.e. Tzacualli phase) lapidary styles.  Some publications have appeared in Arqueologia Mexicana, but I do not think with many images.

Saludos,

David