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Regionality and monumental sculpture in Pacific and Central Nicaragua

Alexander Geurds

Leiden University

Abstract

This paper discusses ongoing research on the physical and social context of monumental stone

sculpture in Central Nicaragua in light of ongoing discussions surrounding cultural interaction

in Pacific and Central Nicaragua. First, I provide an overview of the continuous use of both

concepts and their accompanying questions for the better part of the last seventy-five years. In

the second part, I present findings from archaeological survey and excavation activities in

Central Nicaragua to question some of the existing assumptions surrounding stone sculpture.

Enabled by first data on spatial and social context of these sculptures, I outline an alternative of shifting focus to the cultural practices developed by communities at the local and regional

level rather than looking for stylistically comparable traits.

This paper considers the social context of stone sculpture in Nicaragua, at is an exercise in

examining archaeological evidence for the existence of a network of shared cultural practices

in Pacific and Central Nicaragua between AD 800 and 1522. Throughout this extensive period

Nicaragua seems to have been composed of distinctive cultural regions which nonetheless

shared several cultural practices. These ‘regions of stylistic similarity’ have dominated

archaeological narratives on prehispanic Nicaragua at least for the last seventy-five years, and

interconnect to the dominant culture area trait debates (e.g. Baudez 1970; Carmack and

Salgado 2006; Hoopes and McCafferty 1989; Lothrop 1926; Stone 1977). Recent research on

the practice of monumental stone sculpture is beginning to yield new insights into the extent

and nature of contact and interaction between these regions.

Regarding the human figures depicted on stone sculptures in Central Nicaragua it asks why

sculptures adhered to widely shared aesthetic rules. Given the apparent differences in social

context between Pacific and Central Nicaragua where anthropomorphic representations in

stone are found, such similarity in how persons were represented cannot be random; it must

relate to the social context of representation in some way. This paper thus addresses an

important, and surprisingly neglected, problem in the study of anthropomorphic stone

sculpture. What is the relationship between how persons are represented through style or

iconographic features and the context of its social world?

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The original configuration of Pacific Nicaragua was proposed by Samuel Lothrop in his

seminal two-volume Pottery of Costa Rica and Nicaragua and delimited by the Gulf of

Fonseca, the Nicoya peninsula and, toward the east, by the watershed (Lothrop 1926: xxvi).

At the time, the arguments for Lothrop seem to have lied principally on convenience since as

Lothrop discusses, the watershed region and the Atlantic beyond were utterly unknown at the

time. In relation to this definition-through-absence by Lothrop, it should be noted that when

speaking of Central Nicaragua in this context this is meant as a heuristic tool proposed to

accommodate the methodological agenda of the research project. That is, since at present

there are no existing ‘markers’ to border the research project within this large area of

Nicaragua, the concept of Central Nicaragua is deployed as a matrix, flexible in size, on

which social life took place during the pre-Hispanic sequence (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Nicaragua. The central region detailed in Figure 2 is indicated by the square.

The concept of Central Nicaragua, therefore, is not intended as a cultural area, but rather a

geographical one, even when the latter is also not self-evident due to the diversity in

landscapes. This rather explicit invoking of the region merely as “a concept good to think

with” (Fotiadis 1997: 106) along processual archaeology lines, is intended to keep an open

mind in looking for potential networks of contact between communities and, beyond that, to

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allusion of identity and ethnicity. As such, the project diverges somewhat from preceding

archaeological research in that it refuses to consider cultural mapping initiatives, like drawing

lithic or ceramic zones, or cultural area borders. Preliminary results from research around

such borders in Central Nicaragua seem to warrant considerable caution in postulating

frontiers.

Research background

When compared to the Nicaraguan Pacific coastal region of Rivas, the silence of systematic

archaeological research in Central Nicaragua is deafening; in fact it is a major area of Central

America which remains virtually unknown to this day. Apart from work conducted on the

Caribbean littoral (Clemente et al 2007; Magnus 1974, 1978), a ceramic sequence consisting

of five pre-contact periods is available for the area closest to the lakeshore, based on five river

course surveys undertaken during the late 1980s (Gorin 1989; Rigat 1992). Five phases were

proposed based on this research ranging from 500 BCE to 1400 CE and one final period dated

tentatively at 1400-1600 CE (Gorin 1989:659-670). Based on the changes in this ceramic

inventory, some characteristics of the social evolution in the area have been proposed, but

overall these fall short of providing confident insights into the pre-Hispanic history of Central

Nicaragua as such. Based on the material culture as well as on ethnological and linguistic

observations by numerous scholars who passed through the region from the second half of the

19th century onward, Central Nicaragua instead appears to have been an area relatively rich in

cultural and linguistic variation. First surveys in the late 1980s and subsequent work

conducted in 2007 for the northern shore of Lake Nicaragua and some river valleys in

Chontales represented the first attempts to fill in some of the archaeological blanks (Geurds

2008; Geurds, et al. 2009) (Figure 2)

Despite different levels of analysis and using different material categories, all past

investigators conclude that cultural identities in the region are heterogeneous, a conclusion

corroborated by linguistic evidence from the early Colonial period ethnohistorical sources

(Constenla 1994; Ibarra Rojas 2001; Incer 1985; Van Broekhoven 2002), which point to

several languages being spoken at the same time, including Nahuatl, Ulua and Matagalpa.

Determining if this is recognizable in the material culture of Central Nicaragua is a further

long-term objective for the current project.

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Figure 2: Central Nicaragua, with sites recorded during 2009 and 2010

Stone sculpture

Archaeological investigations in Nicaragua have traditionally focused on detecting cultural

influences through exchange and mobility of cultural traits (see Lange 1992: 7-8). The

“betwixt and between” position of southern Central America lamented by Robert Drennan,

was exemplified by archaeological studies in Nicaragua which is a country harboring frontier

zones of major culture areas. This frontier theme is reflected in Willey’s list of cultural traits

centering on the material foundations of archaeological enquiry: pottery, settlement

characteristics, political complexity, and metallurgical techniques to name a few (Willey

1971). Also included was monumental stonework.

The transition toward the practice of sculpting monumental stone figures has been identified

with particular cultural areas in different parts of Nicaragua, particularly with the Zapatera

and the Chontales styles southwest and north of Lake Nicaragua (Bruhns 1982, 1992; Falk

and Friberg 1999; Haberland 1973; Navarro 2007; Richardson 1940; Zelaya Hidalgo et al.

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1974), although undocumented sculptures from other Nicaraguan regions are also present. As

indicated first by Bruhns context and chronology are a major impediment for advancing the

understanding of these sculptures. Franck Gorin proposed a date of 800 CE for the Chontales

sculptures, but this is based on a single sculpture fragment encountered at the multi-

component site of La Pachona, relatively dated by means of associated Monota phase

ceramics (Gorin 1989). Adequate descriptions on its stratigraphic location are lacking.

Archaeological sites documented in 2009 and 2010 are now beginning to yield solid data on

the physical and social contexts of stone sculpture in Central Nicaragua.

Proyecto Arqueológico Centro de Nicaragua (PACEN)

The PACEN focuses on surveying the watershed region of the Nicaraguan department of

Chontales, extending reconnaissance activities to reach the lake shore due west and pushing

further into Caribbean lowlands due east. By and large the project follows main river courses

on both sides of the watershed. Between 2007 and 2010 the project has accomplished

covering significant sections of the roughly triangular area northwest of the town of Juigalpa

and the border between the Chontales department and RAAS, and between the town of Cuapa

and Juigalpa to the south. The territory (approximately between 12.29 latitude and 85.38

longitude, and between 12.48 latitude and 85.39 longitude, and between 12.34 latitude and

84.44 longitude) is an area marked by an increase in population in recent times. This increase

is occurring mainly around the towns of Juigalpa, La Libertad, Santo Domingo and El Ayote,

as well as along the highway and the dirt road leading into and through the central watershed

region (sees Figure 2).1 Considering this population increase is relevant since documenting in

context stone sculpture is a primary goal of the project and there is a strong correlation

between modern population growth and looting of sculptures. As such the three main research

field objectives currently are: 1) Produce data on the central watershed region through

archaeological reconnaissance for evidence that may indicate pre-Hispanic interaction with

the Caribbean lowlands; 2) Specifically target the location and description of archaeological

sites featuring Chontales style statuary; 3) Improve the database of the statuary collection at

the Archaeological Museum Gregorio A. Barea in Juigalpa.

1 Apart from the much larger Juigalpa, all of these towns now exceed two thousand inhabitants. Even if the

region is overall still sparsely populated, the recent human activity and consequently the developing

infrastructure, has contributed to the endangerment of archaeological sites through systematic and professional

looting, which typically results in irretrievable loss of important archaeological data and irreparably damaged

architectural structures.

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The known corpus consisted entirely of statues in public museum collections in Nicaragua

and a few other Latin American countries as well as a handful in the US and Europe. It is

estimated the current corpus stands at around 140 statues worldwide. All of these lack specific

information on provenience, and therefore architectural context and social meaning.

Documenting the original setting for some of these known statues formed a primary goal for

this field season, as did the reconnaissance of parts of the central area of Nicaragua for sites

that could potentially yield previously undocumented statuary.

The Nawawasito site

During reconnaissance activities in 2009, an archaeological site was located on a low sloping

hilltop perched between two seasonal streams, the Nawawas River and the Siquia River which

flows toward the Caribbean Sea. The site covers some 8 hectares and is marked by both

domestic as well as public mounds, making up a total of forty-two built structures (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Nawawasito. Map indicating house mounds as well as circular and semi-rectangular public

mounds. Stepped structures 1 and 2 and visible as two squares, large and small respectively.

Roughly 10 to 12 mounds significantly exceed the median sizes of the domestic mounds, and

can therefore tentatively be considered public or communal mounds. Domestic use of the

larger mounds is excluded based on excavation results. During 2010 two of the largest

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circular mounds were test excavated by means of a centrally placed 1 x 1 m pit, yielding very

little cultural deposits of any kind. The constructive material of both mounds consisted

entirely of heavy clays, lacking any significant quantities of stone. The stratigraphy of both

mounds (both over 2 meters in height) proved to be highly comparable and suggest that both

mounds were erected in one of two instances rather than being the result of gradual

accumulation. Structures 1 and 2 by contrast were made up of dissimilarly shaped rocks

ranging in size from fist-shaped fragments to large boulders approaching a diameter of some

50 cm (Figure 4). A rare occurrence in Central Nicaragua, Structures 1 and 2 are almost

perfect squares measuring 12 x 12 and 6 x 6 meters respectively and display a form of

architectural planning by means of a step on all four sides forming a smaller flat surface

(‘platform’) on top.

Figure 4: Pit 2 on Structure 2, showing the build-up of larger rocks in the top layer and smaller rocks

mixed in with sand in the lower spectrum. Note the red clay ground surface at the bottom of the pit.

Square stepped structured are rarely documented in Nicaraguan archaeology, the only other

example being known from Garrobo Grande, some 50 kilometers south of Nawawasito.2

2 It should be noted that the Garrobo Grande site is a complicated comparison, since the principal structure

evidencing the square, stepped shape was extensively reconstructed by Museo Nacional personnel during the

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Located in close proximity to these two square structures are over sixty fragments of both

carved and uncarved monoliths, making up at least forty-three individual sculptural objects

(Figure 5).

Figure 5: Nawawasito. Structures 1 and 2 with the locations of the forty-three monoliths and a

carved spherical boulder. Please note the fragmented state of several statues, and the two steps

in the structures’ architecture.

Of this corpus of forty-three monoliths twenty-three are stone sculptures worked in low-relief

demonstrating anthropomorphic carvings consistent with the general characteristics of the

Chontales statuary style (Figure 6a,b,c). Ten are uncarved specimens of columnar basalt, and

another ten still lack further investigation due to partial interment along the south side of

1990s. Even though the structure apparently had a stepped shape when it was initially documented (personal

communication Gustavo Villanueva), the current shape does not seem to convincingly represent the original

construction.

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Structure 1 (Figure 7). The purposefully interred columns in Structure 1 are of particular

interest. A comparative case was documented on the Caribbean coast at the site of El Cascal

de Flor de Pino, where a similar cache of basalt columns was documented some years ago.3

Relative to the known corpus of some 140 carved statues, this significantly increases the

entire corpus based on this site alone.

Figure 6a: Fragment stone sculpture (columnar basalt) at Nawawasito. Note the exposed teeth

and decorated headband.

Figure 6b: Stone stone sculpture (columnar basalt) at Nawawasito. Note ‘closed’ eyes and

mask depiction.

3 Http://seneca.uab.es/arqueologia-nicaragua, accessed online, February 27, 2010.

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Figure 6c: Stone sculpture (andesite) at Nawawasito.

The stone sculptures appear to have been closely associated to the two square stepped

platform mounds. Monoliths were recorded at each of the corners of Structure 1, along the

lateral sides as well as in a looting pit at the center of the platform. Comparably, Structure 2

featured several stone sculptures in its vicinity. Most objects were recorded in a partially

interred position in the surface. A series of 50 x 50cms shovel tests undertaken along the

central north-south and east –west axes of the site again yielded very little diagnostic

materials. Low densities of ceramics were recovered from most pits, all of which poorly

preserved and undecorated.

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Rationales behind the paucity of portable material culture move in two directions. One calls

for restraint in making definitive conclusions as to the nature of the absence of materials.

More testing may still detect higher concentrations of material, most likely the southwest

sector of the site, featuring the domestic mounds. It should be noted here that the regional

climate in the Caribbean with abundant precipitations in combination with the ground

composed of heavy clays have led to severely disturbed and reworking of the original

stratigraphy. During the dry season the ground dries and cracks, while during the rains

seasonal pool form.

The second line of reasoning though takes into consideration the nature of this site, which is

clearly ceremonial in character. In fact, monumentality seems to be a primary function with

the by any standard high amount of sculpture and monoliths associated to relatively few

monumental structures. Whether ceremonial was not only the primary but only the sole

function of this site, will have to be proven during future excavations.

Figure 7: Interred columnar basalt monoliths, partially exposed on south side

of Nawawasito Structure 1.

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Aguas Buenas

Contrasting the relatively small and geographically secluded ceremonial site of Nawawasito is

the site of Aguas Buenas.This site was already briefly visited during 2007, and was included

in this field season in light of its significant apparent size and sprawling clusters of domestic

mounds and to investigate the presence of stone sculpture in Central Nicaraguan sites with

predominantly a function as domestic settlement. Whilst initially two days were programmed

to chart its lay-out, our already ample expectations in terms of size based on previously

publishes notes were still exceeded considerably.

More specific investigations into its architecture also remain minimal for now. The map in

Figure 8 must be treated as preliminary and incomplete until further survey, excavation and

mapping with Total Station can be completed during a subsequent field season. The present

map sketches a settlement with a total amount of domestic and public mounds of 547 (Figure

8). This is a number surpassing all other settlement known to date for the archaeology of

Nicaragua. In making this comparison, it should be noted that much remains to be determined

in terms of coevality of the residential mounds. For now it remains undetermined what the

habitational history of the site was, even if it concerns of singe or a multi component site.

That said, similar reservations are at present equally valid for a majority of the other sizeable

settlements in Nicaragua.

The 28,5 hectare site sprawls over numerous small hills in the community of San Isidro along

the Garnacha river 6 kilometers north of Juigalpa and was previously visited by personnel of

Patrimonio Cultural, subsequently by Frederick Lange and Payson Sheets in 1983 (Lange et

al 1992: 49-50), and finally by Franck Gorin in 1984 and again in 1987 (Gorin 1989:191-

192). Based on those visits the estimateson total number of mounds ranged from 200 to 300.

Regarding the dating of the site, Gorin opportunistically collected some diagnostic surface

material exclusively associated to the Cuapa phase (1400-1600 CE). This date is reinforced by

the characteristics of the lithics (Gorin 1989:192). Two test pits yielded diagnostics from the

Cuapa phase (i.e. Miragua Común), but also earlier Gran Nicoya related diagnostics from

Rivas (Papagayo Polícromo) as well as diagnostics from Northern Nicaragua and local

diagnostics including Sacasa Estriado (Figure 9a, b) making for an occupation spanning from

the Potero to Cuapa phases (400 – 1600 CE).

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Figure 8: The Aguas Buenas site, overlay on an INEGI 1:50,000 map. Mounds indicated by generic

dots, these do not represent actual individual mound circumferences.

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Figure 9a: Papagayo polychrome Figure 9b: Papagayo fragments

figurine fragment

In the emerging site settlement patterns, which is based on previous research (principally

Gorin 1989) and the ongoing PACEN research (Geurds et al. 2007), Aguas Buenas is an

anomalous site in size, form and occupational history. Regarding size, this settlement is

significantly larger than any other settlement documented to date in Central Nicaragua.

Moreover, it is extraordinary in its lay-out, seemingly not consisting of gradually agglutinated

clusters of domestic mounds, but instead largely defined by five or six concentric circles

which, particularly on the western half of the settlement describe near geometrically perfect

circles. The outer circle measures some 500 meters in diameter. In this western half the

individual mounds are positioned equidistant to each other (Figure 10).

In comparison to the Nawawasito site, a number of observations can be made about Aguas

Buenas. First, the latter clearly predominantly held a function of permanent settlement

indicated by the large amount of domestic mounds and the high density of materials yielded

from the two test pits. In contrast, the site has yielded no stone sculptural fragments. This may

be explained by two reasons: One is the proximity of the site to modern communities,

primarily the departmental capital of Juigalpa. This closeness significantly increases the

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likelihood that the site was looted for stone sculpture in the more recent past. Second, the

central area of the site, marked by a roughly rectangular plaza lined by mounds, features

numerous outcrops of bedrock upon which clusters of rock art were carved. This may have

served as a proxy to the concept of the stone sculptures. Having said this, at other sites in the

vicinity outcrops of columnar basalt were documented and site are known to have held stone

sculpture many of which are presently in the collection of the archaeological museum in

Juigalpa.

Figure 10: Aguas Buenas site, core site area.

Summary Results

In sum at Nawawasito:

1. A total of forty-four intact or fragmented stelae and monoliths were recorded at or near

their in situ position.

2. A large majority of forty are specimens of columnar basalt, demonstrating a polygonal

shape and typically not exceeding a diameter of 35 cm. The remaining four are made of an

igneous rock not yet positively identified, potentially andesite.

3. In the riverbed of the nearby Siquia River, a possibly related complex of rock art was

recorded less than one kilometer from the site.

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This research represents the first time these Chontales style statues were registered outside of

museum collections, and it opens up new avenues for improving understanding of this

insufficiently documented artifact category in Central American archaeology.

Sculpture in spatial context

Stone sculpture has been documented in Nicaragua in numerous location including Zapatera

and Ometepe Island, the area around León, Managua, Matagalpa, Sebaco, Boaco, Juigalpa,

Santo Tomás, Santo Domingo, El Ayote, and as far eastern as San Antonio Kukarawala.

While many uncertainties still remains regarding chronology and context of these sculptures,

a number of considerations can be proposed at this time. In the appearance of these sculptures

in several areas of Nicaragua , we see that communities and groups in Nicaragua adopted a

mutually shared practice while maintaining an otherwise distinctive lifestyle. Across both

sides of the much debated Mesoamerican frontier, there appears to have been no single

cookie-cutter pattern of life “before” or “after” the appearance of stone sculpture. Instead,

post 800 CE many groups made use of various combinations of general characteristics

different from those which may have typified earlier societies:

- Practices related to more elaborate and monumental centers

- The widespread use of weaponry and ornamentation as gender symbolism on

anthropomorphic sculptures

- Limited attention to central settlement places, with many small villages and few large

villages. For Central Nicaragua, Aguas Buenas remains an anomaly for now.

- A very gradual shift in long-distance trade from stones such as obsidian and chert to

gold

- Apparently not accompanying this rise in sculpture was any form of similarly

geographically broad horizons of ceramic styles or technological innovations. The

stone sculptural tradition clearly cross-cuts these ceramic borders.

These changes created an obvious transition which has been explained in many ways.

Culture-historical explanations ascribed them to a horizon of Mesoamerican migrant-invaders

spreading along the Pacific coast southwards from Mesoamerica (Fowler 1989). While social

interpretation of these changes focus on particular aspects, such as stylistic change (Healy

1980), a shift in how relations between people were conceptualized (Lange 1984), a shift in

ethnic structures perhaps related to political changes such as from corporate to network

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leadership strategies (McCafferty 2005), such explanations probably related only to specific

areas. On a broader scale, it is clear that a general change from one widely shared cultural

repertory to another was taking place. This is the context in which Nicaraguan stone sculpture

emerges.

During the pre-Hispanic period, the carving of monumental stone sculptures was one of the

principal goals in mining outcrops of igneous rock in Central America. These sculptures are

traditionally recognized in the archaeological literature by means of two defined styles being

the Zapatera and Chontales styles. The Zapatera style sculptures, appearing on Zapatera

Island as well as the nearby Granada area display themes of ‘alter-ego’ or human-animal

transformation (Zelaya-Hidalgo et al. 1974). Materially, they consist of basalt and andesite

columnar-shaped stones, typically between 1.5 and 2.5 m tall. The majority is carved with

anthropomorphic designs. Common carved designs are faces, arms and legs, genitalia, and a

diverse spectrum of clothing, necklaces, and weaponry. Typically the statues will consist of a

human-like figure wearing an animal of his back, often reptilians, but also monkeys and

felines occur occasionally. For Central Nicaragua, the focus lies principally on the Chontales

style sculptures. These statues are distinctive for their remarkable height and small

circumference; some are more than five meters in length and no more than fifty centimeters in

diameter. Typically, decorations consist of carved human-like depictions, some with complex

secondary iconography (Figure 11).

One of the mysteries of stone sculpture geography in Nicaragua is how widely separated but

clearly related traditions could have been maintained; one of the suggestions to explain this

could be that comparable wooden representations, not preserved archaeologically, were used

in intervening areas.

As a particular kind of material culture, stone sculptures are quite distinct from other forms of

representation known in pre-Hispanic Nicaragua – principally small figurines and rock art. In

a few contexts, they do grade into other forms of material culture; this occurs both in the

Zapatera and Chontales styles, where some examples share imagery convention and form with

the local rock art traditions (Figure 12). However, these exceptions aside, stone sculpture

forms a seemingly well-bounded, easily recognized form of human representation whose

conventions are shared over a very large part of Nicaragua.

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Figure 11: Chontales style sculpture Figure 12:’ Rock art sculpture’

(Courtesy Museo Arqueológico Gregorio Aguilar Barea)

Stone sculptures are thus a widespread phenomenon in much of Nicaragua between an as yet

extremely tentative period of about 800 to 1520 CE. While own characteristics can be

discerned for sub-traditions within this phenomenon, there is also a set of widely shared

formal conventions which unite the more localized traditions. Archaeology has not been very

successful at explaining either of these facts. One might argue that the widespread distribution

of stone sculptures is linked to physical migrations, but the archaeological underpinning of

this are doubtful – for instance why do stone sculptures turn up in many parts of Central

Nicaragua and why are sculptures lacking in other archaeological areas seemingly more

heavily transited during pre-Hispanic times, such as the southeastern shores of Lake

Nicaragua?

Instead, we might postulate that stone sculptures appeared by a process of convergence from

varied local sources. To corroborate this however, an insight is needed into the developmental

trajectories of sculpture in Central Nicaragua. Analogies make it likely that precursors to the

monumental sculptures may be found, such as figurines or evolving patterns in rock art.

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Crucial in creating an understanding of social life in pre-Hispanic Central Nicaragua is the

process of convergence towards a common genre by people in different communities making

parallel choices in the process of cultural transmission.

Other than development and geographical spread, more social interpretations focus on

sculpture use and meaning. The uses of stone sculptures may have varied regionally, and

central to this social question is control over good archaeological contexts which the

Nawawasito site is now beginning to provide. Evidence presented here provides first

indications of such a monumental context. Options for context of stone sculpture include:

- Stone sculptures serving as grave or mound markers.

- Stone sculptures occurring in groups or alignments at ceremonial sites.

- Stone sculptures erected in open country, perhaps along pathways or transit routes

At Nawawasito (Geurds 2009), the groups of sculptures recorded on a small hill top may have

accommodated up to several hundred people during rituals in a clearing in the forest in the

direct proximity of two main rivers and their point of confluence. The stone sculptures had

been erected there in association with and a range of items including large natural boulders

with rock art as well as unworked basalt columns deposited at particular locations at the site.

While Nawawasito cannot be considered a burial site as yet – no burials have been

documented to date – it is not improbable that burials will still be discovered during future

fieldwork.

To the extent that a social interpretation has been given, Central Nicaraguan stone sculptures

have alternately been regarded as representations of gods, prisoners, or ancestral figures, with

the latter view gradually becoming ascendant in recent times (Bruhns 1992; Wilke 2008). At

Nawawsito, a collection of more than 40 monoliths would have been a large undertaking to

construct and was probably done by and for a community rather than individuals or families.

Choreographically, we must imagine a group of stone sculptures as a relatively permanent and

visible component of a constructed place which was normally not inhabited but which would

have been visited periodically, a place either directly used for burying the dead or related to a

chain of operations which involved remembering or invoking them. Although sculptures may

occasionally have been moved and remodeled, it is assumed that they were predominantly

immobile, both because of their mass as large monoliths and because the few examples found

in context are still close to architecturally meaningful fixed locations. Stone sculptures were

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thus relatively fixed, hence anchoring landscapes in which people moved rather than the

reverse. The location of the Nawawasito stone sculpture close to water may be related to the

importance of rivers and their role as facilitators of contact and interaction and thereby the

exchange of materials and ideas between communities in Pacific and Central Nicaragua.

Several sites are directly accessible by river and may have been used for trading purposes as

well as ritual purposes. Note that trade and ritual need not be mutually exclusive: trading may

well have been carried out within a ritual purpose context.

Sculpture in social context

Finally, we can now start to consider the unanswered question as to what social contexts the

tradition to stone sculpture fit into. Analogous to the archaeological lack of data, one of the

most striking effects of Central Nicaraguan stone sculpture is the lack of information given by

the sculptures themselves. A body representation can convey many kinds of information—

motion, individuality, texture, attitudes, gestures. Representations of the body are usually

associated with promotion of a simplified, powerful message. The sculptures aesthetic

qualities seem to balance conveying bits of information while simultaneously carrying out an

act of abstraction. There is generally (though not always!) very little attempt to define an

individual biography or to show people in any different categories beyond genders and

whatever category of person the sculpture generically represent. The simplification of the

body is a powerful act of abstraction.

There are two obvious broader social contexts in which to place Central Nicaraguan stone

sculpture. One is a trend toward monumentalization of the landscape. While it is still too early

to make sweeping comments on the chronological development of monumentality in

Nicaragua, there does appear to be a wave of monumentalization across much of the area with

the onset of the sculptural tradition.

Monumental constructions (in the form of earth and stone mounds), rock art complexes, and

stone sculpture are all part of this new marking of the landscape. Monumentalized landscapes

may have been linked to ancestry via the meaningful use of stone as an enduring material.

Alongside this incipient monumentality, communal burial grounds appear in Central

Nicaragua around 800 CE. In the form of secondary urn burials, the arrangement of formal

cemeteries is not only a significant difference to burial practices in Mesoamerica, but also

indicative of ceremonialism at the level of the community or of between communities. The

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Nawawasito site has to date not yet yielded any evidence for burials, but future excavations of

in context sculptures will provide more definitive clarity regarding the association of stone

sculpture as burials markers.

The second social context for sculpture concerns display, and prestige. In the material record

an increase in social valuables can be seen, some of which appear to be marked on the

sculptures. These recurrent material symbolizations of prestige take the form of weapons and

ornaments as well as pendants and –occasionally- textiles (Figure 13). Many of these

valuables were likely to have been made of traded materials or be exchanged objects in

themselves. The predominance of weaponry such as daggers, clubs and spears likely ties in to

identity symbolisms also seen in rock art, and thus must have been a central feature of

everyday life. Additional evidence through grave goods from excavated burials remains

pending.

Figure 13: Details of stone sculpture. Note elaborately decorated dress.

Discussion

The stone sculpture found in context opens up the possibility of interpreting their social and

spatial meaning. Even though fragments of Chontales style statuary have been recorded in site

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contexts on previous occasions, including the unpublished removal of a group of seven statues

at the El Salto site near Juigalpa during the 1990s, no contextualized descriptions of were

until now available. In particular the documentation of the forty-three monoliths at the

Nawawasito ceremonial center and the rock art clusters at the primate settlement of Aguas

Buenas offers unprecedented interpretative potential for improving our understanding of stone

sculpture in Central Nicaragua and the expression of memory through monumental sculpture

in Nicaragua on both sides of the Mesoamerican frontier. For Nawawasito, this expression

must have taken place with a considerable investment of time and energy on behalf of the

local populations, given the extraordinarily high amount of monoliths, each weighing several

hundreds of kilos and having been quarried at an as yet unidentified location at some distance

from the settlement core. In light of the number of sculptures known previous to the

documentation of this group, either this site is an exception in terms of statue quantity or, and

this seems more likely at this time, there are in fact comparable sites still undiscovered in the

surrounding Caribbean lowlands.4 It strongly suggests that the total amount of stone

sculptures per settlement is substantially larger than assumed until now. To investigate this

hypothesis, the Caribbean lowlands of the autonomous RAAS department are the region with

the highest potential to yield such archaeological sites, yet undisturbed by modern

infrastructure and semi-commercial looting practices.

It can be proposed here that the Chontales style sculptural tradition is a stylistic phenomenon

which:

a) Requires further definition of what this style constitutes, since it concerns an extremely

heterogeneous corpus of sculptures;

b) Spread across a much wider area of Nicaragua than previously assumed, extending beyond

the modern department boundary of Chontales far into the Caribbean lowlands and northward

in the direction of Matagalpa.

Prior to the work reported here, we lacked an understanding of almost all functional aspects of

this statuary, not knowing their contextual setting, precise use, inter-relationships, and history

of use.We can now begin to study some of these issues. Further, we have documented cases of

sites where residential mound clusters are associated and indeed aligned according to non-

residential public structures of monumental dimensions. This was documented at Aguas

4 Preliminary surveying in the direction of Tortuguero and San Antonio Kukarawala has already provided further

sites with stone sculpture in context. These will be subject to further investigation in 2011.

23

Buenas as well as at Nawawasito and provides a general sense of the internal architectural

hierarchies and the associated social dynamics.

Settlement hierarchy is still a topic requiring further attention through additional

reconnaissance. When following general conventions of settlement hierarchy though, and

assuming at least a two level hierarchy, we can preliminarily conclude that Aguas Buenas

must have occupied a role at the apex of this hierarchy, with its extensive size and population.

How the site of Nawawasito operated in a regional social network is less straightforward

issue; the settlement itself is not particularly extensive, yet the amount of energy invested in

creating the two monumental structuring and associating them with over forty monoliths, begs

the question whether this was a ceremonial site, perhaps attracting inhabitants from

throughout the wider region. The convenient location at the confluence of the Nawawas and

Siquia rivers adds to the likelihood of such a regional function as a destination of ritual

pilgrimage. Stone sculpture may have reinforced concepts of belonging and connections

between symbolic locales and community level identity.

Overall, when taking into account the present results and previous investigation the definition

of a settlement hierarchy is decidedly less straightforward than it has been in comparative

studies. Smaller sized centers, featuring low densities of residential mounds, demonstrate a

high density of public architecture, and in contrast extensive sites such as Aguas Buenas show

little evidence of monumental of even public architecture. This seems to render traditional

typologies of settlement characteristics rather unfit for Central Nicaragua. It suggests that

settlements in Central Nicaragua followed alternative material expressions of complexity,

perhaps emphasizing rock art in contrast to monumental mounds as is the case at Aguas

Buenas. Further, the hierarchical distinctions between settlements in Central Nicaragua may

not even be a structural feature of political control as it is commonly applied. Rather, it is

possible that smaller and larger settlements were not administered from primary centers like

Aguas Buenas but that both operated mutually through a shared cognitive corporate code (cf.

Blanton et al. 1996), but more research is needed to clarify this issue primarily through more

contextual descriptions of stone sculpture sites and subsequent excavation programs.

Conclusion

This paper suggests an understanding for both the spatial and social context of stone sculpture

in Central Nicaragua and beyond. During a period of as yet undetermined length, people in

24

pre-Hispanic Nicaragua transported massive monoliths from stone quarries and outcrops,

sculpted them into statues, and erected or buried them in particular landscape locations to

function in rituals surrounding leadership, the deceased and community identity. Their

aesthetics varied throughout Central and wider Nicaragua, but the cultural practice was a

powerful and comparable reality. These anthropomorphic sculptures conveyed an idea of

personhood shared throughout Central and Pacific Nicaragua. As such, these statues may have

held a shared meaning to whole communities across otherwise largely separated fields of

interaction, like those of the Mesoamerican frontier. The Nawawasito sculptures share both

uniform in appearance indicating the lack of any sharp social distinctions visible in communal

settings, suggesting a divergent but coexistent pattern of social relations; a pattern which may

be valid for wider Central Nicaragua.

25

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