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Origins of the Mesoamerican ballgame: Earliest ballcourt from the highlands found at Etlatongo, Oaxaca, Mexico.

ABSTRACT: The ballgame represents one of the most enduring and iconic features of ancient Mesoamerican civilization, yet its origins and evolution remain poorly understood, primarily associated with the Gulf Coast and southern Pacific coastal lowlands. While one early ballcourt dates to 1650 BCE from the Chiapas lowlands, ballcourts have remained undocumented in the Mesoamerican highlands until a millennium later, suggesting less involvement by highland civilizations in the ballgame's evolution. We provide new data from the southern highlands of Mexico, from the Early Formative period (1500-1000 BCE), that necessitate revising previous paradigms. Along with ballplayer imagery, we recently excavated the earliest highland Mesoamerican ballcourt, dating to 1374 BCE, at the site of Etlatongo, in the Mixtec region of Oaxaca. We conclude that Early Formative highland villagers played an important role in the origins of the formal Mesoamerican ballgame, which later evolved into a crucial component of subsequent states.

SUBMITTER: Blomster JP

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7069692 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Origins of the Mesoamerican ballgame: Earliest ballcourt from the highlands found at Etlatongo, Oaxaca, Mexico.

Blomster Jeffrey P JP Salazar Chávez Víctor E VE

Science advances 20200313 11

The ballgame represents one of the most enduring and iconic features of ancient Mesoamerican civilization, yet its origins and evolution remain poorly understood, primarily associated with the Gulf Coast and southern Pacific coastal lowlands. While one early ballcourt dates to 1650 BCE from the Chiapas lowlands, ballcourts have remained undocumented in the Mesoamerican highlands until a millennium later, suggesting less involvement by highland civilizations in the ballgame's evolution. We provid ...[more]

PMID: 32201726

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Project description:BackgroundOaxaca is one of the most diverse states in Mexico from biological and cultural points of view. Different ethnic groups living there maintain deep and ancestral traditional knowledge of medicinal plants as well as traditional practices and beliefs about diseases/illnesses and cures. Previous ethnobotanical research in this state has helped document this knowledge, but with the addition of more studies, more records appear. We updated the inventory of medicinal knowledge between the different ethnic groups that inhabit the Oaxacan territory.MethodsA database was constructed from two sources: (1) original data from a 3-year project in 84 municipalities of Oaxaca inhabited by eight ethnic groups and (2) different electronic databases.ResultsRecords of 1032 medicinal plants were obtained; 164 families were registered, with Asteraceae, Fabaceae, and Rubiaceae being the most commonly used. A total of 770 species were reported in 14 vegetation types; the most important species came from temperate forests. Only 144 species corresponded to introduced species, and 272 were listed in a risk category. Illnesses of the digestive and genitourinary systems as well as culture-bound syndromes were treated with high numbers of medicinal plants. The Mestizo, Mixe, Mixtec, and Zapotec ethnic groups exhibited the greatest number of recorded medicinal plants. The 17 species that were used among almost all ethnic groups in Oaxaca were also used to cure the highest number of diseases.DiscussionInventories of medicinal plants confirm the persistence of traditional knowledge and reflect the need to recognize and respect this cosmovision. Many species are gathered in wild environments. The most important illnesses or diseases recorded in the present inventory are also mentioned in different studies, suggesting that they are common health problems in the rural communities of Mexico.ConclusionsMedicinal plants are essential for ethnic groups in Oaxaca. It is necessary to recognize and understand the complex ancestral processes involved in the human-nature interaction and the role of these processes in the conservation of biodiversity and in the survivorship of ethnic groups that have persisted for centuries. Finally, this study serves as a wake-up call to respect those worldviews.

Project description:BACKGROUND: Dengue (DEN) is a serious cause of mortality and morbidity in the world including Mexico, where the infection is endemic. One of the states with the highest rate of dengue cases is Oaxaca. The cause of DEN is a positive-sense RNA virus, the dengue virus (DENV) that evolves rapidly increasing its variability due to the absence of a repair mechanism that leads to approximately one mutational event per genome replication; which results in enhancement of viral adaptation, including the escape from host immune responses. Additionally, recombination may play a role in driving the evolution of DENV, which may potentially affect virulence and cause host tropism changes. Recombination in DENV has not been described in Mexican strains, neither has been described the relevance in virus evolution in an endemic state such as Oaxaca where the four serotypes of DENV are circulating. RESULTS: To study whether there are isolates from Oaxaca having recombination, we obtained the sequence of 6 different isolates of DENV-2 Asian/American genotype from the outbreak 2005-6, one clone of the C(91)-prM-E-NS1(2400) structural genes, and 10 clones of the E gene from the isolate MEX_OAX_1656_05. Evidence of recombination was found by using different methods along with two softwares: RDP3 and GARD. The Oaxaca MEX_OAX_1656_05 and MEX_OAX_1038_05 isolates sequenced in this study were recombinant viruses that incorporate the genome sequence from the Cosmopolitan genotype. Furthermore, the clone of the E gene namely MEX_OAX_165607_05 from this study was also recombinant, incorporating genome sequence from the American genotype. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first report of recombination in DENV-2 in Mexico. Given such a recombinant activity new genomic combinations were produced, this could play a significant role in the DENV evolution and must be considered as a potentially important mechanism generating genetic variation in this virus with serious implications for the vaccines and drugs formulation as occurs for other viruses like poliovirus, influenza and HIV.

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Origins of the Mesoamerican ballgame: Earliest ballcourt from the highlands found at Etlatongo, Oaxaca, Mexico.

Publications

Origins of the Mesoamerican ballgame: Earliest ballcourt from the highlands found at Etlatongo, Oaxaca, Mexico.

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