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Pre-Columbian Ball-game Handstones: Rejoinder to Clune

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Stephan F. de Borhegyi
Stephan F. de Borhegyi*
Affiliation:
Milwaukee Public Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
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Abstract

On the basis of ethnohistorical data, Clune has questioned the identification and use of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican stone objects formerly known as “padlock stones” or “sling stones” and recently designated by de Borhegyi as “ball-game handstones.” According to de Borhegyi, these stones were used by players in the Mesoamerican ball game to deflect or propel a high-arching ball. Archaeological evidence strongly supports the inference that “ball-game handstones” and such ball-game paraphernalia as stone yokes and palmate stones were used in the ball game as it was played during Early and Late Classic times (A.D. 200-900) along the Gulf coast of eastern Mexico and in the Maya area. The indiscriminate use of Spanish and other early ethnohistoric records may be misleading in the reconstruction and interpretation of cultural events that occurred centuries earlier in a variety of places.

Type
Facts and Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , July 1964 , pp. 84 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1964

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References

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