Monumental stone sculpture, a ubiquitous art form throughout Mesoamerica, is among the most distinctive material features in various Pre-Columbian cultures. Unsurprisingly, stone monuments have traditionally received considerable attention from Mesoamerican scholars in a variety of disciplines. Despite this privileged position in Mesoamerican cultural history, few previous studies have tackled issues related to the function and meaning of monumental stone sculpture in the critical Preclassic period, a time of dramatic social and political transformation, and even fewer have attempted to link the art-historical study of formal transitions in sculptural programs to the anthropological consideration of sociopolitical processes.

In Sculpture and Social Dynamics in Preclassic Mesoamerica, Julia Guernsey addresses this lacuna in received scholarship by focusing on the origins and development of an enigmatic type of public, monumental sculpture known as the “potbelly.” This study is, to my knowledge, the first to focus exclusively on potbellies, a sculptural form that is formally and aesthetically unlike any other in Mesoamerica, despite the widespread tradition of stone monuments throughout the region. Guernsey situates the emergence of the monumental stone potbelly tradition within the contexts of shifting social dynamics during the Late Preclassic period (ca. 400 BCE–200 CE). She suggests that the formal attributes of potbellies—obese stomachs, closed eyes, and jowly faces—link them to themes of ancestry, which factored significantly into the rapidly changing sociopolitical configurations that accompanied the advent of state formation along the Pacific slope of Mesoamerica, in southern Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Specifically, she argues that the Late Preclassic tradition of public and monumental stone potbelly sculpture evolved from the imagery present on earlier, Middle Preclassic ceramic figurines that formed an integral component of domestic ritual practices focused on ancestor veneration. By juxtaposing this previously private representational program onto a powerful new public sculptural form, nascent rulers controlled and manipulated references to ancient ritual, domestic traditions, ancestors, and vital life forces in order to negotiate a period of dynamic social and political transition, legitimating authority while simultaneously reconfiguring community identity. The potbellies were thus transformed into monumental “public transcripts” that reified an emergent sociopolitical structure.

After introducing the study and briefly discussing the theoretical framework and methodological challenges inherent in linking Mesoamerican sculpture to social process, Guernsey makes the case that potbellies are uniquely situated to facilitate precisely this sort of investigation (chapter 1). She then provides a useful overview of the history of established scholarship on Preclassic Mesoamerican sculpture (chapter 2), highlighting the paucity of previous studies that explicitly consider sculpture as an articulation of sociocultural processes (27). Chapter 3 presents a brief archaeological and cultural history of the Preclassic Pacific slope of Mesoamerica. Guernsey contextualizes the sculptural programs of the region, which boasts the highest concentration of potbelly sculpture, situating potbellies within a diverse and long-standing tradition of figural representation that formed part of a larger sphere of interregional linguistic, artistic, and material interaction. She locates the emergence of the potbelly sculptural form at the Middle to Late Preclassic period transition (ca. 400 BCE), a crucial time during which Mesoamerican elites began to realize the potential of sculpture as both an art form and a purveyor of content. Significantly, the initial appearance of potbellies coincided with the rise of the first centralized political centers along the Pacific slope (53). Although Guernsey rightly notes that a direct relationship between the emergence of potbellies and the appearance of states in southeastern Mesoamerica is difficult to prove, she does submit the coincidence of these developments as suggestive of the pertinence of the potbelly form, and the messages these sculptures conveyed, to prevailing sociopolitical trends.

Chapter 4 focuses on the dating and distribution of potbellies and potbelly-related sculpture across Mesoamerica, detailing the spatial, temporal, and archaeological contexts (where available) in which potbellies have been found. This extensive discussion of potbelly traits accentuates continuities and discrepancies among potbellies from varying Preclassic sculptural traditions. Guernsey recognizes the difficulty inherent in defining the parameters of a highly variable form that often evidences overlap with other sculptural forms due to apparent interaction and hybridization between alternate traditions (79). Despite this variability, Guernsey convincingly demonstrates that potbellies (as a generic type) were an enduring form that was widely distributed across Mesoamerica, with examples found at sites of varying scale from El Salvador to Central Mexico, and ranging from the late Middle Preclassic through the Late Classic periods. Guernsey summarizes the traits and distribution of known potbellies and related monuments in an outstanding table (Table 4.1; 59–62). Although she modestly admits that the corpus is incomplete, her compilation is the most comprehensive to date and stands in its own right as a singularly valuable contribution.

With the stage thus set, the remaining four chapters delve into the developmental trajectory and function of potbellies along the Preclassic Pacific slope. Chapter 5 addresses the potential of sculpture to mediate the divide between public and private spaces. Focusing on the Guatemalan site of La Blanca, Guernsey argues that the potbelly form underwent a transformation of scale at the dawn of the Late Preclassic. The attributes of small-scale ceramic figurines, frequently encountered in Middle Preclassic domestic assemblages, were transferred onto larger stone monuments in public contexts, mirroring a decline in “private” ritual—and the near complete disappearance of potbelly figurines in domestic contexts—as large-scale public ritual increased. Thus, the form and cultural meaning of monumental potbellies demonstrate clear continuity with earlier domestic figurine traditions. Emerging elites appropriated an ancient form forged in the domestic sector and succeeded in moving it—figuratively and symbolically—to the sacred centers of sites, while simultaneously deemphasizing ritual at the household level (110). The following chapter detours slightly to discuss problems implicit in previous interpretations of potbellies, which tend to conflate Preclassic potbellies with a later Mesoamerican form known as the “Fat God.” Guernsey identifies several difficulties with this line of reasoning, chief among them the observation that, despite some formal continuity between potbellies and Fat Gods, the juxtaposition of an interpretive framework based on later Classic period evidence onto a Preclassic form obscures meaning and variability in the earlier tradition.

The final two chapters explore an alternative set of meanings and functions for the potbelly form. Guernsey argues that specific features of potbellies identify them as performative objects grounded in long-standing Mesoamerican traditions of ancestor veneration. Nascent rulers exploited the representational conventions of earlier domestic rituals, transferring a vocabulary of forms that encompassed themes of performance, ancestor worship, and vitality onto monumental stone sculpture to navigate the sociopolitical transformations of the Middle to Late Preclassic transition. In doing so, elites were able to invoke a collective ancestral identity that had political appeal and value during this period of dramatic change. The references to domestic ritual that were incorporated into large-scale potbellies indicate a conceptualization of social identity predicated on the integration of notions significant in both the public and private spheres (145). Guernsey suggests that potbellies were a strategic practice, one that allowed emerging rulers to employ, control, and restrict the symbols and themes of an ancient domestic tradition to serve their own ends, buttressing claims to political power and fabricating a collective identity of elite authority (151). In this sense, she concludes, monumental potbellies functioned in conjunction with other sculptural programs as active elements within a larger, more complex social web that elites used to convey politically charged messages designed to legitimate a shifting sociopolitical order.

Guernsey succeeds in demonstrating the capacity of sculpture to manifest the complex processes involved in the negotiation and reconfiguration of social identity to suit a dynamic sociopolitical milieu, as well as the ability of potbellies to shed new light on a period of crucial transformations in Preclassic Mesoamerica. The book itself is well produced, and the many illustrations provide an excellent visual aid in following the primary arguments. Of course, as with any work, there are specific elements with which the careful reader may take issue. For an archaeologist, chief among them is the lack of secure archaeological contexts for the vast majority of Preclassic potbellies. This absence not only complicates dating, as Guernsey admits, but also dulls the edges of her observations regarding the concurrence of potbellies with wider sociopolitical processes (e.g., increasing centralization, state formation). Likewise, the lack of archaeological contexts detracts from her, albeit plausible, supposition that emerging rulers erected the monumental potbelly sculptures, or at the least renders the evidence on which she bases this conclusion somewhat circumstantial.

Of perhaps more concern is the lack of explanation for the significantly greater time depth and concentration of potbelly sculptures on the Pacific slope. It is unclear if the form developed there, if it emerged out of interregional interaction, or if it was simply a regional style that subsequently manifested in a variety of Mesoamerican traditions. Tangential to this point, the suggestion that emerging rulers appropriated the symbolism of an ancestral tradition and translated it in novel contexts to justify budding sociopolitical authority is certainly valid, but this is true of a variety of material culture in numerous Mesoamerican contexts (e.g., the “stela cult” of the Maya lowlands, Olmec-style iconography in Oaxaca). Given the fact that within the same Late Preclassic temporal contexts rulers in other areas—and at other sites on the Pacific slope—employed distinct iconographic and material programs to assert authority, it is ultimately unclear why the potbelly form factored so significantly into this dynamic at certain sites within this particular region.

From an anthropological perspective, one may feel that Guernsey does not fully unpack many of the larger theoretical underpinnings of her interpretations. For example, she discusses the material agency of sculpture in arguing for its capacity to illuminate social processes (10–11). Drawing on the work of various agency scholars, she details the ways in which material goods—such as potbellies—may instantiate cultural ideals. Nonetheless, this process moves both ways. Individual social actions—such as the production of a potbelly sculpture—are both constrained and enabled by sociocultural structure, contextualized through a range of cultural conventions and resources that both precede them and provide them meaning and opportunity. At times, Guernsey seems to fall into the very trap that she anticipates (147) of creating “super-agents” endowed with unfettered intentionality that subverted extant social structure for their own ends. The inclusion of a more detailed discussion of the ways that the motivations behind individual action are at once restricted and shaped by the historical moments in which the negotiation of social structure occurs would have enhanced an already highly insightful argument.

These observations notwithstanding, the tentative nature of some of her interpretations should not be viewed negatively, and of course, as Guernsey points out, data rarely converge to suggest a simple, definitive explanation (155). Given the innovative approach and ambitious scope of the volume, it is unsurprising that many of Guernsey’s arguments, while persuasive, are not always conclusive. Nonetheless, in tying the potbelly monuments into other types of artifacts rather than focusing exclusively on the “monumental art,” this comprehensive study of a misunderstood and often neglected sculptural form lays a valuable foundation for new avenues of research on potbellies, as well as the functions, meanings, and roles of sculpture in the sociopolitical dynamics of early civilizations, both in Mesoamerica and beyond. The very specific nature of the primary topic and detailed central argument of this work may make it somewhat inaccessible to the nonspecialist, but for advanced scholars and students of Mesoamerican archaeology, art history, and anthropology, Sculpture and Social Dynamics in Preclassic Mesoamerica should prove a compelling and informative read. One of the most lasting contributions of the volume, to my mind, is the convincing demonstration of a link between the Middle Preclassic potbelly figurines at La Blanca—which have controlled archaeological contexts—and the later monumental potbelly sculptures. In the end, Guernsey should be congratulated on her ability to wed the tools of art-historical analysis with those of anthropology and archaeology to recover a glimpse of the ancient social processes at play during an exceptionally critical period in Mesoamerican history.