Brokering time and place: The piedras rayadas of El Tigre,Honduras

Abstract

Material ontological approaches have the potential to expand the understanding of precolonial stone monuments. Grooved boulders (known locally as piedras rayadas) seem to be a monumental form unique to El Tigre Island, Honduras. This article focuses on the 30 piedras rayadas documented at the archaeological site of La Tigüilotada in the context of lithic ontologies. By examining their spatial relationships and their material biographies, we shed light on the various social engagements of the boulders and their participation in other-than-human assemblages through cycles of renewed material engagements. From this analysis emerges a dynamic picture of the boulders' role in emplacement processes through time, highlighting their participation in the local ritual landscape, in celebrations, and in marking the passage of time.

Introduction

Worked monumental stone is ubiquitous across the differing landscapes of Central America. Petroglyphs, pictographs, and sculpted monuments are recognized as having held an important role in the ritual life of Indigenous people in precolonial times and often continue to do so among present-day Indigenous communities. Despite the abundance of petroglyphs and sculpted monuments in the regional archaeological context, their analysis has merely held a marginal role in the archaeological scholarship of Central America (e.g. Baker, 2023; Costa et al., 2023; Figueroa and Rodriguez Mota, 2009; Geurds, 2021; Künne and Baker, 2016; Mayo and Mayo, 2007; Quilter, 2004). With earlier scholarship emphasizing the representational value of the designs, approaches have mainly focused on registering, classifying, and analyzing the iconography in relation to known semiotic traditions. Despite recent efforts to anchor stone monuments in their natural and anthropogenic landscapes, and limited by the inherent challenges associated with their analysis, few studies have engaged more holistically with the socio-cultural contexts of their production. Even fewer have engaged with the animacy of the stone as a medium and the landscape surrounding it.

Due to the discomfort they create in escaping taxonomic categorization, aniconic stone monuments have then remained mostly absent from this archaeological scholarship in Central America. Grooved boulders known locally as piedras rayadas, a form of monumental stone unique to the island of El Tigre, do not readily fit any of the traditional analytical categories for archaeological stone monuments. The dormant stratovolcano of El Tigre holds a geographically central position in the Gulf of Fonseca, on the Pacific coast of modern-day El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua (Figure 1). Located at the intersection of the four bays of the Gulf, it looks to the volcano of Zacate Grande to the north, the Conchagüa volcano (El Salvador) to the west, and the Cosigüina volcano (Nicaragua) to the south.

Figure 1.

(a) Map of Central America, highlighting the location of the Gulf of Fonseca. (b) Map of the Gulf of Fonseca, highlighting the location of El Tigre Island. (c) Map of El Tigre Island. Map: authors.

A survey conducted in 2022 on El Tigre Island registered 35 of these piedras rayadas (see Supplemental material 1 for the complete catalogue), 30 of which are associated with the mounded archaeological site La Tigüilotada. This site shows two distinct phases of occupation, the first dated AD 650 to 1200 and the second dated AD 1300 to 1520. The piedras rayadas appear associated with the first occupation. Their characteristic rectilinear grooves first appear to be randomly placed on stones of greatly varying shapes and sizes: from single grooves on small stones to complex crisscross patterns on a 200 cm × 70 cm boulder (Figure 2). The surface of the stone further exhibits some smoothing in addition to the distinctive rectilinear grooves. Some of the grooved stones are andesite boulders, which form part of the eroding bedrock of the volcano; others seem to be quarried volcanic bombs. Some of these large boulders likely underwent major modification to create flat surfaces. No examples of this phenomenon have been documented thus far elsewhere in the Gulf or in Central America.

Figure 2.

Photograph of PR6, the largest Piedra rayada encountered on El Tigre. PR 6 particularly stands out in our sample set due to its size and complexity. Photo: authors.

The unicity of the material engagement reflected in the piedras rayadas therefore calls for an approach that centers on the animacy of the boulders rather than on the potential referential function of their designs. This paper proposes a holistic approach to studying worked stone monuments within their respective lithic ontologies. By using the materiality of stone as a starting point, this study first explores the spatial relationships between boulders, archaeological sites and the volcanic island landscape, and then moves on to examine technological engagements with the stone. From this analysis emerges a dynamic picture of the role of piedras rayadas in emplacement processes through time, highlighting their participation in the local ritual landscape, celebrations, and marking the passage of time.

Stone worlds

Dealing with monumental stones

Most often discussed in the framework of landscape archaeology, monumental stones are rarely dealt with as artifacts, with very few studies employing approaches from material culture studies (Holmberg, 2009: 204). The finished monument is often considered separately from its technological processes and material substance. Their classification into categories such as “pictograph,” “petroglyph” (lumped together as “rock art”), and “sculpture” highlights a primary concern for the final product and its iconography rather than for the medium, which, in return, is relegated to the status of “support.” In particular, monumental stone bearing imagery (whether sculpted, incised, or painted) has often been treated as symbolic representation, with attempts being made to interpret the designs rather than the socio-cultural dynamics underlying their production. These approaches then prove particularly unsuitable to the study of aniconic stone monuments.

In recent decades, the field has begun to shift towards the symbolic engagement with landscape instead (e.g. Bahn, 2010; Chippindale and Nash, 2004; Gillett et al., 2014; Whitley, 2011). While other studies have started thinking with the materiality of rock art, highlighting the symbolic engagement with lithic ontologies during production (e.g. Jones, 2012; Ouzman, 2001; Robinson, 2004; Taçon, 1991), these approaches have yet to find wider applications and remain almost entirely absent in studies of Central American monumental stones.

Using the animacy of stone as a starting point, however, opens up new lines of inquiry in the investigation of the role of monumental stone in past ontologies. Following Boivin's argument that the materiality of stone “links together monuments, rock art, technologies and the landscape in a unified story,” (2004: 2) a holistic approach to investigating stone monuments requires breaking down traditional disciplinary distinctions within archaeology, integrating both landscape and material approaches to explore the role of other-than-human assemblages. Recent developments focusing on lithic ontologies and the materiality of stone (e.g. Conneller et al., 2025; Joyce, 2025; Little, 2025; Londoño Diaz, 2024; Tsoraki et al., 2020) have shown the potential of these approaches in interpreting archaeological lithic material.

Lithic ontologies

In archaeology, more than three decades of slowly dismantling human/natural/material ideational oppositions along with traditional animacy hierarchies (sensu Chen, 2012; Joyce, 2025), has led to a renewed and dynamic narrative of the past, inclusive of diverse agencies and other-than-human actors (e.g. Crellin et al., 2021; Harrison-Buck and Hendon, 2018; Hodder, 2012; Ingold, 2000; Watts, 2013).

Here, studies have readily embraced the agency of artifacts, landscape, plants, and animals. By contrast, the recognition of the animacy of mineral substances—with the exception of clay—has seemingly found more resistance (see Boivin, 2004). This tendency has been slow to find resolution, probably due to what Rosemary Joyce describes as stone’s “long history of relegation to the less animate end of the animacy hierarchy in European thought” (2025: 75). Although scholars have increasingly recognized the animacy of “exotic” stone artifacts such as obsidian, jade, and marble, more ubiquitous materials, particularly igneous stones like basalt, remain comparatively overlooked.

Some form of animacy hierarchy is known to exist in Indigenous ontologies in Andean, Mesoamerican and Central American contexts (e.g. Dean, 2010; Holmberg, 2005; Joyce, 2025: 74–78). However, it tends to be more reflective of a degree of agency of the matter rather than a strict partition between life and “not-life,” with different—sometimes situational—types of animacy attributed to various types of stony substances (Joyce, 2025: 78). Evidence from archaeological and ethnographic contexts in these regions additionally supports that animacy extended to a large array of local stones, from pebbles to large stone blocks and boulders.

As geological entities, the animacy of these stones is intrinsically associated with that of the earth and the mountain. Mountains, and particularly volcanoes, would have played a central role in the ontologies of the Indigenous people of Central America, who, coming from a highly tectonic region, would have recognized their agency (Holmberg, 2005, 2009: 203). In various contexts in Mesoamerica (e.g. Brady and Ashmore, 1999; Palka, 2014; Stuart, 1997), Honduras (e.g. Hendon, 2010; Joyce, 2025; Joyce et al., 2009; Joyce and Hendon, 2000), and across the Central American Isthmus (e.g. Alvarado and Soto, 2008: 4; García and Jaén, 1996; Holmberg, 2005, 2009; Joyce, 1916: 25–6; Joyce, 2025; Künne and Strecker, 2003: 137), archaeological traces as well as ethnographic and ethnohistorical evidence show that Indigenous inhabitants have recognized the animacy of these landscape features and meaningfully engaged with them through time.

Socializing stone

In the context of monumental stones, engagement with their animacy can take various shapes, with technological modification merely being one of them. Human recognition of stone’s animacy does not always require human inscription (Dean, 2010; Holmberg, 2009: 228; Künne and Strecker, 2003: 113; Stone, 1961: 136; Stuart, 2010). Marking stones does not precede the animacy of a place or of the substance, but rather reflects acknowledgement of that animacy (e.g. Holmberg, 2009: 229; Jones, 2012: 79; Quilter, 2004: 39). Large aniconic stones—such as unmodified boulders, rock formations, or rocks modified in a way that does not conform with our common conception of sculpture or rock art—may not have been considered less animate in Indigenous ontologies, but rather seem to have required other forms of engagement.

Once the animacy of the stone itself is recognized, all interactions with it can be conceived as socialization: the technological engagement at the moment of production becomes symbolically laden (Boivin, 2004: 13). While the animacy of stone is an intrinsic quality that does not require human action, it may “respond” to it (Jones, 2012: 79). Shaping this response is the agency of the material itself and its physical properties, such as hardness, texture, and mineral composition. Working with stone involves an active interplay with the animacy of the medium, and has been conceived as “revealing,” “releasing,” or “activating” forces or entities residing within it (Ouzman, 2001; Robinson, 2004; Taçon, 1991), with a specific agency emerging from this exchange of animating forces (e.g. Joyce, 2025: 77; Wilkinson, 2017: 302–303). Stone’s sensory dimensions—the physical contact with the surface, as well as the sounds and smells associated with the production of traces (e.g. Boivin, 2004; Ouzman 2001) are a direct result of the medium’s agency and participation in this social exchange.

While sometimes a requirement resulting from the material properties of stone, interaction with other substances during such technological engagement also constitutes symbolic relationships with intertwined meaning, with specific forces emerging from the association of contrasting substances (Boivin, 2004: 7). For example, ethnographic accounts for the Maya show that this combination of substances is key to the releasing of other-than-human agents (Stross, 1998: 32–35). For the Inka, an “energizing flow” comes from humans providing the stone with alcohol and coca (Dean, 2014: 300). The conception of stone as sentient, then, bears concrete social implications and codifies the technological engagements required in the interaction, beyond the sheer material affordances of the stone.

These social implications are not limited to a single moment of interaction, but are also essential in understanding the temporalities of stone monuments. In various Indigenous ontologies, the animacy of geological entities implies reciprocity in exchanges. This idea of reciprocity is reflected in present-day Honduras in the compostura rituals conducted by Lenca people, conceived as “reparation,” with offerings referred to as “repayments” (Chapman, 1986; Joyce and Sheptak, 2022; Wells, 2007; Wells and Davis-Salazar, 2008). These relationships are not isolated moments of care, but rather require long-term maintenance.

Leaving monumental stones to weather, degrade, or erode can, for example, be conceived as harmful to the relationship. Animate monumental stones may have required regular maintenance in the form of renewed engagement with the surface (e.g. Harte, 1960: 17–18; Ouzman, 2001), with this renewal potentially presenting differently than the initial engagement. Indeed, following Deloria, who states “the revelation was seen as a continuous process of adjustment to the natural surroundings and not a specific message valid for all time and places,” (1994: 66–67) it is also conceivable that, beyond maintenance, specific temporalities and places may call for specific engagements. The material traces in the stones then function as a palimpsest of these repeated ritualized engagements.

Finally, just as technological engagement with stone can “reveal” its animacy, its burning, burying, or breaking can be understood as “unfixing,” “untethering,” or “deactivation” of the object’s essence (e.g. Astor-Aguilera, 2010; Wilkinson, 2017: 302). However, considering the animacy of stone as an intrinsic quality, deposition reflects the end of a cycle of social interaction, and a termination of the social relationships in which it participated, rather than a termination of its animacy.

In this paper, we propose an approach akin to what Meskell and Weismantel (2014) refer to as “following the material” to explore the agency of stony animacies of piedras rayadas in processes of material engagement and emplacement. Using spatial relationships and technological engagements as a point of departure, we investigate their participation in other-than-human assemblages through the histories of occupation of El Tigre Island, Honduras.

Situating piedras rayadas in the landscape of El Tigre

Archaeological context

In 2022, the Proyecto Arqueológico Manglares e Islas del Golfo de Fonseca (PAMIGOLF) conducted a non-systematic pedestrian survey of the volcanic island of El Tigre, recording eight archaeological sites in diverse states of preservation. As part of this, 35 piedras rayadas were registered (PR1–35; see catalogue). Since a 1980 letter from the Secretaría de Estado en el Despacho de Cultura y Turismo (lent from the personal archives of Claude Baudez) signals the presence of 96 petroglyphs, including grooved boulders, on the northern and eastern parts of the island, we do not consider our data to reflect the entire corpus of piedras rayadas on El Tigre. This paper focuses on the site of La Tigüilotada, where the most systematic and complete survey was conducted, and where 30 of the 35 piedras rayadas were found.

Here, 47 surface features offer a complex site plan corresponding to two distinct phases of occupation: the first occupation, corresponding to the Late Classic and Early Postclassic (ca. AD 650–1200) is limited to the southeastern part of the site, with elongated earthen mounds in plaza-like organization following southeast-northwest orientation; the second occupation corresponds to a semi-circular organization of shell mounds in the northwestern part of the site, dating to the Late Postclassic (ca. AD 1300–1520) (Figure 3). A test trench of Mound 3 of the first occupation of La Tigüilotada revealed at least three successive phases of construction: the first dated to the 7th century AD, the second dated to the 9th to 10th century AD, and the final one to the 11th to 12th century AD (Kolbenstetter et al., 2025). The test pit conducted in Mound 13, a shell mound associated with the second occupation, substantiates continued deposition of shell and ceramic fragments beginning of the 14th century AD and lasting into the 16th century AD.

Figure 3.

Disposition of piedras rayadas relative to the site plan of La Tigüilotada. The mounds mentioned in the text (M9, M3 and M13) are highlighted. Map: authors.

The map of La Tigüilotada reveals a regular disposition of piedras rayadas throughout (Figure 3). On the southeasternmost point of La Tigüilotada, 20 of them line the edge of a promontory overlooking the sea. Documented as Mound 9, this arrangement appears to be part natural and part anthropogenic. The other piedras rayadas, spaced at an interval of about 70 m, form a northwest-southeast alignment corresponding to a direct line between Mound 9 and the highest point of the volcano (Figure 4). Two of them fall outside of this alignment, yet maintain the axis. This northwest-southeast axis of the alignment is reflected in the site plan of the first occupation of La Tigüilotada. While the line crosses through the Late Postclassic occupation, the mounds from this phase appear to disrupt the continuity of the alignment rather than enhance it, allowing us to propose that the production of this alignment predates this phase.

Figure 4.

Three-dimensional view based on the digital elevation model of El Tigre, highlighting the alignment of the piedras rayadas with the volcano and Mound 9, as seen from above Mound 9 (left) and from the top of the volcano (right). Figure: authors.

Material and spatial relationships

The concentration of 20 piedras rayadas around Mound 9 marks it as a clear focal point in the landscape of La Tigüilotada. Here, some piedras rayadas (PR13, PR14, PR16, PR17, PR24) are located on the higher part of the promontory, while the other 15 are at the back of the promontory, all the way down to the beach. This cluster, placed on the slope behind Mound 9, has no direct line of sight to the volcano or to the other piedras rayadas. Approaching this observation from the animacy of different landscape features, we propose that just as the alignment means to connect Mound 9 to the top of the volcano, those worked stones seek to connect Mound 9 to the beach below, creating a direct link between the substance of the water and the top of the volcano. This is further supported by the orientation of the grooved surface of the boulders: while the ones that are in the line of sight to the volcano are oriented towards it, the boulders located at the back of Mound 9 are oriented towards the ocean.

Surface collection on Mound 9 produced a majority of material consistent with the first occupation of the site, including obsidian flakes, spiked censor fragments, a clay figurine, white-slipped serving vessel sherds, as well as two fragments of cylindrical vessels, which are typically associated with the consumption of cacao. Additional surface material suggests a reuse of this structure in the later phase of occupation. Concentrations of shells, characterized by a high diversity of species in contrast to the rest of the site, were also found between the boulders. The cluster of piedras rayadas documented around Mound 9 is also associated with other worked monumental stone with anthropomorphic designs, dotted lines, and cupulas. Notably, one of the boulders exhibiting anthropomorphic designs was of portable size and made of igneous material exogenous to El Tigre Island (Figure 5).

Figure 5.

Anthropomorphic designs on boulders associated with Mound 9. (a) is in situ on the top of Mound 9, (b) is of portable dimension from a material likely exogenous to El Tigre. Photos: authors.

Starting from the shared animacies between stone and mountains, we turn to the exploration of the relationships between the grooved boulders and El Tigre Volcano. Our attention is therefore drawn to the northwest-southeast axis highlighted by the intentional alignment of the boulders connecting the water, Mound 9, and the top of the volcano.

Investigating this axis through the lens of solar events allows us to highlight the participation of another entity in this other-than-human assemblage: on the winter solstice, the sunrise visually aligns with the piedras rayadas and Mound 9 as seen from the summit of the volcano. On that day, the sun could be seen rising behind this promontory from any point of the alignment of piedras rayadas. Summer solstice, on the other hand, corresponded to a time of year when the sun would be seen setting exactly behind the top of the volcano from the promontory (Figure 6). At the time of sunset on this day, the cast shadow of the top of the volcano would slowly engulf each boulder of the alignment, and Mound 9, until it finally reached the sea. Beyond linking these other-than-human assemblages in the landscape, these events also allow us to situate them temporally.

Figure 6.

Left: Topographic map of El Tigre, the red line represents the azimuth at sunset on the summer solstice viewed from Mound 9. Map: Tom de Rijk. Right: Azimuth line superimposed with the site map of La Tigüilotada. Map: authors, calculated with https://gml.noaa.gov/grad/solcalc/.

Operational sequence of a piedra rayada

To elucidate the nature of material engagements with the boulders, an operational sequence analysis was conducted macroscopically as well as microscopically on two specimens (see Supplemental material 2). The grooved boulders were produced following a common production sequence, with some elements being fixed and some being open for variation, representing diversity in the types of engagement with the stone.

On most piedras rayadas, the earliest steps of the operational sequence analysis were obliterated by later ones. However, macroscopic traces on some of the boulders suggest boulder preparation before grooving. Some boulders exhibit cleavage, indicating fire may have been used in shaping them (PR34). Irregular topography with circular indentations on some specimens further suggests shaping by pecking or pounding to create a flat surface before making grooves.

Microwear analysis of the grooves revealed few traces. The topography inside them is rough and irregular, with a crushed appearance (see Supplemental material 2). Polish is completely absent, as are scratches or micro-striations. The dimensions of the macroscopic striations, as well as their location on the edge of the groove, are consistent with the use of a coarse sand additive in their making. Considering the absence of micro-traces or polish, as well as the lack of a matching tool in the archaeological assemblage, we propose that grooves were produced using a hardwood plank in combination with volcanic sand additive (for complete protocol see Supplemental material 2). Groove width and depth are mostly consistent within the same boulder, indicating a consistency in both tool and bodily movement; this suggests a single event of interaction. Some boulders, however (e.g. PR6, PR13, PR33) exhibit different groove dimensions within the same face, pointing towards a palimpsestic accumulation of traces through time.

The lack of micro-traces inside grooves contrasts with the surface traces observed on the exported piedra rayada (see Supplemental material 2), showing that the ground facets were not created with the same technique or contact material as the grooves. Microscopically, the surfaces of both pieces exhibit an irregular topography with a flat, dull, and rough polish limited to the asperities. Microscopic multidirectional striations appear within the polish of both surfaces, indicating a multidirectional grinding movement. Comparison with experimental pieces (see Supplemental material 2) shows that the grinding of the surface resulted from stone-on-stone grinding with water used as an additive. The unlevelled profile of the surface, which sinks towards the groove, suggests that the grinding is, at least in part, posterior to the grooving.

The complete rock face is coarsely ground on most of the piedras rayadas (Supplemental material 1). However, a majority of the specimens exhibit more intense, finer grinding limited to the area of grooving (e.g. PR8, PR12), or even limited to the direct edges of the grooves (e.g. PR25, PR34), to let the grooves appear well-defined on the surface. Occasionally (e.g. PR15), the different faces between the grooves appear to have been ground separately, likely with a small hand-held tool. In rare instances, this fine grinding covers the entire boulder (PR9).

Several specimens (PR4, PR6, PR9, PR29) exhibit evidence that prior grooves, and even prior cupulas (PR12), were erased by the grinding (see Supplemental material 1). This raises the question of the intentionality behind the broader grinding traces associated with some of the grooved designs (e.g. PR1). In fact, these wide grinding traces could indicate areas on the boulders where prior grooves were erased. This supports a palimpsestic reuse of piedras rayadas over time.

Finally, the fragments of PR15 are likely representative of intentional destruction. Yet, microwear analysis of this fragment also indicates that these stones might have continued to partake in social life after breakage. Found in the profile of a mound damaged by agricultural practices, this 3.3 cm thick fragment is unique in our assemblage, as it is finely ground on both its front and back surfaces. Handling traces identified in this analysis indicate intensive handling of the stone (Annemieke Verbaas, 2023, personal communication). Breakage, rather than destruction or termination, could then reflect an intentional fragmentation of its animacy.

Engaging with stone

In “following the material,” the results of the operational sequence analysis, combined with the spatial analysis, bear several implications. First, these results highlight the importance of the design and the groove itself. Some grinding around the grooves shows that they needed to be maintained and revived regularly, as an act of maintenance of the relationship with the stone’s animacy. While it appears some (palimpsestic) combinations of traces were deemed acceptable on a single boulder, other traces seem to have become unsuitable with time and required subsequent erasure, regardless of whether new traces needed to be created atop them. The palimpsestic reuse of the same boulders over time also holds significance. In fact, in a landscape littered with rocks, the erasure of prior marks represents a conscious choice in their selection and in the intentionality of repeated engagements. In turn, some boulders were actively deemed unsuitable for such interaction.

Second, this analysis sheds light on the nature of the engagement required in interacting with stone entities. The combined use of other substances holds meaning beyond technology and functionality. The combination of wood with volcanic sand in the making of the traces may be considered a requirement for initiating the relationship with the animated stone. The use of water in combination with another stone in the grinding process may equally have been a necessary step in reviving the traces and reinitiating the social relationship. Considering the other palimpsestic markers of this engagement already identified, the finer grinding, limited to the grooving area, likely resulted from several engagements over an extended passage of time. The grinding, “reviving” weathered traces on the surface of the boulder, would have acted as an active renewal of the social interaction with this other-than-human agent.

Finally, the combination of grooving with cupulas on the same boulder (PR12, PR3, PR21, PR22 and PR19) suggests a relationship between the grooves and other rock modifications. This relatedness across media is evidenced by the find context. Boulders exclusively displaying cupulas are also featured within the assemblage of Mound 9 and within the alignment of piedras rayadas, indicating they may present different manifestations of similar engagements with other-than-human agents. In the material biographies of the boulders, cupulas sometimes postdate grooves, partially damaging them (PR19 and 21), and are sometimes ground down before new incisions are made (PR12 and PR3). These palimpsestic dynamics are shared between cupulas and grooves, further supporting the hypothesis that these actions formed part of the same repertoire of engagements with stone.

Piedras rayadas in time and place

The making of place emerges from repeated social engagements with the landscape and its materialities, and all aspects of engaging with stone explored above are intrinsically tied to processes of place-making. In recognizing these materialities as animate, engaging with production processes and loci allows us to account for the symbolic meanings these actions possess, and conceive of them as acts of emplacement (Joyce et al., 2009). Throughout history, people have created meaningful places to initiate, renew, and celebrate relationships with each other and other-than-human entities (Joyce, 2003; Joyce and Hendon, 2000). The relationship with animate forces, both through landscape and material, can thus provide useful insights regarding which places are meaningful and why, as well as enable us to explore their (re)use and abandonment. Place biographies reflect a process of becoming, where places remain in a state of dynamic transformation through time, acquiring successive meanings throughout.

Emplacing piedras rayadas

The significance of alignment of sites or structures with specific animate features in the landscape has been recognized in the spatial analysis of sites in other Honduran (Joyce et al., 2009; Joyce and Hendon, 2000), Mesoamerican (e.g. Ashmore and Sabloff, 2002; Harrison-Buck, 2012: 64–65; Gillespie, 2010), and Central American contexts (e.g. Alvarado and Soto, 2008; Holmberg, 2005, 2009; Quilter and Frost, 2007), where both mountains and solar events seem to have been highlighted by site planning and architecture in localized forms of place-making.

La Tigüilotada’s spatial organization emphasizes the relationality between certain landscape features. Considering their materiality and the substances employed in their material engagement, as well as through the path they draw out, piedras rayadas appear both contextually and conceptually related to both the mountain and the sea. The distinct visual space behind Mound 9, along with the presence of a deep cupula that retains water, suggests that this space was associated with the ocean. The platform of Mound 9, neither entirely natural nor fully anthropogenic, mirrors the volcano and acts as a focal point in the local landscape. The selection of the volcanic island of El Tigre, as well this promontory, can be conceived as an inherently local form of place-making, and highlights cycles of interactions with the environment brought about by specific landscape features. As such, the site fits in a wider regional trend where volcanic landscapes invited specific practices aimed at reinforcing relationships between human and other-than-human actors.

Celebrating with the landscape on El Tigre Island

The summer solstice corresponds to the midpoint of the rainy season, and aligns with the current schedule followed by islanders for clearing the fields ahead of sowing seed for the postrera, the winter harvest. The latter is especially susceptible to heavy rainfalls, which can wash away seeds and young plants, providing a reason why this particular period of the year would have called for ritual action invoking both the mountain and the water.

On the summer solstice, the sun, setting behind the volcano, would connect those materialities. Starting a procession at the top of El Tigre on that day, one would slowly descend the volcano, followed by the shadow cast by the mountain in the setting sun, passing by every piedra rayada until reaching Mound 9, and descending into the waters as the sun fully sets.

Further related to this, the action of grooving piedras rayadas recalls the current Lenca compostura de la tierra. Aligned with agricultural cycles, these rituals involve spirits to be called in and carried down the mountain in vehicles (often bromeliads, or nowadays images of Catholic saints and crosses). Once disposed of on a temporary altar, these vehicles receive blood from a domestic bird in offering (e.g. Chapman, 1986; Joyce, 2025; Joyce and Sheptak, 2022). This ritual also involves the parallel consumption of a special meal by human participants. This example from Lenca philosophy highlights the incorporation of other-than-human entities from the mountain, tethered to aniconic vessels, in rituals based on reciprocity and mutual care between human agents and the earth. Based on this, one may argue that the piedras rayadas played a similar role in bringing the animating forces of the mountain and of the water to participate in the ceremonies of Mound 9. By becoming part of a ritual assemblage encompassing the peak of the volcano, Mound 9, and the sun, the boulders can therefore be conceived as material manifestations of communal interactions with the landscape and the forces that inhabit it.

Shared periodical gatherings, such as inter-communal feasts and celebrations, have been identified in a variety of other contemporaneous contexts throughout Honduras (e.g. Hendon, 2003, 2010; Joyce, 2017; Joyce and Henderson, 2007). This suggests this practice may have been anchored in regional traditions shared by a variety of social groups at the time of the first occupation of La Tigüilotada. Practices aimed at strengthening inter-community ties survive, among others, as the Lenca Guancasco in present-day Honduras and El Salvador (Joyce and Sheptak, 2022).

Mound 9 allows for an examination of such periodical gatherings. The material remains associated with this context are consistent with ritual feasting associated with solstices. Once or twice a year, the volutes of copal resin smoke, emerging from the spiked censor, would have served to feed the animate entities of the mountain. Cacao, viewed as the “food of the gods,” would have also been offered in cylindrical cacao drinking vessels, while white-slipped polychromes would have contained other food offerings, all surrounded by stone boulders, some grooved and some pecked with figurative designs. Whether human agents would have partaken in those feasts, or if they would have echoed the practice on Mound 3, where fine paste ceramics, large serving vessels, shells and faunal remains point towards communal food consumption events, is unclear.

The diversity of styles in these ceramic fragments, indicates that this feasting and celebration involved different communities from various places of origin. The presence of a portable petroglyph and a zoomorphic stone figurine made of stone likely exogenous to El Tigre further supports the theory of inter-communal gatherings.

Along with celebrating and renewing ties with other-than-human entities in the landscape, communities at La Tigüilotada also celebrated and renewed reciprocal connections among themselves. However, it is unclear whether a local community existed in the Late Classic to Early Postclassic period at this site, or if the material traces are consistent with joint seasonal pilgrimages from various communities from different locales. All communities involved then shared the same animate view of the sacred landscape of El Tigre, and of the types of engagements its stony animacies required.

Tracing temporalities of stone and place

Our contextual analysis of the finds in La Tigüilotada suggests that the repeated engagements evidenced in the material biographies of piedras rayadas were tied to seasonal changes and marked important moments in the passage of time.

As discussed above, solstices particularly called for a renewal of the engagement, either by reviving the relationship with grooved boulders by grinding their surface with water and stone, or by grooving another stone. The differences in grooving and grinding intensity could be indicative of the number of renewals of the interaction. The erasure of prior marks by grinding seems to have equally marked the passage of time, as does the renewed incision of those surfaces. These actions appear to reflect a cyclical aspect in the engagement, aligned with the cyclical concept of time in Mesoamerican ontologies (e.g. Gillespie, 2010: 405–406). Grooves and boulders could have been added to the alignment over time, but also been removed at the end of a cycle, to be reused or replaced in the next cycle of interaction. The accumulation of piedras rayadas on Mound 9 or the accumulation of grooves on PR6 may serve as intentional palimpsests, marking or commemorating full cycles of engagement. Such engagements are also reflected in Mound 3, where cyclical destruction and reconstruction were identified in the archaeological record.

Considering the evidence for palimpsestic use of the piedras rayadas described, it is likely that their disposition in the landscape was open to periodic change as well. Smaller boulders could have been added or removed from the alignment, while grooving on larger boulders was erased. Being based on a moment congealed in time, the incompleteness of our sample may indicate that this assemblage was to remain dynamic, and that there was never meant to be a final and definitive form to this alignment. At La Tigüilotada, the diversity of groove designs and techniques highlights that each moment in time called for a different form of engagement.

The material context of the alignment suggests that such repeated, cyclical practices could have started as early as the 7th century AD, and would have been renewed regularly on solstices. While the last renewal of the construction of Mound 3 seems to date to the 11th or 12th century, possibly marking the completion of another cycle of interaction, regular visits could have been maintained at least until the arrival of the late settlers and the construction of the second part of the site, in the 14th century.

How did the late settlers relate to the animate forces inhabiting the landscape of El Tigre? The features associated with them seem to cross-cut the original alignment of piedras rayadas, partially erasing its visual continuity. The intentionality of this overlap can be questioned, as the largest structure of this phase comes yet as another mountain in the alignment between Mound 9 and the volcano, potentially highlighting an intentional alignment with ancestral practices. The reuse of Mound 9 in the second period of occupation further suggests that the meaning of this place and the associated ritual landscape persisted, perhaps indicating that this late settling was motivated both by the animacy of the landscape itself and a long memory of repeated engagements through generations.

Concluding remarks

The acts of emplacement of the production of grooves were tied to a particular time period in the sequence of occupation of the island. Yet, the permanence of the traces left by the basalt boulders across the island enabled their meaning to be reshaped throughout generations and as new communities settled in the landscape, ensuring the continuity of their role in the local community and place-making.

Today, people across the island know about the largest piedra rayada. While the current inhabitants of El Tigre do not identify with an Indigenous past, the grooved boulders are included in several local narratives. Several community members recount walking in the area at night, seeing a levitating ball of fire or thunder appear, guiding them to the piedra rayada and vanishing. Others report that the grooves were made by the nails of the devil. Others say that they were made by pirates sharpening their swords. Through this incorporation in local oral traditions, the boulders remain social agents in the local place-making processes. In the biography of place of La Tigüilotada, these durable traces stand out as agents in brokering past, present, and future sets of meanings, intimately bound to the locality of El Tigre Island.

In this analysis, our “following the material” resulted in the uncovering of a dynamic relationship between human participants and other-than-human agents inhabiting the landscape of El Tigre and its stony substances. While the piedras rayadas appear so far unique, the phenomenon they partake of is likely to have been present in different shapes across the volcanic landscapes of Central America. Taking lithic animacies seriously is then key to gaining a more complete picture of the role of stone monuments, both iconic and aniconic, in past Indigenous ontologies.

Supplemental material

Supplemental material - Brokering time and place: The Piedras rayadas of El Tigre, Honduras

Supplemental material for Brokering time and place: The Piedras rayadas of El Tigre, Honduras by Marie Magali Kolbenstetter, Arturo García-De León, Lasse van den Dikkenberg in Journal of Social Archaeology

Supplemental material

Supplemental material - Brokering time and place: The Piedras rayadas of El Tigre, Honduras

Supplemental material for Brokering time and place: The Piedras rayadas of El Tigre, Honduras by Marie Magali Kolbenstetter, Arturo García-De León, Lasse van den Dikkenberg in Journal of Social Archaeology