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Social Skins of the Head: Body Beliefs and Ritual in Ancient Mesoamerica and the Andes edited by V. Tiesler and M. C. Lozada (2018)

Researchers have long recognized the symbolic and spiritual significance of the human head across time and space. Archaeological and bio-archaeological works often show that the head in the Americas was considered to be a locus of personhood and the soul, an embodied site of ancestral identity, and a potent symbol of human and earthen fertility, in both living and deceased persons. This edited volume tackles the use (and reuse) of human heads and head imagery in Mesoamerica and the Andes, looking at common themes and distinct uses over time in these regions. Heads are both biologically vital and individually recognizable, making them potent symbols of identity of both the living and the dead. Furthermore, once removed from a human body, a head can be easily manipulated as a cultural artifact. Thus, heads have often been used as mortuary offerings, war trophies, representations of individuals, and indicators of collective identity. In the Andes and Mesoamerica, heads of the living and deceased were regularly manipulated to convey messages of belonging, status, ethnicity, fertility, dominance, and control. Modified crania, face-painting, and hairstyles gave symbolic power to and identified living individuals, with varying degrees of permanence. In mortuary contexts, isolated crania played many roles, from demonstrating military and physical