As people gather together with friends and family this holiday season, most will make an effort to avoid wandering into the potential conversational minefields that are politics and religion, but new research indicates that conflicts over such issues are far from a new thing.

In research published this week in Current Anthropology, University of Colorado anthropology professor Arthur A. Joyce and Sarah Barber from the University of Central Florida reported they had discovered proof that such tensions existed more than 2,000 years ago.

Joyce and Barber discovered evidence in several Mexican archaeological sites dating back to 700 BC that contradicted the commonly-held believe that religion served to unite early cultures in the region. In fact, it many cases it had the exact opposite effect, according to their research.

“It doesn’t matter if we today don’t share particular religious beliefs, but when people in the past acted on their beliefs, those actions could have real, material consequences. It really behooves us to acknowledge religion when considering political processes,” Barber said in a statement.

Role of religion in social life, politics has changed little

The new study is the result of several years of field research conducted in the lower Río Verde valley of Oaxaca, which is the Pacific coastal lowlands of Mexico. Joyce and Barber analyzed archaeological evidence from 700 BC through 250 AD, the time during which states were first established in the area.

People living in the Rio Verde valley during this time often took part in religious rites, including offerings and the burial of people in cemeteries. In comparison, the upper society in the highland Valley of Oaxaca served as intermediaries between their citizens and the gods, which ultimately led to conflict with traditional community leaders, the authors explained.

“In both the Valley of Oaxaca and the Lower Río Verde Valley, religion was important in the formation and history of early cities and states, but in vastly different ways,” said Joyce. “Given the role of religion in social life and politics today, that shouldn’t be too surprising.”

For instance, in Río Viejo, the capital of the lower Río Verde valley, the citizens built massive temples by 100 AD. Yet, despite the effort required to create such structures, those same temples wound up being abandoned just a little over 100 years later, the research team discovered.

“An innovative aspect of our research is to view the burials of ancestors and ceremonial offerings in the lower Verde as essential to these ancient communities,” said Joyce, who was the lead author of the study. “Such a perspective is also more consistent with the worldviews of the Native Americans that lived there.”

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