Art historians and archaeologists believe much information about ancient West Mexican society is encoded within shaft-tomb figures. Figures show how people looked, what they wore, how they interacted with other people, what objects they carried, how they decorated their bodies, and what activities and rituals they performed. Certain combinations of posture, clothing, and gender appear together in many figures but other combinations do not. The groupings of traits are important because potters made the figures for specific uses by a particular audience. Studying the figures’ characteristics helps us understand what some social and artistic conventions were in West Mexico.

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