The term Mezcala Tradition is used to group together pieces of mortuary stone sculpture from the from the Middle Balsas River basin. Pieces of this type have been found in the Mezcala River basin but they are not exclusive to this tributary.
It is part of a stone carving tradition that produced anthropomorphic figures, as well as some images of fauna and architecture, using different colored small stones from the region. The human figures often represent men standing with their arms at their sides and frequently the forearms are folded against their trunk.
The collections of the Mezcala tradition is dominated by a strong abstraction which determines the form of the human body using predominately straight lines. However, sporadically pieces are found that share some of these characteristics but not others.
This piece is incomplete but what we can see is enough to perceive that its facial type is different to the schematic carving as it has been worked with naturalist details that are not common in the Mezcala tradition. The work on the lips and teeth is similar to Olmec faces but it is also similar to Oaxacan designs of faces during the Classic period.
It is very unlikely that there was an "evolutionary" sequence in Mezcala stone carving that took it from naturalism to abstraction or vice versa. It is more likely that some local manifestations survived and that they interpreted the style in their own way.
