The dating and regional placement of these objects is very difficult because they were used throughout Mesoamerica since the Preclassic period. The material does not solve the problem of regional placement either because both obsidian and green stones (serpentine, jadeite and others) circulated widely throughout Mesoamerica.

Normally, those who wore earrings also wore labrets; they were complementary elements of the Mesoamerican nobility's body adornment. They begin to appear in the Preclassic, especially during the Olmec era, when status differences within society were already well established. One thing we know for sure is that they are artifacts that were used exclusively by of each city's elite. Ordinary people could not wear these ornaments, which were intended to highlight the prestige and authority of their s.

We must that they are not pendants but pieces that fit into slots made in the flesh. Generally, the nobles pierced the ears and the lower lip of their children from a young age so that they could grow accustomed to wearing such ornaments, using small pieces first. The size, quality of material and sophistication of the design, of both labrets and earrings, was related to the hierarchy and wealth of their .

In order to wear earrings a good sized hole was perforated between the cartilage and the earlobe. This piercing left a permanent scar and allowed the narrowest part of the earring to enter and remain in the ear, leaving the circular fins to emerge from the front and back of the ear.

Some Spanish chroniclers refer to the people of ancient indigenous nobility as having saggy ears and visible perforations as they were forbidden from wearing their earrings and labrets during the colonial era. They also mention that they had a visible hole under the lip where the labret that functioned as a plug was previously worn starting at childhood. Of course, in the case of brave warriors and others who, because of their merits, had received a senior position and therefore the right to wear earrings and labrets, they had to endure the piercings in adulthood without the preparation from early childhood that the nobles received.

Regarding the strictness with which the implicit social distinction of the use of these ornaments was applied, it is worth noting that Nahua law before the conquest contemplated the death penalty for those who wore them without the rank that entitled them to do so.