Nayarit (State / Territory) (Geographic Keyword)
51-75 (439 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Tzintzuntzan, Capital of the Tarascan Empire: New Perspectives" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Otitis and mastoiditis are conditions that produce deafness and disability in the pre-antibiotic era, especially in the fishing community. This study describes lesions on temporal bones in the Western Culture from Mexico living near Lake Pátzcuaro, Michoacán. A sample (n = 41) of temporal bones from Tzintzuntzan sites was...
Bioarchaeology of Postclassic West Mexico: A Research Framework and Preliminary Results (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the past three millennia, West Mexico’s complex cultural developments and social transformations have characterized it as a unique entity pivotal in the histories of population admixture and cultural transmission, producing long-lasting effects still evident in Mesoamerica. During the Early to Middle Postclassic periods (850/900–1350s CE), polities in...
Biomolecular Preservation in Dental Calculus from the Teotihuacan Ritual Landscape (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Ancient DNA in Service of Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the Classic Period (AD 1-550), thousands of people migrated to the ancient city of Teotihuacan. This population growth forged Teotihuacan into a center for economic, political, and religious activities for the Mesoamerican region. While archaeological evidence has provided a wealth of information about the state, little is known about its...
Blood on the Stones: Heart Sacrifice and Sacrificial Altars in the Northern Maya Lowlands and Mexico-Tenochtitlan (2021)
This is an abstract from the "New Perspectives on Ritual Violence and Related Human Body Treatments in Ancient Mesoamerica" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Heart sacrifice constituted one of the most basic yet fundamental tenets of Mesoamerican ritual practice. At Early Postclassic Chichen Itza, as with the later Aztec of Tenochtitlan, hearts and blood were offered to the bellicose solar deity whose daily journey through the sky not only depended...
Bright Light in the Big City: The Aztec New Fire Ceremony and the Drama of Darkness (2019)
This is an abstract from the "After Dark: The Nocturnal Urban Landscape & Lightscape of Ancient Cities" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Populated by as many as 200,000 people, the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan—like most cities—was buzzing with activity through the night. Given the dynamism of the city, and especially weighed against our modern understanding of the sounds and lights that keep cities alive during the night, it is significant that one...
Building Community Ties Using Archaeology in Tlajinga, Teotihuacan (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Teotihuacan is an ancient city located in Mexico that was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. It was the largest city in the Americas during its peak between 100-550 CE and its significance as an early, cosmopolitan center has been demonstrated over decades of continuous study. The Proyecto Arqueológico Tlajinga Teotihuacan (PATT) began in 2012...
The Burial Artifacts of Epiclassic Los Mogotes, Basin of Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The hilltop, Epiclassic period (ca. 600-900 CE) site of Los Mogotes (ZU-ET-12) sits on the boundary between the northern Basin of Mexico and the southern Mezquital valley. Hence, it is well-placed to understand local and regional transformations between the fall of Teotihuacan (ca. 650 CE) and the rise of Tula (ca. 900 CE). In this paper, we examine burial...
Burials and Society at Teotihuacan: Examining Inequality Through Burial Offerings in Residential Contexts (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Many archaeologists think that Teotihuacan was a relatively equalitarian society. Prior research on economic inequity has focused on factors such as the size of houses and the remains of murals in residential complexes. The Burials and Society project approaches the question of inequality at Teotihuacan from a new angle, that of burial data. The project has...
Canaries in the Coal Mine: How Children Reveal the Embodied Realities of Colonialism (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Marking and Making of Social Persons: Embodied Understandings in the Archaeologies of Childhood and Adolescence" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Childhood is paradoxically the most precarious yet vital period of a person’s life. It is when children form their biological and social self, embodying everything around them. However, what surrounds them may not be safe, stable, or congruent with a healthy, long life....
Canids in the Faunal and Iconographic Record at La Quemada: An Analysis from the Perspective of Huichol Ethnography (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Journeying to the South, from Mimbres (New Mexico) to Malpaso (Zacatecas) and Beyond: Papers in Honor of Ben A. Nelson" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The presence of canids (members of the biological family Canidae, including dogs, wolves, coyotes, and foxes) at the archaeological site of La Quemada in Zacatecas, Mexico has been established through multiple lines of evidence, including broad representation in...
Captive management and sacrificial power: Using ancient genomics to study animal sacrifice in Teotihuacán (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Excavations of the Moon and Sun Pyramids (1998-2004) at Teotihuacan have yielded both human and animal sacrifices, interred as part of state rituals. These rituals demonstrated the power of the state, and the species chosen reflected that power. Isotopic and zooarchaeological analyses of the sacrificed animals show that some of them were held for extended...
Casas Grandes and the Chaco Canyon Cultures (1975)
As early as 1936, Edgar L. Hewett suggested that there might have been some sort of temporal relationship between Casas Grandes, in Chihuahua, Mexico, and such Chaco settlements as Pueblo Bonito, del Arroyo, and Chetro Ketl, in New Mexico. He recognized the obvious differences in terms of ceramics, architectonics, and historical background which marked these two entities, but still felt that there was some common time denominator. Most of his contemporaries, however, believed that the city of...
Caves beyond the Dripline: Reconceptualizing the Subterranean-Surface Dichotomy (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Studies in Mesoamerican Subterranean Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As cave archaeology emerged as a specialty in the 1990, an unfortunate consequence has been the reification of the distinction between surface and subterranean archaeology. We would note that there have always been problems with this dichotomy. Andrews (1970), for instance, mentions that the entrance to Balankanche Cave was in the middle...
Ceramic Chronology in the Absence of a Horizon (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Central Mexico after Teotihuacan: Everyday Life and the (Re)Making of Epiclassic Communities" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper, I present an initial ceramic seriation for the Epiclassic site of Chicoloapan Viejo, in the southern Basin of Mexico, with a discussion of issues particular to periods of political fragmentation. I demonstrate that two phases can be distinguished at Chicoloapan Viejo, based on...
Ceramic Evidence for Immigration among Households at Calixtlahuaca in the Toluca Valley (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Calixtlahuaca is a Middle-to-Late Postclassic (A.D. 1130-1530) Mesoamerican site located in the Toluca Valley of Central Mexico. While originally a Matlazinca settlement, the site was conquered by the Aztec Empire, and documentary evidence suggests subsequent Mexica immigration to the region. I use the site to examine immigration patterns based on the...
Ceramic Pastes: Refining Epiclassic and Early Postclassic Basin of Mexico Typologies and Interactions Close to Home (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Interactions during the Epiclassic and Early Postclassic (AD 650–1100) in the Central Highlands: New Insights from Material and Visual Culture" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The interplay of compositional, stylistic, and technological variation of pottery from the Basin provides the framework to assess shifting patterns of regional interaction. The Epiclassic is characterized by Coyotlatelco pottery, although this...
Ceramic Production in Epiclassic Central Mexico: Strategies for Assessing Regional Variation with INAA, Paste Recipes, and Stylistic Choices (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Ceramics and Archaeological Sciences" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Epiclassic Central Mexico (ca. AD 550–850) is characterized by competing city-states in which ceramic distribution aligns with a series of neighboring solar market economies. INAA compositional study provides key evidence for assessing multiscalar patterns of production of diagnostic and decorated ceramic wares in the Basin of Mexico and Tula...
Ceramic Production in Postclassic West Mexico (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the Early/middle postclassic period, the Aztatlán tradition grew to be the most influential culture in Western Mexico, creating expansive trade networks that extended far beyond the region. Though these trade networks are one of the most well-known aspects of the Aztatlán tradition, few studies have utilized archaeometric methods to assess trade and...
The Ceramics and Chronology of the Ucareo-Zinapécuaro Obsidian Source Area, Michoacán, Mexico (2018)
Sourcing studies conducted over the past 45 years have identified obsidian from the outcrops around Ucareo and Zinapécuaro, Michoacán in archaeological sites located across Mesoamerica including San Lorenzo, Xochicalco, Tula, Chichén Itzá, and Tzintzuntzan. Archaeological investigations including survey and excavation conducted by Tulane University during the 1990s have provided the first detailed information on prehispanic settlement and obsidian exploitation within what is now called the...
Ceramics, Ground Stone and Miscellanea at the Zaragoza-Oyameles Obsidian Quarry in Puebla, Mexico (2018)
One result of the intensive, 5-m interval surface survey of the Zaragoza-Oyameles obsidian source area in Puebla, Mexico was the recovery of several artifact classes suggestive of prolonged habitation. Ceramic and ground stone artifacts recovered indicate that domestic activities were an important component of the obsidian procurement and production economy. Ceramics tended to concentrate in areas that also contained higher quantities of ground stone, but did not correlate with any one stage of...
The Chalcatzingo Reliefs Seen from a Critical Perspective (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper is dedicated to carrying out a detailed study of some of the reliefs that were carved on the slopes of Cerro Chalcatzingo, during the Middle Formative period, as well as to present some critical reflections about the interpretations that have been made by other authors. All descriptions imply interpretation, in consequence, every process of...
Changing Representations of Gender in Ceramic Figurines During the Emergence of the Teotihuacan State (2018)
This paper investigates transformations in the construction and expression of gender in the Basin of Mexico from the late Middle Formative through Classic periods (approx. 600 BC- AD 600). Ceramic figurines from the sites of Teotihuacan, Axotlan, Cerro Portezuelo, and Huixtoco are used to explore how elements of gender were constructed and communicated in the region over the course of a millennium, and how these practices underwent a radical transformation during the emergence and expansion of...
Changing Urban Networks in Formative Central Mexico: A View from Tlalancaleca, Puebla (2018)
It is likely that Formative urban centers and their interactions with one another provided cultural and historical settings for the creation of Central Mexican urban traditions during later periods. Yet their urbanization process remains poorly understood. Our research over the last six field seasons indicates that some residential groups were settled at Tlalancaleca towards 800 BC and the settlement was urbanized with a significant population growth during the later Middle Formative period (ca....
Characterization of Chupícuaro and Cuicuilco Ceramics Technical Traditions: Preliminary Results (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Reassessing Chupícuaro–Cuicuilco Relationships in Light of Ceramic Production (Formative Mesoamerica)" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For the last decades, the existence of stylistic similarities between Chupícuaro ceramics and those found in some Preclassic sites in the Basin of Mexico has raised questions on the nature of the interactions between these two regions. In this paper, we will present the preliminary...
Characterization Using Raman Spectroscopy of Amazonite and Turquoise of Tomb II, Tingambato, Michoacán, México (2019)
This is an abstract from the "From Materials to Materiality: Analysis and Interpretation of Archaeological and Historical Artifacts Using Non-destructive and Micro/Nano-sampling Scientific Methods" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeological site of Tingambato is located in the state of Michoacán, in a transitional zone between the highlands and the lowlands of the Balsas River. This geographical location allowed a long distance interchange...