Tlaxcala (State / Territory) (Geographic Keyword)
326-350 (497 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In central Mexican archaeology, tool functions have often been assumed for lithic artifacts based on material types and tool forms, which are classified broadly with labels such as bifaces, scrapers, blades, and flakes. Integrating the method of use-wear analysis derived through experimental archaeology is the most effective way to improve our understanding of...
The Obsidian Trade at Teotihuacan: pXRF Analysis of Changes in Source Location Over Time (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Obsidian played an important social and economic role in ancient Mesoamerica. Because obsidian is a relatively homogenous material, chemical analyses can quantify its elemental concentrations and determine source locations of individual artifacts. This study investigates sources of obsidian procurement at the ancient metropolis of Teotihuacan in central...
The Olmec "Double-Merlon" Motif and the Origins of Color Directional Symbolism in Formative Mesoamerica (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Decipherment, Digs, and Discourse: Honoring Stephen Houston's Contributions to Maya Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Among the most striking signs of Olmec iconography is the "double-merlon," this being a horizontal form supporting two parallel, upwardly projecting tabs. This presentation examines and discusses where it appears in Olmec imagery during the Middle Formative period (1000-400 b.c.), stressing...
Olmec Asphalt Trade Revealed by Combined Biomarker and Chemometric Analysis (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Within the Olmec region, resources such as basalt, asphalt, cacao, kaolin clay, and hematite pigment are available in discreet areas. This uneven distribution of raw materials has led some scholars to suggest that Olmec leaders controlled the sources of raw materials and regional trade, from which they derived their economic and political power. The...
The “On Colors” Chapter in the Historia General de Sahagún: Its Structure, Contents, and Contribution to the Knowledge of Technology and Artistic Practices in Ancient Nahua Society (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Bringing the Past to Life, Part 2: Papers in Honor of John M. D. Pohl" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper revisits the structure and contents of the greatest source—the only one of its kind—concerning the knowledge of color technology and, consequently, artistic practices of the ancient Nahua: the chapter on colors in Sahagún’s “Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España,” which contains a description in...
The Organization of Obsidian Exchange at Postclassic Sauce and its Hinterland in Veracruz, Mexico (2018)
I analyze residential inventories from the center of Sauce and its hinterland in combination with regional settlement data from Barbara Stark’s Proyecto Arqueológico La Mixtequilla (PALM I, II) to describe the structure of exchange, production, and consumption of obsidian chipped stone during the Middle Postclassic period (AD 1200-1350) in south-central Veracruz, Mexico. Previous research on obsidian production found a spatial association with Sauce, which could support political administration...
The Organization of Prismatic Blade Production at Late Postclassic Tlaxcallan, Central Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Tlaxcallan: Mesoamerica's Bizarro World" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Systems of craft production and exchange in Mesoamerica are often correlated with the socio-political circumstances in which they formed, and such discussions are frequently applied to the organization of lithic industries, including the production of prismatic blades. Systems correlated with direct or centralized distribution networks are...
Out of Olmec: Continuity and Disjunction in Veracruz Stone Sculpture (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Sculpture of the Ancient Mexican Gulf Coast, Part 1" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Gulf Olmec sculpture is renowned for the cultural, political, and aesthetic precedents it helped to establish in preconquest Mesoamerica. Often its legacy is discussed in relation to the artistic traditions of succeeding civilizations that emerged to the south and west of Olman. However, there has been little recognition of the impact...
Overland Travel Routes and Exchange Spheres of Pacific Nicaragua Using Obsidian and Ceramic Data from Chiquilistagua (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Centralizing Central America: New Evidence, Fresh Perspectives, and Working on New Paradigms" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The emergence of social complexity often incorporates social, political, and economic inter- and intra-regional interactions. In this paper we examine the emerging social spheres and exchange networks that developed during the Tempisque period (500 BC–AD 300) among small prehistoric agrarian...
Pacific Coastal Exchange in Postclassic Mexico: Wealth, Rituals, Feasts, and Marriages (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Coastal Connections: Pacific Coastal Links from Mexico to Ecuador" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The pioneering fieldwork of Seler, Lumholtz, Saville, Sauer, Vaillant and Elkholm, the Sociedad Mexicana de Antropología to officially recognize "Mixteca-Puebla" as the fourth and last major cultural horizon of the ancient Mexican World in 1945. By 1960 however, H.B. Nicholson had reduced Mixteca-Puebla to a provincial...
Paisajes aprovechados y causes modificados en el sistema portuario de la costa este de Los Tuxtlas, Veracruz (2018)
En la zona este de Los Tuxtlas se ha identificado un complejo sistema de intercomunicación fluvial y marítima, construido a partir del aprovechamiento y acondicionamiento de corrientes acuáticas. Una gran parte de estas vías de comunicación confluyen en el sistema portuario de la costa este de Los Tuxtlas. La región se caracteriza por estar en un abanico aluvial, por lo que presenta un gran dinamismo fluvial, es decir los causes no son estáticos en el tiempo. En los estudios arqueológicos debe...
Paisajes, recursos y su aprovechamiento en Los Tuxtlas, Veracruz, Mexico (2018)
Síntesis de una investigación arqueológica que se enfocó en analizar y comparar la morfología del paisaje cultural de antiguos asentamientos prehispánicos en la sierra de Los Tuxtlas, Veracruz, México. Combinando aspectos de la geografía cultural, procesualismo, y unidades de paisaje geomorfológico se pudieron describir y analizar sitios arqueológicos en Los Tuxtlas, así como discernir las posibles dinámicas de agencia y adaptación del medio ambiente, uso del espacio y aprovechamiento de los...
The Palace of Xalla at Teotihuacan: An Overview of a Multifunctional Palace (2021)
This is an abstract from the "The Palace of Xalla in Teotihuacan: A Possible Seat of Power in the Ancient Metropolis" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The palace of Xalla is located between the pyramids of the Sun and the Moon. It is a 55,000 m2 palatial complex with plazas, structures, rooms, porticoes, and patios, surrounded by a double wall for patrol walk. It has been excavated extensively by Linda R. Manzanilla and her team from 2000 to 2020,...
Paleoindians from the Basin of Mexico: How do they fit in the early peopling of the Americas? (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Legacies of The Basin of Mexico: The Ecological Processes in the Evolution of a Civilization, Part 1" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Basin of Mexico is important in the debate on the early peopling of the Americas because several well preserved Paleoindian/Preceramic individuals have been found in the lake sediments/volcanic deposits surrounding the Late Pleistocene Lake. They include: Peñon Woman III,...
Parallel Lives: Aztec and European Elite Marriage Patterns in the Late Postclassic/Renaissance (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Innovations and Transformations in Mesoamerican Research: Recent and Revised Insights of Ancestral Lifeways" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The European conquest of the Aztec Empire was eased by strong parallels in Aztec and European courtly behavior in their respective (and contemporaneous) chronological periods, the Late Postclassic (1430–1521) and Renaissance (various dates, 1300s to about 1600). Elite marital...
Patrones de movilidad como reflejo de la concepción del diseño urbano: Un caso del Centro Sur de Veracruz en el Clásico (2021)
This is an abstract from the "The Urban Question: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Investigating the Ancient Mesoamerican City" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. En la actualidad, la visita a las zonas arqueológicas está determinada por un recorrido establecido por cuestiones de conservación y disfrute. Sin embargo, la movilidad dentro de las ciudades prehispánicas estuvo organizada por el diseño urbano, y su desarrollo a través del tiempo,...
The People's Response to Change: Settlement Patterns During the Classic-Postclassic Transition in the Puebla-Tlaxcala Valley, Mexico (2018)
The Puebla-Tlaxcala Valley in Central Mexico went through significant settlement, economic, and political shifts during the Classic-Postclassic transition, yet there is no clear picture of what happened during the Epiclassic (600-900CE) or the Early Postclassic (900-1250CE) outside of large primary sites such as Cacaxtla and Cholula. A multi-faceted study was developed to target this issue, with a particular focus on rural sites that supported known large centers. Since the early years of...
Petrographic Perspectives on the Ceramic Complexity in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin (2018)
Archaeologically known ceramic pastes from the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, Michoacán, Mexico, involved long-lived paste recipes that have been identified both visually and via neutron activation. This paper focuses upon Late Postclassic Tarascan state-period ceramics (AD 1350-1525) and contextualizes new petrographic data within the regional geology and prior research in order to assess aspects of the longevity and complexity in potter’s paste choices within the basin.
Pieces of Bone and Pieces of Clay: Tableaus and Caches in Classic Period South-Central Veracruz (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For more than eight decades, numerous ritually interred figurines and skeletal remains have been found in Classic Veracruz architecture. These caches contain tableaus of small, medium, and large-scale ceramic sculpture in conjunction with primary and secondary burials, and deposits of dismembered human bones. Ceramic figures enact scenes depicting...
The Place of Maguey at El Tajín and in North-Central Veracruz during the Classic Period (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Beyond Maize and Cacao: Reflections on Visual and Textual Representation and Archaeological Evidence of Other Plants in Precolumbian Mesoamerica" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The presence of maguey in key iconographic programs at the major Classic Veracruz site of El Tajín has been explained largely through a hypothetical pulque cult at the site. This presentation will both extend and debate this interpretation of...
Playing with Your Food to Feed the Masses: A Zooarchaeological Perspective at Teotihuacan, Mexico (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Cultivating Cities: Perspectives from the New and Old Worlds on Wild Foods, Agriculture, and Urban Subsistence Economies" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Animals are invariably integrated into the intricate makings of human culture, providing material evidence to reconstruct ancient urban foodways that influence and structure sociopolitical identities, practices, and ideologies. We explore the concept of production and...
Plaza Size Dataset: Metadata. Supplemental Material for Ossa et al. (2017)
Metadata to accompany the excel file containing information on plaza area and population for Mesoamerican cities
Plaza sizes for Mesoamerican cities (2017)
Plaza area and population for Postclassic Mesoamerican cities analyzed in: Ossa, Alanna, Michael E. Smith, and José Lobo (2017). The Size of Plazas in Mesoamerican Cities: A Quantitative Analysis and Social Interpretation. Latin American Antiquity 28(4): 457-475.
Polychromy in Nahua Art (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Polychromy, Multimediality, and Visual Complexity in Mesoamerican Art" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Through the analysis of several examples of Nahua artistic expression, including the mural paintings of Tlaxcala, the Borgia Group codices, and a wood sculpture encrusted with mosaic, this paper aims to demonstrate that the societies of Late Postclassic central Mexico cultivated a strong interest in polychromy,...
Population Structure in the Valley of Mexico at the Time of Spanish Conquest (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Approaches to Cultural and Biological Complexity in Mexico at the Time of Spanish Conquest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cultural processes connected the various regions throughout Mesoamerica. Increased long-distance trade, political alliances, imperial conquest, and spread of religious ideology in the Valley of Mexico facilitated more migration over time. City nucleation to important economic, political, and...