United Mexican States (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
551-575 (4,948 Records)
This is a photo of an Aztec dagger located in the Museo Nacional Anthropologique, Mexico City. It dates to AD 1400-1520. Photo courtesy of Tim Pauketat.
Aztec dagger carving (2010)
This is a carving of Aztec daggers, located at the Museo Nacional Anthropologique, Mexico City. Dates to AD 1400 to 1520. Photo courtesy of Tim Pauketat.
Aztec Militarism and Blood Sacrifice: The Archaeology and Ideology of Ritual Violence (2007)
J. Whittaker: Revisionist efforts attempt to refute accounts of Aztec sacrifice as “racist, colonialist” etc. But our understanding of large-scale sacrifice not based only on Spanish accounts, also arch evidence of ritual violence - experiments in heart excision, serological study of deposits, forensic analysis of skeletal remains, including numerous sites with evidence of peri-mortem mutilation and cannibalism, 170 crania from tsompantli skull rack at Tlatelolco associated with stone tools used...
The Aztec Palace: Heart of an Empire's Rise and Fall (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Aztec empire existed for only ninety years, yet its structure was derived from earlier political constructs and endured after the fall of Tenochtitlan in 1521. It was a dendritic system, each node of power manifested in a palace -- Nahuatl tecpan (lord-place) -- that functioned as a locus of sociopolitical and sacred authority. Lord-places are as old as...
Aztec Period Sites in Morelos, Mexico
This project contains materials from archaeological sites of the Aztec period (AD 1100-1519) in the Mexican state of Morelos. It currently contains reports and data from two fieldwork projects directed by Dr. Michael E. Smith during the 1980s and 1990s.
Aztec Tlaloc jar (2010)
This is an Aztec Tlaloc jar located at the Museo Nacional Anthropologique, Mexico City. It dates to AD 1400-1520. Photo courtesy of Tim Pauketat.
Aztec Twin-Temple Pyramids as Evidence for State Religion through Shared Architecture and Symbology (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Twin-temple pyramids of the Late Postclassic in Central Mexico became a distinct symbol of Aztec ideology. Nowhere is this demonstrated more than with Templo Mayor, the Great Temple of Tenochtitlán, the capital city of the Aztec empire. The deities worshiped and rituals conducted at Templo Mayor made it a beacon of ideological identity for the Mexica-Aztec,...
Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political Control (1988)
J. Whittaker: Compiled from various sources. Atlatl predates Aztecs, although some myth claims they invented it, or credits god Opochtli. Surviving examples often ornate, perhaps for ceremonial occasions, ca. 2 feet long with hook and groove. Grips with loops, holes, or pegs. [Poor photo shows elaborate atlatl with apparently simple grip; codex drawing shows peg grips on atlatls used against Spanish] Darts made of oak and fletched, a variety of points used. Shown in art carried in hand, not...
Aztecs in the Empire City: The Rise and Fall of Ancient American Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1877–1914 (2018)
With the return of peace after the dislocations of the US Civil War, The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 by businessmen, civic leaders, and artists in New York. Unlike its European counterparts, the institution had no royal collections on which to build. Its ancient American holdings grew through gifts and purchases from diplomats, philanthropists, and collectors. By 1900, with the acquisition of the Petich Collection of some 1500 "Aztec," and "Toltec" works, The American...
The Baalche’ Group: An Investigation of a Preclassic Maya Palace at Yaxnohcah, Campeche, Mexico (2017)
As part of the on-going research into the development of socio-political complexity at the Maya site of Yaxnohcah, the Proyecto Arqueológico Yaxnohcah has been conducting investigations in the Baalche’ Group, a large courtyard group located at the center of the site. The group sits adjacent to many prominent architectural features, including a Preclassic period E-Group assemblage, a ball court, and a water reservoir. Radiocarbon dating and ceramic analysis has revealed that the Baalche’ Group...
Background and Initial Results from a NSF Study of Archaeology Ethics Training (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this poster, the authors introduce a project funded by the National Science Foundation to advance knowledge on the pervasiveness and effectiveness of ethics and responsible conduct of research training interventions in archaeology and other science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. Specifically, the project will examine the...
¿Bajo el Yugo de Metztitlán? Un Reconocimiento Arqueológico de la Sierra Norte de Hidalgo, México (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Regional and Intensive Site Survey: Case Studies from Mesoamerica" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. La sierra norte de Hidalgo no está bien documentada arqueológicamente, a pesar de su ubicación entre dos esferas culturales mayores del Postclásico: el señorío de Metztitlán y la Huasteca. Este trabajo busca llenar esta laguna del conocimiento, con dos metas principales: identificar la organización sociopolítica de los...
Bajo Hornos Reef, Veracruz: a depositional trap for ships and related cultural material (2013)
From the arrival of Cortes in 1519 until the 20th century, Veracruz was one of the most important ports in the Americas. In addition to its role in transatlantic trade, it also played an essential role in maritime relations between Mexico, the Antilles and the northern Gulf of Mexico. In the 80´s, late 90´s and 2010 diving surveys carried out at Bajo Hornos reef by the Underwater Archeology team (SAS) of the Mexican National Institute for Anthropology and History (INAH), yielded a variety of...
Baked In: Remnant Production Gestures from Potters in the Tarascan State (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Ceramics and Archaeological Sciences 2024" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We examine the traces of production gestures that ceramics producers left behind on the surface of 100 sherds excavated at Urichu, a minor administrative center for the Tarascan (P’urépecha) state (1350–1524 CE), in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, Michoacán, México. These sherds represent the Early and Late Postclassic time periods at the site,...
Baker Cave, Texas: Some Results From the 1976 Excavations (1978)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
Baker Cave, Val Verde County, Texas: the 1976 Excavations (1983)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
Balancing Public and Professional Interests in Archaeology from a State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) Perspective (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As the public increases its influence over how the discipline of archaeology defines its scientific and educational value, state-sponsored archaeological institutions, such as the State Historic Preservation Office, must continue to adapt to satisfy their professional and public audiences. In 2017, the Nebraska State Historic Preservation Office (NeSHPO)...
Balankanche Revisited: Some Preliminary Observations (2018)
With the discovery of passages sealed behind a blockage in 1959, Balankanche became the preeminent cave in Maya archaeology. Because so many of the intact vessels were incense burners and because of the Maya ceremony recorded as part of the investigation, Balankanche’s ritual function was never questioned even though at that time most caves were thought to be habitational. E. Wyllys Andrews IV’s monograph on the cave has remained one of the field’s best reports. In the summer of 2017, the Gran...
Balché Consumption among the Ancient Maya: Bees, Honey, and Ritual Practice (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Adventures in Beekeeping: Recent Studies in Ecology, Archaeology, History, and Ethnography in Yucatán" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper we discuss our recent absorbed residue study of a marble Ulúa style vase found at the Pacbitun site in Belize. In that study, we detected evidence for the consumption of the ritual drink balché dating to Terminal Classic period (800–850 CE). Consumption of balché is...
Ballcourts, Towers, and Urbanism in the Chenes region, Campeche (2018)
In the geographic heartlands of the Yucatan Peninsula, academic literature describes the Chenes region as an "archaeological province" with a particular regional cultural character, in which sculpted monuments with glyphs or ballcourts are scarce components in urban systems, and even less frequent in most monumental cores. To date only three ballcourts had been recorded. After field seasons in 2016 and 2017 I confirm another example in Tabasqueño, the only site also to exhibit a free-standing...
The Ballgame and Sociopolitical Organization in the Eastern Lower Papaloapan Basin (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Los Rituales del Juego de Pelota en la Costa del Golfo / Ballgame Rituals in the Gulf Lowlands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although ballgame paraphernalia and figurines depicting ballgame players have been reported from Tres Zapotes and other nearby sites since the 1930s, the identification of ballcourts in the Eastern Lower Papaloapan Basin (ELPB) has been elusive. At Tres Zapotes, the areas between mounds and in...
Ballgame, Ritual and Monument Reutilization at the Ancient Maya Site of Uaxactun (2018)
During the 2017 field season of the Uaxactun Archaeological project new monument was excavated at Buena Vista, a minor center at Uaxactun urban periphery. It is a small carved altar or ballcourt marker, which according to its style dates to the Early Classic. High quality of the carving and the hieroglyphic inscription indicates that the altar/marker itself was a part of the monumental corpus of Uaxactun urban core; uncomplete text provides important new information on the dynastic history of...
Ballgames and the Social Networks of the Sierra Sur: What Can Ballcourts Tell Us About Political Negotiation in Southern Oaxaca? (2017)
As a specially marked category of public architecture, ballcourts were both socially-integrative and socially-divisive spaces through hosting games and other important ritual activities. Moreover, research has shown that ballgames in Oaxaca acted as mechanisms of social mediation within and between different ethnolinguistic communities. The distribution of ballcourts is therefore significant and expresses underlying social and political relationships. The Nejapa region is a frontier zone between...
Ballplayers, Captives, Kings, and Queens: Examining the Identity of Key Players in Veracruz Ballgame Rituals (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Los Rituales del Juego de Pelota en la Costa del Golfo / Ballgame Rituals in the Gulf Lowlands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In south-central Veracruz, representations of ballplayers, captives, kings, and queens defy clear categorizations, made more complex by costume and gender designations, hierarchical proportion, natural sexual dimorphism, and symbolic roles versus historic portraiture; distinctions that may be...
Banderas Bay, Nayarit Report (1972)
The purpose of this report is to investigate the area of Punta de Mita, "Place of the Arrows," located on the southern fringe of the coast of Nayarit, below the 21st parallel. It is believed that this vicinity, which forms the northern fringe of Banderas Bay, may contain remains of a culture that had a direct relationship with Casas Grandes prior to A.D. 1060. This supposition is, in part, based upon the fact that this is the restricted habitat of the molluscan species, Persicula Bandera Coan...