Malpaso Valley (Geographic Keyword)

PROJECT Andrea Torvinen. Ben Nelson.

This project contains the datasets resulting from my dissertation titled "Social Identification and the Capacity for Collective Action at La Quemada, Zacatecas, Mexico (600-800 CE)," which was successfully defended in November 2018. Dissertation Abstract: Unlike traditional frontier studies that treat the frontier as monolithic and focus on core-periphery interactions involving colonialism and acculturation, this dissertation seeks to characterize the internal social dynamics of frontier...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Andrea Torvinen.

The hilltop center of La Quemada in the Malpaso Valley of Zacatecas, Mexico, was the focal point of one of several polities that developed along the northern frontier of Mesoamerica during the Epiclassic period (A.D. 500-900). Northern frontier polities are known to have interacted due to their shared material culture (i.e., patio-banquette complexes, colonnaded halls, and the exchange of obsidian and shell products), but the mechanism(s) of this interaction are not fully understood. Ceramic...

PROJECT Andrea Torvinen. Ben Nelson.

This project seeks to identify the productions zones of several decorated ceramic wares that are hypothesized to have circulated within the Zacatecas region of Northwest Mexico during the Epiclassic period (600-900 C.E.). The study focuses on decorated wares recovered from the site of La Quemada and stylistically similar wares recovered from other centers in the region. A sample of 806 sherds from nine centers and one site cluster, which represents seven distinct occupational subareas...

DATASET Andrea Torvinen.

These elemental data were collected using the Quantitative Wavelength Dispersive Spectroscopy technique with the JEOL JXA-8530F Electron Probe Microanalyzer (EPMA-WDS) at the John M. Crowley Center for High Resolution Electron Microscopy at Arizona State University supervised by Dr. Axel Wittmann. Based on the methodology developed by Abbott and Lack (2013), a series of five assays were run per sample at 300X magnification in a relatively inclusion free area of clay matrix (spot area = 20 um)...

DATASET Andrea Torvinen.

These elemental data were collected using the Quantitative Wavelength Dispersive Spectroscopy technique with the JEOL JXA-8530F Electron Probe Microanalyzer (EPMA-WDS) at the John M. Crowley Center for High Resolution Electron Microscopy at Arizona State University supervised by Dr. Axel Wittmann. Based on the methodology developed by Abbott and Lack (2013), a series of five assays were run per sample at 300X magnification in a relatively inclusion free area of clay matrix (spot area = 20...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Andrea Torvinen.

During the Epiclassic period (AD 600–900), the northern frontier of Mesoamerica consisted of a regional network of polities focused on large, hilltop centers, including the site of La Quemada in the Malpaso Valley of Zacatecas, Mexico. Although extensive archaeological research has been conducted at the site, the refinement of its chronology is essential for two reasons: (1) to establish the chronological control necessary to characterize social processes diachronically and (2) to ensure that...