Mesoamerica: Central Mexico (Geographic Keyword)
51-75 (250 Records)
This is an abstract from the "The Legacies of The Basin of Mexico: The Ecological Processes in the Evolution of a Civilization, Part 2" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. There is little information about the biological diversity of the populations that inhabited the Basin of Mexico. In this work we focused on showing the phenotypic differences between 118 skulls of the Xaltocan sanctuary and 44 adult skulls from Teotihuacan. It is not clear how this...
Conquering Aztecs and Resisting Tlaxcaltecas: The Body as a Site of Creating and Challenging State Narratives (2018)
Narratives of Aztec grandeur dominate portrayals of Late Postclassic (AD 1325-1519) Mesoamerica. While imperial influence spread rapidly and thoroughly throughout the central valleys, Tlaxcallan appears as a rift in imperial control, resisting the encircling empire. Aztec narratives relegate Tlaxcallan to the peripheries, downplaying Tlaxcaltecas as one-dimensional barbaric enemies, unconquered by choice. In contrast, ethnohistoric accounts from within Tlaxcallan emphasize a state that...
Considerations Regarding the Sculptures Commonly Called "Standard-Bearers" (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Crossing Boundaries: Interregional Interactions in Pre-Columbian Times" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Many images in the iconographic corpus from Pre-Hispanic Basin of Mexico belong to forms which were created and reproduced either in codices, mural painting, ceramics, and sculpture. Some examples are the attires of deities, specific icons used to represent natural elements, like rain, comets, even the Sun, and...
The Context of Tlatilco Figurines (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Mesoamerican Figurines in Context. New Insights on Tridimensional Representations from Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Analysis around anthropomorphic figurines found in prehispanic sites have been diverse, nevertheless the intrigue and confusion among their interpretations are still remaining. Fortunately figurines typologies for the Mesoamerican Formative are useful to locate them chronologically,...
Contextualizing Ritual Violence: Kinship, Ethnicity, and Human Sacrifice in Epiclassic Central Mexico (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. Ritual violence has a long time-depth within Mesoamerica. While archaeologists and ethnohistorians have studied the political and cosmological significance of this practice extensively, less is understood about how or why particular individuals were targeted for...
Copper Buckles and Comal Battens: Clothing Indigenous Conquerors at 16th Century Coyotepetl, Tepeticpac, Tlaxcala (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology and Material Culture of the Spanish Invasion of Mesoamerica and Forging of New Spain" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In October of 1519, the fiercely independent Tlaxcallan state first sent Indigenous warriors to aid Hernán Cortés in his conquest efforts. Such military aid, common for more than a decade, established a community of people who identified as Indigenous conquerors and Spanish allies. Documents...
Corporal Animal Forms as Ritualized Bodies in Burial 5, Moon Pyramid, Teotihuacan (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Multispecies Frameworks in Archaeological Interpretation: Human-Nonhuman Interactions in the Past, Part II" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Applying a relational ontological approach to faunal bones I identify animals, secondary animal by-products, and faunal artifacts as persons—in the corporal animal forms of puma, eagle, wolf, and rattlesnake—whom actively engaged with entangled sociopolitical communities of humans....
Cosmologies of Ruins and Ruination: Infrastructures and the Anthropocene (2018)
Scientists debate the Anthropocene as a geological epoch. But as a cultural phenomenon, the Anthropocene is recent. And as a cultural phenomenon, the Anthropocene projects a cosmology across history. This paper specifically examines how this cosmology understands the materiality of infrastructures, the built substrate upon which networks of human and non-human worlds intersect and collide. I argue that this cosmology contrasts infrastructures of the recent past as dangerous and polluting against...
Coyolxauhqui’s Serpents (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Animal Symbolism in Postclassic Mesoamerica: Papers in Honor of Cecelia Klein" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study focuses on questions about serpents and gender associations in Aztec art--questions raised by a ceramic fragment located in storage in the Brooklyn Museum. On it Coyolxauhqui, the enemy of the Aztecs’ supernatural patron, Huitzilopochtli, is depicted with two different types of imaginary serpents, a...
Creating the Pax Tolteca: Diversity, Autonomy, and Centralization from the Epiclassic to the Early Postclassic Periods in the Northern Basin of Mexico (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. This paper studies the role that economic and ecological diversity plays in the establishment of communities, the maintenance of sociopolitical autonomy, and the centralization of regional state power. We focus on the transition from the Epiclassic period in the northern Basin of Mexico, a time...
Creolization and the Zapotec Diaspora: A Classic Period Zapo-Teotihuacano Settlement in Southern Hidalgo, Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Crossing Boundaries: Interregional Interactions in Pre-Columbian Times" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper will present the results of a multi-faceted research endeavor at the site of El Tesoro, Hidalgo, Mexico. Previous and recent research have shown that the Classic-period settlement at El Tesoro exhibited affiliations to both Teotihuacan and the Zapotec homeland in the Valley of Oaxaca and was likely related...
"A Curious Ambivalence": The Iconography of Long-Distance Trade Goods in Postclassic Mexico (2018)
The Postclassic Mexica maintained what Sophia and Michael Coe (2005) refer to as a "curious ambivalence" regarding cacao: despite its prevalence in everyday life as currency, the plant rarely appears in artistic programs and consumption was highly restricted via sumptuary laws that controlled social behavior. The visual scarcity of this crop extends into divine imagery – for instance, cacao remained an important aspect of Ek’ Chuah, the Postclassic Maya merchant god, but does not appear among...
Damage on the Jicalán Viejo Complex by Land Use from 1970 to 2021: A Modern Mapping Assessment (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Technological Transitions in Prehispanic and Colonial Metallurgy: Recent and Ongoing Research at the Archaeological Site of Jicalán Viejo, in Central Michoacán, West Mexico" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2003, a field survey at the site of Jicalán Viejo was carried out, inspired by ethnohistorical interpretations of the Lienzo of Jicalán, also known as Lienzo de Jucutacato. One of this site’s most outstanding...
Decapitation and the Vulnerable Nature of Joints among the Aztecs (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. Prisoners of war were ritually killed by heart extraction and were often decapitated. Archaeologists at Templo Mayor found skulls with the first cervical vertebrae attached, indicating death by decapitation. Lethal weapons such as flint sacrificial knives were also found near decapitated...
Desarrollo del sistema agrícola de terrazas en el Paisaje del sureste de la Cuenca de México (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Landscapes: Archaeological, Historic, and Ethnographic Perspectives from the New World / Paisajes: Perspectivas arqueológicas, históricas y etnográficas desde el Nuevo Mundo" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. El uso de un enfoque con carácter holístico, como lo es el concepto de Paisaje, ha permitido una visión y análisis integral en el estudio de las características sobre uno de los sistemas agrícolas tradicionales más...
Diamonds in the Rough: What Do the Sculpture Fragments Discovered in the Teotihuacan Mapping Project/Ground Stone Collection Tell Us about the Social Organization of the City? (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Teotihuacan: Multidisciplinary Research on Mesoamerica's Classic Metropolis" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The study of sculpture at Teotihuacan—as at many other sites—has traditionally focused on larger, more elaborate sculptures from civic-ceremonial contexts. As a result, less is known about the distribution, ubiquity, and diversity of the use of sculpture in other contexts and, specifically, what relation it has...
Differential Access and Socioeconomic Inequality at Teotihuacan (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Teotihuacan: Multidisciplinary Research on Mesoamerica's Classic Metropolis" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. I investigate patterns of social and spatial inequality at Teotihuacan, Mexico. Differential access to civic resources is a well-documented mechanism of socioeconomic differentiation in historic cities and can be measured by analyzing movement within the built environment. I measure differential access at...
Digging in Churches: Community Archaeology in Xaltocan, Mexico (2018)
Xaltocan has a thriving community and its people have a strong connection to their long history, although this was not always the case. Elizabeth Brumfiel pioneered community archaeology at Xaltocan almost 30 years ago and initiated a long process of collaborative archaeology that continues until this day. As a consequence of the close interaction between archaeologists and the community, the past has become a vehicle for the construction of local and national identity in Xaltocan. We will...
Dinámica cultural durante el Formativo Inferior y Medio en la Cuenca de México: Tlatilco y Tlapacoya (2018)
Dos de los sitios más relevantes en el Centro de México durante el Formativo Inferior y Medio fueron Tlatilco y Tlapacoya, los que presentan una gran riqueza cultural. Sin embargo, la relación entre ellos y la función que tuvieron en su época son grandes interrogantes que aún persisten; esta revaloración será abordada a través de la revisión y comparación de sus materiales arqueológicos (cerámica y figurillas), incluyendo los de otros sitios ubicados tanto dentro, como fuera de la Cuenca de...
The Distribution and Characterization of Agricultural Terraces on Cerro de la Mesa Ahumada, Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster presents preliminary results of ancient landscape modifications on Cerro de la Mesa Ahumada, a medium sized mountain between the northern Basin of Mexico and the southern Mezquital. Humans have used the hill at least since the Epiclassic period (ca. 600-900 CE) for human occupation, farming, or ranching. Terrace systems are located throughout the...
Domestic Life and Ceramic Consumption in Tlajinga, Teotihuacan (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Teotihuacan: Multidisciplinary Research on Mesoamerica's Classic Metropolis" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tlajinga is the southernmost district of Teotihuacan, a cosmopolitan city that thrived in Central Mexico during the Classic period. Previous research done in this neighborhood includes surface collection associated with the Teotihuacan Mapping Project and the excavation of one compound, designated 33:S3W1 during...
Dressed to Kill: Richly Adorned Animals in the Offerings of the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Animal Symbolism in Postclassic Mesoamerica: Papers in Honor of Cecelia Klein" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the course of four decades, the Templo Mayor Project (1978–2018) of Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) has excavated more than two hundred offerings in the area corresponding to Tenochtitlan’s sacred precinct. These rich Mexica deposits from the fourteenth, fifteenth, and...
Early Formative Figurines from Tlatilco - Understanding the Diversity and Individuality (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Mesoamerican Figurines in Context. New Insights on Tridimensional Representations from Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Early Formative site of Tlatilco, has like so many other ancient sites, been covered by modern-day urbanization. Many of these sites suffered a fate of early exploitation and looting leaving the archaeologists with puzzles that often lack many pieces. With resilience and patience, and...
Early Subsistence and Settlement in the Basin of Mexico: Preceramic and Pre-Urban Indicators (2018)
The race to stay ahead of modern human impact on preceramic and early ceramic sites in the Basin of Mexico is particularly dramatic. Recent investigations at sites located in three sectors of the Basin of Mexico, all of which are threatened to some degree, contribute to a broader understanding of the kinds of communities that anticipated increased complexity in social, economic and political spheres that ultimately developed into early urban centers such as Cuicuilco and Teotihuacan. ...
Early Urbanism and Intermediate-Scale Social Interaction in Formative Central Mexico: Ritual Practice and Socio-spatial Organization at Tlalancaleca, Puebla (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tlalancaleca was one of the largest settlements before the rise of Teotihuacan in Central Mexico. Our ongoing research indicates large-scale urban transformations in the transition from the Middle to Late Formative period. Tlalancaleca during the later Formative is characterized by a multi-centric spatial organization consisting of multiple monumental...