West Mexico (Other Keyword)
1-19 (19 Records)
At the Tarascan Señorío, all the metal work aspects were controlled by the uacúsecha (most important clan) leaders, from their central cities of Pátzcuaro, Ihuatzio and specially Tzintzuntzan by the Pátzcuaro Lake in central Michoacán. In this paper we present the different aspects of the metal work, and the control that the uacúsecha nobles imposed, expressed in the architecture and their most relevant adornments like metal earplugs and lip-plugs, from the mining sites in the Tierra Caliente,...
Ancient Migrations in the Aztatlán Region: aDNA Analyses (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While mounting evidence suggests that the Aztatlán tradition in west Mexico was a major cosmopolitan region during the Postclassic period (AD 900-1521), archaeologists have characterized items and beliefs as being culturally distinct from the rest of Mesoamerica. Recently, endogenous and exogenous material culture distribution has been interpreted as the...
Archaeological Collections at the Museum of Anthropology, Wake Forest University (2016)
The Museum of Anthropology at Wake Forest University has several collections that are of great interest to archaeologists. Three of our collections are presented: the Rights collection, the Lam collection, and the West Mexican collection. The Rights collection consists of nearly 20,000 artifacts collected by the Rev. Douglas Rights in the first half of the 20th century from archaeological sites near Winston-Salem and in the western Piedmont of North Carolina. The Lam collection consists of over...
The archaeological site of Presa de la Luz: New Insights on the relationship between the Altos of Jalisco, the Bajio and the Mexico Basin (2015)
During the years of 2012 and 2013 draft surface survey was conducted to record more than 600 petroglyphs of the archaeological site known as Presa de la Luz in southern highlands of Jalisco, Mexico. This site drew attention from the beginning due to the high number of pecked cross or solar markers, we recorded nine of these, could be the site with the largest number in any Western Mexico. Solar markers are very similar to those recorded in first instance in Teotihuacan and Mexico Basin. Also,...
An architectural energetics analysis of ceremonial architecture from the shaft tomb culture of the highland lakes region of Jalisco, Mexico (2016)
During the Late Formative to Classic period (300 BC – 550 AD) in the highland lakes region of Jalisco, Mexico, a number of concentric circular ceremonial monuments known as guachimontones were built by the shaft tomb culture. The largest site in the region is Los Guachimontones near the town of Teuchitlan. The site is thought to have been governed by competing familial groups within a corporate framework rather than a single powerful ruler. The platforms that are a part of a guachimonton are...
Burial Practices of the Teuchitlán Tradition and Changes Through Time: A taphonomic Approach (2016)
Are there changes in burial practices of the Teuchitlán Tradition over time, and can any of these potential changes be identified? The data used in this analysis of burial practice was gathered from the 45 Teuchitlán Tradition burials housed at the Centro Interpretativo Guachimontones in Teuchitlán, Jalisco, Mexico. The osteology collection spans from the Late Formative Tequila II phase (350 B.C – 100 A.D) through the Late Postclassic Atemajac II phase (1400-1600). The analysis of the burials...
The Butterfly-Solar Complex in West Mexico: Information Transmittal and Design Structure (2017)
During the Classic period, butterfly motifs encountered throughout Mesoamerica are indicative of diverse kinds of interaction with the city of Teotihuacan. Highly standardized stuccoed and painted ceramics from the lacustrine region of Michoacán, West Mexico, were used as the principal medium to project a major iconographic theme: the Butterfly-Solar Complex, which was very likely related to a Teotihuacan solar militaristic ideology. Symbolic meanings were encoded in symmetrical panels which...
The Casas Grandes Flower World and its Antecedents in Northwest Mesoamerica and the U.S. Southwest (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Flower World: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One of the key issues in the study of the Flower World complex is determining the chronology and nature of its transmission from Mesoamerica to the U.S. Southwest. Scholars contend that the most clear material culture and symbolic evidence indicates that the Flower World was present in the...
Chemical Analyses and Activity Areas at Cerro de en Medio: A Multidisciplinary Approach (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This interdisciplinary archaeological study centers on Cerro de en Medio (CDEM), an ancient site in the northern reaches of Mesoamerica during the late Classic period (600-900 CE). Advanced chemical analyses of occupation floors provide insights into CDEM's activities, revealing its intricate social dynamics. The research combines this chemical analysis...
Copper Back Mirrors (Tezcacuitlapilli) as Objects of Political and Religious Authority in the Casas Grandes World (A.D. 1200-1450) (2015)
The rise of the Casas Grandes culture (AD 1200-1450) in Chihuahua, Mexico and the adoption of a new religion centered upon the Mesoamerican solar deity Xochipilli prefigured many of the social transformations that occurred among Pueblo cultures across the American Southwest by the fourteenth century. The appearance of new architecture of clear Mesoamerican derivation (e.g., I-shaped ballcourts) and imported finished objects of shell and copper in the Casas Grandes world indicates heightened...
Cultural Dynamics and Influences in Jalisco’s Central Plateau during the Late Classic-Epiclassic Period: The Case of El Palacio de Ocomo (2016)
The El Grillo Complex (AD 300-600) of Jalisco’s central plateau, as defined by Galvan in the Atemajac Valley, is recognized as a dynamic and changing society that was integrated in the emergent Epiclassic cultural system of the Mesoamerican northwest. The excavations done in the last few years at El Palacio de Ocomo by the Oconahua Archaeological Project reveal a close relationship between this site and the El Grillo Complex. At the same time, ceramic analysis show elements that are considered...
An Interpretation of the Rock Art in La Cueva de la Huachiza, Santa Clara del Cobre, Michoacán (2017)
The Cueva de la Huachizca is a tectonic cave formed within a basaltic flow in the municipio of Salvador Escalante just south of Lake Patzcuaro, Michoacán. The cave was initially recorded in 2014 by Dr. Jose Luis Punzo-Diaz as part of Proyecto Arqueología y Paisaje del Area Centro Sur de Michoacán (PAPACSM). An investigation of the cave conducted this summer recorded pecked petroglyphs of a man facing an eagle, above a spiral motif. These motifs resemble those from contact period Codice de...
The Obsidian Trail: A GIS model for obsidian trade routes in the West Mexican Aztatlán Tradition (AD 900-1350) (2017)
The Postclassic Aztatlán Tradition of Western Mexico is well known for its expansive trade networks. Aztatlán merchants traded ceramics, shell, copper, and obsidian across vast distances. Obsidian provides us with a particularly unique opportunity to trace trade networks due to the compositional homogeneity of obsidian sources. Recent studies have identified the source of thousands of obsidian artifacts from numerous Aztatlán centers, allowing for an elaboration on themes such as access to...
Ring the bell: A spatial comparative analysis of copper bells between the Greater Southwest and Michoacán. (2015)
Recent studies about metal work in the Proyecto Arqueologia y Paisaje del Area Centro Sur de Michoacan gave us the possibility of analyze a wide sample of copper bells from different collections and in museums along this western state in Mexico. In this paper we will present a comparative analysis between our database of Michoacan’s copper bells with the ones found in the USA southwest and specially in Paquime, Chihuahua, focusing on the Period 2 (AD 1200-1300 to Spanish invasion) like the most...
Shake It Off: The Ancient Sound of Ceramic Vessel Rattles (Maracas) from Tala and Teuchitlan, Jalisco, West Mexico (2016)
In the past 60 years, the presence of musical instruments, musicians, and dancing in West Mexican art has been frequently discussed but largely unanalyzed, limited to comparison and contextualization of individual pieces, or occasional mention tangentially as part of some other narrative. The cursory treatment of this class of material has resulted in many unanswered questions: who, for example, made these instruments? Who played them? How were they made? How and when were they used? What do...
Temporal and Spatial Variability of Mortuary Assemblages at Los Guachimontones, Jalisco, Mexico (2016)
Mortuary offerings play an important role in understanding the social structure, status-building mechanisms, trade networks, and ideological symbols and beliefs of ancient cultures throughout Mesoamerica, particularly of less well-understood areas such as West Mexico. Changes in these structures, mechanisms, and networks may be recognized through analysis of mortuary assemblages and treatments. During the 2015 laboratory season, mortuary offerings from the site of Los Guachimontones in the...
Transforming the body: fire in mortuary practices in ancient Michoacán, Mexico (2015)
Ethnohistoric sources from prehispanic Michoacán highlight the symbolic importance of fire for the Postclassic Tarascan state. The fact that Curicaueri, the principal Tarascan god, was a fire god and that cremation was used during the warriors’ and ruling elite’s funerary rites, emphasizes its symbolic and social importance. In this presentation, I will examine the different roles played by fire in ritual transformations of the human body. I will consider the ethnohistoric sources as well as the...
Weaving Our Life: The Economy and Ideology of Cotton in Postclassic West Mexico (2016)
West Mexican archaeologists long have noted that around AD 900 the material culture record in this broad region exhibits a pronounced increase in the presence of modeled ceramic spindle whorls, particularly along the Pacific coastal plain of Nayarit and south-central Sinaloa. Although limited evidence of cotton in this region is present in the Classic period, the heightened cotton cultivation and consumption that seemed to accompany the dramatic social transformations in the Aztatlán culture...
West Mexico, the Missing Link with South America (2015)
Cultures in the Intermediate Area served as the catalyst for the potential connections that exist between north and south. Maritime trading routes were the most probable form of contact and dissemination of information and styles. Iconographic evidence points to contact between various people from Chupícuaro to San Agustin Their styles are but a few of the missing links for the interaction between cultures from north and south. SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society...