Highland Mesoamerica: Postclassic (Other Keyword)
51-75 (210 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology in South Central Michoacán México, Ongoing Studies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster examines continuity and change in prehispanic and colonial pottery production at Tzintzuntzan through a typological and petrographic analysis.
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...
Costumbres funerarias en la época del contacto en la Huasteca Potosina (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. El contexto funerario de una mujer adulta nos muestra que, dentro de las conductas funerarias presentes entre las élites de Tamtoc, era tradicional ataviar al individuo con lujosos bienes procedentes de muy diversas regiones. Las costumbres funerarias y el estudio sobre el origen de los objetos de...
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...
The Cult of Xochipilli (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. Xochipilli, the Flower Prince, was widely revered through various manifestations as the patron god of the noble classes throughout southern Mexico. As such he was credited with patronage over palaces, royal marriages, feasts, wealth finance, and belief in an exclusive elite afterlife and...
Cultural Pluralism and Persistence in the Colonial Sierra Sur of Oaxaca, Mexico: Three Case Studies (2018)
This paper explores the interactions between multiple groups of people in the Sierra Sur region of Nejapa and Tavela, Oaxaca in trans-conquest and Colonial Mexico. Bringing together ethnohistoric accounts, oral histories, and archaeological data in Nejapa and Tavela, I highlight three case studies to show that migration, conquest, and interregional trade created a complex, dynamic, pluralistic ethnic landscape prior to the arrival of the Spanish. As such, when the Spanish colonial regime took...
"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...
A Dark Horse of the Early Postclassic: The Site of El Cerrito (Querétaro, Mexico) and Its Relationship to Chichen Itza and Tula (2018)
Ever since the first attempts to explain the close correspondences (in iconography, architecture, and writing) between Chichen Itza and Tula in the Early Postclassic it has been assumed that it was mainly between these two cities, sometimes even called "twin Tollans", that the extended and intense contact between Northern Yucatan and central Mexico took place. A tendency among Mesoamericanists not to look further to the north and west, to present states such as Guanajuato and Querétaro, have...
De Tepeticpac, a Tlaxcallan, a Tlaxcala: el forje del estado tlaxcalteca del Posclásico tardío (1250-1519 d.C.) a la Colonia temprana (1519-1600 d.C.) (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. El contacto entre tlaxcaltecas y españoles en 1519 inicio un periodo de cambios fundamentales en las relaciones de poder entre los altepemeh del altiplano central mesoamericano. Para Tlaxcallan, la alianza representó una oportunidad para sortear los problemas políticos, bélicos y económicos...
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...
Defining the Urbanism of the Ancient Purépecha Site of Angamuco (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ancient Purépecha site of Angamuco located in the Lake Patzcuaro Basin of Michoacán, Mexico provides an unrivaled opportunity to study the urban tradition of the Purépecha prior to the formation of the empire in the late postclassic (1350 – 1520 CE). Previously, the understanding of Purépecha urbanism relied upon analysis of the imperial capital...
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...
Designing Influence: Aesthetic Choices and Group Identity in Decorated Ceramics of Late Postclassic Etlatongo, Oaxaca, Mexico (2018)
During the Late Postclassic (A.D. 1200-1520) in the Mixteca Alta of Oaxaca, Mexico, aesthetic qualities of ceramics were utilized as both decorative values and tools for negotiating the creation of group identities and ideologies within communities. Through a stylistic analysis of Yanhuitlan Red on Cream type ceramics recovered from excavations at the site of Etlatongo, in the Nochixtlán Valley, I explore how these vessels and the motifs depicted on them were used during the creation of...
Dieta, movilidad y etnicidad en la antigua ciudad de Toniná, Chiapas (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Dynamic Frontiers in the Archaeology of Chiapas" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. En este trabajo presentamos evidencia de sacrificio humano y tratamientos póstumos de victimas recuperadas en la antigua ciudad maya de Toniná, en el sureste de México. El deposito ritual data de Posclásico mesoamericano que comprende desde 950 hasta 1521 dC. El objetivo es conocer las huellas isotópicas de individuos que fueron parte del...
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...
Distribution Analysis of Archaeological Ceramics on the "Malpaís de Tacámbaro Site", La Garita Sector, Michoacán, 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. In this paper we will present the results of the geostatistical analysis of the ceramics recovered during the archaeological prospecting works at Malpaís de Tacámbaro site in the La Garita sector. This is a big settlement located on top of a volcanic flow in the municipality of Tacámbaro, the south central of Michoacán....
Divine Food and the Warriors of Curicaueri (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Tzintzuntzan, Capital of the Tarascan Empire: New Perspectives" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the Tarascan cosmovision, feeding the gods daily, especially Curicaueri, was vital because it ensured that the world would continue to function; this food was the human sacrifice. At the foot of the platform, one of the most significant pieces of evidence of this act of surrender to the gods was found, where an enormous...
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...
Economic Institutions in Ancient Greece and Mesoamerica (2018)
New studies have led to a deeper comprehension of economic variation and change in Late Postclassic Mesoamerica and the Archaic and Classical Greek world. Archaeological data on city-state settlement patterns, specialized production, trade, and household consumption, and new archival material and re-analysis of texts, have replaced primitivism, substantivism, and ideal-types. In urbanization and demographic scale the two areas are comparable. Mesoamerican and Greek agricultural production was...
The Effect of Prehispanic Metallurgy on the Environment of a Tropical Rain Forest in Jicalán, Michoacán, Mexico (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. A core of 23 cm was recovered from a lake bed, now a dam, in Jicalán Viejo. The core was sampled for pollen analysis at every centimeter. Pollen analysis describes the presence of a tropical rain forest with tree...
El Malinche and Tlaxcallan: A Field Guide to Taking Down Democracy (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. Contact between the Conquistadores and the native peoples of Mexico 500 years ago was a watershed moment in human history. At its heart was the relationship between El Malinche (Hernán Cortés) and the Tlaxcalteca. Although much has been made of the role the resulting alliance played in the...
El paisaje del Yuvui Tayu de Ñuu Ndaya, Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca, México (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. El yuvui tayu (reinado) de Ñuu Ndaya o Chalcatongo fue uno de los más importantes durante la época precolonial en la Mixteca Alta de Oaxaca. Esto lo sabemos gracias a los códices precoloniales y a los documentos coloniales. En el 2008 y 2016 realizamos dos recorridos arqueológicos de superficie en la parte norte de esta región, estos nos permitieron...
El papel del suelo en la conformación del contexto arqueológico en el área de El Fuerte en la antigua Tlaxcallan (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Tlaxcallan: Mesoamerica's Bizarro World" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Este trabajo de investigación se desarrolló en el actual estado de Tlaxcala en un área denominada "El Fuerte", que formó parte del Estado tlaxcalteca en época prehispánica, y se inserta dentro del "Proyecto Arqueológico del Tlaxcallan. Hogares, Terrazas y Gobernanza en el Posclásico Tardío". El presente trabajo es un acercamiento a la...
Embodying Collective Identity: Analysis of Late Postclassic Facial Ornamentation Practices in Tlaxcallan, 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. In pre-Hispanic central Mexico, communities practiced various forms of embodying social identity through the use of facial adornments. Ornaments were placed in the ears, nose, and lips to materialize aspects of both self and collective identity, such as age, gender, status, kinship, and ethnicity. Recent research at the Late Postclassic (AD...
An Empire of Water and Stone: Aztec Kingship and Sacred Landscapes (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. My project will center around the Acuecuexco Aqueduct Relief (also referred to as the Ahuitzotl’s Aqueduct Relief) and its implications as a monument celebrating a public works project by an Aztec emperor. Only one other comparable example is known to date: the Chapultepec carving of Montezuma II. Although the later carving has received significantly more...