Aztec (Other Keyword)
Aztecs
26-36 (36 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Dancing through Iconographic Corpora: A Symposium in Honor of F. Kent Reilly III" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While many scholars have suggested that the Aztec sacrificed individuals on the Calendar Stone, this paper will not only explore this aspect but also the object’s affiliation with another form of sacrifice, auto-sacrifice. Using ethnohistoric records, connections between the imagery of the stone and acts of...
Seasonality in Central Mexican Painted Images of Tlaloc: From Classic to Postclassic (2016)
Tlaloc, the rain god of Central Mexico, has different seasonal avatars in painted imagery. Colonial codices document these variants in veintena festivals recorded to help Spanish friars detect survivals of indigenous religion. Rainy season imagery shows Tlaloc associated with maize plants and agricultural fertility. In contrast, imagery of the dry season emphasizes Tlaloc’s mountain aspect, because the rain god withdrew into the mountains to hold back the rainfall. The priests performed mountain...
Social Archaeology and Debating Local Scholars (2016)
How can archaeologists both benefit from interaction with local communities and also debate with local scholars? Engaging with local scholars can sometimes require walking a fine line between imposing foreign values in a colonizing manner and accepting ideas that are either incorrect or that promote oppression and inequality. Theoretically-informed social archaeology can help us engage with local scholars with respect and debate their ideas with the goals of promoting social justice, and without...
The Social Dimensions of Complex Industries: Insights from a Thin Section Microscopy Study of Aztec Salt-Making Pottery (2015)
In this paper, I show how thin section microscopy enhances our understanding of the social relations and technological sequences of production in the Late Postclassic (1350-1520 AD) salt industry of the northern Basin of Mexico. Aztec salt-making sites have dense concentrations of "fabric-marked" pottery, which is a light, friable ware distinguished by impressions of textiles on its exterior surface. Fabric-marked pottery was probably used to mold blocks of salt for sale in the market. Because...
Spheres of Production of the Lapidary Objects at the Sacred Precinct of Tenochtitlan: The Legitimacy and Extent of the Power of the Aztec Empire (2015)
In the Great Temple and the surrounding structures at the Sacred Precinct of Mexico Tenochtitlan, the archaeologists recovered thousands of lapidary objects devoted to the religious cult of the Mexica society. Great quantities of them were considered foreign productions or relics related with certain Mesoamerican styles and traditions. In this research we will show that the technological analysis, using Experimental Archaeology and the characterization of the manufacturing traces with SEM,...
The Spurious Claim of “Human Sacrifice” (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Misinformation and Misrepresentation Part 2: Reconsidering “Human Sacrifice,” Religion, Slavery, Modernity, and Other European-Derived Concepts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Almost without question, “human sacrifice” is held as a legitimate concept by archaeologists—and the public. The concept is widely employed to explain aspects of Mesoamerican behavior. In this presentation, I argue that human sacrifice was never...
Status-role-behavior database on 11 premodern societies
Excel files describing all possible statuses and associated roles/behaviors for 10 premodern states (Aztec, Benin, Late Shang China, Old Kingdom Egypt, Mycenaean Greece, Protohistoric Hawaii, Inca, Old Babylonia, Late Classic Maya, and Zapotec) and 1 premodern society (Iceland).
A Study of the Role of Cannibalism in Aztec Culture (2015)
It is generally agreed upon that the Aztec practiced cannibalism, but scholars have proposed various hypotheses explaining what function this practice had in the Aztec culture. This study focuses on the nature and ritualistic function of Aztec cannibalism. The Aztec would only consume the flesh of outsiders, mostly war captives, as part of religious rituals which provided a foundation for their culture. A detailed examination of the ethnohistoric and archaeological evidence for cannibalism among...
Three collections of spindle whorls from Calixtlahuaca, Mexico (2013)
This dataset consists of a single spreadsheet of standard metric and non-metric data for three collections of spindle whorls from the Postclassic site of Calixtlahuaca, Toluca Valley (State of Mexico), Mexico. The collections are from the 2007 Calixtlahuaca Archaeological Project excavations, the Museo de Antropología y Historia in Toluca Mexico, and the Yale Peabody. This dataset accompanies the following article: Huster, Angela C. 2013 Assessing Systematic Bias in Museum Collections: A...
Two Figurines and a Conquest: Toltec and Aztec Warriors in the Sierra Sur of Oaxaca? (2017)
In this talk I will present a contextual and iconographic analysis of two unusual, yet almost identical, figurines of lavishly dressed warriors, reported from different sites in the Chontal Highlands of Oaxaca. While variations on mold-made solid figurines of armed individuals were common in Late Classic Oaxaca, the particular attributes of these figurines are more analogous to militaristic iconography emerging from Postclassic Central Mexico. Taking the figurines’ iconography and regional...
Warior Regalia and Questions of Inalienable Possessions in the Aztec World (2015)
A fascinating aspect of Frances Berdan's new text, Aztec Archaeology and Ethnohistory (2014), is the section in Chapter 8 on warrior regalia as inalienable possessions. This topic is explored by Berdan in a rich discussion that merges Annette Weiner's framework with Berdan's own exhaustive knowledge of written and pictorial manuscript sources on the Aztecs. I would like to take this exploration into the realm of material evidence, by examining particular sculpted examples in the Aztec World. ...