The Tula Region Interaction and Migration Project (TRIMP): Year 1

The tumultuous Epiclassic period in central Mexico has long provided fertile ground for evaluating anthropological, archaeological questions since its original definition over 75 years ago. Recent work in the region has produced new data that are beginning to flesh out and test previously conceived hunches and, in some cases, upending established models of local and regional economic, social, and political relationships and networks. One such project is the Tula Region Interaction and Migration Project (TRIMP), which began its first field season during the summer of 2016. The project combines archaeometric analyses of existing ceramic, lithic, and osteological collections with new excavation at Cerro Magoni, one of the principal political centers of the local Tula region during the centuries preceding the foundation of the Toltec state. Our session reports the results of the TRIMP to date and contextualizes its preliminary inferences within the continuing evolution of ideas concerning central Mexico during the Epiclassic. The papers presented demonstrate the untapped opportunities available in the Tula region in particular, and Epiclassic central Mexico generally, to inform and influence broader anthropological understandings of cross-cultural patterns on multiple scales.