For Conquest or Defense? the Fortresses and Fortified Centers of Mesoamerica

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "For Conquest or Defense? the Fortresses and Fortified Centers of Mesoamerica" at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Fortified centers, fortresses, and citadels are found throughout Mesoamerica from the Preclassic period into the Conquest. The form of these sites varies greatly. Some are protected by walls, moats, and towers, others by steep natural topographic and geological features of the environment. These sites are sometimes interconnected with auxiliary surveillance systems that could carry information to other towns or cities. Teasing out the history of such places can be difficult, particularly when most locations contain few, to no, written words. Were they defensive? Or were they instruments of domination? Who did they protect? The local population? Colonizers? Were these places refuges? In this session participants explore a range of sites from Mesoamerican cultures including the Maya, Nahuatls, Teotihuacanos, and Zapotecs. Scholars will discuss the archaeological evidence from these sites, employing a range of analyses including lidar, lithics, ceramics, and codices, to determine the role each of these fortified sites likely played in the machinations of rulers, commoners and invaders.

Other Keywords
Mesoamerica • Architecture • Trade and exchange • Ceramic Analysis

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-11 of 11)

  • Documents (11)
Documents
  • Controlling Access, Channeling Water: Fortification and Hydraulic Architecture at Muralla de León (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Justin Bracken.

    This is an abstract from the "For Conquest or Defense? the Fortresses and Fortified Centers of Mesoamerica" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Fortification is almost necessarily monumental in scale in order to be effective, requiring substantial modification to the built environment according to a coherent overall plan. Such landscape alterations tend to impact natural hydrological flows, and indeed many instances of fortification in the Maya world...

  • Defensive Strategies and Architectural Investment: A LiDAR Study of Dos Aguadas (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Blaine Fisher.

    This is an abstract from the "For Conquest or Defense? the Fortresses and Fortified Centers of Mesoamerica" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The research presented in this study utilizes LiDAR technology and GIS to analyze the defensive earthworks at Dos Aguadas, a Maya settlement in the Holmul Region of Guatemala. This study aims to explore the scale of Classic Lowland Maya warfare through the architectural investment observed in the earthworks....

  • Fortifications: Beyond Modernist Dualisms (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Hernandez.

    This is an abstract from the "For Conquest or Defense? the Fortresses and Fortified Centers of Mesoamerica" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Fortifications are a linchpin for contemporary understandings of ancient Maya lifeways. Archaeologists, through the study of martial architecture, have revealed that the Classic Mayas were not so peaceful after all and today lidar surveys are shedding light on regional networks of fortifications. Despite the...

  • A Frozen Fortress: The Late Preclassic Citadel at Classic-period El Pilar (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sherman Horn.

    This is an abstract from the "For Conquest or Defense? the Fortresses and Fortified Centers of Mesoamerica" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. <html> Lidar survey of the 20 km<sup>2</sup> El Pilar archaeological reserve revealed an unexpected architectural complex less than 300 m east of city center. Imagery of this “Citadel” showed several buildings around two plazas atop a hill girded by two encircling walls, which were separated from the monumental...

  • Muros, vallas y cercas: los signos de fortalezas en la escritura jeroglífica náhuatl (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Margarita Cossich-Vielman.

    This is an abstract from the "For Conquest or Defense? the Fortresses and Fortified Centers of Mesoamerica" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. <html> La escritura jeroglífica náhuatl es un sistema logosilábico constituido por signos palabras (logogramas) y signos sonidos (fonogramas). En los documentos del siglo XVI (codíces y lienzos) los signos de fortalezas están asociados al logograma <b>TENA </b>que provinen de la palabra en náhuatl tenamitl que...

  • Offense or Defense? Technology and Use of Obsidian Projectile Points at Plan de las Mesas, Honduras (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Zachary Hruby.

    This is an abstract from the "For Conquest or Defense? the Fortresses and Fortified Centers of Mesoamerica" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Hundreds of projectile points and point fragments have been recovered over the decades of work at the Classic site of Plan de Las Mesas in the Copan Valley of Western Honduras. Given the ubiquity of these points, which for the most part can be described as atlatl dart components, they may provide important...

  • Protecting Deities and Fortified Santuaries: Religion in Mesoamerican Warfare (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Joel Palka.

    This is an abstract from the "For Conquest or Defense? the Fortresses and Fortified Centers of Mesoamerica" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Fortified temples, patron deities, and human communities were interconnected in Mesoamerican war practices and theology. This presentation examines the archaeological patterning and Indigenous relational ontology regarding fortifications, sanctuaries, and deity communication in Mexico and Central America....

  • Quantifying Defensiveness: Lidar and the Volumetrics of Maya Fortresses (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Fernando Véliz Corado.

    This is an abstract from the "For Conquest or Defense? the Fortresses and Fortified Centers of Mesoamerica" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Volumetrics have long been a part of the spatial analysis of Maya architecture. They have been used as a tool to estimate the effort invested in construction of various human-made features, from pyramids to houses. Volumetric calculations are also employed in the study of material extraction, such as...

  • Rincón del Jicaque: a Postclassic Fortress During the Ch’orti’ Conquest (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Edy Barrios.

    This is an abstract from the "For Conquest or Defense? the Fortresses and Fortified Centers of Mesoamerica" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ancient Ch'orti' territory includes sectors in the modern republics of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. The Ch’orti’ are one of the ethnic groups found in the southeastern Maya periphery whose conquest in 1524 was slightly later than that of the populations of western and central Guatemala. Uprisings,...

  • Walls of Power: An Analysis of Defensive and Social Functions of the Fortified Zapotec Site of Guiengola (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Pedro Ramon Celis.

    This is an abstract from the "For Conquest or Defense? the Fortresses and Fortified Centers of Mesoamerica" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Guiengola Archaeological Project has successfully mapped the pre-Columbian fortified city of Guiengola in Oaxaca, Mexico, using both pedestrian survey techniques and airborne LiDAR scanning. Known as the garrison where the Zapotec people defended their territory against the Mexica (Aztec) armies in 1490—an...

  • Wondrous Was This Wall-Stone, Till Fates Wrecked It: the Citadel of Plan de las Mesas, Copan (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Cameron McNeil.

    This is an abstract from the "For Conquest or Defense? the Fortresses and Fortified Centers of Mesoamerica" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The remains of the citadel of Plan de las Mesas rest above the Copan Valley, 2.5 km northwest of the Acropolis. This site may have been inhabited as far back as the Archaic period when it was likely a refuge, but by the Early Classic period evidence suggests that it functioned as a fortress, or citadel, and...