Pottery on the Periphery: Postclassic Ceramics from La Laguna, Tlaxcala, Mexico

Summary

This poster examines life at the periphery of the Postclassic Mesoamerican World System, discussing the access that rural or peripheral people may have to the larger economic, political, and informational networks of their region. It addresses these questions by presenting an analysis of the Epiclassic and Postclassic period ceramic assemblages from the site of La Laguna, Tlaxcala, Mexico. Almost all of the sherds come from Feature 185, a sheet midden context deposited during the late Postclassic period (c. 1300-1521 CE). During this period, many small āltepēmê (central Mexican city-states) coalesced economically and culturally into a system described as the Postclassic International World System by Smith and Berdan, and the Aztec Triple Alliance emerged as dominant. Although La Laguna was a small rural settlement on the periphery of this society, the wares and iconography present in the ceramic assemblage show that its inhabitants were involved with the regional economic and intellectual interactions of the time. I present the assemblage in terms of ware, vessel form, and iconography, and suggest avenues for future research on Postclassic ceramics in Tlaxcala.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage