Employing micromorphology at the Tlajinga district in Teotihuacan to investigate site formation processes and household activities

Summary

Recent excavations of the PATT (Proyecto Arqueológico Tlajinga, Teotihuacan) have explored two residential zones and the southern extension of the Street of the Dead in the Tlajinga district, located in the southern periphery of Teotihuacan. Excavations at the residential zones are directed at investigating neighborhood dynamics including social organization, craft specialization and domestic ritual. Excavation at the Street of the Dead are directed at evaluating the processes of urbanization at the periphery of the urban epicenter. As a complement to architectural and artifactual studies, micromorphological analyses and Fourier-Transform Infrared spectrometry have been employed on excavated sediments, which present powerful tools for the investigation of archaeological deposits. This geoarchaeological approach is aimed at answering the following questions: Is occupational specialization visible in the sediments? Is obsidian microdebitage present in the sediments, which would indicate in situ obsidian working? What kind of fire use is represented? What differences can be observed in the archaeological deposits of the residential compounds 17:S3E1 and 18:S3E1? What microscopic traces of activities and construction material and technology are preserved within the sediments? Was the Street of the Dead excavated into the bedrock-like, undurated substrate, known as tepetate? What is the infill history of the SOTD?

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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