A City in Decline: Insights on the Collapse of Teotihuacan from the Southern Basin of Mexico

Summary

In this paper I discuss the urban decline and political breakdown of Teotihuacan from the vantage of Chicoloapan Viejo, an agrarian settlement situated in the Basin of Mexico hinterland, 40 km south of the capital city. Fieldwork in the southeastern Basin, including settlement survey led by Jeffrey Parsons in the 1960s and excavations at Chicoloapan in 2013 and 2014, shows that population numbers in this area grew dramatically in the years surrounding the state’s dissolution. As a settlement that expanded whilst others, elsewhere in Basin, were abandoned, Chicoloapan presents an opportunity to consider the conditions and strategies that promote resilience in the midst of decentralization and to examine collapse as a simultaneously regional and local process. I present the results of recent excavations at Chicoloapan and their implications for understanding changing practices, material culture, and heterogeneity among local households through time. I emphasize the impact of migration on demographic growth in the area, including the possible reception of previous residents of Teotihuacan, a city that was in the throes of urban decay. Finally, AMS radiocarbon determinations from multiple domestic contexts at Chicoloapan make it possible to relate changes on a community scale to broader processes of contracting state power.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• The Rise and Decline of Teotihuacan: Urbanism, Daily Life, and Regional Relations through Time

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