Plaza, Trade, and Politics in Postclassic Tlaxcallan

Summary

Excavated lithic material from plazas at the Postclassic site of Tepeticpac, in the central Mexican state of Tlaxcala, suggests that obsidian production took place in these open spaces that may have served as marketplaces in the Late Postclassic polity of Tlaxcallan. Moreover, although green obsidian is present in Late Postclassic contexts, a decline in its presence is evident from earlier periods. In spite of ethnohistoric sources’ claims that Tlaxcallan was cut off from trade by Tenochtitlan, these data suggest that green obsidian continued to trickle into Tlaxcallan. Given the political and economic role that the plaza played in ancient Mesoamerican cities and the unique position that green obsidian held as a commodity as well as a restricted item because of Tenochtitlan’s control over the quarries allow an evaluation of Tlaxcallan’s changing relations with its neighbors in the course of the Postclassic.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage