Power and Settlement in Prehispanic and Early Spanish Colonial Yucundaa-Pueblo Viejo de Teposcolula, Oaxaca

Summary

Yucundaa-Pueblo Viejo de Teposcolula, Oaxaca, Mexico, is the urban capital and power center of a Prehispanic and Early Colonial Mixtec state, occupying four square kilometers from AD 1000 to 1550. This research utilizes a convergent archaeological, ethnohistoric, and biological methodology, and focuses on the evolution and transformation of the city and its surroundings until the time of its relocation to the adjacent lowlands in 1550. Of particular concern was identification and analysis of structures and infrastructure pertaining to major social classes, political institutions, and ritual activities as they evolved from Prehispanic to Spanish Colonial times. What were originally conceived as separable residential, administrative and civic-ceremonial elements ("palace", tecpan. tecpancalli, anañe or yuhuitau, plaza, mounds, platforms, courts, patios, etc.) through data collected from from intensive excavations, survey, and ethnohistorical and biological studies, were determined to be functional components of an integrated urban-political urban capital and should be properly treated as such. This report considers those findings and conclusions and provides recommendations relating to research in the Mixteca, Oaxaca, and in other regions of Mesoamerica-New Spain with reference to the grand transformations taking place in the area before and after the Spanish Conquest.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Seats of Power: Functional Sectors in Mesoamerican Palaces

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14435