Style, Memory, and the Production of History: Aztec Black-on-Orange Pottery in Xaltocan, Mexico

Summary

This paper will explore shifting patterns in ceramic consumption and stylistic design during the Postclassic period (AD 900-1350) at the site of Xaltocan in the Basin of Mexico. Xaltocan is the only site in the northern Basin of Mexico associated with a large percentage of early Black-on-Orange pottery. This same pottery is rare at contemporaneous sites located a few kilometers away. Because Black-on-Orange ceramics were used by elites and commoners alike, and also cross-cut various ethnic and linguistic groups, there would have been multiple potentialities and entanglements associated with stylistic shifts in pottery. I argue that rather than self-driven or inevitable processes, shifts in the style and consumption of Black on Orange pottery represented explicit ideological statements about the creation of difference and identity. Similarly, I argue that periods of stasis in stylistic design, as well as boundaries in pottery use, were actively maintained rather than a consequence of non-interaction. Although this paper focuses primarily on stylistic traditions within the Basin of Mexico, it may help us to understand styles more broadly as active processes linked to ritual and identity, while also involved in the construction of power and the production of history.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17179