Changing Urban Networks in Formative Central Mexico: A View from Tlalancaleca, Puebla

Summary

It is likely that Formative urban centers and their interactions with one another provided cultural and historical settings for the creation of Central Mexican urban traditions during later periods. Yet their urbanization process remains poorly understood. Our research over the last six field seasons indicates that some residential groups were settled at Tlalancaleca towards 800 BC and the settlement was urbanized with a significant population growth during the later Middle Formative period (ca. 650-500 BC); the city experienced large-scale urban transformations during the Late Formative (ca. 500-100 BC) and a subsequent and final urban expansion during the Terminal Formative (ca. 100 BC-AD 250). Tlalancaleca’s long occupational history overlaps with that of Chalcatzingo as well as Teotihuacan and, thus, provides a unique opportunity to address long-term social transformations during the Formative period. Based on preliminary results of our research at Tlalancaleca, we will reconsider the trajectory of urban transformations in Central Mexico over 1000 years from the Middle Formative to the Terminal Formative/Early Classic periods and discuss its implications for understanding parallel and divergent trajectories of social transformation in later Formative Mesoamerica.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 19915