Population Structure in the Valley of Mexico at the Time of Spanish Conquest

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Approaches to Cultural and Biological Complexity in Mexico at the Time of Spanish Conquest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Cultural processes connected the various regions throughout Mesoamerica. Increased long-distance trade, political alliances, imperial conquest, and spread of religious ideology in the Valley of Mexico facilitated more migration over time. City nucleation to important economic, political, and religious centers increased population variation throughout the Valley of Mexico in the Late Postclassic period (1200-1521) compared with previous settlements throughout the region. This variation resulted in the complex population structures and multi-ethnic cities and towns the Spanish encountered upon their arrival in 1519. Here we present population structure results of Formative, Classic, and Postclassic groups in the Valley of Mexico. We compare dental morphological observations among skeletal samples from the Valley of Mexico and nearby regions, over time, using traditional biological distance and genetic population structure analyses. Results indicate population variation greatly increases during the Postclassic period, particularly during the Late Postclassic. Increase population variation correlates with increased economic, political, and religious complexity throughout the region, most likely resulting from complex migration networks associated with cultural interactions. Our results support increased migration prior to, and throughout the Postclassic period led to a biologically diverse environment in the Valley of Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Approaches to Cultural and Biological Complexity in Mexico at the Time of Spanish Conquest

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24815