Ceramic Chronology in the Absence of a Horizon

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Central Mexico after Teotihuacan: Everyday Life and the (Re)Making of Epiclassic Communities" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In this paper, I present an initial ceramic seriation for the Epiclassic site of Chicoloapan Viejo, in the southern Basin of Mexico, with a discussion of issues particular to periods of political fragmentation. I demonstrate that two phases can be distinguished at Chicoloapan Viejo, based on relative type frequencies, rather than the presence or absence of diagnostic markers. As one of only a handful of Epiclassic chronologies based on well-excavated data and anchored by radiocarbon dates, this seriation has the potential to clarify the dynamics of regional interaction during Teotihuacan’s collapse and aftermath. One of the primary challenges in studying periods of political fragmentation can be the establishment of basic chronological periods in cases where political fragmentation has resulted in high levels of regional diversity, resulting in either a lack of diagnostic marker types, or high levels of variation the frequencies and dates of use of a type within a relatively limited area. However, if overcome with detailed, site-level chronologies, such periods of fragmentation offer unique opportunities to examine the very social processes that produced them.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• Central Mexico after Teotihuacan: Everyday Life and the (Re)Making of Epiclassic Communities

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32724