War Milpas: Wetlands and Institutional Agriculture during the Late Postclassic in Tlaxcallan, Mexico

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Landscapes: Archaeological, Historic, and Ethnographic Perspectives from the New World / Paisajes: Perspectivas arqueológicas, históricas y etnográficas desde el Nuevo Mundo" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Antigua Cienega de Tlaxcala is an area of wetlands located at the core of the Puebla-Tlaxcala valley in central Mexico. Historically, these marshlands have been exploited agriculturally using drained field technology and are well-known for providing higher yields in comparison to other rainfed agricultural fields. This paper analyses the importance of the Cienega as an intensive food production region for the support of institutional apparatuses of Tlaxcallan during the Late Postclassic (AD 1250–1519). Current archaeological, historical and agricultural information is analyzed to estimate agricultural production capacity, including data on the distribution of soils associated with wetlands, the indigenous technology of wetland exploitation, settlement patterns, and geopolitical boundaries of state-level political entities settled in the Puebla-Tlaxcala valley. Results suggest that wetlands represented a crucial economic base for the institutional economy of Tlaxcallan at a time of serious regional and interregional conflicts.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• Landscapes: Archaeological, Historic, and Ethnographic Perspectives from the New World / Paisajes: Perspectivas arqueológicas, históricas y etnográficas desde el Nuevo Mundo

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33264