Toward an Archaeology of Indigenous Conquerors: Household Ritual Life at Tepeticpac, Tlaxcala

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Advances in Puebla/Tlaxcala Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Over the course of its two excavation field seasons in 2017 and 2022, the community-collaborative Proyecto de Arqueología Cotidiana de Tepeticpac has shifted its focus from the Postclassic period, when the Tlaxcallans formed a state that maintained its independence from the Aztec empire, to the early colonial period, when residents allied with Spanish forces to defeat their former enemies. Colonial houses and middens have been more ubiquitous and better preserved, a sign that some of our community collaborators have interpreted as their ancestors speaking. One project member remarked, “You are finding these things because our ancestors want us to have this knowledge. They want us to know about what they did.” Tlaxcallans have been much maligned in contemporary Mexico as “traitors” for having sided with European colonizers over other Indigenous groups. The tide is changing, however, as more nuanced understandings of the conquest emerge across North America. Our excavations similarly help us understand the complex lived experience of these “Indigenous Conquerors” in the sixteenth century. This talk focuses on a domestic altar and large ritual deposit excavated in 2022, features that shed light on feasting practices and household cosmology at early Colonial Tepeticpac, Tlaxcala.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Advances in Puebla/Tlaxcala Archaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36924.0