Variation in Obsidian Household Frequencies Overtime: Its Implications for Understanding the Socioeconomic Structure of Postclassic Calixtlahuaca.

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Crafting a Legacy in Archaeology: Papers Celebrating the Career of Ken Hirth" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper explores the implications of the variation in obsidian source frequencies recovered from Postclassic Calixtlahuaca households, a site located in the Toluca Valley. Recent technological research and chemical sourcing indicate that it was supplied with obsidian from both central and west Mexican sources, with the former becoming more dominant over time; moreover, technological attributes also indicate that the provisioning systems supplying the city differed structurally (e.g. obsidian from the Basin arrived via itinerant blade-making merchants, whereas the west Mexican materials arrived as ready-made blades). Interestingly, not only do the inter-household source frequencies change over time, but they also vary among the households (e.g., gray dominates all household assemblages early - most presumably from west Mexico – whereas half were dominated by obsidian from the Basin in the Late Postclassic). Here I examine whether households provisioned similarly are reasonably clustered to infer the presence of multiple market settings. I address whether the Calixtlahuacan obsidian distributions were consistent with a market system that was restricted (i.e. Hirth 1998), and whether this variation reflects differences in social status. Huster has argued that a decrease in the evenness of non-local imports among Calixtalhuacan households suggests a tendency towards greater social inequality.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Crafting a Legacy in Archaeology: Papers Celebrating the Career of Ken Hirth

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 50786