Rethinking the Classic through Postclassic Occupations of San Ignacio, the Regional Center of the Amatzinac Valley, Morelos: Excavation Results from 2024

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

San Ignacio is located in the Amatzinac Valley of Morelos, approximately 10 kilometers south of the Formative center of Chalcatzingo, where it was the largest site in Eastern Morelos during the Classic period (300 – 600 CE). Previous studies argued based on regional settlement data that San Ignacio might have been a Teotihuacan administrative center. In 2019 I initiated the Proyecto Arqueológico Mapeo y Prospección de San Ignacio (PAMPSI) to investigate this hypothesis and the nature of San Ignacio’s relationship with Teotihuacan. In this paper, I present key findings from the 2024 excavations, which targeted the site’s ballcourt, main pyramid, and second largest civic-ceremonial complex. Preliminary results suggest that not all visible architecture dates to the Classic period and shed new light on the site’s Epiclassic and Postclassic occupations. Work undertaken by PAMPSI is significant as it is contributing to our understanding of Classic period societies outside of the Basin of Mexico, as well as the local dynamics of understudied time periods in Eastern Morelos.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52936