Testing the accuracy of portable X-ray fluorescence to study Aztec and Colonial obsidian supply at Xaltocan,Mexico

This article demonstrates the accuracy of non-destructive portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) for the study of obsidian in central Mexico. Obsidian sources were identified for a sample of 103 artifacts from the site of Xaltocan, which spanned the rise and fall of the Aztec empire and the first centuries of Spanish colonial rule (AD 900–1700). Sources were assigned by comparing pXRF measurements with previously published source data and were verified using the standard techniques of laboratory XRF (lXRF) and instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA). Additional tests of potentially confounding factors show that neither length of read time, presence of surface residue, nor incomplete detector coverage due to small artifact size compromised our ability to attribute sources to artifacts. Concave surfaces did decrease the accuracy of readings because of the greater distance between the artifact and the detector. Our results provide new insight into the stability of supply networks and markets well into the Colonial period as well as the homogenizing tendencies of the Aztec market system.     

Polities, territory and historical change in Postclassic Matlatzinco (Toluca Valley, central Mexico)

Historical interpretation of political dynamics in pre-conquest central Mexico from indigenous records is fraught with difficulties. Beyond the basic challenges involved in interpreting fragmentary evidence is the fact that the majority of evidence comes from the dominant imperial polity (Tenochtitlan) and paints a biased and overly generalized view of political and social dynamics in provincial areas. We present a reconstruction of the political geography of the Toluca Valley of central Mexico in Aztec times that avoids these biases by focusing not on the events described in native histories, but on the individual towns and their spatial locations. We find that a theoretical perspective that defines political entities by networks and relations among people more adequately captures the historical situation than traditional models that define polities based on territory and boundaries.     

Trade,tribute, and neutron activation: The colonial political economy of Xaltocan,Mexico

In Trade, Tribute, and Transportation, Ross Hassig argues that indigenous towns in the northern Basin of Mexico during the colonial period were largely self-sufficient. They traded with Mexico City mostly in elite goods, but for the most part they produced for their own subsistence or traded with nearby towns. Chemical characterization by instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) and portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) of ceramics and obsidian from post-conquest contexts in Xaltocan, a site in the northern Basin of Mexico, reveals that Hassig’s model is partly correct for describing Xaltocan. The town focused on trade with nearby towns and it produced some ceramics for local consumption. However, Xaltocan was hardly isolated and self-sufficient in the post-conquest period. Instead, the data suggest that the people of Xaltocan also obtained ceramics and obsidian from a greater variety of sources than under Aztec domination. Rather than being an isolated rural site, Xaltocan either increased its external connections and number of trading partners after the Spanish conquest, or it managed to obtain a greater variety of products than before through a bustling market system.     

Modeling and testing polity boundaries in the Classic Tuxtla Mountains,Southern Veracruz,Mexico

Combined application of GIS modeling of polity boundaries and qualitative characterization of those boundaries in the Tuxtla Mountains, southern Veracruz, Mexico generated interesting questions and some answers regarding the regional political landscape. Not only did this process elucidate possible boundary locations, the process of evaluating these different hypotheses proved to be a useful exercise in characterizing the boundary and the nature of interaction between the polities controlled by Matacapan and Totocapan during the Classic period. I develop a seven variable classification for political boundaries to be used with coarse-grained settlement data.     

Early copper smelting at Itziparátzico,Mexico

Archaeological fieldwork and archaeometallurgical analysis have identified a Late Postclassic regional centre of copper production in western Mexico. The total output from a single unit of production at the site of Itziparátzico is an estimated ten tons of copper and nearly forty tons of slag over the lifetime of the installation. It is argued that this smelting was based on slag-tapping furnaces, a technology previously unknown from Mesoamerican archaeological sites. The smelting site is in dense woodland with ample fuel supply, some 125 km from the next mining area with documented contemporary ore extraction; the copper produced would have been passed on to the capital, another 60 km away, for further distribution and working. The scale of production at Itziparátzico indicates that copper smelting was done by part-time specialists embedded in a predominantly agricultural economy, and formed part of a centrally organized network of mining, smelting and processing of copper to supply the Tarascan state.     

Controlling for Doubt and Uncertainty Through Multiple Lines of Evidence: A New Look at the Mesoamerican Nahua Migrations

Nahuatl represents a relatively recent extension of the Uto-Aztecan language family into Mesoamerica. Ethnohistorians have linked Nahuatl's arrival to the historically attested migrations of nomadic people into central Mexico in the last centuries before the Spanish Conquest. Archaeologists have tended to treat migration as an explanation for a change in material culture rather than a social question to be examined theoretically. We approach this migration through the comparison of multiple data sets and conclude that what has previously been treated as a historical event is instead part of a longer term process tying together Mesoamerica's northern periphery with its highland core. While we find that certain themes from migration theory are reflected in this preindustrial migration as well, other variables are unique and bode well for archaeology's ability to address and contribute to theoretical issues relating to migration.     

Mapping ancient chinampa landscapes in the Basin of Mexico: a remote sensing and GIS approach

This paper uses remote sensing data to document a raised field, chinampa system adjacent to the Postclassic kingdom of Xaltocan in the northern Basin of Mexico. Various forms of landscape information; historic records and maps as well as remote sensing; are considered to understand the chinampa system. The remote sensing data examined include 1950s aerial photographs, Landsat 7 data, and Quickbird VHR, multi-spectral imagery. This article evaluates the utility of each of these forms of data to identify buried chinampa features and integrates them in a GIS to produce a map of Xaltocan's chinampa landscape. Canals of various sizes and hydrological positions comprised the chinampas and integrated the system together. Occupying at least 1500–2000 ha, Xaltocan's chinampa system represents the largest pre-Aztec, chinampa system in the Basin of Mexico.     

Using network expectations to identify multiple exchange systems: A case study from Postclassic Sauce and its hinterland in Veracruz,Mexico

Exchanges of material objects often play a pivotal role in the trajectories of political, social, and economic development for ancient societies, but the study can be challenging because of the complexity of exchange. Multiple forms of exchange co-exist in ancient societies including market exchange and social exchange such as gift-giving. A further complicating factor is that different exchange systems such as redistribution and central place market exchange can result in the same regional spatial patterning of artifacts. Recent innovations in identifying exchange systems use network expectations for spatial, contextual, and distributional information to help distinguish between social exchanges such as gift-giving versus market exchange using household inventories. I introduce a Monte Carlo computer simulation to evaluate network expectations for alternative exchange mechanisms, using a case study of decorated ceramics from 65 residential inventories from the center of Sauce and its hinterland during the Middle Postclassic period (1200–1350 A.D.) in southcentral Veracruz, Mexico. Using these new tools, I identify the coexistence of several exchange systems operating simultaneously. The methods developed here demonstrate the potential of using network expectations to refine existing methods to identify different exchange systems that can be applied to other complex ancient economies.     

Beyond identifying elites: Feasting as a means to understand early Middle Formative society on the Pacific Coast of Mexico

Feasts provide a public forum where social statuses can be affirmed or challenged among pre-state societies. Documenting feasting behavior thus provides insight into the construction of prehistoric political power. This paper presents expected material patterns of feasting by focusing on intra-site variability in food preparation, presentation, and consumption. Expectations are evaluated by comparing ceramic, ground stone, obsidian, and faunal data recovered from Conchas phase (900–800 BCE) elite and village midden deposits at Cuauhtémoc in the Soconusco region of southern Mexico. I argue that elite feasting at Cuauhtémoc created political cohesion between elite and non-elite segments of society during the Conchas phase as a new polity emerged that was more socially stratified and politically hierarchical than anything previously known in the region.     

Agricultural slope management and soil erosion at La Laguna,Tlaxcala, Mexico

Several superimposed systems of agricultural terracing are preserved at the archaeological site of La Laguna in central Mexico. Excavations uncovered complex stratigraphic sequences of terrace fills and colluvial deposits. Their chronology was established by radiocarbon, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), and the presence of diagnostic features and artifacts. The Formative occupations of the site (ca. 600–400 BC and 100 BC–AD 100) resulted in severe erosion and exposure of indurated subsoil horizons. In the Middle to Late Postclassic (AD 1150–1520) stone-walled terraces were built to recover the degraded slopes for cultivation. Renewed reclamation works have been undertaken since the Colonial period, eventually taking the form of sloping-field terraces with berms planted in maguey. The reconstructed sequence of local land use underscores the risks of dating agricultural features by association with sherd scatters, as well as the complexity of the relationships between demographic variables, agricultural intensity and terracing.     

Large game, agricultural land, and settlement pattern change in the eastern Mimbres area, southwest New Mexico

The 12th-century depopulation of large villages in the Mimbres region of the US Southwest has been attributed to a number of causes, including resource stress. This study combines archaeological evidence and models of environmental conditions in the eastern Mimbres area of southwest New Mexico to assess the magnitude and timing of food stress from a combination of a period of reduced precipitation and the effects of prolonged hunting and farming activities on the landscape. Results indicate that large game in the area was quite sensitive to hunting pressure, and was locally depleted long before settlement reorganization occurred. Access to arable land was somewhat reduced around the time of settlement reorganization, but productive land remained locally plentiful. Although the settlement reorganization did not improve access to large game or arable land, farmers’ perceptions of below-average conditions for agriculture relative to their expectations and past experience would have contributed to decisions to move.     

The 'Mardi Gras' Shipwreck: Results of a Deep-Water Excavation, Gulf of Mexico, USA

The 'Mardi Gras' Shipwreck is the remains of an early-19th-century sailing vessel lost in approximately 1220 m of water in the Gulf of Mexico. A recent archaeological investigation documented the wreck and recovered several artefacts, including glassware, ceramics, navigational instruments, a cannon, and a stove. Analyses of these artefacts and the surviving hull have led to preliminary conclusions on the nature of the vessel and its crew.
© 2009 The Authors     

Possible sources of archaeological maize found in Chaco Canyon and Aztec Ruin,New Mexico

Maize played a major role in Chaco's interaction with outlying communities in the southern Colorado Plateau. This paper seeks to determine where archaeological corn cobs brought to Chaco Canyon were grown. Strontium-isotope and trace-metal ratios of 180 soil-water and 18 surface-water sites in the Southern Colorado Plateau have revealed possible source areas for some of 37 archaeological corn cobs from Chaco Canyon and 10 archaeological corn cobs from Aztec Ruin, New Mexico. The most probable source areas for cobs that predate the middle-12th-century drought include several Upper Rio Chaco sites (not including Chaco Canyon). There are many potential source areas for cobs that date to the late A.D. 1100s and early 1200s, all of which lie in the eastern part of the study area. Some Athapascan-age cobs have potential source areas in the Totah, Lobo Mesa, and Dinetah regions. One Gallo Cliff Dwelling cob has a strontium-isotope ratio that exceeds all measured soil-water values. Field sites for this cob may exist in association with Paleozoic and Precambrian rocks found 80–90 km from Chaco Canyon. Potential source areas for most Aztec Ruin cobs (many of which were found in rooms dating to the first half of the 13th-century) appear to be associated with a loess deposit that blankets the Mesa Verde and McElmo Dome regions.     

Exchange patterns,boundary formation,and sociopolitical change in Late Bronze Age Southern Caucasia: preliminary results from a pottery provenance study in northwestern Armenia

In the South Caucasus—roughly the territory of today's Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan—the transition from the Middle Bronze Age (MBA) to the Late Bronze Age (LBA) is equated with fundamental shifts in settlement patterns, subsistence economy, and political strategies. During the mid-2nd millennium BC, nomadic pastoral societies that had dominated the region began to settle down and construct stone fortresses along the foothills of the Lesser Caucasus; these fortifications largely replaced the expansive and often opulently adorned kurgan burials as the most prominent expression of political dominance on the landscape. After a decade of intensive archaeological study at various fortifications, very little remains known about the political and economic relationships among fortresses on a regional scale that might improve our understanding of the roots of these sociopolitical transformations. In this paper, we highlight the results of a recent neutron activation analysis (NAA) of ceramics from elite and non-elite contexts at a selection of LBA fortresses on the Tsaghkahovit Plain in northwestern Armenia, and offer some preliminary interpretations about political and economic organization and boundary formation. Most strikingly, the NAA data suggest that the fortresses on the Tsaghkahovit Plain appear to have isolated themselves economically from surrounding valleys, perhaps in an attempt to forge boundaries and legitimating ideologies attendant to new political formations that were quite distinct from their nomadic predecessors in the MBA.     

Swidden agriculture,village longevity,and social relations in Formative central Tlaxcala: Towards an understanding of macroregional structure

Understanding social change within early village societies requires analysis at multiple scales. In this paper, we focus on macroregional structure in the Formative era of Central Mexico, based on excavations at village sites in Tlaxcala. A macroregional scale is particularly important for contextualizing developments in the study region. Rapid political evolution after 900 BC built on a legacy of organizational innovations in settled communities to the south. The earliest farmers in central Tlaxcala practiced a system of swidden agriculture developed at lower-lying elevations. Practiced on the erodible slopes of central Tlaxcala, that system led to the widespread degradation of farmland. Consequences at the village scale involved chronic instability of settlement and recurring localized stress on faunal resources.     

Ceramic production and provenience at Gordion, Central Anatolia

Phrygian Gordion was the political center of an influential Iron Age polity that extended across west central Anatolia during the first half of the 1st millennium BC. Though the borders of this polity remain vague a characteristic of the Phrygian “footprint” is the distribution of highly distinctive ceramics. The extent to which Gordion potters were the originators of these wares remains uncertain. In this paper we use Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) to establish the local signature of predominantly Iron Age ceramics for this site by combining samples from several decades of excavation with an extensive regional sediment sequence. We also compare previous NAA work at Gordion to suggest that the formative stages of the Phrygian state appears to have involved a more extensive network of non-local specialist producers than previously thought.     

Water, technology, and the courtroom: negotiating reclamation policy in territorial New Mexico

Historical investigation of arid landscapes and communities in the American West has long focused on the pivotal influence of federal reclamation policy, typically characterizing its implementation as the application of scientific and technological methods to a variety of water resource management issues. This paper departs from traditional views of reclamation by highlighting the highly variable and contingent ways in which new science-based forms of water management were proposed and negotiated in specific local places with particular cultural, legal, and historical geographies. Drawing theoretically from literature on the ‘geography of science,’ the paper probes the ways in which authority for a scientific approach to water management was created, negotiated, and expressed in local and regional contexts in the Territory of New Mexico, where authoritative systems of practical resource use and administration had been in long use before the U.S. government initiated its federal water reclamation program in 1902. Specifically, the paper examines two disputes entered and argued in front of northern New Mexico’s Rio Arriba District Dourt between 1903 and 1905. By departing from the geographical and scalar perspectives typically applied to environmental histories of the West and its reclamation landscapes, this ‘microgeographical’ approach promises a fresh perspective that emphasizes the highly contingent ways in which science-based water policy was implemented in multiple and complex environments.     

Solidarity as Spiritual Exercise: Accompanying Migrants at the US/Mexico Border

Abstract

This essay seeks to articulate a practical understanding of Christian solidarity as spiritual exercise that is based on Jon Sobrino's theological insights, uniquely grounded in his formation in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola and his particular witness to the martyrs of El Salvador. We then turn to an exploration of the Kino Border Initiative, a binational ministry of sociopastoral accompaniment, educational outreach, research and advocacy as an institutional attempt to pursue a praxis of solidarity.     

Southwest and northwest: Recent research at the juncture of the United States and Mexico

Research within the last 3 to 5 years is summarized for the southern part of the southwestern United States and adjacent northwest Mexico. In an effort to identify important new sources of information, the literature of contract archaeology is cited, along with more widely available journal and book publications. Topics considered include Late Archaic farmers, early ceramic villages, subsistence and agricultural technology, settlement stability and residential mobility, community organization, and developments of the late prehistoric period sociopolitical complexity.     

Transportation corridors and political evolution in highland Mesoamerica: Settlement analyses incorporating GIS for northern Tlaxcala, Mexico

Investigations of the functional utility and social elaboration of natural transportation corridors contribute to generating more comprehensive understandings of complex macroregional phenomena such as political evolution. In this article, highland central Mexican transportation corridors are analyzed through GIS applications and a reconsideration of settlement data from an important corridor in northern Tlaxcala. The location of the study region, within the corridor connected to the northeastern Basin of Mexico, makes it particularly relevant for examining interregional exchanges and the transformation of a more rural landscape adjacent to core areas of urbanization and state political expansion. Conclusions drawn from the study are largely complementary to the interpretations made by the surveyors [Merino Carrión, B.L., 1989. La Cultura Tlaxco. Serie Arqueológica, Colección Científica 174, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City], but provide an updated assessment of prehispanic political evolution ca. 900 BC–AD 1519. Specifically, the study tracks the evolution of early ceremonial centers, Teotihuacan’s territorial expansion through the region, political balkanization following the collapse of Teotihuacan, and the establishment of small, independent polities encountered by the Spanish. New contributions include quantitative measures relevant to assessing the systemic integration of the region and the social value of the corridor during different chronological phases, elucidating the differing expansionary trajectories of Teotihuacan and the Aztec Empire.