Christopher S. Beekman

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 Nahuatls 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 Mesoamericas 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 archaeologys ability to address and contribute to theoretical issues relating to migration.

POLITICAL BOUNDARIES AND POLITICAL STRUCTURE The limits of the Teuchitlan tradition

Many social scientists have proposed a relationship between the structure of a boundary and that of the system it delimits. Substantial anthropological and historical research has found the same tendency in analyses of traditional political structure. A model based on these findings was applied to the Teuchitlan tradition of Classic-period West Mexico, a region where the degree of political complexity and unification has been a subject of debate. A focused study of the eastern boundary of the Teuchitlan Valley was undertaken to examine the nature of its political structure. Fieldwork located a number of defensive features forming a well-structured boundary system in the La Venta corridor that connects the Teuchitlan and Atemajac Valleys. Other fortifications ringing the Teuchitlan Valley strongly suggest that a defensive network had been established to monitor access into the core of the Teuchitlan area. A unitary, territorial form of administration (following the work of Southall and Luttwak) is proposed as a model for political dynamics in the core region, but a review of the evidence for the more-distant Teuchitlan architecture suggests that, at most, only a hegemonic form of control more akin to that of the segmentary state was exercised outside of the core valley. A connection with long-distance resource acquisition is possible, but highly speculative at present.

Culture and Agriculture: A Comment On Sissel Schroeder, Maize Productivity In The Eastern Woodlands And Great Plains Of North America

Using selective maize yield data from ethnohistoric and government sources dating between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, Schroeder (1999) argues that Mississippian average yield potential fell within a 9-10 bu/acre range. We evaluate her argument in terms of well-established climatic, environmental, varietal, and behavioral constraints on maize agriculture and conclude that reconstructing prehistoric agricultural potential requires a more precise methodology that incorporates these factors.

Old World irrigation technology in a New World context: qanats in Spanish colonial western Mexico

Spanish colonists imported ancient Arabic irrigation methods into Mexico. Even though historians have made little of the qanat systems, archaeological research in Jalisco has revealed their significance in the colonial economy of Mexico.

Corporate power strategies in the late formative to early classic Tequila Valleys of Central Jalisco

Corporate political strategies (Blanton et al. 1996) that privilege power-sharing over exclusionary tactics are recognized to be important yet understudied forms of political behavior in early complex polities. I present the case of the Tequila val leys of western Mexico to illustrate several points about this corporate system: that the component descent groups can be recognized through their different approaches to architectural construction and burial patterns; that they form groups of counterpoised lineages that shared power; that the relationships between these groups become more fixed and hierarchi cal across different scales of architecture; and that there are distinct strata within the burial patterns that separate power sharing groups from the rest of the community. It may be easier to identify and trace aspects of political organization here than in complex and layered urban settings that have been the focus of similar research.

THE SHAFT TOMBS OF THE ATEMAJAC VALLEY AND THEIR RELATION TO SETTLEMENT

In the early 1970s a series of over two dozen unlooted shaft tombs were excavated by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia in the valley of Guadalajara, Jalisco. They still provide the most representative sample of a shaft tomb cemetery known from western Mexico, and they are an underutilized resource for demonstrating significant degrees of social inequality. Here we summarize the findings of the original research in light of more recent work in Jalisco. We aim to demonstrate that the Tabachines cemetery in particular provides evidence for significant social inequalities in the society that built these shaft tombs, that there were significant social changes partway through the Tabachines phase, and that the mortuary ritual practiced in the tombs shows some commonalities with other areas of Mesoamerica.

AGRICULTURAL POLE RITUALS AND RULERSHIP IN LATE FORMATIVE CENTRAL JALISCO

Recent research into the Teuchitlan tradition continues to improve our understanding of western Mexicos relationship to the rest of Mesoamerica. The tradition is defined on the basis of its distinctive public architecture, yet little research has been done to explore the significance of these temples for political organization. I propose that a more emic analysis of the political system can clarify the relationship among architecture, ritual, and political elites in Late Formative (300 b.c.–a.d. 200) Jalisco. I make use of indigenous ceramic dioramas; recent excavation data from Llano Grande, Jalisco; ethnohistoric accounts of the Xocotl Huetzi festival of the Postclassic and Contact periods; and ethnographic accounts of similar celebrations to propose a maize-focused interpretation of ritual and rulership in the Teuchitlan tradition.

Darwin and Archaeology: A Handbook of Key Concepts. John P. Hart and John Edward Terrell, editors. 2002. Bergin and Garvey, Westport, CT. xvii + 259 pp.

Nebraska, into the Midwest Archeological Center (MWAC). The huge extent of the Missouri Basin Project dictated that the Smithsonian establish a field office in 1946. The University of Nebraska provided Waldo Wedel with laboratory space in Lincoln for the extensive surveys and excavations along the Missouri River. From 1946 to 1969 the Lincoln office directed the archaeological salvage effort in the various reservoirs along the Missouri River and its numerous tributaries. Other writers have written overviews and personal retrospectives of the reservoir archaeology era; the unique contribution made by Thiessens book is an exhaustive and detailed examination of activities and operations at the Lincoln office. Sources used by the author are numerous unpublished documents including field records, letters, memos, budgets, personnel lists, personal accounts and communications, as well as published reports. Each chapter of the book is well documented with many footnotes. Almost 50 photographs are interspersed with the text and nicely complement it. These photos are unnumbered and there is no list of figures.