Christopher T. Morehart

Surplus : the politics of production and the strategies of everyday life

Surplus: The Politics of Production and the Strategies of Everyday Life, edited by Christopher T. Morehart and Kristin De Lucia Stephen Gudeman To cite this article: Stephen Gudeman (2016) Surplus: The Politics of Production and the Strategies of Everyday Life, edited by Christopher T. Morehart and Kristin De Lucia, Anthropological Forum, 26:2, 203-205, DOI: 10.1080/00664677.2016.1182099 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00664677.2016.1182099

HUMAN SACRIFICE DURING THE EPICLASSIC PERIOD IN THE NORTHERN BASIN OF MEXICO

This article examines changes in ritual practices during the Epiclassic period in central Mexico. It presents data recovered from recent excavations of a shrine discovered in Lake Xaltocan in the northern Basin of Mexico. Pottery and AMS dates place the construction and use of the shrine in the Epiclassic period. The shrine was first built during or soon after the col - lapse of the Teotihuacan state. With the decline of Teotihuacan and the emergence of competing centers, ritual practition - ers began human sacrifice: the remains of over 30 individuals were documented, including 13 complete severed crania. This practice suggests conflict as the political landscape became decentralized. Despite how broader processes may have affected behavior, the shrine, ritual practice was fundamentally local. We present archaeobotanical evidence of offerings of food, incense, and flowers that elucidates the microlevel nature of ritual at the shrine. Este articulo examina los cambios en las practicas rituales durante el periodo Epiclasico en el centro de Mexico. Presenta datos recuperados de excavaciones recientes de un lugar sagrado descubierto en el Lago de Xaltocan, situado al norte de la Cuenca de Mexico. Las ceramicas y las fechas de radiocarbano 14 el santuario en el periodo Epiclasico. Este hallazgo con - siste en una plataforma construida y utilizada cuando el estado de Teotihuacan se encontraba dominado por la tension que conllevo al colapso. Con la caida de Teotihuacan y la aparicion de otros centros politicos, la practica del sacrificio humano se inicio; en este caso se ejemplifica con la presencia de los restos de mas de 30 individuos, incluyendo 13 craneos decapita - dos completos, hallados en el contexto ceremonial. Esta costumbre sugiere la existencia de conflicto cuando el paisaje politico se volvio mas descentralizado. Aunque los procesos regionales afectaron las actividades en el sitio, el ritual era, sobre todo, un fenomeno local. Presentamos datos arqueobotanicos que indican que los practicantes del ritual realizaron ritos asociados con el agua y la fertilidad e hicieron ofrendas de comida, incienso, y flores.

The Ambivalence of Maps: A Historical Perspective on Sensing and Representing Space in Mesoamerica

Imaging and spatial analysis technologies are revolutionizing archaeological methods and archaeologists’ perceptions of space. Rather than view these innovations as inevitable refinements and expansions of the archaeological toolkit, it is useful to critically assess their impacts on theory and practice. In this chapter, we consider what spatial data—data that appear to represent an objective reality—tell us about past and present human experiences of the physical world in terms of abstraction, temporality, and power. We draw on archaeological cases from Mesoamerica to illustrate how these subjective perspectives on space are revealed through technological innovations and how historical and current efforts to map this region play out in the political sphere.

Ritual Time: The Struggle to Pinpoint the Temporality of Ritual Practice Using Archaeobotanical Data

Ritual practices frequently express multiple dimensions of time. Rituals themselves are temporally choreographed practices. Rituals also mark different moments or culturally important temporal events. This chapter considers the strengths and limitations to reconstructing the temporality of ritual practices using archaeobotanical data. The dataset consists of archaeobotanical remains from an Epiclassic period (ca. AD 600–900) shrine site in the northern Basin of Mexico. Using ethnographic and ethnohistoric records, I attempt to interpret the temporality of ritual practices based on an assessment of the ecological characteristics of taxa identified as well as on a consideration of symbolic characteristics of calendrical rituals. This endeavor reveals limitations to ecological and symbolic approaches to pinpoint the temporality of ritual practices as well as to the nature of ethnographic and ethnohistoric analogues. But this study is nevertheless an important exercise in understanding the qualitatively dynamic nature of time in the past.