Susan Toby Evans

The Productivity of Maguey Terrace Agriculture in Central Mexico during the Aztec Period

Maguey cultivators in the Basin of Mexico during the Middle and Late Postclassic (A.D. 1150-1521) periods pioneered the more agriculturally marginal parts of the environment, such as the sloping piedmont zone around the alluvial plain. In their land-use strategy, terraced interplantings of maguey and grain formed the house gardens ( calmilli ) of their villages. These villages were established sometime around the twelfth century, and by the time of Spanish Conquest they covered the piedmont zones of the Teotihuacan Valley, Texcoco region, and similar areas of the Basin of Mexico. Archaeological and ethnographic evidence permit reconstruction of the caloric productivity of this interplanted terrace system, using modern maguey yields. This productivity is compared with the needs of the maguey cultivators by looking at a particular archaeological example, the Aztec period village of Cihuatecpan, in the Teotihuacan Valley.

Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Central America : An Encyclopedia

Selected entries: * Aztec Culture * Cannibalism * Ceramics * Chichen Itza * Diet and Nutrition * Foods and Cuisine * Gender Roles * Hydrology * Izapa Style * Maya Deities * Maize * Michoacan * Music and Dance * Otomi Culture * Rock Art * Stela Cult * Tajin Architecture * Tenochtitlan * Tikal * Weaponry * Weaving * Yanhuitlan

Settlement models in archaeology

Abstract Theory, taken phenomenologically, relates to what it is about not as an equation or a rendering, but as a logos which lets something be seen which is then seen on its own .

The Cerro Gordo Site: A Rural Settlement of the Aztec Period in the Basin of Mexico

AbstractWhile the dramatic recent excavations at the site of the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan have vividly brought to life the richness of Aztec elite rituals at the capital of this huge, wealthy, and powerful empire, life in rural settlements in the Basin of Mexico at the same time is not as well understood. Available data on the subject are limited to ethnohistorical documentation and the general surveys of the Basin of Mexico Project, and to isolated instances of excavation. In this report, a rural village in the Teotihuacan Valley is described, using information derived from an intensive survey of the site, and drawing also on ethnohistorical sources, in order to address such issues as the relationship of the village to its environmental and sociopolitical settings, and the nature of the variety of architectural remains found at the site.

Incloodle: Evaluating an Interactive Application for Young Children with Mixed Abilities

Every child should have an equal opportunity to learn, play, and participate in his or her life. In this work, we investigate how interactive technology design features support children with and without disabilities with inclusion during play. We developed four versions of Incloodle, a two-player picture-taking tablet application, designed to be inclusive of children with different abilities and needs. Each version of the application varied in (1) whether or not it enforced co-operation between children; and in (2) whether it prompted interactions through in-app characters or more basic instructions. A laboratory study revealed technology-enforced cooperation was helpful for child pairs who needed scaffolding, but character-based prompting had little effect on childrens experiences. We provide an empirical evaluation of interactive technology for inclusive play and offer guidance for designing technology that facilitates inclusive play between young neurotypical and neurodiverse children.

Teotihuacan Valley, Mexico, Postclassic Chronology

The Postclassic period in central Mexico was characterized by enormous population growth and expansion of settlement, but the timing of the onset of these processes has been poorly understood. Obsidian tools from residential contexts at the Late Postclassic village of Cihuatecpan in the Teotihuacan Valley have been analyzed to determine the extent of hydration, and thus the amount of time elapsed since the tools were manufactured. Estimated dates of manufacture range between a.d. 1221 and 1568, consistent with ethnohistoric accounts of the timing of establishment of Cihuatecpan and other rural villages, and their abandonment in the Early Colonial period. Ceramics found in the same contexts as the obsidian tools include Black-on-orange types, such as III, which may have come into use in the thirteenth century. This experiment in relative and absolute dating accords with other current research, indicating a needed revision of traditional chronologies toward an earlier onset of major processes.

AZTEC-PERIOD POLITICAL ORGANIZATION IN THE TEOTIHUACAN VALLEY

The Aztec period city-state of Otumba in the upper Teotihuacan Valley was integrated into the Acolhua domain from the early 1430s to about 1515. It then became independent, demonstrating the fragility of city-state organization as a means of regional political integration. A close look at Otumba and other city-states in the Teotihuacan Valley reveals that Acolhua strategies of social engineering welded together the potentially-autonomous city-states into an elaborate political system with impressive structural strengthening and improved flow of services and materials through it.

Molly H. Bassett. The fate of earthly things: Aztec gods and god-bodies. 2015. xii+283 pages, 8 colour and 26 bw 978-0-76088-2 hardback

The third, longest and, in my mind, strongest section of the book consists of 10 chapters on interpretation, which fully discredit any claim that prehistoric rock art is somehow or necessarily inscrutable. Although the differing interpretations do not mesh on every minor point, they concur on the main issues and they are almost all based on ethnographic analysis. The chapters range from those primarily emphasising art historical approaches to addressing the cultural affiliation and age of the site (Brown & Muller); to those focusing on iconographic identification and thematic interpretations in terms of Dhegihan Sioux mythology and cosmology (Duncan et al., Reilly, Dye, Red Corn, Diaz-Granados & Duncan, DiazGranados, and Duncan), and two chapters that move beyond identification alone to consider the ritual origin of the art (R.F. Townsend and Lankford). Inasmuch as all symbols are polysemous—they have multiple meanings—iconographic and thematic identification of dominant or key symbols are the first step in interpretation (a probable explanation for the diverse interpretations offered for certain motifs at the site). As Lankford demonstrates most clearly, however, a detailed understanding of a dominant or pervasive symbol is usually derived from attention to the specific instrumental symbol with which it is paired, to use Turner’s (1967) terminology. In this case, the cave itself and its setting in the landscape are the instrumental symbols (or symbolic context) that impart specific meanings to the painted motifs, among the many meanings that potentially could be divined here.

60.

The Postclassic period (AD 900–1521) in Mesoamerican culture history is the final pre-Columbian era in a long sequence that extends back to the first humans in the geographical region we know as ‘Middle America’. Middle America comprises the modern countries of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Panama. Middle Americas northern boundary is defined by the arid reaches of northern Mexico and its southern boundary is the junction of Panama with South America. ‘Mesoamerica’ is a culture area, and it lies completely within Middle America, and consists of most of modern Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and parts of Honduras and El Salvador.

AMERICAS, CENTRAL | Postclassic Cultures of Mesoamerica

Pollard draws upon ethnohistoric documentation, ecological data, and archaeological research, including her own recent work in the region, to provide a comprehensive overview of the Tarascan state, one of the two great political powers the Spanish encountered when they arrived in Mexico in the early