This article presents the results of seven archaeological salvage and rescue projects that resulted in new information on settlement at Tula, Hidalgo that includes materials and evidence of activities rarely or never before encountered at Tula. Several localities exhibited evidence of craft activities that included the production of basalt megaliths, human and animal figurines, and the processing of human skulls. One locality was the scene of elaborate ritual involving the mass sacrifice of children, and another was the scene of elaborate ritual destruction and offerings involving some of the most sumptuous objects yet found at Tula. One of the most remarkable aspects of the wealth of information and material culture obtained was that these were salvage and rescue operations undertaken with limited time and resources in localities determined by factors in which previous archaeological knowledge played no guiding role. These investigations indicate that despite the extensive damage suffered by Tula outside the protected area, much of the old city still remains for researchers for the immediate future.

Recent salvage excavations conducted in the Early Postclassic city of Tula, Hidalgo, exposed a residential compound containing an open patio, beneath which was discovered a massive burial, designated Feature 5. Human remains involving a minimum of 49 individuals were discovered, many of whom were arranged in a sitting or squatting position. The majority of individuals, including all of the latter, were young children. The bioarchaeological analysis suggests that they were sacrificed. Many individuals exhibited anthropogenic modification, including cut marks on the skull and postcranial skeleton, indicating the children had been flayed. Some individuals were represented only by the skull and cervical vertebrae, suggesting decapitation. The individuals appeared to be in bad health, a common attribute of children sacrificed to Tlaloc by the Aztecs. According to ethnohistorical sources, children offered to Tlaloc commonly had their throats slit, although this practice was not identified among the individuals in Feature 5, possibly owing to their young age. Sacrifice also may have been made to Xipe Totec, as suggested by the evidence of flaying and the presence of a large hollow sculpture of the deity located in an adjacent residential compound, a deity who has been also linked to human sacrifice related to regeneration and fertility.

Traditional interpretations of Maya warfare have focused on the ritual aspects of war, including the necessity of taking captives for sacrifice. Captives are a common theme on carved stone monuments in the Late Classic period, and images like the murals at Bonampak suggest that captives taken in battle were ultimately sacrificed. Textual information from hieroglyphs and historical records, however, suggests a variety of fates for prisoners of war. Considering this information, the iconography of carved stone monuments is a poor indicator of historical outcomes for captives. What, then, was the function of captive imagery? In this article, I suggest that images of captives on carved stone monuments worked to prepare elite viewers for warfare by creating embodied social identities for warriors. Sculptures constructed a warrior identity that encompassed both victor and victim and emphasized the importance of elite bodies in the maintenance of political and ritual power. Understanding the ways in which images of captives were communicating allows a more robust view of how the practice of warfare differed from polity to polity and suggests that context is key to using art to learn about war.

Archaeological research can draw on material remains to understand the ways that individuals may have expressed their identities in pursuit of specific goals. Here ritual performances in ancient Mesoamerica are considered for their role in shaping identities deployed to gain social and political power. The Late to Terminal Classic period (a.d. 650–960) site of Las Canoas, Honduras, is offered as a case study. In particular, the monumental Main Plaza Group at Las Canoas is examined as a spatial setting for the performance of rituals involving the use of incense burners and ceramic anthropomorphic figurines. These performances are argued to have facilitated the efforts of certain members of the community to take advantage of shifting political and economic alliances in the region and make a bid for power. Ultimately, however, their efforts to establish spiritual and political leadership did not endure.

While scholars actively search for material and symbolic indications of Olmec influence outside the Gulf Coast, few have taken a close look at the variation and intricacies of Early Formative period material culture within the Gulf Coast region. The increasing body of data on houses in the Olmec heartland is beginning to allow comparisons and new kinds of analyses not previously possible in Olmec studies. Excavated materials from San Lorenzo phase (1200–900 b.c., radiocarbon years; 1400–1000 b.c.) households at El Remolino in the San Lorenzo region are analyzed in a preliminary attempt to evaluate the particulars of a San Lorenzo Olmec domestic assemblage in order to provide a baseline for future research. I compare quantities of different artifact classes, vessel forms, vessel orifice diameters, and pottery decoration to arrive at an understanding of a modest Olmec household inventory. Through this analysis, I argue that several of the San Lorenzo horizon markers cited as evidence of Olmec influence or migration elsewhere in Mesoamerica are quite rare in the Olmec heartland itself. Both Calzadas Carved and Limón Carved-Incised pottery decorations1 occur only in minute quantities (<1%) in the Remolino (and San Lorenzo) assemblage, and hollow white-ware figurines are entirely absent at this nonelite context. Except for its location 5 km from San Lorenzo, El Remolino would not qualify as an Olmec site based on the lack of artifact markers emphasized by archaeologists working outside of the Gulf Coast. I argue that we need a better idea of the range of Gulf Coast Olmec variation before we delve too far into discussions of Gulf Coast influence.

Eduard Seler's 1909 analysis of the various birds and their associated symbolism in the Mexican codices is one of the most thorough undertakings of its kind; however, although numerous revelations have been made in the realm of codex research over the past century, no comprehensive attempt has been undergone to revise Seler's initial identifications. The present study reviews the major bird species from Seler's original essay. Seven codices from the Borgia and Aztec Groups are assessed, so as to compare species traits and symbolic representations between both regions. The study incorporates recent research on the central Mexican codices, symbolism, myths, and ethnohistoric accounts, in addition to discoveries made over the last century in the fields of ornithology and zooarchaeology, in order to revise the identifications made in Seler's original work and to create a more comprehensive review of the roles each of these birds played in ancient Mexican mythology.

Ritual contexts at Laguna de On Island are identified in two structures that form part of a single household cluster in the central area of the site. The features and artifact assemblages of these structures indicate that a continuum of domestic-to-ritual debris is found at each location. Variation in the content of these assemblages is used to identify the degree of ritual activity and the function of each structure. Structure I is identified as a dwelling where ritual activity was conducted. Structure II is identified as a specialized household shrine or oratory. This examination of the contexts for ritual practice at Laguna de On addresses the issue of “secularization” of Postclassic Maya religion and the connection between status and ritual at a small, rural, Postclassic community.

This article analyzes the iconography on a ceramic vessel collected from the site of Los Naranjos, Honduras, over 70 years ago by Danish archaeologist Jens Yde. The relatively more naturalistic representation of the scene on the vessel allows us to interpret the motifs called “dancing figures” as relating to a well-documented corpus of Mesoamerican origin mythology. We then turn our attention to the site of Los Naranjos and document the fact that the area of Lake Yojoa closely mirrors the idealized Mesoamerican landscape associated with the place of the earth's creation. Combining this insight with the depiction on the Yde vessel, we suggest that the Cave of Tauleve may have been considered the place of human creation or human emergence.

Barrio Tepalcate, on the Los Perros River just outside Ciudad Ixtepec, Oaxaca, 18 km upriver from Laguna Zope, is one of the few Early and Middle Formative period sites known in the southern Isthmus of Tehuantepec region. Our salvage excavation in 2005 showed that the village covered no more than four hectares. It was probably one of several villages along the river in a two-tiered settlement hierarchy centered on Laguna Zope. The presence of Early Formative period ceramics suggests that the inhabitants of Barrio Tepalcate participated in the Early Olmec style horizon, although the design motifs on their pottery are simpler than those from San Lorenzo 150 km to the north. We found little evidence of imported ceramics from San Lorenzo, which may be due to the small size of the sample and the site, or to differences in how San Lorenzo interacted with highland sites, such as Etlatongo and San José Mogote, and Isthmian sites, such as Barrio Tepalcate. The Early Formative inhabitants of the southern Isthmus were members of the Mixe-Zoque language family, and specifically Mixe speakers by the Late Formative.

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.

We describe tombs and ceramic collections in Zapotec style excavated in central Mexico, outside Oaxaca. The most notable are 13 ceramic vessels and objects from the Xoo complex (a.d. 500–800) excavated by José García Payón in Calixtlahuaca (near the city of Toluca), and three Zapotec-style tombs excavated in Los Teteles (near the city of Puebla). We also mention Zapotec remains excavated near Tula, Hidalgo, and tombs in other parts of central Mexico. We briefly explore the implications of these data for our understanding of central Mexico after the fall of Teotihuacan.

The past two decades of research and debate in anthropology have shown how ethnocentric perspectives in methodology and interpretation have led to misinterpretations in ethnography and archaeology. This article contrasts Western and indigenous perceptions of ritual attire that marked the role and status of Aztec rulers and deities. Stimulated by inconsistent Spanish colonial descriptions of the emperors' xiuhtlalpilli “blue-knotted” cloaks, the study compares all of the relevant Nahuatl terms, contexts, and native-drawn images and analyzes these in the light of linguistic, technological, social, archaeological, pictorial, iconographic, textual, and ethnographic evidence. This contextual analysis of the primary data reveals the nature of Spanish misperceptions and the true structure of the indigenous clothing-symbol system. While Spanish chronicles are easily accessible and thus more heavily utilized, this study makes the point that only systematic assessment of Nahuatl terms, indigenous images, and contexts are fully dependable. Reliance on the native perspective and evidence allows new insights into pre-Hispanic categories and worldviews.

This paper reports source identifications for a sample of obsidian prismatic blades from the site of Cerro Portezuelo, Mexico. Although the sample is highly biased and stratigraphically mixed, some interesting results were obtained. Compared to contemporary sites in the region, the frequency of green Pachuca obsidian was unusually low (65%), while obsidian from the distant Ucareo source was unusually abundant (14%). This pattern appears to hold for both the Classic and the Postclassic periods and differs from Classic Teotihuacan. This contrast implies that Cerro Portezuelo was not importing all of its obsidian directly from Teotihuacan during the Classic period but, rather, was obtaining some quantity of Ucareo obsidian from other sites, most likely located to the west. This trade pattern would eventually spread throughout the Basin of Mexico, after the fall of Teotihuacan, but it is foreshadowed during the Classic period at Cerro Portezuelo.

Stone stelae and altars inscribed with dates and bearing a portrait of the ruler they commemorate define the Classic period in the Maya lowlands. They attest to the ruling elite's awareness of history and its uses to assert their authority and legitimacy. The power of Maya history remains evident when text decipherments override archaeological evidence. Privileging of texts is especially problematic in interpretations of gaps or hiatuses in the sequence of dates on carved monuments as indicators of site-wide decline. Archaeological evidence from the Lowland Maya city of Tikal contradicts the assumption of general decline during its longest hiatus, as well as a widely accepted historical explanation of its cause. Placing stone monuments and their texts in past cultural context indicates gaps were more likely due to a venerable Mesoamerican tradition of monument desecration carried out by rival elite factions than to specific historical events.

Recent excavations at the Early–Middle Formative period site of Altica in the southern piedmont of the Teotihuacan Valley, Mexico, provide evidence for early agriculture and plant use in a rural community in the northern Basin of Mexico. In the Basin of Mexico, settled agricultural communities were present in the southern sector of the region from at least 1200 cal b.c. Initial expansion into the semiarid northern sector of the Basin, however, appears to have taken place towards the end of the Early Formative, during the transition to the Middle Formative when agricultural economies based on maize cultivation became firmly established, setting the scene for increased population density and concomitant social complexity.

Altica is currently the only community in the Teotihuacan Valley spanning this transitional period that has survived in the face of intensive changes in land use over the last three millennia. Macro- and microbotanical evidence recovered from radiocarbon-dated excavated contexts at Altica provide evidence for maize cultivation and suggest a subsistence economy in transition, prior to the establishment of intensive dependence upon a broader range of domesticated and cultivated plants.

This article explores the sacrificial symbolism of cacao (Theobroma sp.) on the Pacific coast of Guatemala, manifest in the iconography of ceramic objects and stone sculptures from the Classic period, in textual references from the colonial period, and in contemporary ethnographic data from the southern highlands. The iconographic and textual metaphors contained in these sources linked cacao pods with dead warriors, captives, and sacrificial victims. As interpreted in this article, the harvest of cacao was equated with the acquisition of sacrificial victims, and both were conceived as precious sources of nourishment for the gods. Changes in artistic representations are discernible from Early Classic Teotihuacan-style censers to Early Postclassic Plumbate ceramic effigies. Cacao and other fruits from the Pacific coastal piedmont are still related to the symbolism of war and sacrifice in contemporary rituals from the Tz'utujil town of Santiago Atitlán. Data from southern Guatemala may be relevant to understand the sacrificial symbolism of cacao throughout Mesoamerica.

Desecration of Punta de Chimino's ceremonial precinct around a.d. 430 was associated with the appearance of green Pachuca obsidian, pyrite mirror fragments, dart points, a Tikal-style vessel cache, and a peculiar grave with Mexican semblances. A structurally housed Protoclassic stela was removed in an apparent fire ritual and monumental masks adorning the E-Group range building were effaced in a termination rite involving large quantities of refuse. Disuse of the E-Group range building and unfinished refurbishment of the observatory pyramid suggest the site was promptly deserted. The forsaking of this time-honored ceremonial place coincided with reduced settlement in the Petexbatun region and abandonment of the nearby Pasión centers of Ceibal, Itzan, and Chaak Ak'al. Punta de Chimino's findings shed further light on these abandonments, suggesting that they were triggered by amplified central lowland involvement in Pasión River affairs by the end of the fourth century a.d.

The recovery of macro- and microbotanicals, along with the study of chemical residues, allows us to shed light on a number of anthropological issues concerning ancient populations. This article reviews the data available to date on the plants used by preceramic peoples during the Archaic period and by the Early to Middle Preclassic Maya across the central Maya lowlands. Archaeobotanical data suggest that early preceramic populations took advantage of their ecologically rich natural environment by gathering a range of wild foods and by cultivating domesticates such as maize, manioc, and chili peppers, a pattern that seemingly continued into the Early to Middle Preclassic, as the Maya settled into village life and left more visible traces of modifications to their natural environment in the form of canals and terraces. This region is of particular interest with regard to the development of sociopolitical complexity, as mobile hunter-gatherers used domesticates during the millennia that preceded the onset of sedentary life. These early populations set the stage for patterns of plant use that endured through time, but also across space in the Maya region.

This introduction to the Special Section provides a summary of our current understanding of the first humans and the first Maya in these regions and presents seven articles that examine these critical periods from varied, intersecting perspectives. The Introduction begins with a brief history of early preceramic research (primarily in northern Belize) and provides a current chronology for the Paleoindian, Archaic, and Early Preclassic periods. The Paleoindian and Archaic (ca. 11,500–900 b.c.) periods are discussed in terms of the origins of the first peoples in these regions, lithic technology, subsistence, and early ritual. Next, a summary of archaeological evidence for the transition to the first villages (ca. 1200–800 b.c.) is provided, with examinations of a horticultural lifestyle, the earliest ceramics, increased socio-economic complexity, new ideology and ritual practices, and developing social inequality. Proto-Mayan and Mayan languages—their dating, origin, and early lexicon—are discussed in relation to the first Maya. Material culture and language are explored with regard to conceptions of Maya culture.

This article summarizes recent excavations of Edificio 4 in the Early Postclassic city of Tula, Hidalgo, which, despite prior evidence of its considerable importance, was largely unexcavated. Despite changes in strategy that resulted in discontinuous rather than complete exposure, excavation successfully delineated the entire structure and exposed portions of all or virtually all of its interior rooms, revealing a layout and architectural features notably different from those of the other buildings in Tula's monumental center, and suggest that Edificio 4 had functioned as a palace whose occupants were closely tied to Pyramid B, one of Tula's two largest pyramids. These excavations provide additional perspectives on previously noted similarities between Edificio 4 and the Casa de las Águilas of Aztec Tenochtitlan, revealing striking similarities in layout which, together with equally striking artistic similarities noted previously, make it almost certain that a major portion of the Casa de las Águilas was constructed in the image of the corresponding portion of Tula's Edificio 4.