Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico, was the most prominent Maya ceremonial center from the mid-thirteenth to the mid-fifteenth century. The city was a religious center for surrounding Maya populations. Its construction was linked through cyclical reasoning to a chain of antecedent centers, the ultimate link of which lay in creation. In the heart of Mayapan lay its exemplary center, an architectural model of cosmogony composed of five temple assemblages. The central building of each assemblage was a temple decorated with serpent imagery. These five serpent temples were depicted on a mural in Structure Q-80 at Mayapan, with additional symbolism suggesting that each building was tied to a specific elite official, likely the Ajaw B'atab'ob, Jalach Winik, and AjK'in as described in ethnohistoric documents. The serpent temples also depict the primordial flood crocodilian, who was both the world and the world destroyer—hence, a symbol of both order and chaos.

We analyze residential architecture and domestic artifacts as expressions of wealth, prestige, and social class at three Aztec-period settlements in Morelos, Mexico: Capilco, Cuexcomate, and Yautepec. House size, as expressed in both floor area and construction volume, shows a strongly bimodal distribution that we interpret as marking elite and commoner residences. We test this interpretation with two artifactual indices of household wealth. One is designed to maximize the elite-commoner distinction in each setting, but is not directly comparable among contexts. The other is a simpler generic wealth index that can be compared among sites and across time. We also consider variability within the commoner class in house size and artifact inventories. While some degree of variation is present, the extent of variation is minor in comparison to the level of elite-commoner differences.

This article explores the complex, multidimensional nature of Aztec social organization and, specifically, the concept of “eliteness,” as it applies to the Aztecs. I discuss both why we can speak of Aztec “elites” and how we can monitor them using ceramic data. I argue it is possible to distinguish elites archaeologically by identifying the ceramic attributes and variables that best reflect feasting behavior, one of the primary practices the Aztecs used to socially construct and reproduce unequal relations of power, wealth, and estate. Ceramics thus served as one of the primary media through which politically and socially charged “communication” occurred among the Aztecs. I define and evaluate six ceramic indices of eliteness using Late Aztec ceramic data (ca. a.d. 1350–1520) from Teotihuacan, an Aztec period altepetl (city-state) located in the northeastern Basin of Mexico. I use the most effective eliteness indices to interpret the intrasite spatial patterning of elite residences at Late Aztec Teotihuacan and infer some observations about the social and political organization of the altepetl.

Portable “Olmec-style” objects appeared in several regions of Mesoamerica near the end of the second millennium b.c., most frequently in the form of ceramic figurines and carved-incised pottery vessels. The origins of this early Olmec style and significance of its distribution are vigorously debated, with the role of the Gulf Coast Olmec archaeological culture and its largest center, San Lorenzo, especially controversial with respect to both issues. While recent chemical compositional analyses show that Olmec-style pots were exported from the Gulf Coast to several other regions of Mesoamerica, in each place beyond the Gulf Coast they are vastly outnumbered by locally-made versions that may or may not be faithful to Gulf Olmec stylistic canons based on vessel forms, technical style of manufacture, and design criteria. The extent of stylistic conformity between pots made in the Gulf Coast and distant regions has direct implications in terms of the geographic origin, apprenticeship, and cultural membership (innate ethnicity) of the potters who made the vessels. I consider these issues by comparing the designs and forms of excised (Calzadas Carved) pottery made at San Lorenzo and Cantón Corralito, a possible settlement enclave of Gulf Olmec peoples located in the Mazatan zone of Pacific Coastal Chiapas some 450 km from San Lorenzo.

Recent investigations carried out at the Maya site of Nakum, located in the northeastern part of Guatemala, revealed traces of very intense Terminal Classic period occupation and architectural construction and renovation. Archaeological excavations in the site's core and its periphery indicate that the apogee of Nakum's cultural prosperity and demographic increase occurred during the Terminal Classic period when many new structures were constructed and almost all old constructions were rebuilt. The growth and prosperity of Terminal Classic Nakum stands in stark contrast to the prevailing pattern of collapse and abandonment seen at many other lowland Maya sites during this turbulent period. Archaeological and epigraphic data suggest that Nakum survived the collapse of other major cities such as Tikal or Naranjo by at least a century. Nakum's success can be attributed to its role as a fluvial port that controlled commercial activities within this region. Its advantageous location on the banks of the Holmul River, combined with weakened competition from formerly more powerful neighbors such as Tikal and Naranjo, apparently permitted Nakum's ruling elite to actively expand its trade relationships in spite of the broad economic and political crisis that profoundly affected the Southern Maya Lowlands. However, its success was relatively brief, for by the end of the Terminal Classic (ca. a.d. 950) Nakum apparently succumbed to the same forces that had caused the collapse and abandonment of most Southern Maya Lowland cities.

An earlier study (Rice 1977, 1978a) purportedly found compositional similarity between raw materials used by modern potters in the northern Valley of Guatemala and Formative period whiteware ceramics from sites in the valley, particularly the major highland center of Kaminaljuyu. The compositional similarity suggested that Formative whiteware was manufactured in the northern valley, and this inference in turn underpinned a model of the development of ceramic craft specialization. Methodological weaknesses in the earlier study cast some doubt on its conclusions. More recent compositional analyses of Formative whiteware indicate that, while whiteware probably was made within the zone from which Kaminaljuyu drew its ceramics, it almost certainly was not made within the northern Valley of Guatemala. The present study highlights some important technical and methodological advances in compositional studies made over the past decade.

This paper examines the stone-tool assemblage recovered from excavations of six Classic-period residential terraces at El Palmillo, a terraced hilltop community in the eastern arm of the Valley of Oaxaca. Based on this analysis, stone-tool production and the processing of xerophytic plants—most important, maguey—were found to be important household craft industries at the site. Yet certain craft activities were practiced in only a few households, while others were enacted more widely but in varying intensities or degrees. This house-to-house variability in production implies a reliance on a system of economic integration in which domestic units at El Palmillo exchanged specific goods with other households at the site as well as more broadly. Through comparison of domestic units, we also found that exotic obsidian and semiprecious stone artifacts were distributed differentially between households, although the extent of the differentiation was less marked than might have been expected at one of the largest Classic-period settlements in the Valley of Oaxaca. Together, these findings point toward a high degree of horizontal, socioeconomic interconnection and integration among household units at El Palmillo.

This analysis takes a diachronic view of Epiclassic and Early Postclassic period production and consumption patterns of diagnostic pottery complexes at Cerro Portezuelo. Stylistic and chemical characterization studies indicate a dramatic shift in the directionality and participation in pottery complexes through time throughout the Basin of Mexico. In the Epiclassic period, Cerro Portezuelo was a participant in a southern basin cultural complex. Early Postclassic pottery at Cerro Portezuelo indicates full participation in the Mazapan/Tollan pottery complex extending from Tula, through Teotihuacan, and into the southern Texcoco region. This study expands upon a previous compositional study of Cerro Portezuelo materials that indicate that Epiclassic and Early Postclassic pottery consumption was predominantly from local sources in the southeastern basin. The current study further identifies stylistic affiliations in decorated pottery types with neighboring areas within the basin and significantly increases the sample size for Epiclassic and Early Postclassic compositional data at Cerro Portezuelo.

The archaeological site of Tamarindito is located on an elevated escarpment that gives it a wide panoramic view of various distances all around, especially toward the northeast in the direction of the Río Petexbatun and the lake with the same name, in addition to the well-known, important archaeological site of Seibal. Tamarindito is 7 km east of Dos Pilas and 7 km northwest of Aguateca. It is one of the most important sites of the Petexbatun region and the capital of the most ancient polity of the region.

The critical role of social or collective memory in ongoing processes of societal reproduction and transformation is well acknowledged by anthropologists and is being increasingly modeled in archaeological interpretations as well. Investigating how social memory impacted the materialities and historical trajectories of the Maya civilization has great potential for advancing archaeological methodologies as well as enlarging our knowledge of the Maya. In addition to the wealth of epigraphic, ethnographic, and early historical information available for the Maya, archaeologists are examining enduring architecture, representative imagery, and even mundane artifacts that constitute a “technology of memory” for clues to the interplay of recollection and forgetting in the operation and transformation of Maya societies. This commentary reviews issues and problems in archaeological studies of social memory and addresses the specific prospects for investigating social memory among the pre-Hispanic Maya, drawing upon the analyses provided by the papers in this special section.

We describe the derivation of a new archaeological chronology for the Postclassic period at Yautepec, Morelos. We first apply cluster analysis to ceramic type frequencies for 47 excavated contexts to identify groups of related ceramic collections. This classification is then extended to several hundred additional collections using discriminant-function analysis. The groups are evaluated successfully against stratigraphy and radiocarbon dates, resulting in their designation as chronological phases. Radiocarbon determinations are then used to assign calendar dates to the phases. The new chronology consists of one Middle Postclassic phase (Pochtla), two Late Postclassic phases (Atlan, Molotla), and one Early Colonial phase (Santiago). We also explore issues concerning the extension of this chronology to other Postclassic sites in the Yautepec Valley.

The name “Street of the Dead” used to designate Teotihuacan's main avenue originates from a Nahuatl notation on a sixteenth-century map. Though this “story” is often deemed apocryphal, I argue in this paper that oral tradition preserved conceptual information that may not be archaeologically recoverable. Support for this position comes from comparative cultural analysis of Mesoamerican mortuary bundles as they are expressed in ritual and iconography. Crucial to this argument are the well-known stone masks of Teotihuacan. A case is made that the masks originally served as the faces of oracular mortuary bundles. The likely existence of mortuary bundles at Teotihuacan generates organizational models for the city in which lineage emerges as a fundamental element and suggests new insight into status differentiation and the iconography of power at Teotihuacan.

Obsidian was an important commodity in the Aztec empire. The obsidian industries from several Late Aztec sites in the northeastern Basin of Mexico are briefly summarized. These sites represent both urban centers and their rural dependencies. Site TA-80, the urban center of the Otumba city-state, contained numerous surface concentrations of obsidian debris, representing refuse from workshops where obsidian tools were produced or consumed. Seven of these concentrations represent debris from specialized production of large quantities of prismatic blades. Others represent workshops where blades were consumed in substantial numbers in the process of producing some other commodity. Households at rural sites in the Otumba city-state did not produce blades but probably obtained them through exchange from the specialized producers at TA-80. However, some rural sites did contain evidence of specialized quarrying, preparation of macrocores, and production of bifacial tools, apparently for export to urban centers. Similar evidence is found in the Tepeapulco city-state, which also had evidence of specialized production of prismatic blades in the urban center and of consumption of blades by both specialized producers of other commodities and in domestic contexts, in the urban center and at rural sites. Some rural sites in the Tepeapulco city-state, as in Otumba, also had evidence of specialized production of bifaces and macrocores. In both city-states, obsidian was extracted from local sources and shaped into macrocores and bifaces, which were then exported to the city-state center and to more distant locations beyond the boundaries of the city-state. Within the urban centers of each city-state, macrocores were reduced to prismatic blades. Large quantities of blades were produced by craft specialists, working at a few restricted locations within the city-state centers. The finished blades were then distributed to consuming households within the urban center of the city-state, as well as to rural dependencies and to more distant consumers beyond the boundaries of the city-state.

In the Maya lowlands ancient water management was multi-componential, diverse across space, and shifted over time. In the seasonally dry Puuc region of the northwestern Yucatan Peninsula, large reservoirs dominated water management during the Late Classic to Early Postclassic periods (a.d. 600–1250). Research reported here suggests that reservoirs were central components of Puuc urban settlements and that natural depressions—from which water reservoirs could be made in the Puuc terrain—were key settlement attractors in the region. In particular, new evidence of the pre-Hispanic construction of a berm of monumental proportions along the perimeter of a water reservoir at Xuch—a Late Classic to Early Postclassic Puuc Maya agro-urban settlement in Campeche, Mexico—stresses the political, economic, and symbolic importance of water and water reservoirs in pre-Hispanic Maya communities, previously demonstrated by colleagues working elsewhere in the Maya lowlands. This article discusses the “weight” of water reservoirs in Classic period Puuc Maya landscapes, adds to the literature on water management in other regions of the Maya lowlands, and explores aspects of economy, power, environment, and cosmology in water management systems of the dry regions of the northern Yucatan Peninsula.

In the summer of 1989, major discoveries were made at the site of Joya de Cerén, El Salvador, where sudden depositions of volcanic ash in a.d. 600 resulted in unusually favorable conditions of preservation. The theoretical framework for the research is household archaeology, the study of prehistoric household groups. Household archaeology, as applied to Cerén can take advantage of the extraordinary preservation to study households in terms of their key activities of (a) production, including food, implements, vessels, and structures; (b) “pooling,” including storage, distribution, maintenance, and curation activities; (c) transmission of knowledge and material goods including access to resources; (d) reproduction in both the biological and sociocultural senses; and (e) co-residence/membership in the functioning residential group. One of the major finds was a possible codex or Precolumbian manuscript.

The marketplace was an important institution for household provisioning and elite resource conversion in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica. Despite their importance, marketplaces are difficult to identify because exchange relationships are generally invisible in the archaeological record. This study examines the evidence for marketplaces at the Epiclassic period site of Xochicalco, Morelos, Mexico. It explores the role of craft production in the marketplace as a possible indicator of market activity. Excavations in a suspected market area at Xochicalco uncovered evidence for the production of obsidian prismatic blades on the floor of a public plaza. The results of these explorations are discussed and it is concluded that craft production can be a useful indicator for market activity if production debitage is found in primary contexts in public plazas.

Recent excavations in the first chamber of Gordon's Cave #3 encountered a use floor with a substantial quantity of sherds and artifacts. Middle Preclassic, Gordon subphase sherds were recovered, but overall the ceramics suggest that Preclassic use of the cave was minor with the most intensive use occurring during the Classic period. The artifact assemblage provides a fuller picture of cave rituals which appear to be similar in many respects to those practiced by modern groups in the Guatemalan highlands.

We argue that a regional analysis which combines ethnohistoric, ethnographic, and archaeological Information can both discover and employ indigenous cultural ideals in a study of changing settlement Systems. Use of archaeological survey of the valleys of Tilantongo and Jaltepec in conjunction with the historical documentation in the Mixtec codices has allowed us to identify several ways in which ideals of landscape perception were encoded in the codices. This, in turn, allows an enhanced political and social discussion of both the changing patterns of settlement observed archaeologically and the purpose and meaning of the codices. We suggest that the codices, as a form of historical mapping, were produced to recount the common history of several closely interacting elite domains, the Postclassic Mixtec kingdoms of the southern Nochixtlan Valley and their neighbors.

Llano del Jícaro, Veracruz, is a workshop site where Olmec monuments were carved from exposed boulders of Cerro Cintepec basalt. The site, which lies in the hinterland of the major Olmec center of Laguna de los Cerros, was discovered in 1960 by Alfonso Medellín Zenil, who moved one of its unfinished monuments to the Museum of Anthropology in Jalapa. In 1991 more intensive archaeological investigations at Llano del Jícaro located nine additional boulders, including a tabletop altar, with evidence of carving. Excavations around four of these monoliths uncovered debitage and hammerstones from the manufacturing process. Survey also located the remains of the probable residences of the stonecarvers.

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.