This article compares domestic subsistence, craft production, and ritual at several excavated apartment compounds in Teotihuacan, Mexico. A new methodological approach for studying activity areas was tested in a multifamily compound at Oztoyahualco 15B:N6W3 with the purpose of obtaining information on specific activities attributable to particular households. This approach combines the identification and mapping of chemical compounds in stucco floors with pollen, phytolith, botanical, and faunal analyses. Together with the distribution of particular types of artifacts, ritual objects, and debris, these data permit an evaluation of the corporate character of certain activities.

Although the presence of Tiwanaku-style material culture throughout southern Peru, northern Chile, and western Bolivia is well documented, the nature of Tiwanaku influence during the Middle horizon (A.D. 500–1100) is variously attributed to imperial expansion or economic and/or religious relationships. Strontium isotope data from archaeological human remains from Tiwanaku-affiliated sites identified first-generation immigrants from the Lake Titicaca basin outside of the Tiwanaku heartland at the Peruvian site of Chen Chen. These data provide an important component to studies that demonstrated close biological relationships during the Middle horizon but could not demonstrate the direction of population movement. However, no immigrants from the Lake Titicaca basin were identified at the San Pedro de Atacama cemeteries of Coyo Oriental, Coyo-3, and Solcor-3. At the sites of Tiwanaku, Tilata, Iwawe, and Kirawi, strontium isotope ratios were also variable, and demonstrate movement within the Lake Titicaca basin. This demonstrates that Tiwanaku influence involved direct colonization in the Moquegua Valley but that in other regions, like San Pedro de Atacama, local inhabitants adopted Tiwanaku-style material culture. This elucidates the complex and highly variable relationships between the Tiwanaku heartland and peripheral sites during the Middle horizon.

The geographic expansion of Tiwanaku people and culture (cal A.D. 500–1150) in the south-central Andes can be viewed as a two-staged diaspora. This article defines and categorizes diasporas, suggests archaeological correlates and theoretical implications, and reconstructs the Tiwanaku diaspora. The first stage was a colonizing diaspora in the context of the functioning Tiwanaku state, limited to a few mid-elevation places such as the middle Osmore drainage near Moquegua and probably Cochabamba. The second stage was a much more extensive victim/refugee diaspora driven by the violent disintegration of the colonies around A.D. 1000, in conjunction with either the collapse of Tiwanaku or its radical reorientation by a militaristic elite. Second-stage diaspora populations that settled in sparsely populated areas such as the upper Osmore drainage or the Carumas–Calacoa region established dispersed, small, defensible villages. Those that settled among a larger or more established host population such as the Chiribaya in the coastal Osmore Valley integrated as a marked, lower-status minority. This explosive collapse suggests that Tiwanaku was composed of multiple groups whose differing interests could not be contained. Supporting evidence is drawn primarily from the Osmore drainage, especially the coastal segment.

In the Late Intermediate Period (ca. A.D. 1000-1450), people in many parts of the Andean highlands moved away from rich agricultural lands to settle in defensive sites high on hills and ridges, frequently building hilltop forts known as pukaras in Quechua and Aymara. This settlement shift indicates a concern with warfare not equaled at any other time in the archaeological sequence. While the traditional assumption is that warfare in the Late Intermediate Period resulted directly from the collapse of the Middle Horizon polities of Wari and Tiwanaku around A.D. 1000, radiocarbon dates presented here from occupation and wall-building events at pukaras in the northern Titicaca Basin indicate these hillforts did not become common until late in the Late Intermediate Period, after approximately A.D. 1300. Alternative explanations for this late escalation of warfare are evaluated, especially climate change. On a local scale, the shifting nature of pukara occupation indicates cycles of defense, abandonment, reoccupation, and wall building within a broader context of elevated hostilities that lasted for the rest of the Late Intermediate Period and beyond.

The present article considers evidence for ancestor veneration and feasting in the North Highlands (Department of Ancash), Peru between A. D. 500-900. The study draws upon ethnohistorical, iconographic, and archaeological comparisons to better understand different lines of data from the ancient Recuay community of Chinchawas (3,850 masl), including public and mortuary architecture, ceramics, faunal remains, and stone sculpture. Two major programs of religious activity can be discerned: one situated within local Recuay traditions (Kayán and Chinchawasi phases, A. D. 500-800), followed by a suite of intrusive patterns associated with Wari expansion (Warmi phase, after A. D. 800). The study argues that, by A. D. 500, special public ceremonies combined ancestor worship and feasting as part of community politics at the site. Chinchawasi practices included subterranean tombs, special architectural enclosures with monolithic sculptures, and evidence for large-scale consumption. Warmi practices appear smaller in scale, focusing on aboveground mausolea, different stone sculptural forms and iconography, and increasing evidence for interregional interaction. The diachronic patterns reflect: 1) flexible sociopolitical arrangements at Chinchawas that accommodated group and entrepreneurial interests, and 2) local sociocultural transformations associated with Wari expansion (ca. A. D. 750).

Until recently, an entrenched view of Tiwanaku expansion in the south-central Andes as a primarily cultic phenomenon precluded discussion of state-built ceremonial facilities outside of Tiwanaku’s immediate hinterland of the Bolivian altiplano. However, recent research in the Tiwanaku periphery has found specialized ceremonial architecture that reflects the solidification of central control and the development of a provincial system. Excavation at the Omo M10 site, in Moquegua, Peru, has exposed the only Tiwanaku sunken-court temple structure and cut-stone architecture known outside of the Titicaca Basin. A reconstruction of the Omo temple complex demonstrates direct parallels with Tiwanaku ceremonial centers of the altiplano in architectural form and ceremonial activities. This suggests that patterns of state-centered ceremony and peripheral administration underwent a dramatic transformation with the explosive expansion of the Tiwanaku state during the period known as Tiwanaku V (A. D. 725–1000).

Examining textiles and other usually perishable artifacts, this paper focuses on textile style as an indicator of ethnicity in archaeological textiles excavated in the cemetery of Coyo Oriental, San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. The Coyo Oriental cemetery was occupied during a period of strong Tiwanaku influence in San Pedro de Atacama (A. D. 500-1000) recognized in artifacts decorated with Tiwanaku images. The analysis presented here identifies at least two distinct textile styles recognized in tunic striping, embroidered selvage treatments, and headgear, a fact that possibly indicates a multiethnic use of the cemetery and oasis of Coyo Oriental. Associated textiles and artifacts suggest that one group represents a local style and ethnic group and the other is a different ethnic group closely related to Tiwanaku. Instead of only minor Tiwanaku influence, I suggest that the oasis was home to a foreign altiplano population who maintained for centuries an ethnic identity visible in a distinct textile style.

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.

The precolonial communities of the Caribbean archipelago were not insular. The discontinuous natural resource distribution, the maritime orientation of the Caribbean Amerindians, and the complexities of regional social interaction ensured that the precolonial Caribbean islandscape was dynamic and highly interconnected. This report explores the socicultural behavior and intercommunity exchange relationships of the inhabitants of the Lesser Antilles. It combines related archaeological case studies encompassing the procurement and exchange of: (1) raw materials and utilitarian goods with a wide spatial and social distribution, (2) goods with high stylistic visibility and presumed social function as markers of identity or status, and (3) prestige goods with profound ceremonial value. The study of these objects reveals overarching social and ideological dimensions to Caribbean life. Data suggest that social relationships manifest themselves at different levels and through distinct rhythms while taking on various material guises during the Ceramic age Amerindian occupation of the Caribbean islands (400 B.C. to A.D. 1492). While there is great potential in unraveling interaction networks through the careful study of distribution patterns, the incorporation of ethnohistoric and ethnographic information is imperative to elucidate the web of social relationships underlying these material manifestations.

Proponents of many comparative models of craft specialization explain variability in the organization of production according to the nature of elite interest and economic demand. To this end, many propose a basic dichotomy between independent and attached specialization, whereby valued goods are produced for elites in controlled, nondomestic workshops. I examine new evidence for craft production in the prehispanic Andean polity of Tiwanaku (A. D. 500-1150). I outline expectations for these two forms of specialization and, based on ethnohistorical research in the Tiwanaku region, propose a third form, termed embedded specialization. I appraise primary evidence for the production of ceramic vessels at the site of Tiwanaku and the production of musical instruments at the nearby regional site of Lukurmata. Weighing expectations against evidence, I argue that in Tiwanaku centers many goods were produced by kin-based groups residing in large residential compounds. Skilled production served the overarching political economy and the demands of nonspecialists, but it was neither strictly independent of nor directly attached to elite interests. Craft was rooted in segmentary principles of sociopolitical order, and so was local but not wholly autonomous. On a comparative scale, I suggest that embedded production characterized some states emphasizing corporate strategies of political integration.

Stable carbon isotope ratios in bone collagen and oxygen isotope ratios in bone and enamel phosphate from 25 individuals from the residential compound of Tlajinga 33 were used to examine the possibility that the inhabitants, who were craft producers, may have accepted immigrants to maintain either their ability to reproduce themselves as a social group or their level of economic productivity. Bone δ18O and δ13C values provide a long-term picture of geographic identity and diet, and enamel δ18O values provide a snapshot of geographic location during particular tooth development. A considerable proportion (29 percent) of the Tlajinga 33 inhabitants grew up elsewhere, but the majority of these immigrants had dwelt in Teotihuacan for many years before their death. Neither geographical relocation nor dietary differences are significantly associated with gender. The social position of foreigners appears to have been generally high. For example, the occupants of Tomb 50 appear to have come from elsewhere, possibly West Mexico, but foreigners were also found in lower status contexts such as middens. The stable isotope ratios reflecting long-term dwelling at Teotihuacan suggest that social status was achieved, which supports current archaeological evidence. Furthermore, the lack of dietary differences between immigrants and native Teotihuacanos may also imply political and/or ethnic assimilation.

Botanical remains found in ceramic vessels and other containers at the Cerén site, El Salvador, provide evidence for how plants were used by Classic-period inhabitants. Because of the rapid inundation of ash caused by the eruption of the Loma Caldera volcano sometime around A. D. 590, conditions for the preservation of plant parts at Cerén are superior to most other Mesoamerican sites. Carbonized plant remains, or impressions thereof, recovered from vessels include an assortment of domesticates, cultigens, and wild plants that describe an overall pattern of a highly diversified subsistence base. Although clear statistical associations among vessels, structure types, and plant remains are not evident, the contextual data reveal food storage and other plant-use practices of the site occupants. The apparent abundance of plant-derived products and Mayan trade goods at Cerén suggests the potential contribution made by small farmers as both suppliers to and trading partners with the larger cultural developments in Mesoamerica.

Long-distance exchange of exotic preciosities, while it can occur in any sociopolitical context, may be associated with both chiefly formation and state hegemony. In the south central Andes, shared stylistic elements in early complex societies of Paracas-Nasca on the Peruvian south coast and Pukara in the altiplano suggest their contact via intermediate areas. Unfortunately, interpretations of the interaction of these great traditions tend to neglect indigenous sociopolitical development in regions between the two culture areas. Recent systematic survey in one such intermediate region, Peru's Moquegua Valley, has shed light on an indigenous pre-Tiwanaku culture with distinctive regional settlement patterns, complex mortuary practices, and a local ceramic tradition known as Huaracane (385 cal B. C-cal A. D. 340). Surface collections and test excavations confirm a minimal presence of exotic Pukara and Paracas-Nasca ceramics and textiles in association with elite local residential contexts and a late Huaracane mortuary tradition known as “boot tombs” that appears after 170 cal B. C. As there is no general emulation of foreign styles, domestic activities, or practices, an agency-oriented local perspective is favored over globalist colonial or clientage models to explain the role of exotica in a climate of competitive sociopolitical development.

Coca-leaf chewing results in absorption of part of its cocaine content. Following absorption, cocaine and/or its stable metabolic product benzoylecgonine (BZE) may enter the chewer's hair follicles and subsequently be incorporated into the hair shafts. This article reports that a recently developed radioimmunoassay is capable of detecting BZE in hair samples from ancient, spontaneously mummified human remains. Results are provided from tests on hair samples of 163 individuals, representatives of populations from seven different cultures living at coastal and low valley sites in northern Chile during the past 4,000 years. These indicate that coca-leaf-chewing practices began in this area about 2,000 years ago. The practice seems to have been common in several subsequent cultural groups. In one of these—Maitas Chiribaya—the majority of both adult men and women indulged in this practice. Coca-leaf-chewing women probably transferred BZE to their fetuses and nursing infants.

Teotihuacán was probably laid out from its inception according to a master plan intended to express a specific worldview in material form. It is argued that a proposed measurement unit of 83 cm reveals mesoamerican calendrical numbers such as 52 (x 10), 73, 260, 584, and 819, when applied to city axes and major monuments. The channelized Río San Juan divides the central zone into two sections: the watery underworld to the south, especially represented at the Ciudadela, and to the north the earthly representation of the passage from the underworld to the heavens, where the Sun Pyramid at the center symbolizes a sacred time bundle in the 260-day ritual calendar. The sacrificial burial complex found at the Feathered Serpent Pyramid seems to have been a part of the city-foundation program, and the iconography of the pyramid apparently commemorated this dramatization of the creation of time and space.

We summarize what is known about Archaic period occupation of southeastern Mesoamerica and Central America as background for presenting new paleoenvironmental evidence of pre-Early Formative human impacts on the landscape of Pacific coastal Guatemala. Our evidence comes from sediment cores in three locations, all of which are in the mangrove-estuary zone of the lower coast. Pollen and phytoliths from the cores document increased burning, decreased forest cover, the appearance of domesticates, and increased disturbance indicators at various times during the Archaic period, the earliest being around 3500 cal B.C. The available evidence demonstrates that shifting horticulture was an early and widespread adaptation to the southeastern Mesoamerican deciduous tropical forest and constituted the base from which later adaptations, including that of early Maya farmers, differentiated. Early Formative adaptive innovations may have been favored by shifts in return rates from various estuarine and terrestrial resources during a dry and variable interval 2000 and 1500 cal B.C.

The emergence of agriculture during the Formative period in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin played a crucial role in the development of the region’s first complex societies. Our study of Chenopodium seeds from the site of Chiripa, Bolivia, sheds light on some of the small-scale processes contributing to the development of agricultural systems between 1500 B.C. and A.D. 100. Using a combination of scanning electron and light microscopy, we identified the crop/weed complex of the domesticate, quinoa (C. quinoa Willd.), and its weedy relative, quinoa negra (C. quinoa var. melanospermum Hunziker), at Chiripa by 1500 B.C. Analyses of quinoa/quinoa negra morphometry and seed frequencies suggest that during the Early Formative period, farmers maintained gardens where both the crop and weed grew and were harvested for consumption. Around 800 B.C., however, we find samples almost entirely of quinoa at Chiripa’s social and political center, the Montículo. The paucity of quinoa negra seeds suggests that Middle Formative period farmers became more meticulous cultivators of quinoa, perhaps through weeding, careful seed selection, and construction of fields. This study complements previous investigations of settlement patterns, landscape modification, and stone tool use in this region, providing a richer understanding of Formative period agriculture.

Spouted vessels are diagnostic forms of Middle Preclassic (1000–400 B. C.) and Late Preclassic (400 B. C.-A. D. 250) Maya ceramic assemblages. Mayanists have traditionally called these vessels “chocolate pots,” but until recently there has been little direct evidence to support this interpretation. In fact, few studies have focused on the role these specialized forms played in the daily social and ritual activities of the ancient Maya. This paper provides a contextual and functional analysis of Preclassic spouted vessels found across the Maya lowlands and highlands. Additionally, the results of chemical analyses on residues collected from spouted vessels found in Middle and Late Preclassic burials at Colha, Belize are provided. Preliminary data reveal that some of the vessels from Colha contained substantial amounts of theobromine, a distinct marker for cacao or chocolate. The significance of the discovery of chocolate in Maya spouted vessels is discussed as well as its implications for the rest of Mesoamerica.

Located on the northeastern flank of the Popocatépetl volcano in the state of Puebla, Mexico, the Tetimpa region was buried under volcanic ash from two major eruptions: the first, at the beginning of the present era and the second, between A.D. 700 and 850. We review the volcanic and cultural sequences based on 12 radiocarbon dates, and then focus our discussion on the well-preserved house compounds of the occupation destroyed by the first eruption. The village at Tetimpa was abandoned rapidly in the face of disaster, and domestic goods were left in situ, providing us with a unique, almost ethnographic, view of rural life in the Terminal Preclassic. The house compounds follow a highly standardized pattern, consisting of two or three structures set at right angles to one another around a central patio, in a layout similar to that of the three-temple complexes at Teotihuacan. The wattle-and-daub walls of the rooms are built on stone talud-tablero platforms with a central staircase. Small shrines, located at the midpoint of each patio, provide evidence that volcanic activity formed part of the domestic ritual focus.

During the last four decades, mesoamerican archaeologists regularly have employed various chemical assay techniques to determine the geological sources of obsidian artifacts. In recent years, the reliability of these analytical procedures has increased and their costs have declined, encouraging the assay of ever larger samples. Nonetheless, several constraints make it unlikely that compositional data will be used routinely to attribute entire collections to their geological sources. This report describes a test of visual sourcing, a technique that for many sites in the Maya region is only slightly less accurate than compositional assay. We also propose sampling strategies that combine visual and compositional sourcing in ways that allow large collections to be accurately sourced at low costs. Finally, we suggest ways to develop the technique for use throughout Latin America.