The 2011 investigations of the Caves Branch Archaeological Survey at the large and recently documented Maya site of Tipan Chen Uitz resulted in the discovery of the site's first monument with a glyphic inscription. Prior to this discovery, the site's glyphic corpus was limited to a small collection of texts rendered on fragmentary ceramics. In this paper, we describe these sherds as well as the monument (Monument 1), report on their archaeological contexts, provide an epigraphic analysis of the texts, and consider these written sources relative to our growing understanding of Tipan and its place in the ancient political landscape. The discovery of Monument 1 is important, for it stands to contribute to sociopolitical reconstructions in this part of the central Maya Lowlands and has significant implications for the possible presence of other, as yet undiscovered, Late Classic period (A.D. 550-830) monuments at Tipan.

The so-called frieze of the Caciques at Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico, is an 8-m-long bench with most of its original polychromed face intact. It formed part of a larger composition that once ran around the perimeter of the Vestibule, a colonnaded hall that served as a foyer for Pyramid B. The composition of profile males is adapted to look as if they are actually marching around the room toward the pyramid. Although Hugo Moedano Koer (1947) identified the figures as caciques or local chiefs, an analysis of architectural setting, subject matter, and ethnohistory suggests instead that the figures represent merchants engaged in rituals related to trade. This new reading demonstrates that Tula had decorative programs paralleling its development as an important center of long-distance exchange during the Early Postclassic period, and that merchants from Tula may have been a plausible prototype for Aztec pochteca.

Public architecture emerged in conjunction with the development of early complex societies and is therefore a key feature for understanding them. Anthropogenic mounds and platforms in southern Chile dated to the Late Ceramic Period (AD 1000–1550), and historic indigenous inhabitants (AD 1550–present) are the southernmost manifestation of public architecture in the Americas. We report the results from excavation of an architectural complex on Mocha Island that covers an area of ~9.2 ha and a volume of ~43,000 m3. This paper describes its construction dynamics, placing its origin at around AD 1000, a moment of significant sociopolitical and economic changes in southern Chile. We then associate information obtained from this site with similar complexes on mainland southern Chile to locate this phenomenon within a more regional comparative context.

New lithic data from the early Maya site of Cuello in northern Belize provide a basis for examining a production-consumption model for intersite exchange of stone tools. Comparison of lithic evidence from Cuello, Pulltrouser Swamp, and Cerros, putative consumer communities, with evidence from Colhá, the production community, suggests that during the Late Preclassic two highly standardized formal tools were manufactured at Colhá and distributed to northern Belizean communities as a finished product. Those communities also obtained Colhá-like material in less-reduced form for local manufacture of other formal tools. The availability of a high-quality chert source in large nodules may have been an enabling factor in Late Preclassic regional developments, including agricultural intensification.

The Santa Elina rock shelter (Central Brazil) was recurrently occupied from the Late Pleistocene to the Late Holocene. We compare sets of previously published anthracological analyses with new data to reconstruct the landscape, vegetation, and climate over the several thousand years of occupation, providing information on firewood management from about 27,000 to about 1500 cal BP. Laboratory analyses followed standard anthracological procedures. We identified 34 botanical families and 84 genera in a sample of almost 5,000 charcoal pieces. The Leguminosae family dominates the assemblage, followed by Anacardiaceae, Bignoniaceae, Rubiaceae, Euphorbiaceae, and Sapotaceae. The area surrounding the shelter was forested throughout the studied period. The local landscape was formed, as it is today, by a mosaic of vegetation types that include forest formations and open cerrado. Some regional vegetation changes may have occurred over time. Our data corroborate the practice of opportunistic firewood gathering in all periods of site occupation, despite a possible cultural preference for some taxa. The very long occupation of Santa Elina may be due not only to its attractiveness as a rock shelter but also to the continuously forested vegetation around it. It was a good place to live.

Recent geophysical survey at the early urban center of the Gallinazo Group in the Virú Valley highlights the potential for a multifaceted approach to remote sensing on the desert coast of South America and underscores the value of these well-established techniques for the rapid and detailed mapping of complex urban architecture. The Gallinazo Group (100 B.C.-A.D. 700) was an early city home to a population of between 10,000 and 14,400 people living in a network of agglutinated houses, plazas, public buildings, and alleyways. In 2008, detailed analysis of the site was undertaken, integrating traditional excavation techniques, soil coring, magnetometry, and ground-penetrating radar to gain a better understanding of the urban morphology of the site. The results of this fieldwork were extremely successful, with large areas of the urban layout being mapped in great detail. This article presents results from our survey, highlighting the potentials and limitations of each technique.

Neutron activation analysis (NAA) of Coarse Orange jars demonstrates economic exchange among the Classic period political capitals of Totocapan, Matacapan, and Teotepec in the Tuxtla Mountains of southern Veracruz, Mexico. Matacapan, in particular, displays evidence of intensive pottery production at large workshops at the southern margin of the site. Comoapan (Area 411) and Area 199 present configurations of kilns, ceramic densities, and assemblage characteristics that suggest production for exchange beyond the site's boundaries. Both of these production facilities specialized in the production of Coarse Orange jars, a well-made and decorated utilitarian ceramic ware. While these products were traded to sites in the Tepango Valley, different paste recipes of the Coarse Orange type were also produced locally. Of broader concern, I examine the articulation of these regional exchange relationships with the interregional interactions previously documented among Tuxtlas groups and others in central Mexico and the Gulf Coast.

Teotihuacan, located in the northeastern Basin of Mexico, is best known for its Preclassic and Classic period occupations (ca. 150 B.C.–A.D. 700) but was also an important city-state during the Aztec and Early Colonial periods, circa A.D. 1200–1650. Much has been written about political relations among Aztec city-states in the basin. However, the internal political structures of most city-states remain largely unknown because colonial chroniclers focused mostly on Tenochtitlan-Mexico City and collected little information on the 40 to 50 smaller city-states in the basin. This article addresses the internal political organization of Aztec Teotihuacan and how it changed over time based on analyses of pottery data from the surface collections of the Teotihuacan Mapping Project. A seriation of sherd assemblages using correspondence analysis provides a chronological framework for diachronic analyses. Changes through time pertaining to interresidential status differences and the spatial distributions of elite residences suggest a gradual process of political decentralization. Additionally, pottery and obsidian data, in conjunction with settlement pattern changes, reveal a relocation of the city-state center in the late 1300s or early 1400s, possibly indicating an episode of political upheaval or reorganization.

Diachronic analysis of obsidian artifacts collected from Ceibal, Guatemala, can illuminate long-term patterns and changes in the Preclassic and Classic Maya interregional and long-distance exchange systems. For this analysis sources of all obsidian artifacts were identified by a combination of pXRF of a sample of 5,375 obsidian artifacts and visual examination of 7,073 artifacts. The interregional exchange of large polyhedral cores of obsidian from the Maya highlands and local production of pressure blades began after the rise of political complexity at Ceibal, by the early Middle Preclassic Real 3 phase (775–700 B.C.). El Chayal obsidian was heavily used during the early Middle Preclassic period, but San Martín Jilotepeque was the principal source of obsidian in the late Middle Preclassic, Late Preclassic, and Terminal Preclassic periods. Procurement of large polyhedral cores of obsidian from the Maya highlands increased over the same period. Obsidian was also imported in the form of nodules for the production of percussion flakes during the Preclassic period. Throughout the Classic period obsidian was imported mainly in the form of more prepared polyhedral cores that were reduced into pressure blades at Ceibal, and El Chayal resumed its place as the principal source of obsidian. This period also saw long-distance exchange of finished obsidian artifacts from highland Mexico. Interregional exchange of obsidian from the Maya highlands was of great economic significance for the inhabitants of the community and was more crucial for the development of lowland Maya civilization than was long-distance exchange.

The Cave of Hun Nal Ye, located in central Guatemala, was discovered unlooted by a local landowner in 2005 and was immediately subject to investigation by the authors. The cave contained ritual remains dating to between the Terminal Pre-classic and Terminal Classic. In addition to allowing a detailed reconstruction of ritual activity in the northern highlands, its presence along the Great Western Trade Route allows archaeologists to examine hypotheses about interregional trade during the Classic period. In particular, changes in the ritual assemblage between the Early and Late Classic indicate that the cave was an important trade shrine for merchants and travelers passing between the highlands and lowlands until ca. A.D. 550, at which point it became a local shrine used to reinforce elite power. These changes are then linked to larger patterns occurring in other parts of the trade route, especially to Tikal and the kingdoms along the Pasión and Usumacinta rivers.

The indigenous polities of eastern Sonora, Mexico, play an important role in reconstructions of the late prehispanic political geography of northwest Mexico and the U.S. Southwest. Most interpretations of political organization in the region rely heavily on Spanish conquest accounts from the 1500s augmented by some archaeological data. Researchers have argued that political units in this region were organizationally complex and controlled substantial territories. Recent investigations in the Moctezuma Valley mostly refute these interpretations. This paper presents evidence of the limited scale of political organization in the region, including settlement patterns, the distribution of public architecture, the movement of rare goods, stylistic differences in material culture, and demographic reconstructions. Previous ethnohistoric research mistakenly assumed that Spanish exploration chronicles provided a near complete list of primate centers. This approach produced interpretations of geographically expansive polities. Present data suggest that the region was highly balkanized into numerous autonomous political units that were minimally involved in macro-regional political and social trajectories. The character of political organization in this region resulted in part from a patchy landscape, low demographic pressure, and geographic location between more centrally organized groups.

A 500-year record of changes and continuities in structures defined as ceremonial has been discovered in the Qhuna phase (5000-4400 B. P.) of Late Preceramic period Asana in the Moquegua drainage of southern Peru. These are the earliest known ceremonial structures in the south-central Andes, and their existence raises new questions about the trajectory of cultural change in the region. In its earliest construction around 4800 B. P., the ceremonial complex appears to be a “dance ground,” similar to the sometimes-enclosed spaces used by ethnographically known mobile foragers for periodic feasts and social exchanges. By 4500 B. P., however, the complex appears to be more formal in its construction, with a clear inside-outside dichotomy of feature placement and presumed activity performance. In this paper, the structural features of the ceremonial complex are described, compared to other, roughly contemporaneous expressions of ceremonial structures in the Andes, and their function interpreted.

Here I can only briefly address some of the issues raised by Healan (1992) and by Hester and Shafer (1992). I conclude that although ethnoarchaeology can provide generally valid analogies to lithic production and discard in the past, experimental archaeology will be needed to understand specific details of site formation.

Debitage disposal is affected, among other factors, by site size, settlement density, and length of occupation. The investigation of intersite variability in waste management will give us important insights into the organization of lithic industries in Prehispanic Mesoamerica.

This paper focuses on the demographic and architectural organization of a South Amerindian tropical-forest community. The household, as the most important social, economic, and behavioral unit in this society, is reflected in the strong quantitative relations between the floor areas of the various structure types and the associated number of occupants. In contrast, floor area/number of occupants relations at the nuclear-family level are quantitatively weak. Since the aboriginal household was also the most important economic and demographic social unit in the South American tropics, the present study may be used to estimate prehistoric settlement population levels using excavated data. As such, this study encourages the use of the direct-historical approach by archaeologists working in the lowlands of South America.

Incised pebbles found at the mid-Holocene, Middle Preceramic period Ostra Base Camp site on the Peruvian north coast demonstrate long-distance links to coastal Ecuador, 700 km to the north. The artifacts belong to a northwestern Andean pebble-figurine tradition associated with the tropical coast. Environmental indicators at the Ostra site show a warm-water lagoonal environment, unlike the modern cold-water conditions of northwestern Peru but similar to modern Ecuador. The Ostra site dates between ca. 5500 and 6250 B.P. (3550 and 4300 B.C.), during a hiatus in the coastal Ecuadorian record, so the link to Ecuador provides the earliest evidence of long-distance cultural interaction between these regions. Until contemporary sites are found in Ecuador, the Ostra Base Camp site provides our only example for this time of tropical coastal cultures of the northwestern Andean interaction sphere.

Identifying patterns in the organization of spaces, and in the ways past peoples may have moved through those spaces, can provide insights into daily practice, group interaction, and social control in community life. To identify such patterns, a modified version of access analysis is applied to the densely settled Late Classic (A.D. 650–960) site of Las Canoas, northwest Honduras. The usefulness of this spatial diagramming technique to illuminate patterns of potential significance to the past architects and occupants of this site will be critically assessed. In particular, access analysis is applied to consider formal and informal control of movement and social interaction within two discrete household groups. Conclusions regarding spatial use and social practice at Las Canoas are drawn from combined consideration of access diagrams, architectural form, activity distribution, and connections with the surrounding landscape.

En este artículo presentamos nuevos datos arqueológicos que aumentan nuestro conocimiento acerca del papel del perro (Canis familiaris) en tiempos prehispánicos, principalmente en lo que se refiere a su morfología general y número de razas presentes en el centro de Mesoamérica. Una colección de 27 perros provenientes de entierros, pertenecientes a la más antigua ocupación (650-750 d. C.) de la ciudad de Tula, Hidalgo, fue estudiada y los resultados muestran la presencia de tres razas perfectamente definidas. Este hallazgo permite, por primera vez y a partir de un análisis científico, establecer la existencia de varias razas de perros mesoamericanas y definir su aspecto general. Los tipos reconocidos incluyen (1) un perro de talla media con el cuerpo cubierto de pelo, (2) otro de dimensiones similares pero sin pelo y (3) otro más pequeño, con pelo, pero con miembros 30% más cortos. Los datos se ajustan muy bien a las descripciones de Bernardino de Sahagún sobre los perros del centro de México en el siglo dieciseis d. C., así que nuestro estudio nos permite establecer la presencia de estos animales en la región central a partir del siglo siete d. C. Las tres razas incluyen el perro común mesoamericano o itzcuintli, el perro pelón xoloitzcuintli y el perrito de piso o tlalchichi. Además, el establecimiento de tres razas distintas resuelve debates en la literatura sobre el índole de los perros prehispánicos de México.

The hilltop site of Torata Alta displays a gridded site plan characteristic of Inka and Spanish colonial settlement planning, and it is now evident that the site’s brief history represents both occupations. Torata Alta began as a colony established by the Inka in the agriculturally rich Torata Valley and was settled by their Altiplano allies, the Lupaqa, in the Lake Titicaca Basin. Sometime during the early 1570s, as part of Spanish colonial administrative reforms, the community became a reducción resettlement of native Andeans drawn from small nearby hamlets. A church and ancillary buildings were constructed in the site center, and investigated structures include a beer-brewing facility and residences for textile-producing elites. In 1600, the eruption of Huaynaputina volcano and its accompanying earthquake swarm destroyed the church and covered the site with a layer of ash. Torata Alta’s residents continued living there but suffered another earthquake in 1604. The community appears to have been largely abandoned by the end of the first quarter of the seventeenth century, the residents moving down to the valley settlement that became modern Torata.

En este artículo se evalúan dos aproximaciones arqueológicas relacionadas con el control de recursos económicos básicos como un componente central en el surgimiento de la complejidad social durante el periodo prehispánico en la Sabana de Bogotá, Colombia. La visión “de arriba hacia abajo” propone que los caciques Muiscas derivaron su poder del control sobre recursos económicos, principalmente derechos sobre la tierra, mano de obra, mejores suelos agrícolas y sistemas de camellones y canales. La visión “de abajo hacia arriba” plantea que las unidades domésticas fueron las que controlaron los derechos sobre la tierra, mejores suelos agrícolas, sistemas de camellones y canales. Para evaluar ambas aproximaciones, se analizaron los datos de un reconocimiento regional de 235 km2 en la Sabana de Bogotá a través de un programa de Sistema de Información Geográfica para establecer la relación entre la distribución de la población y la calidad de suelos, camellones y canales. Los resultados apoyan la coexistencia de ambas situaciones. Los grupos locales y las unidades domésticas individuales tuvieron control directo sobre los derechos sobre la tierra y la infraestructura agrícola. Sin embargo, el núcleo del cacicazgo de Bogotá presentó más centralización demográfica y política y mayor grado de control directo sobre derechos de tierras, mano de obra, suelos de mejor calidad e infraestructura agrícola que otros cacicazgos locales.

Images on Late Preclassic (300 B.C.–A.D. 250) monuments from Izapa, Chiapas, Mexico, featuring canoe scenes, maize deities, and water gods, have long been interpreted as representing mythic passages. While significant, such interpretations neglect other aspects of the scenes, including environmental and socioeconomic concerns that revolve around rain, subsistence, and water transport. By contextualizing these images and linking them to recent archaeological investigations that illuminate aspects of the Late Preclassic economy of Izapa, I argue that the scenes strategically situated economic activities— maize agriculture, the trade and transport of goods in canoes, even salt production—within a mythic framework. The images constitute an artistic program that entwined mythic tales, industries of salt production, and traditions of water navigation and that phrased them as part of a system of social order during a period of incipient state formation.