Publication Round-Up

Angela Huster

The past two years have seen the publication of several articles, book chapters, and a dissertation related to the project. If you would like a copy, please contact me or the authors. (If you've written something on the project and I missed it, please let me know!)

Huster, Angela C.

                2018       Regional-Level Exchange in Postclassic Central Mexico. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 50: 40-53.

This article summarizes Middle and Late Postclassic trade patterns in ceramics in the Basin of Mexico, Morelos, and Toluca Valley, using data from Calixtlahuaca and several other published projects. It evaluates three hypotheses for the origins of the Postclassic market system and finds both bottom-up and top-down processes played roles, but that that the market system was not a product of the Aztec Empire.

Huster, Angela C.

                2016       The Effects of Aztec Conquest on Provincial Commoner Households at Calixtlahuaca, Mexico. Doctoral Dissertation, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ.

An evaluation of Aztec rulership strategies, using Calixtlahuaca as a case study. Includes trade, craft production, household wealth, and identity based on domestic ritual and food preparation.

Manin, Aurélie, Raphaël Cornette and Christine Lefèvre

                2016       Sexual dimorphism among Mesoamerican turkeys: a key for understanding past husbandry. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 10:526-533.

This paper is an analysis of turkey bones from multiple Classic and Postclassic sites in Western Mesoamerica, including Calixtlahuaca. It shows that Mesoamerican turkey flocks were heavily skewed toward female birds, which is consistent with flocks managed for a mix of egg and meat production.

Manin, Aurélie and Christine Lefèvre

                2016       The use of animals in Northern Mesoamerica, between the Classic and the Conquest (200-1521 AD). An attempt at regional synthesis on central Mexico. Anthropozoologica 51(2):127-147.

This paper is an analysis of faunal material from multiple Classic and Postclassic sites in Western Mesoamerica, including Calixtlahuaca. Calixtlahuaca shows a relatively heavy reliance on dog, and somewhat less on hunted on garden-hunted species.

Sergheraert, Maëlle

                2016       Aztec Provinces of the Central Highlands. In The Oxford Handbook of the Aztecs, edited by D. L. Nichols and E. Rodríguez-Alegría, pp. 463-472. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

An overview of the archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence for Aztec rule in Central Mexico, using Calixtlahuaca as a case study.

Smith, Michael E.

                2016       Aztec Urbanism: Cities and Towns. In The Oxford Handbook of the Aztecs, edited by D. L. Nichols and E. Rodríguez-Alegría, pp. 201-218. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

An overview of organization, form, population, and common features of Aztec cities, including Calixtlahuaca.

Umberger, Emily and Casandra Hernández Fahan

                2017       Matlatzinco Before the Aztecs: José García Payón and the Sculptural Corpus of Calixtlahuaca. Ancient Mesoamerica 28(1):1-19.

This work summarizes Emily, Casandra and Maëlle’s work on the stone sculptures from the Garcia Payón excavations at Calixtlahuaca. While the best-known sculptures from the site are Aztec-style pieces, there are also a large number of pieces in a local Matlatzinca style, which are described for the first time in this article.

What's new for Calixtlahuaca ??

It's a new year --  2014  --  and our analysis of the findings from our fieldwork at Calixtlahuaca continues.

We will try to get some new material posted soon. But in the meantime, check out some of our past posts. These cover several years, from our initial excavations in 2007 up to our current analyses at ASU:

The life and times of Burial 4 (written by anthropology major Kea Warren)

Sounds from the past: The bird-whistle from Calixtlahuaca  (have you ever heard an Aztec musical instrument, 500 years old, played?)

Gambling, tortillas, and Spaniards in hats

Using an artistic touch to bring Calixtlahuaca back to life

The 1563 calendrical relief

Working on ceramics in Toluca

New articles and papers on Calixtlahuaca

I just posted an article on our 2006 season, the surface survey:

Smith, Michael E., Juliana Novic, Angela Huster and Peter C. Kroefges (2009) Reconocimiento Superficial y Mapeo en Calixtlahuaca. Expresión Antropológica 36:39-55.

Also, there is a link to this at the right, under "Links".

I plan to put this and other papers onto our project website, but I am having trouble editing the html here in Mexico (I don't have my regular editing program, and the one I downloaded is difficult to work with). This is one reason why blogs and wikis, etc., are easier than traditional websites.

We've had some recent papers at meetings.

Huster, Angela (2008) Scraping and Spinning: Maguey Fiber Production at Calixtlahuaca, Mexico. Paper presented at the 2008 Annual Meeting, Society for American Archaeology, Vancouver.

Novic, Juliana (2008) Reaching the City Limits: Identifying Settlement Boundaries at Calixtlahuaca, Toluca, Mexico. Paper presented at the 2008 Annual Meeting, Society for American Archaeology, Vancouver.

And there are a couple of papers accepted for publication and now in press:

Smith, Michael E. (2010) Las ciudades prehispánicas: su traza y su dinámica social. In Nueva Historia General del Estado de México, tomo 2, periodo postclásico (IN PRESS), edited by Rosaura Hernández Rodríguez and Raymundo César Martníez García. El Colegio Mexiquense, Toluca.

Tomaszewski, Brian M. and Michael E. Smith (n.d.) Politics, Territory, and Historical Change in Postclassic Matlatzinco (Toluca Valley, central Mexico). Journal of Historical Geography (accepted for publication).

If you need copies of any of these, email the author(s).

Calilxtlahuaca lectures draw a big crowd !

The AIA lecture that Emily and I gave last week drew a big crowd (see photo). Now either Calixtlahuaca is becoming hip and popular among the in-crowd, or else some professors bribed their intro classes into coming by giving extra credit points. Hmmm ........The actual attendance was 217, perhaps not enough to fill a big arena like this, but a good crowd nevertheless. And people asked some excellent questions:

• Q: Were the terraces centrally planned and built by the state, or were they organized and built by individual households?
• A: Very good question by Cinthia Carvajal. I'll let my grad students figure out an answer to that one. This is an important issue in both the terracing/agriculture literature, and in the urban literature.
  

• Q: Was there some special local weather condition related to the winds on Cerro Tenismo that may have influenced the placement of the wind-god temple half-way up the hill?
• A: Another good question. My answer was "I have absolutely no idea!"
  

Calixtlahuaca lectures at ASU

On November 12, Emily Umberger and I will each give a half-hour talk on our research at Calixtlahuaca. This is part of the Archaeological Institute of America lecture series, called "Notes From the Field: Aztecs."

New and Old Excavations at Calixtlahuaca, an Aztec Regional Capital
Speaker: Michael E. Smith

Reassembling the Calixtlahuaca Sculptural Corpus
Speaker: Emily Umberger

This even will be Thursday Nov 12, 6:30 - 7:30, in Business Administration C, Room 316.

The Urban Economy of Aztec-Period Calixtlahuaca, Mexico

(a kind of press release)

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Michael E. Smith and an international team of colleagues will conduct a series of technical analyses of archaeological artifacts and deposits excavated at the Aztec site of Calixtlahuaca. NSF-supported excavations uncovered a series of houses and terraces that present a unique opportunity to answer important questions about ancient urban centers. Like the shantytown areas that surround many Latin American cities today, the residential zones at Calixtlahuaca extended up steep slopes, with houses built on stone terraces. Yet the residents of this Aztec city were not poor rural immigrants; instead, their houses and artifacts reveal that they forged a prosperous way of life. Many families engaged in the production of textiles, stone tools and other craft items, and most houses contained ceramic vessels, stone tools, and bronze jewelry imported from distant zones. How did a hilltop city in a provincial area achieve such a high and sustainable standard of living for its residents? The analyses will help answer this question.

The NSF funds will be used for three major types of study. First, the excavated artifacts need to be counted, classified, and described. Professionals and students from the U.S., Mexico, Europe, and Canada will spend two months in each of the next three years doing this work. The results will shed light on the lifestyles, activities, and social conditions of the urban residents of Calixtlahuaca. All such research will take place in a laboratory facility in Toluca, Mexico. The second type of study will be technical scientific analyses of artifacts. Chemical analysis and other techniques will allow researchers to determine the places of origin of imported objects, to reconstruct the procedures of manufacture of local items, and to determine the ages of the houses and features of the sites through radiocarbon dating. The third group of analyses will be scientific studies of the soils and plant remains excavated in terraces and other deposits. This work will shed light on a unique Aztec form of successful agriculture: urban terraced cultivation. An understanding of this ancient sustainable farming system may help agronomists design appropriate small-scale agricultural strategies for the hilly areas of Mexico today.

When the analyses are completed, Dr. Smith will compare the results to his former excavations in Morelos, another region of central Mexico. Both were prosperous areas conquered by the Aztec Empire for their resources. Together, the two sets of results will clarify the processes of ancient imperial expansion and its impact on cities, farming, and society.

Numerous graduate and undergraduate students—U.S., Mexican, and European—will receive laboratory training and experience on this project. International cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico will be promoted through the work of several Mexican collaborators as well as through interactions with local archaeologists and historians working in the Toluca area. Dr. Smith’s laboratory facility at the Colegio Mexiquense in Toluca contributes to an improved scientific infrastructure in this Mexican city.

Stay tuned for more information.................................

The project is funded for 3 more years!

I just got word from the National Science Foundation that the Calixtlahuaca Archaeological Project will be funded for another three years! The new grant will cover sherd sorting over the summers of 2009 - 2011, other artifact classification and analysis, and a series of technical studies, from chemical analyses of obsidian to grain-size analysis of soil samples. Student research is continuing, and maybe some of the students can be enticed to contribute some of their experiences and ideas to the blog.

Now I will be busy for the next few weeks getting the new grant up and running and then off to Toluca for June and July in our lab at the Colegio Mexiquense. If you are in the vicinity, stop by and see us.