JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. All use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsOur recent excavations at the site of Yautepec in the Mexican state of Morelos have uncovered a large set of residential structures from an Aztec city. We excavated seven houses with associated middens, as well as several middens without architecture. In this paper, we briefly review the excavations, describe each house, and summarize the nature of construction materials and methods employed. We compare the Yautepec houses with other known Aztec houses and make some preliminary inferences on the relationship between house size and wealth at the site.En nuestras excavaciones recientes en el sitio de Yautepec en el estado mexicano de Morelos, encontramos un grupo grande de casas habitacionales en una ciudad azteca. Excavamos siete casas con sus basureros, tanto como otros basureros sin arquitectura. En este artfeulo revisamos las excavaciones, decribimos cada casa y discutimos los patrones de materiales y me'todos de construccion. Hacemos comparaciones entre las casas de Yautepec y otras casas aztecas, y presentamos algunas conclusiones preliminares sobre la relacion entre el tamano de las casas y la riqueza. Yautepec was the capital of a powerful city-state, and its king ruled over several subject city-states in theYautepec River Valley of central Morelos (Smith 1994). This area, separated from the Valley of Mexico to the north by the Ajusco Mountains (Figure 1), was conquered by the Aztec Empire around A.D. 1440. Yautepec and its subject states were included in theAztec tributary province of Huaxtepec (Berdan andAnawalt 1992:f24v-25r), althoughYautepec was not subject to Huaxtepec in a political sense (see Berdan et al. 1996 on patterns of territorial organization in theAztec provinces). TheYautepec area, at an elevation of 1,200 m, has a semitropical climate, with 1,000 mm of rainfall annually. Irrigation agriculture was widespread in Late Postclassic Morelos (Maldonado 1990), and large portions of alluvium along the Yautepec River were probably irrigated. Intensive agriculture was necessary to feed the dense populations of the Yautepec area and to support the elite class and the city-state administration. Smith's (1994) demographic reconstruction suggests an overMost Aztec urban sites today lie buried under modern towns, and, of those that still exist as intact archaeological sites, most have been heavily plowed, causing the destruction or heavy disturbance of residential structures (Smith 1996). Intensive surface collections can provide important information about social and economic patterns at these plowed sites (e.g., Brumfiel 1996; Charlton et al. 1991), but they lack the contextual and chronological control of excavations. Almos...

Calixtlahuaca, a Middle-Late Postclassic site in the Toluca Valley of central Mexico, was occupied ca. A.D. 1100-1530. Our excavations reveal some of the processes involved in the creation, functions, and decay of a large hilltop urban center. At its height, the majority of the site's surface (264 ha) was covered with residential-agricultural terraces supported by a complex water management system. House construction techniques included the use of adobe brick, wattle-and-daub, and stone pavements. Our fieldwork contributes to a growing body of research on hilltop political capitals in Mesoamerica. Using a refined chronology, we illuminate the processes by which people constructed the residential zones of this ancient hilltop city.

In 1992 we conducted an intensive archaeological surface survey in and around the modern town of Yautepec, Morelos, Mexico. Our goals were to determine the size and extent of the Aztec-period city of Yautepec, and to gather data on its spatial organization. This article describes the methods used and the results obtained toward achieving the first goal. Aztec Yautepec covered approximately 209 ha; this area is partly covered by the modern town and partly by open fields. Late Postclassic settlement was clustered around a structure that today is the largest known Aztec palace in central Mexico. We generate ethnohistoric and archaeological population estimates for Yautepec and discuss the city in relation to other Aztec urban settlements in Morelos and the Basin of Mexico.

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