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A mid-sixteenth-century cemetery was investigated at the colonial Mixtec site of Teposcolula Yucundaa and is shown to be related to the cocoliztli pandemic of 1544–1550. This is the earliest colonial epidemic cemetery to be identified in Mexico. Through archaeogenetic and oxygen stable isotope analysis it is demonstrated that the interred individuals were local Mixtecs, and mortuary analysis sheds light on both Christian and traditional religious practices at the site. Mitochondrial haplogroup frequencies support long-term genetic continuity in the region, and carbon stable isotopes of bone collagen and enamel carbonates suggest no decrease in maize consumption during the early colonial period, despite historical evidence for a changing agricultural economy and increased wheat production at the site. The Teposcolula cemetery provides a rich and complex perspective on early colonial life in the Mixteca Alta and reaffirms the importance of archaeological and bioarchaeological evidence in investigating complex social and biological processes of the past.

This report presents the results to date of a three-year archaeological investigation of the Postclassic and early Spanish Colonial Mixtec City of Yucundaa, PuebloViejo de Teposcolula, Oaxaca. It is the first project in Oaxaca to focus specifically on a major prehispanic city and its dramatic transformation during the first three decades of the colonial period. Given the dearth of conventional historical documentation relating to Yucundaa, the site itself serves as a “primary text,” the major source of information regarding its development and operation. The project attempts to define the major components of the settlement, and to examine each as comprehensively as possible in order to form a coherent view of the city's structure and function. At the conclusion of the third season, the encouraging results serve to demonstrate the utility of a well-planned excavation program that from its inception attempts to examine an entire Postclassic-Colonial settlement and the great transformation occurring there between A.D. 1521 and 1550. The research methods, as well as information and insights derived from the project, will provide stimulus and a useful model for the study of other Mesoamerican urban settlements.

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Arounda.d.1000 a political empire centered at Tututepec on Oaxaca's Pacific Coast formed and rose to prominence under the leadership of the great Mixtec lord 8 Deer. The extensive (25,000 km2) and ethnically diverse Tututepec empire was integrated by a system of conquest and alliance, tribute and service, military conscription, trade, a three- to four-level political hierarchy, and a simple administrative network. It was further linked by a system of royal marital alliance and trade to the Mixtec states in the Mixteca Aha and Mixteca Baja in the mountains to the north. The empire, smaller but more tightly integrated than the Chulhua-Mexica empire and smaller but more loosely integrated than the Purepecha (Tarascan) empire, dominated the Oaxaca Coast until the arrival of the Spaniards in the early 1520s.

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