Teotihuacan Valley, Mexico, Postclassic Chronology

Abstract

The Postclassic period in central Mexico was characterized by enormous population growth and expansion of settlement, but the timing of the onset of these processes has been poorly understood. Obsidian tools from residential contexts at the Late Postclassic village of Cihuatecpan in the Teotihuacan Valley have been analyzed to determine the extent of hydration, and thus the amount of time elapsed since the tools were manufactured. Estimated dates of manufacture range betweena.d.1221 and 1568, consistent with ethnohistoric accounts of the timing of establishment of Cihuatecpan and other rural villages, and their abandonment in the Early Colonial period. Ceramics found in the same contexts as the obsidian tools include Black-on-orange types, such as III, which may have come into use in the thirteenth century. This experiment in relative and absolute dating accords with other current research, indicating a needed revision of traditional chronologies toward an earlier onset of major processes.

A Multiscalar Approach to Migration and Social Change at Middle Postclassic Xaltocan

“…The work of Sanders, Parsons, and colleagues suggested that this commonly held chronological sequence was too simple, and that there was a significant amount of chronological overlap and variation from region to region; more recent excavation projects (Evans and Freter 1996; Parsons et al 1996) have confirmed this spatiotemporal complexity. For example, Parsons, Elizabeth Brumfiel, and Mary Hodge (1996), showed that Teotihuacan residents adopted Coyotlatelco ceramics to their household assemblages significantly later than sites in the southern Basin of Mexico.…”

A New Bayesian Chronology for Postclassic and Colonial Occupation at Xaltocan, Mexico

“…This relative chronology was correlated with absolute dates, refined, and expanded to include other central Mexican regions associated with the Aztec Empire as a result of major regional survey and excavation projects beginning in the 1960s (Charlton 1966;Parsons 1966;Blanton and Parsons 1971;Whalen and Parsons 1982;Smith and Doershuk 1991;Evans and Freter 1996;Hare and Smith 1996;Nichols and Charlton 1996;Parsons et al 1996;Hodge 1998;Brumfiel 2005b). Sanders et al (1979) argued that Aztec I and II ceramics were roughly contemporaneous, regional variants used in the Basin of Mexico between AD 1150 and 1350.…”