The Cerro Gordo Site: A Rural Settlement of the Aztec Period in the Basin of Mexico

Evans, Susan Toby

doi:10.2307/529371

Cited by 4 publications

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“…Because Aztec III pottery was as widespread at most Aztec-period sites in the Teotihuacan Valley as it was at Cihuatecpan (accounting for 80% of Black-onorange), it represents a long and active phase of use. It was the pottery in use when the villages expanded beyond their Late Toltec period core areas; Aztec III ceramics are found in all parts of these villages (see, for example, the Cerro Gordo site [Evans 1985]).…”

Section: Summary Of Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teotihuacan Valley, Mexico, Postclassic Chronology

Evans

Freter

1996

Ancient Mesoam

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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.

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Section: Summary Of Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teotihuacan Valley, Mexico, Postclassic Chronology

Evans

Freter

1996

Ancient Mesoam

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“…The 152,300 Mg increase in the study area's SOC sequestration may represent a considerable underestimate, as supported by three lines of evidence. First, at the time the Spaniards established their colony, the study area had a dispersed settlement pattern, which implies that farmers were living near their terraced fields to maintain them (Evans, 1985;Gerhard, 1993;Sanders et al, 1979). Today, hillsides with scrub-covered terrace embankments are interspersed with wide swaths of bare bedrock, the result of the colonial period's demographic collapse, and erosion because of terrace abandonment, lack of maintenance, and degradation (Hunter, 2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sixteenth-century soil carbon sequestration rates based on Mexican land-grant documents

Hunter

Sluyter

2015

The Holocene

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A significant gap in our understanding of global change involves the linkages between historical land-use and land-cover change (LULCC), Holocene terrestrial carbon (C) pool fluxes, and climate change. To address that research problem, this method uses land grants for sheep ranches awarded in early colonial (1521-1620 CE) Mexico to quantify the amount of land converted from cropland to pastureland. Soil is the largest terrestrial C pool, and converting cropland to pastureland significantly increases soil C sequestration rates, thereby reducing atmospheric C. The land grants and associated archival documents contain location-specific information about soils, vegetation, hydrology, and other variables that make it possible to map the ranches in a Geographic Information System (GIS) and quantify LULCCs and terrestrial C pools over time and space. The results demonstrate the utility of such archival documents to research on Holocene global change, indicate that LULCC during Mexico's colonial period increased the region's soil C sequestration rate, and confirm previous research that has suggested that transformations associated with European colonization of the Americas acted as an anthropogenic contributor to the period of moderate cooling known as the 'Little Ice Age' (1550-1850 CE).

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“…The obvious problem that this agricultural landscape poses for the study of Aztec urbanism is distinguishing the layout of the Postclassic city, in which the function of terraces was presumably both residential and agricultural (Evans 1985;Smith 2012: 182-185), and understanding the modifications that have accrued over over the half millennium since the city's abandonment. Terraces are inherently unstable landforms, and in those parts of the highlands where their maintenance was discontinued in the Colonial period, they have in most cases completely disintegrated (Borejsza 2006;Có rdova and Parsons 1997;Fisher 2005).…”

Section: Terracesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aztec period houses and terraces at Calixtlahuaca: The changing morphology of a Mesoamerican hilltop urban center

Smith

Frederick

Heath-Smith

2013

Journal of Field Archaeology

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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.

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The Cerro Gordo Site: A Rural Settlement of the Aztec Period in the Basin of Mexico

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Teotihuacan Valley, Mexico, Postclassic Chronology

Teotihuacan Valley, Mexico, Postclassic Chronology

Sixteenth-century soil carbon sequestration rates based on Mexican land-grant documents

Aztec period houses and terraces at Calixtlahuaca: The changing morphology of a Mesoamerican hilltop urban center

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