Lapidary Craft Specialists at Otumba (TA80): A Case Study in the Organization of Craft Production in Late Aztec Mexico (original) (raw)
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World Archaeology, 1991
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. 'I must now speak of the skilled workmen whom Montezuma employed in all the crafts they practised .. .' (Diaz del Castillo 1963: 230). Introduction Aztec craft products are known both from contemporary sixteenth-century descriptions (Cort6s 1962; Diaz del Castillo 1963; Sahagfin 1979), and from discoveries of archaeological materials during the almost five centuries since the conquest (Boone 1987; Marquina 1960; Matos Moctezuma 1979; 1982; Reygada Vertiz 1935).
In this chapter I discuss the salient aspects of Aztec culture during the Late Postclassic period (ca. AD 1200-1521). In order to contextualize the discussion of ceramic manufacture, trade and use in the Aztec Empire presented here, I touch upon the following topics: (1) Aztec history and culture; (2) Residential life in the Basin of Mexico in the Late Postclassic period; (3) Trade, tribute, and transportation of ceramics and many other items of material culture; (4) Subsistence activities such as agriculture and the aquatic lifeway, followed by our main topic of interest: (5) Ceramic production and distribution in the Aztec domain; (6) The last section contains a discussion, amplification and clarification of the main topics addressed in this chapter.
Craft Activities at the Prehispanic Ejutla Site, Oaxaca, Mexico
Mexicon, 1993
Chronologie und ihre Bedeutung für die dynastische Sequenz in der Mittelklassik. In dem Artikel wird eine neue Chronologie für Altar 21 rekonstruiert, die sich von der die Stephen Houston vorschlug, unterscheidet. Es stellt sich heraus, daß der Altar auf ein späteres Ereignis verweist, das in die Regierungszeit von Kan II fällt. In der früheren Rekonstruktion der Daten fielen sämtliche Daten des Altars in die Regentschaft von "Lord Water", dem Vater von Kan II. Darüberhinaus kann gezeigt werden, daß das neue Datum der Jahrestag der Thronbesteigung eines yahaw te ist, eine Tatsache von großer Bedeutung für die dynastische Sequenz Caracols in der Mittelklassik. ^RESUMEN: Altar 21 de Caracol: Una reevaluación de la cronología y su importancia para la secuencia dinástica en el Clásico Medio. En el artículo se reconstruye una nueva cronología para el Altar 21, que difiere de aquella propuesta por Stephen Houston. Resulta que el Altar se refiere a un hecho posterior, correspondiente al reinado de Kan II. En la anterior reconstrucción cronológica, todas las fechas del Altar correspondían al reinado de "Lord Water", padre de Kan II. Además, se logra demostrar que la nueva fecha es el aniversario de la subida al trono de un yahaw te, un hecho de gran importancia para la secuencia de Caracol en el Clásico Medio.
Ancient Mesoamerica, 2024
We describe an analysis of the flaked stone tools recovered from households in the Postclassic central Mexican city of Calixtlahuaca (A.D. 1130-1530). Most artifacts are obsidian and represent the blade-core technology, but biface and bipolar artifacts are also represented. Even though household residents were involved in limited biface and bipolar reduction, it appears that the city did not have any resident blade producers. This finding is at odds with the views of many archaeologists, who tend to associate craft production with the emergence of complex Mesoamerican urban centers. We examine the technologies from temporally distinct Calixtlahuacan household assemblages. We discuss why the quantity and quality artifacts associated with blade production are not consistent with resident blade making in the city. Finally, we examine four models for blade provisioning: (1) whole-blade trade, (2) processed-blade trade, (3) long-distance itinerant craftsmen, and (4) local, hinterlandbased craftsmen. Evaluating how the Calixtlahuacans got their flaked stone tools has important implications for the comparative understanding of the organization and scale of economic provisioning systems in Postclassic central Mexico. This analysis supports new inferences about the nature of commercial networks that supplied the Toluca Valley prior to the arrival of the Spanish in the sixteenth century.
2000
Although textiles were important commodities in the Aztec political economy, it is widely held that textile production did not involve organized workshops. In the late 1960s, Charlton (1971Charlton ( , 1981 found a concentration of large spindle whorls at the Aztec city-state capital of Otumba that he interpreted as remains of a maguey-fiber workshop. A subsequent survey and surface collections made by the Otumba Project discovered additional concentrations of spindle whorls associated with fiber-processing tools and manufacturing debris that provide substantial evidence for organized maguey-fiber workshops at Otumba. An unusually large sample of more than 1,600 spindle whorls was recovered in surface collections from sites in the Aztec city-state of Otumba where both small cotton whorls and large maguey whorls occurred in low densities associated with concentrations of domestic pottery (and in some cases house-mound remnants). In the Aztec capital town of Otumba, maguey spindle whorls were also present in localized dense concentrations within a restricted area of the site. These concentrations also included molds for making spindle whorls, "wasters," a high density of heavily worn obsidian blades and basalt scrapers used in fiber production, and obsidian scrapers. Based on the quantities and types of associated artifacts we argue that these concentrations represent remains of Late Aztec maguey-fiber workshops that were household based. The workshops processed maguey fibers and made maguey spindle whorls in a range of sizes for spinning thin and thick threads and cordage. Secondary craft activities in one workshop included making cotton spindle whorls and some lapidary and figurine manufacturing. Maguey-fiber processing, spinning, and, presumably, weaving also took place in rural villages, but evidence of organized workshops has only been found at the urban center. The growth of the maguey-fiber industry at Otumba during the Late Postclassic period was part of a broader economic trend of production intensification in the northeastern Basin of Mexico that included xerophytic plant cultivation and craft specialization.
Ancient Mesoamerica, 2007
This paper explores the production of Late to Terminal Classic Ulua marble vases (ca. 600/650-800/850 A.D.), the hallmark luxury good from the lower Ulua Valley of northwestern Honduras. Unlike other areas of the greater Maya world, no one center appears to have held political sway in the valley. Yet marble-vase production at Travesia indicates that, through the patronization of this specific artifact, the site was able to celebrate its identity at home as well as abroad. Here the long-term production of the vases is investigated through a detailed analysis of stylistic groups and corresponding stable-isotope signatures from vases and potential procurement zones. The stylistic data suggest centralized production, which is confirmed through chemical signatures of vases and one specific procurement site. We argue that longstanding traditions of carving vases from marble in the Ulua Valley guided Travesian artisans in their procurement choices. The stylistic and chemical data augment settlement and ceramic data to situate vase production in its local social and political environment. In this case, luxury production corresponds not to a rise in central political authority but, rather, to a centrally located social center. The prestige granted to these luxury vases, then, stems from local histories of social and political networks that linked, rather than fragmented, communities. The results indicate that studies of material-cultural remains should consider the relationships between distinctive local social relations and the organization of craft production as integrative, not separate, processes.
Mexicon, 2016
Despite the expanding scope and increasing frequency of studies of Mesoamerican metallurgy, significant gaps in knowledge remain. This article examines the consumption and discard practices of west Mexican metal objects within the Teotihuacan Valley. In 1957, René Millon recovered a metal needle from a small Late Aztec (A.D. 1350 – 1520) irrigation canal located in the lower Teotihuacan Valley. The author has identified the needle as belonging to Period 2 of the west Mexican tradition (ca. A.D. 1100 – conquest). This singular find contributes to our understanding of the distribution of west Mexican metal artifacts, Aztec-Tarascan mechanisms of exchange, and Aztec commoner access to west Mexican goods.
2008
How and why do ceramics and their production change through time? Social Change and the Evolution of Ceramic Production and Distribution in a Maya Community is a unique ethno- archaeological study that attempts to answer these questions by tracing social change among potters and changes in the production and distribution of their pottery in a single Mexican community between 1965 and 1997. Dean E. Arnold made ten visits to Ticul, Yucatan, Mexico, witnessing the changes in transportation infrastructure, the use of piped water, and the development of tourist resorts. Even in this context of social change and changes in the demand for pottery, most of the potters in 1997 came from the families that had made pottery in 1965. This book traces changes and continuities in that population of potters, in the demand and distribution of pottery, and in the procurement of clay and temper, paste composition, forming, and firing. In this volume, Arnold bridges the gap between archaeology and ethnography, using his analysis of contemporary ceramic production and distribution to generate new theoretical explanations for archaeologists working with pottery from antiquity. When the descriptions and explanations of Arnold's findings in Ticul are placed in the context of the literature on craft specialization, a number of insights can be applied to the archaeological record that confirm, contradict, and nuance generalizations concerning the evolution of ceramic specialization. This book will be of special interest to anthropologists, archaeologists, ethnoarchaeologists, ethnographers, and those scholars interested in social change and ceramic production. Although addressing the theme of how production and distribution changes through a period of 32 years, the work is placed in the context of the parameters of craft production and specialization by Costin addressing its strengths and weaknesses. Several chapters are organized as critiques of current theories of technological choice that potters can make any vessel using any technique (van der Leeuw) and whether elite control of ceramic raw materials results in a standardized paste (Rice). One of the more interesting conclusions from the book is that in spite of massive social changes during the last third of the twentieth century, pottery production is still largely organized by households, and the learning and residence of potters still largely conforms to a kin-based model, although such patterns are highly nuanced. The work also shows that different aspects of ceramic production changes at different rates, and one of the consequences of change is the break-up of ceramic production into specialized tasks over time. Throughout the book, the implications of the work for the study of ancient ceramic production is discussed. This is a unique book that chronicles long-term change in ceramic production, and distribution thrugh the last third of the twentieth century, and shows the implication of these data to the study of ceramic production and cultural change in antiquity. (The Table of Contents and the Introduction to the book can be accessed from the publisher's website for the book. Interested parties should click on the link (upcolorado.com) above, and then click on "TOC and sample chapter" at the bottom ("Download Attachments") of the ad the book.)