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Lowland to Highland Mexicanization Processes in Southern Mesoamerica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

John W. Fox
John W. Fox*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Burleson Hall, Baylor University, Waco, TX 76703
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Abstract

An Epiclassic period (ca. A.D. 800-1000) Mexican-influenced archaeological pattern is delineated for the Río Negro and Río Motagua basins, the two principal arteries of highland Guatemala, which flow to the Gulf and Caribbean lowlands. This pattern is argued to have originated along the Mexican-Mayan cultural frontier of the Gulf coast. A subsequent Toltec pattern in these same river basins parallels Chichén Itzá and Mayapán and also can be seen to have originated in the same general Gulf lowlands. Such Mexican/Toltec patterns in archaeology show that ethnohistorical claims by the later Quiche and Cakchiquel peoples for having introduced Toltec cultural forms into the highlands actually predate their stated migratory movement and a threshold of "history" (A.D. 1200s) by centuries.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , January 1980 , pp. 43 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1980

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