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Teotihuacan Valley, Mexico, Postclassic Chronology

Hydration analysis of obsidian from Cihuatecpan, an Aztec–period village

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2008

Susan Toby Evans  and
AnnCorinne Freter
Susan Toby Evans
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, 409 Carpenter Building, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
AnnCorinne Freter
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701, USA
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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 between a.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.

Type
Special Section: Recent Chronological Research in Central Mexico
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , Fall 1996 , pp. 267 - 280
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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