Among the specialized types of Late Classic Maya vessels (a.d. 550–900) are small bottle-shaped containers known as “flasks.” Current interpretations of their uses, for example as poison bottles or medicine bottles, are speculative. In some cases, such interpretations rely on analogical comparisons with other Native American containers based on their formal similarities of shape or construction. This paper presents research on basic construction methods of flasks, a set of correlations between the various social mediation roles in which such flasks are depicted in Classic-period artwork, their material correlates (the vessels themselves), and a report of their specific contents. We also provide evidence of the first discovery of nicotine in an ancient Maya vessel, which is the first empirically demonstrated proof for the presence of tobacco contained in a clay vessel from this cultural tradition. The codex-style flask yielding this evidence bears a text that appears to read yo-'OTOT-ti 'u-MAY-ya, spelling y-otoot 'u-mahy “the home of his/her tobacco.” This is only the second case in which residue analysis has shown a Maya vessel to hold the same content as is indicated by a hieroglyphic text on the same vessel.

Despite a widespread notion that feasting played a major role in the workings of Classic Maya polities, the very concept of feasting in the context of its textual and visual representations remains poorly defined and understood. The present paper reviews the ancient narratives in order to present a more nuanced interpretation of the consumption and display of exquisite food and drinks at the courts of Maya lords and nobles. It also considers some tangible evidence of the sociopolitical networks created through feasting by looking at the spatial distributions of signed serving vessels which changed hands as gifts.

Although captive images have been examined for the Classic Maya, we lack a thorough understanding of depicted captives as a pictorial motif. Furthermore, the convention of “tagging” Late Classic Maya captive sculptures with identifying texts was understood a century ago, yet the ways in which these scripts functioned beyond the role of label are not well known. This layering of identifying texts onto captive figures presents interesting avenues of scholarly inquiry for understanding relationships among ancient Maya texts, figural images, and actual bodies. In this article I explore captive iconography and then suggest that the captive tagging convention is related to the tagging of possessed objects. The artistic tendency toward tagging the thigh with more frequency than other bodily regions suggests a secondary meaning for such markings, and I propose that these tags alluded to the post-sacrifice practice of removing the femur as a war trophy.

The Spaniards established several congregaciones or missions in central Petén, Guatemala, shortly after the 1697 conquest of the region to help control local indigenous populations. Recent investigations at the church and community of Mission San Bernabé revealed details about the entangled relations of Mayas and Spaniards. Foucault's four technologies of domination help explicate these power relations as they were played out in the small settlement and the church at its center. Material culture differed in many ways from that of the pre-conquest Itzas, but was clearly predominantly “Maya.” Spanish-style goods and burial patterns were found as were hybrid ceramic wares, the Spanish-style artifacts most common in an elite residence, reflecting that Maya elite acted as brokers with the Spaniards. The occupants also incorporated Spanish domesticates into their diets. Some changes likely resulted from various ethnic groups residing in the same settlement, but others were the product of indigenous adaptations to the situation of contact. Nevertheless, it is clear that the mission anchored a number of strategies of domination that subdued the occupants of San Bernabé.

Intrasite variation in the production and consumption of obsidian prismatic blades is investigated at the Protoclassic to early Late Classic period site of Palo Errado in Veracruz, Mexico. There, the recovery of macrodebitage, as well as eraillure flakes, platform overhang flakes, and debitage with 90 degree angles between dorsal scars indicates that local blade production occurred at the site from imported marcocores and large polyhedral cores. In addition, detailed ceramic and obsidian data from excavated contexts demonstrate that the elite were involved in blade production and consumption, while the inhabitants of Mound 9, a non-elite, residential workshop locus, were specializing in prismatic blade production for exchange. At some point in the Early Classic period, the elite of the site undergo a significant change that intensifies their use of status markers, such as serving ware and personal adornment that corresponds to a decrease in elite blade production and an increase in blade consumption. However, no change in how blades are used by the elite is evident in this transition. While the vast majority of the obsidian artifacts recovered were made from Zaragoza-Oyameles obsidian, significant intrasite variation in minor sources, as well as the types of blades recovered and degree of edge wear suggests that the elite and nonelite participated independently in a variety of obsidian provisioning networks. In the case of the Mound 9 residents, the ceramic and obsidian assemblage suggests that their economic independence corresponded to a physical and ideological separation from the rest of the site. In general the production and consumption of obsidian does not suggest its use in a local political economy. Rather, the inhabitants of Palo Errado may have been exchanging and obtaining obsidian commodities within local and regional marketplaces.

In 1947 Philip Drucker excavated an unusually dense concentration of artifacts from the plaza of a small Late Classic site on the inner coastal plain of Chiapas, Mexico that he proposed was a possible end-of-cycle ceremonial dump. Although the deposit contained both utilitarian and ritual items, only some of the latter have survived for present day investigation. Here we describe Drucker's excavations and the surviving ritual items, neither of which had ever been published in detail. We also examine archaeological expectations for end-of-cycle dumps based upon ethnohistoric descriptions of this Mesoamerican ritual practice and we explore the iconography of effigy censers, which constitute an important set of the items that Drucker collected. We conclude that this singular deposit most likely represents the material remains an end-of-cycle ritual as Drucker had originally proposed.

Site-wide, assemblage-based lithic analyses help to elucidate community dynamics including variability in domestic economies, technological skill and decision making, exchange networks, and ritual practices. In this study we present the results of an analysis of over 36,000 lithic artifacts from the site of La Laguna, Tlaxcala. We compare Middle to Late Formative period (ca. 600–400 b.c.) and Terminal Formative period (ca. 100 b.c.–a.d. 150) deposits to examine transformations associated with urbanization and state formation during this interval. The residents of La Laguna had relatively equal and ample access to obsidian, and most production was organized independently by households. We identify blade production zones and variability in consumption patterns suggestive of different domestic, communal, and ceremonial activities. The introduction of bloodletters, elaborate large bifacial knives, and zoomorphic eccentrics to the Terminal Formative assemblage may indicate the emergence of higher statuses, new social roles, and militaristic symbolism during this period.

We analyze residential architecture and domestic artifacts as expressions of wealth, prestige, and social class at three Aztec-period settlements in Morelos, Mexico: Capilco, Cuexcomate, and Yautepec. House size, as expressed in both floor area and construction volume, shows a strongly bimodal distribution that we interpret as marking elite and commoner residences. We test this interpretation with two artifactual indices of household wealth. One is designed to maximize the elite-commoner distinction in each setting, but is not directly comparable among contexts. The other is a simpler generic wealth index that can be compared among sites and across time. We also consider variability within the commoner class in house size and artifact inventories. While some degree of variation is present, the extent of variation is minor in comparison to the level of elite-commoner differences.

Elizabeth M. Brumfiel began work in Aztec studies by tackling nothing less than the economic symbiotic model of Aztec exchange and specialization. Her findings at Huexotla and Xico questioned this model and in its place Brumfiel focused on the politics of exchange and strategies of both state power and commoner households. Her long-term archaeological project at Xaltocan built on and expanded those themes by applying social theories to understand Aztec society, and inequalities more generally, from a bottom-up agency perspective. These intellectual commitments also guided Brumfiel's engagement with community archaeology and her professional leadership.

Ethnohistoric documents characterize the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in central Mexico as an era of endemic warfare and mass migration, processes that archaeologists have causally related to the development of the Aztec Empire. In this paper, we explore a striking transition in this dynamic, but poorly understood period at the Otomi capital of Xaltocan. The archaeological record reveals that with the adoption of Aztec II Black-on-Orange pottery by a.d. 1240, Xaltocan witnessed the expansion of the island to accommodate more residents, construction of the chinampa agricultural system, and the emergence of two subpopulations with distinct household organization, consumption, and funerary practices. We link a microscale examination of domestic activities with contextual understanding of macrolevel population dynamics, ethnic politics, and political-economic processes, and argue that this shift is due to an influx of migrants. These findings have significant implications for shifting conceptions of identity associated with the emergence of large polities.

This article examines the productivity of agriculture at the Postclassic polity of Xaltocan, Mexico. Employing multiple lines of data (remote sensing, artifactual, ecofactual, chronological, demographic, historic, ethnographic, and environmental), it reconstructs the potential productivity of an integrated raised field, chinampa system that surrounded the polity. This exercise reveals that the system was capable of producing a sizeable caloric surplus above the needs of the kingdom's estimated total population and the number of laborers necessary to maintain full production. To situate the processes related to agricultural production, the paper considers how farmers’ strategies were articulated with multiple institutions. Increased integration between political, social, and household institutions possibly fostered residents’ incorporation into the body politic and provided mechanisms to finance the political economy. Such integration and dependency fractured, however, when Xaltocan was conquered.

Elizabeth Brumfiel studied the local production and exchange of pottery in Xaltocan as part of her ongoing efforts to study the link between women's work and political change. We give continuity to Brumfiel's work by presenting a chemical characterization study of Plain Ware and lead-glazed earthenware in Xaltocan, Mexico. These wares were mostly used by women for cooking and storage. The pattern shows that the people of Postclassic Xaltocan increased their reliance on Plain Ware from nearby Cuauhtitlan through time, before and after they were conquered by the Aztecs. After the Spanish conquest, the people of Xaltocan relied more heavily on locally produced Plain Ware and began using lead-glazed earthenware. These two different empires affected the trade in cooking tools even though it was not part of their policies to affect the domestic economy directly.

Elizabeth Brumfiel has made many contributions in the area of Aztec-period economic specialization. This article builds on her work by examining social and political contingencies on the production of fancy featherwork objects. It goes beyond the urban core and explores the impact of Aztec imperial conquest and tribute demands on the production and distribution of feathered objects in conquered regions.

Drawing inspiration from the work and legacy of Elizabeth Brumfiel, I develop a case study about the lives and religious practices of Maya farmers at the Chan site in Belize, to demonstrate how farmers were neither the dopes, dupes, nor mystified masses of Maya state level ideologies. I use this case study to rethink anthropological theories that attempt to explain the role of state level ideologies in the production of inequality and power, particularly ideas about ideology and false consciousness that are often bundled together and referred to as the ‘dominant ideology thesis.’