The majority of our knowledge about population structure in Mexico during the Postclassic period (a.d. 900–1520) is based on archaeological data. During this time, populations were in contact with each other through extensive trade networks and via the expansion of powerful empires in central and west Mexico. Though archaeological data provides a wealth of information about these relationships, little is known about the effects of these processes on population structure and biological, morphological variation or whether these effects vary across geographic regions. In this study, dental morphological observations are used as a proxy for genetic data in order to assess the differences in regional population structures throughout Mexico. Our analyses show differences in population structure between the various cultural and geographic areas around Mexico. We further conclude that population structures are affected by economic, political, or religious processes. This study provides bioarchaeological support for archaeological interpretations of population structure in Postclassic Mexico.

This paper explores the ancient Nahua concept of “father,” employing early Colonial sources written in both Nahuatl and Spanish. A careful contextual analysis of the occurrences of various Nahuatl terms for “father” or “parent” leads to the conclusion that the principal criterion for creating their metaphorical extensions differed considerably from parallel Spanish criterion. While the latter referred to the power relationship (“father” is the one who governs), the former was based on the concept of exchange (“father” is the one who gives). This principle has implications for studying many aspects of Nahua culture in which the terms for “father” appear: gender and social roles, political hierarchy, pre-Hispanic religion, or evangelization. The difference in the construction of such basic concepts in Nahuatl and Spanish leads to methodological considerations about studying sources that have arisen from the context of cultural contact.

This article aims to fill in some of the lacunae that still exist regarding the Cohuixca ethnicity of the northeastern part of the State of Guerrero. To do so, it introduces a qualitative methodological approach into ethnohistory, which discerns pervasive patterns of special understanding that guided indigenous testimony in the colonial Spanish courtroom. It emphasizes that early colonial Cohuixca testimonies were deeply influenced by what are called, in Western terms, cadastral maps or cartographic histories or, in Nahuatl, amoxtli tlalamatl altepeamatl (“land papers,” titles of each town and district) in the former Cohuixca province of Tepecoacuilco (Cohuixcatlacapan), these geographical elements being heavily reinforced by oral retelling. Therefore, in order to establish a seemingly coherent plot of the past that would overcome fragmentation and chaos, the indigenous witnesses appearing in our sources relied heavily on unique visual schemata that assisted them in assembling the mental shreds and remnants of past experiences to restore them within the traditional framework and formulae of information transmission only modestly affected by the Spanish conquest.

The unexpected discovery of two reused fragments of an ancient mantic manuscript in Oaxaca casts new insights on scribal and divinatory practices at the eve of the Spanish conquest. This paper describes, analyzes, and interprets the faded inscriptions in the two fragments, comparing the structure of the calendrical notations and the painted imagery with those written on the handful of extant pre-Hispanic screenfolds. Although certain patterns allow us to posit the possible relationship between the fragments, other seeming deviations in the reckonings of the divinatory calendar lead us to conclude that the manuscript from which the two fragments originate evinces a distinct scribal and mantic regional variant.

This article presents an in-depth analysis of an important mural painting discovered within Structure 10K2 of the Los Sabios Group at the Classic Maya site of Xultun, Guatemala. We first discuss the composition of the mural scene and its central protagonist, a Late Classic period (a.d. 550–900) ruler of Xultun named Yax We'nel Chan K'inich, suggesting that it presents a ritual performance associated with an ancient New Year ceremony. Several attendant figures in the mural are labeled as members of a specialist order or category called Taaj, “obsidian,” and are marked by an unusual shared appearance. This “obsidian order” exhibits internal hierarchical ranking and is attested at other Classic Maya centers. In addition to discussing the overall content of the Xultun mural scene, we conduct a focused inquiry into these various Taaj individuals by presenting associated archaeological evidence and considering related epigraphic data. Through this analysis of the Taaj, we shed light on a previously unknown aspect of Maya courtly life and organization that is relevant to models of sovereignty, governance, and ritual performance in the Classic Maya world.

This paper presents the results of investigations at the ancient Maya site of Margarita in south-central Quintana Roo, Mexico, and relates them to documented patterns at neighboring centers. Following initial settlement of the region in the Middle Preclassic, settlement hierarchies topped by large centers with monumental architecture, carved monuments, and associations with sites to the south emerged in the Late Preclassic to Early Classic periods. In the Late Classic, several primary centers declined and there was a proliferation of affluent urban populations—evidenced by construction of elaborate residential groups—at smaller centers like Margarita. Long-distance cultural affiliations shifted as well, with ceramic and architectural links to western and northern Yucatán becoming pronounced. Many settlements were abandoned in the Terminal Classic, but there is also evidence of the formation of “post-collapse” communities at Margarita and other neighboring sites during the same period.

“Mesoamerican Cultural Astronomy and the Calendar” is a Special Section including articles that explore portions of Mesoamerica where astronomy and calendars were studied by Indigenous peoples. Scholars who are well known for innovative work in astronomy, such as Aveni, as well as Pineda de Carías, Rivera, and Argueta, consider topics that fall under the rubric of cultural astronomy. Epigraphers or experts in hieroglyphic writing, like Justeson and Vail, deal in explicit ways with issues related to calendar development. An art historian, Milbrath, weighs in on the meaning of astronomical and calendar themes using important documents incorporating both images and texts. An archaeologist, Dowd, and an architect, Carrasco, discuss architectural complexes with orientations significant in horizon-based astronomy. This rich cross-disciplinary collection of articles debuts new discoveries that interweave astronomy, time measurement, and ritual behavior commemorating cycles of death and rebirth among Maya peoples who lived between a.d. 225–1519 in what is now Honduras, Belize, Mexico, and Guatemala.

This study explores the mythology surrounding the appearances and disappearances of Venus from the sky and the role the morning and evening star aspects of Venus played in Maya divinatory and astronomical texts. Ethnographic and ethnohistoric sources link the morning star aspect of Venus with a series of bearded hunting deities. Representations of these figures—armed with the accoutrements of Venus—have recently been identified in the hunting almanacs of the Madrid Codex. Other codical manifestations of Venus include the rain deity Chaak, who appears as both the morning and evening star, and the merchant deity God M, who may have had evening star associations in certain contexts. Significant correspondences exist between the Maya Hero Twins of the Popol Vuh and the War Twins highlighted in creation narratives of Zuni culture, who correspond to the morning and evening star. The celestial roles of both sets of twins will be explored to better understand their function in ceremonial and calendrical contexts.

Research presented here demonstrates that an unusual almanac in the Madrid Codex (pages 12–18) integrates observations of the Venus cycle with eclipse events in the context of the agricultural year. Imagery in the 260-day almanac represents eclipse glyphs associated with Tzolkin dates that coordinate with eclipses visible in Yucatan during the fifteenth century, indicating the almanac dates to the Late Postclassic. The almanac also depicts seasonal events in the context of a repeating pattern of paired solar eclipses associated with observations of Venus as the evening star. Quetzalcoatl-Kukulcan's counterpart in the Madrid almanac is the Chicchan serpent, who plays the role of Venus in a sequence showing a fertile aspect of the planet linked with the 260-day agricultural cycle and the Pleiades. Clearly, Venus positions and eclipse events were closely watched in relation to the planting cycle, reflecting a form of “agro-astronomy” that we are only now beginning to understand.

This study describes, illustrates, and applies an “eclipse family” representation for the cyclic timing of eclipses in Mesoamerica. This theoretical construct is based on daykeepers’ approach to divination, anchored in the divinatory calendar (DC); empirically, it emerges from data on the timing of eclipses in Lowland Mayan1 territory between 100 b.c.e. and 1500 c.e. drawn from Espenak and Meuss's (2007, 2009) eclipse canons.

An eclipse family consists of a sequence of stations on which an eclipse might be visible in Mesoamerica – one every 88 new or full moons for 170 to 200 years, restricted to one of three DC zones. Cyclic and linear time relationships among dates of eclipses follow from this representation: intervals between successive stations in concurrent families in the same zone, and between successive stations across zones; between successive families in a zone; and among the first or last stations of families, within and across zones.

One and only one eclipse-family representation fits the lunar stations of the Dresden Codex; its properties show that it is a solar eclipse table. In real time, the table pertains to a 405-month interval sometime between 1076 and 1148 c.e., most likely from April 19, 1083 c.e. to January 16, 1116 c.e.

The Maya of Copan, Honduras used Stela D, its altar, and the surrounding structures as a sundial to record time. Archaeological investigations show that wooden posts and stelae could have been used to measure time and to perform associated rites in the northern sector of the Main Plaza of the Copan Archaeological Park. We constructed a digital model of Stela D to study the shadows cast at different times of day and on different dates of the year, such as solstices, equinoxes, and solar zenith passages. The size and orientation of the shadows may have served as a time marker that ancient residents of Copan used to accurately track the tropical year. We also found evidence that supports the iconographic interpretation of an analogy between serpents’ bodies that adorn the figure of the ruler on Stela D and shadows and sun positions on dates of major solar events that form a solar calendar that counts years from winter solstice day.

Members of the Proyecto Arqueológico de la Biosfera Calakmul under Carrasco's direction excavated the Cenote Style Group E-type complex at the Maya site of Calakmul, Campeche, Mexico. The Cenote Style refers to the plan of the E-Group with a series of three temples built onto a long narrow eastern range structure facing a western structure across a broad central plaza. Architectural data exist to evaluate this standardizing group's utility for observing solar events. Astronomical evidence for the function of this complex is presented and discussed. The overall orientation of Structures IVa, IVb, IVc, and VI is slightly east, 13° of true north, while a pair of doorways in Structure IVc align with the setting sun during the summer solstice point, despite the break in the buildings' floor-plan symmetry this represents.

This essay concludes the Special Section “Mesoamerican Cultural Astronomy and the Calendar.” In it, the themes Special Section authors address are put into both an anthropological and an astronomical context.