The creation of a state religion and ethnicity is both the product of fundamental changes occurring in the control of political and economic resources as states emerge, and an instrument by which rulers, still aggregating power, establish cosmic orders demanding obedience to the state. This article considers the means by which the Tarascan royal dynasty appropriated, altered, and redefined various historical traditions in the creation of their new worldview during the emergence of the protohistoric Tarascan state (a.d. 1350–1520).

Throughout the deep history of Mesoamerica, the dart-thrower (a.k.a. atlatl) played a vital utilitarian and symbolic role. Although it was a highly effective tool exploited for practical purposes such as hunting and warfare, ample evidence exists which reveals its association with themes of authority, power, and prestige. The survival of ornamented dart-throwers, as well as the context in which the implement appears in Mesoamerican material culture and forms of graphic communication, reveal its role in the production and assertion of high social status. This argument will be supported by archaeological and ethnographic evidence which demonstrates that the dart-thrower served as a pan-Mesoamerican symbol of power beginning no later than the Middle to Late Formative period and continuing through the Conquest.

Underwater archaeology in the Maya area during the twentieth century has gradually evolved from a avocational activity whose primary focus was on the recovery of artifacts to a subdiscipline with more focused professional concerns. The present synthesis outlines the history of underwater research throughout the Maya area, including projects at pre-Hispanic sites in the lowlands and highlands, as well as the exploration of offshore historic wrecks. It concludes with a brief assessment of the current state of this research.

A “table altar,” perhaps one described by Cabrera (1822) almost 200 years ago and since unreported, is the only complete example of a class of four-legged sculptures known at present from Kaminaljuyu. Iconographic similarities between the monument and sculptures from southern piedmont and coastal centers and comparisons with other Kaminaljuyu sculptures suggest an early Late Preclassic date (Late Verbena-Early Arenal, approximately 300-200 B.C.). According to depictions on other southern-area monuments many “table altars” were formal, emblematic seats for rulers, or thrones, which had specific ideologies associated with them Review of monuments, including identification as a four-legged throne of the well-known sculpture, Stela 10, numbers the Kaminaljuyu corpus of thrones to date at a minimum of seven. The presence of thrones as a sculptural class at Kaminaljuyu in the Late Preclassic period provides more evidence of a long throne tradition reaching from Olmec times through the Maya Classic and into the Postclassic. Kaminaljuyu's thrones conceivably also add to other evidence of complex sociopolitics at the city during the Late Preclassic.

This paper examines the evidence for status and wealth differentiation within the peripheral areas of Tikal, Guatemala, and intersite areas north and south of Tikal. Frequency counts of differing major shape classes show that large groups had significantly higher frequency of serving forms and more associated pottery. The technique of multidimensional scaling is used to see whether there are any qualitative differences in pottery reflecting higher status or wealth. Results of the analysis indicate that qualitative differences are present only for Ik Complex vases. There are also indications of a special relationship between central Tikal and the minor center of Navahuelal located beyond the edges of the Tikal settlement zone.

Archaeological research in the Maya lowlands has identified special deposits that offer essential information about the abandonment of Classic Maya centers. We argue that some of the “problematical deposits” associated with terminal architecture may be more accurately described as peri-abandonment deposits since they temporally and behaviorally relate to the activities associated with the final use of ceremonial space. Here, we describe several peri-abandonment deposits that were identified in Group B at the site of Baking Pot, located in western Belize. Using detailed stratigraphic and contextual information, artifact assemblages, and calendar dates recorded on polychrome vessels recovered in the deposits, we describe the nature of activities associated with the formation of peri-abandonment deposits at Baking Pot in the eighth to ninth centuries. We find patterning in the spatial locations of deposits in the corners of plazas and courtyards at Baking Pot, with variability in artifact assemblages between specific deposits.

The Izalcos Pipil were pre-Hispanic residents of the Río Ceniza Valley of western El Salvador and had clear linguistic ties to the Aztecs and other Nahuas of central Mexico. Both archaeological and documentary data are presented that show strong evidence that the Izalcos Pipil also maintained Nahua social and political institutions. The Izalcos Pipil emphasized characteristics of Nahua social practices that depend on dynamic mobility on the landscape to articulate discrete cultural elements, and these characteristics are observable in Izalcos inter- and intrasite settlement organization and the distribution of Nahua settlement in southern Mesoamerica. The degree of mobility on the landscape was shown in the internal organization of sites, architectural arrangements, and the relationships among sites and is indicated in historical documents. Pipil concepts, institutions, and boundaries provided the foundation for the Spanish colonial political economy. This region became a jewel in the Spanish Crown in part because of prodigious cacao production that the Izalcos Pipil established long before Spanish contact. The degree of nucleation before and after conquest did not change dramatically, but the analysis of mobility showed that even though some elements of patterning appeared superficially the same, underlying causes were fundamentally different. The most important conquest-induced change was the transition to capitalism, which created a static, disarticulated landscape of nucleated settlements, enclosures, and private property that discouraged human movement. The tensions between these two contrasting systems of landscape use heightened with the passage of time.

From the Early and Middle Formative periods, hollow ceramic-baby figurines in the Olmec style—representing a suite of shared symbols and iconography—appear at sites throughout Mesoamerica. Hollow babies are usually reported without provenience, which has prevented a context-based analysis. The recent discovery of a hollow-baby figurine in a bell-shaped pit in the Mixteca Alta of Oaxaca provides the opportunity to examine the role and purported distribution of these objects across Mesoamenca. Based on consideration of the Etlatongo hollow-baby image, a semiotic analysis of contemporaneous solid figurines from Oaxaca, and the volume and nature of its bell-shaped-pit context, hollow babies are interpreted as ritual paraphernalia used in display and public ceremonies that reflect the emerging social ranking of this period. Moving beyond a socioeconomic interpretation, the interregional relationships expressed through hollow-baby figurines are suggested to evince participation in a regional cult.

Recent research in the Sayula Basin of central Jalisco is gradually presenting a fuller view of the lifeways that characterized the people who lived on this thoroughfare, traditionally known for its vast salt flats. Salvage excavations undertaken at two major sites have supplied a number of new elements that are confirming and expanding previous knowledge of the chronological sequence, the ceramic complexes, the uses of space within an apparently closed area, and the possible sphere of interactions developed by the pre-Hispanic inhabitants of this part of western Mexico. Special attention is given to evidence relating to the study of native salt production.

Much has been learned from the basin of the Candelaria River, Campeche, Mexico: the fabric of a densely settled pre-Historic landscape, including impressive ceremonial centers; the logistics of an ancient entrepôt; the process of exploitation of dyewood and chicle in historic times; as well as the doubtful results of the mid-twentieth-century colonization of an “empty” forested basin. It also yielded the first evidence of more or less intensive pre-Hispanic wetland agriculture in the Maya region and the remains of a profuse network of fluvial transportation from prehistoric times to the present. This article presents recent evidence regarding the management of the river system itself by means of barriers, or “dams,” which facilitated agriculture in the wetlands upstream and extensive canoe travel. These structures seem to be elaborations or imitations of the numerous natural barriers already in the stream. Two models help explain context and function. It has become apparent that the human interventions into the wetlands and the river system are to be seen less as great attainments of civilization than as fairly desperate expedients in the face of climate change.

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.

This article presents an analysis of the tlacuiloque (scribes) who participated in the production of the Matrícula de Tributos and the Codex Mendoza. I show the relevance of palaeographic analysis for documents in which the writing system is logosyllabic or hieroglyphic and most of the information is iconographic. The Matrícula de Tributos is a pre-Columbian document that recorded the tribute paid to the Mexica empire by conquered towns. It was probably painted during the last decade of Moctezuma's II rulership, although some of its pages may have been produced earlier. Its production shows the work of at least six scribes. Its content was copied by a single artist around 1542 as the second part of the Codex Mendoza, a document created to be sent to the Spanish emperor. I provide evidence of the work of the six scribes in the pages preserved of the Matrícula. I also show that the scribe responsible for folios 6r–11v of the Matrícula painted the entire Codex Mendoza at least 20 years later. I demonstrate these interpretations through comparative analysis of some elements of the iconography and logosyllabic writing in the Matrícula and the Codex Mendoza.

Ancient Costa Ricans in the Arenal area exhibited extraordinary persistence in landscape use and social memory, in spite of repeated catastrophes caused by explosive volcanic eruptions. The Cañales village on the south shore of Lake Arenal was struck by two large explosive eruptions during the Arenal phase (500 b.c.–a.d. 600). Following ecological recovery, the village was reoccupied after each of these eruptions. I argue that the people who reoccupied the village were direct descendants of pre-disaster villagers due to the fact that they reinstated use of the same path to the village cemetery. While previous interpretations emphasized ecological reasons for village reoccupation, I suggest that a dominating reason for reoccupation was to re-establish contact with the spirits of deceased ancestors in the cemetery. The living and the spirits of the deceased constituted the functioning community. The refugees re-established processional access to their cemetery as soon as possible, perhaps even before the village was reoccupied. Archaeologists rarely discover evidence of ancient pilgrimages. However, the combination of remote sensing and detailed stratigraphic analyses allow them to be detected in the Arenal area. Villagers created and perpetuated social memory by regular linear ritual processions along precisely the same path, in spite of challenging topography and occasional regional disasters obscuring the path. This recognition has implications for the arguments of sedentism versus residential mobility during the Arenal phase.

The discovery of cultural remains on or above the floors of rooms and courtyards at several Maya sites has been interpreted by some archaeologists as problematic deposits, squatter's refuse, as evidence for feasting, termination rituals, de facto refuse, or rapid abandonment as a result of warfare. Investigations by the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project have recorded similar deposits at several surface and subterranean sites in Western Belize. Our regional, contextual, and methodological approaches for studying these deposits, coupled with ethnohistoric and ethnographic information, provide limited support for the interpretation of these remains as de facto refuse or due to rapid abandonment. Instead, we argue that these deposits are more likely the result of peri-abandonment activities such as propitiation rituals and/or pilgrimages during and after the gradual abandonment of sites in the Belize River Valley.

The transition from the Late Archaic to the Late Early Formative period witnessed profound changes in the Maya lowlands. In addition to the establishment of the first settlements and agrarian communities, this critical phase of cultural development heralded the introduction of ceramics, saw changes in lithic technology, gave rise to inter-regional trade and exchange, and witnessed the introduction of a complex symbolic system expressed on portable objects. In this article, we synthesize data collected over the past several decades by various archaeological projects in western Belize to provide an overview of the cultural changes that unfolded during the Late Archaic to Late Early Formative period in the Upper Belize River Valley. We also provide evidence indicating that it was during this critical transitional period that we begin to see the establishment of several cultural traditions that became uniquely lowland Maya.

Archaeological excavations at the site of Xochicalco, Morelos, have explored several elements of public architecture important for clarifying aspects of urban organization and civic life during the Epiclassic period. Excavations confirm the presence of a ditch and terrace defensive system, strategic control of access leading into the site, and the presence of walled streets entering the site and extending throughout the city. The urban design also included systems for surface drainage that were linked to street networks. A section of the drainage system was constructed as a subterranean sewer using corbeled arch construction where it passed beneath a large platform mound. Analysis of the materials recovered from buildings throughout these excavations also provide the basis for identifying domestic activities and differentiating between residential and nonresidential structures.

This paper seeks to define and discuss the nature, size, variety, ideology, and change in the polities of three regions of the Maya Lowlands: the Greater Peten, Central Yucatan (Río Bec/Chenes), and the Puuc Hills. Patterned variety is demonstrable on all levels of analysis and even within stylistic regions, within suggested regional states, and within sites.

Se presenta una nueva interpretación de un importante grupo de la nobleza teotihuacana, cuyos miembros portaban tocado de borlas, como parte de su vestimenta. En base al análisis iconográfico se establece que los señores portadores de la versión más compleja de este tocado (el Gran Tocado) eran gobernantes sagrados que poseían poderes sobrenaturales: se dedicaban al servicio del Dios de la Lluvia y en la guerra eran capaces de usar como arma el rayo del propio Dios. Los miembros de menor rango de dicho grupo también eran ofrendantes del Dios de la Lluvia y aparentemente cumplían funciones políticas. El grupo tenía varios niveles jerárquicos, planteándose la hipótesis de que quizás pudo haber sido regido simultáneamente por varios señores con Gran Tocado. Se sugiere que el ejemplo de este grupo de principales puede servir como clave para descifrar la naturaleza de la clase gobernante de Teotihuacan.

Many Tarascan settlements surrounded Lake Patzcuaro in Michoacan, Mexico, during the Late Postclassic period. A hierarchy of settlements existed from the capital of Tzintzuntzan to secondary administration sites and small tributary communities. Obsidian artifacts from the large site, Erongaricuaro, have been studied by the author. Analysis of the obsidian from this site highlighted particular patterns in the production and consumption of prismatic blades and large scrapers. Data from another site, Urichu, was collected and analyzed more recently. Urichu was a tributary center to Erongaricuaro during the Tarascan empire. Local and state elites inhabited both sites, and analysis of obsidian manufacture indicates that the sites may have had different functions. Obsidian from the sites also varies by source location. This too may indicate site function and the changing sociopolitical organization of obsidian production and use throughout the Tarascan empire.

This study addresses the role of prehistoric ethnopolitical divisions, factionalism, and alliances in macroregional economic models. The Mesoamerican Late Postclassic period (a.d. 1350–1525) is characterized by its “cosmopolitan” economy featuring long distance exchange of raw materials and finished products. Such characterizations are examined through a provenance analysis of small obsidian projectile points from the Maya lowlands of Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, and Honduras. Obsidian artifacts are analyzed using portable x-ray fluorescence (pXRF) and social network analysis (SNA) methods, revealing at least four sub-networks of point procurement that belonged to nine different ethnopolitical divisions. Local production of points is approached using a novel method of two-mode analysis, demonstrating in some cases that the sources of local obsidian debitage and debris did not coincide with the sources of finished point assemblages. Such information reveals the intricacies of Maya exchange and stresses the importance of local political geography during the Late Postclassic.