Teotihuacan underwent an urban renewal during the Tlamimilolpa phase (AD 250–350) in which more than 2,000 apartment compounds were constructed to accommodate its estimated 100,000 residents. Although the orderly layout and canonical orientation of the city imply top-down planning, growing evidence suggests a bottom-up process of urban transformation. This study combines architectural energetics with archaeometric analysis of nonlocal construction materials (lime plaster and andesitic cut stone blocks) to examine the labor organization behind the construction of the apartment compounds. The results of the energetic analysis suggest that residents relied on labor forces external to their compounds, whereas materials analysis indicates that the procurement, transportation, and production of building material were centrally organized and thus indicative of a state labor tax. Based on these results, I argue that compounds were assembled through corporate group labor exchange or communal (neighborhood-level) labor cooperation/obligation, with differing degrees of support from the state labor tax. Apartment compound construction was not uniform but rather a diverse process in which state labor mobilization, communal labor obligations, and corporate labor exchange were articulated in various ways.

This study assesses whether local genetic drift within populations can be rejected as a sufficient explanation for mitochondrial DNA haplogroup frequency changes between contemporary and prehistoric population samples in the South-Central Andes. Differences in the frequencies of haplogroups between populations are a popular line of evidence for assessing population history. The null hypothesis of haplo group frequency change is a stochastic force inherent to finite populations called genetic drift. Genetic drift is particularly influential in small populations. Innumerable historical events can result in low population sizes, and the simplest scenarios for these events are those occurring locally. In this study, simulations are used to provide a baseline for the amount of haplogroup-frequency difference expected from local genetic drift over time. The results from the simulations are compared to observed data from 23 population samples, including six prehistoric population samples. The study concludes that local genetic drift cannot be rejected when comparing a prehistoric population to a contemporary population. For the South-Central Andes, these results have dire consequences when attempting to infer genetic exchange. This study demonstrates that more informative genetic data are required for such inferences.

In the Lake Titicaca Basin during the Late Intermediate period (LIP; AD 1100–1450), people's lives were overwhelmingly structured by warfare. Previous research in the region has shed light on how martial conflict between and possibly among competing ethnic groups motivated people to live in fortified villages on defensive hilltops. At the same time, there was a centuries-long drought that threatened agricultural production. Little is known about the plant use of people living in hillforts during this arduous time. Drawing on macrobotanical information collected from Ayawiri, one of the largest hillforts in the northern Titicaca Basin, I argue that the food stuffs and plants used were locally grown. Additionally, these findings indicate a possible departure from earlier symbolically charged and ritually important plant consumption practices based on the lack of imported maize. This research sheds light on how people adapted their domestic and agricultural strategies to warfare and climate change during the LIP.

The traditional view based on ceramics is that construction of the Sun Pyramid at Teotihuacan commenced in the first century A .D. Likewise, radiocarbon dates from the artificial cave beneath the Pyramid indicate that it was created at about the same lime. Both Pyramid and cave are seen as having a role in the founding of the city. Recent excavation inside the Pyramid produced radiocarbon dates that cluster in the mid-third century A.D. Members of the Sun Pyramid Project interpreted the dates as representing initial construction of the structure, moving it significantly later in time than previously thought. They also reinterpreted the dates for the construction of the cave, making it contemporaneous with the revised Pyramid construction. This paper adds radiocarbon dates from the cave to the original set and employs Bayesian analysis. The initial interpretation is supported: the dates reflect a cycle of cave creation through termination that began in the midfirst century and lasted about 200 years. I interpret the dates from the Pyramid as reflecting ritual associated with cave termination and a concomitant redefinition of the Pyramid that involved architectural modifications and tunneling. Pyramid and cave dates are reconciled with each other, with ceramics, and with the ceramic chronology. The traditional timing of first century Pyramid construction is maintained, along with its social, political, and economic implications.

In this study, we generate novel insights regarding bodily ornaments from indigenous societies of late precolonial Greater Antilles. Previous research has highlighted the sociopolitical role of valuable, exotic, and figurative ornaments, yet there are many gaps in our current understanding of these artifacts. Here, we focus on ornaments from five recently excavated sites in the Dominican Republic (AD 800–1600). We used microwear analysis to investigate each ornament and assess its production sequence and use life. These data permitted the definition of morpho-technical groups, which we then compared to depositional contexts and the regional availability of raw materials. We demonstrate that (1) there was small-scale production of ornaments at the sites, (2) the most recurrent morpho-technical groups were likely imported from production centers, and (3) ornaments of the same group could lead different use lives and be deposited through varied processes. We conclude that bodily ornaments had highly diverse biographies involving local and regional interaction networks.

A new emblem glyph and place name, which depicts tied hair, is identified in Classic Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions from the upper Usumacinta River region of Chiapas and Guatemala. Emblem glyphs are used as titles of rulers, whereas place names indicate a person"s place of origin or where events took place. An interesting discovery from glyphic texts with this "Tied-Hair" glyph is that rulers at the large sites of Bonampak and Lacanhá, Chiapas, originated from the Tied-Hair site. Maya sites with emblem glyphs are often viewed as being politically independent polities ruled by a local patrilineage. Evidence discussed here suggests that Maya centers could have been ruled by noble males from other sites and that some polities were made up of several centers. This complex sociopolitical organization may have been created through dynastic alliances, through inheritance, or by military conquest. Classic Maya political integration then may have been similar to that of the Aztec, Mixtec, and Maya of Postclassic Mesoamerica.

This study investigates changes in strategies ofrulership at the early Zoque polity ofChiapa de Corzo, Chiapas, Mexico, from its inception in the Middle Formative period through its peak of political power during the Terminal Formative period. Incorporating data from my survey ofChiapa de Corzo and its hinterland with excavation data from the center, I contrast changes in the organization of ceremonial activity and in the establishment of status differences at the site with strategies employed in the governance of the polity at large. The initial rulers ofChiapa de Corzo adopted civic-ceremonial conventions shared with the Olmec site of La Venta, including the E-Group architectural pattern repeated at a number of sites in Chiapas. In the Late Formative, rulers integrated the E-Group into an architectural template adopted from contemporary capitals in the Maya Lowlands. This new space was less accessible than the earlier Middle Formative ceremonial zone. The adoption of these new traditions was accompanied by increased status differentiation between rulers and subjects. At the same time, there was a reduction in the elaboration of the regional political hierarchy and a decrease in the practice of forced resettlement. The results of this study indicate that the novel ceremonial practices and changes in status differentiation at the capital were accompanied unevenly by interference of rulers in the daily life of the hinterland.

The existence of the mesoamerican Tuxtla script is based primarily on inscriptions from five objects in addition to very scant epigraphic evidence on 16 other items (Méluzin 1992). The name “Tuxtlatec” is used to refer to the language rendered by this script. The longest inscription so far known in this writing system is on the recently discovered La Mojarra, Veracruz, Stela 1, which also reveals two Initial-Series-style dates. A bilingual approach is attempted using the month and day glyphs in the stela dates and their presumably equivalent glyphs and names in the Yucatec Maya calendar. Meanings of the four calendar names in the Tuxtlatec system are suggested. The four corresponding Maya glyphs are reinterpreted with alternate Yucatec translations offered for two of them. In two of the analyses Zoque words are pivotal, but it is argued that this in itself does not prove that Tuxtlatec was a dialect of Zoque.

El presente artículo presenta una revisión de los hallazgos hechos en el sitio de Tingambato, en el centro sur de Michoacán, México, a la luz de los últimos trabajos realizados en los pasados siete años, haciendo uso de tecnologías recientes. En este trabajo se hace un estudio completo de la arquitectura, los materiales y especialmente los fechamientos que nos permiten finalmente poder establecer la ocupación de este importante sitio arqueológico durante los primeros 900 años de nuestra era. Finalmente se presenta un estudio apoyado en el uso de reconstrucciones virtuales, trabajos fotogramétricos y lidar de los contextos de dos impresionantes tumbas halladas en el sitio arqueológico, que nos permiten entender de mejor manera las costumbres funerarias de los sectores de élite de este grupo.

En este artículo se realiza una descripción y análisis de los primeros edificios monumentales, caminos, geoglifos y canales de irrigación del valle de Chincha, costa sur del Perú, como un conjunto de rasgos producto de la construcción de un paisaje ritual y político. Se plantea que los edificios monumentales del periodo Paracas tardío (400–100 a.C.) fueron puntos de llegada, encuentro y salida de grupos humanos muy bien organizados en el territorio. Para organizar y dirigir los movimientos sociales hacia esta arquitectura, las elites que dirigieron la construcción de estos rasgos en el paisaje utilizaron su conocimiento del movimiento del sol durante el año, especialmente, durante los solsticios y equinoccios.

The 200-year period from A.D. 230 to 430 witnessed the transition from chiefdom to state in the Maya Lowlands and the founding of several early political dynasties. Considerable information on that era is known for major cities like Tikal and Copán, but we knew less about the Calakmul area until recently. Previously, Calakmul's earliest dated monument was Stela 43, carved at A.D. 514. On the other hand, Tikal's earliest text dated to A.D. 292, and its ruling dynasty claimed that its founding date was A.D. 230. The ruling dynasties of most other cities that eventually became Maya regional capitals were evidently founded later, between A.D. 330 and 430.

With the 1994 discovery of Stela 114 at Calakmul, we can now push Calakmul's written record back to A.D. 431. The oldest stela in Calakmul’s realm was erected in A.D. 406 at Balakbal, to document the reign of a Balakbal ruler who was a contemporary of the Tikal ruler Curl Snout. Some 25 years later, Calakmul erected Stela 114 to commemorate a Calakmul ruler who was a contemporary of the Tikal ruler Stormy Sky. Even though we had expected Calakmul's dynasty to have greater time depth than A.D. 514, it was not until the discovery of Stela 114 that we were able to confirm that point.

Thanks to many epigraphic references compiled in the last 35 years, there is a growing consensus among Mayanists that a hegemonic state existed in the Maya Lowlands during the Classic period headed by the Kaanu'l royal dynasty and based at Dzibanche and Calakmul. Many aspects of its organization are still poorly documented, however. Important questions that remain unanswered include how power was exerted and passed on within this political system in ways that might differ from those found in an average-sized Maya kingdom. In this article we present new archaeological and epigraphic data from Chochkitam, a little-known site in northeastern Peten, Guatemala. Although this was a center of average size, the epigraphic texts reveal its political standing as a royal city with important connections with the Kaanu'l and other regional powers at various significant junctures during the Classic period, including before, during, and after the Kaanu'l hegemony. These historical reconstructions, although fragmentary, provide important data to validate emerging hypotheses regarding how the Kaanu'l kings managed their domain.

This study focuses on trophy head taking during the transition between the Late Formative period and Tiwanaku period (A.D. 200-800) based on evidence from a dedicatory offering found at the site of Wata Wata, east of the Titicaca Basin. Although trophy-head taking was common in other precontact Andean cultures, evidence of the practice among cultures from this region is usually present only in iconography and not in actual physical remains. We explore the nature of this find and its placement within the trade and ceremonial center of Wata Wata. The three individuals included in the offering underwent various levels of violence at or around the time of death, including beheading, cranial and facial fracturing, defleshingjaw removal, and possible eye extraction. Such violence makes it unlikely that the heads were offered as part of a cult to revere ancestors. We argue that these heads, entombed in a ritual cache and sealed with a capstone, embody a strategic metaphor to remove authority and influence from the individuals, because skulls can be Andean symbols of power in life and the afterlife. The violent acts carried out on these crania may also have been a way to advertise broader changes during this transitional period in the Kallawaya region, a strategic exchange corridor between ecological zones in the Central Andes.

In the last 25 years, materials from some human sacrifices that the Inkas carried out on high mountains (e.g., Aconcagua and Llullaillaco) have been thoroughly analyzed and adequately interpreted. Remains from immolations that took place in other contexts, however, which tend to be poorly preserved and incompletely studied, are not as well understood. In this article, I begin to remedy this imbalance in our knowledge by discussing the sacrifice from Salinas Grandes, which is a salt flat situated in northwestern Argentina. I describe the body of the victim—who was very likely a qhapaq hucha, a specially chosen child—and his clothing, accouterments, and hairstyle. I offer hypotheses on where he came from and on the reasons behind his ritual dispatch. I demonstrate how the different items that were buried with him all contributed to the meaning of his immolation. I also show how the lords of Cuzco may have employed the sacrifice to tie the region where the salt flat is located to the empire.

America's first urban centers may have been located in the Supe Valley, Peru. After investigating the location and the orientation of the main built structures, we show that it is not only the presence of the Supe River that determines their orientation but also that astronomical relationships within the orientation of the buildings dictate their setting within the valley. The southernmost position of moonrise on the horizon seems to be the most important astronomical target. There is the possibility of a trend toward attributing greater importance to the June solstice sunrise and the rising of certain stars or asterisms. These orientations could relate to specific moments throughout the year, in particular to seasonal rains, subsequent river flooding, and agricultural cycles. This is one of the earliest examples of the interaction of land- and skyscapes in human cultures and indeed the first in the Americas.

Archaeometric analyses (Raman Spectroscopy Analysis, X-Ray Diffraction, and Electron Microprobe Analysis) of greenstone beads of the precolumbian Tairona culture (A.D. 1100–1600) of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia, have revealed that they are made of variscite-group minerals. These beads were curated at the Museo del Oro, Bogotá, and the Archaeology Laboratory of the Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla. Variscite minerals of the variscite-strengite series are rare in nature, and therefore provenance data of source material are useful for the development of intercultural influence models. The abundance of this rare material in prehistoric Colombian collections strongly indicates not only that this material had important symbolic and prestige value for ancient Tairona societies (Nahuange and Tairona periods) but also that these societies participated in ancient trade routes, including, at least, the Andes of present-day Colombia and Venezuela, and the southern Caribbean coast.

Donut stones are a relatively common class of ground stone artifact found at archaeological sites throughout Mesoamerica and Andean South America, and a variety of functional interpretations have been proposed for these artifacts. In this article, ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and archaeological data are presented along with the results of replicative experiments in support of an argument that some donut stones from the Maya Highlands and Southern Lowlands may have functioned as whorls for a previously unrecognized type of thigh-supported spindle. Based on a functional interpretation of donut stones as thigh-supported spindle whorls, these artifacts can potentially be used to provide insight into the nature of ancient Maya household yarn and cordage production.

Proponents of site-planning studies argue that the Ancient Maya expressed both political and cosmological symbolism in architecture and site plans, while detractors fault site-planning advocates for not being scientifically rigorous in their methods. Recently, the debate between the two sides has focused on whether or not the Maya created cosmograms in the layouts of their sites. Our recent investigations at La Milpa, Belize attempt to redirect site-planning studies back to a more encompassing approach that searches for meaning at various scales. In doing so, we propose that planning and engineering be considered together and that engineering can include ritual or symbolic components. This paper focuses on two contemporaneous caches, each of which contains incised jar lids decorated with a mat design. We argue the caches are ritually engineered deposits that integrate otherwise discrete architectural components into a coherent Late/Terminal Classic royal precinct plan. Furthermore, the mat design on the jar lids suggests royal sponsorship of the engineering and construction of the plaza. While much of the symbolism in the caches is unclear, we are able to recognize that political and/or cosmological symbolic communication has occurred as part of a ritually engineered component of Plaza B at La Milpa.

In the last four decades, a number of archaeologists and art historians have posited that “Toltec” Chichén Itzá (Yucatán, Mexico) flourished during the ninth and tenth centuries A.D. They argued that because the “Toltec” style in Yucatán predated the Tollan phase at Tula (Hidalgo, Mexico), most of the style features shared between the cities originated with the Maya. Here, I examine the relevance of the Epiclassic relief sculpture of Tula Chico for the timing and nature of contact between Tula and Chichén Itzá. The presence of reliefs of reclining figures in clear “Toltec” style at Tula Chico in contexts predating their occurrence at Chichén Itzá suggests that claims for a predominantly Maya origin for that style stand in need of revision. Such a rethinking is supported by other fragmentary images from Tula Chico (eagles and Venus symbols), as well as by new studies of ceramic materials and chronology at Chichén Itzá. It is clear that Tula was an active participant in whatever interactions led to similar visual arts at Chichén Itzá, and at least some of the shared iconography has temporal priority at Tula.