Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-04T09:25:01.657Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Texcoco Fabric-Marked Pottery, Tlateles, and Salt-Making

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Thomas H. Charlton*
Affiliation:
University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa

Abstract

An examination of the data used to support Nunley’s hypothesis (1967) that Texcoco Fabric-marked pottery vessels functioned as flowerpots to adapt chinampa agriculture to saline Lake Texcoco does not confirm his conclusions. The distribution of the ware and tlateles coincides not with chinampa agriculture but with salt-producing communities of the 16th century. Aboriginal salt-making produced large mounds of washed or leached soils which are the tlateles. Texcoco Fabric-marked ware is suited for the rapid heating of saline solutions. It is concluded that the sherds and the tlateles are the archaeological remains of Aztec salt-making activities.

Type
Facts and Comments
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1969

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Apenes, Ola 1944 The Primitive Salt Production of Lake Texcoco. Ethnos, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 2540 Stockholm.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charlton, Thomas H. 1966 Aztec Ceramics: The Early Colonial Period. A Report of Fieldwork Completed During the Summer of 1966. Submitted to the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico. (Multilithed)Google Scholar
Coe, Michael D, 1964 The Chinampas of Mexico. Scientific American, Vol. 211, No. 1, pp. 908 New York.Google Scholar
Gibson, Charles 1964 The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule. Stanford University Press, Stanford.Google Scholar
Mayer-Oakes, William J. 1959 A Stratigraphic Excavation at El Risco, Mexico. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 103, No. 3, pp. 33273 Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Nunley, Parker 1967 A Hypothesis Concerning the Relationship Between Texcoco Fabric-Marked Pottery, Tlateles, and Chinampa Agriculture. American Antiquity, Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 51522 Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Palerm, Angel 1955 The Agricultural Basis of Urban Civilization in Mesoamerica. In “Irrigation Civilizations: A Comparative Study,” edited by Julian H. Steward, pp. 2842. Pan American Union, Social Science Monographs, I. Washington.Google Scholar
Parsons, Jeffrey R. 1966 The Aztec Ceramic Sequence in the Teotihuacán Valley, Mexico. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Sanders, William T. 1965 The Cultural Ecology of the Teotihuacán Valley. The Department of Sociology and Anthropology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park.Google Scholar
Tolstoy, Paul 1958 Surface Survey of the Northern Valley of Mexico: The Classic and Post-Classic Periods. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 48, Pt. 5. Philadelphia.Google Scholar
West, Robert C. and Armillas, Pedro 1950 Las Chinampas de Mexico. Cuadernos Americanos, Vol. 50, pp. 16582. Mexico.Google Scholar