Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T22:07:18.036Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Size of the Aztec City of Yautepec

Urban survey in central Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2008

Michael E. Smith ,
Cynthia Heath-Smith ,
Ronald Kohler ,
Joan Odess ,
Sharon Spanogle  and
Timothy Sullivan
Michael E. Smith
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, State University of New York at Albany, Albany, NY 12222, USA
Cynthia Heath-Smith
Affiliation:
Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, State University of New York at Albany, Albany, NY 12222, USA
Ronald Kohler
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202, USA
Joan Odess
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, State University of New York at Albany, Albany, NY 12222, USA
Sharon Spanogle
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
Timothy Sullivan
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In 1992 we conducted an intensive archaeological surface survey in and around the modern town of Yautepec, Morelos, Mexico. Our goals were to determine the size and extent of the Aztec-period city of Yautepec, and to gather data on its spatial organization. This article describes the methods used and the results obtained toward achieving the first goal. Aztec Yautepec covered approximately 209 ha; this area is partly covered by the modern town and partly by open fields. Late Postclassic settlement was clustered around a structure that today is the largest known Aztec palace in central Mexico. We generate ethnohistoric and archaeological population estimates for Yautepec and discuss the city in relation to other Aztec urban settlements in Morelos and the Basin of Mexico.

Type
Articles
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , Spring 1994 , pp. 1 - 11
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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

REFERENCES

Acuña, René (editor) 1985 Relaciones geográficas del sigio XVI: México, vol. 1. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berdan, Frances F., and Anawalt, Patricia R. (editors) 1992 Codex Mendoza. 4 vols. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Bintliff, John, and Snodgrass, Anthony 1988 Off-Site Pottery Distributions: A Regional and Interregional Perspective. Current Anthropology 29:506–513.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blanton, Richard E. 1972 Prehistoric Settlement Patterns of the Ixtapalapa Region, Mexico. Occasional Papers in Anthropology No. 6. Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park.Google Scholar
Brumfiel, Elizabeth M. 1980 Specialization, Market Exchange, and the Aztec State: A View from Huexotla. Current Anthropology 21:459–478.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brumfiel, Elizabeth M. 1986 The Division of Labor at Xico: The Chipped Stone Industry. In Economic Aspects of Prehispanic Highland Mexico, edited by Isaac, Barry L., pp. 245–280. Research in Economic Anthropology, supplement No. 2. JAI Press, Greenwich, CT.Google Scholar
Brumfiel, Elizabeth M. 1987 Elite and Utilitarian Crafts in the Aztec State. In Specialization, Exchange, and Complex Societies, edited by Brumfiel, Elizabeth M. and Earle, Timothy K., pp. 102–118. Cambridge University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Brumfiel, Elizabeth M. 1992 Postclassic Xaltocan: Archaeological Research in the Northern Valley of Mexico, 1991 Annual Report. Manuscript on file, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Albion College, Albion, MI.Google Scholar
CCCP (Comisión de Conurbación del Centro del Pais) 1982 Yautepec. Fotomapa, 1:10,000. CCCP, Mexico.Google Scholar
Calnek, Edward E. 1976 The Internal Structure of Tenochtitlan. In The Valley of Mexico: Studies of Pre-Hispanic Ecology and Society, edited by Wolf, Eric R., pp. 287–302. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Charlton, Thomas H., and Nichols, Deborah L. 1990 Introduction. In Early State Formation Processes: The Aztec City-State of Otumba, Mexico, vol. 1, pp. 1–7. Research Paper No. 3. Department of Anthropology, University of Iowa, Iowa City.Google Scholar
Charlton, Thomas H., Nichols, Deborah L., and Charlton, Cynthia Otis 1991 Aztec Craft Production and Specialization: Archaeological Evidence from the City-State of Otumba, Mexico. World Archaeology 23:98–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Vega, Hortensia 1989 Informe parcial del Proyecto Yautepec, Morelos: Primera temporada, mayo-julio, 1989. Report submitted to the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico.Google Scholar
de Vega, Hortensia, and Guala, Pablo Mayer 1991 Informe partial del Proyecto Yautepec, Morelos: Segunda temporada de campo (octubre 1990-enero 1991). Report submitted to the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico.Google Scholar
Doolittle, William E. 1990 Canal Irrigation in Prehistoric Mexico: The Sequence of Technological Change. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Fray Diego, Durán 1967 Historia de las indias de Nueva España e islas de la tierra firme. 2 vols. Edited by Garibay, Angel M., Porrúa, K., Mexico.Google Scholar
Evans, Susan T. 1988 Excavations at Cihuatecpan, an Aztec Village in the Teotihuacan Valley. Publications in Anthropology No. 36. Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.Google Scholar
Evans, Susan T. 1991 Architecture and Authority in an Aztec Village: Form and Function of the Tecpan. In Land and Politics in the Valley of Mexico, edited by Harvey, Herbert H., pp. 63–92. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Gerhard, Peter 1970 A Method of Reconstructing Pre-Columbian Political Boundaries in Central Mexico. Journal de la Société des Américanistes de Paris 59:27–41.Google Scholar
Gerhard, Peter 1972 A Guide to the Political Geography of New Spain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Gibson, Charles 1964 The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule: A History of the Indians of the Valley of Mexico, 1519–1810. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grove, David C. 1968 The Morelos Preclassic and the Highland Olmec Problem: An Archaeological Study. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Hassan, Fekri A. 1981 Demographic Archaeology. Academic Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hicks, Frederic 1982 Tetzcoco in the Early 16th Century: The State, the City and the Calpolli. American Ethnologist 9:230–249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hicks, Frederic 1984 Rotational Labor and Urban Development in Prehispanic Tetzcoco. In Explorations in Ethnohistory: Indians of Central Mexico in the Sixteenth Century, edited by Harvey, Herbert R. and Prem, Hanns J., pp. 147–174. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Hodge, Mary G. 1994 Documentary and Archaeological Perspectives on Local-level Political and Economic Units in the Aztec Empire. In Economies and Polities in the Aztec Realm, edited by Hodge, Mary G. and Smith, Michael E.. IMS Studies on Culture and Society Series No. 5. Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, State University of New York, Albany, in press.Google Scholar
INEGI (Instituto Nacional de Estadistica, Geografía e Informática) 1991 XI censo general de población y vivienda, 1990. Morelos: Resultados definitivos, datas por localidad. INEGI, Mexico.Google Scholar
Fernando de Alva, Ixtlilxochitl 1975 Obras históricas. 2 vols. Translated by O'Gorman, Edmundo. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico.Google Scholar
Kubler, George 1948 Mexican Architecture of the Sixteenth Century. 2 vols. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.Google Scholar
Lombardo de Ruíz, Sonia 1973 Desarrollo urbana de Mexico-Tenochtitlan según las fuentes históricas. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico.Google Scholar
McAndrew, John 1965 The Open-Air Churches of Sixteenth-Century Mexico. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maldonado Jiménez, Druzo 1990 Cuauhnahuac y Huaxtepec: Tlalhuicas y xochimilcas en el Morelos prehispánico. Centro Regional de Investigaciones Multidisciplinarias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Cuernavaca.Google Scholar
Marcus, Joyce 1983 On the Nature of the Mesoamerican City. In Prehistoric Settlement Patterns: Essays in Honor of Gordon R. Willey, edited by Vogt, Evon Z. and Leventhal, Richard M., pp. 195–242. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Martin, Cheryl E. 1985 Rural Society in Colonial Morelos. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Mason, Roger D. 1980 Economic and Social Organization of an Aztec Provincial Center: Archaeological Research at Coatlan Viejo, Morelos, Mexico. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Texas, Austin.Google Scholar
Nichols, Deborah L. 1994 The Organization of Provincial Craft Production and the Aztec City-State of Otumba. In Economies and Polities in the Aztec Realm, edited by Hodge, Mary G. and Smith, Michael E.. IMS Studies on Culture and Society Series No. 5. Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, State University of New York, Albany, in press.Google Scholar
Parsons, Jeffrey R. 1971 Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the Texcoco Region, Mexico. Memoirs No. 3. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parsons, Jeffrey R., Parsons, Mary H., Wilson, David J., and Brumfiel, Elizabeth M. 1982 Prehispanic Settlement Patterns in the Southern Valley of Mexico: The Chalco-Xochimilco Region. Memoirs No. 14. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Micheal, Riley G. 1973 Fernando Cortés and the Marquesado in Morelos, 1522–1547. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Rojas, José Luis de 1986 México Tenochtitlan: Economía y sociedad en el sigio XVI. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico.Google Scholar
Sanders, William T. 1970 The Population of the Teotihuacan Valley, the Basin of Mexico, and the Central Mexican Symbiotic Region in the 16th Century. In The Teotihuacan Valley Project, Final Report, vol. 1, edited by Sanders, William T., Kovar, Anton, Charlton, Thomas, and Diehl, Richard A., pp. 385–452. Occasional Papers in Anthropology No. 3. Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park.Google Scholar
Sanders, William T., Parsons, Jeffrey R., and Santley, Robert S. 1979 The Basin of Mexico: Ecological Processes in the Evolution of a Civilization. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Sanders, William T., and Webster, David 1988 The Mesoamerican Urban Tradition. American Anthropologist 90:521–546.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schroeder, Susan 1991 Chimalpahin and the Kingdoms of Chalco. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Michael E. 1989 Cities, Towns, and Urbanism: Comment on Sanders and Webster. American Anthropologist 91:454–461.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Michael E. 1992 Excavations and Architecture. Archaeological Research at Aztec-Period Rural Sites in Morelos, Mexico, vol. 1. Monographs in Latin American Archaeology No. 4. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Smith, Michael E. 1994 Economies and Polities in Aztec-Period Morelos: Ethnohistoric Introduction. In Economies and Polities in the Aztec Realm, edited by Hodge, Mary G. and Smith, Michael E.. IMS Studies on Culture and Society Series No. 5. Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, State University of New York, Albany, in press.Google Scholar
Smith, Michael E., and Doershuk, John F. 1991 Late Postclassic Chronology in Western Morelos, Mexico. Latin American Antiquity 2:291–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanislawski, Dan 1947 Early Spanish Town Planning in the New World. Geographical Review 37:97–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitmore, Thomas M. 1991 A Simulation of the Sixteenth-Century Population Collapse in the Basin of Mexico. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 81:464–487.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitmore, Thomas M. 1992 Disease and Death in Early Colonial Mexico: Simulating Amerindian Depopulation. Westview Press, Boulder, CO.Google Scholar