According to Purepecha oral tradition, the ancestors of the Uacusecha dynasty that ruled Michoacan at the beginning of the sixteenth century began their epic in the Zacapu region. The importance of this region also lies in the research carried out since the early 1980s that led to the elaboration of a regional sequence outlining the trajectory of pre-Hispanic societies centuries before the emergence of the Tarascan state.

New research carried out on the area since 2009 has clarified this reference framework and opened new perspectives. The research focused on the Malpaís volcanic flows and its immediate surroundings. It addressed the transformations experienced by pre-Hispanic societies between a.d. 500 and a.d. 1580, and their interactions with the volcanic environment with unprecedented analytical detail. The joint contributions of remote sensing, archaeological fieldwork, dating, and geological study participate in renewing a diachronic approach of this unique landscape of northern Michoacan.

I came in the back door, in 1993. It was the bottom of the Depression, and I happened to be in Washington, D.C., studying engineering in a technical school. One evening a man walked into our course, “Stresses and Strains in Structural Steel,” and asked for the drafting class. My professor told him it was down the hall, so our visitor backed out and apologized–he'd been looking for a draftsperson. In the of 1933 any job opening looked good, so I followed him and insisted that I had the appropriate qualifications. I didn't, of course, but you'd be willing to try anything in those years.

This brief essay argues that studying the non-Spanish inhabitants of Yucatan's past requires bridging the social distance generated by differences of time and culture and that the specific nature of that distance must first be understood. With respect to the Mayas, their mystique in the modern popular and academic imaginations is as much the creation of Maya elites in ancient and colonial times as it is the product of archaeologists and historians. To demystify the Maya, we must engage mundane as well as exotic sources and be aware of the obfuscating influence of those who interpreted Maya culture before us. A complete picture of colonial Yucatan and of the colonial Mayas must include Afro-Yucatecans, or Africans and their descendents in the peninsula. Rendered invisible by historical processes and lack of scholarly attention, Afro-Yucatecans must be fully examined if we are to fully grasp the Yucatec experience, including the Yucatec Maya experience.

Lack of draft animals is often considered to have been an impediment to urban growth in Mesoamerica. Transport, however, was only one of several factors that influenced the growth of cities. This paper contrasts the effects of energetic efficiency differences between horses and human porters with productivity differences between European and Mesoamerican agricultural systems. Depending on strength and nutritional requirements, horses may be from one to five times as efficient as human porters. Furthermore, horses compete with humans for food. Where the horse played a major transport role, one-third of available, arable land was devoted to oat production. With this in mind, I compare maize versus wheat productivity to show that a unit of land in Mesoamerica could support up to twice as many people as the same unit of land in Europe. Thus, the transport advantage enjoyed by European cities is essentially offset by a more intensive agricultural system in Mesoamerica.

Over the past four decades the interpretive capacity of lithic analysis in Mesoamerica has changed dramatically. Lithic studies have grown from simple artifact descriptions to a powerful approach for studying and interpreting pre-Hispanic economy. The linchpin for this change was the development of the lithic technology approach (Collins 1975; Crabtree 1968; Flenniken 1981) and its use in asking culturally meaningful questions about the Mesoamerican past (Sheets 1975; Spence 1967). The utility of this approach is as obvious to those who employ it, as it is elusive to those who do not. It involves the recovery, analysis and interpretation of flaked stone residues, that is, the large and small flakes and chips produced when stone tools are manufactured and used. Moreover, it is the study of the mundane to view the mundane, and obtain a window onto the economic patterns of everyday life. The reward from studying thousands of ordinary flaked stone remains comes from the insight it provides for reconstructing and modeling past economic behavior.

Having fled the violence of the Caste War in Mexico (1847−1901), the San Pedro Maya occupied nearly two dozen small villages in the forests of western British Honduras and the northeastern Peten from the 1850s to the 1930s. With no physically demarcated borders between British Honduras and its neighbors present prior to the late 1880s, archival and archaeological data demonstrate that the San Pedro Maya moved freely through the lightly populated forests of the area. Ultimately, however, the San Pedro Maya's ambivalence toward the border between British Honduras and Guatemala provided the Belize Estate and Produce Company (BEC) with an excuse to evict them from their villages in the 1930s. In this article, we present archival information and archaeological data from Kaxil Uinic, a small San Pedro Maya village in British Honduras, to examine the following issues: the conflicting views of the border held by the San Pedro Maya and their colonial counterparts; the evidence for ties between Kaxil Uinic and Icaiche, Mexico; and the roles chicle smuggling and commercial logging had in the eviction of the San Pedro Maya from BEC lands.

Analyses of the faunal remains from Cerro Portezuelo indicate that the site's pre-Hispanic residents made use of both wild and domesticated animals commonly found near lakeshores and agricultural fields. Most of the faunal assemblage examined comes from a Postclassic period residential structure, providing information regarding the animal species utilized by the early inhabitants of the area and the types of household activities they engaged in using tools made from worked bone. Examination of the collections from another part of the site shows intriguing similarities to the animal selection practices previously identified in the Epiclassic period collections from Oztoyahualco, Teotihuacan.

George Hasemann, Head of the Archaeology Section of the Instituto Hondureno de Antropología e Historia (IHAH), passed away in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on October 8, 1998, at the age of 54, after a five-year struggle with cancer. He is survived by his wife and colleague Gloria Lara Pinto de Hasemann and children Ana Eugenia, Jose Enrique, Diana, and Dawn.

En el actual territorio de Sonora, México, la adopción de la agricultura y el sedentarismo estuvieron acompañados de un profundo cambio reflejado tanto en la emergencia de la cerámica como en el patrón de asentamiento entre los años 200 a 1450 d.C. Uno de estos desarrollos culturales es lo que ahora conocemos como la cultura Trincheras. Se piensa que hacia el 900 d.C. el paisaje cultural fue transformado por la aparición de asentamientos en los cerros que se conocen genéricamente como cerros de trincheras. Parecería que el emplazamiento de estos sitios no fue parte de un proceso homogéneo en su presente, sino el producto de sucesos interconectados con su pasado. En ellos, la memoria colectiva pudo haber tenido un rol fundamental en los rechazos y permanencias observadas en la cultura material. El objetivo del presente artículo es discutir las características de dos cerros de trincheras y cómo éstos pudieron haber sido el referente en la memoria colectiva de la sociedad prehispánica del noroeste de México durante el 900–1450 d.C.

How were so-called rural Maya settlements experienced by the people who lived in them? In this article, I focus on the archaeology of walking in the small site of Tzacauil, Yucatan (outlying the much larger site of Yaxuna), to explore how experiences of rurality were historically and socially contingent. Walking produces and reproduces embodied understandings of place—and, as such, can yield a more dynamic conceptualization of rurality. In Formative Tzacauil (ca. 300 b.c.–a.d. 250), grounded walking, incorporated with and sensitive to terrain, coexisted alongside groundless walking on artificial surfaces (i.e., sacbes and built walkways) imposed onto terrain. I argue that an understanding of everyday walking in Formative Tzacauil was not unlike that of urbanizing Yaxuna. I propose that only in Classic Tzacauil (ca. a.d. 550–1100) did walking become categorically different from Yaxuna, and I discuss how that shift opens new avenues for inquiry into rurality as an embodied experience of place that was always subject to change.

The Canek Manuscript offers an unusual opportunity for examination of the material culture of the Itza Maya of the seventeenth century. The document contains information about beds, canoes, musical instruments, royal jewelry and clothing, buildings, and religious objects. We interpret the textual information in terms of its reflection in the archaeological record and in ethnohistoric and ethnographic sources.

Within the decorative borders that frame the painted murals of Teotihuacan, artists constructed a unique landscape. Stylized natural imagery is frequently organized according to recurring patterns. A medallion form, for instance, sometimes surmounted by a face or headdress, may be the representation of a supernatural being that floats freely, unfettered by the constraints of gravity. Disembodied hands, painted in association with this form or as components of other structures, dispense riches that fall in carefully measured streams.

The process of Mesoamerican cultural expansion into western and northwestern Mexico has been a subject of speculation and investigation for over three centuries. Although many cultural traits have been “implicated” in this process, the practice of erecting stelae has not been one of them. Fieldwork by the author in Jalisco and Nayarit over the past 14 years has resulted in the discovery of 48 stone monuments which are proposed to be rustic versions of the usually more sophisticated stelae associated with cultures of central Mesoamerica. These west Mexican stelae are described and discussed in terms of their context, date, and possible function. Similar stone monuments from other sites in western and northwestern Mexico are also described, and relevant ethnohistoric data are presented. Finally, the diffusion of the practice of erecting stelae is discussed in relation to the process of mesoamericanization in western and northwestern Mexico.

This article presents a compositional analysis of metal artifacts from the Postclassic period (a.d. 1100–1450) city of Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico. We document metallurgical production at R-183, an elite residential group and one of the most significant archaeological contexts associated with metalworking at Mayapan. Salvage excavations in 1998 recovered a small cache containing 282 copper bells, two miniature ceramic vessels filled with metal, and production debris including loose casting sprues and miscast bells. Metallographic analysis of a small copper bell and wire fragments from the cache reveals lost-wax casting production techniques. X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF) of metal artifacts provides insight into the range of metals used by the R-183 metalworkers, which included copper-lead, copper-tin, and copper-arsenic alloys, and how these alloys compare to assemblages recovered from other contexts at the city. Our findings strongly suggest the use of remelting and casting techniques, likely utilizing remelted metals of both West and central Mexican origin, together with the use of imported goods made from a range of copper alloys.

This article discusses a category of conch-shell gorgets, mainly semielliptical in shape, which were produced during the Terminal Classic period in central Mexico and/or the Maya lowlands. We describe the iconography and style of these ornaments, seek precedents in other media for their themes, and use stylistic and epigraphic data to connect them to long-distance economic and political interactions between the Maya region and central Mexico. Although the portraits on most of the gorgets diverge from earlier Classic Maya conventions, neither do they conform to central Mexican canons. Further discoveries of such pendants in archaeological context may clarify their origins and social uses.

One of the healthiest trends in Mesoamerican studies in the past two or thee decades has been the recognition that the pre-Columbian cultures of west Mexico were full participants in the Mesoamerican world-system. Long past are the days when west Mexico was excluded from consideration as part of Mesoamerica because of seemingly exotic features such as shaft tombs and round pyramids. Another problem that distanced west Mexico conceptually from greater Mesoamerica was the lack of good chronologies which precluded an understanding of interaction between west and central Mexico. In the introduction to another recent special section, more extensive comments were offered on the history of research in west Mexican archaeology and especially the tension between the fascination with the exotic and the need to develop archaeological research programs based on both chronological and anthropological concerns (Fowler et al. 2006).

Arguably the most enigmatic of the Maya calendar cycles, the 819-day count has challenged modern scholars for decades. Even today it is not completely explained and there are several areas for further research, including its relationship with the synodic periods of the planets visible to the naked eye. Earlier research has demonstrated a four-part, color-directional scheme for the 819-day count such that each of the calendar stations progress in increments of 819 days in cycles of 4 × 819 days. Although prior research has sought to show planetary connections for the 819-day count, its four-part, color-directional scheme is too short to fit well with the synodic periods of the visible planets. By increasing the calendar length to 20 periods of 819-days a pattern emerges in which the synodic periods of all the visible planets commensurate with station points in the larger 819-day calendar.

Nací el 11 de diciembre de 1940 en la ciudad de México. Mi padre era de República Dominicana y tenía el cargo de Secretario de la embajada dominicana en México. Mi madre era de la ciudad de Puebla. Los primeros meses los pasé en México hasta que nombraron a mi padre en otro cargo diplomático en Panamá. De la estancia en este país tengo recuerdos vagos y muy difusos, hasta que viajamos a Venezuela en donde mi padre había sido nombrado Ministro. Allí recuerdo varias cosas, entre ellas una experiencia muy fuerte: hubo un golpe de Estado para derrocar al Presidente Medina Angarita y nuestra casa (la Embajada) fue asaltada. Tuvimos que salir huyendo con mi abuela y mis hermanos Fernanda y Rafael. Como éramos mexicanos nos alojamos en casa del Embajador de México, pues nuestra casa quedó destrozada. Se rompieron relaciones diplomáticas entre Dominicana y Venezuela y salimos rumbo a Santo Domingo, donde residimos poco más de un año, para posteriormente regresar a Panamá, en donde estudié los primeros años de primaria con los Hermanos Lasallistas en el Colegio Miramar.

During the spring of 1998, an El Niño event produced harsh drought conditions in much of Mexico, including the Maya area. Similar events surely occurred in the distant past. This paper reports on investigation of chronological correlations between El Niño event sequences as suggested by glacial ice-core data from Quelccaya in the Peruvian Andes, historical-severity-ranked El Niño event sequences, and historical drought documentation for the Maya area. Positive correlations between Andean ice-core data sets and historical sequences were expected to provide evidence for earlier discrete El Niño event sequences as far back as A.D. 470 that could be used as proxy data to reconstruct annual El Niño events affecting southern Mesoamerica, including the Maya Classic through Postclassic periods. Correlations of these data sets proved inconclusive, suggesting the need for alternative approaches toward reconstructing discrete El Niño sequences for the Maya area.