The unexpected discovery of two reused fragments of an ancient mantic manuscript in Oaxaca casts new insights on scribal and divinatory practices at the eve of the Spanish conquest. This paper describes, analyzes, and interprets the faded inscriptions in the two fragments, comparing the structure of the calendrical notations and the painted imagery with those written on the handful of extant pre-Hispanic screenfolds. Although certain patterns allow us to posit the possible relationship between the fragments, other seeming deviations in the reckonings of the divinatory calendar lead us to conclude that the manuscript from which the two fragments originate evinces a distinct scribal and mantic regional variant.

La región del río Candelaria se vio en varias ocasiones afectada por los cambios climáticos. Los niveles del río variaron en el transcurso de los siglos significativamente y esto afectó a los chontales de Acalan que vivieron a filo del agua para bien o para mal, ya que su vida giraba alrededor de ella. Sus casas, campos de cultivo y ciudades fueron afectadas por los niveles que alcanzó el río. Las evidencias paleoecológicas conocidas todavía son escasas y los comentarios que se hacen son tentativos, sin embargo, por ser una región de ríos, lagunas y pantanos se sabe que estuvo sometida a momentos críticos y problemáticos, que de alguna manera queda reflejada en la ocupación prehispánica de la región.

It was not so long ago, even in my own work, that Teotihuacan art was explained in terms of Aztec meaning (Pasztory 1973). Yet its unique composite character, combined seemingly endlessly from a limited set of signs, was also apparent quite early; and the basic cluster of imagery was defined by many, including Hasso von Winning (1987) and Laurette Séjourné (1956). Their aim was to group the signs around deities or at least into motif clusters. A major division everyone has tried to make is between fertility and war imagery. That notion, too, is Aztec derived, with the twin temple dedicated at Tenochititlan to Tlaloc, the rain god, and to Huitzilopochtli, the war god. We have hung on to this distinction as an intellectual life-belt even though even a cursory study can show that water and war imagery are often intermixed. In a short but provocative article, Kubler (1967) suggested a structural and linguistic reading of Teotihuacan art focusing on images that stand as nouns (main figures) and others as adjectives or adverbs (borders, costumes, etc.). In a long study full of excellent observation, Langley (1986) analyzed the signs and their clustering in the most sophisticated manner so far. The only shortcoming of his study is his search for writing at Teotihuacan and an unwillingness to accept it for what it is: a nonnarrative system of art.

Elizabeth M. Brumfiel began work in Aztec studies by tackling nothing less than the economic symbiotic model of Aztec exchange and specialization. Her findings at Huexotla and Xico questioned this model and in its place Brumfiel focused on the politics of exchange and strategies of both state power and commoner households. Her long-term archaeological project at Xaltocan built on and expanded those themes by applying social theories to understand Aztec society, and inequalities more generally, from a bottom-up agency perspective. These intellectual commitments also guided Brumfiel's engagement with community archaeology and her professional leadership.

Dental indicators of health and subsistence for Postclassic Maya from the island site of Wild Cane Cay, off the coast of southern Belize, are examined. A total of 213 teeth were recovered from 26 individuals in Fighting Conch Mound. This survey documents dental wear, calculus, alveolar resorption, caries, and alveolar abscesses. This study excludes deciduous teeth. The total sample examined in this study contains 188 teeth from 19 adults. In general, the dental sample indicates a healthier diet than what the inland contemporaries of the Fighting Conch Mound individuals were consuming, as shown by lower rates of several pathologies. The dental data support the interpretation that the healthy diet of the Wild Cane Cay Maya was a function of their island setting in the Caribbean. Plant and animal remains generally corroborate the dental findings.

This article studies the sculptural corpus of the Matlatzinca state before it was conquered in the mid-1470s by the Aztec Empire. Previously, Matlatzinco had been an independent polity in the northern part of the Valley of Toluca surrounding the traditional center of government, which was also called Matlatzinco. After invading the area, the Aztecs renamed this city Calixtlahuaca and established their own provincial capital at nearby Tollocan (modern Toluca). Making Calixtlahuaca a symbol of control over the area, the Aztecs raised new architecture phases in the ancient city center and installed Aztec-style deity images.

Teotihuacan es reconocido mundialmente como uno de los sitios arqueológicos más importantes para la investigación de las sociedades complejas, sin embargo, y a pesar de estar incluido desde 1987 en la lista de Patrimonio Cultural de la Humanidad por la UNESCO, en la actualidad enfrenta severos problemas que inciden directa y desfavorablemente en la conservación de los vestigios arqueológicos. Diversas situaciones de carácter administrativo también afectan los acervos que se resguardan de manera muy precaria en las instalaciones, bodegas y los dos museos ubicados dentro de la zona de monumentos.

En los últimos años la exigencia de las cada vez más pobladas comunidades aledañas a la zona arqueológica por tener y mejorar los servicios públicos tanto como el crecimiento de la mancha urbana, ha provocado graves afectaciones al patrimonio arqueológico. Aunado a los problemas económicos del país, la ausencia de una política institucional, la falta de planes de trabajo a mediano y largo plazo encaminados a la preservación de los bienes arqueológicos del sitio, así como de programas dirigidos a las comunidades para concientizarlas e involucrarlas directamente en la conservación, han generado una actitud hostil y de desprecio de los pobladores para con los restos arqueológicos. Sin una estrategia institucional y alternativas viables para los habitantes de las comunidades, la mayor destrucción es ocasionada por los propios pobladores del valle o peor aún, por las instancias de gobierno estatal y municipal encargadas de dotar de los servicios a las comunidades.

En este artículo se analizan algunos de problemas que afectan el patrimonio arqueológico de Teotihuacan. Se hace hincapié en la carencia de planes y programas de trabajo con objetivos a largo y mediano plazo, que ayuden a la preservación de los bienes arqueológicos, así como de la información que constituye los distintos acervos.

The Friedenstein Palace in Gotha, Germany, holds a Late Postclassic Mesoamerican bird head sculpture made of wood encrusted with precious stone and shell mosaic. Although known since the nineteenth century, scholars have not given the artifact the attention it deserves. Based on observations made during a thorough in situ inspection, we provide a detailed description of the object, stressing both technological and aesthetic aspects, documented through new photos and reconstructive drawings prepared by Nicolas Latsanopoulos. Then, we offer an interpretation of the artifact's iconography, demonstrating it should be understood as a representation of the Wind God in its manifestation as a Tzitzimitl, a category of deities associated with creation and destruction; an aspect made evident in the small figure adorning the avian forehead. We finally reconstruct the collection history of the object, suggesting that the Giustiniani family, a prominent Roman noble family renowned for its collecting activities, once owned the sculpture; in turn, this proposal might imply that the Dominican friar Domingo de Betanzos brought the mosaic to Italy in 1532 and that it might be originally from the Puebla-Tlaxcala Valley or, more broadly, from the south-central area of the modern state of Puebla.

In this study, I use the type-variety-mode analysis to define the diagnostic ceramic material for the Ik'hubil Ceramic Complex dating to the Terminal Classic (ca. a.d. 780–930/1000). The percentages of shared ceramic content indicate that multiple sites in the mid-to-lower Sibun Valley are members of an Ik'hubil Ceramic Sphere. My preliminary analyses of sites in the lower Belize River valley suggest that the Ik'hubil Sphere may extend across a broader area of north-central Belize during the Terminal Classic, discrete from the Spanish Lookout Sphere in the upper Belize Valley. Northern Yucatec traits are identified in ceramics and architecture in the eastern Sibun and Belize Valleys, along with marked changes in foodways. The presence of trading diasporas and more intimate social relationships, such as intermarriage, may explain this mix of local and hybrid forms of material culture introduced by the ninth century in this part of the eastern Maya Lowlands.

La guerra florida es considerada un conflicto en el cual se enfrentaron, durante muchos años, la Triple Alianza Azteca y los reinos del valle tlaxcalteco-poblano. Por mucho tiempo la xochiyaoyotl se ha estudiado como una guerra ritual, prolongada en el tiempo y basada en un recíproco acuerdo. Según las teorías críticas que avaloran esta tesis, el fin de la xochiyaoyotl era obtener las víctimas cuyo sacrificio proveía la alimentación de los dioses. Sin embargo, en las últimas décadas del siglo XX, gracias al descubrimiento y a la traducción de nuevos documentos relativos a la historia prehispánica, el concepto ritual y religioso de la xochiyaoyotl ha empezado a cuestionarse. La fuente que otorga más detalles sobre la xochiyaoyotl es la obra del cronista chalca Domingo Chimalpahin. Este testimonio da evidencia de enfrentamientos llamados xochiyaoyotl precedentes al reinado de Motecuhzoma Ilhuicamina, en que estuvieron involucrados primeramente chalcas y tlacochcalcas y, después, los mexicas. A través del análisis del testimonio de Chimalpahin este estudio busca matizar las teorías acerca de la finalidad puramente ritual de la xochiyaoyotl, avanzando como hipótesis que los mexicas se adueñaron del concepto de xochiyaoyotl, desarrollándolo conforme a las nuevas necesidades políticas sobrevenidas.

Drawing upon iconological theory, this article argues that mirrors and blood were regarded as a conceptually linked pair within the imperial ideology of Teotihuacan, Mexico from the second century onward. The relationship between blood and mirrors is shown to have codified with the construction of the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent, Teotihuacan's third largest edifice. This monument's facade was adorned with hundreds of monumental sculptures of oracular mirrors, some number of which incorporated actual mirrors formed of obsidian. I demonstrate that the Teotihuacan mirror sign took obsidian, a form of black volcanic glass that was intensively worked in the city, as a key referent. This monument was also the site of a historically large human sacrifice of more than 200 individuals, an event argued here to have involved bloodletting with obsidian knives and blades. I note that Teotihuacan interest in the mirror icon increased in concert with the city's residents’ application of the reflective material of obsidian to warring and other blood-spilling behaviors. The mirror icon evoked both obsidian as a radiant material, as well as obsidian's potential for application to forceful martial actions. The article concludes that this icon in part signified imperial force, which was made real through the weaponization of the smoking glass.

The island nature of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, is an under-studied aspect in our understanding of this unique urban space, located in the Mexican highlands of Mesoamerica. The island location induces cross-links from aquatic and terrestrial paths to create connectivity and continuity within the lacustrine cultural landscape of the Basin of Mexico during the Postclassic period (a.d. 900–1521). Although Cortés described this city as the “Venice of the New World,” no specific and systematic investigation of facilities related to water transport has been carried out. In this article, I fill this gap through a study of navigation routes which were conceived to facilitate the continuous movement of people and goods through the numerous canals crisscrossing the Aztec capital, and which are identifiable by means of anthropic markers that respond to functional needs. Transition zones (piers, quays, shoreline areas), coordination zones (ports), and activity zones (customs facilities, warehouses, bridges, sacred sites) are all related to the practice of water transport and intimately related to terrestrial roads. I identify and locate these areas using a multidisciplinary methodology based on archaeological data, ethnohistorical testimonies, and pictographic and iconographic documents.

En las unidades domésticas de las comunidades chinamperas en Xochimilco del posclásico tardío, han sido localizadas un tipo de jarras que tienen como característica principal una aplicación en la parte frontal de la pieza que posiblemente representa una deidad. Con el propósito de entender su función y establecer elementos que permitan identificar estos objetos y su uso en otros contextos, proponemos estudiar estas piezas mediante métodos diferentes a los de los análisis formales tradicionales. Este trabajo expone los resultados de los estudios de residuos químicos impregnados en materiales porosos (spot test) y análisis de gránulos de almidón de 27 muestras obtenidas en 26 ejemplares de jarras efigie procedentes de tres sitios al sur de la cuenca de México. Los resultados indican que fueron enriquecidas con fosfatos, residuos proteicos, carbohidratos, y ácidos grasos, mientras que los almidones recuperados indican una presencia importante de maíz, y en menor medida, de camote, chile, y dioscórea. Basado en lo anterior, en sus contextos de procedencia y en la identificación de las deidades representadas, proponemos que estas jarras contenían bebidas de maíz y que fueron utilizadas en ceremonias domésticas dedicadas a la agricultura—como la fiesta de Huey Tozoztli, entre otras—del calendario mexica.

In the paper by Hristov and Genovés (1999), the main supporting argument for their hypothesis of pre-Columbian transoceanic contacts is a thermoluminescence (TL) age of 1780 ± 400 b.p. obtained for a small terracotta head found in central Mexico. This age value and the reference cited are not correct. In this contribution, we clarify the context and give for the first time our final results of the TL age analysis of the figurine. Due to methodological problems, we were not able to perform a traditional TL age determination. It was, however, possible to calculate an age range from A.D. 1270 to 870 B.C. for the small head, corresponding to firing in antiquity. This resulting age probably rules out a Colonial manufacturing date, but because of its low accuracy, it certainly cannot be used as an argument in the debate over the head's origin, or even as central evidence for pre-Columbian transoceanic contacts.

I conclude that Hanns Prem's article in this issue is correct in the assessment that the Canek Manuscript is a forgery. This evaluation resulted from extensive communication with Prem and from additional research suggesting that the author of the Canek Manuscript used a 1917 publication by Philip Ainsworth Means and the writings of Sylvanus G. Morley as aids in constructing the text of the document. The forger's references to the Itza capital as Tayasal and to the Tayasal peninsula follow modern, not seventeenth-century, conventions, an error that reinforces Prem's conclusions. The discovery of a family of forgeries, of which the Canek Manuscript is a particularly convincing one, should make future researchers wary of single documents that differ significantly from others of the Colonial era.

The aim of this work is to approach the strategies of transmitting knowledge of the past among the Nahua of the early Colonial period. The alphabetical sources of that epoch present a specific mix of contemporary European historiography and pre-Hispanic Nahua cultural memory. This article focuses on the second aspect, namely cultural memory that was a constant dialogue between the historical facts and the mythical structures into which these facts were “accommodated” to become culturally meaningful. The article analyzes narratives of two Aztec princesses called Chalchiuhnenetzin. The women named Chalchiuhnenetzin appear in two different historical contexts but, as shown in the analysis, the morphology of both stories and the role played by both women are quite similar. Thus, they can be regarded as examples of cultural re-elaboration of history by predominantly oral cultures.

The aim of this paper is to use the example of one type of pre-Hispanic Nahua song, the teponazcuicatl, or “log-drum song,” to present the problems that arise in the classification of preconquest Nahua verbal art identified by sixteenth century Europeans according to Western criteria of categorization as songs, poetry, or the verbal component of performances. A close examination of this genre, focused on its relationship with performance and, particularly, with pre-Hispanic theater, provides insights into how sixteenth century scribes' interpretation of Nahua oral discourse and the graphic arrangement of the alphabetically transcribed text influenced in the way Nahua culture and discourse are perceived.