Black clayey soil (Vertisol) in the Lerma valley, Michoacán, North‐Central Mexico: A hint of the environmental and cultural changes during the Late Classic period?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Solleiro‐Rebolledo ◽  
Véronique Darras ◽  
Sergey Sedov ◽  
Daniela Vargas‐Rodríguez ◽  
Thania García‐Zeferino ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Clayey Soil ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Central Mexico ◽  
Late Classic ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
North Central

A MAYA CARVED SHELL PLAQUE FROM TULA, HIDALGO, MEXICO

2001 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald McVicker ◽  
Joel W. Palka
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Central Mexico ◽  
Late Classic ◽  
Field Museum ◽  
Terminal Classic ◽  
Non Local ◽  
Chichen Itza ◽  
Terminal Classic Period

In the early 1880s, a finely carved Maya shell picture plaque was found at the Toltec capital of Tula, central Mexico, and was subsequently acquired by The Field Museum in Chicago. The shell was probably re-carved in the Terminal Classic period and depicts a seated lord with associated Maya hieroglyphs on the front and back. Here the iconography and glyphic text of this unique artifact are examined, the species and habitat of the shell are described, and its archaeological and social context are interpreted. The Tula plaque is then compared with Maya carved jade picture plaques of similar size and design that were widely distributed throughout Mesoamerica, but were later concentrated in the sacred cenote at Chichen Itza. It is concluded that during the Late Classic period, these plaques played an important role in establishing contact between Maya lords and their counterparts representing peripheral and non-Maya domains. The picture plaques may have been elite Maya gifts establishing royal alliances with non-local polities and may have become prestige objects used in caches and termination rituals.

Before the Florescence

1998 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. Smyth
Keyword(s):  
Classic Period ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Central Mexico ◽  
Late Classic ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
Terminal Classic ◽  
Architectural Styles ◽  
Site Survey ◽  
Absolute Dating ◽  
Adequate Research

AbstractThe period preceding the Terminal Classic florescence in the Puuc region of Yucatan, Mexico has not received adequate research attention. Recent comprehensive site survey and excavation at Chac II (Chac) are exploring Puuc origins and have begun to redress the lack of chronological understanding regarding the region by independently linking architectural styles to ceramic sequences via a program of absolute dating. Results to date suggest that Chac was a significant Early Classic center (a.d.300–600) that also experienced a major Late Classic (a.d.600–800) occupation. Multiple lines of chronological evidence, including buildings with a mix of early architectural styles and associated pre-Cehpech and Cehpech ceramics (a.d.800–1000) within sealed architectural and stratigraphic contexts, suggest a period of architectural transition and the antecedents of Cehpech ceramics dating to the sixth century. These new chronological data and associated evidence for foreign contacts perhaps reaching to central Mexico argue for the assignment of a Middle Classic period (a.d.500–700) to the region, with broad evolutionary implications for Puuc origins and pan-Mesoamerican contacts.

The Terminal Formative to Classic Period Obsidian Assemblage at Palo Errado, Veracruz, Mexico

2009 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 507-524 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles L. F. Knight ◽  
Michael D. Glascock
Keyword(s):  
Neutron Activation Analysis ◽  
Activation Analysis ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
The Political ◽  
Central Mexico ◽  
Late Classic ◽  
Exchange Networks ◽  
Political Economies ◽  
Early Classic Period ◽  
Early Late

AbstractAbbreviated Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) was carried out on a sample of obsidian artifacts from the Terminal Formative to early Late Classic period site of Palo Errado, located in the southern Gulf lowlands of Veracruz, Mexico. Our understanding of Classic period obsidian economies in the southern Gulf lowlands has been largely informed by studies of the political economies of the highland Mexican cities of Teotihuacan and Cantona, which appear to have controlled the Pachuca and Otumba, and Zaragoza-Oyameles obsidian sources, respectively. However, the NAA results from Palo Errado indicate that while the local obsidian economy was dominated by prismatic blade technology utilizing Zaragoza-Oyameles obsidian, five additional highland Mexican sources were used during the Early Classic period. The presence of Ucareo and the use of Otumba in core-blade reduction, for instance, set Palo Errado apart from contemporary sites in the southern Gulf lowlands. Temporal variation in quantity of supplemental obsidian sources and their use in different reduction technologies suggest that consumers at Palo Errado had access to abundant Zaragoza-Oyameles obsidian of a quality high enough to facilitate the production of fine prismatic blades. At the same time, however, they continued to participate in exchange networks that tied them to other areas of central Mexico, independently from other contemporaneous sites in the southern Gulf lowlands.

Uranium and arsenic dynamics in volcano-sedimentary basins – An exemplary study in North-Central Mexico

2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (11) ◽  
pp. 2160-2172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andre Banning ◽  
Antonio Cardona ◽  
Thomas R. Rüde
Keyword(s):  
Sedimentary Basins ◽  
Central Mexico ◽  
North Central

Changing Patterns of Ritual Activity in an Unlooted Cave in Central Guatemala

2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brent K.S. Woodfill ◽  
Stanley Guenter ◽  
Mirza Monterroso
Keyword(s):  
Classic Period ◽  
Late Classic ◽  
Interregional Trade ◽  
Terminal Classic ◽  
Changing Patterns ◽  
Ritual Activity ◽  
Trade Route ◽  
Northern Highlands

AbstractThe Cave of Hun Nal Ye, located in central Guatemala, was discovered unlooted by a local landowner in 2005 and was immediately subject to investigation by the authors. The cave contained ritual remains dating to between the Terminal Pre-classic and Terminal Classic. In addition to allowing a detailed reconstruction of ritual activity in the northern highlands, its presence along the Great Western Trade Route allows archaeologists to examine hypotheses about interregional trade during the Classic period. In particular, changes in the ritual assemblage between the Early and Late Classic indicate that the cave was an important trade shrine for merchants and travelers passing between the highlands and lowlands until ca. A.D. 550, at which point it became a local shrine used to reinforce elite power. These changes are then linked to larger patterns occurring in other parts of the trade route, especially to Tikal and the kingdoms along the Pasión and Usumacinta rivers.

Analysis of the Context and Contents of an Ulua-Style Marble Vase from the Palmarejo Valley, Honduras

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Christian Wells ◽  
Karla L. Davis-Salazar ◽  
José E. Moreno-Cortes ◽  
Glenn S. L. Stuart ◽  
Anna C. Novotny
Keyword(s):  
Stable Isotope ◽  
Stable Isotope Analysis ◽  
Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
Isotope Analysis ◽  
Human Remains ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Late Classic ◽  
Residential Group ◽  
Holistic Understanding ◽  
Political Economic

Ulúa-style marble vases played important social, political, economic, and religious roles in southern Mesoamerica during the seventh through eleventh centuries A.D. However, most such vessels known to archaeologists are part of looted collections or else were unearthed before the advent of modern archaeological practices. As a result, little is known about the context, use, and chronology of these objects. Recent investigations at the site of Palos Blancos in northwest Honduras discovered an Ulúa-style marble vase in an undisturbed mortuary context. Excavation of the burial context, along with bioarchaeological and stable isotope analysis of the human remains, suggests that the vase was placed as an offering, possibly to an ancestor of the residential group. Phosphate and pollen studies indicate that the vase once held a corn-based beverage . Radiocarbon dating of four charcoal samples from immediately below and adjacent to the vase yielded a range of dates from the beginning of the Late Classic period, ca.A.D. 600-800. Through analyses of the context and contents of the vase, this research contributes to a more holistic understanding of the use and meaning of Ulúa-style marble vases in southern Mesoamerica.

Linguistic Divergence and the Collapse of Preclassic Civilization in Southern Mesoamerica

1987 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 367-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce H. Dahlin ◽  
Robin Quizar ◽  
Andrea Dahlin
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Communication Networks ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Late Classic ◽  
Postclassic Period ◽  
Proximate Cause ◽  
Terminal Classic ◽  
Early Postclassic ◽  
Ultimate Cause ◽  
Early Classic Period

Based on published lexicostatistical dates, two intervals in the prehistory of southern Mesoamerica stand out as fertile periods in terms of the generation of new languages: the Terminal Preclassic/early Early Classic Periods, and the Early Postclassic Period. After comparing archaeological evidence with language distributions within the subregions of southern Mesoamerica during the first of these periods, we conclude that the cultural processes during both periods had the same potential for producing rapid rates of linguistic divergences. Just as rapid proliferation of linguistic divisions was symptomatic of the well-known collapse of Late Classic Maya civilization, so it can be taken as a sign of a collapse of Terminal Preclassic civilization. Both collapses were characterized by severe population reductions, site abandonments, an increasing balkanization in material culture, and disruption of interregional communication networks, conditions that were contributory to the kind of linguistic isolation that allows language divergences. Unlike in the Terminal Classic collapse episode, small refuge zones persisted in the Early Classic Period that served as sources of an evolving classicism; these refuge zones were exceptions, however, not the rule. Although the collapse of each site had its own proximate cause, we suggest that the enormous geographical range covered by these Early Classic Period site failures points to a single ultimate cause affecting the area as a whole, such as the onset of a prolonged and devastating climatic change.

THE MURAL PAINTINGS OF EL ZAPOTAL, VERACRUZ, MEXICO

2010 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cherra Wyllie
Keyword(s):  
Classic Period ◽  
Late Classic ◽  
Architectural Elements ◽  
Mural Paintings ◽  
Form Part ◽  
National Treasures

AbstractDuring the 1970s, excavations at El Zapotal revealed a Late Classic period ossuary with multiple burials, sumptuous funerary offerings, and life-sized terracotta sculpture individually on a par with the Chinese national treasures from Xi'an. Less known are murals adorning a U-shaped banquette centering on the monumental clay sculpture of a skeletal Death God.Wyllie, through the assistance of Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Veracruz, produced drawings of the now deteriorating paintings. The murals form part of a larger narrative program integrating sculpture, architectural elements, burial offerings, and human osteological remains connected with Mesoamerican underworld stories of creation.

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