Lisa Overholtzer, Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fieldwork Grant Proposal

Project Title: Household Spaces and Everyday Practices at Postclassic Xaltocan, Mexico

Project Abstract: This project will examine the social, political, and economic transition that occurred at the Postclassic Central Mexican site of Xaltocan with its conquest and integration into the Aztec state, focusing on the ways in which commoners changed everyday life in their new context. Drawing on practice theory, space/place theories, and theories of contact and conquest, this project will evaluate ethnohistoric accounts that Xaltocan was abandoned upon being conquered after a long war and was resettled with Aztec tribute payers, and it will explore the ways in which Xaltocan was (re)formed through household spatial practices under Aztec rule. To do so, broad-scale horizontal excavations at two low house mounds known to contain stratified domestic deposits dating to the phases before and after incorporation into the Aztec state will be carried out. In addition to the analysis of artifact distributions, multi-element soil chemical analysis and microartifact analysis will be used to reconstruct otherwise invisible spatial patterns of activity. Strontium isotope analysis of teeth will be used to detect patterns in migration and to test the population replacement account. This project integrates scientific and humanistic approaches through the application of GIS and quantitative high-resolution techniques to a research question conceptualized using social theory that focuses on human agency; thus, this project is poised to make a significant, innovative contribution to archaeological practice. This project will also make a theoretical contribution by offering a long-term case study of the commoner experience of war and conquest, and by considering bottom-up processes, specifically household decisions made at Xaltocan, such as the decisions to flee or to rebuild, that contributed to the character of the Aztec empire.

Project Description Question 1: Describe your research question/hypothesis or research objective. That is, what will the focus of your investigation be?

This proposal outlines an archaeological research project to study commoners’ lives under state formation and imperial expansion, and the ways in which a place is changed with incorporation into an empire. The main goal of the research project is to understand the social, political, and economic transition at the site of Xaltocan, Mexico with conquest and integration into the Aztec state, and the ways in which commoners changed household life in their new context.

Xaltocan is a Postclassic site located in the northern Basin of Mexico on what was formerly a human-made island. Xaltocan is exceptionally well positioned for the task of examining changes in household uses of space because it is one of the few sites in the Basin of Mexico with intact domestic architecture preceding and following the formation of the Aztec Empire. In addition, the site has already been mapped and surveyed and a site chronology established via a test-piting program during twenty years of archaeological research directed by my advisor, Elizabeth Brumfiel (Brumfiel 2005b). According to ethnohistoric documents, Xaltocan was founded in the 11th century CE by Otomí speakers and was an important regional center of a domain that included 49 towns and an additional 24 with tribute fields (Alva Ixtlilxóchitl 1975-77; Nazareo 1940; see Carrasco 1950). After a war lasting from 1250 to 1395, Xaltocan was conquered by a Tepanec alliance between Cuauhtitlan and Azcapotzalco, and was abandoned by its inhabitants (Anales de Cuauhtitlan 1945). In 1428, Xaltocan was incorporated into the Aztec empire and repopulated with tribute payers said to have been Acolman, Colhua, Tenochca, and Otomí peoples sent by the state. In the archaeological chronology of the site, the period of warfare corresponds to Phase 3. Phase 4 represents the new occupation until the colonial period. However, archaeological survey data from the site have cast doubt on a complete population replacement, and suggest that the abandonment cited in the documents may refer only to elites, with most residents staying and re-building their houses under Aztec rule (Brumfiel 2005a; Hicks 1994). This uncertain transition between Phases 3 and 4 is the focus of the proposed project.

This project will address the following questions. How did Xaltocan as a place change with incorporation into the Aztec empire? Was the disaster of losing the war so great as to lead to abandonment, or did residents re-build? How was Xaltocan (re)formed through household spatial practices, whether by previous inhabitants who stayed or by new settlers? Given changes in the socio-political and economic context between Phases 3 and 4, my hypotheses are as follows:

Hypothesis 1) There were dramatic changes in household practices and use of space. Such changes might be evident in architectural design and type and location of household practices. Two distinct situations could account for this change:

Subhypothesis A) Xaltocan was abandoned and resettled, and the new settlers had a different history of practices structuring their daily lives—they had different traditions, values, worldviews, cultural logics (Hutson and Stanton 2007), or habitus (Bourdieu 1977). They had lived and learned the bodily memory of a different configuration of spatial practices (de Certeau 1984). Based on previous research and the distribution of stone on the surface, it is likely that Phase 4 houses had adobe walls and stone foundations. Phase 3 construction techniques are unknown, but houses from Phases 1 and 2 are constructed of adobe bricks with clay foundations (Espejel 2005). I expect that the use of stone, a material likely procured from a location farther away than nearby clay sources, is associated with new settlers with distinct architectural

traditions. Similarly, changes in the placement and orientation of burials underneath house floors might indicate that new residents held different beliefs about death. Finally, test pit data at Xaltocan suggest a decreased reliance on hunting and salt-making and an increased reliance on turkey in Phase 4 (Brumfiel 2005c), implying that residents had different culinary preferences and did not take advantage of their lacustrine setting to the same extent as earlier inhabitants.

Subhypothesis B) Dramatic spatial changes could have occurred without a population replacement, due entirely to changes in the political economy. Recent excavations in the chinampas or raised fields in Xaltocan yielded ceramics dating through Phase 3, but almost none from Phase 4 (Morehart, personal communication). Households might have had a different pattern of practices in the chinampa lands during Phase 4, or they might have abandoned those agricultural fields at the time of incorporation into the Aztec state. This might result from a break in the social relationships that had sustained such an intensive practice or from an intensification of other practices, such as the weaving of cloth, to meet tribute demands. Similar changes might be seen in the household excavations of the proposed project. For example, I expect that changes in the spatial patterning of practices or domestic architecture might result from families altering their productive activities or the division of household labor in order to meet tribute demands and ensure functionality in times of stress. Such changes have been documented on the site level in the Late Postclassic (Brumfiel 1991), and on the household level in the colonial period (Cabrera 1998), but not on the household level in the pre-Hispanic period.

Hypothesis 2) Alternatively, no significant changes occurred in household practices and use of space. Two distinct scenarios could explain a lack of change.

Subhypothesis A) The new settlers did not have distinct traditions and habitus, and the political, economic, and social changes did not significantly impact daily life.

Subhypothesis B) Xaltocan was not abandoned and re-settled, and residents chose and were able to re-construct household life following pre-conquest norms.

Preliminary evidence from survey, test pits, and chinampa excavations at Xaltocan suggests the presence of significant changes in household life, lending provisional support to Hypothesis 1. However, archaeological evidence from houses from Phases 3 and 4 is needed to examine changes in individual households, and if confirmed, delineate the nature of such changes and determine whether changes are due to abandonment and resettlement by tribute payers from elsewhere or to decisions made by households rebuilding within their new political and economic context.

Project Description Question 2: How does your research build on existing scholarship in anthropology and closely related disciplines? Give specific examples of this scholarship and its findings.

Two main bodies of scholarship inform this proposal. First, my research builds upon a growing emphasis in anthropological archaeology on the study of household life and social practices. Second, my research is informed by ethnohistoric and archaeological studies of Postclassic Central Mexican households and the shifting political and economic contexts in which they were situated. The position of this project at the intersection of these two bodies of research will allow it to make substantive contributions to both.

Much of the archaeological work on household dynamics, everyday life, and social practices (Ashmore 2002; Dobres and Robb 2000; Hendon 1996; Robin 2003) has utilized practice theory, which posits that people in the past were social agents who had choices, goals, and intentions, but who lived in a social and historical context only partly of their own making (Bourdieu 1977; de Certeau 1984; Giddens 1984). In this view, the practices of social agents construct society, and the sequences of agents' actions, and their intended and unintended consequences, structure the actions of later agents; over time the chains of repeated practices constitute what we recognize as traditions (Joyce and Lopiparo 2005).

Given that all practices are spatial, scholars have begun to explore the continuous construction of place as people build, rebuild, and experience the world around them (Pred 1984). Practice and space/place theories, and their emphasis on an “historical examination of repeated practices” are particularly amenable to archaeological research since repeated practices are those that are inscribed in the archaeological record (Joyce and Lopiparo 2005:370). These theories are also well suited to examine changes in practice that result from war or conquest, since war and conquest necessarily lead to dramatic changes in peoples’ lives (Deagan 1996; Lightfoot et al. 1998; Stahl 1994; Voss 2005, 2008). Silliman (2001) demonstrates the productivity of exploring changes in daily practice in culture-contact or conquest situations as people react to a rupture that can take place in doxa, the taken-for-granted understandings of the political and cosmological order (Bourdieu 1977). Similarly, Dawdy (2006) argues that disasters such as warfare can result in either continuity or upheaval; the ways in which people re(form) a place after a disaster is revelatory about the disaster, its consequences, and the community before the disaster.

In this vein, the proposed project will view Xaltocan’s conquest as a disaster that likely caused a rupture in doxa, and will explore the ways in which Xaltocan was re-built and household space transformed after incorporation into the Aztec state. It will examine everyday life and the creation of place through repeated household practices, focusing on changes in the ways residents used, experienced, and transformed household space before and after incorporation into the Aztec empire. By doing so, this project will contribute to the development of practice theory, specifically within conquest contexts. Nearly all culture contact and conquest studies have examined European colonial settings; by providing a pre-Columbian conquest case study, my research will challenge extant models.

My research will also build upon ethnographic and archaeological research on houses and households in Postclassic Central Mexico. The Florentine Codex, a colonial encyclopedia of native life, includes illustrations and descriptions of 23 types of houses, including possible regional variants (Sahagún 1950-82, Bk.11). Households consisted of either nuclear single-roomed or joint households in which rooms grouped around an open patio were used for sleeping, storage rooms, or kitchens, the patio being the site of most activities (Aguilera 1985;

Calnek 1972, 1976; Evans 1992; Kellogg 1992; Lockhart 1992; Lombardo de Ruiz 1973). Archaeological excavations of houses have generally confirmed these patterns. Aztec-period household excavations have been carried out in the Basin of Mexico at Cihuatecpan (Evans 1988), Cerro Gordo (Charlton 2001), Xochimilco (Ávila López 1995; González 1996), and Mexicaltzingo (Ávila López 2006); in Morelos at Yautepec, Capilco, and Cuexcomate (Smith 1992a, 1992b; Smith et al. 1999); and in the Tehuacan Valley (Sisson 1973). However, only the Morelos studies have examined houses from before and after Aztec state formation; the proposed project will provide the first such comparison within the Basin of Mexico, the heartland of the Aztec empire.

I will also expand upon archaeological research on the political and economic processes associated with the development of the Aztec state (Berdan 1975; Berdan et al. 1996; Brumfiel 1980, 1983, 1986, 1987, 1991a, 1991b, 1996a, 1996b; Charlton et al. 1991, 1993; Hassig 1985, 1988; Hicks 2005; Hodge and Neff 2005; Hodge and Smith 1994; Minc 1994; Nichols et al. 2000, 2002; Smith 1979, 1986, 2003, 2008; Smith and Berdan 1992; Smith and Montiel 2001). This body of research has sought to address the implications of state formation for people living in the region, and has shed light on topics such as production and specialization of goods, market trade, and tribute impositions. One of the central debates of this research has been the amount of state intervention and the degree to which the Aztec state affected household life. Brumfiel (1986, 1987, 1991a, 1991b, 1996b) has argued that Aztec tribute demands resulted in a dramatic restructuring of productive activities with an increased burden on women. While acknowledging the effects of tribute demands, Smith (1992b, 2003) has argued that under Aztec rule commoners benefited from increased commercialization of an economy in which productive activities such as crafts, farming, and exchange were not under elite control.

This research helps us understand the household activities that might have been affected for residents of Xaltocan who chose to rebuild. However, by asking how the Aztec state affected daily life, scholars have focused on top-down regional-level processes; as a consequence, the choices commoners had and the decisions they made have been elided (but see Brumfiel 1991a, 1996a, 1996b). By using practice theory, and by reframing the question to ask how commoners altered household practices within their changing social contexts—while taking into account the real structural forces that accompanied state formation—my research pays attention to the lives of all social actors. The proposed project explores the ways in which commoners both responded to political economic shifts and proactively shaped the nature of the Aztec state, for example, through decisions to flee or to stay, or to engage in certain productive activities. By doing so, my research will provide new insight into the Aztec state.

Project Description Question 3: What evidence will you need to collect to answer your research question? How will you go about collecting and analyzing this evidence?

To test these hypotheses and subhypotheses, I propose detailed excavations of two low house mounds on the eastern edge of the site, called Structures 122 and 124 in Brumfiel’s 1987 survey. Surface collections on both mounds and the surrounding area included Phase 3 (Aztec II) and Phase 4 (Aztec III and IV) ceramics (Brumfiel 2005a). Operation K, a test pit placed on Structure 124, revealed Phase 4 household deposits from the surface to 60 cm, and Phase 3 household deposits from 60 to 120 cm before reaching the lakebed (Brumfiel 2005a). In spring 2009, prior to the proposed field season, the mounds and surrounding area will be mapped and geophysical remote sensing will be used to identify buried architecture as part of a collaborative project with Dr. Luis Barba of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

During a six-month field season, broad-scale horizontal excavations of houses will expose patterns of spatial use. Three teams of three local workers will begin excavating 2x2m units that will be placed where remote sensing suggests that buried house walls are located. Once architectural features are encountered, additional 2x2m units will be placed in order to excavate the structure horizontally. All units will be excavated to the sterile lakebed. Excavation units will be directed by the principal investigator and two Mexican undergraduate students with whom I have worked in the field previously, Iziar Martínez Rojo and Georgina Ibarra Arzave. The Harris Matrix system, a diagramming tool that depicts the relative position and stratigraphic contacts of excavated contexts, will be used during excavations to ensure stratigraphic control. All in-situ artifacts will be mapped in three-dimensional space. Architectural features will be documented, mapped, and consolidated according to the standards established by the Mexican government. Digital photographs and video will be taken extensively during excavation and analysis to document the archaeological process for research and dissemination.

Analysis of ceramics and lithics, which comprise the majority of recovered artifacts, will be carried out in late afternoons as excavations proceed, and will continue full-time for an additional five months. All other analyses will be performed after excavations have ended. After analysis, all materials will be stored in the local museum. Ceramics and lithics will be analyzed by the principal investigator in a laboratory space rented in Xaltocan, with the assistance of Juana Arenas, a local resident who has previously assisted Brumfiel with analysis. Botanical and faunal remains will be analyzed at UNAM under the supervision of Dr. Emily McClung and Dr. Raúl Valadéz Azúa, respectively. Shell will be analyzed by Dr. Adrián Velázquez Castro of the Templo Mayor Museum. Twelve radiocarbon samples will analyzed by AMS at the University of Arizona to date the deposits.

Given that artifact distributions may not accurately reflect activities due to routine sweeping and post-depositional processes (Deal 1985; Schiffer 1972, 1976; Seymour and Schiffer 1987), I will also utilize high-resolution microanalysis techniques to identify otherwise invisible activity patterns. These techniques will include multi-element soil chemical analysis and microartifact analysis of samples from floors.

Soil chemical analysis is used to measure chemical changes in the soil composition that result from human activities such as food production and burning. I will use ICP-AES (Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectrometry), which has been utilized with great success in Mesoamerica (Hutson and Terry 2006; Middleton 1998; Parnell and Terry 2002; Terry et al. 2004; Wells et al. 2000). Chemical signatures of various activities identified by ethnoarchaeological projects in Mexico (Barba and Ortiz 1992; Middleton 1998; Middleton and Price 1996) will aid interpretation of the data. Soil samples will be taken of each floor at 50 cm

intervals and compared to off-site samples. Analysis will be performed at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

As another line of evidence, I will utilize microartifact analysis. Microartifacts, or artifacts less than ¼” in size, are not removed by sweeping and become imbedded in floor sediments with trampling (Gifford 1978; O'Connell 1987; Schiffer 1983). Microartifact analyses have been successfully used worldwide for several decades (Metcalfe and Health 1990; Middleton 1998; Miller-Rosen 1989; Rainville 2000; Sherwood et al. 1995; Simms and Heath 1990; Stahl and Zeidler 1990; Widmer 1991). Microartifacts will be recovered from the heavy fraction of seven-liter soil flotation samples taken at two-meter intervals across floor surfaces. The heavy fraction samples will be sorted by size and material, then counted and weighed. Analysis will be performed by the principal investigator at Northwestern University.

All of these data will be entered into a Geographic Information System (GIS) for spatial analysis. In combination with point-proveniencing and traditional analysis of artifacts, the soil chemical and microartifact analyses will allow the reconstruction of spatial patterning of repeated practices in the household. A comparison of this patterning between Phases 3 and 4 will indicate possible changes in the construction of place in the household at Xaltocan.

In addition to the archaeological evidence for people’s lifestyles, I will be able to directly determine if Xaltocan was resettled in Phase 4 through strontium isotope analysis of tooth enamel (Knudson and Buikstra in press; Knudson et al. 2004; Montgomery et al. 2005; Price et al. 1994a, 1994b; Wright 2005), a method that has been used successfully to examine patterns in migration within Central Mexico (Manzanilla 2005; Price et al. 2000; White et al. 2004a, 2004b, 2007). Differences in strontium isotope ratios in teeth reflect the ratios in the water, plants and animals consumed by the individual while the tooth was forming, which in turn reflect the regional geography. Individuals whose strontium levels differ from the local strontium signature can be identified as migrants; a significantly higher proportion of migrants in Phase 4 would suggest a resettlement. Samples of teeth from Phases 3 and 4 will be analyzed at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Finally, an ancient DNA collaborative project with Dr. Enrique Rodríguez-Alegría of the University of Texas at Austin will also potentially shed light on the population replacement issue at Xaltocan. This project will study familial relatedness between individuals buried under sequences of associated house floors at Xaltocan over the entire history of occupation. If individuals buried under the Phase 3 and 4 houses excavated for the proposed project are shown to be related, this would suggest that not all residents of Xaltocan abandoned the site, refuting a population replacement.

Project Description Question 4: What is your training and how are you prepared to do this research?

Three aspects of my graduate and undergraduate education at Northwestern University and the University of California at Berkeley, respectively, have prepared me to carry out the proposed research: 1) graduate and undergraduate level coursework, 2) research experience at Xaltocan and elsewhere in Central Mexico, and 3) the support of my advisor, Dr. Elizabeth Brumfiel.

First, I have gained theoretical knowledge and technical skills from graduate courses such as archaeological methods laboratory, archaeometry, GIS, archaeological research design, household archaeology, and the anthropology of place. Along with practical research experience in Central Mexico, these courses have given me the skills necessary to plan the project, carry out excavations, perform the proposed ceramic, lithic, and microartifact analyses, and interpret the results of other analyses, such as soil chemical and strontium isotope, that will be performed at the University of Wisconsin, Madison laboratory. An undergraduate second major in Spanish and four field seasons working in Spanish-speaking countries with local crews have afforded me the language competency needed to carry out my research in Mexico and to make my results accessible to Spanish speakers.

Second, the proposed project will benefit from, and build upon, two independent research projects that I have carried out at Xaltocan. In 2007, I conducted a study of the life histories of Xaltocan figurine collection, a project which required me to obtain funding for chemical provenance analysis and obtain export permission from the Mexican Institute for Anthropology and History; I am currently preparing the results of this study to submit to Current Anthropology. I have also collaborated with my advisor on research at Xaltocan, completing a study of embodiment and the use of figurines in 2006, the results of which are being published in an upcoming edited volume (Brumfiel and Overholtzer in press). Both of these projects examined temporal patterns of household ritual practices involving ceramic figurines, and they reflect my commitment to exploring the everyday lives of commoners and the ways in which commoners altered their household practices given changes in their social, political, and economic context. The proposed project will build upon this previous figurine research, using the findings as a comparative base for the examination of all household ritual practices. The proposed project will also broaden the focus of investigation to include other kinds of household practices, while maintaining the same commitment to investigate changing commoner everyday life.

Furthermore, I have participated in two field seasons of excavations of houses and analysis of excavated materials at Xaltocan as part of Brumfiel’s project, and one season of mapping, site survey, and ceramic analysis at Tlaxcala, Mexico as part of a Purdue University project under the direction of Dr. Richard Blanton. Therefore, I understand Xaltocan’s site-specific depositional processes, the logistical realities of doing research in Xaltocan, and Postclassic Central Mexican material culture, and I have the knowledge and skills to design a feasible project and successfully execute it.

Third, I have benefited from the guidance of my advisor, who has worked at Xaltocan for twenty years. Her mapping, surface survey, and test pit programs have laid the foundations for the proposed research project. She has assisted me in the process of designing the proposed research project, ensuring that the research I had planned is theoretically and methodologically sound, as well as logistically feasible. She has also provided me with invaluable practical experience through participation in her own projects at the site, experience which has afforded me realistic expectations of fieldwork at the site. In addition, she has made all of the survey, test

pit, and excavation data from previous field seasons available to me in the planning process and for comparative purposes with the data I will collect.

I have already taken several preliminary steps towards the proposed field season. In 2007, I completed a brief survey of the area, confirming that the mounds have not been destroyed by modern occupation and verifying the presence of ceramics from Phases 3 and 4 on the surface. I also photographed the area and took notes on the distributions of artifacts and architectural materials. I have also created a GIS that will be used to map the surface and excavated materials, and have entered a satellite image of the site and layers containing the survey and test pit data.

I have established an affiliation with the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and with Dr. Luis Barba, the director of the Laboratory for Archaeological Prospection at UNAM. Dr. Barba and I have also begun a collaborative geophysical remote sensing project that will detect and map buried architecture in the proposed study area. Dr. Barba, a world expert in remote sensing technologies, will coordinate the short field season that is planned for spring 2009, and the Laboratory for Archaeological Prospection will provide the necessary equipment. This study will allow the precise placement of excavation units over architectural remains and will make excavations more productive and efficient.

I have also taken many logistical preparations for my work in Xaltocan. I have obtained excavation permission from the property owner and the local municipal organization and negotiated the rental of laboratory space. I have a working relationship with many local residents who have years of experience and training in archaeological work and who have expressed interest in participating in the project. I have spoken with the local museum director to plan a community event in September 2009 to present the findings of my previous research and promote community involvement in the proposed project. Finally, I have secured some project funding from National Geographic, Sigma Xi, and Northwestern University that will be used to cover part of the cost of supplies and local worker salaries (items not included in the Wenner-Gren budget). In addition, my travel and living expenses will be covered by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

Project Description Question 5: What contribution does your project make to anthropological theory and to the discipline?

This project will contribute to Mesoamerican archaeology by improving our understanding of the everyday life of commoners before and after the Aztec empire. While studies of commoner life under Aztec rule have been undertaken using ethnohistoric documents, commoners have long neglected within archaeological studies in favor of explorations of monumental architecture and sculpture. Such neglect is all the more regrettable because the archaeological record offers evidence of the lives of many segments of society—such as women and children—often not recorded in historic documents as well as evidence of many everyday practices—such as eating or working—that were taken-for-granted and not documented (Brumfiel 2003). The proposed project will reconstruct the practices of common Mexican men, women, and children, thereby offering a more complete view of Postclassic Central Mexico and combating stereotypes of Aztec society created by biases in archaeological research towards telling the story of men at the state level.

More broadly, this project will complement anthropological theories of state formation by 1) offering a long-term case study of the commoner experience of war and conquest; and 2) considering bottom-up processes and focusing on the choices commoners had, the decisions they made, and the real effects such decisions had on the nature of the state. In addition, because it provides a pre-Columbian conquest case study, this research will broaden the scope of contact/conquest studies beyond European colonial contexts, potentially contributing to the development of new models.

Even more broadly, this project is poised to make a significant, innovative contribution to archaeological practice because it integrates scientific and humanistic approaches through the application of GIS and quantitative high-resolution techniques to a research question conceptualized using practice theory. Practice theory and its concept of agency have been critiqued as "slippery" and too abstract. The proposed project is designed to move beyond theoretical discussions of practice. I view agency as the capability to do things and to make choices, that is to say, that in any action carried out, the person could have acted differently (Giddens 1984:9). This view of agency gives new meaning to the choices commoners made when at war, when conquered, or when re-building. This view also enables scholars to concretely trace these decisions using scientific analytical techniques such as soil chemical, microartifact, and strontium isotope analyses. My research will use these techniques to reconstruct those household decisions made in times of war and conquest at Xaltocan. By doing so, I will not only reconstruct everyday life in that context and examine the ways in which those choices shaped the nature of the Aztec state, but I will also make a theoretical contribution by concretizing the somewhat slippery terms “agency” and “practice.”

Project Bibliography

Aguilera, Carmen1985 Mueble Prehispánico. In El Mueble Mexicano: Historia, Evolución e Influencias. Pp.

14-24. Fomento Cultural Banamex, Mexico City.

Alva Ixtlilxóchitl, Fernando de 1975-77 Obras Históricas, 2 vol, edited by Edmund O’Gorman. Universidad Nacional

Autónoma de México, México.

Anales de Cuauhtitlan1945 Códice Chimalpopoca: Anales de Cuauhtitlan y Leyenda de los Soles, edited and

translated by Primo Feliciano Velázquez. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, Mexico City.

Ashmore, Wendy 2002 ‘Decisions and dispositions’: Socializing spatial archaeology. American

Anthropologist 104:1172-1183.

Ávila López, Raúl1995 Excavaciones arqueológicas en San Gregorio Atlapulco, Xochimilco. Subdirección de

Salvamento Arqueológico, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City.2006 Mexicaltzingo: Arqueología de un reino culhua-mexica. Instituto Nacional de

Antropología e Historia, Mexico City.

Barba, Luis and Agustín Ortiz1992 Analisis Quimico de Pisos de Ocupacion: Un Caso Etnografico en Tlaxcala, Mexico.

Latin American Antiquity 3(1):63-82.

Berdan, Frances1975 Trade, Tribute and Market in the Aztec Empire. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation,

Department of Anthropology, University of Texas Press, Austin.

Berdan, Frances, Richard Blanton, Elizabeth Hill Boone, Mary Hodge, Michael Smith, and Emily Umberger

1996 Aztec Imperial Strategies. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.

Bourdieu, Pierre 1977 Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Brumfiel, Elizabeth M. 1980 Specialization, Market Exchange, and the Aztec State: A View from Huexotla.

Current Anthropology 21:459-78.1983 Aztec State-Making: Ecology, Structure, and the Origin of the State. American

Anthropologist 85:261-84.1986 Consumption and Politics at Aztec Huexotla. American Anthropologist 89:676-686.

1987 Elite and Utilitarian Crafts in the Aztec State. In Specialization, Exchange, and Complex Societies, edited by Elizabeth Brumfiel and Timothy K. Earle, pp. 102-118. Cambridge University Press, New York.

1991a Weaving and Cooking: Women’s Production in Aztec Mexico. In Engendering Archaeology, edited by Margaret Conkey and Joan Gero, pp. 224-255. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

1991b Tribute and Commerce in Imperial Cities: The Case of Xaltocan, Mexico. In Early State Economics, edited by Henri J.M. Claessen and Pieter van de Velde, pp. 177-198. Political and Legal Anthropology Series, Vol. 8. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, NJ.

1996a Figurines and the Aztec State: Testing the Effectiveness of Ideological Domination. In Gender in Archaeology, edited by Rita P. Wright, pp. 143-166. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.

1996b The Quality of Tribute Cloth: The Place of Evidence in Archaeological Argument. American Antiquity, 61(3):453-462.

2003 It’s a Material World: History, Artifacts, and Anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology 32:205-223.

2005a Production and Power at Postclassic Xaltocan. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia and University of Pittsburgh, Mexico City and Pittsburgh.

2005b Ceramic Chronology at Xaltocan. In Production and Power at Postclassic Xaltocan, edited by Elizabeth Brumfiel, pp. 117-152. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia and University of Pittsburgh, Mexico City and Pittsburgh.

2005c Conclusions: Production and Power at Xaltocan. In Production and Power at Postclassic Xaltocan, edited by Elizabeth Brumfiel, pp. 349-368. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia and University of Pittsburgh, Mexico City and Pittsburgh.

Brumfiel, Elizabeth M. and Lisa OverholtzerIn press Alien Bodies, Everyday People, and Internal Spaces: Embodiment, Figurines and

Social Discourse in Postclassic Mexico. In Mesoamerican Figurines: Small-Scale Indexes of Large-Scale Phenomena, edited by Christina T. Halperin, Katherine A. Faust, and Rhonda Taube. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

Cabrera, Oralia1998 XVI Century Textile Tribute in Central Mexico: Colonial Census Data from Morelos.

Paper presented at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Seattle.

Calnek, Edward E.1972 Settlement pattern and chinampa agriculture at Tenochtitlan. American Antiquity

37:104-115.1976 Conjunto urbana y modelo residencial en Tenochtitlan. In Ensayos sobre el desarrollo

urbano de México, edited by Woodrow Borah, pp. 11-65. Secretaria de Educación Pública, Mexico City.

Carrasco, Pedro1950 Los Otomies: Cultura e Historica Prehispánica de los Pueblos Mesoamericanos de

Habla Otomiana. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City.

Charlton, Thomas, Deborah L. Nichols, and Cynthia Otis Charlton. 1991 Aztec craft production and specialization archaeological evidence from the city-state of

Otumba, Mexico. World Archaeology 23:98-114.

Charlton, Cynthia Otis, Deborah L Nichols, and Thomas H. Charlton1993 Aztec household-based craft production archaeological evidence from the city-state of

Otumba, Mexico. In Prehispanic Domestic Units in Western Mesoamerica, edited by Robert S. Santley and Kenneth G. Hirth, pp. 141-171. CRC Press, Boca Raton.

Charlton, Thomas2001 Excavation of Tlatel 15, T.A. 40. In The Teotihuacán Valley Project Final Report, Vol

5. The Aztec Period Occupation of the Valley, edited by William T. Sanders and Susan T. Evans. Occasional Papers in the Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park.

Dawdy, Shannon Lee2006 The Taphonomy of Disaster and the (Re)Formation of New Orleans. American

Anthropologist 108(4):719-730.

Deagan, Kathleen1996 Colonial Transformation: Euro-American Cultural Genesis in the Early Spanish-

American Colonies. Journal of Anthropological Research 52(2):135-160.

Deal, Michael1985 Household Pottery Dispersal in the Maya Highlands: An Ethnoarchaeological

Intepretation. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 4:243-291.

De Certeau, Michel 1984 The Practice of Everyday Life. University of California Press, Berkeley.

Dobres, Marcia-Anne and John Robb2000 Agency in Archaeology. Routledge, London

Espejel, Claudia2005 Domestic Structures in Xaltocan. In Production and Power in Postclassic Xaltocan,

edited by E.M. Brumfiel, pp. 255-266. INAH and University of Pittsburgh, Mexico City and Pittsburgh.

Evans, Susan T.1988 Excavations at Cihuatecpan, An Aztec Village in the Teotihuacán Valley, Vanderbilt

University Publications in Anthropology No. 36, Nashville.1992 Aztec Household Organization and Village Administration. In Prehispanic Domestic

Units in Western Mesoamerica, edited by Robert S. Santley and Kenneth G. Hirth, pp. 173-189. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.

Giddens, Anthony 1984 The Constitution of Society: Outline of a Theory of Structuration. University of

California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles.

Gifford, Diane P.1978 Behavioral Archaeology and Refuse Patterns: A Case Study. Norwegian

Archaeological Review 11:118-131.

González, Carlos Javier1996 Excavaciones arqueológicas en “El Japón”: sitio chinampero en Xochimilco.

Arqueología 16:81-93.

Hassig, Ross1985 Trade, Tribute, and Transportation: The Sixteenth Century Political Economy of the

Valley of Mexico. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.1988 Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political Control. University of Oklahoma

Press, Norman.

Hendon, Julia A. 1996 Archaeological approaches to the organization of domestic labor: Household practice

and domestic relations. Annual Review of Anthropology 25:45-61.

Hicks, Frederic1994 Xaltocan under Mexica Domination. In Caciques and their People: A Volume in

Honor of Ronald Spores, edited by Joyce Marcus and Judith Francis Zeitlin, pp. 67-85. Anthropological Papers, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, No. 89, Ann Arbor.

2005 Mexico, Acolhuacan, and the Rulership of Late Postclassic Xaltocan: Insights from an Early Colonial Legal Case. In Production and Power at Postclassic Xaltocan, edited by Elizabeth M. Brumfiel, pp. 195-206. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia and University of Pittsburgh, Mexico City and Pittsburgh.

Hodge, Mary G. and Michael E. Smith, editors1994 Economies and Polities in the Aztec Realm. Studies on Culture and Society, Institute

for Mesoamerican Studies, State University of New York-Albany, Albany.

Hodge, Mary G. and Hector Neff2005 Xaltocan in the Economy of the Basin of Mexico: A View from Ceramic Tradewares.

In Production and Power at Postclassic Xaltocan, edited by Elizabeth M. Brumfiel, pp. 319-348. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia and University of Pittsburgh, Mexico City and Pittsburgh.

Hutson, Scott R. and Richard E. Terry 2006 Recovering social and cultural dynamics from plaster floors: chemical analyses at

ancient Chunchucmil, Yucatan, Mexico. Journal of Archaeological Science 33:391-404.

Hutson, Scott R. and Travis W. Stanton2007 Cultural Logic and Practical Reason: the Structure of Discard in Ancient Maya

Houselots. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 17(2):123-144.

Joyce, Rosemary A. and Jeanne Lopiparo2005 PostScript: Doing Agency in Archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Method and

Theory 12(4):365-374.

Kellogg, Susan1992 The Social Organization of Households Among the Tenochca Mexica Before and After

Conquest. In Prehispanic Domestic Units in Western Mesoamerica, edited by Robert S. Santley and Kenneth G. Hirth, pp. 207-224. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.

Knudson, Kelly J. and Jane E. BuikstraIn press Residential Mobility and Resource Use in the Chiribaya Polity of Southern Peru:

Strontium Isotope Analysis of Archaeological Tooth Enamel and Bone. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology.

Knudson, Kelly J., T. Douglas Price, Jane E. Buikstra, and D.E. Blom2004 The use of strontium isotope analysis to investigate Tiwanaku migration and mortuary

ritual in Bolivia and Peru. Archaeometry 46:5-18.

Lightfoot, Kent G., A. Martinez, and A.M. Schiff1998 Daily Practice and Material Culture in Pluralistic Social Settings: An Archaeological

Study of Culture Change and Persistence from Fort Ross, California. American Antiquity 63(2):199-222.

Lockhart, James1992 The Nahuas After the Conquest: A Social and Cultural History of the Indians of

Central Mexico, Sixteenth through Eighteenth Centuries. Stanford University Press, Stanford.

Lombardo de Ruiz, Sonia1973 Desarrollo Urbano de Mexico-Tenochtitlan Según las Fuentes Históricas. SEPINAH,

México.

Manzanilla, Linda2005 Migrantes Epiclásicos en Teotihuacan, propuesta metodológica para el análisis de

migraciones del Clásico al Posclásico. In Reacomodos demográficos del Clásico al Posclásico en el centro de México, edited by Linda Manzanilla, pp. 261-273. Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas, UNAM, México.

Metcalfe, Duncan and Kathleen M. Heath 1990 Microrefuse and Site Structure: The Hearths and Floors of the Heartbreak Hotel.

American Antiquity 55(4):781-796.

Middleton, William 1998 Craft Specialization at Ejutla, Oaxaca, Mexico: An Archaeometric Study of the

Organization of Household Craft Production. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Middleton, William and T. Douglas Price 1996 Identification of Activity Areas by Multi-Element Characterization of Sediments from

Modern and Archaeological House Floors Using Inductively Coupled Plasma Emission Spectroscopy. Journal of Archaeological Science 23:673-687.

Miller-Rosen, Arlene 1989 Ancient Town and City Sites: A View from the Microscope. American Antiquity

54(3):564-578.

Minc, Leah D.1994 Political economy and market economy under Aztec rule. Unpublished Ph.D.

dissertation, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Montgomery, Janet, Jane A. Evans, Dominic Powlesland, and Charlotte A. Roberts2005 Continuity or colonization in Anglo-Saxon England? Isotope evidence for population

movement within the Hebridean Norse community of NW Scotland. Journal of the Geological Society 160:649-653.

Nazareo de Xaltocan, don Pablo1940 Carta al rey don Felipe II. In Epistolario de Nueva España, edited by Francisco del

Paso y Troncoso, 10:109-29. Antigua Librería Robredo, Mexico City.

Nichols, Deborah L., Mary Jane McLaughlin, and Maura Benton2000 Production Intensification and Regional Specialization: Maguey Fibers and Textiles in

the Aztec City-State of Otumba. Ancient Mesoamerica 11:267-292.

Nichols, Deborah L., Elizabeth M. Brumfiel, Hector Neff, Mary Hodge, Thomas H. Charlton, and Michael D. Glascock

2002 Neutrons, Markets, Cities, and Empires: A 1000-Year Perspective on Ceramic Production and Distribution in the Postclassic Basin of Mexico. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 21(1):25-82.

O’Connell, James F.1987 Alyawara Site Structure and its Archaeological Implications. American Antiquity

52:74-108.

Parnell, J. Jacob and Richard E. Terry 2002 Soil Chemical Analysis Applied as an Interpretive Tool for Ancient Human Activities

in Piedras Negras, Guatemala. Journal of Archaeological Science 29:379–404.

Pred, Alan R. 1984 Place as Historically Contingent Process: Structuration and the Time-Geography of

Becoming Places. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 74(2):279-97.

Price, T. Douglas, Gisela Grupe and Peter Schrorter1994a Reconstruction of migration patterns in the Bell Beaker period by stable strontium

isotope analysis, Applied Geochemistry 9:413-417.

Price, T. Douglas, Clark M. Johnson, Joseph A. Ezzo, Jim H. Burton and Jonathan A. Ericson1994b Residential mobility in the Prehistoric Southwest United States. A preliminary study

using strontium isotope analysis, Journal of Archaeological Science 24:315-330.

Price, T. Douglas, Linda Manzanilla, and William D. Middleton2000 Immigration and the Ancient City of Teotihuacan in Mexico: A Study Using Strontium

Isotope Ratios in Human Bone and Teeth. Journal of Archaeological Science 27:903-913.

Rainville, L. 2000 Microdebris Analysis in Early Bronze Age Mesopotamian Households. Antiquity 74:

291-92.

Robin, Cynthia 2003 New Directions in Classic Maya Household Archaeology. Journal of Archaeological

Research 11(4):307-356.

Sahagún, Friar Berdardino de1950-82 The Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain. Translated and

edited by Arthur Anderson and Charles Dibble. School of American Research and University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.

Schiffer, Michael B.1972 Archaeological Context and Systemic Context. American Antiquity 37:156-165.1976 Behavioral Archeology. Academic Press, New York.1983 Toward the Identification of Formation Processes. American Antiquity 48:675-706.

Seymour, Deni J. and Michael B. Schiffer1987 A Preliminary Analysis of Pithouse Assemblages from Snaketown, Arizona. In

Method and Theory for Activity Area Research: An Ethnoarchaeological Approach, edited by S. Kent, pp. 549-603. Columbia University Press, New York.

Sherwood, Sarah. C., Jan F. Simek, and Richard R. Polhemus 1995 Artifact Size and Spatial Process: Macro- and Microartifacts in a Mississippian House.

Geoarchaeology 6:429-455.

Silliman, Stephen2001 Agency, practical politics and the archaeology of culture contact. Journal of Social

Archaeology 1:190-209.

Simms, Steven R. and Kathleen M. Heath 1990 Site Structure of the Orbit Inn: An Application of Ethnoarchaeology. American

Antiquity 55(4):797-813.

Sisson, Edward B.1973 First Annual Report of the Coxcatlan Project. Phillips Academy, Andover.

Smith, Michael E. 1979 Aztec Marketing System and Settlement Patterns in the Valley of Mexico: A Central

Place Analysis. American Antiquity 44:110-125.1986 Role of Social Stratification in the Aztec Empire: A View from the Provinces.

American Anthropologist 88:70-91.1992a Houses and the Settlement Hierarchy in Late Postclassic Morelos: A Comparison of

Archaeology and Ethnohistory. In Prehispanic Domestic Units in Western Mesoamerica, edited by Robert S. Santley and Kenneth G. Hirth, p. 191-206. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.

1992b Archaeological Research at Aztec-Period Rural Sites in Morelos, Mexico, Volume 1, Excavations and Architecture. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia and University of Pittsburgh Press, Mexico City and Pittsburgh.

2003 Economic Change in Morelos Households. In The Postclassic Mesoamerican World, edited by Michael E. Smith and Frances F. Berdan, pp. 249-58. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.

2008 Aztec City-State Capitals. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

Smith, Michael E. and Frances F. Berdan1992 Archaeology and the Aztec Empire. World Archaeology 23(3):353-367.

Smith, Michael E. and Lisa M. Montiel2001 The Archaeological Study of Empires and Imperialism in Prehispanic Central Mexico.

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 20:245-284.

Smith, Michael E., Cynthia Heath-Smith, and Lisa M. Montiel1999 Excavations of Aztec Urban Houses at Yautepec, Morelos, Mexico. Latin American

Antiquity 10:133-150.

Stahl, Ann B. 1994 Change and Continuity in the Banda Area, Ghana: The Direct Historical Approach.

Journal of Field Archaeology 21(2):181-203.

Stahl, Peter W. and James A. Zeidler 1990 Differential Bone-Refuse Accumulation in Food-Preparation and Traffic Areas on an

Early Ecuadorian House Floor. Latin American Antiquity 1(2):150-169.

Terry, Richard E., Fabián G. Fernández, Jacob J. Parnell, and Takeshi Inomata 2004 The story in the floors: Chemical signatures of ancient and modern Maya activities at

Aguateca, Guatemala. Journal of Archaeological Science 31:1237-1250.

Wells, E. Christian, Richard E. Terry, J. Jacob Parnell, Perry J. Hardin, Mark W. Jackson, and Stephen D. Houston

2000 Chemical Analyses of Ancient Anthrosols in Residential Areas at Piedras Negras, Guatemala. Journal of Archaeological Science 27:449-462.

White, Christine D., Michael W. Spence, and Fred J. Longstaffe 2004a Demography and Ethnic Continuity in the Tlailotlacan Enclave of Teotihuacan: The

Evidence from Stable Oxygen Isotopes. Journal of Archaeological Science 23:385-403.

White, Christine D., Rebecca Storey, Fred J. Longstaffe, and Michael W. Spence 2004b Immigration, Assimilation, and Status in the Ancient City of Teotihuacan: Stable

Isotopic Evidence from Tlajinga 33. Latin American Antiquity 15:176-198.

White, Christine D., T. Douglas Price, and Fred J. Longstaffe2007 Residential Histories of the Human Sacrifices at the Moon Pyramid, Teotihuacan:

Evidence from oxygen and strontium isotopes. Ancient Mesoamerica 18:159-172.

Widmer, Randolph J. 1991 Lapidary Craft Specialization at Teotihuacan: Implications for Community Structure at

33:S3W1 and Economic Organization in the City. Ancient Mesoamerica 2:131-147.

Wright, Lori E. 2005 In search of Yax Nuun Ayiin I: Revisiting the Tikal project’s Burial 10. Ancient

Mesoamerica 16:89-100.

Voss, Barbara L. 2005 From Casta to Californio: Social Identity and the Archaeology of Culture Contact.

American Anthropologist 107(3):461-474.2008 The Archaeology of Ethnogenesis: Race and Sexuality in Colonial San Francisco.

University of California Press, Berkeley.