Investigations of Classic period (a.d. 400–900) settlement in the El Paraíso Valley, western Honduras, have identified a pattern of paired centers that suggests a previously unrecognized model of political organization in the Maya area. In the El Paraíso Valley, the largely contemporary, equally-sized, and proximate centers of El Cafetal and El Paraíso differ radically from one another in their spatial organization, construction techniques, architectural embellishment, use of open space, and portable material culture. Analysis of these differences suggests that El Cafetal was inhabited by an autochthonous population while El Paraíso was founded under the auspices of the Copan dynasty as an administrative outpost. We suggest that the juxtaposition of these two sites results from a regional strategy of sociopolitical integration implemented by Copan rulers that was adapted to the ethnically diverse regions along the edge of the Copan kingdom.

The Sun Stone of Motecuhzoma Ilhuicamina is one of the major monuments revealed by excavations in and around the Aztec Templo Mayor since 1978. Featuring the sun disk on its top surface and the Mexica conquest of 11 enemy polities on its cylindrical sides, it is considered a gladiatorial stone, similar in both iconography and function to the later Stone of Tizoc. While Tizoc's stone locates its conquest scenes between earth and sky bands, this sun stone uniquely places its conquests between two bands of repeating motifs. The authors argue that these bands are extraordinary examples of pictographic texts that parallel and likely called forth ritual speech acts. The iconography and patterning of the motifs reveal the bands to be visual exhortations or prayers related to human sacrifice specifically associated with Tezcatlipoca. The complex pattern of the repeating motifs is rhythmic and reflects the discourse structure of Nahuatl high speech.

Since Acosta's work in the 1940s, relief carvings of serpents entwined with partially skeletonized personages on the coatepantli at Tula have frequently been identified as images of the Nahua Venus deity, Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli. Comparing these Toltec sculptures with this deity's iconography in Late Postclassic to Colonial period manuscripts, however, provides no support for this identification. Based on the northern Mesoamerican cultural connections of the Toltecs, the author suggests parallels between the coatepantli reliefs and the public display of ancestral and sacrificial human remains at Chalchihuites sites. Identification of the coatepantli figures as venerated ancestors from an ancestral cult is also supported by iconographic and archaeological evidence from Tula. Parallels to the coatepantli images in depictions of both living elites and ancestors juxtaposed with serpents from other Mesoamerican art traditions bolster this interpretation. On the basis of the evidence, the author hypothesizes that the skeletonized figures at Tula symbolize deceased kings and honored warriors rather than conquered foes.

Over the past thirty years, Mayanists have increasingly discussed the relationships between large polities. Advances in our understanding of epigraphy have largely driven this increased focus. Yet in areas where the epigraphic record is less understood, as is the case with the northern Maya lowlands, archaeologists have turned to other data to piece together political relationships. These data often consist of architectural and ceramic styles. Models based on such data generally assume that styles of material culture will cluster among social groups that are more closely knit than others (familial or political ties) or will occur in an area after it has been subordinated by a particular polity. One case where such a model has been applied is the site of Yaxuna, which was connected to the metropolis of Coba by a 100 km-long causeway during the Late Classic period. The difference between this case and others is that not only do the two sites share some aspects of material culture during this period, but we can also physically see that the sites were integrated by an actual road. In most cases where stylistic models have been applied, the possible routes connecting sites do not preserve, making the correlation between styles and social interaction more speculative. In this paper, we reevaluate the Yaxuna-Coba case using a modal analysis of the Arena ceramic group shared by Yaxuna and Coba during that time. Our data suggest that one particularly important type (Arena Red) was produced in Yaxuna and exported in a limited range of forms down the causeway toward sites in Quintana Roo. Although several archaeologists have argued that the causeway represents the subordination of Yaxuna by an expanding Late Classic Coba polity, our data suggest that the resulting impact on material culture may be more complex than current models imply. Ceramic economies operating in a very limited fashion within or outside of spheres of political action may have been common among the Maya, although the idea that trade follows flag certainly appears to have existed in this case.

One of the most distinctive features of the Postclassic capital of Mayapan is the immense wall that encloses large portions of the site's settlement zone. This 9.1 km-long feature is the largest example of a walled enclosure known in Mesoamerica. Based on ethnohistoric references, it seems that the construction was well known to Postclassic and Colonial period residents of the Northern lowlands. The most common assertion regarding the enclosures is that the wall had primarily defensive functions. Unfortunately, little solid archaeological evidence or cross-cultural comparison has been offered to support this interpretation. In this paper, I correlate the form of the gates with cross-culturally derived and unambiguously defensive features, finding that the design of the gates strongly suggests that they are indeed defensive. Possible secondary functions of the wall are also explored, such as the control of people and goods entering the city, as ritual barrier, the control of internal populations and its symbolism.

Terminal Classic circular architecture has been characterized as a “non-Classic” trait stemming from Chontal-Itza groups from the Gulf lowlands who developed a long-distance, circum-peninsular trade route and established their capital city at Chichen Itza in northern Yucatan. Recent investigations of a series of circular shrines proximate to the Caribbean coast in Belize have yielded ceramics and radiocarbon dates that link these buildings to the ninth century, coeval with the early Sotuta phase at Chichen Itza (a.d. 830–900). We present an architectural comparison of circular shrines and map out a network of sites that cluster along the rivers and coast of Belize. We consider two possibilities that may not be mutually exclusive: (1) local elite emulation of northern styles following pilgrimage to Chichen Itza for political accession ceremonies, and, (2) trading diasporas involving small-scale migration of Chontal-Itza merchants along the eastern Caribbean coast.

George Brainerd directed excavations at Cerro Portezuelo in the mid-1950s to understand the Classic to Postclassic transition and the questions he asked are still salient. We have undertaken a reanalysis of the artifacts, survey, and excavation data from Brainerd's project to better understand the nature of relations between the Early Classic period city of Teotihuacan, its immediate hinterlands, and the change from the Teotihuacan state system to Postclassic period city-state organization. Because of Cerro Portezuelo's long occupation that began in the Late/Terminal Formative period and continued beyond the Spanish Conquest, it is a strategic site to investigate the dynamics of state formation and episodes of centralization and fragmentation over this long span. Here we review the history of research concerning Cerro Portezuelo, discuss the current research project reported in the articles that comprise this Special Section, and highlight some of the major findings.

Excavations at the site of Cerro Portezuelo, located on the lower slopes of a hill in Chimalhuacan, State of México, were begun by George Brainerd in 1954 and continued in 1955, but he died suddenly, before a projected third season could take place. With the exception of a few small structures higher on the hill, no signs of significant structures were visible on the surface. Architectural features revealed through excavation, however, included a platform with associated caches of the Middle Classic period, a platform and a burial area of the Epiclassic period, and a residential complex that appears to have spanned the Early and Late Postclassic periods. This complex included a sunken patio, a freestanding shrine, habitational rooms, and other features. Construction materials included stone, adobe brick, and tepetate.

Building B of Group II at Holmul, Guatemala, is well known in Maya archaeology for its unique series of superimposed tombs, some of which contain rare large deposits of ceramic material dating to the Terminal Preclassic period (a.d. 1–250). However, the building also contains large deposits of early facet Early Classic (a.d. 250–400) material, as well as the remains of a potential title holding elite. This article presents the current ceramic sequence for the Holmul region and a re-evaluation of the ceramic material from all rooms in Building B Group II in light of new discoveries at sites within the Holmul region and the greater Maya lowlands. The result is a new hypothesis about what social processes are manifested through Terminal Preclassic period orange slipped pottery, which suggests that the vessels associated with deposits in Buidling B may represent changes in elite diacritical feasting events during this period. These feasts, and the preparations made for them, may have simultaneously integrated social groups within a polity while also reinforcing differences between them during two turbulent epochs of Maya political history—namely, the late facet of the Terminal Preclassic period (a.d. 150–250) and the early facet of the Early Classic period (a.d. 250–400).

The city of Teotihuacan has long been viewed as a primate center, dominating surrounding settlements in the Basin of Mexico politically and economically, but its specific relationships with subordinate polities are not well understood. In this article I consider the diverse roles that two rural settlements played in the intraregional structure of the Teotihuacan state. Specifically, I investigate differences in architecture and ceramic assemblages at Axotlan, in the Cuauhtitlan region to the west, and Cerro Portezuelo, in the Texcoco region to the south. Results of this research demonstrate that Teotihuacan's relationships with smaller settlements in the Basin of Mexico differed considerably in intensity and changed through time. This variation reflects specific administrative and economic strategies crafted by the state as well as varying degrees of political and economic autonomy among rural settlements.

This analysis takes a diachronic view of Epiclassic and Early Postclassic period production and consumption patterns of diagnostic pottery complexes at Cerro Portezuelo. Stylistic and chemical characterization studies indicate a dramatic shift in the directionality and participation in pottery complexes through time throughout the Basin of Mexico. In the Epiclassic period, Cerro Portezuelo was a participant in a southern basin cultural complex. Early Postclassic pottery at Cerro Portezuelo indicates full participation in the Mazapan/Tollan pottery complex extending from Tula, through Teotihuacan, and into the southern Texcoco region. This study expands upon a previous compositional study of Cerro Portezuelo materials that indicate that Epiclassic and Early Postclassic pottery consumption was predominantly from local sources in the southeastern basin. The current study further identifies stylistic affiliations in decorated pottery types with neighboring areas within the basin and significantly increases the sample size for Epiclassic and Early Postclassic compositional data at Cerro Portezuelo.

Chronology is a crucial issue given the specific settlement patterns of the Río Bec region located on the northern fringe of the Maya central lowlands. Fine-resolution chronology of the local residential occupation in its many spatial and temporal forms is one of the main proxies available to reconstruct social organization and dynamics, in the absence of a nucleated center with the typical Maya political monuments usually investigated. Variability can be traced in residential morphologies and evolution that must be dated. The scope of the paper aims to describe the construction of the Río Bec chronology in its multiple dimensions, based on a diversity of methods from ceramic Type-Variety classification up to seriation of building sequences defining the evolution of the famous Río Bec architectural style. Epigraphic evidence exists, albeit limited and ambiguous. The general sequence of occupation for the targeted micro-region stretches from the Middle Preclassic to the end of the Terminal Classic period.

After a century or so of slow decline, major civic-ceremonial structures in the city of Teotihuacan were burned and desecrated, probably around a.d. 600/650, at least some residential structures were abandoned, and the Teotihuacan state collapsed. Few features of Teotihuacan material culture survive in the Basin of Mexico in the ensuing Epiclassic period, which lasted from approximately a.d. 600/650––800/850. Ceramic and other lines of evidence suggest a sizable in-migration of peoples from western Mexico. These newcomers may have arrived in time to add to internal stresses responsible for bringing about Teotihuacan's collapse, arrived later to take advantage of that collapse, or both. Whatever the case, interactions with Teotihuacan survivors were complex and still poorly understood. Descendants of Teotihuacanos probably soon adopted new cultural identities, making them untraceable in the archaeological record, except possibly by biological markers.

Based on settlement patterns in the Río Bec micro-region, a study zone (100 km2) focused on the eponymous site, there is no evidence that any of the monumental groups underwent true processes of significant, sustainable nucleation on a broad sociopolitical level. This paper analyzes Río Bec settlement patterns in order to better understand why processes of agglomeration did not occur at the site. Our approach to this question consists of analyzing the spatial distribution of settlements in relation to their internal hierarchy, while taking in account evolution through time. The study was carried out at two different scales of analysis, and results are presented for both the “micro-region” and “nuclear zone” (159 ha) scales. The overarching objective of this contribution is to gain greater insight into the social dimensions of the processes that took place at Río Bec during the Classic period.

With its overall settlement pattern more dispersed than those of other contemporary Maya sites, and many associated land use features still preserved, the spatial layout of the Río Bec nuclear zone (159 ha) leads us to give priority to the hypothesis of a production economy based on infield agriculture. Through a multidisciplinary and multiscalar research strategy, including several geoarchaeological methods developed on three different spatial scales, it is possible to forward a model of territorial occupation and land use for the Río Bec apogee period (a.d. 700–850). Geographical and archaeological data, along with chronological and spatial analyses, allow us to reconstruct a built field system made up of distinct agricultural production units. From a socioeconomic perspective, the model suggests that agricultural production was managed at the household scale and that each unit or farmstead was distinct and autonomous from its neighbors.

Instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) of Middle and Late Postclassic and Early Colonial period decorated and plain ware ceramic sherds from Brainerd's excavation collections at Cerro Portezuelo highlight diachronic changes in commercial pottery exchange prior to and during the Aztec empire and during the first century of Spanish colonial rule. The INAA results show that before the Aztec empire (Middle Postclassic period; a.d. 1150–1350), most pottery used at Cerro Portezuelo was made locally or imported from various sources in the southern Basin of Mexico. After the empire formed (Late Postclassic period; a.d. 1350–1521), local pottery exchange continued, but Tenochtitlan became the primary source of imported pottery in Cerro Portezuelo, despite its location within Texcoco's domain, which was likely attributable to Tenochtitlan merchants' successful exploitation of lake trafficking. After the Spanish Conquest (Early Colonial period; a.d. 1521–1625), Texcoco became the principal supplier of pottery in Cerro Portezuelo. Tenochtitlan persisted as a commercial exporter of pottery after the conquest but on a smaller scale, probably because of the degradation and infilling of the lakes, especially Lake Texcoco.

Structure 5N2 (initially named “Group A”) at Río Bec is the first ruin in the region to have been recorded and is its most important towered building. While it is reasonable to question the specific role such emblematic monumental structures played in the region's sociopolitical organization, precise data concerning their dating, construction history, and functions has been lacking. The recent study of Structure 5N2 has improved our understanding of this building type and of the structure itself, which combines a private residential sector (that astonishingly includes a central pyramid-temple) and a public space. The structure's construction history also reveals a great deal. Originally it consisted of only a tandem two-room residence constructed at roughly a.d. 700–720. Around a.d. 830–850 the original residence was transformed into a large palace, which remained unfinished until abandonment just after a.d. 950. Analysis of the final building, replaced in the process of transformation to the settlement around Structure 5N2, also enables us to explore the social and economic dimensions of its dramatic but incomplete growth.

This paper reports source identifications for a sample of obsidian prismatic blades from the site of Cerro Portezuelo, Mexico. Although the sample is highly biased and stratigraphically mixed, some interesting results were obtained. Compared to contemporary sites in the region, the frequency of green Pachuca obsidian was unusually low (65%), while obsidian from the distant Ucareo source was unusually abundant (14%). This pattern appears to hold for both the Classic and the Postclassic periods and differs from Classic Teotihuacan. This contrast implies that Cerro Portezuelo was not importing all of its obsidian directly from Teotihuacan during the Classic period but, rather, was obtaining some quantity of Ucareo obsidian from other sites, most likely located to the west. This trade pattern would eventually spread throughout the Basin of Mexico, after the fall of Teotihuacan, but it is foreshadowed during the Classic period at Cerro Portezuelo.