Ancient Mesoamerica does not run editorial remarks very often. In fact, we have done this only once before, in vol. 1, no. 1, when we explained the rationale for the birth of the new journal (Fowler and Houston 1990). We offer these brief remarks to alert readers to an important addition in staff and a significant editorial innovation.

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

Prehistoric potbelly (boulder) sculpture has been of great interest for many decades. Most such sculptures occur in the highlands and piedmont of the Pacific Coast in Guatemala and El Salvador. The specific function and dating of the monuments has been of particular concern to researchers. This paper presents a summary of data in an attempt to place potbelly sculptures into recognizable stylistic groups that may in turn allow scholars to hypothesize their general function or functions. The excavation of a ceramic potbelly figure in northern Belize may provide hard evidence for the dating of certain potbelly styles and demonstrate the use of this style/manifestation in a mode beyond stone sculpture.

Although the topic has received recent attention, relatively little is known about how pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican communities were internally organized and interconnected. In this paper, we examine that question from the perspective of the Classic-period settlement of El Palmillo, in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. Previous studies of the valley have postulated that communities often were (and still are) subdivided into barrios, although the modes of integration for those segments are less fully defined. Along these lines, we have previously identified commoner and higher-status houses at El Palmillo (along with associated artifactual and architectural inventories). We also have noted that different commoner houses were involved in distinct suites of craft activity, thereby indicating a degree of economic interdependence among these units. Here we expand our analysis to domestic offerings, which we found to vary across the excavated houses. Adapting a perspective from Durkheim's distinction between mechanical and organic solidarity, we find an expected organic (hierarchical) relationship between the offering assemblages of the higher-status residences and the offerings in commoner house lots. At the same time, we see another axis of variation in domestic offerings that appears more organic (nonhierarchical) in nature. The latter axis of variation at El Palmillo has a clear spatial component, in support of previous hypotheses that barrios or spatially defined social segments were important in Valley of Oaxaca pre-Hispanic communities. At El Palmillo, the definitional features of these social segments appear to have been ideological as well as economic.

This paper presents an analysis of the size and spatial organization of text segments and anthropomorphic figures on Classic Maya polychrome vases. Based on a sample of 110 vases that contain both text and images and are complete enough to measure the relevant variables, I demonstrate that a single set of canons for the sizes and placements of text segments and images, separately and with respect to one another, characterizes vessels throughout the polychrome-producing area. Both texts and images exhibit a three-level hierarchy of sizes, with standardized ratios of the primary-to-secondary level and of the secondary-to-tertiary level. Concurrently, significance is added to these sizes through vertical and horizontal arrangement on the vessel surface. This analysis confirms statistically what visual analysis has broadly speculated about in terms of proportion, scale, and similarities between styles. Data are also provided that illuminate issues in the method and meaning of scene layout and the representation of active and inactive figure illustration.

This paper discusses a little understood spelling practice of Mayan hieroglyphic writing, the use of full phonetic complementation of logograms, and some implications derived from this practice, particularly when compared with similar practices in other logosyllabic scripts from around the world (e.g., Egyptian and Luvian), which suggest that such practice existed in association with semantic classifiers. Also, a preliminary distinction between two types of semantograms is made: semantic classifiers and semantic determinatives. Previous discussions of both types of signs are reviewed, and it is proposed that the two are more widespread and important in Mayan writing than previously thought. The implications of these results are clear: Mayanists, particularly epigraphers, need to pay more attention to this distinction in their decipherment efforts, as well as in any future philological and paleographic endeavors. The paper concludes with a proposal for the interrelationship between the stylistic evolution of graphemes and the development of semantic classifiers and determinatives.

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

Residents of Mayapan produced and consumed metal artifacts through long-distance commercial exchange networks in the Postclassic Mesoamerican world system. In this paper, I perform a stylistic and typological analysis of metal artifacts and debris from lost-wax casting from recent excavations at Mayapan, with reference to previously excavated collections by the Carnegie Institution of Washington, DC. The distribution of metal artifacts suggests that metal objects were not sumptuary goods restricted to elites, but luxury goods availble to those who could afford them. I then compare Mayapan with other sites in the Postclassic Mesoamerican world system that were involved in the interregional distribution of metal artifacts. Although Mayapan did not have local sources of native metal or a longstanding traditions of metalworking, it was able to use its economic influence in the world system to obtain and create metal objects specific to its needs.

By a.d. 1350, central-western Mexico was incorporated into the Tarascan state. This irechequa tzintzuntzani (kingdom of Tzintzuntzan) has been known primarily from sixteenth-century documents. With three decades of archaeological, ecological, and ethnohistoric research, it is now possible to propose a model of the emergence of the first archaic state in Michoacan. Critical issues to be addressed include (1) why state formation occurred (and why this form); (2) why even secondary state formation was “delayed” for more than a millennium; (3) why it occurred in the Lake Patzcuaro Basin; and (4) the role of Purepecha ethnicity in the process.

This paper translates and analyzes references to eclipses in two seventeenth-century Zapotec calendrical booklets.1 These booklets are part of a corpus of 106 separate calendrical texts and four collections of ritual songs that were turned over to ecclesiastical authorities in 1704 and 1705 as part of an ambitious campaign against traditional indigenous ritual practices conducted in the province of Villa Alta in northern Oaxaca. Both of these booklets contain a complete day-by-day representation of the Zapotec 260-day divinatory calendar, with annotations in Zapotec alongside many of these entries. Two such annotations in Booklet 81 explicitly record the occurrences of solar and lunar eclipses visible in the Sierra Zapoteca in 1691 and 1693. Annotations in Booklet 63 do not mention eclipses but allude to them by recording the names and Gregorian dates of Christian feasts celebrated on the dates of eclipses in 1686 and 1690; such allusions are otherwise found mainly with the Zapotec dates of the beginnings or ends of significant Zapotec calendrical cycles—the 260-day calendar itself or its 65-day subdivisions, and the start of the Zapotec 365-day year—and so reflect a systematic pattern of engagement by at least one Zapotec calendar specialist with indigenous ritual knowledge and practices. Our analysis suggests that colonial Zapotec calendar specialists monitored and perhaps also anticipated the occurrence of eclipses in terms of the patterns of eclipse recurrence in particular parts of the divinatory calendar.

If we accept Good's (2001:211) definition of a textile as a “web of interlaced threads produced on a loom,” we may say that textiles have a long and storied existence in ancient Mesoamerica. In this Special Section we present four new studies on Mesoamerican textile production. All four papers are based primarily on archaeological data and analyses, but, because of the nature of the material, they cross disciplinary boundaries. At the risk of indulging in a rather hackneyed metaphor, we might envision the archaeological elements of each study as the warp embellished with a weft of ethnohistoric, ethnographic, art historical, iconographic, and epigraphic data and interpretations. In this Introduction we range across the boundaries touching first on the archaeological evidence for the antiquity of weaving and textiles in Mesoamerica, the nature of textiles as a commodity, and the theoretical foundations from political economy that influenced anthropology in the 1980s and generated a seminal article on cotton in the Aztec economy. Then we reference recent research dealing with cloth as costume that signifies ethnic and gender identity, and ideological associations with female deities. Finally, we return to the archaeology and the difficulties of preservation of textiles in Mesoamerica, setting the stage for comments on individual papers since they depend on the indirect evidence of spindle whorls and weaving implements.

This paper seeks to broaden our understanding of the Tarascan state by analyzing the cultural logic of hierarchy as revealed in the Relación de Michoacán. Following the insights of Dumont (1980) and Sahlins (1985), it is proposed that the historical narrative contained within that document is concerned with legitimizing the rule of the Tarascan royal dynasty through a conception of hierarchy based on the logic of encompassment. This analysis interprets the characters of the narrative as instantiations of “elementary categories,” and the interactions between these characters serve to define and ultimately transform those categories. The most important transformation is the encompassing of the “Islander” category by the “Chichimec” category. It is through this encompassment that the royal dynasty symbolized a socio-cosmic totality and therefore possessed legitimate authority. Furthermore, I outline a model of elite interaction and the development of the Tarascan state in which the royal dynasty sought to monopolize foreign trade goods, thus materially constructing its own identity as a possessor of legitimate authority and, therefore, as Chichimecs, according to one connotation of that term. At the same time, a class of status markers was created that could be shared with the lesser nobility, conferring legitimacy on them while preserving the wealth and identity of the royal dynasty.

Los análisis de los artefactos de obsidiana provenientes de la región de Zacapu y de la vertiente meridional del Río Lerma evidenciaron transformaciones significativas entre el final del Clásico (600–900 d.C.) y el Posclásico tardío (1200–1450 d.C.). En lo que concierne la producción de navajas, se observan cambios que afectan el sistema productivo, desde las estrategias de adquisición de la materia prima y la organización de la producción, hasta las opciones técnicas y las modalidades de distribución y de consumo. Durante el Epiclásico y el Posclásico temprano, se desarrolla una producción de macronavajas y navajas obtenidas con la técnica de percusión y destinadas al mercado regional. Al inicio del Posclásico medio (alrededor de 1200 d.C.), se desarrolla la tecnología de la navajilla prismática, la cual substituye al sistema de producción anterior. Este artículo presenta los mecanismos que regían la producción de navajas entre el final del Clásico (600–900 d.C.) y el Posclásico tardío (1200–1450 d.C.) y discute las razones que pueden explicar las transformaciones. Propone que tanto los cambios tecnológicos como los cambios en la organización de las producciones pueden vincularse con la estructura de los sistemas sociales y políticos en los cuales se desempeñaron.

While research has revealed the important role that textiles have played in Mesoamerica from the Classic period through contemporary cultures, few studies have explored the importance of textiles in earlier Mesoamerican cultures. Scant preservation thwarts research on Formative-period cultures such as the Gulf Coast Olmec, for which only a few fragments of cordage and woven mats have yet been recovered. However, considerable additional evidence of textiles is available through other material culture, such as the rich pictorial record of fibers and cloth shown in Olmec sculpture. Further evidence exists in textile-related ceramic artifacts recovered from Gulf Coast sites, and still more evidence can be found through the reevaluation of greenstone artifacts recovered from Gulf Coast sites and “heirloom caches” of Formative-period objects. Careful analysis of the form and iconography of certain types of provenienced greenstone artifacts reveals that these may have served as elite textile-making tools; replication studies confirms their functionality as implements for spinning, weaving, and making cordage. All together, this study suggests that the Gulf Coast Olmec already held not only textiles but textile making in high esteem during the Formative period, foreshadowing the great significance of textiles in later Mesoamerican cultures.

According to ethnohistoric sources, northeastern Michoacan became incorporated into the eastern frontier of the Tarascan empire during the mid-1400s. At that time, the region was multiethnic in character, with enclaves of foreigners living within communities as well as making up whole communities. Recent investigation in the Ucareo-Zinapecuaro source area uncovered evidence of an earlier foreign enclave consisting of two settlements in the Ucareo Valley whose ceramics are distinct from those of neighboring sites while indistinguishable from those of Epiclassic Huamango in the Acambay region of the Toluca Basin. The implications of these data alongside Ucareo obsidian exploitation and its role in the construction of the Protohistoric Tarascan–Aztec frontier are considered along with the results of preliminary chronometric dating.

Textiles in ancient Mesoamerica served as a critical economic resource and symbolic display of status, wealth, and social affiliation. The economic significance of textiles can be explored, in part, by the archaeological identification and distribution of production tools: spinning and weaving implements. In the Maya area, however, few studies have examined the organization of textile production, and systematic documentation of tool distributions is lacking. This paper reviews previous archaeological research on Maya textile production and introduces new data from the Classic-period site of Motul de San José, Guatemala. These data complement current understandings of Classic Maya household economies by stressing the relative economic autonomy of households from the state in textile production and the heterogeneity of productive strategies within and between different households. Such heterogeneity is expressed, at least in the case of Motul de San José, by more intensive or larger-scale production conducted by large, elite households than by small, commoner households. This finding implies that textile production for tribute was not a central concern among lower-status groups in this area as it was among many Postclassic- and Contact-period commoners in Mesoamerica. Rather, Classic-period Maya royal and elite individuals were able to bolster further their economic and social standings through textile production because they had easier access to resources or surplus labor found in or associated with their own households.

At the time of the Spanish conquest, the main locus of metal production in Mesoamerica was the Tarascan region of western Mexico. Scholars have argued that mining and metallurgy evolved into a state industry, as metal adornments used as insignias of social status and public ritual became closely associated with political control. In spite of its importance, however, Tarascan metallurgy is poorly documented. The extractive processes involved and the organization of the different aspects of this production are virtually unknown. Numerous questions arise from the notion that metal items functioned as wealth finance in the economy of the Tarascan state of Late Postclassic period Michoacan. Foremost among these is whether and how wealth was produced and controlled by the central power. This paper combines archaeological and ethnohistorical data to propose a model for pre-Hispanic copper production among the Tarascans. The goal of this analysis is to gain insights into the nature of metal production and its role in the major state apparatus. This will also provide clues to a better understanding of the development of technology and political economy in ancient Mesoamerica.

Textiles formed a major part of any ancient Mesoamerican economy. Based on ethnohistory and iconography, the Maya were great producers of cloth for both internal and external use. However, the archaeological identification of textile production is difficult in any tropical area because of issues of preservation. This paper examines the evidence for the production and distribution of cloth that is found in the pre-Columbian Maya area and then focuses on archaeological data relative to textiles from the ancient Maya city of Caracol, Belize. Archaeology at Caracol has been carried out annually from 1985 to the present and has resulted in the collection of data that permits insight into the economic production and social distribution of cloth at the site. This is accomplished through examining the contexts and distributions of spindle whorls, bone needles, bone pins and hairpins, bone awls, and limestone bars. All of these artifacts can be related to weaving, netting, or cloth in some way. Importantly, perforated ceramic disks are not included in this grouping because of contextual information from the archaeological record that these artifacts likely functioned as backings for ear assemblages. Spindle whorls are the artifacts most clearly associated with textile production and 57 of these have been recovered at Caracol, 38 of them in 20 different burials. Several of these interments are of high-status women placed in the most important architectural constructions at the site. The contextual placement of these burials stresses not only the link between women and weaving, but also the high status associated with such an activity, thus signaling the importance of cloth and spinning in ancient Maya society. The prevalence of female interments in the major ritual buildings at Caracol also reflects the importance of women to Maya social structure during the Classic period (a.d. 250–900), pointing to difficulties in hieroglyphically based interpretations of ancient Maya social organization and suggesting that the traditional focus on males in the sociopolitical organization of the Classic Maya is incorrect.