Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T21:24:49.068Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Suprahousehold consumption and community ritual at La Laguna, Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

David M. Carballo ,
Luis Barba ,
Agustín Ortiz ,
Jorge Blancas ,
Nicole Cingolani ,
Jorge H. Toledo Barrera ,
David Walton ,
Isabel Rodríguez López  and
Lourdes Couoh
David M. Carballo
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, Boston University, 675 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215, USA (Email: carballo@bu.edu)
Luis Barba
Affiliation:
Laboratorio de Prospección Arqueológica, Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Coyoacán, México D.F., Mexico
Agustín Ortiz
Affiliation:
Laboratorio de Prospección Arqueológica, Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Coyoacán, México D.F., Mexico
Jorge Blancas
Affiliation:
Laboratorio de Prospección Arqueológica, Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Coyoacán, México D.F., Mexico
Nicole Cingolani
Affiliation:
College of Information Sciences & Technology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16803, USA
Jorge H. Toledo Barrera
Affiliation:
Departamento de Antropología, Universidad de las Américas, Puebla, C.P. 72810, Mexico
David Walton
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, Boston University, 675 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215, USA (Email: carballo@bu.edu)
Isabel Rodríguez López
Affiliation:
Independent researcher, Mexico
Lourdes Couoh
Affiliation:
Posgrado, Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Coyoacán, México D.F., Mexico
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Recent work at La Laguna in Central Mexico provides an excellent illustration of the way in which information from architecture, food remains, ceramic vessels and chemical signatures can be brought together to demonstrate communal feasting associated with specific structures and public spaces. Structure 12M-3 contained a range of evidence indicative of food preparation and consumption. Ritual effigy vessels depicted deities connected with food and fertility, and fire and the hearth. Taken together, the several lines of evidence indicate that Structure 12M-3 was a special building, located directly behind the main temple and devoted to the preparation and production of communal feasts that were held in the adjacent plaza. This provides new insights into community life in the urban centres of early Mesoamerica.

Keywords

MesoamericaMexicoLa LagunaFormative Periodfeastingritual
Type
Research articles
Information
Antiquity , Volume 88 , Issue 339 , March 2014 , pp. 141 - 159
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barba, L. 2007. Chemical residues in lime-plastered archaeological floors. Geoarchaeology 22:439–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradley, R. 2005. Ritual and domestic life in prehistoric Europe. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Brown, L. & Sheets, P.. 2000. Distinguishing domestic from ceremonial structures in southern Mesoamerica: suggestions from Cerén, El Salvador. Mayab 13:11–21.Google Scholar
Calderon De Rzedowski, G. & Rzedowski, J.. 2001. Flora Fanerogamica del Valle de México. Veracruz: Instituto de Ecología, A. C.; Mexico City: Comisión Nacional para el Conocimiento y Uso de la Biodiversidad.Google Scholar
Carballo, D. M. 2007. Effigy vessels, religious integration, and the origins of the Central Mexican pantheon. Ancient Mesoamerica 18:53–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carballo, D. M. 2009. Household and status in Formative Central Mexico: domestic structures, assemblages, and practices at La Laguna, Tlaxcala. Latin American Antiquity 20:473–501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carballo, D. M. 2011. Advances in the household archaeology of highland Mesoamerica. Journal of Archaeological Research 19:133–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carballo, D. M. 2012. Public ritual and urbanization in Central Mexico: plaza and temple offerings from La Laguna, Tlaxcala. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 22:329–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carballo, D. M. & Pluckhahn, T.. 2007. Transportation corridors and political evolution in highland Mesoamerica: settlement analyses incorporating GIS for northern Tlaxcala, Mexico. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 26:607–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, J. E. & Blake, M.. 1994. The power of prestige: competitive generosity and the emergence of rank societies in lowland Mesoamerica, in Brumfiel, E. & Fox, J. (ed.) Factional competition and political development in the New World: 17–30. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowgill, G. L. 2008. An update on Teotihuacan. Antiquity 82:962–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dembo, A. & Imbelloni, J.. 1938. Deformaciones intencionales del cuerpo humano de carácter étnico. Sec. A, tomo 3. Buenos Aires: Humanior, Biblioteca del Americanista Moderno.Google Scholar
Dietler, M. 2011. Feasting and fasting, in Insoll, T. (ed.) The Oxford handbook of the archaeology of ritual and religion: 179–94. oxford: oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dietler, M. & Hayden, B. (ed.). 2001. Feasts: archaeological and ethnographic perspectives on food, politics and power. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian institution.Google Scholar
Dietler, M. & Herbich, I.. 2001. Feasts and labor mobilization: dissecting a fundamental economic practice, in Dietler, M. & Hayden, B. (ed.) Feasts: archaeological and ethnographic perspectives on food, politics, and power: 240–64. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian institution.Google Scholar
Garcia Cook, A. 2003. Cantona: la ciudad, in Sanders, W. T., Mastache, A. G. & Cobean, R.H. (ed.) Urbanism in Mesoamerica, Volume 1: 312–43. Mexico City: INAH; University Park: Pennsylvania State University.Google Scholar
Gilbert, B. M. 1990. Mammalian osteology. Columbia: Missouri Archaeological Society.Google Scholar
Gilbert, B. M., Martin, L. D. & Savage, H.G.. 1996. Avian osteology. Columbia: Missouri Archaeological Society.Google Scholar
Graff, S. & Rodriguez-Alegria, E. (ed.). 2012. The menial art ofcooking: archaeological studies ofcooking and food preparation. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.Google Scholar
Hayden, B. 1995. Pathways to power: principles for creating socioeconomic inequalities, in Price, T. D. & Feinman, G. M. (ed.) Foundations of social inequality: 15–86. New York: Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klarich, E. A. (ed.). 2010. Inside ancient kitchens: new directions in the studyofdailymeals andfeasts. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.Google Scholar
Lesure, R. G., Wake, T., Borejsza, A., Carballo, J., Carballo, D. M., Rodriguez Lopez, I. & Guzman, M. De Angeles. 2013. Swidden agriculture, village longevity, and social relations in Formative central Tlaxcala: towards an understanding of macroregional structure. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 32:224–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merino Carrion, B. L. 1989. La cultura Tlaxco. Mexico City: INAH.Google Scholar
Monaghan, J. 1996. Fiesta finance in Mesoamerica and the origins of a gift exchange system. The Journal ofthe Royal Anthropological Institute 2:499–516.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plunket, P. & Urunuela, G.. 2012. Where east meets west: the Formative in Mexico's central highlands. Journal of Archaeological Research 20:1–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reitz, E. J. & Wing, E. S.. 1999. Zooarchaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Serra Puche, M.C. & Lazcano Arce, J. C.. 2011. Vida cotidiana Xochitecatl-Cacaxtla: días, años, milenios. Mexico City: UNAM.Google Scholar
Smith, M. E., Wharton, J. B. & Olson, J. M.. 2003. Aztec feasts, rituals, and markets: political uses of ceramic vessels in a commercial economy, in Bray, T. L. (ed.) The archaeologyand politics offood and feasting in early states and empires: 235–68. New York: Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spielmann, K.A. 2002. Feasting, craft specialization, and the ritual mode of production in small-scale societies. American Anthropologist 104:195–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wells, E.C. 2007. Faenas, ferias, and fiestas: ritual finance in ancient and modern Honduras, in Wells, E. C. & Davis-Salazar, K. L. (ed.) Mesoamerican ritual economy: archaeological and ethnological perspectives: 29–66. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.Google Scholar