Este trabalho resulta de um estudo sobre as instituições oficiais educativas mexicas no contexto de hegemonia política da Tríplice Aliança estabelecida no Planalto Central Mexicano, no Pós-Clássico Tardio (1428 d.C. e 1521 d.C), período em que unificaram-se as forças bélicas de Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Texcoco e Tacuba. Os templos-escola oficiais mexicas se incumbiam da formação religiosa e militar dos jovens para a participação nas atividades vinculadas à organização estatal. O objetivo do estudo foi demonstrar a vital importância do sistema educacional na organização sócio-política mexica, entendido como elemento articulador das atividades religiosas, militares e econômicas. Para a realização da pesquisa foram adotadas como fontes primárias crônicas e documentos pictográficos produzidos no século XVI, bem como dados arqueológicos relativos a um templo-escola escavado no Templo Mayor de Mexico- Tenochtitlan. / This work presents the results of a systematic analysis of data concerning the official mexica educational institutions in the context of the Triple Aliance´s political hegemony established by the governing powers of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Texcoco and Tacuba. The temple-schools administrated by the mexica were mainly responsible for transmitting the military and religious precepts in order to prepare individuals for state matters and official duties. The aim of this study was to demonstrate the fundamental importance of the educational system in mexica\'s social and political organization. The institutions known as the mexica temple-schools are viewed here as common ground in which perpassed religious, military and economical activities. The research was based upon the comparative analysis of XVI century chronicles, pictorial manuscripts and archaeological evidence.

Presented in the session “Childbirth Rites in Mesoamerica."

Fire and smoke were fundamental ritual forces in Mesoamerican religious worldview. Found in varied contexts (funerary processing, animation ceremonies, and desecratory rituals), fire and smoke were applied to multiple media (human bodies, architecture, and ceramics). In the Postclassic (AD 950–1524) Maya lowlands, burning both processed honored ancestors’ remains and violated enemies’ remains. Ceramic incense burners with deity effigies were used to burn resins to communicate with supernaturals. Here we consider whether fire and smoke were applied in similar fashion to human bodies and censer effigies in the Petén lakes region of northern Guatemala during the Postclassic period. Specifically we document and compare (1) archaeological contexts in which human remains were burned (or have associations with burning), (2) archaeological contexts of ritual use of effigy censers, and (3) descriptions of ritual contexts involving the use of fire and smoke from codices and ethnohistoric and ethnographic accounts. Comparing human remains to representations of bodies suggests that both were subjected to similar ritual processes but that the former were particularly necessary under some political, and religious and calendrical circumstances.

No description available.

The militaristic interpretations of the art of Chichen Itza, Yucatán, Mexico, fails to sufficiently describe its entire decorative program. Absent from discussions of the art tradition is the apparent focus on merchant activity in the city. The influence and power of merchants strengthened during the transition from the Classic to Postclassic in Mesoamerica. With an increase in demand of foreign goods, new exchange relationships developed between centers in Central Mexico, the Gulf, and Maya region. As a result, several cultural regions participated in a vast economic network that created political alliances and syncretic art styles. Focusing on the mural tradition of Chichen Itza, this study proposes a chronological sequence for the wall paintings by examining their style, subject matter, and architectural setting. Analysis of the painted images demonstrates the progressive development of merchant activity in the city and its influence in establishing Chichen Itza as one of the major centers of long-distance trade by the Terminal Classic.

In 1969, Paul Tolstoy commented that archaeological investigation at La Venta had become "a fairly long and at times tortuous story of excavation, interpretation, re-interpretation, and depredation at the famous site found by Stirling." This thesis adds to the torture by describing and illustrating the architecture, burials, offerings, and stone sculpture of La Venta Complex A in an effort to reconcile data into an accurate sequence of meaningful cultural events. The details derive from excavation reports, field notes, maps, photographs, and correspondence of the early investigators of the site. This study addressed three myopic perceptions regarding La Venta: (1) the secludedness of Complex A, in particular the Ceremonial Court, from its inception to its termination, (2) the classification and identification of real human burials in Complex A, and (3) the analytical decontextualization of objects, offerings, and monuments from connected ritual activities there.

Houses and lineages are both named, corporate units of social organization defined in part on the connection between people and place. They are distinguished from one another by the relative emphasis on biological descent in societies organized on the basis of corporate group membership. Over the past 15 years, researchers have debated whether ancient Maya social organization was characterized by house or lineage organization. Drawing on ethnographic, epigraphic, and archaeological data, researchers have concluded that the ancient Maya had some characteristics of house societies, but that biological descent was an important principle. One relevant line of evidence conspicuously absent from this debate is biological distance analysis as a means of identifying patterns of biological relatedness within sites. In this chapter we review intracemetery analyses from Mesoamerica, focusing on the Maya area, and discuss what, if any, insight such analyses of biological spatial organization might bring to bear on the house versus lineage debate. We suggest that the use of biological distance analysis will not resolve debates about the relevant importance of house and biological lineage in ancient Maya society, but increasing incorporation of intracemetery analyses within existing research programs will help identify those the circumstances in which biological kinship was emphasized in Maya society. As such, intracemetery biodistance adds an important and independent line of evidence that is currently underutilized in studies of ancient Maya social organization.

One of the more commonly known aspects of the ancient Maya culture is the ballgame. This ancient ballgame was played by most Mesoamerican cultures on a constructed ballcourt and many major Mesoamerican sites have at least one, if not more than one. Contemporary Mesoamericans still play versions of this ballgame today, but without the use of the ballcourts, questioning the importance and purpose of the ballcourt that is no longer the case today. After over a century of research, scholars have yet to unravel all the cosmological and mythological mysteries of the ballcourt and its purpose to the ancient Maya. Although the archaeological record rarely supports the well-known Postclassic Hero Twin myth, most scholars continue to use this myth to interpret Classic ballgame iconography. In this study, I link Classic period ballcourt architecture and iconography at Caracol to Preclassic cache practices, to an Early Classic tomb, and to an elite Classic structure, demonstrating a widespread set of cosmological symbols that were not exclusively reserved for the ballcourt. I suggest that the four eroded figures on Caracol Ballcourt Markers 1 and 2 represent east, west, zenith, and nadir, and that the north-south alignment of Classic Southern Lowland ballcourts was the result of a vertical visualization of the three ballcourt markers. This study shows that the Maya ballcourt was a cosmogram, intended to delineate sacred space and demarcate a portal into the underworld.

This study examines the origins of complex societies in Mesoamerican archaeology, and the “mother culture” versus “sister cultures” debate and whether or not the sharing of ideas and materials, from one or multiple sources, catalyzed internal changes toward greater complexity for some early centers during Formative times, prior to the emergence of cities and states. The examination includes pottery analyses and other contextual observations from the Tayata site, in the Mixteca Alta region, as a marker for larger regional and macroregional developments, and as a means of evaluating the Olmec-centric (mother culture) versus pan-Mesoamerican (sister cultures) viewpoints. Tayata is an ideal case study to examine the emergence of complex societies and interregional interaction for early Mesoamerica because of its initial dates of occupation, its location in one of the “nuclear areas” in the emergence of Mesoamerican civilization, and because of its relationships with other regions and contemporaneous sites. The central research question guiding this study concerns the origin of early decorated, well-finished pottery in the Mixteca Alta, and whether they were imported products from other regions, or local copies, or if it was a simultaneous and mutually influential tradition present not only in the Mixteca Alta and greater Oaxaca area but also in different Mesoamerican regions. The focus of this study is Area A of Tayata, where excavations in 2004 revealed one of the largest pre-urban Formative centers in the Mixteca Alta. Tayata’s growth in social complexity is evident by 900/850 BC, when the site expanded significantly and initiated the construction of non-residential buildings and public spaces far in excess of prior phases of occupation. This data set includes architectural features and other deposits, which permit an analysis that compares the presence, and characteristics of pottery in different contexts. Data generated from this study come from 166 sherds selected for macroscopic fabric analysis, then 141 used for portable X-ray fluorescence analysis (pXRF), and then 60 for applying instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA), show relevant and potential conclusions to understand the local, regional and macroregional exchange and production of pottery. The sample includes utilitarian vessels, such as tecomates, jars, and braziers, and non-utilitarian vessels, such as well-finished vessels of gray and white wares, and focus on pan-Mesoamerican pottery styles identified across Early and Middle Formative times. Samples were from diverse contexts excavated at two different compounds, where Compound 1 shows the earliest material (ca. 1400 BC) and presents clear evidence of multi-craft production; and Compound 2 has later occupation, from Middle Formative to the beginning of Late/Terminal Formative, and its contexts correspond to an elite residence, an adjacent temple, and cremated human and animal burials. Multiple lines of evidence, including pottery production, multicrafting, goods and routes of exchange, architecture, and funerary practices, support the idea that Tayata in the Mixteca Alta, was immersed in social transformations observed across different regions during the Early/Middle Formative (ca. 1400 – 350 BC). Tayata’s interactions with multiple areas related to its local development, showing particularly similarities with the Central Valley of Oaxaca in public constructions, such as the one-room temple, and rituals, such as feasting and funerary practices. Results of macroscopic, contextual, and compositional analyses from Tayata’s pottery, show that pottery production at this site followed both regional and macroregional traditions. Tayata’s imported pottery was primarily associated with a Pacific-coast exchange route that crossed the lowland coastal Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the mountainous Nejapa/Yautepec region, and the highland Central Valleys of Oaxaca, and from there reaching the north of the Mixteca Alta, being a corridor of influence in both goods and ideas to the Formative centers in the region.

No description available.