Regional Survey: Archaeological Research
Design
Reading: Mesoamerican Archaeology: Deborah Nichols, Chapter 11
The goal of this class is to show how archaeologists define research questions and design research to answer their questions.
slide: Postclassic settlement in the Basin of Mexico: Nichols' chapter shows how concentrating on the region rather than the individual site has allowed archaeologists to ask a whole new series of questions about ancient cultures and why they change. Using regional surveys, archaeologists in the Basin of Mexico have asked questions about population densities, farming systems and other resource use, and specialized production and exchange systems.
slide: surface survey, Chalco lakebed, 1972: this is how survey is carried out. Walk in straight line looking for scatters of artifacts. Because ancient houses were built of adobe (mud brick) and thatched roofs, sites are sometimes defined only be scatters of pottery, obsidian blades, and animal bone rather than any mounds or architectural features.
slide: sherd scatter, Huexotla, upper piedmont: one of the things that regional survey showed was that native people emphasized different extractive activities in different zones of the Basin. For example, here in the upper piedmont slopes surrounding the valley, soils are thin and maize doesn't grow very well. Instead of growing maize, people emphasized maguey cultivation and made use of its sap and fiber for pulque, syrup, sugar, rope, and clothing. Some of these products could have been consumed directly in peasant homes; others could have been sold in markets to other peasants specializing in other types of production. This is evident in the high frequency of obsidian scrapers and jars for aguamiel extraction and felsite scrapers used for maguey fiber extraction in the upper piedmont zone.
slide: pine and maize, Chalco, lower piedmont: on the lower slopes, deeper soils are more suited to maize cultivation, and maize was emphasized.
slide: chinampas: as Nichols describes, much of the shallow lakebed was converted into ridged fields (chinampas). Because these fields were perpetually moist, they could be planted before the onset of the rains in May, and so crops requiring longer growing seasons, such as chiles, could be planted on these fields.
slide: scaling fish: The parts of the lake that were not converted into chinampas, yielded other valuable products such as protein-rich fish, algae (slide: spirolina algae), water fowl (slide: duck soup), and water-fly eggs (slide: water-fly eggs). All the water fowl that nested in the United States and Canada migrated south to Mexico for the winter, so millions of birds descended on the Basin of Mexico and could be hunted during the cold, dry winter months when farming was not possible.
slide: Diego River's mural of Tenochtitlan: The awareness of variety of local resources in the Basin of Mexico gained from regional survey suggested that large regional states may have promoted prosperity in the Basin of Mexico by unifying the region so that specialization and market exchange could intensify. People in different zones of the Basin of Mexico could specialize in products most suitable to that zone and trade these products for those of other zones. The outcome would be more efficient production and a higher standard of living for everyone. This was a functional explanation for states and social inequality in central Mexico: with a state, the regional economy operated more efficiently, and everyone, peasants and nobles, alike, benefited.
slide: tribute, Codex Mendoza: But I was not convinced that the Aztec state promoted economic well-being, since the Aztecs extracted a heavy tribute from the provinces under their control. Tribute payments included bundles of woven cloth, which served as a form of currency in the market system, fancy warriors' costumes covered with the costly bright-colored feathers of tropical birds, bins of maize and beans, and jars of thickened maguey syrup.
slide: Xaltocan from a distance: I decided to test this theory through my own research at Xaltocan, Mexico. Xaltocan is located in the middle of what was once a marshy, brackish lake, just 35 km north of Mexico City/Tenochtitlan. It has been occupied continuously since 900 CE.
slide: Xaltocan, plaza: According to native histories, Xaltocan was the capital of its own small state for the first 400 years of its existence, then in 1430 it was conquered by the Aztecs and was part of the Aztec Empire for almost a century. In 1521, it was attacked and burned by Cortés, and then became part of colonial Mexico, and republican Mexico, and on into today.
slide: Luis, bottom of Operation I: Xaltocan is a deeply stratified site, and that's good. I can compare artifacts from the lower pre-Aztec levels of the site from the higher levels representing the period of Aztec rule, and I can test the idea that large regional states promote specialization, exchange, economic efficiency and higher standards of living. I can ask, do artifacts from Xaltocan suggest that people focused more on lake products after they were incorporated into the Aztec Empire? And, did the standard of living rise under Aztec rule?
slide: Operation G: in some places we found standing adobe walls from houses that were 1100 years old.
slide: Operation G6: we found the impressions of wood and bundles of straw from fallen thatched roofs.
slide: Operaction C, burial: we found a few burials, near the houses.
slide: Period 3 spindle whorls: and we found spindle whorls from before and during the period of Aztec rule. These from before the Aztecs, and these (slide: Period 4 spindle whorls) from the period when Xaltocan was under Aztec rule. We found many more spindle whorls from the period when Xaltocan was under Aztec rule, which I think demonstrates that once Xaltocan was conquered by the Aztecs, people did have to produce more cloth to pay the tribute that the Aztecs demanded (although Michael Smith suggests that the higher frequency of spindle whorls indicates that households were producing more cloth to sell in the markets). Do you see a difference between the earlier spindle whorls and the later spindle whorls? [Most of the later spindle whorls lack decoration]. This may suggest that women were feeling more alienated from their work as spinners of cotton during the period of Aztec rule, perhaps because their labor was going to benefit the Aztec nobility instead of benefiting their own households, as it had earlier.
slide: prismatic cores: In addition to more weaving, there were signs of a decreased standard of living. There was less obsidian in layers associated with Aztec rule, and the obsidian from these layers showed more signs of use. A greater percentage of the blade edges were dulled by use, and there were some efforts to resharpen the cutting edge by striking a blow along one edge (Millhauser in press).
slide: Aztec II Geometric plate: There were other signs of a lower standard of living. Before the period of Aztec rule, almost 33% of the pottery was decorated. And the decorated pottery from this period bears very complex designs that were time-consuming to create (slide: Black-and-White-on-Red bowl).
slide: Aztec III plates: However, during the period of Aztec rule, only 29% of the pottery was decorated, and the designs from this period are quite simplified, requiring less time, and probably purchased more cheaply.
slide: lip plugs from Xaltocan: Before Aztec rule, people in Xaltocan had produced lip plugs. These were no longer produced once the town fell under Aztec rule. All this indicates that under Aztec rule, people worked harder, but had a lower standard of living than they had enjoyed prior to Aztec conquest. It runs counter to theory that large conquest states raised the higher standard of living for all of its citizens.
slide: rough, shallow bowl: We could also test the theory that regional unification created a more efficient use of local resources. Some types of artifacts were used to process specific types of lake resources. For example, this bowl was probably used to evaporate the salty water and produce salt.
slide: ceramic balls: These balls were blowgun projectiles that were used to hunt small game like rabbits and water fowl. But both rough bowls and ceramic balls became less frequent when Xaltocan fell under Aztec rule. Possibly, people had to spend more time weaving tribute cloth and cultivating fields of maize for Aztec rulers, so they had less time to spend making salt and hunting water fowl. In support of this idea, ethnohistorian Frederic Hicks (in press) has found some colonial documents mention that the people of Xaltocan had to cultivate maize fields on the mainland belonging to the Aztec ruler during the period of Aztec domination. But another possibility is that the people of Xaltocan actually developed ways of netting water fowl that were more efficient than hunting them individually with blowguns, so that ceramic balls become less frequent while bird-hunting actually intensifies (Parsons in press). But the lack of evidence of intensified exploitation of lake products combined with the falling standard of living at Xaltocan suggests that the Aztecs were not interested in promoting economic efficiency. They were interested in having the people of Xaltocan produce storable goods such as cloth and maize that would enrich their treasuries.
So, I have provided an example of a research design such as the one you might write for your third paper. Turning to the description of Research Paper #4 (see syllabus),
- I defined my research question because of my own orientation differed from those of the scholars who have worked with this culture. I was skeptical of the idea that conquest states promote the economic well-being of the majority of people within them. Therefore, my research questions were: do artifacts from Xaltocan suggest that people focused more on lake products after they were incorporated into the Aztec Empire? And, did the standard of living rise under Aztec rule?
- The wider theoretical issues at stake in my research was do state promote economic efficiency and increase the standard of living for people who become a part of them?
- To resolve these research questions, I proposed to compare the frequencies of artifacts from the period before Aztec rule with the frequencies of artifacts from the period of Aztec dominance. Changes in the frequencies of rough dishes and ceramic balls reflected changes in the production of lake products. Changes in the frequency of small spindle whorls reflected changes in the production of tribute cloth. Changes in the frequencies of decorated ceramics, in the extent of painting on decorated ceramics, in the amount of obsidian consumed, and in the intensity of obsidian use all reflected changes in the standard of living.
- Since these data were not already available, I proposed (and carried out) a series of archaeological excavations at Xaltocan. I excavated nineteen 2m x 2m squares, some in areas of the site where artifacts on the surface suggested pre-Aztec deposits, and some in areas of the site where artifacts on the surface suggested deposits from the period of Aztec dominance. I compared the frequencies of artifacts in the pre-Aztec and Aztec deposits. Had I found a higher frequency rough dishes and ceramic balls in the Aztec layers I would have accepted the hypothesis that regional unification increased the exploitation of local resources and increased the productive efficiency of the regional economy. Had I found a higher frequency of highly decorated ceramics, or a greater abundance of obsidian with less intense use wear, I would have accepted the hypothesis that regional unification increased the standard of living for the entire population of the Basin of Mexico. Since I found the opposite in both cases, I rejected the hypothesis that regional unification led to more efficient production and a higher standard of living for everyone.