This article examines Group G, a commoner household at the Classic-period Maya site of Chinikihá (a.d. 200–900), to explore how daily practices, household rituals, and architectural histories intersected within domestic space. Excavations revealed well-preserved architecture, including a patio, kitchen, and dwelling, with evidence of construction events, ritual offerings, and long-term maintenance. Soil chemical analyses identified signatures of food preparation, consumption, and maintenance activities through residues of phosphates, proteins, fatty acids, and carbohydrates, alongside charcoal and paleoethnobotanical remains. Combined with botanical evidence such as Guadua (bamboo) and pine (Pinus sp.), these results underscore the importance of kitchens, patios, and altars as spaces of production, memory, and ritual practice. Residues preserved in floors and surfaces provide intimate insights into daily activities while situating households within broader cultural and cosmological frameworks. By focusing on a non-ruling-elite domestic group, this research highlights the resilience of Indigenous technologies and practices and their enduring continuity into modern Maya communities, contributing to broader discussions on social organization, identity, and tradition in ancient Mesoamerica.

Greenstone is commonly used to produce culturally significant items across Mesoamerica, including axes, earspools, figurines, and beads. This research characterizes the mineralogy of greenstone materials recovered from sites in the Jovel Valley, Chiapas, Mexico, to document the range of green minerals utilized by the inhabitants. Our analysis of the objects suggests that the Late Classic and Early Postclassic Maya of the Jovel Valley had access to a variety of greenstone minerals, including serpentinites, green micas, grossular, and jadeite. X-ray diffraction and X-ray fluorescence spectrometry characterization of reference materials suggests procurement of greenstone resources from the well-documented sources of the Motagua–Polochic Fault Zone, and also potentially from sources in the Chalchihuitán–Chenalhó area of Chiapas, Mexico. The Jovel Valley had access to materials over long distances through historically documented trade routes that allowed the movement of greenstone materials west from the Motagua River Valley into highland Chiapas or south from the Chalchihuitán–Chenalhó area.

Different types of iron ore and pyrite were used to craft a wide variety of reflective artifacts in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, including “mirrors,” pectorals, necklaces, and dental inlays, among others. In the Maya region, most of these have only been visually assessed, without using analytical techniques. Consequently, our understanding of the diversity of raw materials used in artifact production has been limited. This article presents preliminary results from a pilot study aiming to identify the raw materials used in the manufacture of different reflective objects from a small sample of finds from the sites of La Corona and Cancuen, located in Guatemala, through the use of scanning electron microscopy with EDS detectors (SEM-EDS), energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Raman spectroscopy. Although further analyses are needed to confirm the representativeness of the sample, these results indicate the use of hematite and goethite (iron oxides), but not pyrite (iron sulfide). This study also shows how improved knowledge of raw material use can elicit previously unknown patterns of distribution and exchange, and highlight patterns of inter- and intrasite variability in the production, use, and exchange of reflective objects over time in the Maya region throughout the Classic period.

Desde la antigüedad, los artefactos de pizarra fueron utilizados por sociedades asentadas en diversos puntos del continente americano; su uso abarcó diferentes temporalidades y múltiples formas.

En el caso particular de Teotihuacán, ubicado en el centro de México, los artefactos en cuestión se reportan dentro y fuera de esta ciudad, depositados como ofrenda y asociados directamente al fuego, al agua y al inframundo. Aunque la pizarra fue una materia prima con una presencia constante en Teotihuacán, sólo se reconoce cuando aparece asociada a los espejos, cuando presenta diseños iconográficos, o con evidencia de decoración. Al respecto, en este texto señalamos la importancia de la pizarra en Teotihuacán, su cronología y contexto. De acuerdo con los resultados de los análisis tipológicos, geológicos y de caracterización, proponemos el aprovechamiento de diversas materias primas dentro de un mismo yacimiento, así como la identificación de las áreas de extracción de la pizarra utilizada por los teotihuacanos a través del tiempo.

Estos datos nos permiten inferir las funciones rituales, simbólicas y jerárquicas de esta materia prima dentro de la metrópoli teotihuacana.

Studies of pottery production and exchange under the Mexica (Aztec) empire have emphasized the role of elites, the constraints created by the market system, or the effects of persistent regionalism in shaping economic patterns. We build on those studies by emphasizing the role of commoners and how their decisions and strategies shaped pottery production and exchange after the formation of the Mexica empire. We present a neutron activation analysis of 111 pottery samples from Xaltocan, including a variety of decorated and undecorated serving vessels and utilitarian pottery from contexts that date to the Mexica empire. The chemical composition of the pottery indicates production of different types at Xaltocan, Cuauhtitlan, Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, Otumba, Chalco, and the southern basin of Mexico. While some types were produced at a variety of locales, a few of the types sampled were produced only or mostly at Xaltocan, including Red Ware, Aztec Polychrome, and Fabric Marked pottery. The findings suggest that commoners were actively copying or producing different types without elite or Mexica control, and that perhaps they preferred to use some locally produced types instead of pottery made elsewhere. The findings show the power of commoners in shaping their economic lives even under imperial control.

Site E19 (19:N1W5), near Tlailotlacan, the “Zapotec Barrio” of Teotihuacan, contains evidence of both Tlailotlacan and Michoacan affiliation. To verify and better understand the Michoacan relationship, 22 enamel and 19 bone samples from five E19-affiliated burials were analyzed to determine their oxygen isotope compositions, which provide an indication of an individual's area of residence when that particular tissue was forming. Because prismatic blades and Thin Orange ceramics from Teotihuacan occur widely in the Lakes Region of north central Michoacan we obtained samples from several sites there for comparative purposes. The results show that most of the E19 people had passed their later years in the Patzcuaro Basin of the Lakes Region. Although in E19 the archaeological evidence of this relationship declined over time, the isotopic evidence indicates that Patzcuaro ties continued to the end of E19's occupation. It seems that the people of E19, originally Michoacanos, gradually adopted a core identity as Teotihuacanos while continuing to deploy their Michoacan ancestry during their stays in Michoacan.

Isotopes of strontium, oxygen, and carbon were analyzed in human tooth enamel from two Postclassic sites in the central Peten lakes region, Guatemala, to examine patterns of mobility and diet during a time of social unrest. Excavations at both sites, Ixlu and Zacpeten, have revealed evidence for purposeful dismemberment and interment of individuals. This study examines a possible shrine surrounded by rows of skulls at Ixlu, and a mass grave of comingled individuals interred at Zacpeten. The interments coincide with a period of conflict and warfare between two dominant polities, Itza and Kowoj. The 14 sampled individuals at Ixlu were young males, six of whom isotopically match the Maya Mountains of central Belize/southeastern Peten. At Zacpeten, isotopic signatures of adults and children (n = 68) suggested that many were either local or came from other parts of the Maya lowlands, but not the Maya Mountains. In the Late Postclassic, the Zacpeten individuals were exhumed, defiled, and deposited in a mass grave, probably by Kowojs. Although temporally and geographically related, the Ixlu and Zacpeten burials represent two distinct cases of ritual violence that reflect the tumultuous political landscape of the Postclassic period.