DISCIPLINARY AND REGIONAL CONTEXT

Interest in historical archaeology on a world-wide scale has been increasing in recent years. We have published three papers dealing with the development of the field in Mexico (Charlton and Fournier Reference Charlton, Fournier and Pearsall2007; Charlton et al. Reference Charlton, Fournier, Charlton, Majewski and Gaimster2009a, Reference Charlton, Fournier, Charlton, Targa and García2009b). Here we summarize briefly the development of historical archaeology, including some of the more important discoveries in recent years, and then examine its current status and future prospects in the Basin of Mexico and adjacent areas of the Central Mexican Symbiotic Region (CMSR [Sanders Reference Sanders and Willey1956:115–116]). Sanders perceived of Mesoamerica as consisting of scores of climatic and topographic subzones in very close proximity, producing a complexity of products and specializations of production that made possible a high volume of trade and the development of urbanism despite primitive transport. Symbiotic regions are parallel sub-regions of different climates and production forming mutual trading units. (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Map of the Central Mexican Symbiotic Region with relevant locations noted.

Scholars studying the archaeology of the Late Postclassic period in the CMSR and relating the material remains to available textual sources are in essence practicing historical archaeology (for example, Charlton Reference Charlton, Adams and MacLeod2000). However, Charles Orser (Reference Orser1996) would restrict the concept of historical archaeology to the period initiated by and continuing after European contact in the New World. Recently, Orser (Reference Orser, Symonds and Pekka-Herva2014) redefined historical archaeology as modern-world archaeology, a research field covering the topics of colonialism, capitalism, Eurocentrism, and racialization. In the case of the Basin of Mexico, historical archaeology would then begin in 1521 and would focus on the outcome of the contact process on the indigenous people, the invaders, and the descendents of both, as revealed by the results of archaeological excavations and documentary research, and the application of accepted theories and models. This overview focuses on that time period following European contact.

THE ROOTS OF HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE CENTRAL MEXICAN SYMBIOTIC REGION

Historical archaeology in the CMSR developed from the confluence of several loosely related investigative trends within central Mexico and the United States. The first incipient developments included the research of scholars working in Mexico who recognized and published data on Colonial period ceramics in the Basin of Mexico, often as a by-product of their investigations into precontact cultures. They included examinations of vessels and figurines considered to date from the Colonial period (for example, Franco Reference Franco1949; Noguera Reference Noguera1934). In the mid-twentieth century, there was an awareness of and interest in post-Conquest ceramics, whether Aztec, Hispanic, or syncretic in nature, by scholars and researchers who believed that ceramics provide key insights into the past.

A second impetus to the development of historical archaeology resulted from an interest in the legacy of those parts of the Spanish empire, and later of Mexico, which through a variety of circumstances fell under American control between 1800 and 1850. Researchers in the borderlands looked south for comparative architectural and artefactual data (for example, Montgomery et al. Reference Montgomery, Smith and Brew1949). Of particular importance was John Goggin's (Reference Goggin1968) major comparative investigation of majolica, a ceramic ware of Hispanic origin and New World production that occurs in Hispanic sites in the United States as well as in the Caribbean (see also Deagan Reference Deagan1988, Reference Deagan1996). Goggin defined Colonial-period majolica types and their time frames, establishing regional majolica traditions and a wide ranging majolica horizon as the backbone of a chronology for Hispanic sites in the New World.

The continuing development of historical archaeology in the CMSR was given additional impetus by a third line of investigation. Critical to the development of historical archaeology in Mexico and the United States was an increasing concern in the United States for historic preservation, particularly in the 1960s. In Mexico before the 1960s, historic buildings—particularly religious structures including churches, missions, monasteries, and convents, as well as many grandiose palaces and residences of the elite, all owned by the federal government and dating to the Colonial and Republican periods—had been maintained and restored with little attention paid to archaeological materials encountered during these activities. In the decade of the 1960s, pioneering work in historical archaeology was carried out in Mexico City at the Metropolitan Cathedral, followed by intensive archaeological salvage or rescue projects associated with major construction activities such as the subway (for example, Fournier and Miranda Reference Fournier and Miranda1992). By 1972, Mexican law required that archaeologists be present when all such activities were being conducted so as to protect any historical remains encountered.

A fourth and final impetus to the development of historical archaeology in Mexico can be found in the development of problem-oriented archaeology with appropriate field methods by archaeologists whose primary interests were in prehispanic civilizations. Some of these archaeologists realized in the 1960s that it was no longer necessary to leave the study of the Colonial and Republican periods to the historians and ethnohistorians, as Gamio (Reference Gamio1922) had done. The field methods—especially regionally oriented intensive surface surveys and collections—worked equally well for the pre- and post-1521 periods. The same is true for excavations of strata pits, domestic and religious structures, and middens (for example, Parsons Reference Parsons1966).

An example of an early investigation focusing directly on the post-Conquest periods is Charlton's (Reference Charlton1972, Reference Charlton1973) survey and excavation project “Post-Conquest Developments in the Teotihuacan Valley,” designed to continue to the present the archaeological sequence in the Teotihuacan Valley from the Late Aztec period, the chronological terminus of Sanders' Teotihuacan Valley Project (Sanders Reference Sanders1965).

THE PRESENT STATUS OF HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE BASIN OF MEXICO AND CENTRAL MEXICAN SYMBIOTIC REGION: METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES

THE PRESENT STATUS OF HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE BASIN OF MEXICO AND THE CENTRAL MEXICAN SYMBIOTIC REGION: SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES

Ceramic Complexes and Sequences

Since the 1960s, there have been substantial advances made in the study of Colonial and Republican period ceramics, contributing to their classification, chronology, and origin, and to some extent to their functions and ethnic affiliations. We have discussed these in detail for the ceramics of the Early Colonial period for both urban and rural contexts (Charlton et al. Reference Charlton, Charlton, García, Kepecs and Alexander2005, Reference Charlton, Fournier, Charlton, Carrión and Cook2007). In addition, we have described the sequence of majolica and Chinese and European wares for the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries (Charlton and Fournier Reference Charlton, Fournier, Rogers and Wilson1993; Fournier Reference Fournier1990, Reference Fournier, Dávila and Serafín1998). Here we draw on those discussions and add information regarding the most important ceramic complexes for the Middle and Late Colonial periods, and the Early and Contemporary Republican periods.

Changes in Late Postclassic Aztec ceramics following the Conquest occurred earlier in urban contexts than in rural ones, and the ceramics tended to be more elaborate than their rural counterparts. During the Early Colonial period in both urban and rural contexts, the impact of the Conquest on Aztec Orange Wares is noticeable as a subtle technological deterioration. After 1620, the Plain Orange forms, including bowls, basins, jars, and ollas, became matte finished with little burnishing. The comales also changed shape somewhat from a flat form to a concave form. Plain Orange ceramics were gradually replaced by lead-glazed ceramics in a process beginning around 1580–1650 (Charlton Reference Charlton1980).

In the urban areas, Aztec III (pre-Conquest) Black-on-Orange designs disappeared, although they continued in rural contexts. In the city, Aztec IV (post-Conquest) designs replaced the Aztec III designs usually on the interior surfaces of dishes and molcajetes (grinding bowls). (Figure 2). After the destruction of Tenochtitlan in 1521, the production of Aztec Orange wares, including Aztec IV Black-on-Orange, shifts from Tenochtitlan to the east side of the lake, and uses clays from the Tetzcoco production zone, presumably as a result of damage done to the indigenous ceramic production facilities at Tenochtitlan during the Conquest (Charlton et al. Reference Charlton, Neff, Nichols, Charlton and Glascock1999).

Figure 2.

Early Colonial period ceramics. Top to bottom: First row, Colonial Black-on-Red molded supports, tripod vessel and dish. Second row: Aztec IV Black-on-Orange molcajetes. Third row: Glazed molcajetes and stamped bowl [adapted from Charlton et al. Reference Charlton, Fournier, Charlton, Carrión and Cook2007].

In rural areas, Aztec IV designs did appear in lower frequencies and contextually are post-Conquest (for example, Charlton et al. Reference Charlton, Nichols and Charlton2000). There was a gradual loss of Black-on-Orange decorated vessels during the Early Colonial period in both urban and rural settings, with the final end of such designs occurring in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth centuries. This appears to be part of the continuing deterioration in finish of orange wares in general and in part is probably the result of a drop in demand after the crash of the indigenous population. Forms remain the same but with little surface treatment. By the mid-eighteenth century, Plain Orange wares appear to be directly replaced by glazed earthenware (Charlton Reference Charlton1980:203).

In the Late Postclassic the second most common Aztec ceramic ware is Red Ware. The most exuberant post-Conquest changes in indigenous ceramics occurred in Tenochtitlan-Tlatelolco in the Red Ware tradition (Charlton et al. Reference Charlton, Fournier and Cervantes1995, Reference Charlton, Charlton, García, Kepecs and Alexander2005, Reference Charlton, Fournier, Charlton, Carrión and Cook2007; Charlton and Fournier Reference Charlton, Fournier, Liebmann and Murphy2010). Red Ware may have appealed to Spanish aesthetic tastes since it recalled the fine bright red ceramics produced in Badajoz and Evora, on the Iberian Peninsula (for example, Charlton and Fournier Reference Charlton, Fournier, Liebmann and Murphy2010). New forms were introduced into a Black-on-Red tradition, including a Spanish soup plate, probably derived from forms found in majolica (see Figure 2). Stylistically, the designs were derived from Aztec IV Black-on-Orange designs usually found on plates, dishes, and molcajetes. During the Early Colonial period, these ceramics were present only in low frequencies in urban areas and not at all in the rural zones.

In the rural areas there was a substantially greater persistence of the pre-Conquest Red Ware ceramic tradition. Frequencies decreased during this period, probably with Red Ware disappearing between 1580 and 1650. There were two introductions at this time, possibly from the urban zone where they had developed earlier. One was the soup bowl form, the other the hemispherical bowl. This ware continues through the Late Colonial period and then ends.

The production of simple, relatively low-cost, lead-glazed ceramics (see Figure 2) began early in the sixteenth century in Mexico City and eventually spread to indigenous pottery centers in the CMSR, where glazing technologies were previously unknown. Fragments from the sixteenth century occupation at Otumba indicate local production (Charlton et al. Reference Charlton, Neff, Nichols, Charlton and Glascock1999), as do fragments from the Colonial and Republican periods found elsewhere in the Basin of Mexico (Figure 3), Puebla, and the Mezquital Valley (Fournier and Blackman Reference Fournier and Blackman2008).

Figure 3.

Colonial to Republican period ceramics. Top to bottom: First row, Chinese Blue-on-White porcelain (Canton pattern), polychrome French porcelain. Second row: Blue-on-White British transfer printed tea ware vessels (Davenport factory). Third row: Mexico City Green-on-Cream early seventeenth century majolica plate, nineteenth century polychrome majolica plate. Collections from Mexico City [pictures and drawings by the authors].

Associated with the Colonial Red Ware in the rural setting are minor wares that do not seem to have origins in solely Hispanic or Indigenous ceramic traditions. Slipped (with a reddish brown slip [RBB]) and Unslipped Coarse Brown Wares include thick and poorly finished jars and basins, either unslipped or covered with a RBB slip on the interior, extending at times to the exterior surface. In some cases the form is a lebrillo (pátera-cajete or bowl), often with an interior base stamped design. Lebrillos occur in Mexico City, possibly as bowls for drinking pulque, from about 1600–1650 to circa 1850 (for example, Temple Sánchez Reference Temple Sánchez, Dávila and Serafín1998), but are present only from about 1621–1820 in rural areas.

Tonalá Bruñida Ware has been produced outside of Guadalajara since the seventeenth century. This ware occurred in both the urban setting as well as in rural areas of the basin (Charlton and Reiff Katz Reference Charlton and Katz1979; López Cervantes Reference López Cervantes1976). In rural settings, it appeared early in the Middle Colonial period and continued through the Late Colonial period, with only one piece known in an Early Republican period context in Charlton's excavations.

As a result of analyses of numerous collections of majolica from two urban centers, Cuernavaca (Fournier and Charlton Reference Fournier, Charlton, Fournier and Wiesheu2011) and Mexico City (Fournier Reference Fournier, Dávila and Serafín1998; Fournier and Charlton Reference Charlton, Fournier, Rogers and Wilson1993, Reference Fournier, Charlton, Dávila and Serafín1998; Lister and Lister Reference Lister and Lister1982), it has become clear that cities possessed a wide range of majolica in terms of origins, chronology, types, and quality (see Figure 3), while rural areas possessed few types in limited quantities and not always of the highest quality, as a result of the concentration of power and wealth in urban settings and lack of access or perhaps demand in rural areas. On-going compositional analyses of the clays used to manufacture pottery vessels have included instrumental neutron activation (INAA), proton induced X-ray emission (PIXE), and for glazes, lead isotope (LA-MC-ICP-MS) analyses. The analyses of large samples of Colonial and Republican majolica, earthenware covered with an opaque glaze made of tin and lead, and pseudomajolica, a slipped and lead glazed earthenware, are contributing to an understanding of historic-period ceramic manufacturing technologies, the sequence of processes followed, and the contexts of manufacturing, distribution, and use in the CMSR (Blackman et al. Reference Blackman, Fournier and Bishop2006; Fournier and Blackman Reference Fournier and Blackman2008; Fournier et al. Reference Fournier, Blackman, Bishop, Fournier, Wiesheu and Charlton2007, Reference Fournier, Blackman and Bishop2009; Iñañez et al. Reference Iñañez, Belluci, Rodríguez-Alegría, Ash, McDonough and Speakman2010; Monroy Guzmán et al. Reference Monroy Guzmán, Fournier, Smit, Miranda, Ruvalcaba, de la Torre, López and García2005).

Chinese and French porcelains (Figure 3) are abundant in urban sites (for example, Fournier Reference Fournier1990, Reference Fournier, Dávila and Serafín1998; Fournier and Charlton Reference Fournier, Charlton, Fournier and Wiesheu2011) but virtually absent in rural sites in the CMSR. Plain and decorated British and French white wares (Figure 3) are also abundant in urban sites, but found only rarely in rural ones. On the other hand, cheaper Mexican-made tableware (for example, Barrera Cruz and Castillo Olvero Reference Barrera Cruz and Olvero2005) is found in almost all excavation sites that date to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, both urban and rural. French and British wares became available in the late 1700s as a result of the Bourbon reforms that granted Spanish ports the rights to trade with other Spanish ports, rather than exclusively with Spain herself.

Architecture, Hispanic Institutions, and Settlement Patterns

Historical archaeology in urban settings in the CMSR focuses heavily on buildings that are the physical remains of Hispanic religious and secular institutions of the Colonial and Republican periods. The associated salvage archaeology has frequently, although not always, been secondary, and has dealt with ceramics, various other artifacts, construction features such as kilns and drains, and osteological remains (Charlton et al. Reference Charlton, Fournier, Charlton, Majewski and Gaimster2009a).

In the rural areas, settlement pattern maps with identified Colonial and Republican structures (churches, houses, ranchos, haciendas) clearly mark the population decline and its persistence at a low level during the Colonial Period, followed by an increase during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Charlton Reference Charlton1972, Reference Charlton, Spores and Andrews1986) (Figure 4). As was mentioned previously, Jones (Reference Jones1982) studied the plans and functions of ranchos and haciendas in the Otumba-Apan area, expanding on Charlton's surveys and excavations at ranchos and haciendas in the eastern Teotihuacan Valley (1973). Beyond these studies however, no additional archaeological work has been carried out on ranchos or haciendas in the area.

Figure 4.

Early Colonial to Early Republican settlement patterns in the Eastern Teotihuacan Valley, Mexico [adapted from Charlton 1976]. a. Late Aztec-Early Colonial (1400–1620) b. Middle-Late Colonial (1621–1820) c. Early Republican (1821–1920)

THE PRESENT AND FUTURE STATUS OF HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE BASIN OF MEXICO AND THE CENTRAL MEXICAN SYMBIOTIC REGION

Traditionally, Mexican archaeological research has been concerned mostly with the pre-Columbian past, with the study of the Colonial and Republican periods left to ethnohistorians and historians. Nevertheless, historical archaeology in the CMSR is not limited to filling gaps in post-Conquest written records that usually register misleading, biased or official narratives about specific events and empowered people, while various themes of the everyday lives of different social and ethnic groups went undocumented (for example, Palka Reference Palka2009).

Historical archaeology research provides an independent set of data with which to examine urban and rural developments with knowledge of material culture and its patterns, to construct cultural chronologies, to reconstruct lifeways, and to assess cultural processes. It focuses on the nature of the physical evidence—ceramics and various artifacts, settlement patterns, spatial distribution of architectural features, landscape, environmental transformations, and resource exploitation, among others—to infer interaction between indigenous and intrusive cultures, continuities and changes in each, including the emergence of new cultural and ethnic variants during the Colonial and Republican periods that cover nearly 500 years since the Spanish Conquest.

As we have noted, much historical archaeological investigation in the Basin of Mexico reflects the increasingly pressing need for salvage and rescue archaeology. Such an approach is by necessity heavily empirical, reflecting an immediate need to recover and describe the materials. Consequently, it does not have a strong theoretical focus. One way to encourage a greater interest in problems of a more general concern would be to develop a set of topics that could be explored profitably using historical and historical archaeological data together in the basin and CMSR. Such topics, grounded in post-1492 worldwide changes, should focus on the differential impact of the Conquest in urban and rural sites and regions, the nature of the political, social, economic, demographic, and religious relationships within each major ethnic and social sector and among those sectors, from 1521 until the present—noting, of course, evolution within each sector as well as the emergence of new areas of interest.

Despite the heavily descriptive nature of historical archaeology in this region, some investigators have attempted to evaluate these themes using available collections, generated by their field work or by that of others. The use of a variety of methods to detect trace elements in ceramics, and hence the probable place of origin of those ceramics, provides insight into the nature of the production and distribution system as well as consumption trends that characterize different social and ethnic groups (for example, Garraty Reference Garraty2007; Rodriguez-Alegría et al. Reference Rodríguez-Alegría, Neff and Glascock2003). In the case of indigenous ceramic traditions, Late Postclassic pottery production and trade systems were disrupted with the decline of the population and the establishment of markets in urban settings to supply the demand of the colonizers. To meet the demand and needs of the conquerors, in some cases indigenous potters adopted European technologies such as glazing, exploiting Postclassic clay sources in the Basin of Mexico, as shown by INAA (for example, Fournier and Blackman Reference Fournier and Blackman2011).

We have used a late culture-historical culture contact model (Wauchope Reference Wauchope1956) to evaluate the structure, content, context, and results of contact and acculturation during the early Colonial period (Charlton and Otis Charlton Reference Charlton, Charlton, Dávila and Serafín1999; Charlton et al. Reference Charlton, Charlton, García, Kepecs and Alexander2005; Charlton and Fournier Reference Charlton, Fournier, Rogers and Wilson1993). In connection with that model, we have also elaborated an economic-materialist-demographic model to account for changes in the economic systems, including the intrusion of an urban institution, the rancho/hacienda, into rural areas after 1580–1620 (Charlton Reference Charlton, Spores and Andrews1986, Reference Charlton and Harvey1991). While the demography as well as the material culture of the rural valley appeared to have changed little in the earlier part of the period, the demographic disaster that decimated nearly 90 percent of the indigenous population by the end of the period left a vacuum in the settlement of the valley as well as a shift in ownership and control of land, leaving open large tracts to be exploited by those with the wherewithal to take advantage of it. As the indigenous population gradually began to recover over the space of the next 200 years, there were no longer resources and land available to them and they became subject to those with increasingly large landholdings for their livelihood. This demographic aspect is viewed as a major factor in the early twentieth century revolution in Mexico—too much land held by too few people when the landless population had greatly increased in number.

Studies of ethnicity and class form part of more general approaches to the post-Conquest record. Although the urban context of materials recovered during salvage operations might be considered to be biased toward the Hispanic ethnicity as well as toward an upper class composed of those of Hispanic origins, information on Hispanic–Indigenous interaction as well as on the status of indigenous urban people might be forthcoming from the field and archival research accomplished.

Historical archaeology in the Basin of Mexico and the CMSR is an evolving sub-field and will become of greater importance in the future. It should be possible through urban historical archaeology to document the sequence and kinds of Hispanic institutions, the expansion of the population, the level of health of the people, and changes in urban planning, as well as to determine changes within the urban infrastructure. At the same time ethnic and social correlates of housing and ceramics should be visible.

In rural areas, where some semblance of Colonial and Independence period cultural landscapes persists, the total potential of multi-faceted historical archaeology can be exploited. The richness of the archaeological record, the historical documentation, and the presence of descendants of both indigenous and intrusive societies, in many instances mean that an enhanced study of social and cultural practices within many differing contexts can be carried out (Charlton Reference Charlton1972, Reference Charlton1973, Reference Charlton1980, Reference Charlton and Schiffer1981, Reference Charlton, Spores and Andrews1986).

There has been increasing use of available historical archaeological data to address questions about social, economic, political, and religious developments in the nearly 500 years since 1521. It is in the context of worldwide trends, such as European cultural expansion after 1492, the Industrial Revolution and Independence movements of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and the current internationalization of the world's economies at the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first centuries, that basin and CMSR historical archaeology should be viewed and addressed.

RESUMEN

En este ensayo exponemos de manera sintética los orígenes y el desarrollo de la arqueología histórica en la región simbiótica del centro de México (RSCM), con particular énfasis a la cuenca de México. En este subcampo de la investigación arqueológica se parte del estudio de la cultura material, y, en general, de las evidencias físicas (cerámica y toda clase de artefactos, patrones de asentamiento, características arquitectónicas de inmuebles, paisaje, impacto ambiental, uso de recursos, entre otros), para lograr una aproximación al entendimiento del cambio cultural y sus dinámicas a partir de la conquista española, con un enfoque temporal que abarca hasta la actualidad.

Los datos derivados de diversas fuentes etnohistóricas e históricas, de contarse con registros documentales, son de relevancia aunque no determinan de manera necesaria la inferencia de procesos culturales pretéritos pues ésta se basa en la cultura material.

En la RSCM al igual que en otras áreas de México, las políticas y legislación gubernamentales en torno a la protección del patrimonio arqueológico han incidido en que se preste particular atención a las obras de infraestructura urbana y que se dé énfasis a la conservación de edificios de los periodos colonial y republicano, lo cual determina en cierta medida el tipo de intervenciones arqueológicas que se efectúan. De hecho, los trabajos de rescate y salvamento arqueológico predominan, sin que en los proyectos de investigación sea definitorio hacer uso de elementos teóricos y, por lo tanto, los resultados suelen ser de corte descriptivo. En contraste, los estudios en el ámbito rural muestran que en muchos casos el instrumental teórico posibilita una mejor aproximación al entendimiento de dinámicas pasadas.

De cualquier forma, la calidad de los datos incide en el proceso inferencial, considerando si se recuperan en intervenciones de superficie o en excavaciones, ya que a menudo los depósitos arqueológicos se encuentran mezclados sin que sea factible un control adecuado en su recuperación para, así, contar con marcos cronológicos precisos.

El estudio de la cerámica arqueológica ha sido de gran importancia en la arqueología histórica de la RSCM, ya que algunas lozas se han logrado ubicar con cierta precisión en el tiempo, mediante análisis químicos de las arcillas y cubiertas vidriadas de las piezas paulatinamente se cuenta con información certera acerca del lugar donde se produjeron. En consecuencia, se puede proceder a interpretaciones acerca de los mecanismos de comercialización de vasijas, tendencias de consumo y posición social o étnica de sus usuarios.

En este ensayo nos interesa hacer hincapié brevemente en las clases de cerámica, vidrio y metal diagnósticos para la construcción de secuencias cronológicas, que se encuentran en trabajos de superficie o excavación en la RSCM.

La arqueología histórica en la RSCM continúa desarrollándose y las investigaciones cubren el largo periodo de cambios y transformaciones de la sociedad virreinal y republicana en México. Apenas se vislumbran aspectos de la vida cotidiana de diversos grupos sociales y distintos procesos culturales, aunque se espera que proliferen a futuro. Así e independientemente de los sesgos de las historias escritas, este subcampo empieza a realizar aportes al conocimiento del pasado y la cultura de los periodos posteriores a la conquista española de México hasta hoy día.