STATE AND SOCIETY AT TEOTIHUACAN, MEXICO

Between 100 BCE and 200 CE, the city of Teotihuacan grew rapidly, most of the Basin of Mexico population was relocated in the city, immense civic-religious structures were built, and symbolic and material evidence shows the early importance of war. Rulers were probably able and powerful. Subsequently the city did not grow, and government may have become more collective, with significant constraints on rulers\u27 powers. A state religion centered on war and fertility deities presumably served elite interests, but civic consciousness may also have been encouraged. A female goddess was important but probably not as pervasive as has been suggested. Political control probably did not extend beyond central Mexico, except perhaps for some outposts, and the scale and significance of commerce are unclear. Teotihuacan\u27s prestige, however, spread widely in Mesoamerica, manifested especially in symbols of sacred war, used for their own ends by local elites

Shamanic Journeys into the Otherworld of the Archaic Chichimec

A spatial analysis of rock art located within the lower Pecos region of southwest Texas and northern Mexico reveals the presence of a recurring motif that depicts anthropomorphic figures passing through an opening in a serpentine arch. An extensive review of the ethnographic literature and archaeological record of cultures within Mesoamerica and the Gran Chichimeca indicates that this motif is widespread and generally associated with specific beliefs about the shamanic journey into the spirit world. Based on analogies drawn from the ethnographic literature, the lower Pecos region motif can be interpreted as a pictographic representation of the shamanic journey made by Archaic Chichimecans into the spirit world. The evidence also indicates that the cosmologies of the cultures within Mesoamerica and the Gran Chichimeca were well established in the Chihuahuan Desert at least 4,000 years ago

O período Epiclássico na Mesoamérica: implicações para a questão tolteca e o sítio arqueológico de Chichén Itz The Epiclassic period in Mesoamerica: implications to the toltec question and the archaeologycal site of Chichén Itzá

A Arqueologia de Chichén Itzá sugere que sua construção data fundamentalmente do período Clássico Terminal ou Epiclássico (700-950 d.C.), ao invés do Pós-Clássico Inicial (950-1100 d.C.). Esta afirmação chama a atenção para as implicações de cronologia para o muito conhecido problema tolteca. Estamos trabalhando com a premissa que a ocupação de Chichén Itzá é, em sua maior parte, anterior à fase Tollán de Tula (900-1200 d.C.), o que nos leva a crer que o que geralmente é identificado como iconografia tolteca e, portanto, de origem das terras altas centro-mexicanas, de fato data do horizonte Epiclássico.<br>The Archaeology of Chichén Itzá suggests that its construction fundamentally date of the period Classic Terminal or Epiclassic (700-950 AD), instead of the Post-Classic Periodo (950-1100 AD). This draws attention to the implications of chronology for the well known problem tolteca. We are working with the assumption that the occupation of Chichén Itzá is, in the most part, prior to the stage Tollán of Tula (900-1200 AD), which leads us to believe that what is usually identified as tolteca iconography and therefore uplands of origin of the center-Mexican, in fact date Epiclassic horizon