Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Household Spaces and Everyday Practices at Xaltocan Under Aztec Imperial Expansion

Northwestern University, Evanston IL

Investigators

Abstract

Under the direction of Dr. Elizabeth M. Brumfiel, Lisa Overholtzer will examine the social, political, and economic transition at the Postclassic Central Mexican site of Xaltocan upon its conquest and integration into the Aztec empire. Thus, this project will shed light on warfare, imperial expansion, and abandonment and displacement processes, topics of perennial concern within anthropology. Ms Overholtzer will evaluate ethnohistoric assertions that, having been conquered after a long war, Xaltocan was abandoned by its native population and then resettled with Aztec tribute payers. She will also explore the ways in which commoners reformed everyday life in this new context. Fieldwork will include horizontal excavations of two house mounds known to contain domestic deposits dating to before and after incorporation into the Aztec empire. Careful excavation should reveal evidence of site destruction, rapid abandonment, and a hiatus in occupation, if ethnohistoric statements are accurate. The contextual analysis of houses and the distribution of artifacts within them will help reconstruct the spatial routines of daily life before and after incorporation into the Aztec state. However, because many household items were regularly swept up and placed in trash or were taken by their owners when the house was abandoned, their presence and location within a house may not reflect their places of use. Therefore, Ms Overholtzer will also employ analyses of micro-residues - such as chemical signatures of ancient activities and small fragments of artifacts that become imbedded in floors with trampling -that are not affected by these processes. This research will make a theoretical contribution by 1) offering a long-term case study of commoner experiences of war and conquest, and 2) considering bottom-up processes and household decisions at Xaltocan, such as the decisions to flee or rebuild, that contributed to the character of the Aztec empire. This project critically shifts the frame of analysis to focus on commoner choices within a changing political economy, rather than on top-down elite constraints on commoner life. As a result, it will allow one to understand empires in a more comprehensive way that considers the roles of all people in imperial processes. Within Mexico a strong sense of pride rests on national heritage. Ms Overholtzer will create additional knowledge of this heritage and distribute it in several contexts: by training residents in archaeological methods, providing site tours to local schools, constructing an exhibit in the local museum, and distributing research results through the local cultural center. More broadly, research findings will be disseminated in the form of reports to Mexico's National Institute for Anthropology and History, and in dissertation and publication form to academic communities worldwide. Additional broader impacts include the promotion of teaching and learning internationally. The project will provide opportunities for two young archaeologists from underrepresented groups in Mexico and the United States to gain valuable field experience. Through the development of new multi-media curriculum materials and the dissemination of archaeological information via an internet website, the author will encourage learning in university classrooms and beyond.