Suchergebnisse

This article examines the landscape as an enduring protagonist in the northern Basin of Mexico over the past 1,000 years in communities north of Mexico City. Viewing materiality as the mutual constitution between social and physical worlds, I discuss the production and inheritance of landscape legacies. The manner in which legacies are inherited is tied to changing political, economic, and social conditions. This project integrates multiple sources of information (archaeological, ethnographic, historical, and ecological) to understand transforming connections between people and the landscape in this region, from the ancient state of Xaltocan to the Aztec and Spanish empires, continuing into the struggle for a modern nation. It reveals relationships that are apparent only via a perspective in dialogue with the landscape's materiality over time. In so doing, this article asserts archaeologists' unique contribution to the study of not only long‐term change but also historical processes inherited by and relevant to the contemporary world.

ABSTRACT  This article studies archaeological and local versions of the past at Xaltocan, Mexico. At Xaltocan, the past provides a vehicle for statements of ethnic, national, and community identity. Community organizations seek to glorify the town as the descendant of an ancient kingdom that, had a different constellation of historical processes transpired, could have become both the center of an empire and a nation. This process raises questions regarding archaeology's utility and points of convergence and divergence between archaeological and local versions of the past. Rather than disregard the local appropriation of archaeological knowledge, this article attempts both to recognize the relationship between the past and identity politics and to assess local claims by examining archaeological and historical data. This article also considers the problems of this project, particularly the unintended consequences of archaeological research connected to identity politics. [identity, heritage, empire, Mexico, Aztec empire]RESUMEN Este artículo estudia las versiones arqueológicas y locales del pasado en Xaltocan, México. En Xaltocan, el pasado proporciona un vehículo para la manifestación de la identidad étnica, nacional y comunitaria. Las organizaciones de la comunidad tratan de glorificar a la ciudad como descendientes de un antiguo reino que, habiendose dado una constelación diferente de procesos históricos, podría haberse convertido en el centro de un imperio y una nación. Este proceso plantea dudas sobre la utilidad de la arqueología y los puntos de convergencia y divergencia entre las versiones arqueológicas y locales del pasado. Este artículo intenta reconocer la relación entre el pasado y las políticas de identidad y evaluar los reclamos locales mediante el examen de los datos arqueológicos e históricos. También, este artículo considera los problemas de este proyecto, en particular, las consecuencias impremeditadas de la investigación arqueológica ligadas a la política de identidad.

Employing Mauss's notion of the fourth obligation, giving to the gods, this article develops a formulation of ritual exchange to examine the interactive nature of ritual practice. As a modality of interaction, ritual exchange is contingent upon enduring normative beliefs, such as perceived obligations to spiritual entities, and the social positions of ritual practitioners. Consequently, ritual exchange evinces not only the material and immaterial nature of sacred beliefs but also the potential flexibility and fungibility of social interaction. By considering a relatively under‐utilized form of data to study past ritual, archaeobotanical remains, we employ this perspective to explore the ancient Maya practice of offering foods in several caves in western Belize. These data exhibit complex configurations of commonality and variability, suggesting the potential flexibility and latent fungibility of ritual exchange.RésuméEn recourant à la quatrième obligation selon Mauss (l'offrande aux dieux), l'auteur élabore une formulation des échanges rituels afin d'examiner la nature interactive de la pratique rituelle. En tant que modalité d'interaction, l'échange rituel dépend de la pérennité de croyances normatives, telles que les obligations perçues envers les entités du monde des esprits et le statut social des officiants. En conséquence, l'échange rituel évince non seulement la nature matérielle et immatérielle des croyances sacrées, mais aussi la flexibilité et la fonctionnalité potentielles des interactions sociales. En examinant les vestiges archéobotaniques, données relativement mal utilisées pour étudier les rituels passés, nous appliquons ce point de vue à l'étude des pratiques des anciens Mayas qui déposaient des offrandes de nourriture dans des grottes de l'Ouest du Belize. Ces données font apparaître des configurations complexes de points communs et de variabilité, qui suggèrent une flexibilité potentielle et une fonctionnalité latente des échanges rituels.

"Placing the concept of surplus at the forefront of archaeological discussions on production, consumption, power, strategy, and change, this volume reaches beyond conventional ways of thinking about top-down or bottom-up models and offers a comparative framework to examine surplus, generating new questions and methodologies to elucidate the social and political economies of the past"--