Epi-Classic Cultural Dynamics in the Mezquital Valley

The Northern Sector of the Central Mesa

The links between the Maya regions, the Oaxacan areas in the Central Valleys, Central and Southern Veracruz and even the western Valley of Morelos, have been noted and explored by a number of scholars (Marquina, 1941; Thompson, 1953; Jiménez Moreno, 1959; Sáenz, 1963a; 1963b; 1964; 1966; Litvak, 1972; Coggins, 1980; Kroster, 1981; Cohodas, 1989; Nagao, 1989; Joyce, 1993; Schmidt, 1999; Fash and Fash, 2000; among others). The same can be said about the septentrional fraction of Mesoamerica and its relationship with the American Southwest, the West, the Jalisco Highlands and the Bajío (Kelley, 1974; Braniff, 1974; 1977, 1994; 2000; Jiménez, 1989; 1992; 1995; 2001; Jiménez and Darling, 1992; 2000; Weigand, 1995; Ramos and López, 1996; 1999; to mention just a few). However, and for the contextualization of those extended areas in the overall history of Mesoamerica as a whole, one evident obstacle becomes apparent: the particularism with which the dynamics of the Central Plateau has been approached.

Through this text, we have mentioned a couple of sites north of the Central Mesa, and we have referred, superficially, to some of their features. In this section we shall attempt to focus more intensely on the aspects of that region, to support the analysis on the distribution of the pieces and the contexts that motivated our study.

Even though numerous archaeological works have been carried out at the west of the State of Hidalgo, the south of Querétaro, the south of San Luis Potosí, Guanajuato, and northeastern Michoacán, their joint dynamics have been approached only superficially, and little is known on the role they played within the Mesoamerican network as a social integrated system, and a liaison among other regions. In that strip, converging elements are linked on one side, with the oriental, septentrional and occidental areas of Mesoamerica, and on the other, with the Basin of México and the south of the Central Mesa. Before addressing this issue, it would be convenient to explore a number of schemes that have biased the archaeology in the area, and needless to say, which have derived in a fragmentary approach to their historic development.

Among the studies completed in the North-Central Plateau, a recurrent argument becomes apparent. Its pre-hispanic history tends to be summarized as a permanent shift and massive readjustment of human groups, a perception that has been adopted to explain both the transformation of the archaeological contexts and the abandonment and foundation of new settlements (see Flores and Crespo, 1988:205, Castañeda et al., 1988:332; Cervantes et al., 1990; Paredes, 1990:30, note 21; Saint-Charles and Crespo, 1991:8; Crespo and Brambila, 1991:8; Saint-Charles, 1991b:57; Braniff, 1992; Crespo and Viramontes, 1996:11; Viramontes, 1996:28).

In spite of the undisputable continuity of some archaeological sequences, the majority of the interpretations are based on that notion of a fluctuating region, an affirmation created around the ’60s, at a time when research in the region had just begun, but shiftings were already being discussed.

Within such a framework, Pedro Armillas’ proposal regarding climatic variations derived from atmospheric transformations and their impact on farmer communities was heartily supported (1999[1964]). This phenomenon, which was never proved,⁵²  was assumed as one of the determining factors in the contraction of the septentrional Mesoamerican frontier.⁵³

The almost total ignorance regarding the universe of archaeological sites and their definite occupational sequences, jointly with the migratory events present in the accounts of ethnohistoric sources and the extension of the agricultural Mesoamerica towards the XVIth century, have reinforced the notion of sudden abandonments/foundations and have biased the perspectives on the social history, thus leading to an unfortunate categorization of the area, which for a long time was considered as a "marginal" one (Armillas, 1999 [1964]:33; Braniff, 1972:277; 1974; Hers, 1988:23, 28, 30, 36-37; Paredes, 1990:30; Sugiura, 1996:243).

No one denies that the "limits" of the Mesoamerican territory have experienced variations throughout time, but the fact that the farming frontier receded south to result in the configuration found by the Spaniards, does not mean that an eternal process of expansion-contraction had taken place in the septentrional strip along its entire history. It neither means that the conflicts with nomadic groups recorded in historic accounts dated from that far back; actually, at different times prior to the Conquest, a ’peaceful’ relationship was perceived with the sedentary Mesoamericans (Braniff, 2000:36-37; Spence, 2000:256) and it has been accepted that the role played by the nomadic and seminomadic groups in Mesoamerican dynamics might have been significant, particularly as a liaison with other cultural areas (like the American Southwest, Wilcox, 1986, in Braniff, 1994:121-122; Jiménez and Darling, 2000:178, note 2). Presently, we are aware that the complexity of the history of the intermediate region between the limits of maximum expansion and contraction of the ’septentrional frontier’ is much greater.

It is important to point out that Armillas’ hypothesis has derived from a process detected at a worldwide level, and should it have had any resonance in Mesoamerica, it would have cut the rainfall averages towards the XIIth or XIIIth Centuries (Armillas, ibid.:37-39; Braniff, 1977:10). Then, it is surprising that reference is made to such a notion when addressing processes that took place, at least, two hundred years before that (i.e. Hers, 1989:35-36; Saint-Charles, 1990:51; Braniff, 1992:14, 159), some of them connected with the period now under study.

Presently, there’s an overall support towards a contraction of the frontier around the year A.D. 900 or 1000 (see Brambila et al., 1988:13, 19; Castañeda et al., 1988:327, 329; Hers, 1988:25; Flores and Crespo, 1988:205; Saint-Charles, 1990:51, 53, 58; Saint-Charles and Crespo, 1991:8; Braniff, 1992:14; 1994:119, 128; 1999:20; 2000:35, 42; Crespo and Viramontes, 1996:11; Viramontes, 1996:23), approximately up to the south of the Lerma and San Juan rivers (Saint-Charles, 1990:15-16). This proposal has been implemented by Beatriz Braniff in a famous work where she stated: "There is a general agreement on the idea that in Toltec times, that is, between the years A.D. 900 and A.D. 1200, the septentrional Mesoamerican frontier expanded to include marginal zones like Guanajuato, Querétaro, Jalisco, Zacatecas […]. The preliminary investigations we have carried out […] suggest different ideas […]" (1972:273). One of such "different ideas" includes the notion that "[…] the Mesoamerican frontier had initiated its disintegration towards the final portion of the Classic" (ibid.:275).

The grounds for this presumed "disintegration" were fragile, as the author herself recognized when she specified: "The archaeological studies in Guanajuato have been scanty and limited", "In the past years we have quickly and superficially surveyed the states of San Luis Potosí, Zacatecas, Aguascalientes and Guanajuato […]", and "[…] we have carried out some small excavations, which have provided relatively limited data […]" (idem, the scripts are ours).

The excavations that Braniff refers to are those she conducted at El Cóporo, Morales and Carabino in Guanajuato, and at the site of Villa de Reyes (Electra), in San Luis Potosí. All these explorations have yielded interesting results on the local ceramic types and their connections with foreign wares, and the analyses have led to interesting proposals concerning ceramic sequences. Although to an important extent the temporal determinations and the distribution patterns of these types have proved valid, following later works, a number of hypothesis (and their implications, mostly), were assumed as facts, still unsubstantiated. Among these hypothesis, as we have seen, the general abandonment of the area towards the Xth century and its assumed "marginal" character, have been highlighted.

Undeniably, parallel to the gradual fall of the Teotihuacán system and to a greater extent in the time immediately after, there were some modifications in regard to the settlement pattern. But it is possible that this process, that affected a large portion of the Mesoamerican territory and not only its septentrional sector, was the result of local adjustments to major changes in the macroregional social structure, rather than forcibly a permanent situation of total abandonments and massive arrivals. John Paddock refers the following:

"Cultures rarely extinguish […]. The renovation process, in which the old or obsolete pattern gives way to a new one by means of a more or less radical transformation that often implies a change of location, appears to be frequent" (1987:26).⁵⁴

Even though it is true that around the year A.D. 1000 certain areas appear to be depopulated in the archaeological record, in others continuity is undisputable, and even regional peaks may be observed resulting from a greater complexity in the settlements and the systematic exploitation of new and abundant resources.

Around those times, references are made regarding an abandonment of ’Septentrional Mesoamerica’ (Flores and Crespo 1988:205-206; Braniff, 1999:20), when a decrease in population only takes place, in fact, at the Malpaso Valley, Zacatecas, an area north and northeast of San Luis Potosí (Jiménez Betts, personal communication, 2001) and in the Río Verde area (Michelet, 1995:216); while in other areas of the Zacatecan territory,⁵⁵  in central-south San Luis Potosí and in northern Jalisco, there is continuity (Jiménez Betts, personal communication, 2001), as is also the case in Durango (Kelley and Abbot, 1966; Kelley, 1971, 1989; Hers, 1988:25; Braniff, 1994:120; 2000:42; Darling, 1998:392). At that time, the northwest experienced a perceptible peak in the Aztatlán network (Braniff, 1975:10; 2000:42; Bojórquez Diego, in preparation), and something similar takes place in southern Tamaulipas and northern Veracruz, Querétaro and Hidalgo, with the Huastecan development (see Ochoa, 1984 [1979]; Michelet, 1995:216).

Hellen Pollard suggests an occupational continuity for central and northern Michoacán starting early in time and until the conformation of the Tarascan state (Pollard, 1995; 2000a), and Briggitte Faugère describes a similar phenomenon for the Lerma Basin (1996:100-106). Throughout this sequence, significant transformations are evident in the planning, location and occupation of specific sites, but in both cases changes have been interpreted as the consequence of transformations in social dynamics and not as a sign of rupture of the overall occupation or of the cultural tradition (see also Moguel and Sánchez, 1988:233 for the Lerma Basin and Cuitzeo in particular; Healan and Hernández, 1999:140 for the Cuitzeo Basin).

After the year A.D. 900, a change is observed in the settlement patterns of sites from the confluence of the Lerma and Guanajuato rivers and towards the foothills of the surrounding sierras, but here again, signs of an occupation that continued up to Tarascan times (Zepeda, 1988:385) are evident, and it has been noted that by the same date, the settlements of the Pénjamo and Huanímaro sierras and those from the foothills of the Guanajuato sierra, were enriched with new architectural features, changing the use of enclosed patios to open plazas, and incorporating ballgame courts (Castañeda et al., 1988:329-330). Also close the boundaries of Guanajuato with the states of Michoacán and Querétaro, there are descriptions of settlements which during the Late Classic shared ceramics with the rest of the Bajío (Bambila and Castañeda, 1991:146), but whose wares were later integrated to the ceramic complex of Tollán (Brambila and Castañeda, ibid.:150), suggesting an occupation that extended at least until the Early Post Classic. It has been proposed that the occupation of several sites from the Río Laja also extended until that time, and the case of Cañada de la Virgen has been supported with absolute datings (Nieto, 1997 in Wright, 1999:83, note 7).

Map 2
Localization of the Sites Mentioned in the Text

Among the areas that experienced a continuity beyond the year A.D. 1000, needless to say, is the region of Tula. In view of the fact that many elements from this site have been shared with settlements to the north and west (Brambila et al., 1988:18), the presence of materials that connect Tula with the rest of the Central North has been explained as a consequence of a "colonizing momentum" (Castañeda et al., 1988:329) from the Toltecs towards places that were uninhabited at that time: "The explanation of the presence of some settlements of Toltec origins has been proposed as a phenomenon of reoccupation of this region and not as a continuity in the settlement" (Brambila et al., 1988:19, see also Crespo and Flores, 1988:218; Castañeda et al., 1988:328; Saint-Charles, 1990:58; 1991b:61; Crespo 1996:87; Braniff, 2000:36, 42).

This "reoccupation" or "intrusion" by the Toltecs, after a general abandonment of the northern area, poses a number of queries. The earlier phases of the occupation in Tula predate the Xth century, and several ceramics from those earlier complexes are present as well in the "sites of Toltec origins" from Guanajuato, Querétaro and San Luis Potosí, coexisting with local materials. In some cases, such coexistence occurs even with materials of the Tollán phase (see Braniff, 1972; Flores and Crespo, 1988) and in others, the ’Toltec’ complex prevails on the local ware, but there is no evidence of a period of abandonment pointing to a discontinuity in the occupation.

Among the sites that shared ceramics with Tula and that were considered as "isolated within the regional context", are mainly El Cerrito, in Querétaro, Carabino, in Guanajuato, and Villa de Reyes, in San Luis Potosí (Castañeda et al., 1988:328, see also Braniff, 1994:119; 2000:36). Close to El Cerrito in Querétaro, lies the site of La Magdalena, which contains some examples of the Corral de Tula complex (see Flores and Crespo, 1988:210), but whose occupation was initiated in the Classic period, where materials shared with southern Guanajuato are present (Crespo 1991a, figs. 14a-14c, see below). In the same way, the Plow Phase (Fase Arado) from El Cerrito (A.D. 400-650) shares materials with La Negreta (including ceramics of the Xolalpan and Metepec phases) (Crespo, 1991a:104; see also Crespo, 1989:12; 1991b:165, 176, 192, fig. 9), and from the beginning of the Cerrito phase (A.D. 650-1100) there are types that link it with the Bajío, such as Paso Ancho Red Rim (Paso Ancho Borde Rojo), Cantinas, and Garita (Crespo, 1991a:104 see also Crespo, 1989:12; 1991b:176, 192, figs. 9 and 13), while by the end of the Cerrito phase, ceramics in common with the Toltec complexes of Terminal Corral and Tollán are present, sharing as well architectural and sculptural elements with Tula (Crespo, 1989:12; 1991a:104; 1991b:176, 189, 192, fig. 13; Flores and Crespo, 1988:208, 211; Crespo, 1998:327), although the material always follows "features of its own" (Crespo, 1991b:218).

Carabino, in Guanajuato, is an additional site considered as a Toltec outpost. This is so because some of the materials from the Tollán phase from the Tula area were recovered in excavations (Braniff, 1972), and later, the architectural space was identified as similar to the one in that city (Bey, 1986:146-147). In his surface collections, George Bey confirmed the existence of the Tollán complex in Carabino, although he specifies that Carabino was a part of that ceramic sphere, but from a different complex: "They have used important amounts of local ceramics and types of the Tollán phase, and their ceramics seem to denote a greater dependence on the Red-on-Buff (Rojo sobre Bayo) types than the average collection of the Tollán phase" (ibid.:149). Even though Bey tends to consider the site was "Toltec", it is significant that the Carabino inhabitants never abandoned their own tradition, and that in fact maintained the features typical of their region, notwithstanding their participation in distribution networks like the Toltec’s. The case of Carabino is quite frequent, with sites that, due to the permeability of their borders, participated in networks that enabled them to adopt or to adapt alien features, and which were interpreted as the product of subsequent discontinued and divorced occupations by foreign groups.

Finally, in Villa de Reyes, are present materials from Terminal Corral and Tollán, complemented with "coarse local ceramics" (Castañeda et al., 1988:328-329), and in the description of their stratigraphic sequence, a neat continuity may be observed between the San Luis and the Reyes phases, precisely in the transition from the Classic to the Post Classic (see Braniff, 1992).⁵⁶

Notwithstanding, Braniff makes emphasis on a drastic change that occurred at the site around A.D. 800-900/1000 (ibid.:14, 161), in her report of the excavations carried out between 1966 and 1967, the material density does not seem to be affected, nor does the sequence appear to be interrupted. As an example that the continued occupation in Villa de Reyes extended beyond the IXth or Xth Centuries, we may refer to the place where the latest datings of her samples come from. The first (A.D. 714±44) was recovered on a room floor that, according to the description and drawings, is an extension of the platform that constitutes Layer 4 of the general excavation (Braniff, 1992:36), filled and sealed with several different floors (ibid.:33).⁵⁷  The second date (A.D. 693±137) originated in Trench 105, in a layer sealed with a floor, on which several other floors had been laid.⁵⁸

If we follow the stratigraphic sequence, it would not be difficult to think that the last stage in the occupation of these buildings has been a bit later than the dates obtained. We should emphasize that none of the examples referred to, mention (or illustrate) any interruption that might represent the period of abandonment which, assumedly, took place by A.D. 800-900, followed by a reoccupation related to a Toltec advance, well in the Reyes phase (see Braniff 1992:161-162) (see note 102). In fact, on the analysis of her ceramic types, Braniff says "[…] allowing to establish three phases […]. Such phases are well represented and are successive in pits 3 and 4" (ibid.:117), and regarding the transition between the San Luis and the Reyes phases, she adds: "In a rather noticeable but not drastic way, the significance of the Valle de San Luis type diminishes for the last Reyes Phase, even though it is still present with over 50% of the ceramics […]" (ibid.:117, 151).

The materials of the San Luis phase have been attributed to a local development (the Valle de San Luis type is among them), while those of the Reyes phase are considered allochthonous and mainly connected with the conformation of the ’Toltec state’ and a product of colonization (Braniff, 1992:162). As to the Mazapa Undulating Lines (Mazapa Líneas Ondulantes) ceramics, which definitely cannot be considered as a Toltec diagnostic, inasmuch as even in the city the type is poorly represented (Cobean et al., 1981:195; Cobean, 1990:303), to Braniff it would be showing an evident connection with Tula, in spite of accepting that there are noticeable differences between the type from Villa de Reyes and the one found in the Central Valleys:

"We consider that this type in Electra was an import, but in Electra they assumed shapes and finishings that are unusual in the central valleys, suggesting a slight variation, due perhaps to geographical differences (a product or local version of some well-known type), or to chronological differences, or both […]. In spite of this small difference, we use the chronological value assigned to this type in the Central Valley to suggest a dating for our Reyes phase in the Early Post Classic" (Braniff, 1992:104).

If this was an imported pottery, the variations are difficult to explain. Perhaps it would be easier to consider those "geographical differences" as the "local version of a well-known type" the author refers to. This, of course, together with the integration of local wares with antecedents in the Classic period (like Valle de San Luis Polychrome) (Valle de San Luis Polícroma), would lessen validity to the proposal of a "Toltec advance", and could be interpreted, perhaps, as a consequence of wide networks of interregional interaction (see below). This adaptation on the side of the inhabitants, who populated Villa de Reyes since the Classic, is consistent with the uninterrupted occupational sequence stratigraphically recorded by the author.

Pioneer works such as Braniff’s have been of crucial importance, as her attention was centered in an area that up until then had been ignored by Mexican archaeological studies, but actually, most of her proposals consolidated as the foundational grounds for later interpretations without any serious questionings, many of the voids were forgotten and the resulting implications adopted as final.

To assume that all elements shared with Tula derive from a process of "expansion" of the city, not only underestimates the local developments, but also generates an obstacle to understand the creation of the Toltec capital, by estranging its particular dynamics of all other regional dynamics. In Richard Diehl’s words:

"The data suggest that either Tula had been established by migrants from the north, or that it was the only one community within the entire cultural configuration (regional) that turned into a great urban center. I am in favor of the second interpretation." (Diehl, 1976:272).

It would be desirable that, far from any imperial influence exerted over their neighbors, the material similarities between the valley of Tula and the surrounding areas, in fact reflected their coeval interregional cultural dynamics, and that many of the ceramic features and types identified in Tula were found there precisely for that reason, and not because this was strictly their place of origin and unique focus of their distribution.⁵⁹

This is particularly probable in regard to the first ceramic complexes of Tula, like Prado, Corral and Terminal Corral. From now on, we shall center our attention on them, as they predate the highest peak of splendor in the city, are placed within the temporal range we are considering in this work, and integrate traits and types shared by neighbor sites, which at times were going through their final phases of occupation.

Anyway, the distribution of the Tollán phase complex (A.D. 950-1200) beyond the Valley of Tula does not forcibly represent an imposition or direct "influence" from the inhabitants of that city upon others. Perhaps it would be wiser to think, for the sites that adopted Tollán elements, their own wish to be connected with the prevailing center at the moment (a smaller-scale version of what happened with Teotihuacán, see Jiménez, 1992:191-192).

This discussion is important because the reasons for the splendor and decline of the Toltec capital (as may be sensed in Diehl’s comment) will be understood only as of its contextualization in the North-Central cultural dynamics and not the other way around, by claiming that Tula’s fluctuations are to explain the social history of that region.

Of course, this is consistent only when leaving aside the notion revised in previous pages, that around the end of the Epi-Classic and the beginning of the Post Classic, the entire septentrional sector of Mesoamerica was suffering a drastic decline and had initiated a definite process of abandonment.

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Endnotes

52. Pollen analysis in the region do not support the idea of chaotic change in the environmental conditions, which for what it seems, were never less favorable than today (for southern Querétaro, see Nalda, 1975:132-134; for the area of Tula, see Healan et al., 1989:248).

53. A transformation of the environmental conditions, like the one proposed by Armillas, may have caused some modifications in the settlements of the region, but would not have necessarily motivated an overall abandonment. It seems more logical to think that human groups looked for alternative resources within a well-known environment (Nalda 1996:259) before traveling long distances in the pursuit of new places to relocate. To think about an environmental change as chaotic and final to the degree of exceeding the "sustaining capacity" of an environment towards the communities settled in the area, seems excessive to us. Climatic changes take place gradually, and in this sense the adaptation factor, the flexibility of the social way of life and the differential exploitation of resources in a same environment are always present, a flexibility we in fact know to have existed between the groups that populated such latitudes (i.e. seminomadic groups). For a critique on this type of model derived from an ecological determinism as explanatory of social decline, see Julio César Olivé N. and Beatriz Barba A., 1955.

54. One good example is the abandonment of the ceremonial center of Tula Chico during the Corral phase, which did not imply the total abandonment of the settlement. On the contrary, in the remaining urban areas, there is evidence of a Coyotlatelco–Tollán continuity, parallel to the foundation of a new ceremonial center (Cobean, 1982:60).

55. In southern Zacatecas, in the boundaries of that state with its neighbor San Luis Potosí, is located El Cerrito, with a probable occupation towards the ending of the Classic that extended at least to the Early Post Classic (see Braniff, 1974:43).

56. Braniff has modified at least five times the relative extension of the San Luis phase. In the original text, the result of her excavations in Electra (1975), there is a suggested time frame for this phase between A.D. 650-900, and for the Reyes phase, between A.D. 900-1200 (1992:118). In the version revised for publication (1992), the first of these chronologies was modified, and the San Luis phase then established between A.D. 350/400–700/800 (ibid.:149). In the chronological chart of a recent work, the author illustrates two limits, making reference to previous works authored by her: A.D. 600-900 (1975), and A.D. 200/400–700/800 (1990) (see Braniff, 2000:40, fig. 3.5). Finally, in the text of that article, she refers to the San Luis phase with the date of A.D. 350-850 (ibid.:41). Of course, the chronological boundaries of the archaeological phases are approximate and are always subject to revision as new data come forth, but as far as we know, Braniff has never made public the information that motivated these modifications. This has generated a number of problems. In the first place, several works in the North-Central area still use the initial dates, and secondly, Braniff’s more recent postures represent a rupture of 100 or 150 years between the two phases, a breach that has not been accounted for.

57. North Room, excavation Unit E (Appendix III, Sample 7, Element 14): "This North Room was carefully filled with the type of mud mixed with zacate (hay) we have found in other constructions, used to refill rooms and artificially elevate the level, with the obvious intention to build something on top. This upper construction is, among others, the one that corresponds to the large wall 3 that runs along this portion of the platform" (Braniff, 1992:36). According to the description of the excavation unit, this room is an extension of the platform that constitutes Layer 4 of the general excavation, while the first layers were conformed as follows: "Layer 1 […] is constituted by several mud floors, one on top of the other […]. Layer 2 is a black mud refill which terminates and simultaneously extends upwards on the large wall 3. Layer 3 is a refill of pink earth. Layer 4 consists of a heavy accumulation of boulders consolidated with mud forming a platform […]" (ibid.:33).

58. Pit 4, in Trench 105, Layer 4, extending below the floor that delimits Layer 3 and down to the bedrock (Appendix III, Sample 1, Element 1). Braniff describes the preceding layers as follows: "Layer 1 […] extends to a heavily compacted earthen floor. Layer 2 includes both the floor mentioned above and another series of deeper floors, approximately 2 cm thick each […]. Layer 3 […] ends in a compacted earthen floor […] (1992:25).

59. Even now, the original cultural correspondence of a number of traits that have been considered as "Toltec" is uncertain, as the occurrence of some of them predates the foundation of the city of Tula (i.e. rooms with colonnades, Tzompantli, Kelley, 1978; Hers, 1988; Jiménez, 1989:37; 1995:59; Braniff, 1992:14; 1999:19; Jiménez and Darling, 1992:7; White Raised (Blanco Levantado), Braniff 1972; 1992:162; Crespo, 1996:77), or its frequency is not so significant or diagnostic as one may have thought (i.e. Mazapa Undulating Lines (Mazapa Líneas Ondulantes) and Macana, Cobean et al., 1981:195; Cobean, 1990:303). Tohil Plumbate has been considered one of the trade ceramics whose dispersion has been Tula’s responsibility. For North-Central México and perhaps the Basin, the obtention of Plumbate could indeed be connected with the sphere of Tula (Diehl, 1983:115), but there are several examples, particularly as we approach the production area, where the Plumbate presence is not linked to any other element of the Toltec wares (see Diehl, 1983:144).

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