Epi-Classic Cultural Dynamics in the Mezquital Valley

The Mezquital Valley

According to the information at hand concerning the western edge of the Mezquital Valley, we know that towards the Epi-Classic and the beginning of the Post Classic, settlements coexisted in the region, connected, on one side, with southern Querétaro and the Bajío, and on the other, with the region of Tula (Fournier, 1995:56; Cervantes and Fournier, 1996:113;⁶⁰  López et al., 1998:29-33) (the Tula area lies within limits of Mezquital, longitudinally towards its central strip). A binary distinction of the local developments does not appear to be very appropriate, but it is the most useful for the overall outline we are attempting to present here.

It is important to clarify that the traits that allow to establish a distinction between these two types of settlements and their nearer connections, correspond mainly to the settlement patterns and domestic equipments, while in the field of rituals, there are objects common to both. That is why we know that although the history of these sites and the social systems responsible for them were not fully parallel, at some point, undoubtedly, their developments coexisted, and of course, interacted.⁶¹

Towards the western border of Hidalgo, there is a group of sites with monumental architecture whose peculiar location and material elements link them directly to sites from southern Querétaro (López, 1994:117; Cervantes and Fournier, 1996:113; Morett, 1996:1; López et al., 1998:29) (Map 2). The "Xajay regional development", as is presently known, has adopted its name after an elevation found at the south of San Juan del Río, a place extensively surveyed by Enrique Nalda, who also excavated 39 stratigraphic pits in the 1970s. Nalda gave the same name to a ceramic type that also presented peculiar characteristics and which has been considered as diagnostic of these groups (Nalda, 1975:95-98) (Figure 13 and Figure 14). However, it is important to point out that Xajay Red Incised Postfire (Rojo Inciso Postcocción, RIP) is only one of the elements of a ceramic, lithic, architectural and symbolical, much larger complex, and therefore, that its temporal or distributive boundaries do not necessarily match the whole of the social system in which it has been included.

Perhaps the major distinctive trait of the Xajay types is the election of mesas (mostly oriented northwards) for the placement of their ceremonial centers, whose surface, with bedrock outcrops, was leveled to create plain spaces and facilitate the construction works (Cedeño 1998:57). Five major sites have been recorded in Hidalgo (Zethé, Pañhú, Zidada, El Cerrito and Taxangú) (López et al., 1989 n/p; López and Fournier, 1990:131; 1992:9-13, 48-51) and the coincident placement and architectural features of at least five sites reported along the San Juan River, south of Querétaro (Cerro de la Cruz, Santa Lucía, Santa Rita, San Sebastián de las Barrancas and Muralla Vieja) (Nalda, 1975; Saint-Charles, 1991a; 1991b; 1993) makes us believe they corresponded to one and the same development. The building system, as described by Saint-Charles for the sites of Querétaro (1991b; 1993) and Cedeño for the sites of Hidalgo (1998:58) are also coincident. In these latter ones, important amounts of Xajay RIP have been collected, and the situation is similar for San Sebastián de las Barrancas, Santa Lucía and Cerro de la Cruz (Nalda, 1975:39, 102; Crespo, 1985; Saint-Charles and Crespo, 1991:4; Saint-Charles, 1991a and 1991b).

The steep landscape and the abrupt falls existing between the limits of the mesas and the surrounding stream beds, originally led to consider they were defensive sites (Nalda, 1975:123, 136-137; Saint-Charles, 1987-88:5, 7; López and Fournier, 1990:131; 1992:240; Saint-Charles, 1991b:94; López, 1994:117; Viramontes, 1996:28). Today, we know that terraces, platforms and perimeter walls were designed to level the ground or to prevent the landslides of the rocky fronts (Saint-Charles, 1993; Cedeño, 1998:58; this was also the case in La Quemada, Zacatecas, Jiménez and Darling, 1992:6), that most ceremonial centers were not placed on agricultural lands, while their location involved a heavy ritual causality (Cedeño, ibid.:57, 60-63), and that the major part of the pre-hispanic population settled a couple of kilometers away or in the irrigable plains that extend over the lower areas (Morett, 1996:5; López et al., 1998:29).

There is some confusion around the time frame of these settlements, largely because only three of them were subject of extensive excavations (Cerro de la Cruz, Pañhú and Zethé⁶²), and because there are no absolute datings for the contexts where samples of the ceramic type considered as diagnostic were recovered.

As to the sites from Hidalgo, Luis Morett is inclined to consider an occupation that was initiated in the IVth century and continued up to the Xth: " […] coeval to the climax and contraction of Teotihuacán, and an antecedent as well to the emergence of Tula" (Morett, 1996:1-3, see also Cedeño, 1998:56; López et al., 1998:27-30). Same as in the neighbor site of Cerro de la Cruz, the structures exposed in sites like Pañhú and Zethé reveal several building stages, and as a part of the ceramic collections (which include surface recollections), there is a number of figurines and earlier sherds that indicate links with the Bajío (Chupícuaro) (Morett, 1996:8) and Central México (Ticomán) (López and Fournier, 1990:130; López et al., 1989, n/p; López, 1994:116; López et al., 1998:28), but as far as we know, these were not unequivocally associated with the architectural remains, as was the case with San Juan del Río, where Chupícuaro materials and earlier ceramics locally manufactured were found under the floors and as a part of the refills (Saint-Charles, 1991b:69-77; 1998:339-340). Saint-Charles has proposed a continued occupation between the years 500 B.C. and A.D. 800/900 (1991b:66).

At Zethé, two carbon samples were recovered and dated, but these absolute datings only support the later limit proposed by Morett and Saint-Charles, and probably a slightly longer extension.⁶³

Due to the incipient nature of the studies at the Xajay sites of Mezquital, a ceramic seriation that would allow to establish if types corresponding to the Classic are present, has not been completed so far, thus presenting at first sight a void between a discreet formative occupation and an Epi-Classic one of a considerable magnitude.

As a result of his surveys and excavation works that included 39 pits in the surroundings of San Juan del Río, Enrique Nalda proposed a preliminary ceramic sequence for the region, which confirms the existence of early materials and a suggested continuity until approximately the XIIth century (1975). This work, upon which later correlations have been based (i.e. Saint-Charles, 1991b), also favors the opinion that the main occupation in the area took place during the first part of the Classic.

Leaving aside the continuity and occupational extension of the Xajay sites, it is more feasible, at present, to favor the idea that the peak of this development took place, not around the first centuries of our Age, but towards the final years of the first millennium, a possibility initially contemplated by some authors (for instance López and Fournier, 1992:240; Saint-Charles, 1993:17). In a later work and as a consequence of a more detailed analysis of the data recovered during the excavation, Enrique Nalda pointed out:

"Thus, two well-represented periods and an intermediate one, with a lower profile, are derived. The first block would correspond to the Late Pre-Classic and Terminal Pre-Classic. […] it is possible to date the second block for the Late Classic and Early Post Classic. The period with a weak representation would then be the Early Classic. Then, the analysis of the excavation materials makes us believe that the cultural development and possibly the demographic development in the area may have reached their peak towards the end of the Classic, and not necessarily, as we suspected before, towards the Middle Classic" (Nalda, 1991:34).

There is a number of additional reasons that may support this for the Mezquital Valley. If a major occupation in the Xajay sites from the State of Hidalgo had taken place parallel to Teotihuacán’s peak of splendor, why is this contemporaneity not expressed through some connection with the Teotihuacán sites of "filiation" distributed in the vicinities?⁶⁴  Among the Xajay ceremonial centers, the use of talud-tableros (sloping basements), some greenstone blades and a sculpture that recalls abstract representations of Tláloc, had been considered as indicators of a classic temporality and of some kind of relationship with the Basin of México, but none of these traits is circumscribed to one period nor are they exclusive of Teotihuacán.⁶⁵

Thus, the absence of truly diagnostic elements shared among the Xajay sites and the nearby "Teotihuacán" sites would need to be explained.⁶⁶

This lack of presence has been interpreted as the consequence of an "excluding relationship" and a "disparity in histories" (López et al., 1998:31), but we consider that it could be the result, instead, of a temporal displacement. For example, a number of ceramic elements common in the Xajay sites is in fact shared by contemporary sites with the complexes Prado, Corral and Terminal Corral from Tula (López and Fournier, 1992; Cervantes and Fournier, 1996:111-113, 117; Carrasco et al., 2001), and in the opposite sense, in Xajay sites, frequent types have been located in the area of Tula and the Bajío during the same period (López and Fournier, 1992:11; Morett et al., 1994:93; Cedeño 1998:56; Saint-Charles, 1998:340-341), as shall be specified in short.

At some point, there was a tendency to situate the Xajay RIP diagnostic type towards the XIIIth or XIVth Centuries, and even in the XVth and XVIth (see Crespo, 1985; Saint-Charles, 1987-88:5; Saint-Charles and Crespo 1991; Saint-Charles 1991a:9-11; 1991b:66, 88, 91, 94; Crespo, 1991a:112, fig. 7h). In support of this, the primary argument lay in its coexistence with Aztec and colonial ceramics at the site of San Sebastián de las Barrancas, but the subsequent report stated that this proposal was based on surface observations:

"[…] while conducting a salvage at San Sebastián de las Barrancas, large concentrations of this ceramic type associated with later materials were observed on the surface, such as flat supported mortars and pottery manufactured during the early colonial times–animal figurines and vessels with litharge. Such an association of materials suggests a continuity in the occupation of San Sebastián from the XIVth Century to colonial times (Crespo, 1985)". (Saint-Charles and Crespo, 1991:3, see also Saint-Charles, 1991b:91).

To support this late assignation, Saint-Charles in one of his works referred to the coexistence of Xajay RIP with Aztec III in one excavation unit from Barrio de la Cruz, but, again, this also took place on the surface and within the first layer (Saint-Charles, 1991a:10), while complete vessels of this type have been recovered in contexts of offerings at the same site and in association with vessels that are clearly earlier (Crespo and Saint-Charles, 1996). Saint-Charles interprets the presence of Xajay RIP in Cerro de la Cruz as a discontinuity in the settlement, a "third occupational stage" represented "exclusively" by this ceramic type, which "took place over the ruins of this ancient compound", that had been abandoned around A.D. 800-900 (1991b:88; see also Saint-Charles and Crespo, 1991:8). Unfortunately, Red Incised Postfire materials associated with architectural features were not recovered in this ceremonial center other than on the surface, and there is no other ceramic type exclusively associated with it (Saint-Charles, ibid.:66, 88). This causes difficulties for its temporal correlation, but we think that it is not possible to determine an occupational stage on the exclusive basis of one ceramic type.⁶⁷

Also, at some point it was believed it was feasible to correlate the Xajay ceramics with Aztec III through the occasional use of flat supports in the form of "plaques", with indentations (Saint-Charles, 1991b:91), but reference is made to flat supports in Classic ceramics from southern Querétaro (Crespo, 1991a:123), to some supports of Coyotlatelco samples found at the site museum in Tula that also show "plaques", and the situation is the same with a cajete or bowl from the Malo Zozaya Collection, by which Braniff defined the hypothetical Tierra Blanca phase for the Late Classic in Guanajuato (1992:101, 115, 125, 140, illus. 5-18). Indented supports are also present among the materials from this collection (see Braniff, 1972:313, illus. 8; 1999:112, fig. 65b).

Finally, a breach was postulated between Red Incised Postfire and the regional ceramic tradition, frequently related to the bichrome red/buff with painted designs (Nalda 1975:95; 1996:269, note 17; Saint-Charles, 1998:343); however, reference is made to one type that maintains the two red/buff colors, but together with the implementation of sgraffiti (incised postfire) motifs (Nalda, 1975:94-95). In the Xajay area at Mezquital, bichrome decorated sherds have been recovered, not as frequently as RIP, but evidently related to it (Figure 15),⁶⁸  while they differ significantly from the Teotihuacán red/buff incised (there are examples of the latter one in other areas within the region), in shape, color, incision techniques and motifs (we ignore which one of the two resembles best the pottery that Nalda reported). During the Epi-Classic and in the region of Tula, the "postfire incision" (or sgraffiti decoration) appeared in the Guadalupe Red Incised Postfire type (Guadalupe Rojo Esgrafiado), in the Guadalupe Red on Brown Incised Postfire type (Guadalupe Rojo sobre Café Esgrafiado) and in the Clara Luz Black Incised Postfire type (Clara Luz Negro Esgrafiado) from the Prado complex (Cobean, 1990:75-93, 104-118). In southern Guanajuato, towards the final portion of the Classic, the decorative technique of postfire incisions is also present (Nalda, 1996:274) although incisions are much more common in the range of incised ceramic types that have appeared in that State at least since the Classic (Braniff, 1972:284, 286; 1999:50-58; 2000:39; Saint-Charles, 1990:55). Sgraffiti and incisions are present in Zacatecas continually during the Classic and the Epi-Classic (Kelley and Abbot, 1971; Braniff, 1972:284, 286; Jiménez, 1989:10-11, 17; 1995:43, 49; 1998:299, note 10; Jiménez and Darling, 1992:13; 2000; Braniff, 2000:39), as also in the Pacific Coast and Jalisco (Braniff, 2000:39; Saint-Charles, 1990:55; Jiménez, 1995:43; Jiménez and Darling, 2000:169).

The initial chronological confusion regarding the Xajay type was derived from its apparent later and excluding stratigraphic position with respect to the ceramic type of El Mogote Red on Buff (El Mogote Rojo sobre Bayo) with a suggested later limit of A.D. 700/850 (Nalda, 1975:80, 95). This notion was modified by Nalda himself, following a revision of the data he obtained from his excavation, when he noticed a lapse where both types overlapped; he named the last stage of El Mogote Red on Buff type (El Mogote Rojo sobre Bayo) as La Trinidad (Nalda, 1991:36, 38, 41, the coexistence of Xajay RIP and El Mogote R/B is also observed in his original work, in two of the four units where the type frequency is illustrated (UE52 and UE103), 1975:83). In spite of such reconsiderations, in a recent work Nalda refers to Xajay Red Incised Postfire (Rojo Inciso Postcocción Xajay) as appearing in the region around A.D. 900 (1996:269).

Based on the ceramic correlations and on the few direct datings available for the region, it would seem that the lower extreme limit for this ceramic type cannot predate the years A.D. 750/800, because one of the contexts from Barrio de la Cruz, where a complete vessel was recovered, is later to the construction of a platform, C14 dated between A.D. 650 and 750 (Saint-Charles, 1998:340-341). On the other end, and as we shall now see, in a number of sites Xajay RIP coexists with diagnostic elements of the Prado and Corral de Tula complexes with other common traits present up to Terminal Corral. According to this, and subject to further changes in the chronology of Tula, the upper maximum limit would not exceed the year A.D. 950, proposed for the beginning of the Tollán phase. This range is coincident with the C14 dates obtained for the site of El Zethé, where a context containing a Xajay RIP vessel was associated with the building of a platform, between A.D. 777 and 997 (Morett et al., 1994:93, 115).⁶⁹

The attempt to chronologically place Xajay RIP has been greatly supported by its presence in other settlements and its coexistence with other materials that are diagnostic of more or less well defined moments.

Several sites reported by the Mezquital Valley Project, evidence strong connections with the societies established in the Valley of Tula, according to the variety of ceramic types they share (López and Fournier, 1990:132; Fournier, 1995). In contrast with Xajay ceremonial centers, the ones from these sites were located on hillsides with gentle slopes, while the nearby areas, by means of terraces, were adapted for habitation and agriculture (López and Fournier, 1990:132; López 1994:117-118). Among them, we are particularly interested in Sabina Grande, a site where excavations and several survey studies have been carried out (López and Fournier, 1990:91; 1992; Carrasco et al., 2001) and because it is, geographically, very close to Desarrollo Regional Xajay.

As we have mentioned before, Sabina Grande presents surface representations of the Corral, Terminal Corral and Tollán complexes (López and Fournier, 1992:16-42). In Sabina Grande, no complete sample of Xajay was recovered, but the type is frequently seen on the surface (see López and Fournier, idem), wherefrom a sample of the bichrome variety is known. Xajay RIP sherds were present in the stratigraphic sequence described in chapter three of this thesis, which may be circumscribed to Terminal Corral (A.D. 900-950). Also from this sequence there is a large fragment of a globular, polished, buff-colored bowl, decorated with a red band over the body and resist frets on the neck, which exhibits exactly the same shape, finish, and decorative technique and motifs as a complete piece recovered during the excavation of a multiple burial in El Zethé (Figure 16), a context which yielded one complete tripod Xajay RIP cajete (bowl), associated with the datings referred to above.⁷⁰

An additional site where ceramics share abundant attributes with the region of Tula is Chapantongo, located in the central strip of the Mezquital Valley, scarcely 20 kilometers north of Tula (López and Fournier, 1992:71-74; Fournier, 1995:56-57; Cervantes and Fournier, 1996:106-108). From the surface collection, several types of the Prado and Corral complexes designated by Cobean have been reported, in addition to varieties, local types (Fournier, idem; Cervantes and Fournier, ibid.:108-112, 117) and materials considered as a part of intraregional exchange, being the Xajay RIP among them (López and Fournier, ibid.:73; Cervantes and Fournier, idem).

In an opposite sense, in the Xajay sites, some wares that are frequent in Sabina Grande and Chapantongo have occasionally appeared. In the Xajay collections, the types Ana María Red/Brown (Ana María Rojo/Café) and Coyotlatelco Red/Brown (Coyotlatelco Rojo/Café) (Prado and Corral complexes, respectively) from Cobean’s classification have been identified (López and Fournier, 1989; 1992:12; Morett, 1992:29, 39; Fournier, 1995:56; Fournier and Cervantes, 1996:117) and El Marqués Brown Polished (El Marqués Café Pulido), a type typical of Chapantongo (Fournier and Cervantes, idem). In El Zethé and Pañhú, a correspondence between Zajau RIP and Cañones Red-on-Brown (Cañones Rojo sobre Café) has been reported (López and Fournier, 1992:11; Morett et al., 1994:93) which is an additional ceramic type that Cobean has considered as diagnostic of the Corral phase in Tula (1990:238-244), and which is also present in Cerro de la Cruz (Saint-Charles, 1998:340-341; see also 1991b:80, 87, fig. 10).⁷¹  Apparently, there are other elements in Cerro de la Cruz which are somehow connected with the Prado and Corral complexes in Tula (Saint-Charles, personal communication, 2002), and we think that some of the red/buff types locally manufactured in El Zethé and El Pañhú belong to the Coyotlatelco sphere. The possible scopes of this latter sphere and some of its implications will be elsewhere referred to in detail (Solar, in preparation).

As previously stated, the Xajay occupation is not circumscribed to the temporal limits of Red Incised Postfire.⁷²  Nevertheless, the intraregional and interregional distribution of this diagnostic type is a significant support at the time of tracing the connections of the area towards the Epi-Classic.

Contrary to some general beliefs, Xajay RIP was neither restricted to the valley of San Juan del Río (Saint-Charles, 1987-88:7) nor circumscribed to the basin of the San Juan River, or the surroundings of its confluence with the Tula River, the western portion of the municipio of Tecozautla, Hidalgo, and exceptionally to Cerro Magoni in Tula (Saint-Charles and Crespo, 1991:4). In an isolated way, reference has been made to Xajay Red sherds in Huamango, México (Segura and León, 1981:116-117; Morett: 1996:1), Teotenango, México (Nalda, 1996:269, note 17) and Sierra Gorda in Querétaro (Crespo and Saint-Charles, 1996:119; Elizabeth Mejía and Alberto Herrera, personal communication, 2001⁷³ ), while there is a distributive continuity between southern Querétaro and Western Hidalgo, undoubtedly including the Valley of Querétaro (Crespo and Saint-Charles, idem) and the municipios of San Juan del Río, Querétaro (Nalda, 1975), Tecozautla, Hidalgo, Huichapan, Hidalgo (López et al., 1989; López and Fournier 1990:131; Crespo and Saint-Charles, idem) and Chapantongo, Hidalgo (Cervantes and Fournier, 1996:108-112, 117).⁷⁴  For what we know, no Xajay RIP sherds have been reported in Guanajuato, but it should be remembered that in the southern half of the state, some have been recovered which, in our opinion, may correspond to the variety Red/Orange of Xajay Incised, together with a fragment comparable with the bowl from El Zethé that shared its context with one Xajay RIP cajete.

Clay pipes represent an additional example to establish that a connection between El Mezquital and El Bajío during the Epi-Classic was possible. These artifacts are abundant in the collections of sites located in Hidalgo, although, actually, their dispersion is much wider.

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Endnotes

60. According to the frequency patterns of the ceramic types, Cervantes and Fournier have distinguished two subregions for the Mezquital Valley: the Tula–Chapantongo area (materials corresponding to the Prado–Corral complex), and the area of Huichapan–San Juan River (Xajay complex) (1996:113). We concur with this distinction, but not with the geographic demarcation, because it is in Huichapan where the site of Sabina Grande is located, with a material equipment that is more closely related to Tula than to southern Querétaro, while El Zethé, scarcely six kilometers away, presents the opposite filiation. It should not be forgotten that close to the San Juan River, there are settlements which also show evident connections with the area of Tula, such as El Cerrito.

61. Possibly, the differences could be also reflecting differential connections with alien systems, perhaps the product of a "varied orientation of the economic networks", as proposed by Cervantes and Fournier (1996:113), or the result maybe of a more profound cultural interaction throughout a longer period. The answer is difficult, inasmuch as some of these sites are very close to one another, but at first sight, its interaction seems to be limited to the exchange of specific and not numerous products (Cervantes and Fournier, ibid.:117).

62. Besides, in the first two cases, several sectors outside the monumental ceremonial group presumably attributed to the same period, have been explored (Barrio de la Cruz and Huesamenta, respectively).

63. Sample 1125 (Layer VII) calibrated with two standard deviations: A.D. 784-981/A.D. 777-997; Sample 1360 (Layer XVIII) calibrated with two standard deviations: A.D. 641-677/A.D. 600-770 (Morett et al., 1994:70-78, 93, 115).

64. At scarce twenty-five kilometers southeast of Zethé lies El Mogote San Bartolo, where the diagnostic types of the Teotihuacán wares of the Miccaotli and Tlamimilolpa phases have been identified, in the excavation and on the surface, in addition to a settlement pattern, architectural features and building systems consistent with those of the great city and other sites from the region connected with it (Polgar, 1997; 1998, in preparation).

65. In an article that includes data on the excavations he carried out in El Mogote San Bartolo, Manuel Polgar notes, also as a shared trait among Xajay sites, the use of the talud-tablero (or sloping boards) (1998:47), though in later observations, he pointed out that their structure, shape and proportions were very different (Polgar Salcedo, personal communication, 2001). In the same text, he refers to the presence of pipe fragments, frequent in the Xajay settlements; however these very few sherds were recovered in the upper layers of a residential group whose occupation survived several centuries the abandonment of the ceremonial center (Polgar Salcedo, personal communication, 2001).

66. South of Querétaro, there is a ceramic type which Nalda denominated "Teotihuacánoid", as he considered it was a local version of the Teotihuacán tradition (1975:90-92, 127; 1991:53, 55, fig. 12). Again, and after a careful revision of his excavation’s data, this ware happens to be later than the peak of splendor of that city (Nalda, 1991:35, 38, 41), maybe contemporary to the Metepec phase (Nalda, ibid.:41). At the Mezquital Valley, there are settlements with an occupation that seems to clasp the lapse comprised between the abandonment of the ’Teotihuacán’ ceremonial centers (around Tlamimilolpa), and the emergence of sites contemporary to the Prado and Tula Corral phases (Fournier, 1995:55; Polgar Salcedo, personal communication, 2001). Their characteristics and the dynamics that have generated them, are reasons enough to justify further studies and we shall not address them here, but we want to outline the abundance of that ceramic type among them. Fournier refers to these "Teotihuacánoid-style vessels" as a part of an Atlán Complex, and similar to the contemporary traditions from the Bajío (1995:55, note 14, chart 7 and fig. 10).

67. Saint-Charles emphasizes that Xajay RIP is not associated with any building activity, though this does not mean necessarily that the use of this ceramic took place when the site had already been abandoned. In his work on the occupational sequence of Cerro de la Cruz, he proposed a continued occupation of 1300 years, with only five building sequences having identified (1991b:66), which means that between one architectural renovation and the other, a good number of years may have elapsed. In this sense, it would not be incongruent that the red incised material had appeared at the site after the last building stage had been completed, so that consequently, the fill of the structures was already sealed. If the fill of the last stage has been relatively dated between the years A.D. 800 and 900, it is logical that this renovation was in function for a period that reached beyond such dates, and not necessarily that the place was abandoned at any time near them.

68. As to this pottery, we are familiar with the cajetes (bowls) of diverging straight walls, with red on orange incised postfire (sgraffiti) decoration or with buff incised postfire decoration, to delineate the motifs. It has been called Incised Polychrome (Polícromo Inciso) by Luis Morett (1992:25, 26, fig. 33), though Patricia Fournier’s denomination of Xajay Bichrome Incised Postfire seems more appropriate (1995, chart 8). We agree with Morett (idem) and Crespo and Saint-Charles (1996:132) that it is a variety and not a type, so that it would be more correct to talk about a Xajay Incised Postfire type with two varieties: Red Monochrome and Red/Orange Bichrome or Bay. Morett also outlines that this ceramic might represent the union of two decorative traditions "configurating some sort of a hybrid" (idem). Thanks to the kindness of archaeologist Carlos Castañeda, we had the opportunity to observe a number of sherds similar to these from San Felipe Irapuato, Guanajuato, presently stored with the pottery collections of the Bajío, in Salamanca.

69. On this dating, Crespo and Saint-Charles have recently (1996:119) based themselves to propose a chronology between A.D. 600 and 900 for the contexts excavated at Barrio de la Cruz, where a number of Xajay RIP vessels were recovered in offering contexts.

70. The similarities between the bowls from El Zethé and Sabina Grande are unquestionable, and suggest an identical origin. They may have been imported pieces, as at least in the collections of the Mezquital Valley Project, we know of no other similar samples or sherds. Red/Bay and Resist types have been reported from varied places, but we found no great similarities with the one we are referring to, although a fragment with a very similar decoration and motifs, but with a different shape, is included in the sample that the INAH Center in Guanajuato has recovered from the Salamanca-Yuriria stretch of the Gas Pipe Project, and which archaeologist Carlos Castañeda has graciously shared with us.

71. In his work from 1991b, Saint-Charles refers to the Red/Bay Long Necked Bowls, which according to his illustration (fig. 10) could correspond to the Cañones type he referred to in his later work (1998:340-341). Cervantes and Fournier refer to Cañones pitchers that have appeared in the Xajay area as a variety of the type reported by Cobean (1996:117).

72. Possibly its existence extended to the early stages of the Tollán phase. Even though we are not familiar with any diagnostic type of that ’Toltecan’ complex among the Xajay sites from Mezquital, there is in them a ceramic type known as Pañhú Orange (Naranja Pañhú), which in one of its shapes and decoration, greatly resembles the tripod bowls ’with rough strokes’ and button supports of Jara Orange Polished (Jara Anaranjado Pulido) (Cobean, 1990:335-350). However, in the first one, the past is much finer and thinner, and at first sight it seems to be originated in the Gulf Coast (de la Vega Doria, personal communication, 2001). During the Epi-Classic, the types La Costa Orange Polished (La Costa Anaranjado Pulido) and La Costa Orange/Orange (La Costa Anaranjado/Anaranjado) were found at Chapantongo (Fournier, 1995:382, chart 8; Cervantes and Fournier, 1996:112, 118, fig. 11), but we do not know whether this is the same type.

73. This sherd is rather surprising, because according to Mejía and Herrera, it was recovered in a later layer in the excavation sequence.

74. Luis Morett adds the north of Zumpango and the vicinities of Zimapán (1996:1). In fact, this would be quite reasonable given its proximity with the areas mentioned here, but reference is not made to any author or particular context, so we are considering this with caution. Morett notes as well that Xajay RIP appeared in the earlier layers of Tula Chico (idem), but again, he fails to refer by whom or when such finding took place. In the reports consulted by us, this information was not found.

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