Postclassic Urbanism at Calixtlahuaca: Reconstructing the Unpublished Excavations of José García Payón

The Ceramics of Calixtlahuaca

García Payón (1941a) published the first study of Postclassic ceramics from the Toluca Valley, based on the Calixtlahuaca whole vessels. For a variety of reasons (outlined in Smith 2001, 2002b, n.d.), the ceramic chronology proposed by García Payón (with four Postclassic periods) is problematic and unsupported by empirical data. Subsequent studies of Postclassic ceramics from the Toluca Valley have done little to produce an acceptable classification or chronology. Tommasi de Magrelli (1978) illustrated vessels from Teotenango, but presented no analyses. Vargas Pacheco (1975) proposed a speculative ceramic chronology for Teotenango, again unsupported by empirical data. More recently Sodi Mirando and Herrera Torres (1991) published a catalog of Toluca Valley vessels in the Museo Nacional de Antropología in México City.

I began the task of establishing a new classification and chronology of Postclassic ceramics from Calixtlahuaca and other sites in the Toluca Valley in 2000 with a study of several hundred vessels in the Bauer and Blake collections in the Smithsonian Institution and the American Museum of Natural History (Smith 2001). I have posted digital images of these vessels on my web page: (http://www.Albany.edu/~mesmith/tval/bauer/images/bauerindex.html).

The FAMSI-supported research conducted in summer 2002 helped advance understanding of the formal and regional variation in Postclassic ceramics from the Toluca Valley and nearby regions. We established new classifications of ceramic decoration and vessel form. I have written the first version of what will be an evolving document that describes my classification in more detail (Smith 2002b). A progress report on current analyses will be presented in a conference paper in spring 2003 (Smith and Wharton 2003). I would like to post a selection of the digital images of the Calixtlahuaca and Teotenango vessels on the Internet, but I currently lack formal permission from Mexican authorities and research assistants to help with the task.

Because of the importance of decorated ceramics in studies of chronology, regional variation, social identity, and exchange, classificatory efforts so far have concentrated on these vessels. I have defined a series of "decorative groups" based upon colors and techniques; groups are in turn composed of "types" that consist of regularly occurring associations (i.e., numerous examples) of attributes of design field and motifs. Not all vessels fit into a defined decorative type. The groups defined so far are the following: A: plain (2 types); B: polished redware (8 types); C: white-based polychrome exterior with polished red and/or white polychrome interior (2 types); D: white-based painted (4 types); E: buff-based painted (7 types); F: negative decoration (1 type); G: negative with red-on-buff (4 types); H: negative with red-on-white (1 type); J: orange-based painted (4 types); K: red-and-orange-on-cream (3 types). Some of the variation between groups is shown in Figure 10, below. The most common vessel forms in the Calixtlahuaca collection are shown in Figure 11, below.

We identified numerous imported Postclassic vessels in the Calixtlahuaca collection (Figure 12, shown below). Ceramic figurines, from both the Postclassic and Classic periods, are also present in the collection. The collection of figurines in the Aztec style includes examples with some of the distinctive Aztec figurine pastes (Figure 13, C-E, shown below) as well as examples with coarse paste, most likely from the Toluca Valley (Figure 13, A-B, shown below); a similar situation–Aztec-style figurines in both local and Basin of México pastes–exists in the Aztec-period figurines from Morelos (Smith 2002a).

One unexpected finding was an abundance of ceramic vessels (nearly 100) dating to the Classic period. Most of these are types common at Teotihuacán (Figure 14, left), and about 15 vessels are likely Classic-period imports from the Valley of Oaxaca (Figure 14, right). Current research is directed at classifying these Classic vessels with respect to published studies of the ceramics of Teotihuacán and Monte Albán.

Non-ceramic material from Calixtlahuaca is described briefly in Smith et al. (n.d.).

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