Tepetlaoztoc Project: Archaeological Investigations

Related Research

In August 1995 Sanders returned to the Teotihuacán Valley to revisit a number of Teotihuacán Period sites in its Middle and Upper portions, along with some sites in the Maquixco Alto area. The following sites were visited during the resurvey season, TC-25, near San Francisco Tlatica, TC-87-88-89 at the Rancho of Tlatilhuacan, TC-83 the large provincial center east of Axapusco, TC-73 the provincial center located on the lower eastern flank of Cerro Buena Vista, TC-40 the provincial center located within the adjacent to the Panteon of San Juan Teacalco, TC-46 the large village site west of Maquixco Alto and TC-44 a small site found on the summit of Cerro Tiquimil that we have identified as a potential specialized tezontle mining community.

The aims of Sanders resurvey were as follows:

1. To check on the dating of the small residential mounds found at TC-87, TC-25, and TC-46. In our preliminary report, written in 1965, we concluded that all, or part, of the rural population of the Teotihuacán Valley in Teotihuacán-times resided in large lineage-size compounds similar to those in the city. A more careful examination of our survey data, however, demonstrates a wide range of residential mounds and, hence, household size, and that a substantial portion of the population resided in households only slightly larger than the Aztec, i.e., nuclear family or small extended family units. Sanders revisited the above sites to obtain a fresh field impression of the accuracy of the earlier surveys of those sites with respect to the dating of the smaller mounds.

2. To verify the urban nature of the large sites and most particularly to test Marino’s observation that some of the buildings in the site were oriented on a grid similar to that of the city. He suggested that TC-73 even had a central avenue (running, however, east-west) and that the ceremonial structures and residences were aligned along this avenue in very much the way they were at the urban site of Teotihuacán.

A major problem in obtaining fresh field data on these sites is the massive destruction that has occurred on virtually all archaeological sites throughout the Basin of México in recent years; the product of several processes and innovations in agricultural technology described previously in this report.

The two processes, use of tractors in deep soil areas and chisel plows to reclaim eroded areas, have obliterated much of the architecture on revisited archaeological sites, including the small mounds at TC-87, TC-25 and TC-46. By a careful examination of them, however, Sanders was able to locate the original site of the mounds and the visible surface pottery strongly suggests a Teotihuacán Period dating for these mounds.

The resurvey of the provincial centers strongly supported our initial evaluation as to their urban nature and political status. Much of the residential area of TC-40 has been deeply plowed but all of the public architecture has survived, although the summits of mounds have been deeply pitted and the basal areas have been strongly eroded by the use of the heavier equipment. AT TC-73 preservation is much better and the site is nearly intact, even including the residential portions of the sites. TC-83 has been virtually unaffected by the post-1965 processes.

All in all, therefore, the resurvey was successful in resolving the initial questions although the condition of the archaeology today is a depressing sight. For example, TC-46, a large village site, has suffered major alterations over 80% of its surface, including chisel plowing of the thin soil areas for the planting of nopal and the construction of massive terracing over the southeastern portion of the site and adjacent areas that contained the postulated Pre-Hispanic irrigation system. In contrast, the area immediately above the Maquixco Alto–San Cayetano Road (on the lower, south flank of Cerro Tiquimil) has been virtually untouched, apparently because it is church land. Even the floors we detected in the road cut in 1963 are intact (see Figure 8a, Figure 8b, Figure 8c, Figure 8d, Figure 9a, and Figure 9b).

In addition to the reexamination of the Teotihuacán Valley sites in August 1995, I spent two days in the Cuauhtitlán region (surface surveyed by me in 1974) and in the Temascalapa Region (surveyed in 1975). To conduct the surveys we used aerophotos based on fly-overs conducted in the early 1970s and maps generated from them by Cetenal. On the north piedmont and immediately adjacent alluvial plain of the Guadalupe Range, Pre-Hispanic settlement was heavy and ranged in date from Middle Formative to Aztec. We estimate that 70% of this area was still agricultural lands in 1974 and no more than 30% was heavily urbanized (see Figure 10). Numerous residential mounds were present on these sites, particularly on Aztec, Toltec and Teotihuacán Period sites. My resurvey in 1995–an intervening period of only 20 years revealed that these ratios had been reversed–and furthermore, new flights and new maps published in 1982 indicate that this process of urbanization and consequent site destruction had actually occurred in less than 10 years (see Figure 11).

West of the town of Cuauhtitlán, the piedmont consists of a series of nearly parallel, gently sloping, ridges descending from the Sierra de las Crucas. Perhaps 80% of this area was surveyable in 1974 and our survey revealed hundreds of Pre-Hispanic sites. Several of the ridges are now covered with high-rise apartment buildings.

Our resurvey of the Temascalapa region–a more isolated and rural area was almost as depressing. The purpose of my resurvey was to complete our photographic record of several Teotihuacán and Aztec Period sites that had well-preserved architecture in 1975. All these remains have vanished as the product of mechanization of agriculture.

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