The Chacalapan Geophysical Survey, Veracruz, México

Introduction

Recent research (Berdan et al., 1996) has suggested that the southern Veracruz area surrounding the modern town of Chacalapan was located on the outside edge of the Aztec Empire. Archaeological work in this area then has the potential to add to our understanding of core-periphery interaction in an imperial state society. The area is currently under study by the Chacalapan Archaeological Project (CAP) which is headed by Chantal Esquivias, Boston University (Figure 1). Funding was granted by FAMSI for a geophysical survey to be done in conjunction with the CAP. The Chacalapan Geophysical Survey (CGS) was undertaken to aid the CAP by locating middens and domestic areas.

The main goals of the CAP were to identify any Imperial Aztec presence or influence in the southern Veracruz area and to redefine the Postclassic ceramic chronology for the area. Central to both of these goals was the need to locate ceramics from a wide range of contexts. The most common visible archaeological features in the area are large earthen mounds. The CAP targeted some of these features to determine their function and period of construction and occupation. These structures were also expected to yield diagnostic artifacts that could show any Aztec presence. The CAP also desired to recover material from off-mound midden contexts. Due to the relatively small size of the project’s test excavations, a technique to precisely locate subsurface features prior to excavation was needed to save time and effort. We believed that high-resolution geophysical survey was the ideal application for this problem.

Previous Page  |  Table of Contents  |  Next Page

Return to top of page