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/edu/ - Education

'The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses.' - Karl Marx
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Not reporting is bourgeois


 

ITT post information about the history and anthropology of the New World. A lot of new anthropological work has been done in this field in recent decades that has not yet entered public consciousness.
107 posts and 132 image replies omitted.

>>21836
Werent these mummies previously displayed openly in a museum at a time when people were smoking inside?

>>21929
And probably openly doing cocaine too lol

More Mayan artifacts

>>10656
who is it on the shield then?
>>10668
has there ever been any genetic proof of japanese arriving in the northwest?
>>21819
>We already had DNA evidence pointing in this direction (although it also could have indicated migration along the coasts from polynesians who reached north america first).
are you referencing those native tribes in brazil and ecuador? their connection is to melanesians not polynesians.

==Native American gene flow into Polynesia
predating Easter Island settlement==

The possibility of voyaging contact between prehistoric Polynesian and Native American populations has long intrigued researchers. Proponents have pointed to the existence of New World crops, such as the sweet potato and bottle gourd, in the Polynesian archaeological record, but nowhere else outside the pre-Columbian Americas, while critics have argued that these botanical dispersals need not have been human mediated. The Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl controversially suggested that prehistoric South American populations had an important role in the settlement of east Polynesia and particularly of Easter Island (Rapa Nui). Several limited molecular genetic studies have reached opposing conclusions, and the possibility continues to be as hotly contested today as it was when first suggested. Here we analyse genome-wide variation in individuals from islands across Polynesia for signs of Native American admixture, analysing 807 individuals from 17 island populations and 15 Pacific coast Native American groups. We find conclusive evidence for prehistoric contact of Polynesian individuals with Native American individuals (around ad 1200) contemporaneous with the settlement of remote Oceania 13–15 . Our analyses suggest strongly that a single contact event occurred in eastern Polynesia, before the settlement of Rapa Nui, between Polynesian individuals and a Native American group most closely related to the indigenous inhabitants of present-day Colombia.

https://sci-hub.se/https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2487-2

Some years ago there were opposite results on two aDNA studies looking at pre-Hispanic individuals from Rapa Nui but this study seems to have tipped the scale.

File: 1737952375767.jpg (47.2 KB, 700x525, marquises.jpg)

>>23465
why does title formatting not work here

anyway don't you guys think it would be crazy and amazing if a group of native americans had been blown off course and ended up in the marquesas (now in french polynesia) and set up a little outpost of civilization there.
so many images and ideas spring up to my head. how many people were there? what was first contact like? what did they feel seeing other people for the first time in perhaps years or months after having arrived at the marquesas and being all alone? and for these people to be from a completely different culture.

it makes me wonder what if polynesians had never embarked on their voyages and these people that arrived in the marquesas from south america established a successful society and colonized the ocean instead.

and the melancholy they must've felt knowing they could never go back home and see their families again.

>>23466
The PDF you copy pasted from had line breaks in it, which stopped the = text from formatting correctly (has to be one line).

The San Bartolo murals. They are the earliest Maya murals ever discovered and date to the 1st century BC during the pre-Classic.

Despite being the earliest murals on record it's clear the Maya already had a long tradition of mural painting by then. The forms, arrangement and colors just feel so cohesive, sophisticated and intricate and I get this sense of movement and action from the figures.

I can't help but feel their aesthetic feels so unique compared to stuff from the Old World.

<other anons welcome to share their opinions on the murals

>>23469
It's pretty obvious at a glance that this is the result of a well established tradition of murals considering how consistent and complex the style is.

>>23468
Thanks
>>23469
These pre-Classic murals definitely feel different from Classic and Post-Classic painting, though.
>two classic (and probably most famous examples) of maya mural painting from bonampak
>watercolor reproductions by adela breton of murals that used to decorate the jaguar temple of the post-classic city of chichen itza (these specific murals have unfortunately disappeared since then)

>>9253
Theres metalwork at Chavin de Huantar, press incan times

>>9253
yeah

Since Ancient Americas has already been posted ITT I'd like to recommend the ArchaeoEd podcast in case anyone else is looking for more content about the pre-contact Americas:

If anyone knows of other YT channels/podcasts besides these two do share :)

Sprawling Lost City From 600 Years Ago Revealed

An archaeologist has revealed a sprawling, lost 15th-century city in southern Mexico at a site that was long thought to have been merely a garrison for soldiers.

Guiengola, which was built by the indigenous Zapotec people, is located in the south of the state of Oaxaca, some 17 miles from the pacific coastline.

Pedro Guillermo Ramón Celis of McGill University in Montreal, Canada revealed the true extent of forest-covered Guiengola using a laser-based scanning technique, flying over the site in an airplane. His study has revealed that the fortified city covers a whopping 360 hectares and sported more than 1,100 structures—including temples, ball courts and different neighborhoods for the commoners and the elite—and 2.5 miles of walls.

According to Ramón Celis, evidence suggests that the fortified city was abandoned just before the Spanish arrived in Mexico—with its residents relocating to nearby Tehuantepec, a small city where their descendants still live.

By the end of the 15th century, Ramón Celis told Newsweek, the Zapotecs had managed to both gain almost total control of Oaxaca's Pacific Coat, and had resisted the aggressive Late Postclassic expansion of the Mexicas (the Aztec Empire).

"This was especially remarkable following a lengthy, seven-month siege, led by Aztec emperor Ahuizotl, at Guiengola," he noted.

"After securing this region of southern Mesoamerica, the Zapotecs no longer needed to inhabit this city.

"While living in a mountainous area had its advantages, access to running water and more fertile land were likely more important for a large population, and the site of Tehuantepec had this advantage over Guiengola."

This is only the start of the analysis—with the archaeologist hoping that future studies of Guiengola will provide fresh insights in the Zapotecs' social and political organization, which may shine a light on their relationship with the Spanish.

"Currently, I'm planning my fourth field season, during which my team and I will cover all the approximately 1,170 structures in the LiDAR scan, which will take us a few years," Ramón Celis said, stressing that this work will involve further remote sensing, rather than physical excavations of the site.

https://www.newsweek.com/lost-city-mexico-guiengola-zapotec-forest-lidar-archaeology-2023494

<Anyone else kind of not like this kind of studies? I can't help but think looters will be rushing to places like Guiengola or that recently discovered Maya city to look for valuables.

>>23503
Not from Guiengola but some other cool Zapotec art

File: 1742142294888.png (34.9 MB, 4096x4096, mesoamerica.png)

Collage

>>23933
This is the first draft cause I couldn't put all that I wanted in it.

File: 1742146651443.gif (394.43 KB, 220x220, vince-mcmahon.gif)

>>23933
>4096x4096
>24.9 MB
I just wish it had citations or at least the names of the artifacts so I could look them up.

>>23935
I know the feeling, anon. Spent a lot of time last month on a Mesoamerican art deep dive and it was frustrating when I couldn't find more info on the objects I found (doubly so when it was on some foreign museum (Like seriously, monkey? You stole this and you can't even be bothered to investigate what it represents or where it comes from?)).

But you can ask me about any objects you are curious about in the pic, I know the name of most of them and where they are located or if you want the full res pic of the object.

Breaking

>New Teotihuacan-style altar and burials found at Tikal


The nature and extent of interactions between the distant regions and cultures of Mesoamerica remain open to much debate. Close economic and political ties developed between Teotihuacan and the lowland Maya during the Early Classic period (AD 250–550), yet the relationship between these cultures continues to perplex scholars. This article presents an elaborately painted altar from an elite residential group at the lowland Maya centre of Tikal, Guatemala. Dating to the fifth century AD, the altar is unique in its display of Teotihuacan architectural and artistic forms, adding to evidence not only for cultural influence during this period, but also for an active Teotihuacan presence at Tikal.


https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/teotihuacan-altar-at-tikal-guatemala-central-mexican-ritual-and-elite-interaction-in-the-maya-lowlands/78F1EE665FD51C6B41457872CDA20A80

File: 1744138369320.png (6.89 MB, 3000x2132, ClipboardImage.png)

>>24123
>includes map showing location of Tikal but not Teotihuacan

Reading through this thread with 4chan down and I appreciate it
I wish /his/ still had this kind of in depth thread, nothing too substantial to add (though if you're interested in the US Northeast, Saltwater Frontiers is a good read… as is Reflections in Bullough's Pond though that goes way beyond the colonial period) but thanks anons

Remains of 3,000-Year-Old Maya City Discovered in Guatemala

Archaeologists have unearthed the remains of a Maya city nearly 3,000 years old in northern Guatemala, with pyramids and monuments that point to its significance as an important ceremonial site, the Central American country's culture ministry said Thursday.

The city named "Los Abuelos," Spanish for "The Grandparents," once stood some 21 kilometers (13 miles) from the important archaeological site of Uaxactun, in Guatemala's northern Peten department, the ministry said in a statement.

It is dated to what is known as the "Middle Preclassic" period from about 800 to 500 BCE, and is believed to have been "one of the most ancient and important ceremonial centers" of the Maya civilization in the jungle area of Peten near the Mexican border, it added.

"The site presents remarkable architectural planning" with pyramids and monuments "sculpted with unique iconography from the region," said the ministry.

The city takes its name from two human-like sculptures of an "ancestral couple" found at the site.

The figures, dated to between 500 and 300 BCE, "could be linked to ancient ritual practices of ancestor worship," said the ministry.

The city, which covers an area of about 16 square kilometers (six square miles) was discovered by Guatemalan and Slovak archaeologists in previously little-explored areas of the Uaxactun park.

Nearby, they also found a pyramid standing 33 meters (108 feet) high with murals from the Preclassic period and "a unique canal system," according to the statement.

"The set of these three sites forms a previously unknown urban triangle… These findings allow us to rethink the understanding of the ceremonial and socio-political organization of pre-Hispanic Peten," said the ministry.

https://www.sciencealert.com/remains-of-3000-year-old-maya-city-discovered-in-guatemala

File: 1749105423457-0.jpg (585.69 KB, 2391x2915, wari-mosaic-mirror-back.jpg)

File: 1749105423457-2.jpg (1.55 MB, 5000x1601, wari-khipu-2.jpg)

File: 1749105423457-3.jpg (240.63 KB, 1080x1350, wari-mummy-bundle.jpg)


is it just me or do people in general seem to more interested in mesoamerica than in the andes? just as an example when looking for reconstructions on what tenochtitlan and cusco looked like there are TONS for tenochtitlan including many made by non-mexicans whereas there's hardly any for cusco and certainly no high quality ones

I don't know much about latam anthropology. Is there a good overview of the field I can check out?

>>24463
>is it just me or do people in general seem to more interested in mesoamerica than in the andes?
It's not just you. The Aztec and Maya are more prominent in popular culture, probably because they are both found in Mexico which is a very well known country and tourist destination compared to Peru for instance.

>>24467
1491 is a good overview of the place before colonialism.

>>24470
but is mesoamerica famous because of modern mexico? or is mexico famous because of its mesoamerican ruins?

>>24467
for indigenous societies in brazil read florestan fernandes, curt nimuendaju, ronaldo vainfas, joão azevedo fernandes and eduardo viveiros de castro. there are some indigenous writers such as david kopenawa and ailton krenak
http://www.etnolinguistica.org/
this repository is useful

This one was pretty ground breaking to me, I had no idea that some people in the Owen's Valley were practicing agriculture, and even if I did, I would have naively assumed they were just planting corn.

>>24473
Mexico is a large country because of Spanish colonialism. It's one of the largest Latin American countries, and it shares a border with the US. The mesoamerican ruins aren't responsible for that. It's the other way around.

>>24484
>Mexico is a large country because of Spanish colonialism.
but that was not what i asked

Farming Was Extensive in Ancient North America, Study Finds

A new study has found that a thickly forested sliver of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is the most complete ancient agricultural location in the eastern United States. The Sixty Islands archaeological site is recognized as the ancestral home of the Menominee Nation. Known to the members of the tribe as Anaem Omot (Dog’s Belly), the area is a destination of pilgrimage, where remains of the settlement date to as far back as 8,000 B.C.

Located along a two-mile stretch of the Menominee River, Sixty Islands is defined by its cold temperatures, poor soil quality and short growing season. Although the land has long been considered unsuitable for farming, an academic paper published on Thursday in the journal Science revealed that the Menominee’s forbears cultivated vast fields of corn and potentially other crops there.

“Traditionally, intensive farming in former times has been thought to be mostly limited to societies that had centralized power, large populations and a hierarchical structure, often with accumulated wealth,” said Madeleine McLeester, an environmental archaeologist at Dartmouth College and lead author of the study. “And yet until now the assumption has been that the agriculture of the Menominee community in the Sixty Islands area was small in scale, and that the society was largely egalitarian.”

The findings of the new survey indicate that from A.D. 1000 to 1600 the communities that developed and maintained the fields were seasonally mobile, visiting the area for only a portion of the year. They modified the landscape to suit their needs, by clearing forest, establishing fields and even amending the soil to make fertilizer.

>Mapping an ancient site


In the spring of 2023, when the snow cover was gone but the leaves had not yet emerged, Dr. McLeester and her team conducted a drone-based LIDAR survey over some 330 remarkably intact acres of Sixty Islands, about 40 percent of the site.

LIDAR uses pulses of laser light to create a detailed map of Earth’s surface. Over the last decade, archaeologists have relied heavily on the technology; drone-based LIDAR has only become practical or possible within the last few years. “It provides much higher resolution, which enables us to recognize subtle features that would otherwise be invisible,” said Jesse Casana, the Dartmouth archaeologist who operated the drone.

The survey detected looted burial mounds, ritual earthworks, a circular dance ring, the remnants of 19th-century logging camps, the foundation of a building that may have been a colonial trading post, and, most unexpectedly, a raised ridge field system, where grouped garden beds had been built with heights ranging from four to 12 inches.

John Marston, an archaeologist at Boston University who was not involved with the project, said most traces of agricultural features at Native American sites were erased during the 20th century by the introduction of mechanized farming. “The Sixty Islands region appears to preserve features that were likely much more widespread across eastern North America at the time of European contact,” he said. For the record, that was in 1634.

The landscape at the site is covered by quilt-like patterns, created by parallel ridges oriented in different directions. This suggested to Dr. McLeester that the ridge locations were decided by individual farmers, rather than dictated by the natural environment. And what did these premature agronomists cultivate? “Crops such as corn, beans and squash,” Dr. McLeester said.

>A sacred landscape


According to one version of the Menominee creation story, a holy man, inspired by a dream, told a search party to journey through the morning with the promise of finding a treasure when the sun reached its highest point at noon.

At midday, the story goes, the leader of the party spotted an unfamiliar object. “This is corn,” he declared. “We will call it Wapi’min, white kernel.” The others sampled the Wapi’min, liked it, and took some kernels back with them. They sowed the seeds in the spring and watched them flourish.

Twenty-five years ago, David Overstreet, an archaeologist at the University of Wisconsin who lived and worked with Menominee elders, discovered the site’s elevated agricultural beds. He proposed that the planting mounds protected against frost and that the depressions between ridges served to manage moisture. In 2023, he helped convince federal officials to place Sixty Islands on the National Register of Historic Places.

While surveying the terrain, Dr. McLeester and her crew excavated three raised ridges set at varying distances from the Menominee River. The recovery of charcoal, broken pottery and other artifacts suggested to them that ancient farmers probably used burned household waste, wetland soils and possibly sturgeon guts as compost to enrich their fields. Carbon dating of the charcoal showed that the ridges were rebuilt over a 600-year span, beginning around A.D. 1000 during what is known as the Late Woodland period in North America.

Matthew Boyd, an anthropologist at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, said the study should make scholars and the general public cast aside many assumptions about the Indigenous peoples of antiquity. He believes that on the eve of European colonialism, the ancestors of the Menominee were highly successful farmers who most likely produced large surpluses of corn and other foods in a less-than-ideal setting and profoundly altered the natural landscape to increase its productivity.

The land and its findings are threatened by large-scale industry in the area. For the last decade, the Menominee Nation has battled open-pit mining companies that hope to extract gold, silver, zinc and copper in the area.

Susan Kooiman, an anthropologist at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, considers the new survey, initiated by the tribe and carried out in partnership with them, a model for ethical archaeology, particularly in light of previous practices that disenfranchised descendant communities from their heritage.

“Sixty Islands is part of a sacred landscape for the Menominee,” Dr. Kooiman said. “It’s important that it be documented before it’s potentially destroyed.”

NYTimes article:
https://archive.is/0dKXN

Study in question:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ads1643
<anyone knows how to access science papers since normal sci-hub is now useless and i don't feel like getting into crypto for the new version

>We describe archaeological evidence of intensive ancestral Native American agriculture in the now heavily forested Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Recent LIDAR (light detection and ranging) and excavation data have uncovered densely clustered ancient agricultural raised garden bed ridges covering an expanse far greater than previously realized. These raised agricultural fields are deeply enmeshed in the broader cultural landscape, as ceremonial and other features were also found. Our results demonstrate a rich anthropogenic landscape created by small-scale ancestral Menominee communities, located near the northern limits of maize agriculture. The excellent preservation of this site is exceptional in eastern North America and suggests that the precolonial landscape was more anthropogenically influenced than currently recognized.

so in some infuriating news it seems this whole area around the fortin de huatusco, which is one of the few pyramids outside the maya area with some of the summit temple still standing, burned between 2021 and 2025 and there's NO news whatsoever about it.
the area itself is completely unguarded by the inah it doesn't seem as if any proper excavations or investigations have ever been done.

guess if you can't be turned into an amusement park for international tourism like chichen itza, tulum or teotihuacan the government just can't be bothered to give a shit about you.

Archaeologists in Peru unveil 3,500-year-old city that linked coast and Andes

Archaeologists on Thursday unveiled a 3,500-year-old city in Peru that likely served as a trading hub linking Pacific coast cultures with those in the Andes and Amazon, flourishing around the same time as early civilizations in the Middle East and Asia.

Drone footage released by researchers shows the city center is marked by a circular structure on a hillside terrace, with remains of stone and mud buildings constructed some 600 meters (1,970 feet) above sea level.

The urban center, named Peñico, is located in the northern Barranca province and was founded between 1,800 and 1,500 BC. It is close to where the Caral civilization, the oldest in the Americas, developed 5,000 years ago.

Ruth Shady, the archaeologist who led the research into Peñico, said the newly unveiled city is key because experts believe it emerged after the Caral civilization was devastated by climate change.

"They were situated in a strategic location for trade, for exchange with societies from the coast, the highlands and the jungle," Shady said.

Archaeologist Marco Machacuay, a researcher with the Ministry of Culture, said at a news conference that Peñico's importance lies in it being the continuation of the Caral society.

After eight years of studies, researchers have identified up to 18 structures in Peñico, including ceremonial temples and residential complexes.

The walls of a central plaza stand out for their sculptural reliefs and depictions of the pututu, a conch shell trumpet whose sound carries over long distances.

In other buildings, researchers found clay sculptures of human and animal figures, ceremonial objects and necklaces made from beads and seashells, they added.

https://www.reuters.com/science/archaeologists-peru-unveil-3500-year-old-city-that-linked-coast-andes-2025-07-03/

>>24602
MORE INFO

El sitio llamó la atención de los investigadores, desde muy temprano, debido a la identificación de una serie de rasgos arquitectónicos que eran propias de las sociedades complejas tempranas, como la presencia de estructuras piramidales con pozos circulares. Estos rasgos lo hacen comparable a otros sitios del valle de Supe como Caral, Chupacigarro, Alpacoto, Era de Pando y Piedra Parada.El complejo arqueológico de Peñico se ubica en la costa Norcentral peruana, en la margen izquierda del valle medio alto del río Supe; fue construido, a 600 m.s.n.m. sobre un espolón paralelo al río, y un gran cono de deyección. Rodeado por el valle de Supe y montañas que superaran los 1000 m de altura. El complejo abarca 22.05 hectáreas, destacando dos sectores; uno ubicado sobre un espolón, que presenta construcciones de diversos períodos, y en donde resalta una secuencia de pirámides y terrazas, asociadas a una plaza circular hundida. En la falda sur se encuentra una secuencia de plataformas, asociadas a antesalas rectangulares. En el sector bajo se tiene diversas construcciones, entre las que se destaca un edificio con secuencia de plataformas asociado a una plaza circular. En total, el complejo contiene dieciocho subsectores o edificios con características relacionadas con el Formativo Temprano, que reflejan la diferenciación social y las actividades especializadas de sus habitantes.Las investigaciones realizadas por la Zona Arqueológica Caral (ZAC) ha permitido conocer el manejo territorial y distribución espacial del asentamiento. Ruth Shady y su equipo han señalado continuamente que Peñico se ubica estratégicamente por encima del suelo del valle, en el ingreso de una quebrada, controlando de este modo el acceso natural hacia el valle de Huaura (a la altura de Vilcahuaura, y con ello a su litoral inmediato), y al mismo tiempo a la parte alta del valle de Supe. Es decir, el centro urbano de Peñico, como los centros urbanos de la Civilización Caral, está ubicado en un espacio estratégico, que permite aprovechar y complementar diferentes recursos de distintos tipos de ecosistemas. Así mismo, por la accesibilidad a través de los caminos “naturales”, como las quebradas que conectan con el valle de Huaura y sus playas; y la corta distancia hacia las playas de Supe, permiten el intercambio de productos con los pueblos del litoral y valles cercanos. Trascendentales para su formación social. De este modo, hace 3800 años, durante el período Formativo Temprano (1800 a. C. - 1600 a. C.), la población que construyó Peñico, en el valle medio-alto de Supe, participó en el proceso de formación de la civilización prístina de Caral, la primera de toda América.

https://consultasenlinea.mincetur.gob.pe/fichaInventario/index.aspx?cod_Ficha=11873

>>24602
>>24603
>likely served as a trading hub linking Pacific coast cultures with those in the Andes and Amazon
If they can find more solid evidence to that effect this is an incredibly important site and a historic find.
>After eight years of studies
It's crazy to think about how far the published research on rediscovered ruins in the Americas has come since 2017. One wonders how it might have been affected if this information was public, although it's understandable why they'd want to study this quietly for a while.

>>24603
>la civilización prístina de Caral, la primera de toda América.
That we know of ;-)
At the rate they keep finding things on these continents who knows if that honor will last

>>24604
>If they can find more solid evidence to that effect this is an incredibly important site and a historic find.
In another article I read it mentioned sculptures with Amazonic traits, likely the ones in >>24603. I'm not an expert but one of them looks like a monkey to me and they don't live on the coast of Peru.
>it's understandable why they'd want to study this quietly for a while.
Yes. Many articles also mention how Ruth Shady, the director of the Caral Archeological Zone, and her archeologists have been threatened by land speculators who seem hellbent on buying the land around the archeological sites to develop it.

posting about this cause i'm just finding out

Mexican government acquires long-lost Aztec manuscripts about the rise and fall of Tenochtitlan

María Castañeda de la Paz still vividly recalls discovering the Codices of San Andrés Tetepilco in 2009. While on vacation, a colleague mentioned a friend who had some potentially interesting manuscripts. She went to a meeting in Mexico City’s ritzy Coyoacán neighborhood and was amazed to find copies of these codices, one of which narrates the history of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec empire’s ancient capital. “It’s not every day you come across documents like this,” said Castañeda de la Paz. “I was thrilled and surprised because documents about the history of Tenochtitlan are very rare.” She is among a team of experts who unveiled the discovery on March 20 at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. After years of research and negotiations, the Mexican government paid 9.5 million pesos (roughly $500,000) to the family that owned these historical manuscripts.

The effort to acquire documents dating from the late 16th century and early 17th century was long and fraught with setbacks. “The person who showed me photos of the codices on a computer mentioned they belonged to a family, but didn’t provide details other than the family had two or three documents. I was given some color copies to analyze, and I suggested registering them to prevent a rise in black market value. The family wasn’t interested in that, and I started to have some doubts about who really owned the codices. I tried many times to contact the family but they were unresponsive, and unfortunately their interest eventually faded,” said Castañeda de la Paz, a researcher at the Anthropological Research Institute of Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM).

Unable to persuade the family with the valuable manuscripts, Castañeda de la Paz contacted Baltazar Brito Guadarrama, head of the National Library of Anthropology and History (BNAH), and showed him the copies. Brito then led the effort to contact the family and acquire the codices. “I was totally surprised when I opened the little box they were in. And when I lifted the first sheet, I just knew it was an original document,” said Brito. The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) hasn’t disclosed the owners’ identities, but Brito says they said the documents were passed down through generations in the same family.

Brito explained that under Mexican law, historical assets like a painting from the viceroyalty period can be privately owned or inherited but must stay in Mexico. INAH experts have now verified the authenticity of the three codices about Mexico City’s history. The first one tells the story of San Andrés Tetepilco’s founding in Iztapalapa, south of Mexico City. The second lists the assets of San Andrés Tetepilco church on two sheets of amate (bark) paper. The third codex is what Castañeda de la Paz calls “the jewel in the crown.” INAH considers it the most significant codex because of its “formal narration of Tenochtitlan’s history through four main themes: the city’s founding in the 14th century; records of pre-Hispanic tlatoque lords; the Spanish conquistadors’ arrival in 1519; and the viceroyalty period until 1611.”

Historian Rafael Tena stated that after the Spanish arrived, the Indigenous people of Mexico continued creating codices and were influenced by European culture, incorporating techniques like the third dimension, shading and perspective. They also added comments in both the original languages and Spanish. By the end of the 16th century, Tena says the codices were no longer produced and many ended up in private hands in Europe and the United States. “We have half of all codices ever created, and it’s remarkable that centuries later, we are still discovering new materials that enrich our national heritage and historical knowledge.”

https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-03-21/mexican-government-acquires-long-lost-aztec-manuscripts-about-the-rise-and-fall-of-tenochtitlan.html

The Codices of San Andres Tetepilco, a town inscribed in Tenochca history and in the new viceregal order

En el mapa de su fundación, recién recuperado y constituido por 11 secciones de papel amate, se localizan los topónimos de Tepanohuayan, Cohuatlinchan, Xaltocan y Azcapotzalco, pero sobresale el glifo de Colhuacan (Culhuacán), del que dos personajes con indumentaria chichimeca (pieles de animal, maxtlatl –taparrabo– y bastón de mando) dirigen sus pisadas hacia Tetepilco. Al parecer, es la clave del origen de este lugar.

En tanto, en el Inventario de la Iglesia —conformado por dos hojas de amate pegadas, visiblemente dañadas— se enlistan algunos bienes litúrgicos como cinco trajes rojos, instrumentos de viento, una silla de mano, estandartes e imágenes religiosas.

Se desconoce si dentro o fuera de los límites de Tetepilco, pero tiempo atrás, sobre láminas de papel amate plisadas en biombo, que extendidas alcanzan 5.60 metros de largo, un tlacuilo aplicó delgadas capas de yeso, las dejó secar y comenzó a pintar con imágenes —en ocasiones acompañadas de glosas—, la historia de Tenochtitlan, desde su fundación, que consignó en el año 1300 (y no 1325, como indican otras fuentes como la crónica Mexicayotl); la sucesión de sus gobernantes o tlatoque, la llegada de los españoles, hasta el periodo colonial, registrando como último evento la llegada del virrey don Juan de Mendoza y Luna, en 1603.

La investigadora del Instituto de Investigaciones de la UNAM, María Castañeda, repara en el registro de un suceso que esclarece el interés de Tetepilco por narrar la historia tenochca. Se trata del único hecho no relacionado con la entronización y muerte de un gobernante: la reunión del tlatoani Itzcoatl, que ejerció el mando de Tenochtitlan entre 1427 y 1440, con el jefe de su ejército, Moctezuma Ilhuicamina.

El tlacatecatl Moctezuma (que en 1440 sucedería a Itzcoatl) había logrado la conquista de Tetepilco; cuyo señor, Huehuetzin y su corte de nobles, aparecen en el códice rindiendo vasallaje. En pocas palabras, “el mensaje es mostrar la incorporación de Tetepilco a la historia de Tenochtitlan”, sujeción que posiblemente se dio por medio de la parcialidad de Teopan.

A partir de la llegada de los españoles comandados por Hernán Cortés, a quien se presenta con la investidura de un centurión romano, el formato del documento cambia, “pues si antes los años aparecían agrupados, ahora se disponen en una banda en la parte inferior de la lámina, lo que facilitó el registro de un mayor número de eventos históricos en la parte superior […], aunque hay un enfoque en la llegada y salida de autoridades virreinales”, precisa.

“La Tira de Tetepilco puede considerarse una continuación de la Tira de la Peregrinación. Mientras esta abarca los años de 1 Técpatl, 1064, hasta el 6 Ácatl, 1303; la primera retoma el registro histórico desde 1301 (4 Calli) hasta 1611 (2 Ácatl). Ambas, contienen aproximadamente el mismo lapso contenido en el Códice Aubin, el cual abarca del año 1064 al año 1607”.

Para la ejecución de los elementos pictográficos y las glosas, se utilizó una gama de colores rojo, amarillo, azules, verdes, ocres y marrones, obtenidos de la laca cochinilla, índigo (en ocasiones fijado en arcillas con preparación tipo azul maya), azul de comelinas, y amarillos de plantas como cempazuchitl, zacatlaxcalli y xochipalli, entre otras.

https://www.inah.gob.mx/especiales-inah/reportajes/los-codices-de-san-andres-tetepilco-un-pueblo-inscrito-en-la-historia-tenochca-y-en-el-nuevo-orden-virreinal


lonely ushnus in the middle of desolate, giant plazas, surrounded by the corpses of dead inka cities and suffused in the cold climate of the suni make me feel melancholic

University of Houston Archaeologists Discover Tomb of First King of Caracol

Archaeologists from the University of Houston working at Caracol in Belize, Central America have uncovered the tomb of Te K’ab Chaak, the first ruler of this ancient Maya city and the founder of its royal dynasty. Now in ruins, this metropolis was a major political player in Maya history, dominating the southern part of the Yucatan Peninsula from 560 through 680 AD before its abandonment by 900 AD.

The discovery is the first identifiable ruler’s tomb found in over four decades of work in Caracol, the largest Maya archaeological site in Belize and in the Maya lowlands.

Te K’ab Chaak, who acceded to the throne in 331 AD, was interred at the base of a royal family shrine with eleven pottery vessels, carved bone tubes, jadeite jewelry, a mosaic jadeite mask, Pacific spondylus shells, and other perishable materials. Pottery vessels in the chamber included a scene of a Maya ruler holding a spear and receiving offerings from supplicants in the form of deities. Another vessel portrays the image of Ek Chuah, Maya god of traders, surrounded by offerings. Four of the pottery vessels portray bound captives (similar vessels also appeared in two related burials). Two vessels supported lids with modeled handles of coatimundi (pisote) heads. The coatimundi, or tz’uutz’ in Maya, was used by subsequent Caracol rulers as part of their names.

Archeologists Arlen F. Chase and Diane Z. Chase estimate that at the time of his burial the ruler was of advanced age and approximately 5’7” in height. He had no remaining teeth.

Their investigations at Caracol’s Northeast Acropolis show that Te K’ab Chaak’s tomb was the first of three major burials dating to about 350 AD, a time of early contact with the central Mexican city of Teotihuacan, some 1,200 kilometers distant. By 300 AD, Teotihuacan was a huge city that traded throughout Central America.

“One question that has perplexed Maya archaeologists since the 1960s is whether a new political order was introduced to the Maya area by (Central) Mexicans from Teotihuacan,” said Diane Z. Chase.

“Maya carved stone monuments, hieroglyphic dates, iconography, and archaeological data all suggest that widespread pan-Mesoamerican connections occurred after an event in 378 AD referred to as ‘entrada,’” said Diane Chase.

“Whether this event represented actual Teotihuacanos in the Maya area or Maya using central Mexican symbols is still debated. The Caracol archaeological data suggests that the situation was far more complicated,” she said.

A cremation placed in the center of Caracol’s Northeast Acropolis plaza, recovered in 2010 and placed after Te K’aab Chaak’s burial has been dated to AD 350 by radiocarbon analysis and included artifacts from central Mexico. It contained the remains of three individuals, as well as two large knives, six atlatl points, and fifteen pristine blades of green obsidian from Pachuca, Mexico (north of Teotihuacan); several pottery vessels also likely came from central Mexico. Additionally, a carved atlatl projectile tip, atypical for the Maya but typical for a Teotihuacan warrior, was included in the cremation.

The cremation itself and its placement in the center of a residential plaza are also more typical practices for a high-status Teotihuacano and do not accord with standard Maya burial practices. Based on other ceramics in this cremation, the main individual was likely a Caracol royal family member that had adopted central Mexican ritual practices. This individual may even have served as a royal Maya envoy who had lived at Teotihuacan and returned to Caracol.

A third burial — the tomb of a woman, also covered with hematite and containing four pottery vessels, a spondylus bead necklace, mirror fragments, and two Pacific spondylus shells — was recovered in the northern building of the same residential group in 2009 and is similarly dated.

The three burials interred in the Caracol Northeast Acropolis all cluster at AD 350, at least a generation before the previously recognized Teotihuacan presence in the Maya area. They demonstrate that early Maya rulers were fully enmeshed in Mesoamerican-wide contacts prior to the Teotihuacan entrada recorded on Maya monument[s].

“Both central Mexico and the Maya area were clearly aware of each other’s ritual practices, as reflected in the Caracol cremation, said Arlen F. Chase.

“The connections between the two regions were undertaken by the highest levels of society, suggesting that initial kings at various Maya cities — such as Te K’ab Chaak at Caracol — were engaged in formal diplomatic relationships with Teotihuacan,” said Arlen Chase.

The royal dynasty established by Te K’ab Chaak continued at Caracol for over 460 years.

The Chase’s findings also indicate that ancient peoples in the new world were travelers. A trip between Teotihuacan and Caracol today by car would take over 23 hours. The one-way walking time may be estimated to be approximately 153 days.

Research continues on the contents of the chamber with the reconstruction of the jadeite death mask and with ancient DNA and stable isotope analysis of the skeletal material. The Chases will present results of the 2025 Caracol field season at a conference on Maya–Teotihuacan interaction hosted by the Maya Working Group at the Santa Fe Institute (New Mexico) in August 2025.

https://uh.edu/news-events/stories/2025/july/07102025-caracol-chase-discovery-maya-ruler.php



>>24690
Some fully reconstructed funerary masks found in Maya tombs for comparison.

'Trash' found deep inside a Mexican cave turns out to be 500-year-old artifacts from a little-known culture

While investigating a cave high in the mountains of Mexico, a spelunker thought she had found a pile of trash from a modern-day litterbug. But upon closer inspection, she discovered that the "trash" was actually a cache of artifacts that may have been used in fertility rituals more than 500 years ago.

"I looked in, and it seemed like the cave continued. You had to hold your breath and dive a little to get through," speleologist Katiya Pavlova said in a translated statement. "That's when we discovered the two rings around the stalagmites."

The cave, called Tlayócoc, is in the Mexican state of Guerrero and about 7,800 feet (2,380 meters) above sea level. Meaning "Cave of Badgers" in the Indigenous Nahuatl language, Tlayócoc is known locally as a source of water and bat guano. In September 2023, Pavlova and local guide Adrián Beltrán Dimas ventured into the cave — possibly the first time anyone has entered it in about five centuries.

While taking a break to look around, Pavlova and Beltrán were shocked to discover 14 artifacts.

Among the artifacts were four shell bracelets, a giant decorated snail shell (genus Strombus), two complete stone disks and six disk fragments, and a piece of carbonized wood. Pavlova and Beltrán immediately contacted Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), which sent archaeologists to recover the artifacts in March.

Given the arrangement of the bracelets — which had been looped over small, rounded stalagmites with "phallic connotations" — the archaeologists speculated that fertility rituals were likely performed in Tlayócoc cave, they said in the statement.

"For pre-Hispanic cultures, caves were sacred places associated with the underworld and considered the womb of the Earth," INAH archaeologist Miguel Pérez Negrete said in the statement.

Three of the bracelets have incised decorations. An S-shaped symbol known as "xonecuilli" is associated with the planet Venus and the measurement of time, while the profile of a human-like figure may represent the creator god Quetzalcoatl.

Pérez dated the artifacts to the Postclassic period of Mesoamerican history, between A.D. 950 and 1521, and suggested that they were made by members of the little-known Tlacotepehua culture that inhabited the region.

"It's very likely that, because they were found in a close environment where humidity is fairly stable, the objects were able to survive for so many centuries," Pérez said.

https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/trash-found-deep-inside-a-mexican-cave-turns-out-to-be-500-year-old-artifacts-from-a-little-known-culture

INAH story on the discovery:
https://inah.gob.mx/especiales-inah/reportajes/un-hallazgo-inesperado-en-las-entranas-de-la-tierra-la-cueva-de-tlayococ

<La joya prehispánica de Perú de más de 3.800 años, Peñico, abre sus puertas al mundo
Este lugar floreció entre los años 1800 y 1500 a.C., al mismo tiempo que lo hacían las primeras civilizaciones en Oriente Medio y Asia. Ubicado a tan solo 12 kilómetros del sitio arqueológico de Caral, el Peñico ahora es noticia porque, tras ocho años de trabajo en el yacimiento —llevado a cabo por un grupo formado en su 80% por habitantes locales—, por fin abre sus puertas

Wake up babe, new Ancient Americas dropped. This one's about controlled burns managing wilderness.

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>>11186
I think their huaco retratos are beautiful, the moche are such an underated culture.

>>24733
Didn't watch this yet, but it's interesting that gendered division of labour in Tupi societies was delineated between everyday menial jobs and agriculture done by women as opposed to intense, seasoned work for burning and cleaning new croplands done by men. You can use this as an example of how patriarchy could've developed in past neolithic societies (by exaggerating gendered labor) that we don't have information anymore.


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