In 1993, with National Science Foundation support, Dr. Michael Smith and colleagues excavated a series of domestic residences at the Aztec site of Yautepec which is located in Mexico. A wealth of artifacts, including 1.2 million ceramic fragments were recovered and these provide the first look at Aztec urban life. This current award provides three years of support to permit Dr. Smith and team to analyze the recovered materials and to reconstruct how large prehistoric Aztec cities functioned. The specific methods to be employed include: quantitative analysis of excavated deposits to determine formation processes; ceramic seriation; radiocarbon dating; quantitative typological and attribute analyses of ceramics; ceramic petrography; neutron activation analyses of ceramics and obsidian to determine chemical composition; analysis of human skeletal remains; floral and faunal studies; statistical and spatial analyses of domestic artifact assemblages. Cities are important components of nearly all state societies and archaeologists have long acknowledged the crucial role played by urban centers in the origin and operation of states. Many of the traits that distinguish states from simpler societies are also characteristics of cities and important political, economic and religious institutions are usually concentrated in urban centers. Therefore in order to document and explain the development and organization of ancient states, archaeologists need to map and excavate cities. The Aztecs constructed one of the largest and most impressive prehistoric New World states. It was heavily urbanized yet very little, aside from Dr. Smith's recent work, is known about the nature of Aztec urbanism. Dr. Smith's project will help to solve this problem. His data have the potential to help resolve a number of issues involving urban structure, economic organization and the political processes which characterized Mexico at this time. This research is important for several reasons. It will provide data of interest to a large number of archaeologists and shed light on how complex societies - including our own - arise and are maintained. Because a number of students are included in the research, Dr. Smith's project has a strong educational component.
