Petrographic and XRF analyses of andesitic cut stone blocks at Teotihuacan, Mexico: implications for the organization of
- PDF / 27,704,685 Bytes
- 28 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 71 Downloads / 166 Views
ORIGINAL PAPER
Petrographic and XRF analyses of andesitic cut stone blocks at Teotihuacan, Mexico: implications for the organization of urban construction Tatsuya Murakami 1 & Matthew T. Boulanger 2 & Michael D. Glascock 3 Received: 5 December 2017 / Accepted: 18 February 2018 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract This study presents preliminary results of petrographic and X-ray fluorescence analyses of cut stone blocks used for urban construction at Teotihuacan, the capital of a regional state in Central Mexico (ca. AD 150–650). Cut stone blocks were concentrated in the civic-ceremonial core of the city and were probably prestigious architectural elements due to their higher costs of procurement and transportation compared to alternative materials (boulders and clay amalgam). This suggests that the organization of stone block procurement and distribution was likely embedded in power relations between commissioners and mining groups. By combining multiple analytical methods that complement one another, this study was able to discriminate local (within 10–15 km radius) from non-local materials. The results suggest that the majority (> 80%) of andesitic cut stone blocks were brought from non-local sources. This paper discusses procurement organization and suggests that most rocks were quarried by specialized groups and brought to the city through a tribute system and/or patron-client relations. This has implications for understanding the nature of the urban-hinterland relationship and expansion of the Teotihuacan state. Keywords Cut stone blocks . Procurement . Petrography . XRF . Urbanism . Teotihuacan . Mesoamerica
Introduction Stone masonry was an essential component of urban architecture in Prehispanic Mesoamerica. Rocks were used for fill and facing of buildings and were often shaped into square or rectangular blocks (cut stone blocks). At Teotihuacan, the capital of a regional state in Central Mexico (ca. AD 150–650), various types of rocks were brought to the city for constructing Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-018-0619-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Tatsuya Murakami [email protected] 1
Department of Anthropology, Tulane University, 6823 St. Charles Ave., Dinwiddie Hall 101, New Orleans, LA 70118, USA
2
Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University, PO Box 750235, Dallas, TX 75275-0235, USA
3
Archaeometry Laboratory, University of Missouri Research Reactor Center, Columbia, MO 65211, USA
residences, pyramids, and other civic-ceremonial structures (Millon 1973). The Teotihuacan Valley is a sub-valley in the northeastern portion of the Basin of Mexico (Fig. 1), which is mostly of volcanic origin and includes Tertiary and Quaternary volcanoes. The valley offers different types of extrusive igneous rocks, such as basalt (both compact and scoriaceous basalts) and andesitic rocks (Murakami 2015, pp. 268–270). Of these rocks, tezontle (the local na
