The Murals of Cacaxtla

The sudden appearance of Maya-style characteristics in the art of Epiclassic sites in Central Mexico has sparked debate regarding the relationship between the polity of Cacaxtla and the distant Maya Lowlands. Early studies linked these developments, described in ethnohistoric sources, to migrations of the Olmeca-Xicalanca of the southern Gulf Coast. Recent studies assert that Cacaxtla’s artists adopted an “eclectic” assortment of foreign stylistic elements in order to proclaim ties to distant sources of wealth and power that were not necessarily rooted in historic reality. This study argues that Cacaxtla’s artists deployed stylistic, technical, and iconographic conventions in a manner that reflects deep and sustained engagement with specific Maya cities rather than superficial claims of aggrandizement. Evaluation through current anthropological understandings of how and why people migrate and how group identity is expressed in the midst of population movements suggests that Cacaxtla’s monumental art programs constitute an additional line of evidence in support of Epiclassic migration from the southern Gulf Coast, or western Maya Lowlands, to Central Mexico.

“Then They Pressed On”

Chimalpahin’s Nahuatl-language annals afford an indigenous and often-personal perspective on the importance of women, family, and community to the history of Nahua migration and settlement in early central Mesoamerica. Most remarkable, perhaps, is the diversity of peoples and accounts, the undertakings themselves, and the extraordinary realization of accomplishment at each journey’s end.

El Grillo

Far western highland Mexico may provide the earliest evidence for the disruptions that emerged further to the east, during the Epiclassic. The distinctive Teuchitlán culture of the Late Formative and Early-Middle Classic was replaced with strikingly different architectural traditions, burial patterns, and ceramics (the El Grillo complex) with apparent origins to the east. I reconsider this material in light of proposals as to how community and identity are reestablished or reorganized after migration. The area remained politically fragmented at the time of the Conquest, and no language ever came to be associated with greater prestige as Nahuatl did in Central Mexico.

Migrations in Late Mesoamerica

This chapter addresses recent research that identifies migration as a specific form of human movement in which social groups move into new social contexts. Migration is inherently disruptive to people’s lives, and it occurs embedded within political, economic, or social processes that make it highly context-specific. I discuss the history of theory in migration research, including recent shifts away from a concern with ethnicity in favour of communities of practice. Late Mesoamerica is a data-rich environment for the study of migration within its social context. The Classic period saw regional political systems that extended their reach economically or militarily and frequently had a demographic component. The widespread disruption of the Epiclassic or Terminal Classic periods included environmental change, political collapse, and a major reorganization of the social landscape. The Postclassic witnessed the re-emergence of complex societies claiming descent from migrant populations. The contributions to this volume come from many different disciplines and assess the timing, causes, perceptions, and impacts of migrations across a variety of social contexts. Political disruption, environmental change, and migration are frequently interrelated in ways reminiscent of our world today.

Migration and the Coyotlatelco Ceramic Tradition

This chapter argues that the Late Classic/Epiclassic ceramic style known as Coyotlatelco has roots in the eastern El Bajío of Near West Mexico. Coyotlatelco became a widespread ceramic tradition in Epiclassic Central Mexico. Its chief defining characteristic is its suite of unsupported and tripod-supported vessels decorated with red-painted geometric designs on plain brown or cream slipped pottery. Ceramic data and radiocarbon dating produced from Tulane University’s Ucareo-Zinapecuaro (U-Z) Project (1989-1995) shed additional light on the ongoing debate regarding whether or not the Coyotlatelco style originates with the native population or if it shows evidence of the migration of non-local people into the central highlands of Mexico. The ceramic chronology for the U-Z source area throughout the Late Formative and Classic periods in NE Michoacan begins a discussion about shared decorative modes among red on brown ceramic types that connect Michoacan with societies in both the El Bajio and the Basin of Mexico regions, including Teotihuacan. The conclusions drawn suggest that the Coyotlatelco ceramic style has deep roots in the pottery traditions of the eastern El Bajio and, given the equally long history of various modes of regional and back migration, there seems little need to look beyond Central Mexico for the origins of Coyotlatleco.

Three Migration Case Studies from the Tula Region

Systematic surveys in the Tula region in southern Hidalgo has revealed a long and diverse history of settlement that included at least three different episodes of migration. Each was quite different in terms of scale and mode of execution, including what appears to have been 1) well-orchestrated mass migrations or colonization of the region by Teotihuacan, 2) small scale migrations involving the appearance of a foreign enclave of possibly mixed Teotihuacan/Zapotec whose members comprised an entire settlement, and 3) uncoordinated multiple migrations of Coyotlatelco traditional peoples, each probably involving small groups from varying areas of origin within a larger region of the same general destination. All three appear to have involved relatively short-distance migration, which we believe was a common practice in Mesoamerica, where knowledge of the destination was a likely "pull" factor that facilitated both multiple and return migration events.

Dialectology and the History of Nahua Peoples in Guatemala

This chapter examines the structural and lexical features of the Nahuatl dialects spoken in Guatemala in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and it examines their implications for the history of Nahua peoples in the southern piedmont and Pacific coast. Using Spanish and Nahuatl sources, I argue that at least two distinct dialect groups were spoken in Guatemala in the late post-Classic. The first was a Central dialect genetically related to but distinct from varieties spoken in the Valley of Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest. It was described in artes, which was written by Spanish friars, and attested to in scores of colonial documents authored by Nahuatl scribes in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Some scholars have speculated that it was used as the “lingua franca.” I will argue, however, that there is no solid evidence that the Nahuatl had contact beyond the periphery of the city of Santiago de Guatemala. Unattested in the colonial corpus and first described by Leonhard Schultze-Jena and Lyle Campbell, the second group was an Eastern dialect that was generally called Pipil in the literature. I will also discuss the implications of this as a picture of Nahuatl’s dialectal diversity in Guatemala for our understanding of post-Classic Nahua migrations.

How Mesoamerican Are the Nahua Languages?

The Epiclassic Period is generally recognized as an era of major expansions of Nahua-speaking communities throughout Central Mexico, east to the Gulf Coast, and south into Central America. However, these Epiclassic expansions rest on a deeper history that, while often neglected or mischaracterized, can be elucidated by linguistic evidence. This evidence shows that the Nahua did not originate as hunter-gatherers: the Proto-Nahua speech community emerged among cultivators who lived within the Mesoamerican tropics. This evidence also suggests that, rather than remaining on the Mesoamerican margins until the Epiclassic, some Nahua speakers may have been among the elites at Teotihuacan as early as the 5th century A.D. This chapter reviews the major debates about the linguistic history of the Nahua that underlies their Epiclassic expansions.

The Pipil Migrations in Mesoamerica

Drawing on comparative studies of migrations from the U.S. Southeast and Southwest, I propose a new model for the interpretation of the Pipil migrations from central Mexico to southeastern Mesoamerica. These studies indicate that identity politics associated with cultural construction (sensu Pauketat) are often closely related to historical processes of migration, population movements, and displacements. Assuming the essential accuracy of this model, material culture traits often taken as direct archaeological data on the Pipil migrations are reinterpreted as evidence of the daily practices, social identities, and political differentiations of immigrant groups and their construction of new landscapes and cultural traditions.

The Itzá Maya Migration Narratives

According to native accounts, such as the Books of Chilam Balam and Spanish accounts from shortly after the Conquest, there were migrations with the foundation and rise of the kingdom of Chichén Itzá during the Classic to Postclassic transition. The Itzá play a central role in these events, but their identity remains unclear. I address this first through an analysis of the native and Spanish accounts of their migration to bring some clarity to the historical record. I then address archaeological and epigraphic evidence of changes at Chichén Itzá that suggest a correlation of the historical and archaeological records. Finally, I discuss evidence from earlier inscriptions from the southern lowlands that suggests an origin for the Itzá in the area around the central Petén lakes.