Table Of ContentCopyright by
Muriel Nod Porter
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF TLATILCO IN THE STUDY OF
THE PRECLASSIC CULTURES OF THE NEW WORLD.
by
Muriel Noe Porter
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy, in the Faculty of Political
Science, Columbia University.
May, 19f?l
TABLE OP CONTENTS.
Page
FOREWORD................................ iii
Chapter
I INTRODUCTION.......................... 1
II TLATILCO AND THE PRECLASSIC SEQUENCE
OF THE VALLEY OF M E X I C O ............. 8
III PARTICULARLY SIGNIFICANT ELEMENTS OF
TLATILCO CULTURE ..................... 37
IV COMPARATIVE SITES IN MESOAMERICA
AND CENTRAL A M E RI CA ................... $?>
V COMPARISONS WITH THE ANDEAN AREA . . . 96
VI COMPARATIVE SITES IN THE SOUTHEAST
OF THE UNITED STATES.................. Il6
VII CONCLUSIONS AND SPECULATIONS ......... 128
BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................... 139
PHOTOGRAPHS
FOREWORD
This paper does not constitute a report on the recent
excavations at Tlatilco in the Valley of Mexico, but deals
with certain aspects of Tlatilco Culture and attempts to trace
some of its relationships. To this end, it was necessary to
study the Tlatilco remains in some detail and to examine at
first hand as much comparative material as was available.
It is with great pleasure that I express my appreciation
to Dr. Daniel F. Rubin de la Borbolla and Senor Miguel Covar-
rubias who, as directors of the Tlatilco Project, gave me the
opportunity to work with them on one of the most exciting ex
cavations of recent years in Mexico. I am especially indebted
to Dr. Rubin de la Borbolla not only for permitting me to study
the Tlatilco material before the final report is published, but
also for his unlimited generosity and kindness in giving me
every possible assistance throughout the preparation of this
paper. To Senor Miguel Ccvarrubias I owe gratitude for many
stimulating discussions and helpful suggestions in addition
to the enjoyable hours I spent examining his extensive private
collection of Tlatilco pottery.
My colleagues at the Museo Nacional de Mexico have been
especially cooperative. Senores Arturo Romano, Roman Pina Chan,
iii
and Eduardo Parellon, who are to be congratulated on their
consistently meticulous techniques of excavation, have all
been extremely generous in assisting me whenever possible.
Special thanks are due to Senor Romano for many of the.photo
graphs included here and to Senora Johana Faulhaber for numerous
consultations regarding the skeletal material. I am also in
debted to all the staff members of the Museo Nacional and the
Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia who contributed
towards making my stay in Mexico so delightful.
I offer my sincerest thanks to Dr. Paul Fejos for his
interest and confidence in my proposed study and to the Viking
Fund Inc., for a grant-in-aid which made it possible for me to
examine a large collection of newly discovered Preclassic ma
terial in Mexico and Guatemala.
In Guatemala, Mr. Edwim M. Shook of the Carnegie Insti
tution graciously placed all the specimens at my disposal and
acquainted me with the new early materials from Kaminaljuyu.
I thank Senor don Vitalino Robles and Senora Robles of Quetzal-
tenango, Guatemala, for their hospitality as well as for per
mission to examine their valuable private collection of local
ceramics.
To Dr. A.V. Kidder II, I am indebted for showing me the
pottery from Playa de los Muertos and Santa Rita, Honduras, at
the Peabody Museum of Harvard University.
I am .especially grateful to Dr. W. Duncan Strong and Dr.
Julian H. Steward of the Columbia University Department of
iv
Anthropology who read the final manuscript and made construc
tive criticisms.
Perhaps my deepest gratitude goes to Dr. Gordon P. Ekholm
of the American Museum of natural History who in supervising
the preparation of this paper has given very generously of his
time and knowledge. It has been a great privilege to work
under his guidance.
To ray mother and father I owe infinite thanks for their
constant enthusiasm and encouragement as well as for much
material aid. It is to Mother that this paper is dedicated.
M.N.P.
v
Chapter I
INTRODUCTION
It has long been recognized that prehistoric America had
two centers of high culture: Mesoamerica and the Andean region.
Together these centers comprise what Kroeber has called ’’Nuclear
America.^ The possible relationships between these two areas
of advanced civilization has attracted the attention of many
anthropologists, among whom are Spinder, Uhle and Jijon y Caa-
mano. Although interest in problems of inter-American contact
is never lacking, most investigators have confined their studies
to a local area or at the most to one of the centers of Nuclear
.America. In the last few years, our knowledge of New World
archaeology has increased greatly, and the time has come when
greater effort should be made towards the study of Nuclear Ame
rica as a whole. With more factual information on hand regar
ding prehistoric America, the investigator finds himself com
pelled to extend his interests beyond the local area and to try
to understand his problems in terms of the broader, general
framework of American culture history.
The necessity for one’s having to broaden his point of view
is very apparent in Mesoamerica where in the last few years our
conception of cultural sequences has changed from one of extreme
local diversity into a more coherent and intelligible total pic
ture. The excavations at Tula, Hidalgo, have unquestionably lin
ked Central Mexico with Chichen Itza in Yucatan, and the start-
1 Kroeber, 7?9
2
ling similarities between archaeological material from Teoti-
huacan and Kaminaljuyu have led to increased knowledge of re
lationships between Mexico and Guatemala. This clearer con
ception of the archaeological framework of Mesoamerica facili
tates the study of finds from any one local site in terms of
the whole.
In the Andean area we have had for a longer time the ad
vantage of dealing with almost pan-Peruvian Cultures.'1' Although
the framework of basic sequences has been changed again and
again, the early recognition of widespread horizon styles had
encouraged the investigator to try to interpret his material in
relation to the larger culture area. It is only recently how
ever, that a precise working outline has been achieved. In con
tributing to this end, the recent stratigraphic work of the Viru
Valley Project Is most significant. On the north coast, a cul
tural sequence has been worked out extending from a pre-pottery
2
horizon to colonial times. As a result, Peruvianists are now
in general agreement as to the basic sequences in Andean pre-
3
history.
Because of the recent clarification of sequences and In
ternal relationships of ceramic complexes In both Mesoamerica
and the Andean region, It is now imperative that a greater con
centration of effort be made towards the study of Nuclear Ameri
ca as a whole. In what ways are these centers of high culture
similar and how are the parallels in cultural achievements to be
3
explained? What is the significance of widespread contact of
peoples in terms of New World culture history? The answers to
these questions will not be found on the basis of our present
knowledge of archaeology nor with any amount of speculation.
But these are the questions investigators must keep before them
at the same time striving for closer coordination of effort in
handling Nuclear American problems.
An outstanding step in this direction was made at a con
ference on Peruvian archaeology in July 19^4-7 in New York. At
that time, Bennett, Strong, Armillas and Steward all dealt with
Masoamerican-Andean developmental trends. It was the first real
attempt to distinguish basic patterns in Nuclear America as a
whole. Numerous parallels in cultural development were recognized
and even chronological guess-dates seemed to agree. The recent
Carbon llf dates further reinforce this chronological line-up of
the two areas.
While speculations on the uniformity of developmental trends
was proceeding, excavations In the Valley of Mexico were revea
ling material of great importance to this problem of inter-Ameri
can relationships. These excavations at Tlatilco, a site on the
outskirts of Mexico City, will be the principal subject of this
paper. These remains will also Illustrate the advantages of con
sidering comparative material from a large geographical area in
order to understand and interpret the local site. The Tlatilco
material is an important addition to the knowledge of Mesoamerica
as well as Central America, but its greatest significance lies
in its contribution to the study of Nuclear American problems.
Tlatilco Culture contains a ceramic complex which appears to
be shared by sites in Honduras and Peru, suggesting the possi
bility of Mesoamerican-Andean contact. Admittedly, the material
is not entirely adequate, yet I believe it warrants an attempt
to analyze certain features of Tlatilco ceramics in terms of
Nuclear America as a whole.
The cultural remains found at Tlatilco clearly fall into
the Formative or Preclassic Horizon of the developmental se
quences currently in use by American anthropologists.^" In
Mesoamerica this horizon is also referred to as the Archaic or
Middle Culture Period. In this paper, the term Preclassic re
fers specifically to this cultural epoch and is used synomymously
with the word Formative. Since Tlatilco belongs solely to this
Preclassic Period, this paper will deal only with that horizon.
The general nature of the cultures of the Preclassic Period
in Mesoamerica has been discussed by Armillas,2 Kidder,^ and
Wauchope^f- all of whom are generally agreed as to the degree of
development attained by these cultures at this time. Undoubtedly
it was a period of great cultural growth. Archaeological re
mains suggest considerable regional variation and rapid changes
must have been taking place. The earliest data suggest that al
though life was far from primitive, it was still relatively
simple as compared with that of the end of the period, which in
sdme areas is almost indistinguishable from the complex Classic
Cultures that follow. The Preclassic Period was marked by a
-^Strong, 191+9
2Armillas, 19J4.8, 106
^Kidder, Jennings and Shook, 19^6, 2
Wauchope, 19^0
