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The Archaeology and History of Colonial Mexico

The Archaeology and History of Colonial Mexico

The Archaeology and History of Colonial Mexico

Mixing Epistemologies
Enrique Rodríguez-Alegría , University of Texas, Austin
June 2016
Available
Hardback
9781107111646
$114.00
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Hardback
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eBook

    This is an archaeological and historical study of Mexico City and Xaltocan, focusing on the early years after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire in 1521. The study of households excavated in Mexico City and the probate inventories of 39 colonizers provide a vivid view of the material and social lives of the Spanish in what was once the capital of the Aztec empire. Decades of archaeological and ethnohistorical research in Xaltocan, a town north of Mexico City, offers a long-term perspective of daily life, technology, the economy, and the adoption of Spanish material culture among indigenous people. Through these case studies, this book examines interpretive strategies used when working with historical documents and archaeological data. Focusing on the use of metaphors to guide interpretation, this volume explores the possibilities for interdisciplinary collaboration between historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists working on this pivotal period in Latin American history.

    • Compares daily life among Spanish colonizers in Mexico City and indigenous people in Xaltocan, focusing especially on cross-cultural adoption of material culture
    • Provides unpublished data from the probate inventories of 39 Spanish colonizers, as well as archaeological data from Xaltocan
    • Offers an original comparison of interpretive strategies in history and archaeology, focusing on the use of metaphors to go from evidence to narratives about the past

    Product details

    June 2016
    Hardback
    9781107111646
    252 pages
    235 × 157 × 18 mm
    0.56kg
    22 b/w illus. 3 maps
    Available

    Table of Contents

    • Inception: mixing epistemologies
    • 1. Things the Spanish left behind
    • 2. Interethnic feasts
    • 3. Tacking in Lake Xaltocan
    • 4. Technology and time travel
    • 5. The color of majolica, or how 'natives' think, about majolica, for example?
    • Mixed epistemologies: materiality in the Spanish colonies.
      Author
    • Enrique Rodríguez-Alegría

      Enrique Rodríguez-Alegría is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin. He is the coeditor of The Menial Art of Cooking: Archaeological Studies of Cooking and Food Preparation (with Sarah Graff, 2012) and of The Oxford Handbook of the Aztecs (with Deborah Nichols, forthcoming). He was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) of Stanford University, California in 2010–11 and the recipient of a Howard Fellowship in 2012–13. He has done fieldwork in Central Mexico since 1996, including volunteer work with the Programa de Arqueología Urbana of the Templo Mayor Museum in Mexico City, as well as directing several seasons of excavation in Xaltocan.

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