Maravilla Irrigation system and the north piedmont of the lower teotihuacan valley
Figure 1. Location of Maravilla irrigation system (Millon 1957:Fig.1) (click to enlarge).
Background
Drawing inspiration from the work of Wittfogel (1956, 1957) and Steward (1949), archaeologists working within the Basin of Mexico during the 1950s were interested in exploring the relationship between ancient water management techniques and the emergence of complex societies. Of particular concern was the degree to which irrigation technologies contributed to the emergence of the massive urban center of Teotihuacan.
In 1954, Pedro Armillas identified a small irrigation system in an aerial photograph of the northern piedmont of the lower Teotihuacan Valley (Figure 1). A ground truthing expedition confirmed the existence of an irrigation system comprised of a canal and 3 dams, parts of which were still in use at the time (Armillas et al. 1956). From 1955-1956, René Millon (1957) investigated the Maravilla system through a survey and excavation program. Initial results suggested that the system was primarily pre-Hispanic with the earliest portions dating to Coyotlatelco (ca. A.D. 750) or Mazapan (ca. A.D. 850) times, while heaviest use occurred during the Late Aztec (AD 1300 - 1600) period.
Current Research: Revisiting the Maravilla Irrigation System
Presently, much of Millon's Maravilla data remains unpublished. Field notes and artifacts from the project are housed in the Teotihuacan Archaeology Laboratory at the University at Buffalo, and in the Fall of 2014 I began working with this material. Some of the projects described below have been completed, and others are underway.
Economic Exchange Between Hostile Polities
Settlement in the vicinity of the Maravilla system represents primarily households toward the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum. As such, the discovery of a west Mexican bronze needle is noteworthy, as these artifacts are rare in the Teotihuacan Valley. This find is even more interesting when we consider that it was produced within the lands of the Purépecha (Tarascans), a people that were engaged in constant conflict with the Aztec. Thus this single artifact illustrates that exchange mechanisms can persist between warring parties. You can find further information on this subject in one of my articles. .pdf
Contextualizing the Maravilla Irrigation System: North Piedmont Settlement Patterns
Millon had hoped to conduct a settlement pattern survey in the vicinity of the Maravilla system, but ran short on time. As such, very little was known about the nature of the surrounding settlement aside from the locations of a few surface scatters of ceramic and lithic artifacts. An unintended consequence of this gap was the presentation of a disembodied irrigation system adrift from human settlement (Figure 2). This issue was partially remedied 3 years later through an intensive and extensive settlement pattern survey of the area by the Teotihuacan Valley Project (Evans et al. 2000; Sanders 1994). One of my efforts has been to contextualize the Maravilla system by integrating it with the Teotihuacan Valley Project survey data (Figure 3).
Figure 2. From Millon 1957: Figure 2 (click to enlarge),
Figure 3. Maravilla irrigation system with surrounding settlement recorded by the Teotihuacan Valley Project. Map by J. Kwoka (click to enlarge).
Obsidian Consumption at the Maravilla Irrigation System
In addition to working with the settlement data, I have analyzed the lithic artifacts recovered from Millon's excavations. The image gallery to the right contains a small sample of the Maravilla lithics, along with a rare Tarascan copper needle. Assemblage size is relatively small (n=298), with most of the material having been recovered from the irrigation canal (77.9%). Despite its size, the Maravilla lithic data have proven to be both informative and interesting by contributing to the archaeology of other spaces - those outside of the household, palace, and temple.
From a technological perspective, prismatic blade and biface technologies dominate the assemblage (Figure 4). There is very little evidence for blade production in the form of primary production debris (<2% of assemblage) , such as broken or exhausted cores. There is a stronger presence of secondary production debris (21%) largely in the from of percussion and early series blades. These figures, combined with the fact that final series blades account for 77% of the blade assemblage, provide strong evidence for a prismatic blade trade model (De León et al. 2009; Hirth 1998).
Figure 4. Maravilla lithic technology.
Figure 5. Maravilla lithic assemblage composition.
Photographs of the Maravilla Irrigation System taken by René Millon 1955-56
References Cited
Armillas, Pedro, Angel Palerm, and Eric R. Wolf 1956 A Small Irrigation System in the Valley of Teotihuacan. American Antiquity 21(4):396-399.
De León, Jason P., Kenneth G. Hirth, and David M. Carballo 2009 Exploring Formative Period Obsidian Blade Trade: Three Distribution Models. Ancient Mesoamerica 20(1):113-128
Evans, Susan Toby, William T. Sanders, and Jeffrey R. Parsons 2000 The Teotihuacan Valley Project: Aztec Period Site Descriptions. In The Teotihuacan Valley Project Final Report, Volume 5, The Aztec Period Occupation of the Valley. Part 1 – Natural Environment, 20th Century Occupation, Survey Methodology, and Site Descriptions, edited by Susan Toby Evans and William T. Sanders, pp.85-499. Occasional Papers in Anthropology Number 25, Department of Anthropology. The Pennsylvania State University, University Park.
Hirth, Kenneth G. 1998 The Distributional Approach: A New Way to Identify Marketplace Exchange in the Archaeological Record. Current Anthropology 39:451-476.
Millon, René 1957 Irrigation Systems in the Valley of Teotihuacan. American Antiquity 23(2):160-166.
Sanders, William T. (editor) 1994 The Teotihuacan Valley Project Final Report, Volume 3 The Teotihuacan Period Occupation of the Valley, Part 1 The Excavations. Occasional Papers in Anthropology Number 19, Matson Museum of Anthropology. The Pennsylvania State University, University Park.
Steward, Julian H. 1949 Cultural Causality and Law: A Trial Formulation of the Development of Early Civilizations. American Anthropologist 57(1):1-27.
Wittfogel, Karl A. 1956 The Hydraulic Civilizations. In Man's Role in Changing the Face of the Earth, edited by William L. Thomas, pp.152-164, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Wittfogel, Karl A. 1957 Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power. Yale University Press, New Haven.