Tlatilco

Activation analysis of selected groups of sherds of typically Oaxacan and Teotihuacan ceramics has shed some light on the question of the Oaxacan presence at Teotihuacan and the related concept of long-distance trade between the two centers during early Classic times. Studies of Preclassic Tlatilco figurines reveal them to have been locally manufactured. 

The second problem concerns the analysis of six terra cotta figurines from the site of Tlatilco. Tlatilco, a suburb of Mexico City, has been described by Pina Chan (7) in these terms De todos los pueblos pre-clasicos del valle de Mexico que hasta ahora se conocen, Tlatilco fue el... 

Bernal (6) has described the extraordinarily close stylistic relationship of some of these figurines to those of the Olmec culture in the metropolitan Olmec zone along the Gulf Coast characteristic Olmec types are as fine and beutiful in Tlatilco as are their counterparts in La Venta. At times they are so similar that it would not be possible to tell their provenance had they not been found during explorations. ... 

It seemed to us that the whole problem of Olmec trade and the interrelationship of the preclassic sites in Mesoamerica offered an unusually favorable case for the method of grouping via paste-compositional patterns based on neutron activation analysis. As a start on this program we include here the analysis of six preclassic Tlatilco figurines, and we compare their analyses with those of two modern specimens and touch upon the archaeological conclusions possible. 

Table VI. Comparison of Mean Compositions of Six Ancient Tlatilco Figurines with a Modern Figurine and Clay from Tlatilco0...

The six figurines, all of Vaillant s class D-l (26) and provenance San Luis Tlatilco, were supplied by the INAH (Mexico) and are shown in Figure 9. The modern specimens include clay dug at Tlatilco by one of us (R.A.-M.) and the leg of a fake figurine known to have been made in Tlatilco about 20 years ago (also shown in Figure 9). The analytical data for these specimens are given in Table V, and the mean concentrations and standard deviation ranges for the ancient figurines and modern specimens are compared in Table VI. 

To return to our earlier point on the variation of clay compositions within the Valley of Mexico, Table VII shows the mean concentrations and standard deviation spreads of the Tlatilco, Teotihuacan, and Oaxacan matching groups. These data show that the Tlatilco and Teotihuacan... 

However, one Oaxacan style sherd from Teotihuacan showed Oaxacan composition and thus was probably imported. Finally, the analysis of a group of six preclassic figurines and a clay from Tlatilco in the Valley of Mexico very strongly suggests that the figurines were also locally made. 

It is logical to consider whether the majolica sherds which were found in Mexico City could have been fabricated of local clay. Fortunately data on clays and related pottery from the Valley of Mexico has been collected at Brookhaven National Laboratory over many years. The ceramic material, which had previously been anlyzed by Harbottle and Sayre in collaboration with other investigators, consisted of Precolumbian artifacts. The pottery and the clays from two archaeological sites within the Valley, Teotihuacan, and Tlatilco were all basically similar in composition, although the clays and pottery from the two separate sites could be diflFerentiated through a subtle multivariate statistical analysis. It is likely that the entire Valley of Mexico is underlain with clay bed of moderately uniform trace impurity composition, and hence if the composition of the Mexico City majolica sherds was similar to that of ceramics and clay from Teotihuacan or Tlatilco, it would be probable that the majolica was fabricated from clays originating somewhere within the Valley of Mexico. 

TaMe 1. Comparison of the composition of six ancient figurines from Tlatilco with a modem Figurine (leg) and clays. 

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