Senior Project Personnel
- Kelly Blevins, Durham University (UK)
- Jane Buikstra, Arizona State University (USA)
- Josefina Mansilla Lory, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (Mexico)
- Kathleen Paul, University of Arkansas (USA)
Student Project Personnel
- Taylor Seupaul, University of Arkansas (USA)
- Lacy Spiller, University of Arkansas (USA)
Project Description & Aims
This project centers around small-scale biodistance analyses at the archaeological site of Tlatelolco in Central Mexico. Our team is using tooth size and morphology to reconstruct patterns of kinship and biological affinity among adults and children at this Aztec market site and sister-city to Tenochtitlán (the political capital). We are interested, specifically, in the precolonial occupation of this site, which is located at the modern day Plaza de las Tres Culturas in the heart of Mexico City.
The results of this biodistance research are informing broader inquiries into site structure and ritual behavior. Importantly, many of the individuals included in our sample were victims of sacrifice. Recently published research by members of our team suggests impoverished, less healthy individuals were selectively chosen for this type of death (Blevins et al., 2023). By layering information about relatedness onto these datasets, we have also concluded that local children were likely not exempt from these acts of ritual violence. Our findings were recently presented at the annual meetings of the American Association of Biological Anthropologists (Paul et al., 2022; Seupaul et al., 2024).
The adult dental sample from Tlatelolco is also the focus of two honors theses at the University of Arkansas (Seupaul, 2024; Spiller, in progress). Moving forward, we will combine these results with ancient DNA evidence for tuberculosis to understand whether kinship or household membership structured mycobacterial infection at the site. In this way, our work probes the foundations of structural and ritual violence in this precolonial Mexica context.
For more information, see our Recent Publications.