Archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) of Mexico discovered in Mexico City, a Teotihuacan people who existed around 1,500 years agolong before the founding of the Aztec Empire.
The city was near the stream tlatelolcolocated about 40 kilometers southwest of Teotihuacan, an ancient city-state that was once the dominant political force in the Valley of Mexico.
Although the city was initially identified by archaeologist Francisco Gonzalez Rulen between 1960 and 1964, excavations carried out between March and June of that year by the Ministry of Culture of Mexico and a research team from the Directorate of Archaeological Recovery of the INAHhelp to better understand its meaning.
Recent discoveries have brought to light several remains of buildings in the settlement, including drainage channels, postholes, floors, stone lines and a well. As well as architectural elements and even tombs with funerary offerings as well as large quantities of ceramic utensils which have been used to more precisely date the site, around 450-650 AD. C., around the same date as the height of Teotihuacan influence.
Ceramics found during excavations. 1 credit
The town was one of many small villages that fell under the sovereignty of Teotihuacanwhich was at the time the largest city in the Western Hemisphere with an estimated population of at least 150,000 people.
A more complex economy than expected
According to the archaeologists, the discoveries made it possible to theorize that the economy of the inhabitants of the village would not have been only self-consumption and gathering, but a mixed production, with a surplus use of the lake texcocothe largest of the lakes that once dominated the Valley of Mexico and supported multiple empires up to a million people at a time.
Similarly, “perhaps the economy was also based on hunting, possibly accompanied by specialized craft production in ceramics or stone, since several fragments of solid and articulated modeled figurines have been found, objects in green stone , shells, grave offerings, and various obsidian and flint projectile points,” noted the archaeologist Juan Campos.
One of the Teotihuacan figurines found among the excavated objects. Credit: Juan Carlos Campos Varela/INAH.
Reference: CNN / Live Science / INAH.
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