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Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol. 10, No. 2, June 2003 (°
Controlling for Doubt and Uncertainty Through
Multiple Lines of Evidence: A New Look at the
Mesoamerican Nahua Migrations1
Christopher S. Beekman2,4 and Alexander F. Christensen3
Nahuatl represents a relatively recent extension of the Uto-Aztecan language family
into Mesoamerica. Ethnohistorians have linked Nahuatl’s arrival to the historically attested migrations of nomadic people into central Mexico in the last centuries
before the Spanish Conquest. Archaeologists have tended to treat migration as an
explanation for a change in material culture rather than a social question to be
examined theoretically. We approach this migration through the comparison of
multiple data sets and conclude that what has previously been treated as a historical event is instead part of a longer term process tying together Mesoamerica’s
northern periphery with its highland core. While we find that certain themes from
migration theory are reflected in this preindustrial migration as well, other variables are unique and bode well for archaeology’s ability to address and contribute
to theoretical issues relating to migration.
KEY WORDS: anthropology; Mesoamerica; migration; Aztec; Nahua.
From whence came the tribes who founded and settled the City of Mexico? is a question
somewhat involved in doubt and uncertainty. (Ritch, 1885, p. 5)
INTRODUCTION: MIGRATIONS IN MESOAMERICA
Since the first reports of Cortes’ exploits reached Europe in 1519, the Triple
Alliance, or Aztec Empire, has played a pivotal role in western views of
Middle America (see Fig. 1 for the modern political geography of the region)
1 This
is a shorter but more focused version of a manuscript that has circulated since about 1995.
of Anthropology, University of Colorado, Denver, Colorado.
3 U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hickam AFB, Hawaii.
4 To whom correspondence should be addressed at Campus Box 103, PO Box 173364,
Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado, Denver, Colorado 80217. E-mail:
cbeekman@carbon.cudenver.edu
2 Department
111
C 2003 Plenum Publishing Corporation
1072-5369/03/0600-0111/0 °
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Fig. 1. Map of Mexico and Central America, with states mentioned in the text.
(Keen, 1971). This polity and the surrounding region were dominated by speakers
of the Nahuatl language, or Aztecs.5 However, these Aztecs uniformly claimed
themselves to be immigrants who had arrived fairly recently—from 200 to
800 years before the Spanish Conquest, depending on the source. In the ethnohistoric record, this migration, or series of migrations, is taken as a given; those
accounts that do not narrate it presume it as background information. Linguists
have similarly concluded that Nahuatl was not native to central Mexico (e.g.,
Dakin, 1982; Kaufman, 2001). Some archaeologists, on the other hand, have emphasized continuity in the material record (e.g., Dumond and Müller, 1972), and
have occasionally gone so far as to deny that any migrations occurred (Epstein,
1968; Price, 1980). To a large extent, this was an understandable backlash against
5 “Nahuatl” is the name generally used for the language as a whole, despite the fact that not all modern
(or ancient) dialects use the “tl” phoneme. In this paper, we use it to refer to the entire set of dialects that
descended from Proto-Nahua, a.k.a. Proto-Aztecan, except Pochutec, which is generally considered
a distinct language. We use “Nahua” to refer to speakers of Nahuatl, both as a noun and an adjective.
“Aztec” is a more recent coinage of uncertain derivation and meaning. It can be used to refer to the
Late Postclassic Colhua Mexica, their empire, and/or their entire cultural setting. In this paper, it will
be used to refer to specific archaeological ceramic types, and to the entire series of Late Postclassic
migrations.
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the prevalence of diffusionist theories that connected every new ceramic phase
with a distinct ethnic group, and was part of a general antimigrationist trend in former decades (Adams et al., 1978). Recently it has become clear that archaeology
has passed through this phase and migration is once again a legitimate topic of
research. Of course, debates still tend to revolve around why one data set takes priority over others (say, technology over emblemic style) in reconstructing the fact
of migration. But archaeological data alone are rarely sufficient to establish even
that a migration took place, much less enter into a more detailed social analysis of
its causes and repercussions.
We argue that migrations and other forms of population movement should
ideally be analyzed using multiple intersecting lines of data (Rouse, 1986). Archaeology and linguistics or ethnohistory have been profitably compared in studies
of the Indo-European (Mair, 1998; Mallory, 1989; Renfrew, 1987), Bantu (Ehret
and Posnansky, 1982; Vansina, 1995), Israelite (Levy and Holl, 2002), and Numic
(Madsen and Rhode, 1994) migrations. Studies of the initial population of the
Pacific have been even broader based, incorporating oral history and biological
data to achieve a more complete view (Bellwood, 1979; Friedlaender et al., 2002;
Hill and Serjeantson, 1989; Lum and Cann, 2000). Archaeologists in North America often frame their studies with the linguistic and biological arguments made by
Greenberg et al. (1986). Such breadth of analysis has been rare in Mesoamerican
studies of population movements (see Fowler, 1989, for an exception).
Those researchers that have attempted to evaluate the motives and mechanisms of migration in a more systematic manner have often developed a typological approach that attempts to characterize an entire migration. The Wave of
Advance model, devised for the spread of early farming in Europe (Ammerman
and Cavalli-Sforza, 1979), is one of the best-known models of this type.
Collett (1982) evaluated contrasting Continuous Wave of Advance and Rapid Discontinuous Spread models for the Early Iron Age Bantu migrations. Terrell presented comparisons and expectations of several models for the population of the
Pacific islands, including Punctuated, Continuous, and Accidental variants (Terrell,
1986; Table 1). Only recently have archaeologists used existing studies of modern migration to treat the goals and strategies of population movement in a more
sophisticated manner (largely triggered by Anthony, 1990). What these and other
studies of migration tell us is that migrations can have radically different linguistic,
biological, and archaeological profiles, and that simplistic correlates to population movements should be rejected even as guides to research (cf. Mallory, 1989,
pp. 164–168).
Our topic is complex, and cannot rely on one-dimensional, typological models. Colleagues have, on occasion, approached us with the suggestion that we
should develop dissimilarity indices or other quantitative thresholds against which
our data might be compared. Above a certain score, a migration would be indicated. Below that threshold, we would have to search for alternate explanations. We
cannot condone such an approach. It assumes that migration is an explanation for
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a pattern of material culture, whereas we view it as a conscious strategic response
to certain kinds of problems that leaves a variety of material traces and has repercussions in many areas of society. Such a shift in orientation forces analysis away
from “either/or” explanations and toward the reconstruction of the circumstances
that encourage or constrain migration.
In this study, our approach is not simply to determine whether a migration
took place in the centuries before the Spanish Conquest. We draw upon linguistic
data to help lay the background and explain why most authorities agree that a migration occurred. The ethnohistoric sources help to further detail the mechanisms
behind the Late Postclassic (Fig. 2) migrations, but also demonstrate that Nahuatl
was already spoken in central Mexico when nomads like the Aztecs arrived. We
draw upon a new biological analysis to support the broad conclusion that there was
substantial gene flow from northwestern Mexico into the central basin of Mexico
some time between the Formative and Late Postclassic periods. The archaeological evidence from several key locations across northern Mesoamerica (Fig. 3),
including areas not commonly considered in discussions of the Nahua migrations,
is then evaluated. Although we do devote time to the methodological issue of how
migrations may be viewed through material culture, we are just as concerned with
using the prehistoric data to examine the social and physical environment in which
people consider migration a viable strategy.
Archaeology is in a position to make a significant contribution to migration
theory, but it will not be through establishing the material correlates of a migration.
Rather, we tend to deal with social formations quite different from those typically
Fig. 2. Chronological periods of Mesoamerica. Terms such as Late
(AD 600–800) and Terminal (AD 800–900) Classic, more applicable to southernmost Mesoamerica, are here encompassed within
the Epiclassic.
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Fig. 3. Detail map of western and central Mexico, with sites mentioned in the text.
studied (note the cases in Lucassen and Lucassen, 1997), and we can provide examples from very different social milieus in which migration takes place. As an example, state immigration control systems have been shown to exercise a great influence
upon migration (e.g., Straubhaar, 1986), and this is a major component of modern
migration studies. Yet the relevance of this factor in premodern states is comparatively less, and other factors come to the fore. Such differences render problematic
an overreliance upon modern studies of migration to guide archaeological work.
We therefore ask for patience from the reader, especially the nonMesoamericanist, as we proceed through our “thick description.” But we have
concluded that the detailed integration of data sets is more effective for an anthropological study of migration than an approach whose goal is to develop essentialist
templates for what a migration looks like in a single data set. A methodologically
focused approach to migration that aims to establish such a template for a migration will simply fail, because it will be necessary to define migrations by the
most obvious examples, so that it will be convincing in the absence of contextual
data. An approach using several intersecting data sets allows us to examine those
less than ideal situations, and forces us to focus on the circumstances of migration
rather than its strict material correlates.
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Following our multidisciplinary approach, we conclude that the migrants responsible for the introduction of Nahuatl into the central highlands were previously
sedentary refugees from north-central Mexico, who arrived long before the better
known migrants from the historical records. Methodologically we find that the
data sets do not all correlate neatly with one another, but that their divergences
can help in interpretation. From a theoretical perspective, we find that important
factors for migration include environmental instability, the fluidity of migrants’
social organization, the shifting nature of ethnicity, prior contact and information
flow, and the recursive link between migration and political stability.
LINGUISTICS
When the Spanish arrived on the mainland of Middle America in the early
sixteenth century, they found a congeries of ethnic groups speaking a multitude
of different languages. In the Relaciones geográficas, compiled at the order of
the Spanish Crown between 1578 and 1586, 69 distinct languages are recorded
as having been spoken in the area of modern Mexico (Harvey, 1972, p. 280).
As relaciones from approximately one half of the region do not survive, it is
apparent that the actual linguistic situation was even more complex. Thirty of
these languages are classifiable as belonging to six known families. The most
widespread of these language families was, and remains, the Uto-Aztecan, which
ranges from the Numic languages of the Great Basin south through the Nahuatl
isolates of El Salvador and Nicaragua (Fig. 4) (Miller, 1983). The most historically
significant Uto-Aztecan language within Mesoamerica was Nahuatl, the lingua
franca of central Mexico in both the late pre-Hispanic and early Colonial periods.
Even today, after four and a half centuries of Spanish dominance, Nahuatl is spoken
by 1.2 million Mexicans from Jalisco in the northwest to Veracruz in the southeast
(INEGI, 1993).
Although there are extensive dialectal differences today between Nahuaspeakers, and there were many such even before the Conquest, these differences
are minor given the geographical extent of the language (Canger, 1988). Kaufman
(2001) compares the pattern to that of Anglo-Saxon dialects, equating Pipil with
Scots, Valley of Mexico Nahuatl with London English, and the other dialects with
various regional British speech forms. Both the spatial patterning of the dialects
and the extent of their divergence can be used for the historical reconstruction of
their relationships. A basic split in modern dialects has been argued to be that between Central and Peripheral (Canger, 1988; Seler, 1991), a result of the radiation
of innovations out from the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in the fifteenth century,
and perhaps from other Basin centers in the immediately preceding period. These
innovations were then accepted by the central members of a group of coordinate
sister dialects. Dakin and Wichmann (2000) and Dakin (2001, pp. 22–23), however, have argued for a split between eastern and western branches as the most
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Fig. 4. Map of the distribution of Uto-Aztecan languages.
fundamental. The eastern dialects appeared in central Mexico first, but speakers of
the western dialects came into contact with them in the central area at some later
date. For her, eastern Nahuatl was already present in the Classic period Basin of
Mexico. Kaufman (2001) argues that the separation between eastern and central
Nahuatl actually occurred in the Basin of Mexico, at a slightly later date than Dakin
prefers. He sees the eastern dialects as the result of political expansion from the
Basin toward the Gulf Coast.
Pochutec and Pipil, dialects whose current presence far to the southeast provide clear evidence of population movements, are critical to an understanding of
the nature of the main stream of Nahua migration. Pochutec, a western Nahuatl
dialect recorded from a small pocket around the town of Pochutla in Oaxaca and
now extinct, shows an accent pattern borrowed from Chatino (Bartholomew, 1980).
This borrowing suggests that the Pochutecs once lived surrounded by Chatinos,
who today are separated from them by Zapotec speakers. The number of speakers
of Pochutec has probably never been very large, and the archaeological record of
the coast shows nothing that might be interpreted as evidence for a migration from
central Mexico. Rather, a small Nahua group seems to have arrived in the area at
some point when Chatino was the status language in the region and assimilated
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to the local culture while preserving their own language. This dates their arrival
before the Early Postclassic replacement of Chatino by Mixtec as the politically
dominant language of the region (Christensen, 1998b). Glottochronological calculations of the date of arrival of Nahuatl speakers in central Mexico tend to be
based on an estimated sixth century date for the separation of Pochutec from the
ancestral stock; this event, it is presumed, must postdate the language’s arrival in
central Mexico (Luckenbach and Levy, 1980, p. 458).
The Pipil case is considerably more complex. Despite their distant location, Pipil and other eastern Nahua languages in Central America are more
closely related to central Mexican Nahuatl than is Pochutec (Kaufman, 2001;
Luckenbach and Levy, 1980). There are other non-Nahuatl isolates in that area
with close ties to central Mexico. In Nicaragua and Costa Rica lived speakers of
several Otomanguean languages related to Chiapanec and Tlapanec of Chiapas
and Guerrero (Campbell, 1976; Oltrogge and Rensch, 1977). Glottochronological
estimates suggest that these isolates separated from their central Mexican relatives
over the period AD 600–1100. Torquemada’s (1943, Vol. 1, Book 3, chap. 40,
pp. 331–333) seventeenth century account indicates that the Pipil separated from
central Mexican groups, and then passed along the Gulf Coast. Various estimates
based on his description of the Mangue-Pipil migrations suggest that they arrived
in El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua around the ninth or tenth century AD
(Fowler, 1989, pp. 34–37), which would require Nahuatl to have been present in
central Mexico some time before that date. This migration was on a larger scale than
the Pochutec, but still the Pipil and their fellow migrants leapfrogged over established groups, producing a chain of communities rather than a continuous spread.
Although less well studied, the linguistic landscape of far western Mexico
points to a similar pattern. The earliest Spanish documents from Jalisco from the
1520s occasionally refer to the presence of Nahua-speaking barrios within larger
communities who spoke some other local language (Yañez, 1994, pp. 60–61). The
locals and Nahuas even had their own political leaders, pointing to some form of
“separate but equal” coexistence. This is reminiscent of the Pochutec and Pipil,
who formed a chain of communities interspersed amongst the indigenes.
When and where did Nahuatl emerge? The relationships within the UtoAztecan family have usually been interpreted to indicate a far northern Mexican
homeland for the Nahuas, and a western United States home for the family itself.
Within Mexico, there are two branches, grouped as Southern Uto-Aztecan (Hill,
2001; Valiñas, 1993; see Fig. 4). The Aztecan branch comprises Nahuatl and its
sister dialect/language Pochutec. The Sonoran branch contains the Corachol languages (Cora and Huichol), as well as the Taracahitan (Tarahumara and others).
Glottochronological estimates place the divergence of Aztecan from Sonoran before 4500 BP, by which time the proto-languages were clearly spoken somewhere
in northern Mexico (Fowler, 1983; Miller, 1983, Fig. 2, p. 123).6 The family’s
6 While
Miller’s figure states 4500 BC for the transition in question, we follow Jane Hill (personal
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other branch, Northern Uto-Aztecan, includes Hopi, the Numic languages of the
Great Basin, and several California languages. On the basis of the areas of greatest
linguistic diversity, Knab (1983) proposed that the family expanded toward the
southeast as it moved from the American Southwest (see also Goss, 1968) toward
Mesoamerica.
Comparative linguistic reconstruction has recently modified this view. Roots
with the meaning of “rubber or ball” have been identified for Proto-Uto-Aztecan,
but other terms such as “pot” and “avocado,” have not been clearly reconstructed
before Proto-Nahua (Dakin, 1982). This has usually led to the conclusion that the
Nahuas were foragers, and foreign to Mesoamerica. Yet Fowler (1983) long ago
identified geographical terms that place at least Proto-Nahua somewhere within
the tropics. Newly available Hopi lexical data have allowed Hill (2001) to further
challenge the northern homeland hypothesis, producing reconstructed Proto-UtoAztecan roots for “maize by-products,” “corn ear, corn kernel, seed,” “to shell
corn,” “tortilla, tamale,” “comal,” “digging stick,” and “to plant.” This situates
proto-Uto-Aztecan speakers not as peripheral to the process of maize domestication, but as participants and, Hill assumes, living somewhere within northern
Mesoamerica by 1000 BC (Hill, 2001, pp. 919–924).
Some have gone beyond Hill’s evidence to argue that Nahuatl may have been
present in central Mexico, not just the Mesoamerican fringe, at an earlier date.
Hays-Gilpin and Hill (1999) have argued for flower iconography at Teotihuacan
that displays metaphors found in Uto-Aztecan (building on Cowgill, 1992), but
shared metaphors are found across Mesoamerica that crosscut linguistic families
(e.g., Campbell et al., 1986). The single Nahuatl loan word kakaw (cacao) has
been clearly identified in fifth century Maya inscriptions (Dakin and Wichmann,
2000), and more tenuous loans have been proposed (Macri, 2000). The problem
then becomes the historical interpretation of these data. In both cases, evidence
for a Nahuatl presence within Mesoamerica has then been projected to a presence
specifically at Teotihuacan. But this is clearly an assumption. The evidence linking
Nahuatl to Teotihuacan remains circumstantial, and studies that focus on that issue
do not always examine the wider repercussions. For example, Dakin and Wichmann
(2000) explain the presence of the Nahuatl loan word kakaw in Maya inscriptions
through recourse to the Pipil Nahua migrants, without taking into account the
ethnohistorical records that discuss the Pipil migration and directly contradict
their model as to the timing and motive for the migration.
There has been for some decades a general agreement among linguists and
ethnohistorians that the Early Postclassic inhabitants of the central Mexican city
of Tula spoke Nahuatl, whereas the inhabitants of the Classic period metropolis
communication, 2002), who indicates that this was a typo for BP. Glottochronology is a questionable
dating technique (Rea, 1990), but can serve as a general index of diversification. For example, Hill
(2001, pp. 919–924) compares linguistic and archaeological data to argue that the same AztecanSonoran split occurred closer to 1000 BC. We use glottochronological estimates in this paper because
they are a handy shorthand, and because detailed studies to correct them (like Hill’s) are rare.
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of Teotihuacan did not (Kaufman, 1976). Whatever date we assign to Nahuatl’s
arrival in central Mesoamerica, the pre-Nahua inhabitants of the Mexican highlands are generally thought to have spoken Sonoran or Purepecha languages in the
west and Otomanguean languages in the central region (Hopkins, 1984; Miller,
1983, p. 123). Interestingly, Nahuatl has borrowed little from Otomanguean languages (Kaufman, 2001). Instead, it exhibits loans in its vocabulary and grammar
from Mixe-Zoquean, Totonacan, and Huaxtecan languages that predate its diversification into modern dialects. These loans presumably occurred after Nahuas
arrived in central Mexico but before they spread much further. While Totonac and
Huaxtec are now spoken along the northern Gulf Coast and adjacent highlands,
east of the Bajı́o and north of the Basin of Mexico, Mixe-Zoquean languages are
spoken much further to the southeast, in Oaxaca and Veracruz. This anomaly is
unexplained, but Kaufman (2001) argues that it provides strong evidence for a
Mixe-Zoquean presence at Teotihuacan.
The best linguistic evidence for Nahua presence at any given date would
clearly be contemporaneous texts, written in one of the indigenous glyphic systems
of Mesoamerica. The Maya system is the only one of these whose phonetic content
is well enough understood for significant linguistic data to be extracted. Several
deity names do appear in the Dresden Codex in phonetic renditions that leave little
doubt as to the Nahuatl nature of the names (Taube and Bade, 1991; Whittaker,
1986). However, the Dresden Codex probably dates to the Late Postclassic period,
when the presence of some Nahuas in southern Mesoamerica cannot be doubted.
Taken together, the weight of linguistic opinion is that Nahuatl arrived in
central Mexico in the Classic or Postclassic period, probably after the decline of
Teotihuacan, and spread rapidly with little diversification. This rapid spread may
be indicative of the nature of the migration. It seems clear from the ethnohistorical
sources (see below) that most of the groups moving into the highlands did not
replace the earlier populations; rather, they took over the political leadership of
previously existing communities (e.g., Reyes, 1977). The initial Nahua populations in central Mexico were probably distributed in a fashion similar to that of
the Pochutec and Pipil, as they were in the nearby Valley of Toluca even into the
Colonial period (Garcı́a, 1999). With the rise to prominence of Nahuatl as the prestige language, even non-Nahua dynasties adopted it, just as Purepecha or Tarascan
was more widely adopted in Michoacan with the expansion of the Postclassic
Tarascan empire (Pollard, 1993, pp. 99–103). Historical accounts indicate that the
Nahuatl-ization of the Basin of Mexico and surrounding regions progressed over
a period of centuries (Carrasco, 1950; Davies, 1980a); in fact, it continued even
after the Spanish conquest (e.g., Karttunen, 1982).
ETHNOHISTORY
The rulers of many Late Postclassic states, including those of central and
western Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula, and the Guatemalan Highlands, claimed
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to have migrated from elsewhere. The written records relevant to the Nahua migrations have dramatically less time depth than the linguistic evidence, but this has not
stopped scholars from directly equating the historical migrations to the intrusion of
Nahuatl into Mesoamerica. These mythological accounts are connected by many
more specific details, most notably the recurring importance of Tula, or Tollan,
often considered the capital of a Toltec empire in the Early Postclassic period (e.g.,
Davies, 1977). Both foreign origin in general, and Toltec connections in particular,
were powerful tools of dynastic legitimation (Christensen, 1996). It has been argued that among the Aztec these myths served to legitimize the preeminence that
their narrators had attained by presenting a ritual performance of the migration as
a communal rite of passage (Boone, 1991). Records of migrations have also been
seen as evidence for the importance of alliance structures that “define important
trade and religious centers over long distances and along specific routes” (Byland
and Pohl, 1994, p. 145).
The best known of the Mesoamerican accounts is that of the Colhua Mexica,
who rose from being one of the latest arrivals in the Basin of Mexico, founding
their capital of Tenochtitlan in 1345 (Davies, 1980a, p. 182), to ruling over the vast
Triple Alliance, or “Aztec Empire,” encountered by the Spaniards. The specific
story of their migration from Aztlan (which may mean “Place of Herons”) is
preserved in several texts, written both in the traditional pictorial manner and in
the Latin alphabet (Figs. 5 and 6). Scholars have used the textual evidence more
or less critically to suggest homelands ranging from the lake of Mexcaltitlan on
the coast of Nayarit to the Basin of Mexico itself (e.g., Davies, 1980b, pp. 6–7).
Such analyses are hampered by the fact that the historical texts disagree on
many details of the migrations, although they almost unanimously agree that some
Fig. 5. The departure from Aztlan. Tira de la Peregrinación, p.1 (after Seler, 1996, Fig. 2).
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Fig. 6. The departure from Chicomoztoc. BNP Manuscrits Mexicains 51-53
(after Seler, 1996, Fig. 3).
such migrations did occur. Each account preserves a distinct point of view, with
a clear local bias. There appear to have been numerous overlapping migrations
of a plethora of groups that fused and divided quite easily, but each community
was only really interested in their particular ancestors. Some groups traced their
route to Aztlan (Fig. 5), others to Chicomoztoc (or “The Seven Caves”; Fig. 6), and
others to both of these quasi-mythical homelands. Even within a given community,
historical accounts may be structured to favor one particular faction (Leibsohn,
1993). Furthermore, the absolute or even relative chronology of the migrations is
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obscured both by the use of several different calendars in Mesoamerica and by the
uncertain placement of any given date within a particular 52-year cycle (Davies,
1977, p. 441ff.; Edmonson, 1988).
We also have a limited understanding of the nature of ethnicity in the
Mesoamerican historical record. Brumfiel (1994) has documented how flexible
and opportunistic ethnic identity could be in central Mexico. Most group names are
derived from place names, and as such may refer to speakers of distinct languages
who live within the same community. Migrating groups are generally known by
the name of their later settlement, not by a term that has any relevance to their
prior location. Other names, especially the civilized Tolteca and the barbarous
Chichimeca, may be used to refer to a particular group’s general level of sociopolitical development (e.g., Davies, 1977). How any particular name relates to a
linguistic group, biological population, or, worst of all, archaeological culture, is
unclear at best. For example, Gibson (1964, p. 9) lists nine “tribes” in the Basin
of Mexico that “constituted the basic ethnic divisions at the time of the Spanish
conquest.” Of these, the Culhuaque, Cuitlahuaca, Mixquica, Xochimilca, Chalca,
Tepaneca, Acolhuaque, and Mexica all were primarily Nahuatl-speaking by the
Conquest, whereas the Otomi spoke an Otomanguean language. These “ethnic”
divisions seem to be ones of broad political authority, at least in origin.
Most central Mexican histories begin with the arrival of the first migrants
(that is, the first ancestors of the authors of the texts) in central Mexico. In several
cases, these arrivals can be placed, using internal chronologies, in the seventh
century AD (Bierhorst, 1992; Chimalpain, 1991).7 An early attempt to reconcile
the sources painted a picture of constant “tribal” motion across Postclassic space
and time (Jiménez, 1966). For example, Jiménez held that the Toltec state was
founded by a fusion of Tolteca-Chichimeca—Nahua speakers from northwestern
Mexico—and the Nonoalca, who were part of a Nahua-speaking diaspora across
Mesoamerica that followed the collapse of Teotihuacan, who had fled when that
city fell to Otomi invaders. Some of these Nonoalca moved far enough south to
become the Pipil of El Salvador and Nicaragua, whereas others settled on the Gulf
Coast. It is these latter who eventually migrated back to the north to help found
Tula. Davies (1977, p. 150ff.) suggested that almost all accounts of migrations
before the founding of Tula actually describe these Nonoalca, whether or not they
purport to refer to the Chichimeca. The potential for confusion in a narrative of
this kind is staggering.
One basic problem here is the multiplicity of population moves present in the
sources. It is the Mexica migration that receives the most attention, yet numerically
this was probably the least significant. The Mexica arrived in a Basin of Mexico
that had already been transformed by their predecessors. Archaeologically, it is
7 The
early dates provided for the foundation of cities such as Cuauhtitlan, Colhuacan, and Tula are
clearly less historical than those of later events, given the context within which they appear. Nonetheless, it is clear that native chroniclers distinguished between these early urban foundations and the
later arrival of Chichimec migrants.
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this earlier migration, of which the Mexica are but the tail end, which is the most
interesting. Historical accounts are unlikely to shed too much light on these earlier
events, due both to the general ravages of time and specifically to the decision of
the fifteenth century Aztec emperor Itzcoatl to destroy many of the oldest historical
records (de Sahagún, 1950–1982, pp. 11, 191).
Another major problem is that most of the Nahuatl historical sources take
language as a given, and it is simply assumed that everyone speaks the same tongue.
In addition, Nahuatl invariably translates proper names, rather than transliterating
their original pronunciation. Therefore it is hard to identify the language spoken by
any particular group unless a rare explicit mention is made. Tula provides a good
example of this confusion. It is universally accepted that Nahuatl was the dominant
language at Tula when it fell, but it was a minority language in the region in the
Colonial period. A preliminary study of Colonial native-language records from
the Mezquital region indicates that Nahuatl was a high-status written language in
Tula and communities immediately to its north, but that aside from a handful of
nobles, everyone spoke Otomi (Christensen, 2002). A logical conclusion is that
the Toltec polity, like most if not all of its predecessors and successors in central
Mexico, was multiethnic.
Several authors have reconstructed a series of pre-Nahua, possibly Otomi,
migrations before the Nahuas. Smith’s highly structured synthesis of the ethnohistorical evidence concluded that there were three major waves of Postclassic Nahua
migration into the Basin of Mexico and its environs, all claiming to proceed from
Aztlan (Smith, 1984). These migrants were preceded by a non-Nahua “Chichimec”
wave that may have consisted largely of Otomi-speakers. The first Nahua wave
settled in the Basin itself around the year 1200, although a fairly broad window is
indicated. The second settled in the surrounding valleys perhaps 20 years later. The
third was that of the Mexica themselves, who arrived around 1250 (Smith, 1984,
pp. 174–175). Quiñones Keber (1995, pp. 204–205) has identified accounts of an
early multiethnic migration as a Valley of Puebla tradition, which appears in both
the Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca and the Codex Telleriano-Remensis. Documents
from Cuauhtinchan, including the Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca, tell of numerous
different groups moving into an area already inhabited by several others (Reyes,
1977). This picture of new migrants joining older migrants indicates to us that ethnic interaction, rather than simply the fact of migration, deserves more attention
than it has received.
Despite all the secondary analyses of the Aztlan and Chicomoztoc migration
accounts, one issue that few have questioned is whether the later migrants really
spoke Nahuatl. Most have assumed so, but Davies (1980a) has more carefully examined the question and concluded that few if any did. His ethnohistoric argument
mirrors the linguistic case advanced by Kaufman (2001). In the northern Basin of
Mexico, there is little doubt that the Otomi dominated the Xaltocan area (Brumfiel,
1994; Davies, 1980a, pp. 144–146). Of the four largest ethnic groups to the south
of Lake Tetzcoco in the southern Basin, the Colhuaque, Acolhuaque, Tepaneca,
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and Chalca, the last three seem primarily non-Nahua in origins. The Acolhuaque,
who dominated the eastern shores of the lake, are often called Chichimeca. Unlike
most other ethnonyms, Acolhua is not derived from a known place name. There
is no city “Acolhuacan” to parallel Colhuacan. Instead, Acolhuacan is used in a
more general sense to refer to the territory of Tetzcoco (Karttunen, 1992, p. 3),
and it seems likely that both this term and Colhuacan are secondary derivations
from the ethnonyms. The meaning of Acolhua is unclear; the usual reading is “a:
colhuah,” which perhaps would mean “watery Colhua.” It is also possible that the
original form was “ahcolhuah,” which could be taken to mean “not Colhua,” or
“those who have no grandfathers.” As such it would be a clear synonym for the
nomadic Chichimeca, which is how the eighteenth century chronicler Clavigero
used it (Davies, 1980a, p. 117). It seems that the historic Acolhuaque were at least
part Otomi as well (Davies, 1980a, p. 119). Even the royal family of Tetzcoco,
the second city of the Aztec Triple Alliance, did not adopt Nahuatl until the late
fourteenth century, over a hundred years after their arrival in the area (Davies,
1980a, p. 129; Ixtlilxochitl, 1975, pp. 2, 34). The Tepaneca had Otomi associations as well, but they also seem to have contained Matlatzinca elements, fused
with an existing Tolteca population (Davies, 1980a, pp. 141–143). The Chalco
polity was composed of several distinct groups, some of which claimed to be
from Chicomoztoc, others from Tollan, and others from Nonoalca (Schroeder,
1991). In addition, it appears that some of the smaller groups were themselves fusions of disparate “Toltec” and “Chichimec” stock (Davies, 1980a, pp. 270–277),
perhaps referring to a fusion of cultivators and foragers, or urban dwellers and
nomads.
This leaves the Colhuaque, who were arguably the most important group after
the Toltecs. The Colhua center was Colhuacan, but as indicated above, it seems
that the place name may be the derived form, meaning “Place of the Colhuaque.”
Colhuaque, in turn, means “those who have grandfathers.” The Colhuaque were
the quintessential settled population of the Basin, those who had ancestors there.
Chimalpain (1991) places the arrival of the Colhuaque in the seventh century, long
before the traditional dates for the later Aztlan migrations. While the Colhuaque
do appear on some of the lists of migrants from Aztlan, at least some of the time
this appears to be an error for Acolhuaque (Davies, 1980a, p. 178). In no place does
any reference occur to the Colhuaque having to learn Nahuatl. Colhuacan suffered
a decline in real power after the arrival of the latest migrants, but it never lost
its symbolic strength. It was the surviving outpost of Toltec culture, and as such
an important ally. Many if not most of the royal dynasties of the Late Postclassic
Basin of Mexico claimed Colhua ancestry, acquired by advantageous marriages
after their arrival.
For most of the Chichimec groups who arrived in central Mexico after the
fall of Tollan, a period of “Toltecization” is described in the sources. Sedentism
was the first step in this, and was generally followed by the fusion with indigenous
inhabitants who were better versed in the ways of Mesoamerican civilization,
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whether by means of marriage or conquest or, most often, both. The Acolhua
evidence suggests that the ultimate step, for many groups, was “Nahuatlization.”
While some of the new migrants may have spoken Nahuatl already, it is clear that
the language was already dominant in the region. This in turn indicates that the
limited ethnohistorical data for the Tolteca-Chichimeca migrations before the rise
of Tula are probably the best descriptions available of the main incursion of Nahua
(and other) speakers into the core of central Mexico.
In addition to the better known accounts from central and southern
Mesoamerica, less detailed and frequently less coherent West Mexican sources
also document relevant population movements in the Postclassic. The relative
paucity of historical analyses in western Mexico is transcended only by the minimal amount of archaeological research in the region. As a result, our picture is
considerably less focused, encouraging the continued equation of linguistic, ethnic, and political units. The Sonoran languages in general are thought to have a
long history in western Mexico, but the subgroup formed by Coca and Tecuexe
speakers is sometimes regarded as either an Epiclassic or an Early Postclassic
migration into Jalisco (Baus de Czitrom, 1982; Weigand and Garcı́a de Weigand,
1996), generally from the northeast. In turn, the Caxcanes, described as more
closely related linguistically to central Mexican Nahuatl speakers, began a cycle
of military conquest out of southern Zacatecas, driving Tecuexe and other refugee
populations into the rough terrain of northwestern Jalisco and Nayarit (Tello, 1891,
p. II). Further to the east, in Michoacan, the ruling elite of the Tarascan Empire
maintained a tradition of descent from nomadic Chichimecs who had migrated
into the Patzcuaro Basin sometime in the Early Postclassic and intermarried with
the sedentary elite. However, all the toponyms described in the early periods
of the Tarascan native histories are within the central Michoacan highlands (de
Alcalá, 1988, pp. 56–61), and there is no indication that migrants from more distant regions were involved, at least during the Postclassic. Purepecha or Tarascan
is an isolate language, and there are no indications that its speakers have moved
from anywhere else since they first adopted agriculture and settled down.
The ethnohistoric data can be selectively used to support just about any archaeological theory, and many such abuses have occurred in the past. Nevertheless,
several solid conclusions can be drawn about the population history of the central
Mexican highlands, if nowhere else. First of all, the initial Nahua migrants must
have arrived in significant numbers before the rise, if not the foundation, of Tula.
Second, they appear to have been followed, and perhaps accompanied, by various
non-Nahua groups, most likely Otopameans, who seem to have participated in the
epoch of general mobility contemporaneous with the fall of Tula in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries. Third, at least the later migrations consisted of groups with a
more flexible organization, which easily accommodated itself to fusion and separation between groups. Thus, even before their arrival in the Basin, many of the
groups were already multiethnic. However, these later migrations for which such
a wealth of historic data exists differed in at least one important respect from the
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earlier movement into central Mexico: the migrants were absorbed linguistically
by their Nahua-speaking predecessors. This suggests that smaller numbers may
have been involved, that their social organization may have been less complex, and
accommodation may have been favored over the maintenance of their ethnicity.
These postulates in turn indicate that the biological and archaeological signatures
of the Epiclassic and Early Postclassic migrations should probably be distinct.
BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
It is clear that there is no automatic correlation between biology and language,
any more than there is one between pottery and language, but one does tend to learn
one’s first language from those who were the source of one’s genes—that is, one’s
parents. Even when the two systems do not correlate well, biological relationships
may be more directly relevant to archaeological questions than linguistic relationships are. The definition of a migration is that people, not potsherds or words, are
moving from place to place, and therefore biological evidence provides the most
direct source of information for such processes. Unless we accept that Nahuatl has
always been spoken in the Basin of Mexico, a point which few if any linguists
would be willing to accept, its initial introduction must be explained. And most
conceivable explanations involve some degree of migration, which in turn should
leave biological traces.
What biological data are available for Mesoamerican population relationships
derives largely from living peoples. Two specific cases illustrate the impossibility
of simple genetic correlations with the modern distribution of Nahuatl. Anthropometrically, some Nahua-speaking populations in Veracruz are somatically identical
to their Huaxtec-speaking neighbors, and are wholly distinct from the inhabitants
of the Basin of Mexico, whereas others in Puebla are more related to Oaxacan
Otomangueans than to other Nahua-speakers (Faulhaber, 1970, p. 87). Similarly,
serological evidence clusters Veracruz Nahuas with Huaxtecs and Puebla Nahuas
with Totonacs (Roychoudhury, 1975, Fig. 2). These cases are wholly understandable given what is known about the spread of Nahuatl as a prestige language in the
Late Postclassic and Early Colonial periods (Karttunen, 1982).
A broader anthropometric study (Sacchetti, 1983), although handicapped by
its typological orientation, does shed some light upon the Aztec migrations. First
of all, Nahua-speaking communities are divided between several different “taxa.”
Second, these taxa are largely geographical. The Nahuas of Veracruz and elsewhere in the lowlands most resemble their neighbors, and are largely distinct from
their highland brethren. There is fairly strong continuity through the sierra, from
northern Mexico down through the central Plateau, with the Pacific coasts more
similar than the Gulf. This continuity largely ends in Oaxaca, where the southward
advance of the Nahuas also largely ended. All of this might provide strong evidence for large-scale Nahua migrations from the north into the central region, with
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politically assisted linguistic penetration into the lowlands. However, in his limited
analysis of archaeological populations, Sacchetti (1983, pp. 195–196) identifies
the same potential Uto-Aztecan taxon in Middle Formative Tlatilco as well. This
suggests that any patterning of gene flow must long predate the Nahua migrations,
and perhaps go back to the initial peopling of Mesoamerica. However, as indicated
above, the typological approach employed renders all conclusions dubious.
With recent advances in DNA research, one might expect to find that this
approach had been applied to the Nahua migrations. Although there is ongoing
work of this type, we know of only one publication (Vargas and Salazar, 1998).
The work does not report on sample size, nor does it indicate the significance of the
difference, but it does briefly note that there is a distinction between the Epiclassic
and Early Postclassic skeletal populations recovered from Teotihuacan and from
near Tula. Other studies are beginning (Kemp et al., 2000), but the potential of
DNA research has not yet been exploited.
Over the past 30 years, nonmetric, discontinuous morphological traits have
seen increasing use in the examination of biological relationships between populations (e.g., Berry and Berry, 1967; Christensen, 1997, 1998a,b; Hauser and De
Stefano, 1989; Ossenberg, 1992). These traits include the presence or absence of
accessory sutures or bones in the skull, the location and number of foramina on
cranial bones, and different molar cusp patterns. While individual traits in and of
themselves do not necessarily indicate anything, as most, if not all, are present at
some level in almost every human population, the frequencies of a battery of distinct traits can be compared between groups. Cranial and dental nonmetric traits are
the ones that have been used most frequently for this purpose, as postcranial traits
appear to be subject to greater environmental influence. For these reasons, a statistical analysis of nonmetric data from pre-Columbian Mesoamerican populations
can add considerably to our understanding of the Nahua migrations.
Materials and Methodology
This study used data from 16 cranial samples, recorded by Christensen
(Tables 1 and 2). An initial analysis compared these to data collected from other
Classic and Postclassic Basin of Mexico sites by Vargas (1973), Salas (1982),
Bautista Martı́nez (1986), and Spence (1994). Unfortunately, the patterning of
these results indicated significant interobserver bias, with each observer’s data
distinct from all others.
Basin of Mexico samples are available from the Formative and Postclassic.
Unfortunately, this author has not yet analyzed any Classic samples. The Formative
sample consists of individuals from El Arbolillo, Ticoman, and Zacatenco curated
in the American Museum of Natural History and Museo Nacional de Antropologı́a.
These three sites along the shore of the former Lake Tetzcoco were primarily
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Table 1. Cranial Series Studied
Sample
Basin Early
Formative
Basin Late
Formative
Valley Early
Formative
Valley Middle
Formative
Valley Late
Formative
Valley Classic
Abbreviation
BEF
State
VEF
Distrito
Federal
Distrito
Federal
Oaxaca
VMF
Oaxaca
VLF
Oaxaca
VC
Oaxaca
Valley Postclassic
Cerro de las Minas
Cerro Guacamaya
VPC
Oaxaca
CM
Oaxaca
CGU
Oaxaca
San Simón
SIM
Tlalnepantla
TLN
Cora
COR
Huichol
HUI
Distrito
Federal
Distrito
Federal
Jalisco
and
Nayarit
Jalisco
Tarahumara
TAR
Purepecha
PUR
Chihuahua
and
Durango
Michoacan
Tayopa
TAY
Sonora
BLF
Datea
Probable
language
1400–600 BC
Otomanguean?
500–200 BC
Otomanguean?
1600–800 BC
Reference
Christensen
1997, 1998b
Christensen
1997, 1998b
Christensen
1998a
Christensen
1998a
Christensen
1998a
Christensen
1998a
Christensen
1998a
Christensen
1998a
Christensen
1998a
Zapotec
(Otomanguean)
800–250 BC
Zapotec
(Otomanguean)
250 BC–AD
Zapotec
200
(Otomanguean)
AD 200–800 Zapotec
(Otomanguean)
AD 800–1500 Zapotec
(Otomanguean)
AD 200–800 Popoloca?
(Otomanguean)
AD
1200– Chinantec,
1500
Zapotec
(Otomanguean)
AD
1200– Nahuatl
Christensen
1500
1997
AD
1200– Nahuatl
Christensen
1500
1997
AD
1600– Cora (Sonoran)
Christensen
1900(?)
1997
AD
1600– Huichol
1900(?)
(Sonoran)
AD
1600– Tarahumara
1900(?)
(Sonoran)
Christensen
1997
Christensen
1997
AD
1200– Purepecha
1500
(isolate)
AD
1200– Sonoran?
1500(?)
Christensen
1997
Christensen
1997
a Dates
are approximate; most of the series were excavated early in the twentieth century at a variety
of poorly documented archaeological sites.
excavated by George Vaillant in the 1920s and 1930s (Vaillant, 1930, 1931, 1935),
although materials from some later excavations at the sites were included as
well. El Arbolillo and Zacatenco span the Early and Middle Formative (1400–
600 BC),8 whereas Ticoman pertains to the Late Formative (500–200 BC) (Tolstoy,
1989, Figs. 12.2, 12.3). The inhabitants of these sites likely spoke an Otopamean
8 Dates
of archaeological materials discussed in this paper are kept approximate to avoid confusion,
but all dates are on a calibrated timescale, i.e. in calendar years. Uncalibrated radiocarbon dates can
be from 50 to 150 years too early during the Classic and Postclassic periods.
17/36
7/37
5/40
3/35
0/36
6/37
27/38
13/34
16/37
4/36
0/37
22/37
7/35
0/37
20/38
0/36
3/36
2/36
6/38
11/34
7/38
6/39
5/38
MFX
PNB
EPI
PPR
SQP
SHN
PFO
FGR
SFO
ZFA
OJP
IOS
AIF
PBR
ALP
FOI
PSB
PAB
BHC
ICC
PCT
FHS
TMF
12/24
2/24
4/21
1/23
2/23
8/24
17/24
8/24
13/24
1/24
2/24
14/24
1/23
0/24
14/23
5/24
0/24
0/24
4/24
7/23
0/24
10/24
2/22
BLF
12/20
0/17
0/1
0/22
0/39
20/81
4/17
2/14
17/43
3/45
0/20
2/12
4/10
0/30
2/5
0/23
2/32
1/31
3/48
0/9
0/13
17/67
14/64
VEF
7/24
2/19
0/0
5/14
0/26
9/51
5/20
10/22
14/38
2/36
0/23
6/17
4/16
1/25
7/11
0/19
4/29
0/28
6/23
1/9
0/11
10/39
2/37
VMF
8/22
2/23
0/5
1/18
0/30
11/60
11/23
6/19
15/35
1/46
2/29
12/22
4/18
2/30
7/16
2/31
3/35
5/34
4/33
3/18
2/20
11/51
7/45
VLF
47/145
8/129
2/45
13/145
5/178
199/263
111/186
45/151
87/205
16/188
11/139
52/144
39/128
3/173
66/106
2/143
14/180
10/175
34/151
18/106
12/119
80/246
44/226
VC
63/178
19/175
8/62
7/168
6/248
273/340
250/339
49/196
99/241
23/223
14/154
80/174
53/164
4/212
91/138
5/165
31/212
24/210
32/232
31/145
16/168
124/318
56/287
VPC
6/28
3/36
0/5
4/43
3/74
17/112
22/65
11/48
25/63
9/73
2/47
15/30
6/31
2/56
16/22
0/40
3/61
3/59
7/54
2/22
0/21
44/94
19/86
CM
26/54
4/58
2/27
2/51
0/59
49/65
39/59
11/38
20/47
1/41
3/32
14/40
9/41
0/44
24/38
2/44
11/50
3/50
8/46
8/37
8/37
34/64
9/60
CGU
55/104
11/105
3/102
8/104
2/106
90/108
61/106
37/96
51/107
13/101
13/91
53/105
31/100
6/106
59/103
3/107
1/107
0/107
11/105
28/100
10/104
36/107
17/104
SIM
25/42
5/40
1/36
4/42
0/42
38/42
31/42
16/42
16/42
3/32
6/26
18/38
8/38
3/40
23/39
0/41
2/40
0/40
4/40
8/39
0/40
13/42
9/40
TLN
22/39
13/40
2/38
3/39
1/40
39/40
30/40
17/39
19/40
5/36
2/33
12/36
13/34
0/35
19/32
0/40
1/40
2/40
9/38
6/37
3/38
11/40
9/40
COR
22/64
10/62
5/64
5/65
1/67
59/67
48/68
23/67
40/70
2/64
9/58
34/63
26/65
0/64
41/57
1/62
2/64
1/64
13/60
12/57
1/60
20/67
18/64
HUI
16/44
8/43
4/44
1/45
0/45
40/45
30/46
18/42
32/46
0/46
5/43
22/44
19/41
0/43
20/42
0/44
0/45
2/45
2/41
11/37
3/44
17/45
2/41
TAR
42/124
17/126
12/112
8/129
1/131
112/129
76/126
55/120
60/130
7/121
5/103
55/123
50/125
2/127
57/116
3/130
0/131
0/131
19/112
31/109
0/110
60/128
19/119
PUR
31/47
7/46
0/40
8/49
0/49
47/50
30/52
11/50
31/51
4/46
3/43
27/45
11/44
1/50
19/45
0/49
0/50
3/50
3/49
14/49
2/50
17/49
10/47
TAY
pp892-jarm-467161
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a Trait abbreviations: MFX: mastoid foramen ex-sutural; PNB: parietal botch bone; EPI: epipteric bone; PPR: parietal process; SQP: squamo-parietal fusion; SHN:
spine of Henle; PFO: parietal foramen; FGR: frontal grooves; SFO: supraorbital foramen; ZFA: zygomatico-facial foramen absent; OJP: os japonicum trace; IOS:
infraorbital suture; AIF: accessory infraorbital foramen; PBR: palatine bridge; ALP: accessory lesser palatine foramen; FOI: foramen ovale incomplete; PSB:
pterygo-spinous bridge; PAB: pterygo-alar bridge; BHC: bifid hypoglossal canal; ICC: intermediate condylar canal; PCT: precondylar tubercle; FHS: foramen of
Huschke/tympanic dehiscence; TMF: tympanic marginal foramen. Traits defined in Christensen, 1997, 1998a.
BEF
Traita
Table 2. Nonmetric Trait Frequencies
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language, or possibly several, perhaps including proto-Matlatzinca (Winter et al.,
1984, pp. 76–77). San Simón and Tlalnepantla are sites on the northern shore
of Lake Tetzcoco that were excavated by Hrdlicka (1899), and almost certainly
date to the Postclassic period, although their context is incompletely published.
Their inhabitants were presumably Nahuatl speakers. The Otomanguean-speaking
population of Oaxaca is represented by seven samples. Five chronological series
from the Valley of Oaxaca span the pre-Hispanic period. Throughout this period,
the primary language of the Valley was Zapotec and its ancestors. The sixth sample
is from Cerro de las Minas, a Classic period (AD 200–800) site in the Mixteca
Baja whose inhabitants had their own distinctive writing style and may have spoken
Popoloca or another Otomanguean language. The last is from the Late Postclassic
(1200–1500) site of Cerro Guacamaya in the Chinantla Alta, whose population
may have spoken Zapotec or Chinantec. The remaining five series come from
western and northern Mexico. The Purepecha sample was excavated in Michoacan
by Lumholtz (1903). It is probably Late Postclassic in date, and almost certainly
derives from Purepecha speakers. The Cora and Huichol samples were excavated
from various locations in Jalisco and Nayarit by Hrdlicka (1903) and Lumholtz.
Most are probably not pre-Hispanic, and while their linguistic assignment is based
on current linguistic geography, most are probably recent enough for that logic
to be accurate. The Tarahumara sample comes from a similar variety of recent
archaeological contexts in Chihuahua and Durango excavated by Lumholtz, and
has a similarly grounded linguistic label. Tayopa is a pre-Hispanic site in Sonora
excavated (but not published) by Gordon Ekholm.
The data in this analysis allow two simple hypotheses to be tested. First and
foremost, do series cluster in a manner that reflects geography, language, and
archaeology? Second, assuming that the pattern is geographically and culturally
intelligible, do the Formative and Postclassic Basin of Mexico samples group with
each other, with the southeastern speakers of Otomanguean languages, or with the
northwestern speakers of Uto-Aztecan languages?
Although data were collected on 50 or more traits, depending on the series,
only 23 were used in this study (Table 2). All traits were scored by side, rather than
by individual: both methods have been used in the past, but scoring by side has been
preferred for archaeological samples.9 Trait frequencies were theta-transformed
and subjected to a cluster analysis using Ward’s Minimum Variance Method. The
transformed frequencies were then subjected to a principal components analysis (PCA), which produced eight components with eigenvalues greater than 1,
9 Scoring
by side maximizes the number of observations possible on fragmentary remains. Midline
traits were removed from the analysis because there was only a single observation on each individual.
Although nonmetric traits have been shown to be largely unaffected by the common Mesoamerican
practice of cranial deformation (Konigsberg et al., 1993), sutural ossicles were nonetheless omitted
from this analysis. Other traits were removed because they were absent in more than half the series
(trochlear spur), because they were clearly redundant (mastoid foramen absent), or because their
expression appears more susceptible to environmental influence (auditory torus).
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Table 3. Principal Component Loadings
Trait
MFX
PNB
EPI
PPR
SQP
SHN
PFO
FGR
SFO
ZFF
OJP
IOS
AIF
PBR
ALP
FOI
PSB
PAB
BHC
ICC
PCT
FHS
TMF
Eigenvalue
% Variance
Comp. 1 Comp. 2 Comp. 3 Comp. 4 Comp. 5 Comp. 6 Comp. 7 Comp. 8
0.242
0.585
–0.651
–0.048
–0.459
–0.784
0.472
0.150
0.681
0.017
0.426
0.282
0.564
0.066
–0.388
–0.567
–0.676
0.088
–0.398
0.392
0.108
–0.206
0.315
4.349
18.910
–0.114
0.598
0.189
0.405
0.469
–0.278
–0.059
0.785
–0.302
0.060
0.315
0.549
–0.309
0.051
0.430
0.203
–0.287
–0.523
0.468
0.672
–0.181
0.134
–0.260
3.451
15.005
–0.288
0.253
0.476
0.551
–0.210
–0.357
–0.383
0.221
0.290
0.283
–0.424
–0.482
0.464
0.102
0.201
–0.597
0.099
–0.185
0.456
–0.476
–0.287
–0.361
0.071
2.940
12.784
0.290
0.039
–0.432
–0.071
0.480
–0.194
–0.192
–0.377
–0.276
0.812
0.169
0.108
–0.244
0.051
0.403
–0.153
0.022
0.061
0.125
–0.227
–0.072
–0.098
0.796
2.467
10.728
–0.389
0.248
–0.031
–0.037
0.039
0.063
0.253
0.042
0.101
–0.138
0.044
0.154
0.182
–0.264
0.404
–0.062
0.438
0.639
0.476
0.133
0.784
–0.116
0.143
2.105
9.152
0.153
0.174
0.105
–0.606
0.228
–0.061
–0.490
0.078
–0.031
–0.186
0.003
–0.196
0.387
–0.881
0.086
–0.022
–0.236
–0.125
0.026
0.006
–0.045
0.204
0.072
1.864
8.102
0.545
0.100
0.238
0.002
0.039
–0.001
0.042
0.167
–0.460
0.076
–0.382
0.225
–0.028
–0.150
–0.459
–0.038
–0.017
0.104
0.050
0.036
0.256
–0.698
–0.037
1.614
7.019
0.489
0.144
0.016
0.064
–0.327
–0.124
–0.401
0.100
0.074
–0.005
0.438
–0.290
–0.155
0.108
0.022
0.105
0.419
–0.029
–0.007
0.062
0.248
0.053
–0.082
1.137
4.945
explaining a total of 86.7% of the variance (Table 3). Series were plotted along the
first three components, which explain 46.7% of the variance. Statistical methods
used in this study are discussed in more detail in Christensen (1997, 1998a,b).
Results
The cluster analysis divides the samples into two separate groups: Oaxaca
plus the Basin of Mexico Formative, and the Late Postclassic Basin plus the north
and west (Fig. 7). The Basin Early and Late Formative are nearest neighbors,
but distant ones, and then join the Valley Middle Formative. Tlalnepantla and
San Simon, by contrast, are closest to each other, and then join with Tayopa, Cora,
and the Tarahumara–Purepecha–Huichol cluster. A similar pattern is evident in the
PCA, although the separation is harder to see (Fig. 8). From this angle, the putative
Nahuatl speakers are in the center, with the northern and western series (labeled
“Occidente”) below and to their left. The Oaxacan and Formative Basin series
spread across the upper right portion. The close affinities between the Formative
inhabitants of the Basin of Mexico and the later Otomanguean-speaking population
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Fig. 7. Ward’s minimum variance cluster analysis of thetatransformed cranial nonmetric trait frequencies.
of Oaxaca are very clear in these figures. The Postclassic Basin samples are just
as clearly separated from this group and related to the Uto-Aztecan and Tarascanspeaking samples from points north and west. This provides strong evidence for a
population shift in the region at some point during the Classic or Early Postclassic.
To fully understand the nature of this process, more series from the Classic and
Postclassic need to be examined, from both the Basin and points north, particularly
Tula, Guanajuato, and Zacatecas. Nonetheless, the current data set makes a strong
case for some form of gene flow into the Basin of Mexico from points to its north
and west.
ARCHAEOLOGY
Over the past three decades, most archaeologists have become critical of
attempts to link material culture complexes with biological, ethnic, or linguistic
groups. Past misuses and abuses range from attempts to bolster claims of ethnic
superiority or political legitimacy (e.g., Kossinna, 1912), to the subtler tendency
to inject some drama into largely indigenous social transformations (e.g., Childe,
1925). Mesoamerican archaeologists in particular have far too often applied ethnic labels (e.g., Olmec, Mexicanized Maya, Mayanized Mexicans, Putun Maya,
Toltec, Maya-Toltec, Aztec) to individual pottery types or poorly defined archaeological complexes. While these mistakes should be scrutinized and not repeated,
there is nonetheless increasing recognition that significant population movements
have taken place (Cameron, 1995; Chapman and Hamerow, 1997; Clark, 2001;
Fowler, 1989; Jochim et al., 1999; Towner, 1996). Interestingly, this sea-change
predates some of the newer technical methods for identifying migrants (e.g., Price
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Fig. 8. Ordination of the first three principal components.
et al., 1998, 2001; White et al., 2002). Clearly, archaeologists have recognized
that migrations are excellent occasions for the study of ethnicity, culture contact,
restructuring of power relations, crisis decision making, and the adjustments necessary to accommodate new people into an existing social situation, all important
theoretical issues.
With rare exceptions (e.g., Haury, 1986), the most successful attempts to discern new populations in archaeology have been those where convincing linguistic
or historical data have bracketed the time period within which the process must
have taken place (Ehret and Posnansky, 1982; Fowler, 1989, pp. 38–49; Mallory,
1989, pp. 186–221). Researchers have then approached ethnicity through either
information-bearing emblemic style (Wobst, 1977) or unconscious technological
choices (e.g., Clark, 2001). To judge from these cases, public architecture, ceramic types and designs, burial patterns, new technologies, and changing religious
systems all appear to be potential material accompaniments of major population
movements. There is also an interesting tendency for multiple disjunctions or shifts
in material culture during periods associated with migrations (often wreaking havoc
with attempts to identify specific migrants), suggesting successive dislocations of
people by the arrival of new groups.
But archaeological studies of migration have begun to move away from trying
to find a representative suite of cultural markers (cf. Shennan, 1989) to trace the
migrants, to attempting to understand the conditions that might cause migrants to
retain or reject their material culture (Stone, 2003). Of course, changes in some elements, such as public architecture, could also reflect changing or unstable political
situations, which in turn could provoke population movements. The relationship
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between material culture and migration is not as direct as some approaches assume,
and it is especially unrealistic to simply expect close parallels in material culture
between the origin and destination of the migrants. There are also problems of
archaeological research design to consider, as a migration of the scale described
here cannot be studied by excavations at 1 or even 10 sites. Only a program of
multiple projects working in sites in more than one region can grasp the variability present in large-scale migration, putting problem-oriented archaeology in a
difficult position.
The following discussion will attempt to maintain a balance between discussing material culture patterns and the reconstruction of circumstances of migration. We can make the observation, however, that material culture will largely
fail to correlate with ethnic identity when the social group is highly flexible or
segmentary. A small social group that easily separates, or must depend on other
social groups for survival, is unlikely to emphasize its distinctiveness through
material culture (see Stone, 2003, for a similar proposal). In addition, when a
group makes fundamental structural changes, such as foragers settling amongst
agriculturalists and adopting that subsistence orientation, we should expect fewer
elements of the former material culture to be retained. Even if the migrants choose
to continue to emphasize their ethnicity through material culture, there is little
guarantee that they will do so using the same kinds of material culture as before.
In the case of the Nahua migrations, the linguistic, ethnohistoric, and biological
data provide valuable evidence regarding broad geographical patterning, and the
fact that population influx did actually take place. But the archaeological data
have the potential to reveal far more details of the timing, process, and social
context of these movements. These are the issues that will contribute to migration
theory.
To determine how the archaeological record can add to our understanding of
the Nahua and related migrations, we must examine the evidence from northern
Mesoamerica. It is during the Epiclassic period (or AD 600–900), within the time
span when the linguistic, ethnohistoric, and biological data point to the appearance
of new Nahuatl-speaking populations in central Mexico, that we find one of the
most dramatic archaeological disjunctions in Mesoamerican prehistory (Beekman,
1996a, pp. 848–975, 1996b; Jiménez, 1992). New forms of architecture and a consistent complex of ceramics occur, and a range of new decorative technologies
(e.g., Holien, 1977) are used to depict a new set of distinctive designs. Specific
vessel forms also appear in some areas with this decoration. Where excavation data
are available, we can say that much of the region experienced a change in mortuary
patterns as well. Perhaps even more significant is the widespread emphasis on the
postmortem modification of human remains, reminiscent of the increase in human
sacrifice that occurred in Postclassic central Mexico. It seems increasingly likely
that many of the significant new elements have their origins in the fertile valleys
of the Rı́o Lerma and its tributaries, in the state of Guanajuato (Beekman, 1996b;
Weigand, 1990). We propose that the earliest and most disruptive of the Nahua
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and related migrations is partially coterminous with these archaeological changes,
although factors other than gene flow are likely to have been more significant in
some areas. In contrast, the Postclassic migrations are more dimly visible in the
archaeological data, which almost certainly relates to the later migrants’ more
flexible ethnic composition as described in the ethnohistory. Our previous discussions of the archaeology of this vast region were primarily evaluating problems of
chronology (Beekman, 1996a, pp. 848–975, 1996b); because of space constraints,
here we will briefly discuss only the proposed source of the migrations, and two
apparent destinations.
North-Central Mexico
We propose that the earlier Nahua migrations began during the sixth century
AD, during a period of intensified sociopolitical change in the Bajı́o region of
Guanajuato. The Bajı́o is composed of broad fertile plains intermediate to the
highland Neovolcanic Belt to the south and the dry steppes to the north. Salvage
archaeology in the 1970s and 1980s (Castañeda et al., 1988) alerted archaeologists
to the presence of a distinct new center of complex society and monumental architecture during the Late Formative and Classic periods, and more recent research has
begun to clarify chronology and settlement patterns (Cárdenas, 1999). The region
is characterized by the extensive use of architectural forms based on an enclosed
patio with a central altar (Fig. 9), including a more elaborate U-shaped variant with
a pyramid at one end (e.g., Cárdenas, 1999; Castañeda et al., 1988). Apparently
dating to the later stages of this architectural tradition are a double-pyramid structure and a constructed road or causeway documented at the Cañada de la Virgen
site (Brown, 1985, p. 228, Fig. 9.3). The history of the architecture is not well understood, but ceramic remains and sparse radiocarbon dates place these sites in the
Classic and Epiclassic, although their origins probably go back further (Cárdenas,
1999, pp. 293–297; Castañeda et al., 1988). Individual sites do not appear to be
large, but the central Bajı́o appears to be divided up among six primary centers
(Cárdenas, 1999, pp. 171–267, 300). The population peak of the region occurs
in the Epiclassic accompanying a settlement shift toward high ground (Castañeda
et al., 1988). Settlement declines dramatically in Guanajuato and elsewhere in
the north by the Early Postclassic (Flores and Crespo, 1988; Kelley, 1971), after
which the region appears almost entirely abandoned by archaeologically visible
populations.
Late Formative Chupicuaro ceramics and their Classic period derivations
found on these Bajı́o sites include many of the same designs, forms, and color
combinations (Braniff, 1972, 1998; Porter, 1956) that begin to appear elsewhere
in northern Mesoamerica at the end of this period. The Epiclassic period ceramic assemblage revolves around four main kinds of decoration (three of them as
much technological as decorative), including red-on-buff, shadow striped, resist,
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Fig. 9. Examples of Pyramid-Sunken Patio-Altar complexes in San Bartolo Aguacaliente, Guanajuato.
The sunken patios have been shaded so that they stand out (after Castañeda et al., 1988, Fig. 7).
and reduction-fired and engraved; at least the first three have Bajı́o antecedents
(Braniff, 1998; Castañeda et al., 1988, pp. 325–326, Figs. 10, 11, 13; Gorenstein,
1985, pp. 232–242, Figs. 58–80). It is the Epiclassic San Miguel phase of central
Guanajuato that has excited the most interest (Braniff, 1972) for its design and
form similarities to the red on buff Coyotlatelco ceramics of the Epiclassic Basin
of Mexico (Cobean, 1990; Piña Chán, 1967; Rattray, 1966). Recent radiocarbon
dates have confirmed the contemporaneity of these complexes, beginning around
the sixth century AD (Crespo, 1991a, p. 165; Gorenstein, 1985, p. 45; Parsons
et al., 1996). Greater emphasis is currently placed on the spread of Bajı́o style architecture (Beekman, 1996b; Jiménez, 1992; Weigand, 1990) and examples of the
U-shaped structures begin to appear in the surrounding areas with the new ceramics (e.g., Crespo, 1991b). Burial patterns in the region are generally poorly dated
due to the emphasis on survey, but excavations of Classic period contexts have typically encountered either flexed burials (Secretaria de Patrimonio Nacional, 1970,
Fig. 13) or a combination of flexed and extended (López and Ramos de la Vega,
1992, Tables 8 and 9).
During its Epiclassic peak, the Bajı́o architectural tradition expanded further
into northwestern, western, and central Mexico, co-occurring with a recognizable
ceramic complex, duplicating all or nearly all of the decorative technologies and
symbols discussed above (Beekman, 1996b). We therefore consider the Bajı́o to be
the likely source of the Epiclassic migrations into Jalisco and central Mexico, and
while the evidence is less compelling, some population influx into Zacatecas and
Michoacan is possible as well. The likelihood of politico-economic restructuring
and of secondary population displacements makes it especially improbable that
there is a one-to-one correlation between Bajı́o populations and the spread of
Bajı́o-like material culture, however.
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Western Mexico
The far western states of Jalisco, Nayarit, and Colima were divided between
many small polities during much of their history. But during the Formative and
Classic periods, the lake basins of north-central Jalisco were the seat of the Teuchitlan Tradition (Weigand, 1996), a regional political system intermediate in complexity to the small Bajı́o centers and the metropolis of Teotihuacan. This tradition
is defined by the use of concentric circular public architecture (Weigand, 1996)
that can be associated with elite shaft and chamber burials in its earliest periods
(e.g., Ramos de la Vega and López Mestas, 1996). During the Classic period, the
Tradition may have centralized into a single polity, with intensive agricultural systems (Weigand, 1993), a complex settlement hierarchy (Ohnersorgen and Varien,
1996), functionally specific control sites monitoring the passes into the central valley (Beekman, 1996c), and a far-flung system of satellites or allies linking it with
distant trade or political networks of western and north-central Mexico (Beekman,
2000; Weigand, 1996). During the Epiclassic, certain areas peripheral to or outside the Tradition tend to experience a rapid transformation or even replacement by
Bajı́o-like public architecture, ceramics, and mortuary patterns. Yet the core of the
Teuchitlan Tradition in central Jalisco displays signs of overlap and hybridization
of the old and new material culture. We argue that the more complex nature of the
Teuchitlan polity required a greater measure of coexistence that resulted in two
separate authority structures, one indigenous and the other founded by migrant
populations from the East.
During the Epiclassic El Grillo phase in the peripheral Atemajac Valley, box
tombs and an accompanying ceramic complex completely replaced the earlier shaft
tombs and pit burials as the dominant burial form, and the thorough transition is
well documented at Tabachines (Aronson, 1993; Galván, 1976; Schöndube and
Galván, 1978). Here the position of the body was quite uniform—the individual
was tightly flexed, seated, and facing toward the north, with miniature vessels as
typical offerings. The El Grillo ceramics are distinctive and form a sharp break
with the previous materials. New forms include annular bases, punctated or incised
molcajetes (usually ring-based), very distinctive rim forms, painted rectangular
trays, and the frequent co-occurrence of miniature cups and jars in the tombs, the
jars often decorated with a small modeled face above the rim (Fig. 10) (Aronson,
1993; Castro and Ochoa, 1975; Schöndube, 1983; Schöndube and Galván, 1978).
New decorative techniques include reduction-firing and engraving, resist decoration, decorative smudging, and an increased use of Pseudo-Cloisonné, whereas
red-on-buff decoration replaced the earlier red-on-cream tradition. Iconographic
organization and individual design elements are very different, including crosses,
spirals, crescents, waves, cross sections of shells, interwoven bands, winged spirals, wavy lines, and occasional zoomorphic designs (Fig. 11) (Schöndube, 1983;
Schöndube and Galván, 1978). All ceramic types, down to utilitarian wares, appear to have been replaced by the new complex in the Atemajac valley. Aronson’s
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materials analysis (Aronson, 1993) documents a thorough break from the previous
shaft tomb ceramics in terms of types, forms, designs, production methods, and use
patterns of the ceramics. There are new and close ties to contemporary ceramic assemblages across a wide area—Zacatecas, the Bajı́o, southern Jalisco, and northern
Michoacan (Beekman, 1996b; Jiménez, 1992). The Atemajac Valley experienced
a significant population increase, and the few centers with Teuchitlan Tradition
circles (e.g., Beekman, 1996a, pp. 159–164) were abandoned in favor of several
larger settlements with very different public architecture (Galván and Beekman,
2001). Large rectangular platforms at Ixtepete and Coyula, and U-shaped complexes at El Grillo and Vacas Muertas formed the civic-ceremonial nucleus of sites
(Beekman, 1996a, pp. 179–182; Castro and Ochoa, 1975; Weigand, 1996, pp.
205–208). The builders of these structures were clearly not nomads, but sedentary
cultivators.
Just to the west of the transformations in the Atemajac Valley lies the core
of the Teuchitlan Tradition (Weigand, 1996). The El Grillo ceramic and burial
patterns appear late in the Teuchitlan I phase (AD 400–700), whereas the new architecture seems to begin in the Teuchitlan II phase (AD 700–900).10 This suggests
a more gradual transition, as opposed to the rapid replacement of material culture
in the Atemajac Valley. The new forms of public architecture seem to be centered
at nearby Santa Cruz de Bárcenas, but are conspicuously absent within the most
heavily populated settlement area in the Teuchitlan core (Weigand, 1990, 1996).
Within this more densely occupied area, the Teuchitlan Tradition’s distinctive circular pyramids and satellite structures continue to be occupied, but unprecedented
modifications take place at some centers that alter the fundamental symmetry of
the circles, as at El Saucillo (Weigand, 1996, Fig. 21). Those few isolated circles
outside of the main habitation zone that continue to be used occasionally have
Bajı́o-style sunken patios appended to them, as at Santa Marı́a de las Navajas
(Fig. 12) (Weigand and Garcı́a de Weigand, 1996, Fig. 10). The system of strategic boundary sites that had previously overlooked the entrances to the core valley
was abandoned before these changes (Beekman, 1996c), suggesting a contraction
or fragmentation of the central polity.
Various researchers have attributed the changes described to the influx of new
populations and the resulting political reorganization (Aronson, 1993; Beekman,
1996a, pp. 950–954, 1996b; Galván and Beekman, 2001; Weigand, 1990; Weigand
and Garcı́a de Weigand, 1996, pp. 51–53). Aronson (1993) has suggested that
the different manifestations of the El Grillo complex in the Atemajac Valley and
the Teuchitlan core were due to the greater population and social complexity in
the latter area, allowing a rapid transition and replacement in the east, whereas
more complex processes of social interaction took place to the west. Certainly the
10 There are separate architectural and ceramic sequences in use in the Teuchitlán core, and the two are
not precisely aligned for the period in question. The apparent separation between the new ceramics
and architecture may therefore be exaggerated.
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Fig. 10. Forms and decoration of El Grillo complex ceramics (after Galván, 1976, Plate 11).
altered symmetry of the old circles seems to reflect some kind of experimentation,
or a lack of understanding of the cultural logic behind the architectural form. The
very different forms of public architecture occurring in isolated communities (like
Santa Cruz de Bárcenas) or attached to one another in the same community (as at
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Fig. 11. Designs of the El Grillo complex (after Galván, 1976, Plate 13).
Navajas) suggest a separate authority structure for the new populations (McGuire,
1983), much like the ethnohistorically documented situation from this area after
the Postclassic Coca, Tecuexe, and Caxcan migrations.
Whatever accommodation was reached, it did not last beyond the Epiclassic.
The Teuchitlan Tradition ceased to exist by the Early Postclassic, replaced
by the new material culture—a replacement that presumably entailed some
blending of gene pools. Postclassic society is very poorly understood, but at
least one other episode of population influx may have occurred. The Atemajac
archaeological complex of small, simple residential structures and distinct
ceramics, currently suspected to date to the Late Postclassic, is phenomenally
similar in material culture and settlement pattern to societies from the canyons
of northern Jalisco and Nayarit (see Deltour-Levie, 1993), and may reflect the
arrival of Corachol-speaking refugees fleeing the Caxcan expansion (Beekman,
1996a, pp. 607–643, 955–962; Weigand and Garcı́a de Weigand, 1996, pp. 50–
51).
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Fig. 12. Example of the fusion of circular and rectangular public architecture in the Teuchitlan II
phase, Santa Marı́a de las Navajas, Jalisco. Map produced by the Tequila Valley Regional Archaeological Project, 2002. Contour intervals are 5 m.
Central Plateau of Mexico
We have come full circle—the ethnohistoric documents that so blatantly
referred to population movements were, after all, primarily speaking of central
Mexico. We argue that the Epiclassic migrants into central Mexico appear to have
interacted with the Classic period Teotihuacan state in a manner somewhat analogous to that in Jalisco. The later Postclassic migrants, in contrast, are less distinct
archaeologically, emphasizing the fluidity of their social structure.
The widespread Coyotlatelco complex of the central Mexican plateau is defined differently in the valley of Toluca, the basin of Mexico (Rattray, 1966; Sanders
et al., 1979), and early Tula (Cobean, 1990, pp. 75–130), and the best-known elements of the complex also extend through Puebla, Tlaxcala, and Veracruz (Cobean,
1990, pp. 174–175). Although frequently glossed as a red on buff ceramic type
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Fig. 13. Coyotlatelco Black Engraved ceramics (after Rattray, 1966, Figs. 3 and 4).
with distinctive designs, Coyotlatelco is actually an entire complex of types with
resist decoration, reduce-fired engraved wares, and frequent use of ring-based and
tripod vessels (Fig. 13) (Cobean, 1990, pp. 130–267; Rattray, 1966; Sanders et al.,
1979, pp. 457–461). Regional variations exist, and those vessels from the valley of
Teotihuacan display a more complex iconography that suggests the incorporation
of indigenous concepts of decoration (Fig. 14) (Cobean, 1990, pp. 177–179). The
contemporaneous ceramics from Tula tend to be simpler and more directly comparable to the other northern Epiclassic complexes (Cobean, 1990, pp. 75–130).
Flexed, and occasionally seated, burial is the typical pattern during the Corral and
Tollan phases at Tula (Gómez et al., 1994). Architecture found with Coyotlatelco
materials tends to be relatively simple, and to show a degree of assimilation to
local patterns (Mastache and Cobean, 1989).
There are indications that Coyotlatelco can be temporally refined (e.g., Piña
Chán, 1967), which appear to be of significance for interpreting the proposed
migration. At Tula, Cobean (1990) was able to break the Epiclassic materials
down into the Prado and Corral phases, the former consisting of ceramics with the
greatest similarity to Bajı́o pottery, and the latter more closely corresponding to
traditional Coyotlatelco. Similarly, the Tula regional settlement study found that
the earlier sites were located on hilltops and might be contemporaneous with the
Teotihuacan Late Xolalpan phase settlements on the plains (Mastache and Cobean,
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Fig. 14. Principal designs of Coyotlatelco complex ceramics (after Rattray, 1966,
Fig. 21).
1989, p. 56). Only with the following Metepec phase withdrawal of Teotihuacan
from the area did these people descend to establish settlements in the valley.
Elements of this proposal have been corroborated in the Basin of Mexico.
The intercepts for radiocarbon dates for the Teotihuacan sequence and Coyotlatelco overlap by perhaps 200 years, again beginning with the Late Xolalpan
phase (sixth century AD) (Nichols and Charlton, 1996; Parsons et al., 1996;
Rattray, 1991). Although some researchers prefer to throw out the latest Teotihuacan sequence dates and see a linear progression from Teotihuacan to Coyotlatelco
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(e.g., Cowgill, 1996, p. 327, Fig. 1), we prefer to interpret the dates at face value
and argue that two distinct ceramic complexes were used contemporaneously in
different settlements. The new ceramics were eventually adopted at Teotihuacan
as well, but we suggest without extensive associated population replacement. Archaeomagnetic dates for the Great Fire that crippled Teotihuacan late in its history
pertain, if we take into account the fact that the archaeomagnetic curve was established through reference to conventional (uncalibrated) radiocarbon dates, to
the sixth century as well (Wolfman, 1990, p. 300). Whether or not the newcomers were responsible for this catastrophe, Teotihuacan and the new sites coexisted
in the basin of Mexico for one to two centuries, the clearest indication of Teotihuacan’s decline being its withdrawal from elsewhere in Mesoamerica (Stuart,
2000).
Relying upon the native histories as a guide, researchers have sought (and
failed to find) the recorded migrations in later Postclassic archaeological remains
(e.g., Epstein, 1968; McCafferty, 1996; Smith, 1984), but this period is more one of
ongoing interaction and intermarriage, and only small and socially flexible groups
entered central Mexico at this time. The Early Postclassic Tollan phase at Tula
appears to be primarily a local development out of the Epiclassic, and the parallel Aztec I–II Black on Orange ceramics may have developed directly out of
Coyotlatelco (Griffin and Espejo, 1947). Recent chronological studies (Nichols
and Charlton, 1996; Parsons et al., 1996) have shown the ceramic situation to
be quite complex, with extended periods of temporal overlap between “Toltec”
Mazapan and the “Aztec” I and II ceramic complexes. These complexes are partially spatially exclusive as well (Sanders et al., 1979, pp. 137–149, 466–467),
highlighting once again the possibility of ethnically distinct communities existing side by side. The double pyramid architectural form, appearing at Teopanzolco, Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, and other sites beginning in the Middle Postclassic
(Umberger and Klein, 1993, pp. 307–309), may relate to attempts to integrate the
migrants into society. Its best-known example, the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan,
devoted its twin temples to Tlaloc and Huitzilopochtli. As the former is a rain god
of great antiquity, and the latter is a northern deity that only appears in the Postclassic, we can see a marriage of old and new religions. Michael Smith (personal
communication, 1998) reports that he has been able to discern the Middle Postclassic migration through material culture, but we feel that this is far more tenuous
than the Epiclassic pattern discussed earlier.
Other Factors
Although we have tried to discuss the archaeological evidence by area, there
are more clear political, religious, and economic changes that take place during
the Epiclassic within the region as a whole, with ramifications for understanding
the context of the migrations. There is a noticeable increase across the area in the
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exploitation of natural resources, particularly those useful for the production of
prestige goods. The immense salt works of south-central Jalisco date primarily
to the Epiclassic Sayula phase (Valdez et al., 1996). The turquoise processing
workshop at Alta Vista pertains to the Epiclassic Alta Vista phase and marks
a general increase in the importation of this exotic resource from the American
Southwest (Weigand and Harbottle, 1992) into Mesoamerica. The extensive mines
at nearby Chalchihuites were devoted to the extraction of chert for jewelry and other
minerals, probably for pigment (Weigand, 1982). They have been dated primarily to
the period AD 600–900 by a recent series of radiocarbon determinations (Schiavitti,
1995). Pigments of this kind could have been used for the colorful and exotically
decorated Pseudo-Cloisonné ceramics (and their variants; Holien, 1977) found
from Jalisco to Zacatecas to Guanajuato. Exploitation of the Ucareo and Zinaparo
obsidian mines of northern Michoacan expands greatly during the Epiclassic, and
their products were shipped across Mesoamerica (Darras, 1994; Healan, 1997).
The cinnabar mines of Queretaro’s Sierra Gorda were exploited over an extended
period, but many of the sketchily reported ceramics suggest an Epiclassic date
(Secretaria de Patrimonio Nacional, 1970, pp. 28–31, Figs. 18, 19, 21, 35, 36).
Certainly the cinnabar-to-mercury processing site of San José Ixtapa in the state of
Mexico, just to the south of the mines and clearly related, dates to the Epiclassic
and Early Postclassic (Barba and Herrera, 1986).
The increase in economic activity during this period may be best attributed
to the proliferation of smaller unstable polities, whose cumulative demands for
prestige goods may have been much greater than among the relatively stable Classic
period polities. In central Michoacan, Pollard and Cahue (1999) found a much
greater occurrence of imported goods in Epiclassic tombs than within those of the
Late Postclassic Tarascan Empire, a pattern that they relate to the greater degree of
dependence upon exotic foreign goods among the Epiclassic elite. Following some
authors (Jiménez, 1992), it is likely that the northern elites of the Epiclassic shared
a common elite culture, but shared elite symbols alone cannot account for the
widespread changes in material culture, as even simple undecorated and utilitarian
ceramics are replaced in most of the complexes mentioned earlier. The unstable
political conditions suggested by the evidence would in any case have created a
situation conducive to migration.
Equally suggestive is the widespread evidence for the postmortem modification of human remains during the northern Classic and Epiclassic, reminiscent
of later Postclassic practices throughout Mesoamerica. Variants of the Aztec skull
rack, diverse forms of postmortem dismemberment, defleshing, burning, and display of human remains, and the possible occurrence of cannibalism, have been documented in Zacatecas (Kelley, 1978; Nelson et al., 1992; Pickering, 1985), southern
San Luis Potosi (Pijoan and Mansilla, 1990), northern Michoacan (Pereira, 1996),
Queretaro (Crespo, 1991a, pp. 171–172; Secretaria de Patrimonio Nacional, 1970,
pp. 31–32, Plate 2: 1, 4, 8, 11, Figs. 48, 57), and the Nayarit-Jalisco border (Hers,
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1989). Although literally surrounded by this evidence, Guanajuato is unrepresented
due to the dearth of excavations. Ethnohistoric accounts of decapitation, cannibalism, and display of human remains are particularly common in Post-Conquest
northern Mexico (Nelson et al., 1992, pp. 308–309). Whether this is to be interpreted as a northern custom of ancestor veneration (Nelson et al., 1992) and/or
the desecration of captured enemies (Hers, 1989) remains unclear. It is true that
human sacrifice and related practices were evident, though less common, in the
rest of Mesoamerica before the Epiclassic (e.g., Cabrera et al., 1991; Christensen
and Winter, 1997), but the vast increase in their popularity after this time suggests
a qualitative change in their role.
SYNTHESIS AND DISCUSSION
The disparate linguistic, ethnohistoric, biological, and archaeological data
sets have produced a remarkably consistent picture of the migrations of people
out of northern Mexico in the Epiclassic and Postclassic. More detailed questions
of why and how these migrations took place, and how the existing and migrating
populations might have reacted to one another, are more difficult to address. These
are, however, questions of more importance to anthropology as a whole, and need
to be considered.
In explaining why large-scale migrations take place, geographers still commonly draw upon modified forms of push–pull analysis (Heberle, 1938; Lee, 1966),
in which push factors encouraging the abandonment of one area are compared with
pull factors attracting migrants to a new locale. Push factors can include overpopulation, disease, economic downturn, resource depletion, ecological change, social
unrest, or warfare, whereas pull factors could be a reversal of any of these conditions, economic opportunities, or a desire for new social connections. Intelligence
is a critical dimension of pull factors. To be attracted to another locale, prospective
migrants must already know something about it, acquired by cross-border raids,
trade, or advance scouts, whether that information is correct or not. Unfortunately,
the database is generally insufficient to address most of these possibilities for the
Nahua migrations. For now, we propose three factors that might have provoked migration out of northern Mexico, and two factors that might have drawn population
into parts of the central and West Mexican highlands.
First of all, we must not neglect the indigenous voice—native documents
frequently describe the locally perceived forces behind migration. During the Late
Postclassic, Otomi and Matlatzinca groups left Aztec-controlled territory in the
Valley of Toluca and moved west into the Tarascan Empire to escape Aztec exploitation (Acuña, 1987, pp. 268–269, 276). The Pipil similarly explained their
movement far to the south as provoked by their mistreatment at the hands of conquerors (de Torquemada, 1943, Vol. 1, Book 3, chap. 40, pp. 331–333). Of course,
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these explanations were provided by the native elite. These cases may be more
similar to the proposed social factors behind the Oceanic migrations, in which
vanquished elites may have left with their followers after a factional defeat at
home, or junior elites relocated in search of greater political opportunities (Kirch,
1984, pp. 80–81; see Houston, 1993, pp. 97–102, for a Classic Maya example).
Another potential push factor is the evidence for warfare in the proposed
source area of the migrant populations. Associated with the Epiclassic population
peak in the Bajı́o, there is a shift in settlement to higher ground and more defensible
locations (Castañeda et al., 1988). Hers (1989) indicates a general preference for
similar locations in neighboring regions to the west, and has argued for a tight
connection between the evidence for human sacrifice and warfare. We would add
that this martial competition was in turn fed by the social competition that led to
an intensification of the prestige goods trade.
A third possible push factor is climatic change, as the northern frontier of
Mesoamerica lies along the unstable margin of the tropical summer rain belt.
Armillas (1969) proposed that the progressive cooling and drying of northern
Mesoamerica led to the dislocation of populations. He linked hypothetical changes
in the north Mexican climate to the retraction of the limits of maize agriculture
and the forced migration of previously sedentary populations to the south. Recent
research and reanalysis of the pollen and lake level data from the central highlands
and north-central Mexico has defined a period of aridity from AD 550 to 1100
(uncalibrated and hence somewhat early), reaching a peak in the ninth century
(Metcalfe et al., 1994; O’Hara et al., 1994). Evidence does exist for maguey cultivation in Hidalgo, Mexico state, and Zacatecas during the Epiclassic (Mastache
and Cobean, 1989, p. 60; Nelson, 1992; Parsons and Parsons, 1990), which could
be interpreted as an adaptation to dry or famine conditions or a risk amelioration
strategy.
If the climatic reconstruction holds, Armillas’ model would require substantial modification, concentrating as much on sociopolitical as ecological factors.
The increasing aridity and probable food shortages along the northern frontier
after the sixth century AD may well have provoked growing competition among
the various northern centers, followed by conflict, centralization, increased architectural investment, population growth, and settlement shifts, even as refugee
populations began moving southwards. The ecological explanation might become
less appealing in the Early Postclassic, when smaller numbers of hunters and gatherers would appear to be moving into central Mexico just as the north became
once again suitable for agriculture. Far more detailed climatological data defining
the likelihood of maize and maguey agriculture in such a decaying environmental
situation, and better archaeological data on the sequence of events in the Epiclassic and Early Postclassic, would be necessary for the further investigation of the
environmental hypothesis.
Likely pull factors drawing northern populations south include environmental diversity and political opportunity. The great agricultural and economic
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productivity of the highland lake basins (Sanders et al., 1979; Weigand, 1993)
must have been attractive to northern populations. The proposed source of the
Epiclassic migrants is, however, the fertile Bajı́o region, and this particular motivating factor for migration would be most compelling in conjunction with climatic
deterioration in the north. The hunter–gatherer migrants of the Early Postclassic, presumably from San Luis Potosi, would probably have found the highland
lake basins highly attractive in their own way, with the great diversity of fish and
fowl. The dialogue in the Relación de Michoacán between a fisherman of Lake
Patzcuaro and nomadic Chichimecs suggests just such an attraction (de Alcalá,
1988, pp. 69–75).
A second pull factor, and one that is much more difficult to define, is the
political vacuum that developed on the central plateau with the waning of Teotihuacan. Whether or not the Epiclassic migrants were themselves responsible for
the decline of Teotihuacan, the loss of any single paramount authority resulted
in a fragmented political landscape ripe with opportunity that may have attracted
outsiders. Although centers such as Xochicalco, Cholula, and El Tajı́n are commonly cited as the Epiclassic heirs to Teotihuacan’s power base (e.g., Sanders
et al., 1979, pp. 134, 137), this is a far more widespread phenomenon, with La
Quemada, Alta Vista, Cacaxtla, the Late Classic Maya, the Bajı́o sites, and countless other independent centers experiencing a surge of innovative political activity.
The Epiclassic was a period of major structural change in Mesoamerica, with a
physical and social environment that encouraged increased mobility and attempts
by elites to woo shifting populations to their centers through ideological experimentation. The period has long been recognized for its diverse and “eclectic” visual
arts (e.g., McVicker, 1985). As some art historians have noted (Nagao, 1989), the
apparently hybrid nature of Epiclassic iconography reflects experimentation by
elites with different political messages and reinterpretations of the old, failing
ideologies. Few Epiclassic political centers survived into the Early Postclassic,
underlining the volatility of the period and the weak hold that these fledgling polities possessed over a population base aware of its own potential mobility. The
native accounts explaining migration as a response to political exploitation take
on a new significance in this light.
Colleagues have pointed out that many of the Epiclassic social changes we
have discussed could have occurred in the absence of migration, and instead due
to, say, political instability. But there needs to be a greater recognition that such
trends are intertwined with mobility. If we only consider physical migration in
those cases where all possible alternatives have been rejected, we would most
likely have to reject migration along with them! Migration does not occur without
social, political, and economic repercussions, and we submit that many social
changes will encourage either in- our out-migration to some degree.
While the causes may remain vague, the Epiclassic migrations fairly clearly
followed Classic period trade or communication routes. The systemic links between Mesoamerican cores and peripheries thus channeled population movements
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along established paths. Several Classic period sites with small circular complexes
of the Teuchitlan Tradition have been found in Guanajuato and Queretaro (Nalda,
1987; Sánchez and Marmolejo, 1990), and at El Cobre one appears with a U-shaped
complex, though they are in conspicuously distinct sectors of the site (Castañeda
et al., 1988, Fig. 17; Sánchez and Marmolejo, 1990, Fig. 4). It has been suggested
elsewhere that these distant examples of Teuchitlan Tradition public architecture reflect attempts by the Teuchitlan elites to secure access to distant resources
through patron–client arrangements with local elites (Beekman, 2000; Weigand,
1996, pp. 196–197), and nearly all appear to lie on communication routes out
of central Jalisco. A very few Bajı́o sites have also been plausibly suggested as
sharing undefined links with Teotihuacan during the Classic period (Brambila and
Velasco, 1988; Castañeda et al., 1988, pp. 326–327), implying similar activities by
the Teotihuacan polity. A systemic relationship seems to have been at work here,
linking the southward movement of Epiclassic populations with earlier lines of
communication. In line with better studied migrations, the actual migration process likely involved small groups of lead migrants, who established local points of
contact that then became attractors for those to come (Boyd, 1989; Winchie and
Carment, 1989). While most migrations follow preexisting routes (Straubhaar,
1986), note that many archaeologists would probably use the evidence for prior
contact to argue instead that material culture changes in the destination area were
due to a growing interaction rather than migration.
The tendency to follow prior economic routes may also hold for those migrants who continued farther to the south. The documented Pipil migration from
Puebla to Veracruz and then to Guatemala and El Salvador (Fowler, 1989) may
have been following earlier, Middle Classic, lines of communication traversing the
coastal lowlands and the Guatemalan highlands (Santley, 1989). Even the more
hotly contested evidence for Terminal Classic population movements from Veracruz into the Pasión region and Chichen Itza (Sabloff, 1973; Tozzer, 1957) is
found in areas with indications of Early/Middle Classic interaction with highland central Mexico (Andrews, 1979; Stuart, 2000). Guazapa phase sites in El
Salvador are attributed to the first Pipil migrants, radiocarbon dated to AD 900–
1200 (Fowler and Earnest, 1985), and the degree of similarity to Tollan phase
ceramics at Tula is immediately observable. Contact may well have been maintained between Nahua-speaking elites throughout the length of Mesoamerica, as
testified by the presence of Central American polychrome and Plumbate ceramics
at Tula (Diehl, 1981).
The relationship between the migrants and earlier populations is difficult to
reconstruct at present and can only be answered through focused research in each
region, but there are some suggestive data. In Jalisco there are indications that the
Teuchitlan Tradition polity experienced a loss of territory in the core and the abandonment of strategic boundary sites, but reached some sort of temporary accommodation with the newcomers. Teotihuacan also continued to function internally,
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but its power abroad appears to have declined dramatically. In both cases, there are
suggestions that old and new traditions were found in neighboring communities
or occasionally the same community but with experimentation in hybridizing their
different architectural forms.
For theorists who emphasize the importance of ethnic signaling through material culture, the newcomers in Jalisco certainly did not fade into the background.
They not only brought a symbolically rich decorative style, they also built public
architecture that signaled a determination to maintain some version of their ethnic
identity. Those theorists emphasizing a more internalized, unconscious definition
of ethnicity might point to the major changes in ceramic production, in which
technologies and patterns of use were altered in central Jalisco (Aronson, 1993).
The migrants into central Mexico appear to have been somewhat more flexible,
and quickly adopted the local architecture (Mastache and Cobean, 1989). They
were certainly disruptive, however, as Teotihuacan’s decline illustrates. The evidence for the Great Fire at Teotihuacan might suggest hostile relations between
the newcomers and the indigenous population. Alternatively, taking into account
Teotihuacan’s longtime interest in warfare (Cabrera et al., 1991; Cowgill, 1997,
pp. 144–148), we might speculate that the migrants were welcomed as mercenaries for service in growing internal conflicts, just as the later Aztec would be (e.g.,
Reyes, 1977, p. 24). Certainly the introduction of substantial numbers of people
into the social milieu could have significantly altered power relationships among
local factions. The clarification of the relationship between the distinct populations
is, to us, one of the most interesting fields for future investigations, and likely to
vary considerably from place to place.
SUMMARY
Although the variety of the data that we have evaluated here may appear to
rule out a clear (or concise) summary, we attempt it here. The linguistic, historic,
biological, and archaeological data available lead us to a number of conclusions
and recommendations regarding the Nahua and related migrations in the final millennium before European contact. We suggest the following reconstruction/model
for future researchers to evaluate.
Beginning around the sixth century AD and coincident with a period of increasing aridity in northern Mesoamerica, population rose in the Bajı́o and local
warfare and social competition may have intensified. Bajı́o societies were already
highly organized, with monumental architecture, regional clusters of sites arranged
into hierarchies, and political and/or economic links to the highland lake basin
polities of Jalisco and Mexico. We speculate that less complex, semisedentary
populations (the future Postclassic migrants into the Basin of Mexico) moving
southwards out of the drying steppes of San Luis Potosi into the Bajı́o might
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have exacerbated the local situation. Simultaneous with these social developments,
presumably Nahua-speaking populations moved out of the Bajı́o, although some
Otomi were probably among them. At this same time, architecture, a complete
ceramic complex, and burial patterns consistent with a Bajı́o origin replaced or
significantly altered the material culture in highland Jalisco, Nayarit and Colima,
Zacatecas, northern Michoacan, southern San Luis Potosi, Queretaro, Hidalgo,
and Mexico (Beekman, 1996b).
The Epiclassic migrations either provoked the fragmentation of highland regional systems into smaller, unstable polities, or they took advantage of an ongoing
process. There was an increase in resource exploitation at various locales possibly connected to the increased political balkanization across the north, and to the
growing demand for prestige markers among an expanding field of Nahua-speaking
elites and the increasingly mobile followers for whom they competed. It seems
likely that the northern practice of postmortem use of human remains became more
widely distributed at this time, although it remains unclear whether this reflects
human sacrifice and treatment of war captives, a particularly profound emphasis on
ancestor veneration, or both (Christensen and Winter, 1997). The greatest evidence
of continuity outside of Guanajuato is found in Zacatecas, northern Michoacan,
and Queretaro (Beekman, 1996b), but parts of Jalisco, Mexico state, and Hidalgo
show signs of an overlap with the older architecture and settlements, perhaps for
a century or two, and are the most likely to have taken in new populations. Both
Teotihuacan and the Teuchitlan Tradition, complex societies for which we have
more architectural and settlement data, show signs of contraction and political
decline.
Despite the broad similarities in the archaeological materials, the migrants
entering Jalisco and those moving into Mexico/Hidalgo may not have spoken
the same language. In central Mexico, Nahua speakers out of Guanajuato were
probably moving in on Otomanguean speakers, but to the west, the contact period
linguistic situation suggests that either Nahua or Corachol speakers may have been
impinging upon indigenous Corachol speakers. David Wright (1999, pp. 81–82)
has noted subtle ceramic and architectural distinctions between the eastern and
western Bajı́o that may correspond to this distinction among the migrants. Or,
movements out of Guanajuato may have involved secondary displacements of
linguistically distinct populations somewhat west of the Bajı́o, from the vast and
barely studied Los Altos region of northeastern Jalisco. It is our impression that in
central Jalisco the invaders eventually gained the upper hand, whereas the earliest
migrants into Hidalgo seem to bring a less elaborate material culture, and borrow
selectively from the indigenes. But in each case, chains of Nahua communities
were strung out across the region, facilitating trade and communication over a
very wide area. Otomanguean and Nahua speakers continued southeast out of
central Mexico to the Gulf Coast, reaching El Salvador and Nicaragua by the start
of the Early Postclassic.
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The Early/Middle Postclassic sociopolitical landscape in the Mexican highlands was very different from what it had been just 300 years before, and the
introduction of new populations triggered the processes of empire formation instead of provoking their demise. The dry period in the north presumably reached
its peak at the beginning of the Early Postclassic, and population declined or dispersed over the next few hundred years in Zacatecas, Guanajuato, San Luis Potosi,
and Queretaro. A few sites in the eastern part of this area show clear connections
to Tula (Crespo, 1991a), a multiethnic state composed of Nahua migrants and
older populations that expanded into a major power at this time, and suggest that
this polity maintained an interest in the area of its origins. The political importance of Tula certainly aided in the spread of Nahuatl as a lingua franca, but it
also succeeded in creating a new ethnic identity—the Toltec—that truly laid the
foundation for ethnicity and political legitimacy in the Postclassic. The migrations documented most extensively in the native histories pick up at this point
and describe the arrival of small multiethnic semisedentary bands around the time
of Tula’s decline, corresponding apparently to the end of the dry spell. Although
some aspects of material culture may have been introduced at this time, such as
the bow and arrow, these migrants did not have the same impact on highland archaeology or linguistics, largely because of the fluidity of their social organization
and the abandonment of prior subsistence adaptations. However, their social impact as mercenaries, and eventually as the architects of the Aztec empire, was
pivotal. Something similar must have happened in Michoacan, where Chichimec
migrants into the Patzcuaro Basin, whatever their origin or language, linguistically assimilated to Purepecha and launched the internecine conflicts that led to
the formation of the Tarascan Empire. In the far west, Nahua-speaking Caxcanes
began their expansion into northern Jalisco and Zacatecas, undoubtedly provoking further population displacements into central Jalisco and Nayarit that may
be archaeologically recognizable. The Nahua-speaking communities and barrios
historically attested in the west in the 1520s may originate in these movements
or be holdovers from the earlier Epiclassic migrations. But whereas the Toltec
and Aztec states encouraged the eventual predominance of Nahuatl in central
Mexico, their western cousins’ failure to centralize left western Mexico linguistically fragmented, and burdened with a misleading reputation as an isolated frontier. Only the Spanish colonial system’s insistence on the use of Nahuatl in their
dealings with native authorities succeeded in edging out all competitors (Yañez,
1994).
The processes of migration continued (albeit with modifications) through the
Colonial period, and even till today, when Nahua, Purepecha, and Otomi migrants
have been drawn back north, first by Spanish Colonial authorities hoping to pacify
their northern frontier (Carrillo, 1999), and now by the economic lure of the United
States. This period is beyond our direct purview here, but could certainly be viewed
in the same framework.
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CONCLUSIONS
Archaeologists have largely treated migrations as unpatterned historical
events beyond either humanistic or scientific analysis, largely because they have
approached the problem as a strictly methodological one and from the perspective
of their own subdiscipline. We have argued, however, that migrations are complex
but patterned processes that incorporate a range of factors from the very local decisions by agents about whether to migrate, to the systemic patterns of migration
and gene flow along paths of preexisting contact. To deal with this complexity, we
have approached the problem through the use of multiple data sets and anthropological models. For us, multiple lines of evidence increase the confidence in our
interpretations when they coincide, but also tend to highlight interesting human
behavior when they do not.
An approach to migration that makes use of a single data set runs the risk
of missing interesting disjunctions between different kinds of evidence, and it is
here that we add a great deal to our knowledge of migration. Most authorities
have assumed that the Late Postclassic migrations of the ethnohistoric record
ushered in a linguistic change in central Mexico. Our deliberate focus on the
integration of the ethnohistory and linguistics led us to instead emphasize how
it was the migrants themselves who assimilated linguistically to their new social
environment. The incorporation of data on the linguistic landscape of far western
Mexico contributed to our interpretation of the Epiclassic archaeology in that
region as reflecting coexisting linguistically and socially diverse communities. And
finally, had we lacked the biological data that point to disjunctions in the central
Mexican population, how many archaeologists would dismiss our archaeological
data as evidence of “interaction?”
By a willingness to delve deep into local detail and to integrate different data
sets, we have identified a series of important factors for migration in a premodern, preindustrial context. These findings should provide migration theorists with
comparative material that differs in significant respects from those case studies
that usually receive attention. On one hand, there are points in common between
modern and ancient migrations. The decision-making process for migrants then
and today is often heavily dependent upon adequate information and preexisting
links between political centers and peripheries or hinterlands. Just as we can see
today, the likelihood of migrants retaining their cultural identity over time was
probably dependent upon the ability to maintain the integrity of their social networks and authority structure. Finally, the very close and dialectical relationship
between political instability and migration has been repeatedly implicated in this
paper.
We believe, however, that the case of the Nahua migrations presents some
intriguing elements that are less clearly evidenced in modern times. The evidence
for a continued network of social and political interaction even among far-flung
migrants is a new element to be considered. One of archaeology’s advantages is
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the ability to study long-term processes, and the impact of gradual environmental
change (as opposed to short-term hurricanes, tornados, etc. that produce refugees)
is partly implicated here.
There is much that is missing in our reconstruction. We cannot specify the
hierarchy of response that led a large number of people to decide to migrate. We
do not know whether there may have been a sequence to the migration in which a
member of the household (perhaps one of the adults) was sent ahead to pave the way
for the rest of the group. We do not know how migrants were eventually integrated
into their new homes. We do not know why they stayed. This is because these
are all questions that need to be addressed through specially formulated research
designs that take migration as a given, or at least a highly plausible explanation.
We will not make contributions of relevance to migration theory by allowing the
data to simply accumulate, or by hoping that methodological improvements will
make the situation transparent. Migration is a research topic like any other—if it
is to be theoretically approachable, then we must specifically gather data that we
have not yet considered relevant, because we have not yet considered migration
to be amenable to theoretical study. Much more work is needed in the analysis
of migrations such as this one, but we believe that a multipronged approach can
inform and structure such research.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Joanna Grand, at the American Museum of Natural History, and Enrique
Serrano and Marı́a Elena Salas, at the Museo Nacional de Antropologı́a, provided
every assistance in the examination of the collections in their care. The National
Science Foundation and the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia have
generously supported the Jalisco fieldwork. Over the past eight years, too many
people to list by name have provided us with feedback and encouragement on
versions of this manuscript, and we thank them all.
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