Abstract
Abstract Results of an archaeomagnetic study of two excavation field seasons at the Xalla and Teopancazco residential areas of the ancient Prehispanic city of Teotihuacan, Central Mexico are reported. One-hundred and fifty three oriented samples of lime-plasters from the two archaeological sites were collected for the study. NRM directions are reasonably well grouped. Alternating field demagnetization shows single or two-component magnetizations. Rock magnetic measurements point to fine-grained titanomagnetites with pseudo-single domain behaviour. Characteristic site mean directions from both sites are correlated to the available palaeosecular variation curve for Mesoamerica. The mean directions obtained from Xalla site point to average dates of 550 AD±25 years that matches with the documented ‘Big Fire’ of Teotihuacan (AD 575). Two consecutive construction levels at Teopancazco were estimated as AD 250–350 and AD 350–425 respectively.
Highlights
Many archaeological materials contain magnetic particles and acquire a remanence at some specific time that depends on the direction and intensity of Earth’s magnetic field (e.g., Aitken, 1990; Lanos et al, 1999)
The time of acquisition of remanent magnetization can be determined by comparison of the palaeomagnetic parameters of such materials from an archaeological site with an already dated record of the past geomagnetic field in the same region, known as a master or reference geomagnetic secular variation curve
Isothermal remanent magnetization (IRM) acquisition curves (Fig. 3) indicate that saturation is reached in moderate fields of 100–200 mT, which points to some spinels as remanence carriers. 3.2 Remanence properties
Summary
Many archaeological materials contain magnetic particles and acquire a remanence at some specific time that depends on the direction and intensity of Earth’s magnetic field (e.g., Aitken, 1990; Lanos et al, 1999). The time of acquisition of remanent magnetization can be determined by comparison of the palaeomagnetic parameters of such materials from an archaeological site with an already dated record of the past geomagnetic field in the same region, known as a master or reference geomagnetic secular variation curve. May provide an accurate and reliable record of Earth’s magnetic field at the time of their elaboration This opens new possibilities to obtain high quality archaeomagnetic data considering that lime-plasters are abundant in archaeological sites in Mesoamerica. In this study we report -new archaeomagnetic results of selected lime-plaster samples from Xalla and Teopancazco, two major archaeological residential areas of Teotihuacan. A major limitation of the archaeomagnetic dating studies is related to the resolution and reliability of the geomagnetic secular variation curve for Mesoamerica. Teopancazco is a neighborhood compound at the southeastern sector of the city of Teotihuacan, which is characterized by a series of constructive levels built during the Classic (AD 200–600/650) as well as the Epiclassic, and Aztec
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