Aztalan Mortuary Practices Revisited

Abstract

The Aztalan site sits on the banks of the Crawfish River in Jefferson County, Wisconsin, and has been protected as a state park for more than fifty years. Prominent architectural features such as a substantial stockade and platform mounds are believed to date to the Mississippian Period. The first excavations at Aztalan took place in 1838 and were carried out by W. T. Sterling in an attempt to ascertain the nature of the “ruins” of the stockade. Although no cemetery has been documented at Aztalan, human remains have been found in one of three sets of contexts on the site proper indicative of Aztalan mortuary practices: eleven adult individuals were recovered from what was originally described as a “crematorium” on the second stage of the northwest pyramidal mound; primary inhumations are limited in number and usually consist of a flexed or partially flexed individual placed in a burial pit with few or no grave goods; scattered pieces of human bone recovered from refuse pits, storage pits, so-called firepits, or general habitation debris.