Excavations at the Southern Neighborhood Center of the Tlajinga District, Teotihuacan, Mexico

Abstract

Investigations of the Proyecto Arqueológico Tlajinga Teotihuacan (PATT) in 2019 focused on the southern neighborhood center of this cluster of non-elite residences in the southern periphery of the ancient Mexican metropolis. Our objective was to better understand the social infrastructure of public space within the district and how it tied its inhabitants together. Our methods included excavations at two large architectural complexes, geophysical prospection of these and adjacent structures and plazas, and chemical residue analysis of floors and sediments. They revealed architecturally elaborate complexes decorated with mural painting that appear to have been the loci of civic-ceremonial activities. Materials from the excavated portions of the complexes are inconsistent with residential uses, although it is possible that local elites lived elsewhere in the complexes or in others located nearby. The investigations therefore demonstrate that the semipublic spaces of neighborhood centers were distributed as distantly as this periphery of Teotihuacan and could be as elaborate as those in the urban epicenter, underscoring the city's more muted social inequality.