Pottery on the periphery: Contact-period ceramics and regional integration at La Laguna, Tlaxcala, Mexico

Abstract

At the time of European contact in Mexico, the small community of La Laguna lived on the edge of the altepetl of Tecoac, itself peripheral to the Tlaxcallan confederacy. Yet this area was historically important: after a battle at Tecoac, Cortés allied with the Tlaxcaltecas, who proved essential to the conquest. Archaeological materials from the site provide an opportunity to understand social dynamics on the periphery of an autonomous confederacy surrounded by the Aztec empire. This multi-method study of the small contact-period ceramic assemblage of La Laguna illuminates these dynamics. The wares are similar to those of the ethnically Nahua residents of central Tlaxcallan (approximately 30 km away), not to those of the neighboring Otomí ethnic minority. INAA shows all wares falling into one chemical group, but petrography shows two recipes, indicating possible access to multiple potters. These lines of evidence suggest strong connections to the markets of central Tlaxcallan. La Laguna was geographically peripheral, yet the styles, symbols, and pastes of their pottery shows that its rural inhabitants, described as fractious borderland Otomís by early colonial histories, were engaged with the economic and religious trends of Tlaxcallan and the Postclassic International World System.