Texcoco Fabric-Marked Pottery,Tlateles, and Salt-Making

Abstract

An examination of the data used to support Nunley’s hypothesis (1967) that Texcoco Fabric-marked pottery vessels functioned as flowerpots to adapt chinampa agriculture to saline Lake Texcoco does not confirm his conclusions. The distribution of the ware andtlatelescoincides not with chinampa agriculture but with salt-producing communities of the 16th century. Aboriginal salt-making produced large mounds of washed or leached soils which are thetlateles. Texcoco Fabric-marked ware is suited for the rapid heating of saline solutions. It is concluded that the sherds and thetlatelesare the archaeological remains of Aztec salt-making activities.