Chronology, Subsistence, and the Earliest Formative of Central Tlaxcala, Mexico

Abstract

We propose that pottery-using villages did not appear in the upland Apizaco region of central Tlaxcala, Mexico, until after 1000 B.C., centuries after such developments in choice locations for maize agriculture. We excavated at two of the earliest known Formative sites in the region. That work revealed abundant intact refuse deposits, allowing us to evaluate an existing ceramic chronology with new radiocarbon dates as well as characterize Formative subsistence. Our results support a more general model of emerging sedentism in central Mexico involving population dispersions from prime agricultural areas to zones of higher elevation. The earliest pottery-using agriculturalists in Apizaco were probably migrants from adjacent regions.