APARTMENT COMPOUNDS, HOUSEHOLDS, AND POPULATION IN THE ANCIENT CITY OF TEOTIHUACAN, MEXICO

We present three new analyses of existing data from past fieldwork at Teotihuacan. First, we confirm and refine the wealth-based housing typology of Millon's Teotihuacan Mapping Project (TMP). Second, we analyze the spatial configurations of excavated compounds, using network methods to identif...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ancient Mesoamerica 2019-01, Vol.30 (3), p.399-418
Main Authors: Smith, Michael E., Chatterjee, Abhishek, Huster, Angela C., Stewart, Sierra, Forest, Marion
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Archaeology
Archaeology and Prehistory
Architecture
Archives & records
Cities
Comparative analysis
Field study
Fieldwork
Households
Housing
Humanities and Social Sciences
Layout
Mapping
Outbuildings
Population
Wealth
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We present three new analyses of existing data from past fieldwork at Teotihuacan. First, we confirm and refine the wealth-based housing typology of Millon's Teotihuacan Mapping Project (TMP). Second, we analyze the spatial configurations of excavated compounds, using network methods to identify the size and layout of individual dwellings within walled compounds. Third, we use those results to generate the first population estimate for the city based on measurements from the TMP map. We extrapolate the average sizes of dwellings from excavated compounds to the entire sample of mapped residences as depicted on the TMP map of the city. We generate a range of population estimates, of which we suggest that 100,000 persons is the most reasonable estimate for the Xolalpan-Metepec population of Teotihuacan. These analyses show that legacy data from fieldwork long past can be used to answer research questions that are relevant and important today.
ISSN:0956-5361
1469-1787
DOI:10.1017/S0956536118000573