The Geoarchaeology of a Terraced Landscape: From Aztec Matlatzinco to Modern Calixtlahuaca (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781647690229)

The toil of several million peasant farmers in Aztec Mexico transformed lakebeds and mountainsides into a checkerboard of highly productive fields. This book charts the changing fortunes of one Aztec settlement and its terraced landscapes from the twelfth to the twenty-first century. It also follows the progress and missteps of a team of archaeologists as they pieced together this story.

Working at a settlement in the Toluca Valley of central Mexico, the authors used fieldwalking, excavation, soil and artifact analyses, maps, aerial photos, land deeds, and litigation records to reconstruct the changing landscape through time. Exploiting the methodologies and techniques of several disciplines, they bring context to eight centuries of the region's agrarian history, exploring the effects of the Aztec and Spanish Empires, reform, and revolution on the physical shape of the Mexican countryside and the livelihoods of its people. Accessible to specialists and nonspecialists alike, this well-illustrated and well-organized volume provides a step-by-step guide that can be applied to the study of terraced landscapes anywhere in the world.

The four authors share an interest in terraced landscapes and have worked together and on their own on a variety of archaeological projects in Mesoamerica, the Mediterranean, Poland, and the United Kingdom.


Author: Aleksander Borejsza, Isabel Rodríguez López, Charles D. Frederick
ISBN-10: 1647690226
ISBN-13: 9781647690229
Publisher: University of Utah Press
Language: English
Published: 10/08/2021
Pages: 392
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 2.80lbs
Size: 11.02h x 8.50w x 1.18d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 05/01/2022