The Role of Digitization: Ceramics Within Postclassic Teotihuacan

I have been working with Dr. Kwoka to assist in the digital documentation of pottery collected from the ancient central Mexican city of Teotihuacan. These materials were collected as part of the Teotihuacan Ceramic Project (TCP), directed by Dr. Rene Million in the 1960s, and are housed at the University of Buffalo. The TCP began as a salvage operation to try and document material culture that was being lost due to looting. Teotihuacan was one of the largest urban centers in the world in the first millennium of the Common Era (CE). During the Early Classic period, when Teotihuacan was a prominent Mesoamerican site, many apartment compounds and barrios were formed by people of the same ethnicity and religion. The site was largely abandoned during the 7^th century CE, which is still poorly understood, but the site was never completely abandoned and certainly never forgotten in the memories of Central Mexican Peoples. In fact, the name Teotihuacan was given to the site by the much later Aztec who controlled the Basin of Mexico many centuries later.

Interestingly, the pottery that I have been digitizing is not associated with the significant occupational period of Teotihuacan but dates to the later Middle Postclassic period (1150 – 1350 CE) and the Early Colonial period (1521 - 1625 CE). These time periods book-end the peak of Aztec domination in Central Mexico and the pottery provides insight into the exchange systems at work within the Basin of Mexico during these two very different time periods. In this poster, I provide an overview of the TCP and the steps taken in the digitization process. I highlight the importance on digital documentation for sharing these data with the public, informing others over the identification and classification of material culture. I also discuss how these ceramic typologies were created by archaeologist and what we can learn about ceramic production and distribution in the Basin of Mexico during these two periods of time.