Teotihuacán, Tepeapulco, and Obsidian Exploitation

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Current cultural ecological models of the development of civilization in central Mexico emphasize the role of subsistence production techniques and organization. The recent use of established and productive archeological surface survey techniques along natural corridors of communication between favorable niches for cultural development within the Central Mexican symbiotic region resulted in the location of sites that indicate an early development of a decentralized resource exploitation, manufacturing, and exchange network. The association of the development of this system with Teotihuacán indicates the importance such nonsubsistence production and exchange had in the evolution of this first central Mexican civilization. The later expansion of Teotihuacán into more distant areas of Mesoamerica was based on this resource exploitation model. Later civilizations centered at Tula and Tenochtitlán also used such a model in their expansion.