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Aztecs: Culture, History & Discoveries

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I visited the Museum of Anthropology & Archeology in Mexico City a few years back, and was pretty impressed.
 
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Aztecs butchered, ate Spanish invaders

Wednesday, August 23, 2006;
Posted: 10:45 p.m. EDT (02:45 GMT)

The Aztec Empire left a legacy of art and violence that is still being discovered by scientists.

What Is This? CALPULALPAN, Mexico (Reuters) -- Skeletons found at an unearthed site in Mexico show Aztecs captured, ritually sacrificed and partially ate several hundred people traveling with invading Spanish forces in 1520.

Skulls and bones from the Tecuaque archeological site near Mexico City show about 550 victims had their hearts ripped out by Aztec priests in ritual offerings, and were dismembered or had their bones boiled or scraped clean, experts say.

The findings support accounts of Aztecs capturing and killing a caravan of Spanish conquistadors and local men, women and children traveling with them in revenge for the murder of Cacamatzin, king of the Aztec empire's No. 2 city of Texcoco.

Experts say the discovery proves some Aztecs did resist the conquistadors led by explorer Hernan Cortes, even though history books say most welcomed the white-skinned horsemen in the belief they were returning Aztec gods.

"This is the first place that has so much evidence there was resistance to the conquest," said archeologist Enrique Martinez, director of the dig at Calpulalpan in Tlaxcala state, near Texcoco.

"It shows it wasn't all submission. There was a fight."

The caravan was apparently captured because it was made up mostly of the mulatto, mestizo, Maya Indian and Caribbean men and women given to the Spanish as carriers and cooks when they landed in Mexico in 1519, and so was moving slowly.

The prisoners were kept in cages for months while Aztec priests from what is now Mexico City selected a few each day at dawn, held them down on a sacrificial slab, cut out their hearts and offered them up to various Aztec gods.

Some may have been given hallucinogenic mushrooms or pulque -- an alcoholic milky drink made from fermented cactus juice -- to numb them to what was about to happen.

Teeth marks
"It was a continuous sacrifice over six months. While the prisoners were listening to their companions being sacrificed, the next ones were being selected," Martinez said, standing in his lab amid boxes of bones, some of young children.

"You can only imagine what it was like for the last ones, who were left six months before being chosen, their anguish."

The priests and town elders, who performed the rituals on the steps of temples cut off by a perimeter wall, sometimes ate their victims' raw and bloody hearts or cooked flesh from their arms and legs once it dropped off the boiling bones.

Knife cuts and even teeth marks on the bones show which ones had meat stripped off to be eaten, Martinez said.

Some pregnant women in the group had their unborn babies stabbed inside their bellies as part of the ritual.

In Aztec times the site was called Zultepec, a town of white-stucco temples and homes where some 5,000 people grew maize and beans and produced pulque to sell to traders.

Priests had to be brought in for the ritual killings because human sacrifices had never before taken place there, Martinez said.

On hearing of the months-long massacre, Cortes renamed the town Tecuaque -- meaning "where people were eaten" in the indigenous Nahuatl language -- and sent an army to wipe out its people.

When they heard the Spanish were coming, the Zultepec Aztecs threw their victims' possessions down wells, unwittingly preserving buttons and jewelry for the archeologists.

The team, which began work here in 1990, also found remains of domestic animals brought from Spain, like goats and pigs.

"They hid all the evidence," said Martinez. "Thanks to that act, we have been allowed to discover a chapter we were unaware of in the conquest of Mexico."

www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/08/23/azt ... index.html
 
Aztec ruins unearthed in Mexico

Archaeologists say the ancient stone figures carved into the monolith represent Aztec gods


Enlarge Image

Archaeologists working in Mexico City have discovered an Aztec monolith, the most important ruins of the ancient civilisation to be found in decades.
The monolith and an altar, dating from the 15th Century, were unearthed in the very heart of the busy capital city.

The city's mayor described the discovery as the biggest in almost three decades.

A figure representing the rain god Tlaloc and another unidentified figure are carved into a frieze on the altar.

Under the surface

The discoveries were made near the ruins of the civilisation's main temple, the Templo Mayor, near the city's central Zocalo Square.

"It is a very important discovery, the biggest we have made in 28 years. It will allow us to find out much more," Mexico City Major Alejandro Encinas said.

The stone slab is some 3.5m (11ft) in height and much of it remains buried beneath the surface.

Archaeologists say they think it might be part of an entrance to an underground chamber.

The ancient Aztecs began the construction of the Templo Mayor temple in 1375.

It was discovered, by accident, in 1978 when electricity workers came across a vast carving of an Aztec goddess.







http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5409510.stm
 
Untouched Tomb of Aztec King on Verge of Discovery?
Eliza Barclay
for National Geographic News

July 13, 2009

After nearly 30 years in the field, archaeologist Leonardo López Luján may be on the verge of the discovery of a lifetime: the only known tomb of an Aztec king.

An air of excitement has been thickening around Mexico's Templo Mayor (Great Temple) since 2006, when excavations near the temple revealed a stone monolith with a carving of an Aztec goddess.

Recently the anticipation intensified with the discovery of a richly decorated canine skeleton near a sealed entrance.

The animal was found wearing wooden earflaps mounted with turquoise mosaic, a collar of greenstone beads, and golden bells around its four feet.

But López Luján, a senior researcher at the Templo Mayor Museum in Mexico City, remains cool and cautious.

The skeleton could be that of a dog or a Mexican wolf—a question López Luján's team hopes to clear up with DNA testing.

"It would be very important if it turns out to be a dog, as it would tell us that we are close to arriving at a funeral context," he said.

The skeleton "could represent the dog that accompanied the deceased to the other side and helped them to cross a river called Chicnahuapan, one of the dangers before arriving at the ninth and deepest level of the underworld," López Luján said.

Many ancient Mesoamerican cultures, including the Aztec, believed that dogs escorted their masters to the afterlife, he added, and archaeologists have discovered many dog skeletons alongside Mesoamerican human remains.

Unlooted Tomb?

The Templo Mayor canine skeleton was found next to a stone box that contained the remains of a golden eagle, flint sacrificial knives, crustacean shells, and balls of copal resin—tree sap thought to have been used in various substances, such as incense, medicine, and glue.

Recent excavations also uncovered unbroken plaster seals made of lime and sand.

The existence of multiple seals suggests that the tomb, if it's there, could be a collective crypt containing the king and his successors, López Luján said.

"Each time they buried a newly deceased [dignitary], they sealed the entrance with a plaster seal," he speculated.

That the seals are unbroken suggests that the potential tomb has not been looted.

If there is a royal tomb behind the seals, López Luján would expect to find the ruler's ashes in stone or ceramic containers as well as the remains of servants, accompanied by personal objects and more offerings from the funeral rites.

The tomb, López Luján says, would not be as large as that of Tutankhamun in Egypt or the Maya funeral chambers of Copán in Honduras, "because the Mexicas [Aztecs] never build arches or vaults. It might be a very small room full of offerings."

(Related: "Ancient Maya Tomb Found: Upright Skeleton, Unusual Location.")

Slow Going

Despite rising expectations, the archaeologist said he and his team must be patient.

Only by working slowly and methodically will the team be able to reconstruct the funerary customs and other artifacts that could shed light on the Aztec economy, political system, and religion as it existed before the arrival of the Spanish in the 1500s.

And now the workers must grapple with yet more challenges: the weather and a high water table.

"We have to go very slow," he said, "because now we are in the rainy season."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... 64265.html
 
Note to the moderators: A search turned up nothing on the subject. Please move this if it's already been done. Thanks.

For anyone interested in Aztec civilization, here is an excellent video of the Aztec "whistles of death" Quite possibly the most bone-chilling sound I've ever heard....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9Nk6FnNxDU
 
Sounds like the noise the foxes make when they're shagging in the bushes down the end of my garden.
 
I was upstairs playing it and Techy was in the kitchen. He came up and said, what the flippin'eck was that? :shock:
Scared him half to death! :lol:
 
I was expecting something bone chilling after reading all the posts but really the noises were just from some very badly made whistles... :?
 
hmmm...I dunno about shagging, but that screaming sound that foxes make is pretty alarming, IMO !

The whistles definitely scared the bejeebers out of everyone in my house. I thought the animal sounds they were able to produce were pretty clever.
It led to a discussion about if whether or not what's frightening to someone is influenced by culture, etc. (frightening in a more psychological sense, I mean). Since we don't live far from what was Mezo-America, maybe it's something deeply ingrained in the place, somehow...

Well, it's just a theory we whipped up. :p
 
Aztec Conquest Altered Genetics Among Early Mexico Inhabitants, New DNA Study Shows
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 095234.htm

Using ancient DNA (aDNA) sampling, Jaime Mata-Míguez, an anthropology graduate student and lead author of the study, tracked the biological comings and goings of the Otomí people following the incorporation of Xaltocan into the Aztec empire. (Credit: Photos provided by Lisa Overholtzer, Wichita State University.)

Jan. 30, 2013 — For centuries, the fate of the original Otomí inhabitants of Xaltocan, the capital of a pre-Aztec Mexican city-state, has remained unknown. Researchers have long wondered whether they assimilated with the Aztecs or abandoned the town altogether.

According to new anthropological research from The University of Texas at Austin, Wichita State University and Washington State University, the answers may lie in DNA. Following this line of evidence, the researchers theorize that some original Otomies, possibly elite rulers, may have fled the town. Their exodus may have led to the reorganization of the original residents within Xaltocan, or to the influx of new residents, who may have intermarried with the Otomí population.

Using ancient DNA (aDNA) sampling, Jaime Mata-Míguez, an anthropology graduate student and lead author of the study, tracked the biological comings and goings of the Otomí people following the incorporation of Xaltocan into the Aztec empire. The study, published in American Journal of Physical Anthropology, is the first to provide genetic evidence for the anthropological cold case.

Learning more about changes in the size, composition, and structure of past populations helps anthropologists understand the impact of historical events, including imperial conquest, colonization, and migration, Mata-Míguez says. The case of Xaltocan is extremely valuable because it provides insight into the effects of Aztec imperialism on Mesoamerican populations.

Historical documents suggest that residents fled Xaltocan in 1395 AD, and that the Aztec ruler sent taxpayers to resettle the site in 1435 AD. Yet archaeological evidence indicates some degree of population stability across the imperial transition, deepening the mystery. Recently unearthed human remains from before and after the Aztec conquest at Xaltocan provide the rare opportunity to examine this genetic transition.

As part of the study, Mata-Míguez and his colleagues sampled mitochondrial aDNA from 25 bodies recovered from patios outside excavated houses in Xaltocan. They found that the pre-conquest maternal aDNA did not match those of the post-conquest era. These results are consistent with the idea that the Aztec conquest of Xaltocan had a significant genetic impact on the town.

Mata-Míguez suggests that long-distance trade, population movement and the reorganization of many conquered populations caused by Aztec imperialism could have caused similar genetic shifts in other regions of Mexico as well.

In focusing on mitochondrial DNA, this study only traced the history of maternal genetic lines at Xaltocan. Future aDNA analyses will be needed to clarify the extent and underlying causes of the genetic shift, but this study suggests that Aztec imperialism may have significantly altered at least some Xaltocan households.

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Texas at Austin.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

Jaime Mata-Míguez, Lisa Overholtzer, Enrique Rodríguez-Alegría, Brian M. Kemp, Deborah A. Bolnick. The genetic impact of aztec imperialism: Ancient mitochondrial DNA evidence from Xaltocan, Mexico. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2012; 149 (4): 504 DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.22152
 
Aztec Dog Graveyard Unearthed

Archeologists have been amazed to discover what may have been an ancient pet cemetery under an apartment building in Mexico City. The Aztecs believed the spirits of dogs could guide human souls to the afterlife or protect buildings, but this is the first time a group of dogs has been found buried together with no apparent connection to a building or a deceased person, the AP finds. Around a dozen dogs were found buried in a pit that dates to the heyday of the Aztec empire.

"This is not the first time a burial of a dog has been found, but it is the first find where many dogs were carefully buried together, in a setting that is like a cemetery," an anthropology professor explains. Archeologists plan to dig deeper to seek evidence that could help interpret the find, and to examine the remains of the dogs to determine the cause of death, reports Past Horizons. Last year, archeologists were puzzled to find a dog head on an Aztec sacrifice rack alongside those of human victims.

SOURCE: http://www.newser.com/story/182413/azte ... rthed.html
 
''The scream of a thousand corpses: Horrifying sounds of the Aztec death whistle''
12.17.2014 10:26 am


deathwhistlefrommexicosdfsdf.jpg


More here, http://dangerousminds.net/comments/horrifying_aztec_death_whistle

And if you're anything like me now you'll be wanting to make one straight away! http://www.ehow.com/how_6981624_make-aztec-whistles-death.html Get yourself some Premo Sculpey it's very nice stuff to work with.
 
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Scary! Just like a human scream! :eek:
 
New findings from an international team of archaeological researchers highlight the complexity of geopolitics in Aztec era Mesoamerica and illustrate how the relationships among ancient states extended beyond warfare and diplomacy to issues concerning trade and the flow of goods.

The work was done by researchers from North Carolina State University, the Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional-Unidad Mérida, El Colegio de Michoacán and Purdue University.

The researchers focused on an independent republic called Tlaxcallan in what is now central Mexico, about 75 miles east of modern Mexico City. Tlaxcallan was founded in the mid-13th century and, by 1500, was effectively surrounded by the Aztec Empire - but never lost its independence. In fact, Tlaxcallan supported Cortés and played a critical role in the Spanish Conquest of Mexico in the 16th century.

The new research focuses on where the people of Tlaxcallan obtained their obsidian in the century before the arrival of Cortés. Obsidian is a volcanic glass that was widely used in everything from household tools and weapons to jewelry and religious objects. But Tlaxcallan did not have a source of obsidian within its territory - so where did it come from? ...

http://phys.org/news/2015-03-team-underscores-complexity-geopolitics-age.html
 
Maybe they got salmonella from eating the Spaniards.

Two studies offer evidence suggesting salmonella may have killed off the Aztecs
February 22, 2017 by Bob Yirka in Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

(Phys.org)—Two separate studies conducted by two teams of researchers has led to evidence suggesting that salmonella infections may have been one of the factors that led to the deaths of the vast majority of the Aztecs living in Mexico after the arrival of the Spaniards. Both studies were conducted by teams with members from around the globe and both resulted in papers that have been uploaded to the bioRxiv preprint server as they await review prior to formal publication.

Spanish explorers arrived in the New World in what is now Mexico in 1519—it is believed that the native population of Aztecs at that time was approximately 25 million. A hundred years later, that number had dropped to just 1 million. Prior research has suggested that the population decline came about mostly due to diseases carried by explorers from Europe, but to date, no disease has been fingered as the culprit. In this new effort, both teams of researchers suggest it might have been a unique strain of salmonella called Salmonella enterica, also known as Paratyphi C. It has been likened to typhus, and in modern times, kills approximately 10 to 15 percent of those infected.

In the first study, the team sequenced DNA from the teeth of Aztecs people that had died during a time called the cocoliztli—a great pestilence that ran from 1545 to 1576, killing off approximately 80 percent of the population. Of the 29 samples collected, 24 were linked to the cocoliztli. The researchers report that they found S. enterica in several of the samples. More details are forthcoming, the team notes, when their paper is published. ...

"Two studies offer evidence suggesting salmonella may have killed off the Aztecs" February 22, 2017 https://phys.org/news/2017-02-evidence-salmonella-aztecs.html
 
Aztec human sacrifice has long been described as a matter of killing men (e.g., captured warriors). New findings indicate men weren't the only sacrificial victims.

Tower of human skulls in Mexico casts new light on Aztecs

A tower of human skulls unearthed beneath the heart of Mexico City has raised new questions about the culture of sacrifice in the Aztec Empire after crania of women and children surfaced among the hundreds embedded in the forbidding structure. ...

Historians relate how the severed heads of captured warriors adorned tzompantli, or skull racks, found in a number of Mesoamerican cultures before the Spanish conquest.

But the archaeological dig in the bowels of old Mexico City that began in 2015 suggests that picture was not complete.

"We were expecting just men, obviously young men, as warriors would be, and the thing about the women and children is that you'd think they wouldn't be going to war," said Rodrigo Bolanos, a biological anthropologist investigating the find.

"Something is happening that we have no record of, and this is really new, a first in the Huey Tzompantli," he added. ...

FULL STORY (With Photos): http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-archaeology-skulls-idUSKBN19M3Q6
 
Maybe they got salmonella from eating the Spaniards.

Two studies offer evidence suggesting salmonella may have killed off the Aztecs
February 22, 2017 by Bob Yirka in Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

(Phys.org)—Two separate studies conducted by two teams of researchers has led to evidence suggesting that salmonella infections may have been one of the factors that led to the deaths of the vast majority of the Aztecs living in Mexico after the arrival of the Spaniards. Both studies were conducted by teams with members from around the globe and both resulted in papers that have been uploaded to the bioRxiv preprint server as they await review prior to formal publication.

Spanish explorers arrived in the New World in what is now Mexico in 1519—it is believed that the native population of Aztecs at that time was approximately 25 million. A hundred years later, that number had dropped to just 1 million. Prior research has suggested that the population decline came about mostly due to diseases carried by explorers from Europe, but to date, no disease has been fingered as the culprit. In this new effort, both teams of researchers suggest it might have been a unique strain of salmonella called Salmonella enterica, also known as Paratyphi C. It has been likened to typhus, and in modern times, kills approximately 10 to 15 percent of those infected.

In the first study, the team sequenced DNA from the teeth of Aztecs people that had died during a time called the cocoliztli—a great pestilence that ran from 1545 to 1576, killing off approximately 80 percent of the population. Of the 29 samples collected, 24 were linked to the cocoliztli. The researchers report that they found S. enterica in several of the samples. More details are forthcoming, the team notes, when their paper is published. ...

"Two studies offer evidence suggesting salmonella may have killed off the Aztecs" February 22, 2017 https://phys.org/news/2017-02-evidence-salmonella-aztecs.html

More on the salmonella.

What Wiped Out the Aztecs? Scientists Find New Clues.

Salmonella could be partially to blame for a 16th century epidemic that killed millions.
From 1545 to 1550, Aztecs in what is today southern Mexico experienced a deadly outbreak. Anywhere from five to 15 million people died. Locally, it was known as cocoliztli, but the exact cause or causes has been a mystery for the past 500 years.

Now, a new study published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolutionsuggests the outbreak could have been caused by a deadly form of salmonella.

Salmonella enterica—subset Paratyphi C to be exact—was present in the DNA of ten different individuals buried at the only known burial site, Teposcolula-Yucundaa, associated with cocoliztli.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com...ellamexico&utm_campaign=Content&sf179400809=1
 
Taking into account the towers of human skulls and the general nature of mass sacrifice, that salmonella bug might've been a good thing.
 
There are some things that have me thinking about the whole scénario of a viral (or bacteriological) holocaust that swept the native American population, caused by the arrival of Europeans during the early XVIth century.

First of all, we had a strong stream of virus and bacteria crossing the Atlantic inside (or around) European hosts. What about the inverse stream? Why we don't have exemples of America exporting lethal diseases to Europe? Well, ok, there were more Europeans arriving in America than Americans arriving in Europe. But what about the Europeans that lived for a while in America or visited their ports, and then came back to Europe? Apart from the infamous syphilis, no other American disease hit the XVIth century Europe?

Interestingly, Europe had been impacted by a huge bacteriological event, the Plague, some 150 years before the Europeans started to arrive in America. It was caused by migrations of entire populations on Central Asia and Eastern Europe. The Plague was mostly an impact wave of the Central Asian demographic shifts, instead of a wave of "conquest" and colonisqtion.

Roughly, 50% of the European population died during the worst period of the Plague (that kept coming back in smaller waves). But if we pick just one case, the impact of Cortez arrival in Mexico, the depopulation is estimated by 90%. And Native American could have had the territorial extension on their side, but it hasn’t helped.

Dozens of different diseases hit the American population in waves. After the “discoverers” and the “explorers”, came the settlers, of course. Who, among these two groups, had the hardest impact on the native population, in terms of diseases?

What made Europeans so resistant to American diseases? Why weren’t Conquistadores hit by waves of American diseases? Why haven’t American diseases hit the European mainland, carried by Europeans or Americans?


I believe that there are many other questions transversal to these ones, but I guess the main question mark is on the ones I’m asking here.
 
What made Europeans so resistant to American diseases? Why weren’t Conquistadores hit by waves of American diseases? Why haven’t American diseases hit the European mainland, carried by Europeans or Americans?
I don't think they were resistant as such, more that horrible overcrowding and disgusting hygiene in European cities was great at incubating and propagating nasty diseases. You can probably add in domestic animals like pigs which I don't think they had there and which are similar enough to humans to share diseases.
 
I don't think they were resistant as such, more that horrible overcrowding and disgusting hygiene in European cities was great at incubating and propagating nasty diseases. You can probably add in domestic animals like pigs which I don't think they had there and which are similar enough to humans to share diseases.

Good point, I thought about hygiene issues, but I confess that overlooked the domestic animals vectors. But, then again, the first wave of Europeans was a small contingent. Nevertheless, the impact of this reduced contingent was huge. I don't remember to have read or heard about a similar impact caused by the arrival of Europeans in India, China or Japan, around the same timeframe.

Anyway, the lack of familiarity with hygiene would suggest that, even in contact with American diseases (apart from syphilis), Europeans could have served as hosts to carry them back to Europe.
 
Remember the incubation times. Anyone infected by an american disease might be dead before they reached Europe again.
 
Anyway, the lack of familiarity with hygiene would suggest that, even in contact with American diseases (apart from syphilis), Europeans could have served as hosts to carry them back to Europe.
What I was trying to suggest (and might be wrong) is that the reason Europeans didn't catch a bunch of deadly New World diseases is because those diseases simply didn't exist. They just didn't develop there in the same way they developed in the foul disease factory that was Europe at the time. Contact with China etc had already been occurring for hundreds (probably thousands) of years whereas the New World was, er new!
Remember the incubation times. Anyone infected by an american disease might be dead before they reached Europe again.
Sounds plausible but I am just not sure that there was ever record of many people getting struck down dead in the America's in the first place.
 
What I was trying to suggest (and might be wrong) is that the reason Europeans didn't catch a bunch of deadly New World diseases is because those diseases simply didn't exist. They just didn't develop there in the same way they developed in the foul disease factory that was Europe at the time.

And I agree with you there. I believe that the way Europe developped created, at the same time, an array of diseases but also the defenses that come with them. Europeans would carry diseases to which they would be immune.

Another tricky question would be : have any European (or group of), at any time, become conscious that they were "cleaning" the New World from its former inhabitants? Is this related to the unacceptable excuse that Natives were "lazy", so the settlers needed the slave work to colonize the continent?
 
Another tricky question would be : have any European (or group of), at any time, become conscious that they were "cleaning" the New World from its former inhabitants? Is this related to the unacceptable excuse that Natives were "lazy", so the settlers needed the slave work to colonize the continent?
Early settlers traded blankets (that had been in contact with smallpox sufferers) with the natives. There is some possibility that it was deliberate.
 
Early settlers traded blankets (that had been in contact with smallpox sufferers) with the natives. There is some possibility that it was deliberate.

The British officers in charge during the siege of Fort Pitt (now Pittsburgh) in 1763 documented giving smallpox-exposed blankets and other articles to native emissaries with the expressed intent of fomenting disease.

It's not known whether this specific transfer infected anyone, but the fact remains that during that particular war and during the following few years smallpox ravaged the tribes living to the west and southwest (from whose populations the combatants were primarily drawn).
 
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