El Proyecto Cantona 1992-1994, patrocinado por el Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia de México, ha recuperado importantes datos nuevos sobre este impresionante sitio prehispánico ubicado en la porción meridional de la Cuenca Oriental de Puebla. Basado en estas recientes investigaciones, este informe presenta las características claves del sitio, incluyendo la planificación urbana, el sistema de calzadas y calles, los grupos mayores de arquitectura y la asimetría patente en la arquitectura. Las fechas de radiocarbono colocan la ocupación mayor de Cantona en el período Clásico.

Mortuary practices rank among the best sources of archaeological data from which to infer social organization, ideology, religious beliefs, and to a certain extent, the political structure of past societies. This essay (1) reviews mortuary practices among prehistoric groups of Puerto Rico, (2) proposes a possible sequence of changes through time, and (3) presents explanations that account for the observed changes. Aside from evident correlation with broad cultural developments, changes in mortuary practices can be understood best in the context of parallel developments in social, political, and economic complexity. We argue that in Puerto Rico a shift in mortuary practices from burying dead relatives in centralized cemeteries to the disposition of the dead in domestic contexts was strongly related to a shift from largely kin-based societies to the ranked organization of cacicazgos (chiefdoms). Particularly, we conclude that the shift in social organization from emphasis on extended descent groups that acted as corporate groups to nuclear households reflects a strategy utilized by the emerging elite to dismantle and reorient previous communal institutions. This shift was accomplished through the monopolization, by the emerging elite, of the tenets surrounding the cult of the ancestors to create a legitimizing ideology.

In Inka mythology, a large sandstone rock on the Island of the Sun, in Lake Titicaca, was the origin place of the sun. It was there that the sun first emerged and designated the Inka as his children. Under Inka rule, and perhaps before, this rock was a destination of pilgrims who went to worship and make offerings to the sun. We present evidence that a set of solar markers existed on a ridge northwest of the sacred rock. These structures framed the sunset for groups of watchers on the June solstice, near the time of the sun festival, Inti Raymi. Historic information coupled with the organization of archaeological sites within the sanctuary area on the island suggests that elites and common pilgrims may have observed the sunset from different locations.

Pottery and clays from the Chalchihuites region of northwestern Zacatecas are characterized to examine ceramic production and exchange among settlements between A. D. 400 and 900. Instrumental neutron activation and petrographic analysis of 134 pottery and 26 clay samples from three Chalchihuites ceremonial centers identify pottery made from local clays and distinguish pottery found at each center that was not made from local clay deposits. Residents of Alta Vista, the region’s main center, acquired an elaborate painted ware from a second center located 30 km away after A. D. 650. The ceramic compositional data provide a basis for understanding the distance and direction that pottery was exchanged in Chalchihuites as economic activities increased in the region.