Postclassic pre-hispanic population replacement in the Valley of Mexico. A cranial shape geometric morphometric approach

MIQUEL HERNÁNDEZ,; MARTÍNEZ ABADÍAS, NEUS; GONZÁLEZ MARTÍN, ANTONIO; BAUTISTA MARTÍNEZ, JOSEFINA; GÓMEZ VALDÉS, JORGE; MIRSHA QUINTO,; MIREIA ESPARZA,; GONZÁLEZ-JOSÉ, ROLANDO

Budapest

Congreso; 15th European Congress of the Anthropological Association; 2006

This paper deals with the problem of the continuity or replacement in the Basin of Mexico population between the transition from Classic to Postclassic periods (around 900 AD). The aim of the work is to contrast the explanation of the foreign origin of the Mexicas (or Aztecs), and the subsequent  replacement of the populations in the Central Valley, with the continuity of Classical period populations.    For this, 7 skull series belonging to the different cultural periods of the Valley of Mexico have been studied, as well as 5 skull series from the North Mexico in order to obtain a comparative reference context.   From the 3D coordinates of 12 cranial landmarks the shape matrices of  12 populations have been obtained, and these populations have been compared by means of the 66 measurements generated from the euclidean distances among all possible pairs of landmarks. The dendrogram obtained, after bootstrap resamples, shows that the Teotihuacan series (Classic) and the Mexica series from Tlatelolco (Late Postclassic) are grouped in different clusters. Whereas the Teotihuacans have more similarity with the northern series of the caves from Coahuila (Candelaria and Paila), the Mexicas resemble more to the Tepanecos from Azcapotzalco in the Valley of Mexico (Early Postclassic).         The comparison between the Classic and Posclassic skulls has been carrying out by means of the EDMA-II geometric morphometric method. The differences obtained between these periods have been interpreted as a change of shape skulls in the Valley of Mexico population due to immigrations that took place previously to the formation of the Mexica empire.     Keywords: Cranial shape, Valley of Mexico, Migration, EDMA