From Roman gladiatorial combat to Egyptian animal mummies, capturing and manipulating wild carnivores has long been a way for humans to demonstrate state or individual power. Historians and scientists alike have attempted to determine when humans first began to use carnivores to establish their place on the social ladder, one of the earliest examples being Moctezuma's 14th century zoo at the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. A recent PLOS ONE study, however, reveals evidence from the ruins of the Mexican city of Teotihuacan that may push back the date of captivating carnivores by 1000 years.
Between the first and sixth centuries A.D., Teotihuacan was one of the largest and most powerful urban cities in Mesoamerica and was home to at least 25,000 people. When the city reached the height of its influence around 1300-1500 A.D., its architects designed massive temples to show off the city's power. The ruins of three of these incredible temples still stand: the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, the Pyramid of the Sun, and the Pyramid of the Moon.
During excavations from 1998-2004, the authors of this study found rare artifacts and human and animal remains in chambers in the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon. The authors focused the present study on the 194 animal remains, as they are evidence of one of the largest known animal sacrifices in Mesoamerica.
Of particular interest to the authors were the remains of carnivores like wolves, eagles, jaguars, and pumas, as we have little information about how humans related to carnivores prior to Montezuma's zoo in Tenochtitlan. Using isotope analysis and visual inspection of the bones, the authors were able to draw possible conclusions about the relationship between the carnivores in the chamber and the ancient inhabitants of Teotihuacan.
Visual examination of the animal skeletons suggested that some of the carnivores were kept in captivity. The authors found bone breaks and stress characteristic of captive animals – for example, three eagle skeletons showed stress on the lower part of the legs, where they may have been tied to a perch. Other deformities in the animal skeletons, such as bone fusion or abnormal growth, were evidence of infection, which typically only occur when animals are kept in close together in captivity.
Climate variability is one of the major forces in the rise and fall of agrarian states in Mexico and Peru, according to a team of researchers looking at both climate and archaeological records.
"We are arguing that the climate information in both areas is good enough to establish that climate is playing some role in the rise and fall of these city states," said Douglas Kennett, professor of environmental archaeology. "Now we need to further refine the archaeological data."
Kennett, working with Norbert Marwan, climatologist and statistician, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany, looked at climate records for central Mexico gleaned from a stalagmite collected from Juxtlahuaca Cave in the state of Guerrero. They also looked at the climate record preserved in the Quelccaya ice cape in the Cordillera Vilcanota portion of the Peruvian Andes.
In both cases the climate records are based on oxygen isotope measurements on datable layers of ice or stalagmite cave deposition. These records show annual changes in rainfall and temperature for 2,000 years in Mexico and 1,800 years in Peru.
"There is a long tradition of archaeology in both central Mexico and the Peruvian highlands," said Kennett. "There are also new high resolution climate records available that have not yet been capitalized on by archaeologists."
The researchers note that some refinement in archaeological dating in some areas is still needed, but that the rise and fall of major polities is reasonably well known.
Comparing the climate record with organized agrarian state level societies in Mexico, Kennett and Marwan looked at the rise and falls of three states -- Teotihuacán from 100 BCE to 650 CE, Toltec from 900 to 1150 CE and the Aztec Empire from 1400 to 1519.
An archaeologist has discovered liquid mercury at the end of a tunnel beneath a Mexican pyramid, a finding that could suggest the existence of a king’s tomb or a ritual chamber far below one of the most ancient cities of the Americas.
Mexican researcher Sergio Gómez announced on Friday that he had discovered “large quantities” of liquid mercury in a chamber below the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent, the third largest pyramid of Teotihuacan, the ruined city in central Mexico.
Gómez has spent six years slowly excavating the tunnel, which was unsealed in 2003 after 1,800 years. Last November, Gómez and a team announced they had found three chambers at the tunnel’s 300ft end, almost 60ft below the the temple. Near the entrance of the chambers, they a found trove of strange artifacts: jade statues, jaguar remains, a box filled with carved shells and rubber balls.
The demise of Mexico's enigmatic pre-Hispanic city of Teotihuacan stemmed from a conflict among the civilization's elite classes, with buildings set ablaze in the clash, according to a study.
The famed pyramids of the Sun and Moon are among the majestic structures that remain at the tourist site near Mexico City, centuries after Teotihuacan's population vanished.
What caused the civilization to abandon the sprawling city in the 7th century has been the subject of many studies, with political, economic and social problems believed to be behind the exodus.
Linda Manzanilla, an anthropologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, now says the collapse was the result of a confrontation between the city's rulers and an "intermediate elite" comprised of entrepreneurs.
The governing class ruled like a "corporate organization" that distributed power among each other, without dynasties or kings -- unlike the Mayan civilization elsewhere in Mexico.
The city, which at some point housed 125,000 people, was divided into neighborhoods where "mid-rank nobles who acted like entrepreneurs" competed to show off the best luxury goods, she told AFP.
"They competed among themselves to bring raw materials, and luxury goods from distant regions, and demonstrate the most attractive and rarest items," said Manzanilla.
This rivalry gave rise to tensions within the city, said Manzanilla, whose conclusions were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States.
The clash, she said, finally took place when "the governing elite realized that the neighborhood elites around the center of the city were getting richer and functioning in an autonomous way."
"They tried to take control, but it was too late," the researcher said.
Around 550 A.D., the revolt of the neighborhood entrepreneur led to the destruction of the Street of the Dead, which is now a major tourist site, and the main buildings of the ruling elite.
