CALIXTLAHUACA: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS ON URBAN FEATURES AND POLITICS

During the current excavations at Calixtlahuaca, many aspects of its urban landscape have been uncovered. By using these details, my objective is to determine the political environment of the site. However, in Mesoamerican archaeology, there has been little evaluation of the politics in smaller city-states as compared to larger ones such as Tenochtitlan. In order to solve this dilemma, I compared Calixtlahuaca to two groups of Mesoamerican capital cities: (1) city-state centers such as Cholula, Tlaxcallan, various Aztec city-states; and (2) hillside sites similar to Calixtlahuaca in topographic placement. The importance of certain elements in these sites is more heavily considered than others and sites that have pre-existing knowledge about their political systems took precedence. By comparing urban aspects of these sites including location, population, density, urban layout, and urban architecture, I have created a model that relates urban form to political organization. I applied this model to infer the political organization of Calixtlahuaca. This model can later be applied throughout Mesoamerica and eventually to sites at other regions.