The Cerro Gordo Site: A Rural Settlement of the Aztec Period in the Basin of Mexico

While the dramatic recent excavations at the site of the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan have vividly brought to life the richness of Aztec elite rituals at the capital of this huge, wealthy, and powerful empire, life in rural settlements in the Basin of Mexico at the same time is not as well understood. Available data on the subject are limited to ethnohistorical documentation and the general surveys of the Basin of Mexico Project, and to isolated instances of excavation. In this report, a rural village in the Teotihuacan Valley is described, using information derived from an intensive survey of the site, and drawing also on ethnohistorical sources, in order to address such issues as the relationship of the village to its environmental and sociopolitical settings, and the nature of the variety of architectural remains found at the site.