I relate these findings to the social dynamic of Early Formative Mesoamerica in relation to Tlatilco culture and what can be inferred about their customs and practices. Through comparative analysis of the mainly ceramic Tlatilco objects including figurines, vessels, masks, roller stamps and seals, as well musical instruments, I have identified local trends as well as unique occurrences. The questions I address revolve around the sociopolitical transformation of the Early Formative period as experienced by Tlatilco as we start to see a rise in the civilizations in Mesoamerica and communities that develop to new levels as the complexity broadened. Dating to the Early Formative period (1400-1100 BCE, calibrated), Tlatilco had extensive contact with its contemporaries, which is evident in its ceramic variability and other ritual traditions known from the burial records.

Building on the objects in that collection and many other collections, I aim to understand the identities of the population of Tlatilco. A chance encounter with Tlatilco artifacts that had been in storage and uncurated in a museum moved me to change the course of my Mesoamerican research and provided the foundation for this dissertation. The ancient site of the Tlatilco was heavily looted prior to systematic archaeological excavation and has therefore, I assert, never received the academic attention it deserves. Wherever there are written records available from the archaeological field seasons, I have related museum artifact findings to the knowledge gained from these. I use the many collections of artifacts found in museums across the United States to better understand Tlatilco and relate my findings to the existing archaeological record where it exists. This dissertation uses an artifact-based approach to understand the culture of the Tlatilco community who lived in the Basin of Mexico 3000 years ago. I argue that thinking of houses as places of children enables us to see that children were essential to daily practice, the construction and transmission of social identity, and household economic success.Īrchaeological methods extend beyond excavations and their analysis and interpretation. This research brings together multiple lines of evidence from the Early Postclassic site of Xaltocan, Mexico, including ethnohistory, burials, and figurines to reconstruct the social roles and identities of children and to problematize our understanding of households. Thus, archaeologists should reconceptualize houses as places of children. Further, children's material culture serves to both create and disrupt social norms and daily life, making children essential to understanding broader mechanisms of change and continuity.

Yet children shaped the decisions and motivations of adults and influenced the structure and organization of daily activities and household space.

Despite the recent attention given to the archaeology of childhood, households continue to be treated by archaeologists as the product of adult behavior and activities.

Mexican childhood memories