We are pleased to announce the third session of our 2025-2026 M.A.R.I. Lunch Talk Series. This Friday, September 26, at noon, Dr. Tatsuya Murakami (Tulane University) will present "Ritual Practice at Terminal Formative Tlalancaleca: Implications for Regional, Macroregional, and Interregional Interactions."
Abstract: Tlalancaleca was one of the largest settlements in Central Mexico before the rise of Teotihuacan and likely acted as a center for the development of Central Mexican urban traditions whose influence would persist through the Classic and Postclassic periods. Tlalancaleca survived the environmental and social turmoil caused by the Plinian eruption of Popocatepetl around AD 50, and the city continued to expand until it was abandoned around AD 250. Our research at Tlalancaleca has revealed that a new ritual complex, consisting of pecked crosses, canals, and pocitos (holes carved into boulders) and associated with water and fertility, appeared by the Terminal Formative period (100 BC-AD 250). Some of the elements were present at earlier Formative sites, but they coalesce together for the first time at Tlalancaleca. We suggest that this ritual complex was shared with early Teotihuacan and spread further to the west during the Classic period.
Bio:: Dr. Murakami received his PhD from Arizona State University in 2010. His research focuses on the materiality of power relations among different social segments as expressed in human and material resources in Central Mexico. His research is specifically concerned with developing a set of concepts and methodologies to discern the complex social landscapes of power based on practice-based and multidisciplinary approaches, including the application of archaeometric methods. He has conducted construction experiments, materials analysis of lime plaster and cut stone blocks, and an analysis of lapidary objects (especially greenstone) at Teotihuacan. He is currently directing an archaeological project at the Formative site of Tlalancaleca, Puebla, Mexico, which is investigating sociopolitical dynamics in a pre-state society and broader regional processes leading to state formation at Teotihuacan.
M.A.R.I. Lunch Talks invite guest speakers to host seminars at M.A.R.I. on a wide variety of topics related to the archaeology, history, and ethnography of Mesoamerica and other world areas. The events typically take place on Fridays around noon and can be delivered in English and Spanish.