Tlatilco
[1] It gives its name to the "Tlatilco culture", which also includes the town of Tlapacoya, on the eastern shore of Lake Chalco, as well as the Coapexco site which lies east of the Amecameca municipality within Mexico State.
[9] The last field season also undertook a systematic survey of non-burial structures, leading to the realization that these hundreds of burials were apparently located under ancient houses—although no traces of them remain - as well as among the various trash pits, and that Tlatilco was not a necropolis, but rather a major chiefdom center.
[10] Many burials, primarily of high status individuals, show evidence of dental mutilation and artificial cranial deformation, most probably through the use of cradleboards.
The presence of these items is further evidence that these buried individuals were of high status, as objects such as figurines were very rarely found as burial furniture in Formative-period Mexico.
The brick-workers were attracted to the site due to the fact that the clayish soil in the area proved to be a good source in the brick-making process.
[13] Additionally, the brick-makers quickly came to the realization that selling antiquities was more profitable than making bricks, and it would be another six years before Covarrubias and his collaborators would actually start excavations.
Many of the objects purchased at Tlatilco by dealers and collectors between the 1930s and 1960s eventually made it into both private and public museum collections, in the United States especially.
[17] Tlatilco ceramic figurines come in many different shapes and sizes, and they depict a wide variety of individuals, giving us a very useful insight to the lives of the people that inhabited this place so many years ago.
Artifacts include:[18] The noticeably high number of two-headed figures has led some researchers to wonder whether Tlatilco was perhaps a cluster site for conjoined twins.
[19] Additionally, the frequent emphasis of females with swelling breasts and thighs in combination with a narrow waist has led some researchers to speculate as to the existence of an ancient cult dedicated to fertility as part of local tradition.
