Ticomán is an

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...

located in the

Gustavo A. Madero Gustavo Adolfo Madero González (16 January 187518 February 1913), born in Parras de la Fuente, Coahuila, Mexico, was a participant in the Mexican Revolution against Porfirio Díaz along with other members of his wealthy family. He was als ...

municipality in

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

. It corresponds to an ancient town of the Pre-Classical Mesoamerican period, whose inhabitants could have been

Otomi The Otomi (; es, Otomí ) are an indigenous people of Mexico inhabiting the central Mexican Plateau (Altiplano) region. The Otomi are an indigenous people of Mexico who inhabit a discontinuous territory in central Mexico. They are linguisticall ...

s. It was a contemporary population of

Tlatilco Tlatilco was a large pre-Columbian village in the Valley of Mexico situated near the modern-day town of the same name in the Mexican Federal District. It was one of the first chiefdom centers to arise in the Valley, flourishing on the western sho ...

Cuicuilco Cuicuilco is an important archaeological site located on the southern shore of Lake Texcoco in the southeastern Valley of Mexico, in what is today the borough of Tlalpan in Mexico City. Some historians believe this settlement goes back to 1400 B ...

, El Arbolillo and Zacatenco.

Location

Ticomán was a town located on the northwest bank of the

Lake Texcoco Lake Texcoco ( es, Lago de Texcoco) was a natural lake within the "Anahuac" or Valley of Mexico. Lake Texcoco is best known as where the Aztecs built the city of Tenochtitlan, which was located on an island within the lake. After the Spanish con ...

. To the north of the site is the Sierra de Guadalupe. Some towns near Ticomán were Tlatilco and Zacatenco. The origin of the name of this town comes from ''Tepecoma'' or ''Tecota'', which means handmade hill.

Archaeological data

Ticomán was an agricultural town that accounts for the social processes that preceded the emergence of state organizations in

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. W ...

. The archaeological evidence allows us to observe that the society of Ticomán was stratified, but they were organized in a

chiefdom A chiefdom is a form of hierarchical political organization in non-industrial societies usually based on kinship, and in which formal leadership is monopolized by the legitimate senior members of select families or 'houses'. These elites form a ...

. The site of Ticomán was explored by

Franz Boas Franz Uri Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942) was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". His work is associated with the movements known as historical ...

. The findings have served to construct the chronology of the

Valley of Mexico The Valley of Mexico ( es, Valle de México) is a highlands plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with present-day Mexico City and the eastern half of the State of Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico wa ...

during the Preclassic period. Typical ceramics from the Ticomán phase have been found in several places in central Mexico, in addition to Ticomán, in

Temamatla Temamatla is a municipality in the State of Mexico in Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

(Ramírez et al., 2000: 100-118) and the

Mezquital Valley The Mezquital Valley ( ote, B’ot’ähi) is a series of small valleys and flat areas located in Central Mexico, about north of Mexico City, located in the western part of the state of Hidalgo. It is part of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, with ...

(Hernández Reyes, 2004: 158). According to Ramírez et al. (2000: 161), Ticomán phase ceramics is an Otomi pottery. Given its stylistic similarities to the Coyotlatelco ceramics of the Epiclassic period in central Mexico, the latter would also be a pottery of Otomi origin, although it may have been manufactured by peoples of various ethnic identities.

References

*Hernández Reyes, Carlos (2004): «El Preclásico superior en Hidalgo y una hipótesis sobre la cerámica otomí temprana y la coyotlatelco». En Nava L., Fernando (comp.), Otopames. Memoria de primer coloquio. Querétaro 1995. University City: IIA-UNAM. *Ramírez, Felipe, Lorena Gámez, Fernán González and Mari Carmen Serra-Puche (2000). Cerámica de Temamatla. University City: IIA-UNAM. {{Authority control Otomi settlements Archaeological sites in Mexico City Indigenous peoples in Mexico City

Location

Archaeological data

See also

References