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This study uses data collected during three seasons of survey and excavation to examine evidence for the importation of obsidian and the production of tools, particularly blades, in the periphery of obsidian exchange spheres in the Nejapa/Tavela region of Oaxaca, Mexico. Sourcing information from X-Ray Fluorescence reveals a wide-ranging and shifting utilization of both Mexican and Guatemalan sources. Differences in the assemblages from contemporaneous sites hint at the social and political complexity of the region, which was inhabited by Zapotec, Mixe, and Chontal language speakers in multiethnic communities. Visible manufacturing errors and evidence of recovery techniques suggest that local artisans were capable producers of prismatic blades, demonstrating invaluable skills in a region where obsidian was scarce. The paucity of raw material and artisan skill is attested by relatively low frequencies of obsidian, as well as by deliberate manufacturing techniques designed to maximize the output of blades from each core. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mexico's Central Highlands form one of Mesoamerica's fundamental cultural seams, a point of overlap between two traditions, one to the east and the other to the west. Although this area is usually included in the west, it can be more productively viewed as an interface, the physical space where people, goods, and ideas passed from one side to the other, and thus it holds many keys for our understanding of emerging social complexity in Mesoamerica. In reviewing the last two decades of Formative period (1500 BC-AD 100) research in this crucial territory, we focus on themes that reveal the variation and dynamism of interregional interaction, including the formation of regional traditions, exchange systems, and foreign 'influence,' and others that help contextualize the events and processes of that time, like household studies and environmental degradation. We stress that this part of Mexico is undergoing relentless development so time is of the essence if we are to broaden our perspectives on social evolution in the Central Highlands. This issue cannot be resolved by rescue and salvage work because it requires long-term, interdisciplinary projects to unravel multifaceted problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The pre-Hispanic settlement of Paquimé (ca. 1200–1450 AD) lay outside of urban Mesoamerica in arid northern Chihuahua, Mexico, yet the excavated remains of 322 scarlet macaws, tropical parrots whose northernmost habitat is 500km to the south, suggest that Paquimé had relationships with distant communities. Here, carbon and oxygen stable isotope analysis of 30 macaw bones determines whether the Paquimeños actively bred these parrots or traded with Mesoamerican groups to obtain the birds. The δ 13C values indicate that the macaws ate a diet of C4 plants, foods that were unavailable to wild macaws. In addition, δ 18O data suggest that the majority of the macaws spent their entire lives at Paquimé. We conclude that the ancient Paquimeños were in fact breeding scarlet macaws, although one bone with δ 18O values outside the local range suggests that the breeders also maintained exchange ties with the source areas of the birds. By confirming that Paquimeños implemented a system of local macaw reproduction outside the Mesoamerican region itself, this analysis provides new evidence about the economic and ideological interdependence of pre-Hispanic societies in the Americas. It is also suggestive of the pre-industrial capabilities of humans to extend the natural ranges of animal species. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]