BEFORE TEOTIHUACAN—ALTICA, EXCHANGE, INTERACTIONS, AND THE ORIGINS OF COMPLEX SOCIETY IN THE NORTHEAST BASIN OF MEXICO Deborah L. Nichols a and Wesley D. Stoner b a Department of Anthropology, Dartmouth College, 403 Silsby Hall, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755 b Department of Anthropology, University of Arkansas, Old Main 330, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72703 Abstract For several decades, little research has been directed towards understanding the beginnings of complex society in the Teotihuacan Valley. Recent archaeological investigations at the Early–Middle Formative site of Altica provide a fresh perspective on dating the initial establishment of agricultural villages, early social and economic differentiation, and the development of intra-and interregional exchange networks to test comparative models of political economy. INTRODUCTION The development of complex societies in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica “presents an example of profound transformations in the scale of societies associated with changes in labor relations and cooperative networks rather than with technology” (Carballo and Feinman 2016:292–293). This transformation is perhaps most dramatic in the first century a.d. with the explosive growth of Teotihuacan, which has become the archetype for Mesoamerican corporate organization. The process of increasing social complexity had begun, however, more than a millennium prior during a time when long-distance interaction networks thrust together much of Mesoamerica. Our research at the Early and Middle Formative site of Altica reveals that the Teotihuacan Valley became part of this far-flung interaction network long before the valley bottom was settled and provides a fresh understanding about the foundation of later complex societies (Figure 1). Changes during the Formative period formed the foundation of the Mesoamerican world and the lifeways of its people (Serra Puche 1993:15). Until we began the Altica project in 2014, for over 30 years there had been little research focused on understand- ing the Formative period and the emergence of complex societies in the Basin of Mexico, which was the heartland for the largest and most influential pre-Hispanic cities and states in Mesoamerica. The rapid growth and building expansion of Mexico City and sur- rounding towns and cities has destroyed or obscured most Formative-period sites in the Basin. Through our recent archaeolog- ical investigations at the Early to Middle Formative site of Altica, a 6-ha site in the upper piedmont of the Teotihuacan Valley, we examine the initial establishment of agricultural villages, early social and economic differentiation, and the development of intra- and interregional exchange networks and interactions to test comparative models of political economy (all dates presented in this article are calibrated.) BACKGROUND Vaillant (1930, 1931, 1935a, 1935b, 1938) from his early excava- tions defined major phases of the Formative period, along with pottery and figurine typologies within a culture history framework that continues to be modified and refined (Stoner and Nichols 2019b). The Altica project undertook an attribute-based analysis of Altica ceramics and we note some cross ties to other assemblages in discussing our composition analysis (Stoner and Nichols 2019a). Tlatilco, in the southern Basin, became a key site in debates about “the Olmec problem.” Diffusionism through migrations, missionar- ies, colonization, and trade was posited early as underlying interre- gional interactions and the spread of styles, wealth objects, and religious symbolism of Mesoamerica’s first horizon. At the 1967 Dumbarton Oaks conference, Flannery (1968:79) drew on ethnographic analogy to offer a processual model for Formative interaction. He began with the disclaimer that his paper “[would] perhaps come as a disappointment: I cannot even propose a migration from the Olmec area to the Valley of Oaxaca, a distance of only a hundred miles of so. Nor will I offer (as a con- solation) even so much as a small invasion, or a proselytizing expe- dition of Olmec ‘missionaries.’” The 1960s and 1970s saw significant research activity focused on the Formative period in the Basin of Mexico (McBride 1974; Nichols 1982; Niederberger 1976, 1979; Sanders et al. 1975, 1979; Santley 1984, 1993; Serre Puche 1988, 1993; Tolstoy and Paradis 1970; Tolstoy et al. 1977). Cultural ecology and neo-evolution framed the regional set- tlement pattern surveys initiated by Sanders (Sanders et al. 1975, 1979) in the Teotihuacan Valley that discovered Altica and other Formative sites (Figure 2). In the 1970s, Tolstoy (1984, 1989; Tolstoy and Paradis 1970; Tolstoy et al. 1977) revisited Altica to take surface collections as 369 E-mail correspondence to: deborah.l.nichols@dartmouth.edu Ancient Mesoamerica, 30 (2019), 369–382 Copyright © Cambridge University Press, 2019 doi:10.1017/S0956536118000305 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536118000305 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Dartmouth College, on 13 Aug 2019 at 15:04:01, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.