Art, Ceremony, and War: An Archeological Analysis and Interpretations of the Aztec
Located in central Mexico, most notably a place called Tenochtitlan located on an island in Lake Texaco, was a civilization known as the Aztecs. The Aztecs were one of the powerful civilizations that dominated what is current Mexico. The Aztec were a people with a rich culture and have that have had a great influence on modern Mexico and even the world. After the end of the Aztec civilization their art, tools, and weapons were left behind; and through archeology we can learn about the different aspects of civilizations through what was left behind. By using the archeological process of recovering, analyzing, experimenting, and interpreting we recover pieces …show more content…
This celebration would occur at the end of every Aztec century which was every 52 years; the Aztec’s would gather in fear of the end of the world and when the sun rose than they would begin the ritual sacrifice. A fire would be set on the chest of the sacrificial victim and then once the fire is large enough the heart of the victim would be thrown into the fire. In homes they would take much of their pottery, tools, figurines, and other household items and throw them out into the patio. In doing this they would be getting rid of objects that have been more or less tainted by the previous …show more content…
The atlatl has been shown multiple times not to catapult the spears, but to throw them as you would without the atlatl; making it more or less just an extension of the spear throwers arm. Archeologists have gone through many ways that the atlatl functions, in Raymond’s paper “Experiments in the Function and Performance of the Weighted Atlatl” further explores the function of the atlatl. By going frame by frame from a film that replicated the use of the atlatl Raymond analyzed how the dart thrown by the atlatl would go in a straight path from the users throw. Raymond’s experiment backed up the hypothesis made by Calvin Howard in 1974 paper “The Atlatl: Function and Performance” where in his writing Howard claims that when thrown the atlatl rotates at the handle and when fully thrown the dart follows a straight line of trajectory (). Through experimentation archeologists how the atlatl was used to throw spears, though this seems useless to any new meaning or explanation to Aztec warfare or any other atlatl using culture, it does help answer much larger questions as to why the atlatl would have been used over the bow and arrow. Raymond states that a reason for the Aztecs use of the atlatl would have been due to “the advantage gained in projectile force and kinetic energy over the bow and arrow” (Raymond
Located in central Mexico, most notably a place called Tenochtitlan located on an island in Lake Texaco, was a civilization known as the Aztecs. The Aztecs were one of the powerful civilizations that dominated what is current Mexico. The Aztec were a people with a rich culture and have that have had a great influence on modern Mexico and even the world. After the end of the Aztec civilization their art, tools, and weapons were left behind; and through archeology we can learn about the different aspects of civilizations through what was left behind. By using the archeological process of recovering, analyzing, experimenting, and interpreting we recover pieces …show more content…
This celebration would occur at the end of every Aztec century which was every 52 years; the Aztec’s would gather in fear of the end of the world and when the sun rose than they would begin the ritual sacrifice. A fire would be set on the chest of the sacrificial victim and then once the fire is large enough the heart of the victim would be thrown into the fire. In homes they would take much of their pottery, tools, figurines, and other household items and throw them out into the patio. In doing this they would be getting rid of objects that have been more or less tainted by the previous …show more content…
The atlatl has been shown multiple times not to catapult the spears, but to throw them as you would without the atlatl; making it more or less just an extension of the spear throwers arm. Archeologists have gone through many ways that the atlatl functions, in Raymond’s paper “Experiments in the Function and Performance of the Weighted Atlatl” further explores the function of the atlatl. By going frame by frame from a film that replicated the use of the atlatl Raymond analyzed how the dart thrown by the atlatl would go in a straight path from the users throw. Raymond’s experiment backed up the hypothesis made by Calvin Howard in 1974 paper “The Atlatl: Function and Performance” where in his writing Howard claims that when thrown the atlatl rotates at the handle and when fully thrown the dart follows a straight line of trajectory (). Through experimentation archeologists how the atlatl was used to throw spears, though this seems useless to any new meaning or explanation to Aztec warfare or any other atlatl using culture, it does help answer much larger questions as to why the atlatl would have been used over the bow and arrow. Raymond states that a reason for the Aztecs use of the atlatl would have been due to “the advantage gained in projectile force and kinetic energy over the bow and arrow” (Raymond