Élite y bienes suntuarios durante la época de contacto en la región del río Tampaón: el caso del Entierro RA12A del sitio Conjunto Norte Rancho Aserradero

Abstract

This paper describes the mortuary context of burial RA12A, recovered from the main building of the Rancho Aserradero Northern Complex, a site belonging to the Tamtoc regional system. Located in the Huasteca of San Luis Potosi, Tamtoc reached its period of máximum development between A.D. 1100 and 1525. At the beginning of the 10th century A.D., the region experienced the arrival of groups from the Maya area who promoted notable changes in the social, economic, and ideological organization of the Tamtoc community, and brought about its development into a prominent urban society of this late pre-Hispanic period. This, in turn, was dismantled in the sixteenth century as a consequence of the arrival of the Iberians in the Huastec region. The Conjunto Norte Rancho Aserradero, the second-order site from which Burial RA12A was recovered, belongs to the late pre-Hispanic period. The burial’s funerary offering and trousseau constitute an example of abundance that is a reflection of a complex, productive society, integrated into regional and pan-regional networks of interaction from which it obtained diverse sumptuous goods.