INTRODUCTION

Abstract

If we accept Good's (2001:211) definition of a textile as a “web of interlaced threads produced on a loom,” we may say that textiles have a long and storied existence in ancient Mesoamerica. In this Special Section we present four new studies on Mesoamerican textile production. All four papers are based primarily on archaeological data and analyses, but, because of the nature of the material, they cross disciplinary boundaries. At the risk of indulging in a rather hackneyed metaphor, we might envision the archaeological elements of each study as the warp embellished with a weft of ethnohistoric, ethnographic, art historical, iconographic, and epigraphic data and interpretations. In this Introduction we range across the boundaries touching first on the archaeological evidence for the antiquity of weaving and textiles in Mesoamerica, the nature of textiles as a commodity, and the theoretical foundations from political economy that influenced anthropology in the 1980s and generated a seminal article on cotton in the Aztec economy. Then we reference recent research dealing with cloth as costume that signifies ethnic and gender identity, and ideological associations with female deities. Finally, we return to the archaeology and the difficulties of preservation of textiles in Mesoamerica, setting the stage for comments on individual papers since they depend on the indirect evidence of spindle whorls and weaving implements.