Labor Mobilization and Cooperation for Urban Construction: Building Apartment Compounds at Teotihuacan

Apartment compound construction at Teotihuacan during the Tlamimilolpa phase (AD 250–350) was not a uniform process but rather a diverse one, involving state labor mobilization, communal labor obligations, and corporate labor exchange. This study reveals that while residents relied on external labor forces for construction, the procurement, transportation, and production of building materials were centrally organized, indicating a state labor tax. Architectural energetics and archaeometric analysis of nonlocal materials, such as lime plaster and andesitic cut stone blocks, provided evidence for this complex labor organization. The findings suggest that urban transformation at Teotihuacan was a bottom-up process, contrary to the previously assumed top-down planning implied by its orderly layout.

Murakami, T. (2019). Labor Mobilization and Cooperation for Urban Construction: Building Apartment Compounds at Teotihuacan. Latin American Antiquity, 30(4), 741–759. https://doi.org/10.1017/laq.2019.78