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Residential compounds could be large enough to house multiple generations of related families or multiple families related as patrons and clients. The greatest intensity of production, and the most diversity, took place in or near larger and more lavish compounds that are interpreted as residences of rulers and other nobles. These were sites of the structural reproduction of Mesoamerican economies and forms of political structure through the organization of domestic labor (Hendon 1996, 1997). As such, they were also the focus of ceremonies marking changes in the status of members of the group over their life course, through which people’s identities were created and reconstituted.

In the material remains that archaeologists study, one moment of the life course is especially visible, marked by monuments, tombs, and temples: the transformation of living members of the group into ancestors following death. From the Formative period on, in many Mesoamerican societies the remains of the dead were placed near the buildings occupied by the living. Social commemoration of other points in the lives of inhabitants of house compounds is also indicated by residues archaeologists can detect and descriptions in texts from before and after colonization. Experiences of each person during life can be described based on the remains of their bodies (Chapter 14). Events anticipating and accompanying childbirth and marking moments in the maturation of children into adults often involved feasts. Feasting is evident archaeologically in the remains of vessels and residues of foods consumed and through the discarded tools used in such events, notably small-scale clay figurines, some transformed into musical instruments.

Archaeologists argue that caring for the bodies of deceased members of a group and keeping them near the living was a means for Mesoamerican people to create historical continuity between generations, allowing ancestors to remain engaged with their descendants (Gillespie 2001, 2002; Hendon 2000; McAnany 1995). Distinct practices of caring for the dead employed by separate groups would have contributed to differentiation within societies, like that noted between residents of individual household compounds at Teotihuacan (Chapter 5).

A select body of people who claimed legitimacy in exercising powers of governance emerged through exclusive practices in everyday life, including use of distinctive cuisine, dress, and architectural ornamentation. Together, these practices and the materials employed in them constituted a high culture (Joyce 2000c). This involved using more things made by skilled craft workers using rare and valuable materials like jade, rare feathers, fine textiles, and, in the Postclassic period, metal alloys as well as the consumption of distinctive foods that others were restricted from using in everyday life.

Throughout their history, Mesoamerican societies used some of these materials as items of wealth and standards of value, reflected in economic, social, and political practices that were included in the original trait list. Craft specialists worked obsidian, jade and other greenstones, and feathers into ritual regalia that could be adapted as signs of distinction between social segments or insignia of specific offices and became parts of high culture. Scribes, astronomers, and calendar specialists developed ways to record indigenous wisdom. Histories of political dynasties recorded using these technologies also formed part of high culture.

Images carved in stone and painted in manuscripts provide records of marriages, wars, visits involving the offering of tribute and gifts, and ritual performances. Many are accompanied by texts specifying the time, place, and people involved. They are preserved on durable stone monuments dating as early as the late Formative period that hint at the broader existence of records written on perishable materials like the paper and deerskin in use when Europeans invaded the region. In the sixteenth century, European colonizers collected some manuscripts while destroying many others. Literate Mesoamerican people continued to produce historical texts after colonization, rapidly developing mastery of European script and working to preserve ancestral knowledge (Chapter 10).