A new analysis of hundreds of obsidian artifacts from the Aztec Empire has revealed the vast trade networks that supplied obsidian, sometimes even from rivals.

A new analysis of hundreds of obsidian artifacts from the Aztec Empire has revealed the vast trade networks that supplied obsidian, sometimes even from rivals.

The story of how Hernán Cortés and a few hundred Spaniards conquered the mighty Aztec Empire, in the heart of what's now modern Mexico City, has become a foundational myth of European dominance ...

The Aztec Empire once hosted an expansive trade network that brought volcanic glass to its capital from right across Mesoamerica, from coast to coast. The largest compositional study of obsidian ...

A network of traveling merchant-spies were essential to the expansion of the Aztec Empire. In ancient Mesoamerica, an elite class of merchants helped build the Aztec Empire. How? By mastering the ...

Álvaro Enrigue's new novel, "You Dreamed of Empires," recounts the fateful meeting of Hernán Cortés and Moctezuma that doomed the Aztec civilizations.

Researchers analyzed 788 obsidian artifacts from Tenochtitlan, revealing that the Mexica (Aztec) Empire sourced this important material from at least eight different locations, including regions ...

Spanish conquerors did not themselves bring inequality to the Aztec lands they invaded, they merely built on the socio-economic structure that was already in place, adapting it as it suited their ...

A new analysis of hundreds of obsidian artifacts from the Aztec Empire has revealed the vast trade networks that supplied obsidian, sometimes even from rivals.

The discovery also sheds light on how the Aztec society evolved — introducing more standardized religion and control before the empire fell in 1520 — by showing how obsidian use changed over time.