Around 1936, brickmakers began to exploit the clay from Tlatilco and found a profusion of vessels and clay figurines, which first attracted collectors and then led to a series of archaeological digs. At the time, the place was quiet, among cornfields and pastures; half a century later, the last vestiges of what had been one of the most favorable environments for human life have disappeared: the basin of the Valley of Mexico, with its system of five interconnected lakes; Chalco, Xochimilco, Texcoco, Xaltocan and Zumpango.
Interdisciplinary work carried out in Tlapacoya on the shores of Lake Chalco documented how for thousands of years, man was able to carry out a fully sedentary life, long before he became a farmer, thanks to the diversity and prodigality of ecological niches which could be accessed from the shores of the lakes. Approximately 7000 years ago he began to domesticate corn and other plants that were added to the profusion of wild resources offered to him by nature, in particular, the lakes and among them the migratory birds that marked the rhythm of the seasons.
In Tlatilco, urban sprawl has completely distorted what was once the western shore of Lake Texcoco, in the valleys of the Hondo, Los Cuarto and Totolinga rivers which once flowed down from the Sierra de las Cruces. However, the skeletal remains of the ancient inhabitants testify to the omnipresence of the lake environment in their daily lives. This is proven by an inflammation of the tibia at its distal end, which many individuals suffered from due to having spent a lot of time in damp places on the shore of the lake, fishing and stalking the different species of ducks and other aquatic animals.
It is likely that from these ancient times the hunting technique, which is shown in the Florentine Codex and the Map of Upsala and that still persisted in the first decades of the last century, was used. With their feet in the shallow water hunters set long nets above the surface of the lagoon and thus caught abundant waterfowl in full flight. Therefore, at first glance we might consider that the pottery artist who modeled this splendid figure found pleasure in reproducing the animal that provided an important source of food and colorful feathers.
It is very likely that the duck was one of the recurring themes in the clay sculptures of Tlatilco because its image went beyond the purely anecdotal. Its flight and its sounds were an essential part of the landscape, its migrations marked the rhythm of the seasons and, it would not be surprising although we have no way to confirm it, it was present in mythical stories and that its feathers were integrated the attire of certain rituals.
Because of the care the artist took in accurately representing the silhouette of the bird, and the details of its beak and plumage, we can assume that he had an interest in specifying which species it was from among the more than twenty that migrated and dwelled in and around the valley's lakes, perhaps because of some particular behavior or the sumptuousness of its feathers. Besides the technical mastery and artistic perfection, the piece is notable for the use of the technique of printing with a rocking chair movement (the so-called rocker-stamping), common in Olmec tradition, which became strongly present in the early cultural sphere in which Tlatilco participated. It consists of rocking the edge of a tool in a continuous movement over the still ductile surface of the recipient, in this case a shell, which had its edge polished. This technique is also interesting because it goes back to even earlier times of the previous phase in the Valley of Mexico called Nevada. In these times, the people of the region already maintained relations with the distant peoples of Oaxaca (Tierras Largas phase) and the coast of Chiapas and Guatemala (Ocos phase) when these Mesoamerican pottery traditions bore witness to with South American cultures, such as the famous Valdivia of the Ecuadorian coast.
Around 1936, brickmakers began to exploit the clay from Tlatilco and found a profusion of vessels and clay figurines, which first attracted collectors and then led to a series of archaeological digs. At the time, the place was quiet, among cornfields and pastures; half a century later, the last vestiges of what had been one of the most favorable environments for human life have disappeared: the basin of the Valley of Mexico, with its system of five interconnected lakes; Chalco, Xochimilco, Texcoco, Xaltocan and Zumpango.
