THE QUALITY OF TRIBUTE CLOTH - THE PLACE OF EVIDENCE IN ARCHAEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

This paper continues the discussion of objectivity, subjectivity, and tile place of evidence in archaeological argument begun by Wylie (1992 a), Little (1994), and Fotiadis (1994). First, it describes my expecta tions concerning Indian women's resistance to tribute cloth extraction in Aztec and colonial Mexico. Then, it explains how I tested my expec tations against several bodies of archaeological data. Finally, it ana lyzes how I did and did not alter my initial beliefs in the face of a gap between the expected and the actual data. This study supports earl ier conclusions by Trigger (1989) and Wylie (1992b) that data are some what independent of the archaeologists who collect them and that data have some impact on the larger edifice of assumptions that archaeologi sts bring to their research.