[Aztlan] origin of the notion that the Maya were non-urban

[David Hixson]

Dear Mike & fellow Listeros,

While I'm sure Mike has already consulted this volume and the volumes cited below, I just wanted to make sure that others on the list who might be interested in this topic look to the introductory chapter by Wendy Ashmore and Gordon Willey in the edited volume "Lowland Maya Settlement Patterns" (Ashmore 1981).  It provides an excellent overview from the perspective of those who helped shape our modern view of Maya settlement patterns.

In it, Willey and Ashmore mention a slightly earlier publication than the one Mike cited, along with others that may be relevant.  Here I quote:

"Although many Maya archaeologists [in the 60's] subscribed to the vacant center idea, they were skeptical of an egalitarian sociopolitical system in a civilization so laden with the earmarks of centralized power as that of the Classic Maya. Instead, they argued for a basically two-class structure of peasants and elite (Willey 1956c; Bullard 1964)..."

The section continues with a discussion of those archaeologists that began to appreciate a true urban model...

"With reference to Willey's (1956b) idealized settlement models (fig. 1.1), this view of pre-Columbian settlement and society was most consistent with Type A, the true city model, while the idealized Type C is a diagram of the "vacant" or elite-settled, ceremonial settlement form."

Thus, from this summary by Ashmore and Willey I would conclude that Willey was already engaging in the debate regarding "vacant" vs. "city" models as early as his 1956 publications, published a couple of years earlier than the 1958 conference cited by Mike.  This implies an ongoing debate prior to 1956.  Of course, some of this must have been coming from conference proceedings or early personal communications with Vogt's project in Chiapas, since Vogt's publications in the very early 1960's (yet conducted in the 1950's) were used as the ethnographic reinforcement for the vacant ceremonial center hypothesis.

Ashmore, Wendy
1981  Lowland Maya Settlement Patterns. University of New Mexico Press.

Willey, Gordon R.
1956b "Problems Concerning Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the Maya Lowlands," in Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the New World.

1956c "The Structure of Ancient Maya Society: Evidence from the Southern Lowlands," American Anthropologist 58:777-82.

Vogt, Evon
1961 "Some Aspects of Zinacantan Settlement Patterns and Ceremonial Organization"  Estudios de Cultura Maya 1:131-45

1964 "Some Implications of Zinacantan Social Structure for the Study of the Ancient Maya"  XXXV Congresso Internacional de Americanistas, vol. 1.

Hope this helps.

-Dave
__________________________________________________
David Hixson
Ph.D. Candidate
Tulane Anthropology
chunchucmil at yahoo.com
www.mesoamerican-archives.com