[Aztlan] race and ethnicity in the past

[Michael Smith]

I always find it puzzling why people get so worked up about racial and
ethnic origins and affiliations in the past. Is this what is most
important about past peoples? My perspective has always been that it is
the achievements of ancient peoples-their actions and the consequences
of their actions-that deserves our attention and respect. Does it really
matter whether the Kennewick guy looked like Jean-Luc Piccard or not?
Can we use the politically un-correct term Caucasion in talking about
the ancient New world? Yes, it is good to be able to trace origins and
movements historically, but the amount of public attention to such
issues seems to dwarf consideration for more mundane issues about what
people actually did in the past.

On several occasions, when discussing Mesoamerica with nonspecialists, I
have found that people get very frustrated when I refuse to pin an
ethnic identifier onto the people of Teotihuacan. But were they Aztecs,
or Mayas, or Zapotecs, or what, they ask? When I say that they were the
people of Teotihuacan and we don't know what language they spoke or
whether they were genetic ancestors of known Postclassic ethnic groups,
people are not satisfied. They want an ethnic label.

I don't care very much what language the Teotihuacanos spoke
(personally, as a linguistically-challenged archaeologist, I kind of
like the Kaufman and Justeson model for a Mixe-Zoque language at Teo). I
am interested in the people of Teo for the way they built their city,
for how they farmed, for the kinds of rituals or craft activities they
participated in, for how they traveled to other areas and how they
interpreted information from other areas, for the ways they constructed
and lived with class differences, for the type of government they forged
(or, the type of government they put up with, or perhaps overturned),
etc. etc.

Ethnic affiliations and origins may or may not have been important in
the lives of the ancient peoples, and we may or may not be able to
reconstruct this kind of information for past populations. But there is
an awful lot that we CAN learn about ancient peoples that has little to
do with ethnic or racial categories. I find it odd that so many modern
people get so worked up over what seem to me minor characteristics that
generally are difficult to impossible to reconstruct. Perhaps it is our
modern obsession with race and ethnicity and identity in the modern
world that makes us obsessed with research about these issues in the
ancient past.

Mike

Michael E. Smith, Professor
School of Human Evolution & Social Change
Arizona State University
www.public.asu.edu/~mesmith9
http://publishingarchaeology.blogspot.com
http://calixtlahuaca.blogspot.com