[Aztlan] It is time to seriously re-evaluate the so called "Postclassic" Period

[Bradley Russell]

I have come to the conclusion that is is time that we academics take a serious new look at the "Postclassic" period of Maya history.  My ongoing work at the Postclassic political capital of Mayapán has forced me to do so.  This time period has been largely dismissed by researchers including the giants from the Carnegie Mayapán Project, upon whose shoulders my current research rests.  Even they described the Postclassic period and the city itself as something of a "decadent" remnant of the once great "Classic" period.
 
However, my dissertation research has convinced me that Mayapán was far from the degenerated remains of what came before.  It was a vibrant, powerful, cosmopolitan center of great interest in and of itself.  The shift away from overland trade routes seen at the time of the poorly named "Maya collapse" did not reduce the culture to poverty and decadence. They did not enter some kind of "Dark age" as many seem to believe.  Just the opposite, it saw the rise of a new source of political capital rooted not in religion. Instead it was rooted largely in wealth created by mercantile exchange and military power.  It opened up new long distance contact with regions far to its north and south.  The demise of the "Classic" period system of political control by competing divine kings drawing in large part on religious justifications for their power led to the formation of new multepal governments of confederated polities whose political control exceeded the territorial limits of the classic period city-state actors.
 
My research has shown that Mayapán's size exceeded that of the Tarascan imperial capital.  The ethnohistoric documents and archaeology point to the site's domination of distant and previously independent polities that became provinces subject to tribute and other demands.  Muscle was provided by mercenaries imported from the gulf coast and central Mexico who brought with them new weapons technologies which seemed to out compete those in use at the time of the "collapse" and through the Terminal Classic.  The city is ringed by one of Mesoamerica's most formidable defensive systems. It was among the largest known for any time period.  This military advantage and the wealth brought in by long distance trade connections allowed the Kokom and their allies to force rapid resettlement of significant populations from throughout the areas they controlled into the city which boomed as a result.  The site's rulers were able to spread a new religion throughout the Yucatan Peninsula, not unlike what was seen when the Aztec empire forced dominated regions to reform their religion to incorporate Huitzilopochtli into their pantheons.
 
I firmly believe that the data exist to show that rather than the Maya falling into ruin, this time period saw the rise of a previously unrecognized and ignored Maya/Itza empire controlling territory from the northern coast south well into the heart of the Petén.  It seems likely that a similar imperial system centered on the site of Utatlan took hold of the southern Maya region.  I will continue working to assemble these data into a series of publications arguing for that empire's existence.  That will of course take time. However, It is time that we take a hard, new look at the period and what was achieved by the Maya following the collapse.  
 
Recognition of a Maya empire would be as significant a revision in our thinking as was the demise of the peaceful priest model and will take time to take root in the literature and certainly popular thought.  In my opinion, that change is long overdue. The Postclassic was a time of empire throughout the rest of America and it is time that we begin to realize that the Maya area was no different. Even that the Maya had an empire that predated the better recognized Aztec empire which persisted long enough to be seen firsthand by the first European arrivals.  The fact that Mayapán fell to internal divisions and strife before Spaniards arrived led to the first misconceptions about this important period.  They failed to see it firsthand and simply assumed that divisions that they saw across the peninsula reflected a long held pattern. But, was in my opinion just the last stage of the fall of the Mayapán imperial capital.
 
Empires throughout history have fallen and their provinces broken up into smaller independent polities. If we had no knowledge of the Soviet Empire and arrived in Eastern Europe today or in the Roman provinces after its empire's collapse we may have made the same mistaken assumptions.  But, we should not continue to perpetuate what the Spaniards got so very wrong.
 
Bradley Russell, Ph.D.
http://mayapanperiphery.net/
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