[Aztlan] "re-evaluating the Postclassic" through empires

Sun Jul 12 14:52:30 CDT 2009

Dear Mike,

Thanks as always for your comments. I have always found then very helpful in past and am sure will well into the future.

In regards to who is dissing the Postclassic Maya, I haven't any specific names in mind.  There is no one that I know of who is crusading to tank the reputation of the time period.  However, I do feel that early conceptions of the Postclassic period such as those put forward by folks like the Carnegie project suggesting a period of decadence persist largely unchallenged.  Clearly, the basic terminology "Postclassic" itself implies something less sophisticated/important going on after the "collapse".  It clearly implies that the classic period was some sort of apogee for the culture.  I would love to see a new typological naming system emerge which was less hinged on that notion. But, as others have suggested that is a huge battle and probably not one I need to expend my energies on.  Maybe it will come with time.  It also seems to me that there has been a general lack of interest by scholars over the years in the time period which I believe reflects that thinking to a greater or lesser degree.  Certainly great work such as that being done in the Peten by the Rice's and Timothy Pugh is starting to change that conception.  

It is also not my goal to argue that the Postclassic and any empire(s) that may have existed in it are "better" or "more important" than anything that came before it or other political forms that ma have co-existed with it.  Both are crucial to a full understanding of ancient Maya culture.  It is not a matter of value judging either the Classic or Postclassic.  That is just the box I would like to get out of and stay out of where the scholarly debate is concerned.

It is clear to me that the biggest contribution I can make to this issue is to fully publish what my colleagues and I are learning about the site and time period.  That effort continues and will be greatly intensifying in the coming few years.  That in and of itself will almost certainly dispel many of the lingering inaccurate notions that I find objectionable. You are certainly correct that the popular media and lay population are still held firmly in the thrall of this notion.  I do have plans to submit some articles to more generally accessible sources in the near future to improve that situation.

I did not mean to imply that imperialism was the sole form of organization that was either complex, interesting or important.  Much the opposite is true.  To me, the most important aspects to understand and emphasize are the specifics of the changes that distinguish the political, social, economic and ideological systems present in the two time periods.  I consider the societies of both time periods similar in many ways and both to be complex and interesting.  But, the differences between the two are to me the most interesting and informative. 

As you know, much of my dissertation focused in large part on the very different layouts and city forms for the two time periods and what that tells us about the underlying social structure and forces driving their founding and growth over time.  It was in looking for the answers to those questions that I came to the notion of imperialism in the first place.  I did not set out to find in Mayapán the capital and an ancient empire. But, the data drove me to that conclusion over time as I think that particular form of political structure best explains the form and history of the site's growth.  In particular, I find that the rapid growth and equally rapid final downfall and depopulation of the city were closely tied to the forced or voluntary movement of both co-opted local elites and their retaining populations into the city from various areas across the peninsula associated with the expansion of imperial control across the provinces under Mayapán’s sway.

This entrada discussion is giving me many new things to consider as I move forward with my work.  Thanks go to you and others that have been replying for that.

Brad

> Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2009 17:30:56 -0700
> From: Michael.E.Smith.2 at asu.edu
> To: aztlan at lists.famsi.org
> Subject: [Aztlan] "re-evaluating the Postclassic" through empires
> 
> Brad (and listeros) -
> 
> I'm not sure exactly who is supposed to be dissing the Postclassic Maya. There are quite a few archaeologists and ethnohistorians working on the Postclassic Maya, and from my outsider position it seems that, they, like you, take the Postclassic period quite seriously without any old-fashioned appeals to decadence or cultural decay. If it is non-specialists who have outdated views of the Postclassic period, then perhaps we need articles in Archaeology magazine, or Scientific American more than we need scientific studies.
> 
> While I am all for the extension of comparative models (whether empires, city-states, world-systems, globalization, trade diasporas, world religions, whatever) to new contexts, I would caution against putting too much emphasis on the concept of "empire." Many scholars have applied this notion uncritically to Tula and the Toltecs, and one reason for this (in my opinion) is an unstated view that if a polity isn't am empire (and/or, if a city is not capital of an empire), then it is somehow inferior or of lesser value. I think this accounts for some of the hostility I have encountered over the years to my arguments that Tula did not rule an empire. One of my main points (see Smith and Montiel 2001, or Smith 2007) has been that a city does not have to be an imperial capital for it to have been important within broad, even Mesoamerican-wide, contexts. There are other ways to be influential and interesting than ruling an empire. Yet empires remain popular, both among the public an!
> d scholars. Perhaps we follow the Roman orator Cicero, who said "What a fine thing it is to rule over foreign peoples!"
> 
> The implication of this line of thought is that I would hesitate to use an "imperial" criterion as a way of demonstrating complexity and importance for Postclassic Maya polities or cities. My reading of the evidence is that Mayapan probably ruled a small empire, whereas Utatlan did not. But that is not the main point here. Publishing more on the Postclassic Maya is a great idea, and applying new models is always a useful exercise. But what if you cannot demonstrate imperial organization? Will that mean that the people with the ideas about "Postclassic decadence" are right? I would suggest you take a broader perspective on the matter. Perhaps there were Postclassic Maya empires, but perhaps there were dynamic, complex, and influential states and cities without imperialism. Perhaps we can build models of such phenomena that show alternatives to the empires and migrations that dominate models of Old World ancient states - that might be more interesting than merely finding anoth!
> er empire or two in Mesoamerica.
> 
> That said, I think it would be great if you can build a credible model of one or more imperial models for the Postclassic Maya. In addition to the standard literature that I know you command, be sure to include:
> 
> Matthews, Roger (2003) Archaeologies of Empire. In Archaeology of Mesopotamia: Theories and Approaches, edited by Roger Matthews, pp. 127-154. Routledge, New York.
> 
> Also, Maëlle Serghereaert will soon defend a dissertation at the University of Paris on the material manifestations of Aztec imperialism in the provinces, a study that is bound to be important for research on Mesoamerican imperialism beyond the Aztecs. In the meantime, I recommend a very useful earlier study of hers:
> 
> Serghereaert, Maëlle
> 2005 Les conséquences de l'expansion militaire aztèque : synthèse sur les intérêts d'une approche archéologique. In De l'Altiplano mexicain à la Patagonie: Travaux et recherches à l'Université de Paris 1, edited by Cyril Giorgi, pp. 107-115. British Archaeological Reports, International Series, vol. S1389. Archaeopress, Oxford.
> 
> Mike
> 
> Smith, Michael E.
> 2007 Tula and Chichén Itzá: Are We Asking the Right Questions? In Twin Tollans: Chichén Itzá, Tula, and the Epiclassic to Early Postclassic Mesoamerican World, edited by Jeff Karl Kowalski and Cynthia Kristan-Graham, pp. 579-617. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.
> 
> Smith, Michael E. and Lisa Montiel
> 2001 The Archaeological Study of Empires and Imperialism in Prehispanic Central Mexico. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 20:245-284.
> 
> 
> 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
> -----Original Message-----
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> Sent: Saturday, July 11, 2009 12:00 PM
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