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

[Jerry Ek]

This is a very interesting topic of discussion.  It is nice to see this type of dialog on Aztlan.  
 
I have four main comments on this issue.  
 
First, I think it is a bit of a straw man argument that academics have dismissed the Postclassic period as an unimportant dark age.  That may have been true back in the heyday of the Carnegie Institution, but there has been a considerable amount of research focused on the Postclassic period in the past few decades.  I think there are very few Mayanists today who would reject the importance of the Postclassic period, or argue that Maya civilization was reduced to "poverty and decadence."  That idea may persist in the popular media, but I think that researchers began to re-evaluate this idea a few decades ago.  
 
Second, I think that the backlash against the "decadent Postclassic" theme from the Carnegie work has led many researchers to view the "collapse" as an imaginary event created by archaeologists.  The fact is, cities and entire regions in the Southern Maya lowlands were abandoned within a few centuries.  Most of these places had been inhabited by large populations for centuries, sometimes millennia, up until the 8th or 9th centuries AD.  This was a massive demographic and political transition.  A similar yet slightly delayed process took place in the Northern Lowlands following the end 10th century AD, where many areas see population peaks followed by rapid depopulation.  I think it is dangerous to fall into polemical arguments that dismiss the collapse as an important event in Maya history.  
 
Third, I am not sure that we can't speak of a 'dark age' in the Maya area during the Early Postclassic Period.  With most researchers in the Northern Lowlands favoring some degree of overlap between Cehpech and Sotuta sphere ceramics, defining an Early Postclassic period has become increasingly difficult.  Likewise, most ceramicists would agree that the original distinction between the Hocaba and Tases spheres at Mayapan and other sites in the north is problematic, with most combining these two and placing them in the Late Postclassic period.  If the Sotuta sphere, and the heyday of Chichen Itza, took place in the Terminal Classic Period, and Hocaba isn't a real ceramic sphere, what did happen in the Early Postclassic?  I have run into this same issue in my own research in Champotón, Campeche, a region that was not depopulated following the end of the Terminal Classic period.  At present, we can't really draw a firm line between the Early and Late Postclassic periods beyond the presence and absence of a few key types.  This could be mainly an issue with ceramic chronologies, but recent work by ceramicists across the Northern Lowlands is just widening this gap.  I am far less familiar with the chronologies in the Peten Lakes and other parts of the Southern Lowlands with significant Postclassic occupations.  But I am not sure that the idea of dark age isn't inappropriate.  
 
Finally, regarding the topic of empires and imperialism, I think Mike Smith raises some important concerns about problems with loaded terminology and the value assessments implicit in them.  That said, I think that you could make a solid argument that several states in the Maya area conform to cross-cultural category of Hegemonic Empire, with little centralized control of provincial areas and tribute extraction as the main goal of expansion.  While I am not sure that Mayapan is the best candidate for an empire in the Maya area, there is a ton of data for conquest and expansion of polities like Calakmul and Chichen Itza.  Other states like Uxmal, Coba, Tikal, and Izamal also seem to have controlled large areas and conquered areas far outside their immediate areas.  In fact, the more I learn about the specifics of the Aztec Empire (as well as earlier states like the Tepanec and Acolhua polities) and review epigraphic data about the expansion of Calakmul, the more similar they seem to be.  Part of the problem is that the best evidence we have for Aztec Imperialism comes from ethnohistoric sources.  While we don't have that type of data for the Maya area, epigraphy is increasingly providing strong evidence for military expansion during the Classic Period.  I am hesitant to use the term 'empire' precisely because it is so loaded.  But perhaps we need to look for new models and review the applicability of loaded yet useful models in the Maya Area.   
 
Regards,
 
Jerry Ek 


 
> From: bradley_russell at hotmail.com
> To: aztlan at lists.famsi.org
> Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2009 03:48:53 +0000
> Subject: [Aztlan] It is time to seriously re-evaluate the so called "Postclassic" Period
> 
> 
> 
> 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 cla!
> ssic 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/
> _________________________________________________________________
> Windows Live™ SkyDrive™: Get 25 GB of free online storage.
> http://windowslive.com/online/skydrive?ocid=T_TAGLM_WL_SD_25GB_062009
> _______________________________________________
> Aztlan mailing list
> http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/aztlan
> Click here to post a message Aztlan at lists.famsi.org
> Click to view Calendar of Events http://research.famsi.org/events/events.php
> 
> 


_________________________________________________________________
Windows Live™ SkyDrive™: Get 25 GB of free online storage.
http://windowslive.com/online/skydrive?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_SD_25GB_062009