[Aztlan] "centralista" views of Teotihuaccan style murals in Queretaro

[Michael Smith]

As an archaeologist who works in provincial areas where material culture
from imperial centers is frequently found, I appreciate Roberto Romero's
caution about interpreting such finds from a "centralista" perspective.
Here I want to suggest a broader perspective on this kind of find.
Whenever a trait/object/style/practice associated with a political
center turns up in another area, there is an unfortunately tendency to
use the concept of "influence" in the sense of a movement from the
center to the periphery. In this typical view, Teotihuacanos must have
gone to Queretaro, or someone must have brought their ideas to the
region and imposed them on the local unsophisticated provincial
bumpkins.

But when such traits show up in distant areas, the more likely
explanation is usually that local people (probably elites) made a
conscious decision to express styles or use objects from the central
city. These decisions typically arise for local reasons, based on local
conditions, rather than being impositions from distant powers. Local
elites want to show their sophistication, or they want to signal a
connection with a distant powerful city, or they want to get the new
fancy things before their neighbors do, etc. In contexts like
Mesoamerica where we have few written records and relatively few
excavations, this kind of interpretation can be difficult to support
empirically. But consider the European peripheries of Roman empire, well
documented with archaeology and history. In this case, distant elites
clearly used Roman styles, goods, and practices for their own reasons,
having nothing to do with Romans moving to the periphery or imposing
their views. See Peter Wells' books and papers on this; particularly:

Wells, Peter S.  (1999)  The Barbarians Speak: How the Conquered Peoples
Shaped Roman Europe. Princeton University Press, Princeton.  (an
award-winning book)

Wells, Peter S.  (2001)  Beyond Celts, Germans and Scythians:
Archaeology and Identity in Iron Age Europe. Duckworth, London.

Although Roman data cannot provide direct interpretations for
Mesoamerica, this analogy should make us think twice about suggesting
that the dominant Teotihuacanos imposed their styles on the backward
peripheral people of Queretaro (and elsewhere). I do not deny that
Teotihuacan was capital of an empire and did conquer and dominate some
areas, but probably not Queretaro; see:

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.

I also thank Roberto Romero for providing a broader regional context for
the finds. Without considering such data, it is impossible to come up
with reasonable interpretations of finds like these.

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