William T. Sanders

Specialization, Market Exchange, and the Aztec State: A View From Huexotla [and Comments and Reply]

Archaeological data from Huexotla, an Aztec-period site in the Valley of Mexico, are used to test the proposition that Mexican states arose and expanded to facilitate specialization and market exchange. By and large, this proposition is not supported by the Huexotla data. During Early Aztec times, the Valley of Mexico was divided into a number of small, autonomous city-states. The Huexotla data suggest that the local economies of these city-states were not characterized by a complex division of labor. Thus, their existence does not seem to have depended upon their facilitating specialization and exchange at the local level. During Late Aztec times, most of Central Mexico came to be dominated by the territorially extensive, administratively complex Aztec empire. The Huexotla data provide evidence of more intensive participation in market exchange, but they also suggest that urban demand for rural foodstuffs and urban control of imperial tribute goods were factors of primary importance in determining the Late Aztec pattern of market exchange. More intensive specialization, or greater complexity in the division of labor within the Valley of Mexico, seems to have played a minor role in the growth of the Late Aztec market system despite the environmental diversity of the marketing region.

A Simulation of Copan Populatin History and its Implications

Several projects carried out at Copan since 1975 provide extensive settlement data that form the basis for a simulation of Copan population history between A.D. 400–1250. Most important is a set of 2,048 obsidian hydration dates, associated with 15% of all known sites, that allows unprecedented chronological control of occupational episodes at domestic sites of all social ranks. This article summarizes the results of our simulation, and some of its implications for agricultural intensification, sociopolitical structure, and labor demand for elite construction projects.

Ecological Theory and Cultural Evolution in the Valley of Oaxaca [and Comments and Reply]

A number of researchers have recently challenged the usefulness of cultural ecology for explaining pre-Hispanic ultural evolution in the Valley of Oaxaca. We address those criticisms and attempt to show how a rather traditional ecological model is at least consonant with the data. Our aim is not so much to demonstrate the greater explanatory power of our model in comparison with the arguments of the researchers of the Valley of Oaxaca projects as to show that the published data do not permit he rejection of either.

The jolly green giant in tenth century Yucatan, or fact and fancy in classic Maya agriculture

Peter D. Harrison and B. L. Turner II, eds. Prehispanic Maya Agriculture. University of New Mexico Press, 1978. 414 pp.

The Native Aristocracy and the Evolution of the Latifundio in the Teotihuacan Valley, 1521-1917

Latifundismo, representing a variety of jural types, has characterized land tenure in the Teotihuacán Valley since Aztec, very probably pre-Aztec, times. Throughout the colonia and until the inception of the Republic, the largest single landholder in the valley remained the cacique of Teotihuacán. While much extant literature contrasts the hacienda as a type with the estates of the native aristocracy, we suggest a functional similarity based on comparability of market articulation (including commodities produced and the land itself as commodity), of export work, of control of labor.

Ecology and cultural syncretism in 16th-century Mesoamerica

During the 1930s and 40s most studies of Indian villages in Mesoamerica focussed on acculturation, the adoption and integration of Spanish cultural traits into the native cultural system. This paper summarizes that research, also applying an evolutionary perspective, particularly an ecosystem model. It focusses on the 16th century, when two great cultures – each the product of thousands of years of independent, parallel evolution – clashed and exchanged cultural traits. From this blend began an internal growth that continues to the present.

Robert S. Santley: Student, Teacher, and Researcher

Robert Santleys contributions to our discipline have been multilevel and multifaceted--by this statement I mean he has operated on all levels of research from data collection to evolutionary theory and the training of students to follow the broad anthropological perspective that was central to his career. In this paper I focus on his most innovative and productive research project, the Matacapan Project in southern Veracruz, Mexico.