City size in Late Postclassic Mesoamerica

Journal of Urban History

Volumn 31, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 403-434

  Smith, Michael E ^a  

^a STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK   (United States)

Author keywords

Archaeology; City size; Mesoamerica; Rank size; Urbanism

Indexed keywords

ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE; DOCUMENTARY SOURCE; POPULATION SIZE; URBAN HISTORY;

CENTRAL AMERICA; MEXICO [NORTH AMERICA]; NORTH AMERICA; WESTERN HEMISPHERE; WORLD;

EID: 18844414774     PISSN: 00961442     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0096144204274396     Document Type: Review

References (225)

1. José García Payón, La zona arqueológica de Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca y los matlatzincas: etnología y arqueología (primera parte), edición facsimilar de la de 1936, preparada por Mario Colín, vol. 29, Biblioteca Enciclopédica del Estado de México (Toluca: Estado de México, 1974);
2. and José García Payón, La zona arqueológica de Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca y los matlatzincas: etnología y arqueología (textos de la segunda parte), Wanda Tommasi de Magrelli and Leonardo Manrique Castañeda, eds., vol. 30, Biblioteca Enciclopédica del Estado de México (Toluca: Estado de México, 1979).
3. Mary G. Hodge, "Polities Composing the Aztec Empire's Core," in Economies and Polities in the Aztec Realm, Mary G. Hodge and Michael E. Smith, eds. (Albany, N.Y.: Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, 1994), 43-71.
4. Raúl M. Arana Alvarez, "El juego de pelota en Coatetelco, Morelos," in Investigaciones recientes en el área maya, XVII Mesa Redonda, Sociedad Mexicana de Antropología (Mexico City: Sociedad Mexicana de Antropología, 1984), 191-204;
5. and Michael E. Smith, The Aztecs, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003).
6. Roger D. Mason, "Economic and Social Organization of an Aztec Provincial Center: Archaeological Research at Coatlan Viejo, Morelos, Mexico" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, 1980).
7. Edward B. Sisson, First Annual Report of the Coxcatlan Project (Andover, Mass.: R. S. Peabody Foundation for Archaeology, 1973).
8. Smith, Aztecs.
9. Michael E. Smith, Archaeological Research at Aztec-Period Rural Sites in Morelos, Mexico vol. 1, Excavations and Architecture / Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Sitios Rurales de la Epoca Azteca en Morelos, tomo 1, Excavaciones y Arquitectura, University of Pittsburgh Memoirs in Latin American Archaeology (Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh, 1992).
10. Román Piña Chán, Investigaciones sobre Huamango y región vecina (Memoria del Proyecto), 2 vols. (Toluca: Dirección de Turiso del Gobierno del Estado de México, 1981).
11. Elizabeth M. Brumfiel, "Specialization, Market Exchange, and the Aztec State: A View From Huexotla," Current Anthropology 21 (1980): 459-78;
12. and María Teresa García García, Huexotla: un sitio del Acolhuacan, vol. 165, Colección Científica (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1987).
13. Richard E. Blanton, Prehistoric Settlement Patterns of the Ixtapalapa Region, Mexico, vol. 6, Occasional Papers in Anthropology (University Park: Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, 1972).
14. Blanton, Prehistoric Settlement Patterns;
15. and David C. Grove and H. B. Nicholson, "Excavación de un juego de pelota en Ixtapaluca Viejo, Valle de México," Boletín del INAH 22 (1966): 17-19.
16. José García Payón, Los monumentos arqueológicos de Malinalco (Mexico City: Gobierno del Estado de México, 1947);
17. and Richard F. Townsend, "Malinalco and the Lords of Tenochtitlan," in The Art and Iconography of Late Post-Classic Central Mexico, Elizabeth H. Boone, ed. (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1982), 111-40.
18. Thomas H. Charlton, Deborah L. Nichols, and Cynthia L. Otis Charlton, "Otumba and Its Neighbors: Ex Oriente Lux," Ancient Mesoamerica 11 (2000): 247-66.
19. Susan T. Evans, Excavations at Cihuatecpan, an Aztec Village in the Teotihuacan Valley, vol. 36, Vanderbilt University Publications in Anthropology (Nashville, Tenn.: Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University, 1988).
20. Edward B. Sisson and T. Gerald Lilly, "A Codex-Style Mural from Tehuacan Viejo, Puebla, Mexico," Ancient Mesoamerica 5 (1994): 33-44;
21. and Edward B. Sisson and T. Gerald Lilly, "The Mural of the Chimales and the Codex Borgia," in Mixteca-Puebla: Discoveries and Research in Mesoamerican Art and Archaeology, H. B. Nicholson and Eloise Quiñones Keber, eds. (Culver City, Calif.: Labyrinthos, 1994), 25-43.
22. Sisson, First Annual Report.
23. Edward E. Calnek, "The Internal Structure of Tenochtitlan," in The Valley of Mexico: Studies of Pre-Hispanic Ecology and Society, Eric R. Wolf, ed. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1976), 287-302;
24. and José Luis de Rojas, México Tenochtitlan: economía e sociedad en el siglo XVI (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1986).
25. Jorge Angulo Villasenor, "Teopanzolco y Cuauhnahuac, Morelos," in Los señoríos e estados militaristas, Román Piña Chán, ed. (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1976), 183-208;
26. and Smith, Aztecs.
27. Shirley Gorenstein, Tepexi el Viejo: A Postclassic Fortified Site in the Mixteca-Puebla Region of Mexico, vol. 63, no. 1, Transactions (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1973).
28. Michael E. Smith, Tlahuica Ceramics: The Aztec-Period Ceramics of Morelos, Mexico, vol. 13, IMS Monographs (Albany, N.Y.: Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, 2005).
29. Frederic Hicks, "Tetzcoco in the Early 16th Century: The State, the City and the Calpolli," American Ethnologist 9 (1982): 230-49;
30. and Jeffrey R. Parsons, Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the Texcoco Region, Mexico, vol. 3, Memoirs (Ann Arbor: Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, 1971).
31. Angel García Cook, Beatriz Leonor Merino Carrión, and Lorena Mirambell S., Antología de Tizatlán, Antologías, Serie Arqueología (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1996);
32. and Ignacio Marquina, Arquitectura prehispánica, 2nd ed. (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1964).
33. Elizabeth M. Brumfiel, "Postclassic Xaltocan: Archaeological Research in the Northern Valley of Mexico (1991 Annual Report), Unpublished Field Report" (Albion, Mich., 1992).
34. Michael E. Smith et al., "The Size of the Aztec City of Yautepec: Urban Survey in Central Mexico," Ancient Mesoamerica 5 (1994): 1-11.
35. Enrique Martínez Vargas, "Trascendental hallazgo en Zultepec," Arqueología Mexicana 1, no. 4 (1993): 62-64;
36. and Enrique Martínez Vargas and Ana María Jarquín Pacheco, Materiales arqueológicas del noroeste de Tlaxcala (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antrpología e Historia, 1998).
37. Author's estimate.
38. Marquina, Arquitectura prehispánica;
39. and Lorenzo Ochoa, Historia prehispánica de la Huaxteca (Mexico City: Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1979).
40. Lorenzo Ochoa and Ernesto Vargas, "Informe del recomocimiento arqueológico realizado en la cuenca del río Candelaria, Campeche," Estudios de Cultura Maya 16 (1985): 325-76;
41. and Lorenzo Ochoa and Ernesto Vargas, "Xicalango, Puerto Chontal de Intercambio: Mito y Realidad," Anales de Antropología 24 (1987): 95-114.
42. Heinrich Berlin, "Late Pottery Horizons of Tabasco, Mexico," Contributions to American Anthropology and History, no. 59: 95-154;
43. and Daniel G. Brinton, "The Battle and Ruins of Cintla," American Antiquarian 18 (1896): 259-67.
44. Jürgen Kurt Brüggemann, Mozomboa, Veracruz: un sitio arqueológico del postclásico veracruzano: análisis de materiales cerámicos y arquitectónicos, vol. 308, Serie Arqueología, Colección Científica (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1996).
45. Ochoa, Historia prehispánica de la Huaxteca.
46. Jürgen Kurt Brüggemann, ed., Zempoala: el estudio de una ciudad prehispánica, vol. 232, Colección Científica (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1991);
47. and Marquina, Arquitectura prehispánica.
48. Barbara Voorhies and Janine Gasco, Soconusco Society in the Late Postclassic Period, vol. 15, IMS Monographs (Albany, N.Y.: Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, 2004).
49. John W. Fox, Quiché Conquest: Centralism and Regionalism in Highland Guatemalan State Development (Alburquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1978).
50. Michael Blake, "Canajasté: Una ciudad-estado Maya en transición," Anuario 1 (1987): 119-57.
51. Alain Ichon, Rescate Arqueológico en la cuenca del Río Chixoy. 1: Informe Preliminar (Guatemala City, Guatemala: Misión Científica Franco-Guatemalteca, 1979).
52. John M. Weeks, Chisalín: A Late Postclassic Maya Settlement in Highland Guatemala, vol. 169, BAR International Series (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1983).
53. Jorge F. Guillemín, Iximché, capital del antiguo reino cakquiquel (Guatemala City, Guatemala: Instituto de Antropología e Historia, 1965);
54. and Jorge F. Guillermín, "Urbanism and Hierarchy at Iximché," in Social Process in Maya Prehistory: Studies in Honour of Sir Eric Thompson, Norman Hammond, ed. (New York: Academic Press, 1977), 227-64.
55. A. Ledyard Smith, Archaeological Reconnaissance in Central Guatemala , vol. 608, publication (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1955).
56. Anthony Wonderly, "Naco, Honduras: Some Aspects of a Late Precolumbian Community on the Eastern Maya Frontier," in The Southeast Maya Periphery, Patricia A. Urban and Edward M. Schortman, eds. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986), 313-32;
57. and Anthony W. Wonderly, "The Land of Ulua: Postclassic Research in the Naco and Sula Valleys, Honduras," in The Lowland Maya Postclassic , Arlen F. Chase and Prudence M. Rice, eds. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985), 254-69.
58. Dwight T. Wallace and Robert M. Carmack, eds., Archaeology and Ethnohistory of the Central Quiché, vol. 1, publication (Albany, N.Y.: Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, 1977).
59. Marquina, Arquitectura prehispánica.
60. Robert Wauchope, Excavations at Zacualpa, Guatemala, vol. 14, publication (New Orleans, La.: Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University, 1948).
61. Richard B. Woodbury and Aubrey S. Trik, The Ruins of Zaculeu, 2 vols. (Richmond, Va.: William Byrd Press, 1953).
62. Michael D. Lind, Postclassic and Early Colonial Mixtec Houses in the Nochixtlan Valley, Oaxaca, vol. 23, Vanderbilt University Publications in Anthropology (Nashville, Tenn.: Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University, 1979);
63. Michael D. Lind, The Sociocultural Dimensions of Mixtec Ceramics, vol. 33, Vanderbilt University Publications in Anthropology (Nashville, Tenn.: Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University, 1987);
64. and Ronald Spores, The Mixtecs in Ancient and Colonial Times (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984).
65. Ignacio Bernal, "Exploraciones en Coixtlahuaca, Oaxaca," Revista Mexicana de Estudios Antropológicas 10 (1948): 5-76.
66. Kent V. Flannery, "Zapotec Warfare: Archaeological Evidence for the Battles of Huitzo and Guiengola," in The Cloud People: Divergent Evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec Civilizations, Kent V. Flannery and Joyce Marcus, eds. (New York: Academic Press, 1983), 318-22;
67. and David A. Peterson and Thomas B. MacDougall, Guiengola: A Fortified Site in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, vol. 10, Vanderbilt University Publications in Anthropology (Nashville, Tenn.: Vanderbilt Uiversity, 1974).
68. Kent V. Flannery and Joyce Marcus, "Urban Mitla and Its Rural Hinterland," in Flannery and Marcus, Cloud People, 295-301.
69. Judith F. Zeitlin, "Precolumbian Barrio Organization in Tehuantepec, Mexico," in Caciques and Their People: A Volume in Honor of Ronald Spores, Joyce Marcus and Judith F. Zeitlin, eds. (Ann Arbor: Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, 1994), 275-300.
70. Arthur A. Joyce, Andrew G. Workinger, Byron Hamann, Peter Kroefges, Maxine Oland, and Stacie M. King, "Lord 8 Deer 'Jaguar Claw' and the Land of the Sky: The Archaeology and History of Tututepec," Latin American Antiquity 15 (2004): 273-97.
71. Ignacio Bernal and Lorenzo Gamio, Yagul: el palacio de los seis patios (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas, 1974);
72. and Kent V. Flannery, "The Major Monte Albán V Sites: Zaachila, Xoxocotlán, Cuilapan, Yagul, and Abasolo," in Flannery and Marcus, Cloud People, 290-95.
73. Ibid.;
74. and Roberto Gallegos Ruiz, "Zaachila: The First Season's Work," Archaeology 16, no. 4 (1963): 226-33.
75. Raymond V. Sidrys, Archaeological Excavations in Northern Belize, Central America, vol. 17, monograph (Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles, Institute of Archaeology, 1983).
76. Marilyn A. Masson, In the Realm of Nachan Kan: Postclassic Maya Archaeology at Laguna de On, Belize (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2000).
77. Alberto Escalona Ramos, "Algunas ruinas prehispánicas en Quintana Roo," Boletín de la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía e Estadística 61, no. 3 (1946): 513-628.
78. Prudence M. Rice, Macanché Island, El Petén, Guatemala: Excavations, Pottery, and Artifacts (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1987).
79. Diane Z. Chase, "The Invisible Maya: Population History and Archaeology at Santa Rita Corozal," in Precolumbian Population History in the Maya Lowlands, T. Patrick Culbert and Don S. Rice, eds. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1990), 199-214;
80. and Diane Z. Chase and Arlen F. Chase, eds., A Postclassic Perspective: Excavations at the Maya Site of Santa Rita Corozal, Belize, vol. 4, monograph (San Francisco: Precolumbian Art Research Institute, 1988).
81. Don S. Rice, Prudence M. Rice, and Timothy Pugh, "Settlement Continuity and Change in the Central Peten Lakes Region: The Case of Zacpeten," in Anatomía de una Civilización: Aproximaciones Interdisciplinarias a la Cultura Maya, Andrés Ciudad Ruiz et al., eds. (Madrid: Sociedad Española de Estudios Mayas, 1998), 207-52.
82. Shirley Gorenstein, Acambaro: Frontier Settlement on the Tarascan-Aztec Border, vol. 32, Vanderbilt University Publications in Anthropology (Nashville, Tenn.: Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University, 1985).
83. Shirley Gorenstein and Helen P. Pollard, The Tarascan Civilization: A Late Prehispanic Cultural System, vol. 28, Vanderbilt University Publications in Anthropology (Nashville, Tenn.: Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University, 1983).
84. Helen Perlstein Pollard, "An Analysis of Urban Zoning and Planning in Prehispanic Tzintzuntzan," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 121 (1977): 46-69;
85. and Helen Perlstein Pollard, Tariacuri's Legacy: The Prehispanic Tarascan State (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993).
86. Helen Perlstein Pollard and Laura Cahue, "Mortuary Patterns of Regional Elites in the Lake Patzcuaro Basin of Western Mexico," Latin American Antiquity 10 (1999): 259-80.
87. Gérald Migeon, "Sites tarasques de la région de Zacapu: confrontation des données archéologiques et ethnohistoriques," in Vingt études sur le Mexique et le Guatemala: réunies à la mémoire de Nicole Percheron, Alain Breton, Jean-Pierre Berthe, and Sylvie Lecoin, eds. (Toulouse, France: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 1991), 95-115;
88. and Helen Perlstein Pollard, "Recent Research in West Mexican Archaeology," Journal of Archaeological Research 5 (1997): 345-84.
89. David A. Freidel and Jeremy A. Sabloff, Cozumel: Late Maya Settlement Patterns (New York: Academic Press, 1984).
90. Harry E. D. Pollock et al., Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico, vol. 619, publication (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1962). The site is considerably larger than the 1962 figure; current fieldwork at Mayapán, directed by Marilyn A. Masson, should clarify the situation soon.
91. Walter R. T. Witschey, "The Archaeology of Muyil, Quintana Roo, Mexico: A Maya Site on the East Coast of the Yucatan Peninsula" (Ph.D. dissertation, Tulane University, 1993);
92. and Walter R. T. Witschey, "Recent Investigations at the Maya Inland Port City of Muyil (Chunyaxche), Quintana Roo, Mexico," Mexicon 10, no. 6 (1988): 111-17.
93. Samuel K. Lothrop, Tulum: An Archaeological Study of the East Coast of Yucatan, vol. 335, publication (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1924);
94. and Ernesto Vargas Pacheco, Tulum: Organización Político-Territorial de la Costa Oriental de Quintana Roo (Mexico City: Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1997).
95. E. Wyllys IV Andrews and Anthony P. Andrews, A Preliminary Study of the Ruins of Xcaret, Quintana Roo, Mexico: With Notes on Other Archaeological Remains on the Central East Coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, vol. 40, publication (New Orleans, La.: Middle American Research Institute, 1976);
96. and Vargas Pacheco, Tulum.
97. William T. Sanders and David Webster, "The Mesoamerican Urban Tradition," American Anthropologist 90 (1988): 521-46;
98. and David Webster and William T. Sanders, "La antigua ciudad mesoamericana: teoría y concepto," in Reconstruyendo la ciudad maya: el urbanismo en las sociedades antiguas, Andrés Ciudad Ruiz, María Josefa Iglesias Ponce de León, and María del Carmen Martínez Martínez, eds. (Madrid: Sociedad Española de Estudios Mayas, 2001), 43-64.
99. George F. Andrews, Maya Cities: Placemaking and Urbanization (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1975);
100. Andrés Ciudad Ruiz, María Josefa Iglesias Ponce de León, and María del Carmen Martínez Martínez, eds., Reconstruyendo la ciudad maya: el urbanismo en las sociedades antiguas (Madrid: Sociedad Española de Estudios Mayas, 2001);
101. Kenneth G. Hirth, "Urbanism at Xochicalco: A Community Perspective," in Archaeological Research at Xochicalco, vol. 1, Ancient Urbanism at Xochicalco: The Evolution and Organization of a Pre-Hispanic Society, Kenneth G. Hirth, ed. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2000), 270-83;
102. and Alba Guadalupe Mastache and Robert H. Cobean, "Ancient Tollan: The Sacred Precinct," Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics 38 (2000): 100-33.
103. For example, Stephen A. Kowalewski, "The Evolution of Complexity in the Valley of Oaxaca," Annual Review of Anthropology 19 (1990): 39-58;
104. and William T. Sanders, The Teotihuacan Valley Project, Final Report , 5 vols., Occasional Papers in Anthropology (University Park: Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, 1994-2000).
105. Examples include Wendy Ashmore and Jeremy A. Sabloff, "Spatial Orders in Maya Civic Plans," Latin American Antiquity 13 (2002): 201-15;
106. and Kathryn Reese-Taylor, "Ritual Circuits as Key Elements in Maya Civic Center Design," in Heart of Creation: The Mesoamerican World and the Legacy of Linda Schele, Andrea Stone, ed. (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2002), 143-65.
107. For a critique of this approach, see Michael E. Smith, "Can We Read Cosmology in Ancient Maya City Plans? Comment on Ashmore and Sabloff," Latin American Antiquity 14 (2003): 221-28.
108. For a discussion of these trends in Late Postclassic Mesoamerica, see the chapters in Michael E. Smith and Frances F. Berdan, eds., The Postclassic Mesoamerican World (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2003).
109. Mogens Herman Hansen, "Conclusion: The Impact of City-State Cultures on World History," in A Comparative Study of Thirty City-State Cultures , Mogens Herman Hansen, ed. (Copenhagen: Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, 2000), 597-623;
110. Richard Hodges, Towns and Trade in the Age of Charlemagne (London: Duckworth, 2000);
111. Michael Hudson and Baruch A. Levine, eds., Urbanization and Land Ownership in the Ancient Near East, vol. 7, Peabody Museum Bulletin (Cambridge, Mass.: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, 1999);
112. J. Kathirithamby-Wells and John Villiers, eds., The Southeast Asian Port and Polity: Rise and Demise (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1990);
113. and Helen M. Parkins, ed., Roman Urbanism: Beyond the Consumer City (New York: Routledge, 1997).
114. Edward E. Calnek, "The Internal Structure of Tenochtitlan," in The Valley of Mexico: Studies of Pre-Hispanic Ecology and Society, Eric R. Wolf, ed. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1976), 287-302;
115. Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, The Great Temple of the Aztecs (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1988);
116. and José Luis de Rojas, México Tenochtitlan: economía e sociedad en el siglo XVI (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1986).
117. William T. Sanders and Barbara J. Price, Mesoamerica: The Evolution of a Civilization (New York: Random House, 1968);
118. William T. Sanders and Robert S. Santley, "A Tale of Three Cities: Energetics and Urbanization in Pre-Hispanic Central Mexico," in Prehistoric Settlement Patterns: Essays in Honor of Gordon R. Willey, Evon Z. Vogt and Richard Leventhal, eds. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1983), 243-91;
119. and Sanders and Webster, "Mesoamerican Urban Tradition," 521-46.
120. See Louis Wirth, "Urbanism as a Way of Life," American Journal of Sociology 44 (1938): 1-24.
121. Richard E. Blanton, "Anthropological Studies of Cities," Annual Review of Anthropology 5 (1976): 249-64;
122. Kowalewski, "Evolution of Complexity," 39-58;
123. and Joyce Marcus, "On the Nature of the Mesoamerican City," in Vogt and Leventhal, Prehistoric Settlement Patterns, 195-242.
124. Diane Z. Chase, Arlen F. Chase, and William A. Haviland, "The Classic Maya City: Reconsidering the 'Mesoamerican Urban Tradition,'" American Anthropologist 92 (1990): 499-506;
125. and Michael E. Smith, "Cities, Towns, and Urbanism: Comment on Sanders and Webster," American Anthropologist 91 (1989): 454-61.
126. Simon Martin and Nikolai Grube, Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens: Deciphering the Dynasties of the Ancient Maya (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2000).
127. Sanders and Webster, "Mesoamerican Urban Tradition," 521-46;
128. and Richard G. Fox, Urban Anthropology: Cities in their Cultural Settings (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1977).
129. Webster and Sanders, "La antigua ciudad mesoamericana," 43-64.
130. I have defined urbanism as follows: An urban settlement is defined here as one whose activities and institutions (whether economic, political, religious, or cultural) affected areas outside of the settlement proper. Cities are large settlements with many urban functions that affect a larger hinterland, whereas towns are small settlements with fewer urban functions affecting a smaller region. From Michael E. Smith, "Urbanization," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures: The Civilizations of Mexico and Central America, Davíd Carrasco, ed., vol. 3 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 290-94.
131. That project was conducted as part of a graduate seminar in Mesoamerican urbanism at the State University of New York at Albany. I thank seminar participants Jessica Child, Josalyn Ferguson, and Ryan Mongelluzo for help with bibliographic citations and data collection. All measurements and analyses presented in this article were done by the author.
132. Andrew K. Balkansky et al., "Archaeological Survey in the Mixteca Alta of Oaxaca, Mexico," Journal of Field Archaeology 27 (2002): 365-90;
133. Laura Finsten and Stephen A. Kowalewski, "Spatial Scales and Process: In and around the Valley of Oaxaca," in Settlement Pattern Studies in the Americas: Fifty Years since Virú, Brian R. Billman and Gary M. Feinman, eds. (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1999), 22-38;
134. Stephen A. Kowalewski et al., Monte Alban's Hinterland, Part II: Prehispanic Settlement Patterns in Tlacolula, Etla, and Ocotlan, The Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, vol. 23, Memoirs (Ann Arbor: Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, 1989);
135. and William T. Sanders, Jeffrey R. Parsons, and Robert S. Santley, The Basin of Mexico: Ecological Processes in the Evolution of a Civilization (New York: Academic Press, 1979). City sizes have been analyzed on a regional scale in these areas;
136. see Richard E. Blanton, "The Role of Symbiosis in Adaptation and Sociocultural Change in the Valley of Mexico," in Wolf, Valley of Mexico, 181-201;
137. and Kowalewski, "Evolution of Complexity," 39-58. Such analyses complement the larger spatial scale of the research described in this article.
138. Ibid.;
139. Harry W. Richardson, Regional Economics (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1979);
140. and Carol A. Smith, ed., Regional Analysis, 2 vols. (New York: Academic Press, 1976).
141. Frances F. Berdan et al., Aztec Imperial Strategies (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1996).
142. Michael E. Smith, "Aztec City-States," in Hansen, Comparative Study , 581-95.
143. Fekri A. Hassan, "Demographic Archaeology," Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory (1978): 49-103;
144. and Don S. Rice and T. Patrick Culbert, "Historical Contexts for Population Reconstruction in the Maya Lowlands," in Precolumbian Population History in the Maya Lowlands, T. Patrick Culbert and Don S. Rice, eds. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1990), 1-36.
145. Sanders and Webster, "Mesoamerican Urban Tradition," 521-46;
146. and Webster and Sanders, "La antigua ciudad mesoamericana," 43-64.
147. Regional survey data suggest that Late Postclassic urban population density could be quite variable within individual regions (Stephen A. Kowalewski, personal communication, December 2002). The sites discussed in this article are not an optimal sample for addressing questions of population size and density because of potential variation among regions and among approaches to population estimation; demographic issues are more profitably addressed by regional fieldwork within individual areas.
148. José García Payón, La zona arqueológica de Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca y los matlatzincas: etnología y arqueología (primera parte), edición facsimilar de la de 1936, preparada por Mario Colín, vol. 29, Biblioteca Enciclopédica del Estado de México (Toluca: Estado de México, 1974).
149. Kowalewski, personal communication, December 2002. See Ignacio Bernal, "Exploraciones en Coixtlahuaca, Oaxaca," Revista Mexicana de Estudios Antropológicas 10 (1948): 5-76.
150. Anthony F. Aveni, Skywatchers, 2nd ed. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001);
151. and Smith, "Urbanization," 290-94.
152. Vernon L. Scarborough and David R. Wilcox, eds., The Mesoamerican Ballgame (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1991);
153. and E. Michael Whittington, ed., The Sport of Life and Death: The Mesoamerican Ballgame (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2001).
154. The largest value - 34.4 ha for Tzintzuntzan - may not correspond to the definition of epicenter used here (see text). This value is reported by Pollard for the central area of the city, and it probably includes more land beyond the main public buildings than I included in my measurements of epicenter area; see Helen Perlstein Pollard, "An Analysis of Urban Zoning and Planning in Prehispanic Tzintzuntzan," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 121 (1977): 46-69. For this reason, Tzintzuntzan is omitted from the graphs of epicenter size (Figures 5 and 6).
155. Calnek, "Internal Structure of Tenochtitlan," 287-302.
156. Marcus, "On the Nature of the Mesoamerican City," 195-242,
157. modified a model in Chauncey D. Harris and Edward L. Ullman, "The Nature of Cities," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 242 (1945): 7-17.
158. Roland Fletcher, The Limits of Settlement Growth: A Theoretical Outline (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
159. Andrews, Maya Cities: Placemaking and Urbanization.
160. David A. Freidel and Jeremy A. Sabloff, Cozumel: Late Maya Settlement Patterns (New York: Academic Press, 1984);
161. William L. Rathje, "Last Tango at Mayapan: A Tentative Trajectory of Production- Distribution Systems," in Ancient Civilization and Trade , Jeremy A. Sabloff and C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky, eds. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1975), 409-48;
162. and Smith and Berdan, Postclassic Mesoamerican World.
163. Brian J. L. Berry, "City Size and Economic Development: Conceptual Synthesis and Policy Problems with Special Reference to South and Southeast Asia," in Urbanization and National Development, L. Jakobsen and V. Prakesh, eds. (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1971), 111-55;
164. Brian J. L. Berry, "City Size Distribution and Economic Development," Economic Development and cultural Change 9 (1961): 573-88;
165. Peter Haggett, Andrew D. Cliff, and Allan Frey, Locational Analysis in Human Geography, 2nd ed. (London: Edward Arnold, 1977);
166. and Anatol Rapoport, "Rank-size Relations," in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, David L. Sills, ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1968), 319-23.
167. Berry, "City Size and Economic Development," 111-55;
168. Gregory A. Johnson, "Rank-Size Convexity and System Integration: A View from Archaeology," Economic Geography 56 (1980): 234-47;
169. Harry W. Richardson, "Theory of the Distribution of City Sizes: Review and Prospects," Regional Studies 7 (1973): 239-51;
170. Stephen H. Savage, "Assessing Departures from Log-Normality in the Rank-Size Rule," Journal of Archaeological Science 24 (1997): 233-44;
171. G. William Skinner, "Regional Urbanization in Nineteenth-Century China," in The City in Late Imperial China, G. William Skinner, ed. (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1977), 211-49;
172. Carol A. Smith, "Theories and Measures of Urban Primacy: A Critique," in Urbanization in the World-Economy, Michael Timberlake, ed. (New York: Academic Press, 1985), 87-117;
173. Carol A. Smith, "Types of City-Size Distributions: A Comparative Analysis," in Urbanization in History: A Process of Dynamic Interactions, Ad van der Woude, Akira Hayami, and Jan de Vries, eds. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 20-42;
174. C. A. Vapnarski, "On Rank Size Distributions of Cities: An Ecological Approach," Economic Development and Culture Change 17 (1969): 584-95;
175. and Pamela Barnhouse Walters, "Systems of Cities and Urban Primacy: Problems of Definition and Measurement," in Timberlake, Urbanization in the World-Economy, 63-85.
176. Robert McC. Adams, Heartland of Cities: Surveys of Ancient Settlement and Land Use on the Central Floodplain of the Euphrates (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981): Blanton, "Role of Symbiosis," 181-201;
177. Johnson, "Rank-Size Convexity and System Integration," 234-47;
178. Kowalewski, "Evolution of Complexity," 39-58;
179. Stephen A. Kowalewski, "The Evolution of Primate Regional Systems," Comparative Urban Research 9 (1982): 60-78;
180. Robert W. Paynter, "Expanding the Scope of Settlement Analysis," in Archaeological Hammers and Theories, James A, Moore and Arthur S. Keene, eds. (New York: Academic Press, 1983), 233-75;
181. Charles E. Pearson, "Rank-Size Distributions and the Analysis of Prehistoric Settlement Systems," Journal of Anthropological Research 36 (1980): 453-62;
182. and Charlotte A. Smith, "Concordant Change and Core-Periphery Dynamics: A Synthesis of Highland Mesoamerican Archaeological Survey Data" (Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia, 2002).
183. The following archaeological studies apply rank-size analysis inappropriately to small sites on a local scale rather than to city-size data on a large regional, or macroregional, scale: Juan Albarracin-Jordan, Marc Bermann, and Timothy McAndrews, "Regional Settlement Patterns in the Tiwanaku Valley of Bolivia," Journal of Field Archaeology 24 (1997): 67-83;
184. Francisco Estrada Belli, The Archaeology of Complex Societies in Southeastern Pacific Coastal Guatemala: A Regional GIS Approach, vol. S820, British Archaeological Reports, International Series (Oxford: BAR, 1999);
185. Susan Keech McIntosh, "Modeling Political Organization in Large-Scale Settlement Clusters: A Case Study from the Inland Niger Delta," in Beyond Chiefdoms: Pathways to Complexity in Africa, Susan Keech McIntosh, ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 66-79;
186. Robert S. Santley, Philip J. Arnold III, and Thomas P. Barrett, "Formative Period Settlement Patterns in the Tuxtla Mountains," in Olmec to Aztec: Settlement Patterns in the Ancient Gulf Lowlands, Barbara L. Stark and Philip J. Arnold III, eds. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997), 174-205;
187. Savage, "Assessing Departures from Log-Normality," 233-44;
188. David B. Small, "Mycenean Polities: States or Estates?" in Rethinking Mycenaean Palaces: New Interpretations of an Old Idea, Michael L. Galaty and William A. Parkinson, eds. (Los Angeles: Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, 1999), 43-48;
189. and Michael E. Whalen and Paul E. Minnis, Casas Grandes and Its Hinterland: Prehistoric Regional Organization in Northwest Mexico (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2001). Rank-size analysis, as developed by geographers and anthropologists, is used for the study of the sizes of cities. An important assumption is that each city is a central place with its own hinterland. When archaeologists apply the method to site sizes within a region, typically including numerous tiny settlements of a few hectares without any central place functions, they are violating the basic assumptions of the model. Some time ago, Pearson warned archaeologists that "a small-size threshold exists, below which rank-size regularities do not hold," Pearson, "Rank-Size Distributions," 453-62; but recent studies have not heeded this caveat. No one has proposed a theoretical model to explain the significance of different rank-size distributions for tiny, nonurban sites.
190. Skinner, "Regional Urbanization in Nineteenth-Century China," 211-49, 238.
191. Berry, "City Size and Economic Development," 111-55;
192. Johnson, "Rank-Size Convexity and System Integration," 234-47;
193. Richardson, "Theory of the Distribution of City Sizes," 239-51;
194. Skinner, "Regional Urbanization in Nineteenth-Century China," 211-49;
195. Smith, "Theories and Measures of Urban Primacy," 87-117;
196. Smith, "Types of City-Size Distributions," 20-42;
197. Vapnarski, "On Rank Size Distributions of Cities," 584-595;
198. and Walters, "Systems of Cities and Urban Primacy," 63-85.
199. On the political role of Mayapán, see Marilyn A. Masson, In the Realm of Nachan Kan: Postclassic Maya Archaeology at Laguna de On, Belize (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2000);
200. and Ralph L. Roys, The Political Geography of the Yucatan Maya, vol. 613, publication (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1957). Current fieldwork at Mayapán indicates that the city was in fact considerably larger than the 420 ha reported by previous archaeologists (see note 55 to the Appendix).
201. Recent fieldwork by Joyce et al., "Lord 8 Deer," has found Tututepec to be a very large city with varying but low population densities. If the rank-size plots were done for population, not site area, Oaxaca would not have such a strong primate city size distribution. For Tututepec, see also Ronald Spores, "Tututepec: A Mixtec Conquest State," Ancient Mesoamerica 4 (1993): 167-74.
202. Blanton, "Role of Symbiosis," 181-201.
203. Berry, "City Size and Economic Development," 111-55;
204. Allan Pred, City Systems in Advanced Economies: Past Growth, Present Processes, and Future Development Options (New York: Wiley, 1977);
205. Walters, "Systems of Cities and Urban Primacy," 63-85;
206. and P. Hall, "Urban System in Geography," in International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, Neil J. Smelser and Paul B. Baltes, eds. (Oxford: Pergamon, 2001), 16099-104.
207. Walters, "Systems of Cities and Urban Primacy," 63-85.
208. See also Christopher Chase-Dunn and E. Susan Manning, "City Systems and World Systems: Four Millenia of City Growth and Decline," Cross-Cultural Research 36 (2002): 379-98.
209. Michael D. Lind, "Mixtec City-States and Mixtec City-State Culture," in Hansen, Comparative Study, 567-80;
210. and Smith, "Aztec City-States," 581-595.
211. Smith and Berdan, Postclassic Mesoamerican World.
212. Johnson, "Rank-Size Convexity and System Integration," 234-47;
213. Kowalewski, "Evolution of Complexity," 39-58;
214. Kowalewski, "Evolution of Primate Regional Systems," 60-78;
215. and Paynter, "Expanding the Scope of Settlement Analysis," 233-75. For an exception by an economist publishing in an archaeological collection,
216. see Denise Pumain, "City-Size Dynamics in Urban Systems," in Time, Process, and Structured Transformation in Archaeology, Sander E. van der Leeuw and James McGlade, eds. (New York: Routledge, 1997), 97-117.
217. William T. Sanders, "The Central Mexican Symbiotic Region: A Study in Prehistoric Settlement Patterns," in Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the New World, Gordon R. Willey, ed. (New York: Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, 1956), 115-27;
218. and Smith, Aztecs.
219. Shirley Gorenstein and and Helen P. Pollard, The Tarascan Civilization: A Late Prehispanic Cultural System, vol. 28, Vanderbilt University Publications in Anthropology (Nashville, Tenn.: Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University, 1983);
220. Helen Perlstein Pollard and Thomas A. Vogel, "Late Postclassic Imperial Expansion and Economic Exchange within the Tarascan Domain," in Economies and Polities in the Aztec Realm, Mary G. Hodge and Michael E. Smith, eds. (Albany, N.Y.: Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, 1994), 447-70.
221. An important recent dissertation also analyzes large numbers of urban centers from several times periods; see Smith, "Concordant Change and Core-Periphery Dynamics." Smith's methods and sample are complementary to my own in that she uses the regional survey data that I avoid in my sample.
222. Sanders and Webster, "Mesoamerican Urban Tradition," 521-46.
223. Elizabeth M. Brumfiel, "Specialization, Market Exchange, and the Aztec State: A View from Huexotla," Current Anthropology 21 (1980): 459-78;
224. Thomas H. Charlton, Deborah L. Nichols, and Cynthia L. Otis Charlton, "Otumba and Its Neighbors: Ex Oriente Lux," Ancient Mesoamerica 11 (2000): 247-66;
225. and Michael E. Smith, "Economic Change in Morelos Households," in Smith and Berdan, Postclassic Mesoamerican World, 249-58.