Political Strategies in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica

Finally, Hutson turns to marketplaces, but discusses them not from an economic standpoint but rather from an experiential one. Returning again to the concept of multiplicity, “marketplaces provided those who visited them with a socially and sensually attractive experience” [p. 195], and allowed, at least temporarily, for the blurring of hierarchical status differences, meaning people of different social circles might interact in a more democratic way in marketplaces than in other settings. The final chapter is a short summary of the book’s major contributions, and Hutson highlights its importance within the area of social archaeology but also to broader discussions of ancient cities. This chapter again stresses the social aspects of cities, returning to the positive attraction of multiplicity. Hutson closes with the important observation that there is no archetype for Maya cities; they vary widely in size, history, and plan. My complaints with the volume are few. I was hoping for a more detailed discussion of the site core of Chunchucmil, because it is rather atypical for large Late Classic Maya cities. It lacks a main plaza—which we are told here—but it is also missing an acropolis, palaces, and a ballcourt. That these components are lacking is striking in a city of this scale. That feeds into my second criticism: Chunchucmil for a number of reasons is not comparable to many Maya ruins, and here I am making a distinction between Maya cities at their zeniths and the ruins that dot the landscape today. The very factors that make the ruin an excellent candidate for attempting to identify neighborhoods—the system of residential fences, the high visibility of ancient structures and circulation patterns, and the flat terrain—are the same factors that limit its usefulness as a prototypical study because most of those conditions are absent at ruins in the southern lowlands and in other parts of the northern lowlands. The other issue with the site is the possibility that it may have had a different type of political organization, one lacking a divine king. If many aspects of city planning were top-down, and likely almost all planning elements of a site’s epicenter were, then what are the implications for our understanding of the urban plan of Chunchucmil with its atypical political organization? My criticisms, however, fade in the glow of my admiration for the book. Although the subject is the ancient urban Maya, Hutson relies on cross-cultural comparisons, particularly from South America and Central Mexico, throughout; this broadens the appeal of the book to scholars interested in ancient cities outside the Maya heartland. His approach to the social aspect of cities, particularly his recurring discussions about multiplicity and his frequent mention of bottom-up factors, gives the book a strong theoretical framework that resonates through each chapter. The approaches offered in the book, Hutson’s ideas about cities and urbanism, and the powerful narrative of social experience woven into each chapter all combine to make The Ancient Urban Maya an excellent contribution to the growing body of literature on Maya cities specifically and ancient urbanism generally.

This edited volume focuses on the variety of political strategies employed by rulers and their subjects-and more specifically, the creation, maintenance, and rejection of political authority-in several pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican societies. Of course, the study of political strategies is not new in archaeology; researchers working in Mesoamerica and elsewhere have been examining, more or less explicitly, various facets of power, ideology, legitimacy, and authority in past societies for several decades. Instead, what distinguishes this volume is its explicit focus on the "negotiation of contradictions" [p. 3]-a central theme that is introduced in the opening chapter by Sarah Kurnick and then explored by each of the volume's contributors. Kurnick begins her introductory essay by adopting a Weberian view of authority as "the ability to give commands that others choose to obey" [p. 7]. She then discusses three key issues stemming from this particular perspective: whether authority necessarily implies legitimacy; how rulers get people to obey them; and when and why people choose to comply, or not comply, with authority. In exploring these issues, Kurnick synthesizes a wide range of political theory and highlights how archaeologists have applied this theory to the study of political authority in past societies. Although the literature she reviews will already be familiar to many readers, those who are new to this material, particularly students, should find her summary quite helpful.
The second section of Kurnick's chapter outlines different approaches to the study of political authority that have been adopted by Mesoamerican scholars, including the dual-processual framework proposed by Blanton et al. (1996), models emphasizing rulers' roles as intermediaries between human society and the supernatural, and studies focused on relationships between rulers and their followers. Drawing upon social theorists and archaeologists who have dealt with contradiction, paradox, and the reflexive relationship between rulers and followers, Kurnick crafts her main argument about the "negotiation of contradictions"-that is, the ways in which rulers actively distinguish themselves from others, while at the same time emphasizing their similarities to followers as well as past rulers and/or rulers of other contemporary polities. As she cogently argues, followers may accept social inequality and the authority of rulers precisely because those individuals are both like them as well as exceptional. The case studies that follow-which span the Formative to the Postclassic periods, and from West Mexico to the Maya region-explore various aspects of this central theme and how political authority was negotiated in particular societies at particular times.
Much of the second chapter, by Takeshi Inomata, is likewise devoted to theoretical considerations. Inomata argues that archaeologists should be careful when applying modern political theory to archaeological cases. In particular, he cautions that we should not make assumptions-colored by understandings of modern societies-about the motivations or strategies of past rulers or over-emphasize motivation at the expense of understanding the recursive relationship between thoughts (motivations, strategies) and actions (practice, performance). He encourages archaeologists to pay greater attention to interactions between elites and non-elites, as well as the particular social and historical contexts within which institutions of rulership were embedded. Focusing on the institution of divine kingship (among the Maya and other societies), Inomata points out-in accord with the volume's central theme-that a ruler may be both "the center of the community as a patriarchal and exemplary symbol and outside of it as a liminal figure" [p. 46], and emphasizes the importance of public ceremonies as mass spectacles characterized by negotiation between rulers and non-elites (ideas that he has developed more fully elsewhere [e.g., Inomata 2006]). In contrast to his lengthy and nuanced theoretical discussion, Inomata's case study is surprisingly brief. Reviewing excavation data from the site of Ceibal, Guatemala, he argues that the basic pattern of communal interaction that eventually characterized Classic Maya polities-including public rituals in which elites played key roles-had its roots in the Middle Preclassic. His brief discussion is intriguing and many (or all) of his propositions may be correct. It is unfortunate that he does not substantiate and explore them more fully in this particular essay (e.g., his suggestion that consensus, rather than coercion, was key to the construction of the first ceremonial complex at Ceibal, despite clear evidence of violent public rituals including human sacrifice).
Eschewing models which they feel have over-emphasized the hierarchical and tightly integrated nature of complex societies in Mesoamerica, Arthur Joyce and his colleagues adopt a perspective that emphasizes social negotiation, tension, and contradictions. In their chapter, they synthesize a large body of data pertaining to the development and decline of a polity centered at the site of Río Viejo in the lower Río Verde Valley (Oaxaca) during the Terminal Formative period. Although social inequality was increasing at this time, clear evidence of rulers who exercised strong political authority at a regional level (e.g., palaces, tombs, carved monuments) has not been found. Given this, as well as evidence of the construction of monumental structures-including an acropolis at Río Viejo-by (they argue) voluntary labor parties and large feasts associated with those structures, the authors suggest that "rulership and hierarchy were embedded in and constrained by communal principles, practices, and obligations, resulting in a form of political authority that Blanton (1998: 151) defines as egalitarian" [p. 78]. By the Early Classic period, the acropolis at Río Viejo was abandoned and the region was characterized by political fragmentation. Although the authors are not certain why this occurred, they posit that it resulted from contradictions between "newer, more hierarchical and regional forms of authority and identity that were beginning to emerge at Río Viejo and long-standing local and communal forms of authority and identity" [p. 81]. They contrast this relatively shortlived polity with the Monte Albán state and highlight important factors-including conflict, coercive force, and rulers' control of the manufacture and distribution of prestige objects-which may have contributed to the establishment and maintenance of larger, more hierarchical, and more tightly integrated systems of political authority in places like the Valley of Oaxaca. Although some researchers in Oaxaca might disagree with the authors' interpretations of particular data, their insightful analysis does shed light on how and why various forms of political authority may have developed in different regions.
In his study of the Late Formative to Early Classic Teuchitlán culture in the Tequila valleys of central Jalisco, Christopher Beekman draws on Blanton et al.'s (1996) dualprocessual model and analyzes architectural forms in terms of the different political strategies (exclusionary versus corporate) they may represent. Architecture associated with the aggrandizement of particular lineages or familiesincluding shaft tombs and elaborate residential groupsmay be indicative of exclusionary strategies. In contrast, he suggests, corporate strategies are evidenced by ballcourts and guachimontones (circular temple groups built and maintained by members of various lineages). Although in some cases architectural features associated with opposing strategies were spatially segregated, in other instances the proximity of such features suggests that elites engaged in both lineage-focused and communal ritual and, thus, the contradictions between political strategies may have been more socially salient. Beekman's architectural study is enriched by his incorporation of ethnographic data regarding tensions between lineage and community interests among the modern Náyari. Contrary to Kurnick's assertion that the dual-processual framework "forces those why rely on it to choose one of two possible dominant types of power strategies" [p. 14], Beekman does not use the model simply to determine which strategy predominated at any particular time. Rather, his study emphasizes the co-existence of and tensions between different strategies and interests. Moreover, he focuses not just on leaders' strategies, but also the various reasons why followers-as members of both descent groups and larger communities-may have chosen to support lineage or communal interests. As he convincingly demonstrates, "strategies that appear to contradict one another can be massaged through the efforts of both elites and members/followers so that those contradictions become less apparent even as they remain unresolved" [p. 113].
Building on points raised by Kurnick, Joanne Baron examines the institution of divine kingship among the Classic Maya. In particular, she focuses on the veneration of patron deities in order to elucidate how rulers acquired and maintained their status as intermediaries between human society and the supernatural, as well as how and why that special role translated into actual authority (the obedience of followers). In accord with the central theme of the volume, Baron argues that Maya rulers both "promoted the politywide veneration of patron gods as a way of emphasizing a shared ethnic or community identity" as well as "represented themselves as having a special relationship to patron deities, and thereby as uniquely suited to serve the community's interests through their intercession" [p. 124]. Her argument is based on epigraphic and archaeological data from a number of lowland sites, including La Corona (Guatemala)-where investigations of patron deity shrines have yielded evidence of communal feasts in which patron deities were ritually "fed," and rulers who introduced new patron deities during times of change or upheaval in order to bolster their claims to authority and counter those of political rivals. One of the real strengths of Baron's study is that her interpretations of archaeological and epigraphic evidence are informed by indigenous histories and ethnographic data from the Maya highlands concerning the links between community/ethnic identity, patron deities or saints (which she argues are "in many ways the modern equivalents of pre-Columbian patron deities" [p. 128]), and political authority.
In Chapter 6, Tatsuya Murakami explores the relationships between architecture, political strategies, and social integration and differentiation at Teotihuacan. He begins by reviewing architectural evidence and other excavation data indicating changes in the nature of political authority, from the consolidation of "despotic rulership" [p. 157] in the first few centuries of the city's history to the possible "establishment of institutional checks on the glorification of personal power and/or collective leadership" [p. 158] and the concomitant development of a bureaucracy composed primarily of intermediate elites. Murakami then discusses the construction of Teotihuacan's characteristic apartment compounds, an "urban renewal project" [p.168] which, he maintains, involved political negotiation between ruling elites whose ideological and practical interests drove the spatial reorganization of the city and intermediate elites who demanded costly materials used to construct the compounds. Murakami astutely emphasizes the importance of both top-down and bottom-up political processes, although the balance between these two perspectives seems a bit inconsistent in his study. He convincingly links the participation of non-elites (as laborers) in monumental construction projects and (as audience members) in state-sponsored rituals to institutionalized violence and ideologies promulgated by the city's early rulers. How non-elites factored into the later urban renewal is less clear, as his discussion focuses primarily on negotiation between rulers and bureaucrats (again, primarily intermediate elites). For example, he argues that "elite residences both within and outside the central precinct probably provided a model or an idea of the ideal housing, which was adopted by most urban residents in subsequent phases" [p. 170]. It is not clear, however, exactly why non-elite residents adhered to this "ideal." Toward the end of the chapter Murakami briefly addresses social differentiation, noting that despite the integrative effects of the renewal project, some of the city's lowest-status residents "did not have access to standardized construction materials and techniques" and lived in "insubstantial structures" [p. 171]. This is an interesting point that unfortunately he does not elaborate on in this particular essay.
Bryce Davenport and Charles Golden's intriguing study focuses on "the role of boundary creations and maintenance in the substantiation of rulership and the constitution of political communities" [p. 181] in the Mixteca Alta and the Maya region. In response to researchers who have resisted territorial models of Mesoamerican polities and instead focused on how polities were constituted by relationships between rulers and their subjects, they argue for "a role for boundary marking … that was predicated on exactly those interpersonal relations" [p.182]. Drawing from theories of space, place, and landscape, Davenport and Golden suggest that Mesoamerican boundaries (at various scales, from households to communities to entire polities) were performedthat is, they emerged from and were maintained by daily practice, including bodily movement and speech (or writing) involving both rulers and their subjects. Like Baron, they synthesize a broad range of archaeological, epigraphic, and ethnohistoric data to illustrate the importance of boundarymaking among the Maya, from individual commoner households to whole polities. Likewise, they integrate information from Postclassic codices and colonial documents regarding the importance of ñuu as fundamental sociopolitical and territorial units in the Mixteca with archaeological evidence that extends our understanding of such units centuries into the past. In both cases, they highlight rulers' authority to define the limits of polities not just as territorial units, but rather as moral communities. While acknowledging important contradictions and tensions inherent in the links between boundaries and authority (following the central theme of the volume), Davenport and Golden also emphasize consistencies in the relationship between authority and boundary-making at different social and spatial scales: "organizing the local community and state on the principles of the milpa and household made the structural positions of leaders not only appropriate but necessary for the definition of a coherent moral space and order" [p. 204].
In the volume's final case study, Helen Perlstein Pollard combines archaeological data with information from ethnohistoric accounts (particularly the Relación de Michoacán) to elucidate the nature of political authority in the Late Postclassic Tarascan empire. She demonstrates the links between a new Late Postclassic elite identity, changes in political economy, and the emergence of a state ideology in which "patron gods of the now dominant ethnic elite were elevated to celestial power while various regional deities and worldviews … were elevated, incorporated, or marginalized" [p. 226]. Interestingly, while Tarascan nobles (unlike the Aztecs) did not claim Toltec ancestry, many of the material traits that were associated with the Tarascan state and that marked elite status were similar to those found at Early Postclassic Tula. Pollard argues that the juxtaposition of these central Mexican cultural practices with an emphasis on Chichimec/Uacúsecha heritage as well as Purépecha ethnic identity reflects a number of factors: the multiethnic composition of the empire-and in particular, the presence of ethnically Nahua populations, including elites who held political positions; factionalism among Purépecha elite lineages, one of which (the Uanacase) deliberately chose to emphasize their fierce Chichimec heritage; and Purépecha rulers' adoption of Nahua forms of governance and their material correlates. Like other cases studies in the book, Pollard's argument is all the more convincing because it is based upon different sources of informationin her particular case, a large body of archaeological data as well as sixteenth-century documents (many of which have recently been translated or reanalyzed) that "reveal … how nimble, flexible, and political were the categories of ethnicity, heritage, allies, and enemies" [p. 233].
The volume concludes with a wide-ranging theoretical essay by Simon Martin. Martin situates the study of "archaeopolitics" [p. 242] within the broader history of anthropological archaeology as a discipline, from the rise of neoevolutionary perspectives and processualism to post-processual critiques and (some) archaeologists' embrace of the ideas of social theorists, particularly Foucault, Bourdieu, and Giddens. His detailed discussion of these theoristsand how the contributors to the volume engage with their works-nicely complements Kurnick's introductory essay. Martin also highlights and contextualizes various themes that archaeologists, including the book's contributors, have grappled with in trying to understand the nature of political relationships in the past, including agency, ideology, sovereignty, performance, the interplay between politics and social divisions (e.g., status differences, ethnicity, interest groups), and materiality. He concludes with a discussion of possible future directions that research may take as archaeologists strive not only to understand the nature of politics in particular ancient societies, but also "to explain why human communities that were widely distributed across the globe and through time generated recurring patterns of power articulations and practice" [p. 265]. Notwithstanding a few passages that might make some readers grumble (e.g., his suggestion that researchers need to "defend" their use of the term "state" when referring to polities like Teotihuacan or the Tarascan empire [p. 252]), Martin's finely crafted essay provides a strong finish to an excellent, thematically coherent book. Given its combination of theory and insightful case studies that effectively integrate archaeological, epigraphic, and ethnohistoric data, this volume should appeal to a wide range of scholars-working both in Mesoamerica and elsewherewho are interested in the nature of political authority in past societies. The contributions of environment and material culture specialists, including the articles on groundwater, aguadas, bajos, rejolladas, drought, ceramic analysis, and obsidian sources are some of the best articles in the volume and reflect substantial advancements in ancient Maya cultural ecology brought about by new projects and analytical techniques. There are no dedicated entries for lithic analysis, zooarchaeology, or paleoethnobotany, although relevant information is available in the entries on faunal and floral remains, chert, obsidian, and portable objects.

Jason Sherman
The progress in the scholarly understanding of the ancient Maya political and social history is apparent in many entries. For instance, one can compare the article on Calakmul [pp. 52-56] with surveys in the earlier encyclopedias (Carrasco 2001:117-121;Evans and Webster 2001:88-90). Instead of a site-centric narrative, a broader canvas of the regional history unfolds; the debate about the validity of textual sources seems to be largely over, and the rise of the great city is tied to the political fortunes of the Kaanu'l royal dynasty. A comparison of the Cotzumalhuapa entry [pp. 111-113]