Wanna be an Anthropologist

Photos of Chacchoben are up!

2008-06-13T11:57:00.003-06:00

19 Temple 2
Originally uploaded by kactuswren

I have finally uploaded photographs of my visit to Chacchoben to my Flickr account.

Chacchoben is a Mayan ceremonial center in the Yucatan about which very little is known. Only one scholarly work has been published, and it is written in Spanish (I've requested it through inter-library loan, and I'm gonna try to decipher it!).

Visitors are allowed to see the large Temple (Temple 24), and two others nearby which are on top of a large platform (you can see the large stairway that leads to the top of the platform in my set). There is another unexcavated group of temples a short distance away that is part of the same complex.

I'm working on a personal project to pull materials together and get a better overall picture of Chacchoben, and I'll be post it it here when I do.

A Crazy Summer, followed by an Important Fall

2008-06-13T11:17:00.003-06:00

SUMMER 2008

I'm two weeks into summer school: Spanish 101 every night of the week, and an internet course on Urban Politics. It seems that all I do is get up, go to work, go to class, go home, go to bed.

I'm taking Spanish 102 in the second 5-week session, so I will complete 11 total credit hours before the beginning of the Fall semester.

FALL 2008

Once the Fall comes, I'll be busier than ever:

Spanish 201 at Rio Salado college (it's an Internet course)
Graduate course in Anthropology at the University of Arizona in Tucson

It is only nine miles shorter to drive to Tucson from my house (as opposed to Flagstaff), but my wife has convinced me that the more friendly year-round weather will make it a better choice. I have already been accepted to Arizona as an unclassified Graduate student, and I've already registered.

I'm going to be taking a Mesoamerican Archaeology course from Dr. Takeshi Inomata. He is a Mayanist (he's currently doing fieldwork in Guatemala), and I think I would enjoy working with him.

Before the Fall semester is over, I will need to submit all application materials to the various graduate schools in which I'm interested. I plan to apply to the following (presented in alphabetical order, NOT the order of preference):

Arizona State University (Ph.D. program in Anthropology)
Northern Arizona University (M.A. program in Anthropology)
University of Arizona (M.A. program in Anthropology)
University of North Texas (Online M.A. program in Applied Anthropology)

SPRING 2009

I still need to finish up my B.A., and I'll need to take the following courses to make this happen:

Spanish 202 (at ASU)
One more Physical Anthropology course

I only hope that Dr. Johansen is teaching ASM 246, Human Origins! Otherwise, I will end up taking a lab course such as Fossil Hominids or Primatology (takes LOTs of time), or maybe something easire such as Peopling of the World.

The big mystery, of course, is where will I be in the Fall of 2009?

Iron Man? I loved it.

2008-05-27T09:13:00.003-06:00

Funny, but it took an anthropologist to write the best review of Iron Man I've read yet.

Robert Downey, Jr. was born to be Tony Stark, no doubt.

That was one busy semester

2008-04-18T18:23:00.002-06:00

Two days ago, I turned in the term paper for Dr. Smith's grad course, Archaeology of Ancient Built Environments. I don't have an exact count, but I suspect I spent over 100 hours on the research and the writing. It's not as good as I would like it to be-- if I decide to clean it up and really finish it, I already know many of the changes I would make.

My paper, entitled "Neighborhoods in Non-urban Settlements: A Cross-cultural Comparison," used criteria originally developed to demonstrate sub-settlement groups in the Anatolian Neolithic (in Turkey) in an attempt to find neighborhoods in Native American pueblos right here in the Southwest. This will be the topic of a longer post as soon as I get the chance. I'm creating a Powerpoint slide show that may be worth posting, for those of you who are interested.

I still have another research project in the works with Dr. Martin, and I'll be finishing my data analysis very soon. More on this later.

I'm just glad I can finally get a few full nights of sleep.

Four Stone Hearth #38 is up

2008-04-08T22:39:00.003-06:00

Read a great collection of blog posts from anthropologists around the web at the 38th edition of the Four Stone Hearth. This week's edition scan be found at A Very Remote Period Indeed, the blog of Julien Riel-Salvatore. Julien was a graduate student in paleoarchaeology at ASU (my current school), and is now a post-doctoral fellow at McGill University in Motreal.

Looking for Cultural Universals

2008-04-07T07:09:00.000-06:00

Unfortunately, I may have found one.

It's funny how one can make cross-cultural connections sometimes. A friend of mine is from Ghana (in West Africa), where he spent a good deal of his childhood. We were talking about the problems Ghana was having with a special kind of litter: Clear plastic bags used primarily for drinking water, known as "pure water sachets."

Solving One Problem Creates Another

In Ghana (and many parts of Africa), the public water system provides water that is safe for washing clothes, etc., but is not so great for drinking. The solution? Make clean drinking water readily available in convenient plastic bags. So for years now, nearly everyone has been able to get clean, pure water to drink. I know you see the downside coming: The discarded plastic bags are everywhere. Pure water sachets fill the sidewalks, the gutters, the streets. They clog drains, canals, and lakes.

At the root: Common Behavior

The problem is exacerbated by a cultural norm in Ghana: People drop their trash wherever they are (this is very similar to the way my teenage children take off their shoes, jackets, and clothes... they drop wherever they happen to be, and quickly form a think layer covering their bedroom floors). It is commonplace to just drop the wrappers from food, paper, unfinished food itself, and of course plastic, right on the sidewalk or street.

Government efforts have been underway in western Africa for years now to deal with the problem, but have been mostly ineffectual. NGOs have gotten involved, and private groups are attempting to apply free market approaches (such as making tote bags out of collected sachets). recently, the Association of Table Water Producers in Nigeria staged a self-imposed, one-week stoppage in the production of pure water sachets, with limited results.

The Random Connection

I've been pretty obsessed with learning more about Cambodia lately, and I stumbled onto a delightful podcast by an American currently living in Siem Reap: Tasty Dog in the Kingdom (you'll need to listen to her podcast #1 to learn the meaning behind the name). during podcast #12, Delilah Marie (a pseudonym) described the trash system in Cambodia: People throw trash on the ground anywhere and everywhere, and it is almost never picked up. She also addresses the ubiquitous plastic bag, used to carry and drink fresh water (sound familiar?), coffee, and a variety of food items. These bags clog irrigation canals, and are piled along every road and path.

So it seems that the people of Siem Reap, 11,537 kilometers away from Ghana, have nearly identical behaviors when it comes to dealing with trash. Questionable water from the public system has also resulted in the distribution of drinking water in plastic sachets, just as in western Africa. I was even more surprised to dig a little on Google and discover that entrepreneurs in Cambodia are also converting the plastic bags into fashion as a way to deal with the problem.

Conclusion

Well, there is no conclusion, really. I have barely begun to scratch the surface on this issue, and it is clear that I (and many of us) have been ignorant of the scope of the trash control problems around the world. I found a website dedicated to abandoned and orphaned children which relates anecdotal examples of families and orphaned children living in garbage dumps around the world. I plan to post more on this topic soon.

Impressive Angkor

2008-03-20T10:17:00.009-06:00

We've all seen photographs of Angkor Wat, the spectacular 12th century Khmer Temple in Cambodia. I was surprised to learn that Angkor Wat is just the tip of the iceberg-- that it was the center of an enormous, low-density urban complex whose size (1000 square km) rivaled large modern day cities.

Right before Spring Break, I attended a presentation by Roland Fletcher, an archaeologist from the University of Sydney who is leading up the Greater Angkor Project. This 10-year study is bringing new technologies to bear on the large questions surrounding the city of Angkor.

Using airborne side-looking radar (and other imaging from space), amazing features were revealed. From the presentation summary:

So far the project has mapped the extent of the water management system, has located key water management structures and has identified the dispersed pattern of occupation along canals and roads and on house-mounds. The demise of the urban complex now has to be reappraised because it was apparently functioning into the 16th century, later than the generally assumed sack in the early 15th century CE.

The scope of Angkor is startling. If you take a look at the feats of engineering the Khmer accomplished, one can't help but be amazed. The second photo in this post (click it for a larger view) is a satellite view of the temple of Angkor Wat, its grounds, and the large, square moat which surrounds it. You can see that the temple is dwarfed by the moat, and Dr. Fletcher tossed up a slide that showed the area inside the moat is larger than any Mayan city.

Not stopping there, you need to see the map of the entire Angkor complex (the 3rd image). The very center square on the map is Angkor Thom, the royal forest. Just below it, a tiny blue square represents the moat at Angkor Wat.

The long, rectangular blue features are man-made water reservoirs which supported the irrigation of the entire area. The West and East Baray (the two largest) are 8 kilometers in length. The NASA Earth Observatory has a large AIRSAR image of the Angkor region, plus an accompanying GIS map of all the archaeological features and sites.

What have they determined so far? It looks like the earlier theory (by Bernard-Philippe Groslier) that the large reservoirs were primarily for irrigation are correct. The radar imagery show the remnants of rice fields covering the entire region from the lake to the mountain foothills. A river was diverted to fill the reservoirs, and to irrigate the landscape. Excavations of old water channels has revealed evidence of heavy flooding (including substantial deposition of sand), which likely overwhelmed their system. It is possible that the deforestation of the area for conversion to agriculture, combined with the re-routed natural water channels, may have led to a large-scale ecological disaster.

One of the principal investigators (Damian Evans) was the lead author on a paper last year that reported on their comprehensive mapping (see below).

Additional resources:

1. Wikipedia has a nice overview of Angkor's history.

2. Evans, D., Pottier, C., Fletcher, R., Hensley, S., Tapley, I., Milne, A. and Barbetti, M. 2007. A comprehensive archaeological map of the world’s largest pre-industrial settlement complex at Angkor, Cambodia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Vol. 104 no. 36, pp. 14277-14282

3. The American Museum of Natural History has a nice animated overview of the current findings at Angkor.

Now I know that NAU's Anthropology Program is Selective

2008-03-17T20:05:00.001-06:00

Here's what I have:

forty-two credit hours in Anthropology coursework, GPA: 3.97
A certificate that says I won the Undergraduate Research Assistantship award at ASU
4 weeks of archaeological field school experience
2 years of research work with a professor
Glowing recommendations from two professors

Here's what I don't have:

Acceptance in the graduate Anthropology program at Northern Arizona University.

I returned from a college-hunting trip (for my daughter) in Colorado to find two letters from NAU. The one from the Anthropology Department was somewhat friendly, stating that either my application was not competitive enough or that my research interests did not line up well with those of the professors in the department. The letter from the NAU Graduate College was much more blunt: "Your application was not competitive."

I've already asked the graduate coordinator to please explain to me the aspects of my application which failed to meet their standards, and hopefully this will be a productive thing. Right now, I'm still pretty depressed about the whole thing-- and I keep wondering which is true: 1. They just don't know me, or 2. I'm not good enough.

There are some good things I can take from this:

NAU's program really is pretty competitive! If I'd been accepted, I would not have know for sure.
You can always do a better job on your application. I've identified about twenty things I would do differently if I could (and I will do them for the next one).
I can finish my B.A. in Anthropology. Having the B.A. is a good thing-- it means I'll finish my foreign language work, and have a minimum credential for moving on to graduate studies. Who knows-- this may have worked against me at NAU.
I have plenty of time to finish my research with Dr. Martin. By May of next year, I'll have my B.A. and two publications.
I can still choose something other than Archaeology. I've been having doubts about choosing Archaeology as my subdiscipline, so now I have time to reconsider.
I have another year to pay off debt and save. If I'm planning to go part time at work, I better be as financially secure as I can be.

As depressing as this has been, I have to remember that I'm in the middle of a very demanding graduate seminar. Now I REALLY need to do well in this.

I couldn't help myself: I already registered for next semester at ASU. I'm taking the two remaining courses I need for my Anthro degree, except for the foreign language component. For Spanish, I'll take two summer sessions starting in June, and I'll have completed my four courses total by May of 2009. Yep, I should be able to graduate.

As for graduate school, I'll need to see what happens. I might still try the Online Masters in Applie dAnthropology at UNT, or I might commute to the U of A in Tucson. But for the next 15 months, I know I'll be right here at ASU.

Good Practice for Grad School

2008-02-25T17:28:00.004-07:00

This has been an exciting semester so far, and an immensely busy one. I'm taking ASB 591 Archaeology of Ancient Built Environments, I'm still working on a paper with Dr. Martin, I still have quite a bit of data entry to do for Dr. Smith, and I'm sitting in on Dr. Martin's graduate seminar entitled Biology and Society.

This seems like pretty good practice for graduate school-- since I'm doing all of the reading for two seminars and working on a major research project. If I am lucky enough to get accepted into the Master's program at NAU, it can't be much worse (except for the drive).

In Dr. Smith's Built Environment class, we're reading up on how the many ways that archaeologists propose for inferring culture from architecture. We've had some really stimulating conversations (there are five us us unrolled in the class), and kicked around many things I had never considered.

We've covered new broad topics each week:

The Meaning of the Built Environment - reading mostly works by Amos Rapoport, who proposes that the environment can possess lower-level meaning (cues for what we are supposed to do), middle level meaning (e.g. identity, status, power), or high level meaning (e.g. world view, spiritual meaning). Intriguing urban design/social engineering controversy: Urban planner Robert Moses designed expressway systems in New York City, and supposedly designed the expressway bridges with such low clearance that public transportation (buses) could not go under them. This discriminated against the poor communities (few had automobiles) preventing them from visiting parks, baseball, etc. He is even credited by some with driving the Brooklyn Dodgers out of New York. read more at Wikipedia.

Settings for Activities - Dana Anderson, Susan Kent, and more Rapoport. We covered the definition of "activity" and "activity areas", discussed the types of activities (daily, subsistence, ritualistic, production, consumption), the types of activity areas (shared or dedicated), and Rapoport's concept that activities cannot be viewed alone, but as part of a larger activity system. He believes that settings are also part of larger setting systems.

Habitus and Home - Looking at domestic structures, Richard Blanton, Kent Lightfoot, and others looked at methods for identifying meaning. Most of these authors make it clear that to gain a full picture, one must combine data from archaeology, ethnohistory, and even oral histories.

Housing and Communication - House construction and design is to a large extent a consumer decision... how much to spend, etc. Blanton looks at how the decoration and design of a house communicates on multiple levels: What group the owners are in, their status in the community, etc.

Roland Fletcher - His model for settlement growth is pretty interesting (although I'm not sure what it can be used for if you are an archaeologist). It grows out of his belief that interpersonal interaction and limits on communication increase as settlements get larger, ultimately limiting the size of growth until the interactions are curbed or new facilitating communication technologies emerge. See The Limits of Settlement Growth.

We have 8 more weeks of topics, usually reading 6 papers per week. I need to read a related book and write a publishable review, and I also need to produce an original research paper, some kind of cross-cultural comparative study using existing data.

If I can survive this semester, I should be able to handle the real thing.

Springtime: Getting Serious

2008-02-19T20:33:00.002-07:00

Okay, I know it's been a long time since I posted. For the two of you who still check occasionally, I apologize.

I'm going to try to post more often, especially since things have been getting more interesting for me as a student.

Some highlights:

Dr. Martin and I are close to submitting a paper on an important discovery we've made regarding the social effects on the sex ratio at birth in Africa. More details once it's on its way.

I managed to get all of my application materials submitted on time for the Anthropology Masters at NAU. Now I just have to wait... I should hear in the next few weeks.

I'm taking a graduate seminar from Dr. Michael Smith: Archaeology of Ancient Built Environments. Tons of reading, tons of excellent discussion, and tons of stress are making it a novel experience.

I'll be posting separately in more detail on each of these topics real soon now.

A new subject: Linguistics

2007-08-29T17:46:00.001-06:00

It's the Fall semester, so it must be time for Dr. Hudak's Principles of Linguistics class. I've been looking forward to this, mostly because it is the only field of Anthropology about which I still know NOTHING.

We're beginning with phonetic consonants (for English), and we already have a quiz tomorrow after only three class periods.

There's not much to report yet, but it's good to be back on campus.

A Long Commute: Northern Arizona University

2007-07-13T23:10:00.000-06:00

I hopped in my car last Tuesday and took a drive up Interstate 17 to Flagstaff. As I approached the end of the interstate (yes, it actually comes to an end in Flagtown), the Skydome figured prominently in my field of view. Home to the NAU Lumberjacks football team, it is the largest building on the South campus of Northern Arizona University... and my landmark for where to turn.

I had an appointment with Dr. George Gumerman IV, the chairman of the Anthropology Department at NAU. I wanted to learn more about the department, the graduate program, and to discuss the feasibility of joining the program and commuting from Phoenix.

It was great talking with Dr. Gumerman and seeing the Anthropology facilities. They are very focused on the experiences they provide for their graduate students. they place an emphasis on the importance of working with your cohort, whether just exchanging ideas or collaborating on research projects. they do not offer a Ph.D., so the Masters students get all the attention.

They have recently revamped their website, and there is a lot of information about the department and its faculty. The primary focus at NAU is on Applied Anthropology, but they also offer thesis-track programs in both Socio-cultural Anthropology and Archaeology. I mentioned to Dr. Gumerman that I had considered the University of South Florida (another school with a strong Applied Anthro program), and he noted that NAU had placed several of their graduates into the Ph.D. program at USF.

I proposed to Dr. Gumerman that prior to entering the Masters program officially, perhaps I should try commuting to NAU as an unclassified graduate student, taking one course and seeing how it all works. Much to my relief, he agreed. He recommended the Lithics course which will be offered in the Spring semester, and I can hardly wait.

So, what about the commute? Well, it took me 110 minutes to drive from Pinnacle Peak Road and I-17 (that's basically where I work) to the parking lot outside the Anthropology building in Flagstaff. The return trip was almost identical... so that's almost four hours, roundtrip. It was an easy drive, but also easily the longest drive I've ever done in a typical day, even in the sprawling Valley of the Sun. I'l willing to try it, though!

NAU does not have a foreign language proficiency requirement, so the only class I still need in order to be accepted with no deficiencies is Linguistics, and I'm taking that in the Fall from Dr. Hudak. Looks like it's time to start asking for recommendation letters, since all application materials for the masters program are due at the end of January.

I'd still like to learn Spanish, and with a four-hour commute, some language tapes might be just the thing.

If you build it, they will come (another way)

2007-06-23T13:07:00.000-06:00

National Geographic reports that the new barrier recently built on the U.S. border between Arizona and Mexico has been effective in eliminating illegal crossings by vehicle through Organ Pipe National Monument, but an unintended consequence in a sharp increase in foot traffic through the adjacent Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge.

Prior to the barrier's construction, large numbers of vehicles crossed over from Mexico at all hours, carrying illegal drugs and immigrants. hundreds of miles of dirt roads were cut into the desert by these unwanted vehicles, and rangers say it will take hundreds of years for them to grow over again without human intervention.

Now that vehicles cannot cross, smugglers as moving into the U.S. on foot, many of them through the wildlife refuge. Not only are they eroding the natural terrain, they are also polluting it with large amounts of trash and human feces.

The smugglers are not the only ones damaging the landscape-- law enforcement officials from the border patrol and the park and wildlife services must move through the area to deal with the interlopers, and they also erode the natural desert.

There is some good news: In 2008, Cabeza Prieta is slated to have its own barrier at the border completed. Still, good news for the wildlife refuge is bad news for some other border area, since illegal crossers will just go somewhere else.

Archaeologists find Inca who was earliest gunshot victim in N. America

2007-06-20T09:28:00.000-06:00

Peruvian archaeologist Guillermo Cock, a research associate at UCLA's Fowler Museum and a researcher for National Geographic, excavated hundreds of shallow burials in Puruchuco that showed extensive evidence of violent deaths: Many were hacked to death, some were stabbed, and one was shot.

The skull of one individual showed the entrance and exit holes of what Cock believes to be a musket ball, fired from a Spanish weapon. Physical anthropologists confirmed Cock's initial conclusion that a round projectile caused the injury, and experts at the University of Connecticut used a powerful microscope to detect trace amounts of iron around the holes in the skull, confirming the hypothesis.

Cock believes these victims were slaughtered by the Spanish during an Inca uprising in 1536.

See the rest of the story at National Geographic.

Peking Man OR Piltdown Man?

2007-06-13T22:11:00.000-06:00

Just found this on Boing Boing... the skull of Pac-Man. Is it authentic, or an elaborate hoax?

Neither! Just some very interesting art.

More evidence of a violent Peruvian culture

2007-06-07T14:10:00.001-06:00

National Geographic reports on a new article announcing the discovery of a headless burial in the Nasca region of Peru.

Christina Conlee from Texas State University found a tomb containing a skeleton seated cross-legged, but missing its head. Sitting just to the skeleton's left was a ceramic jar decorated with an image of a human head, which may have functioned as a substitute for the body's missing head.

While this is only the third such burial found involving a decapitated skeleton and a head jar, researchers have long documented the large number of human sacrifices performed by the Nasca, their use of "Trophy Heads" (mummified human heads which have been modified and decorated), and numerous depictions of such severed heads in their artwork.

In spite of the significant number of large caches of mummified heads and a matching abundance of severed head iconography, few of the corresponding headless bodies have been found.

You don't have to have a B.A. in Anthro to go to Grad School

2007-04-30T23:41:00.000-06:00

Okay, so I still need two Anthropology courses to graduate (Linguistics and another Physical anthro course), plus a "Literacy & Critical Thinking" course, and my foreign language.

It's going to be pretty tough to get all of these completed by the summer of 2008, and even if I succeed, I can't take any more courses that I want to take. There's a really great class being offered (for seniors only) that includes a lot of research, and I still want to take a good Mesoamerican archaeology class.

I decided to take up the subject once last time with the undergraduate advisor, Jennifer Gordon. We talked for quite a bit, and in the end, she agreed that if I was planning to apply to graduate school for the Fall of 2008, then I only needed to worry about getting the courses that a graduate program would care about. They are NOT going to care whether I took a "Literacy" course, and they won't even care if I never finish a B.A. in Anthropology (I have nearly 40 credit hours in Anthro, plus an earlier B.S. in Computer Science).

So, I'm going to continue taking Spanish, and then take Anthropology courses that I want to take (i.e., that are in the area I wish to pursue as a graduate student).

I have dropped the courses I was originally registered to take in the Fall (2007), and instead signed up for ASB 337, Prehispanic Civilizations of Middle America. I'm going to take Spanish 101 this summer, and continue with 102 in the Fall. In the Spring of 2008, I hope to take Linguistics and keep going on the Spanish. By then, I will have applied to graduate school, and I can just kiss my undergraduate life goodbye.

Of course, I have a final exam THIS semester, happening one week from today... so I better keep my mind on the present, for now.

New paper on the chimpanzees by ASU Prof

2007-03-22T00:52:00.000-06:00

I just posted over at Primatology.org an overview of a new paper entitled "Genetic structure of chimpanzee populations." It finds that the three large populations of chimps in Africa are not just separated by geographic features, but are in fact different genetic populations (and that the taxonomic designation of each of them as a subspecies is entirely valids).

One of the co-authors is Dr. Anne C. Stone, a member of the faculty here at Arizona State University's School of Human Evolution and Social Change.

Dig Vicariously in Mesoamerica

2007-03-12T10:16:00.000-06:00

If you want to look over the shoulders of a team of archaeologists excavating in Mesoamerica, then you should hop over to the Blog for the 2007 field season at Calixtlahuaca.

Dr. Michael Smith from Arizona State University is leading the multi-year project, and is one of the primary contributors to the blog.

A Postclassic urban center, the site is of particular interest because it includes well-preserved public architecture and residential zones.

I particularly enjoyed reading about the likely ancient name for the city, which Smith says was populated by non-Nahuatl speakers (the language of the Aztecs).

One last note: the site of Calixtlahuaca is the source of one of the only suspected European artifacts discovered in a precolumbian New World context: the Roman Figurine. Most agree that it is not a Roman artifact, but Romeo Hristov at the University of New Mexico hasn't given up hope.

[I've also posted this item at Anthropology.net.]

Mesoamerican Tidbits: Did the Toltecs Rule an Empire?

2007-02-26T21:23:00.000-07:00

Aztec writings and traditions tell of the hallowed Toltecs-- the builders of a nearly ideal empire whose art, science, ceremony, and mastery of the region were unequaled.

The Florentine Codex spoke glowingly of the Tolteca:

"Their works were all good, all perfect, all wonderful, all marvelous... These Tolteca were righteous. They were not deceivers. Their words clear words... They were tall; they were larger... They were very devout... They were rich."

The Toltecs were credited by the Aztecs with inventing the art of medicine, as well as inventing the Mesoamerican calendar. All Aztec nobles by birth claimed their legitimacy by tracing their ancestry to the Toltecs.

Archaeologists for many years accepted the idea that Tollan (now known as Tula) was the capitol of a large empire which controlled much of northern Mesoamerica. Archaeological finds of art across the region bearing clear Toltec influence, combined with uncanny architectural similaries in far-away Chichen Itza and Guatemalan oral histories claiming Toltec ancestry, all seemed to be sufficient evidence to corroborate the Aztec accounts.

Evidence of Empire

But is there sufficient evidence that Tula was the seat of power for a far-reaching empire?

While many archaeologists and ethnohistorians continue to accept the Toltec empire without question, a growing number of noted scholars see no real evidence that the Toltecs militarily dominated a large area. It seems clear that the Toltec traded across large distances, and may also have been responsible for spreading the cult of Quetzalcoatl, but the area of their political influence was actually quite small (Smith and Montiel, 2001).

One of the biggest arguments made by supporters of a Toltec empire involves the Toltec "conquest" of the Mayan city of Chichen Itza. Mayan legend in the Yucatan tells of a king Quezalcoatl from Tollan who conquered Chichen Itza, and remade the city center to look like his old home. This story fits well with the striking and uniquely shared architectural features of the ceremonial centers of both Tula and Chichen Itza, and easily supported the empire theory. The big problem is that recent dating of materials associated with the decline of Chichen Itza place them squarely in the Classic period, while Tula is a post-Classic site. In other words, if there was any copying of architecture, it happened the other way around!

Then Why All the Fuss?

So, if there was no Toltec empire, why did the Aztecs make such a big deal about them?

The Mexica (as the Aztecs called themselves) arrived in the Valley of Mexico well after many other groups in the post-Classic period. They were poor, and only managed to survive by hiring on as mercenaries to one of the larger city states in the valley. Over time, they pulled themselves up from their humble beginnings, building a town which would one day become the center of their empire.

Most of the people living in the central highlands of Mexico proudly claimed the Toltecs as their ancestors, including the Mexica. As their ambitions grew, so did the picture they painted of the Toltecs. If the Mexica were destined to rule a great empire, then the legitimacy to do so must be great, as well. By portraying the Toltecs as being much more than they really were, it helped to sell the idea that their descendants, the Mexica, were destined to be just as great.

Remember Bernardino de Sahagun's entry in the Florentine Codex? He never saw the Toltec-- he only heard about them from the Mexica: "Their works were all good, all perfect, all wonderful, all marvelous..." It certainly sounds too good to be true, especially for an empire that rose and fell in just 250 years. But it made a good story for the Aztecs to tell to the people from whom they were demanding tribute.

If you want to read more, take a look at the paper below by Michael Smith and Lisa Montiel. They have built a model for evaluating whether a polity was or was not an empire.

References:

Sahagun, FB (1950-1982) Florentine Codex, General history of the things in New Spain. School of American Research and the Univ of Utah Press, Sante Fe/Salt Lake City.

Smith ME and Montiel L (2001) the Archaeological Study of Empires and Imperialism in Pre-Hispanic Central Mexico. J Anthropological Archaeology, 20:245-284.

Mesoamerican Tidbits: The Fall of Teotihuacan

2007-02-22T22:13:00.000-07:00

If you are ever in or near Mexico City, you would be foolish not to visit the great city of Teotihuacan (a Nahuatl name given to the old city by the Aztecs). The largest urban center in pre-colombian Mesoamerica, it may have hosted a population as large as 200,000. For a thousand years this orderly, planned capitol of an influential empire dominated the highlands of what is now central Mexico.

Around 500-600 CE, the city's population was in decline, and by 800 CE the monumental center of the empire was largely abandoned. Conventional thinking among Mesoamerican scholars has for years lay the blame at the feet of invaders from the North (perhaps even the Tolteca), relying on extensive evidence of burned structures which hinted at a sacking of the city.

More recent excavations which focused on modest structures in the area show no burning, suggesting that internal conflict between nobles and commoners may have culminated in the elite leaders being run off by their subjects.

I find it ironic that the typical bias of early archaeologists to only excavate monumental architecture led to a mistaken conclusion that all of Teotihuacan had burned, when in reality only the structures associated with the elite class fell victim to fire (photo courtesy of the Wikipedia Commons).

Two Hearths for the Price of One?

2007-02-15T09:47:00.000-07:00

Well, it seems that a communications breakdown has led to two (nearly) simultaneous releases of the current edition of the Four Stone Hearth.

Hot Cup of Joe acted as a last-minute fill-in yesterday, but today we are greeted by the actual carnival as originally scheduled at Boas Blog.

Enjoy the bountiful crop, and read 'em both.

Mesoamerican Tidbits: Etymology

2007-02-03T09:28:00.000-07:00

This semester, I'm taking ASB 322 Peoples of Mesoamerica from Dr. John K. Chance, a long-time expert in the indigenous cultures of central Mexico. It is not an archaeology class, but rather an ethnohistorical view of the peoples living in Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala today.

Each time I learn something unexpected (and somewhat interesting) about Mesoamerica, I plan to post it here. Experts in Mexico or Mesoamerica will say "well, duh," but those of you who have known only a little about the region might learn somethin new and surprising (as I have).

Etymology

You certainly know words from other languages that have made their way into English-- words such as cockroach ("cucaracha" in Spanish) or balcony ("balcone" in Italian).

Dr. Chance surprised our class today by sharing a brief list of English words which originated in Nahuatl, the language spoken by the Aztecs (among others):

tomato (tomatl)

chocolate (chocolatl)

avocado (aguacatl)

coyote (coyotl)

mesquite (mizquitl)

You can find several more here.

Nahuatl is an Uto-Aztecan language, still spoken by over a million people in Mexico today (see map above). Mexican Spanish has incorporated many Nahuatl words, particularly place names.

Several languages spoken by Native Americans across the American West are also Uto-aztecan (e.g. Paiute, Shoshoni, Commanche, Tohono O'odham).

7th Edition of the Four Stone Hearth is up!

2007-01-17T12:24:00.000-07:00

...and I am again absent from the contributor list. I'm disappointed in myself, but you won't be disappointed in the wonderful collection of anthropological posts you'll find at Aardvarchaeology today. I love the name of Dr. Martin Rundkvist's site over at ScienceBlogs!

Another Edition of the Four Stone Hearth

2006-12-20T23:28:00.000-07:00

I was really distracted at the end of the semester, and since then I've been trying to catch up on other things... except for blogging.

Now I've managed to miss submitting anything for the latest Four Stone Hearth Anthropology Blog Carnival!

This one looks to feature some great stuff, so go visit this week's carnival hosted at Nomadic Thoughts.

I'll be sure to submit something in two weeks.