Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Regional Interaction as World-System Incorporation in Classic Period Mesoamerica

Arizona State University, Scottsdale AZ

Investigators

Abstract

Researchers seek to understand how interaction between large states and small polities impacts populations of said small polities at the local and regional level. With increased global interconnectedness and the continued development of world-wide economic systems, the impacts of these systems on local populations, both positive and negative, have become an increasingly important focus of study. Archaeology is particularly well-suited to examine similar processes of interaction in the past and can therefore inform on these processes of economic and political expansion in the present. In the Classic Period (AD 300-900) of ancient Mesoamerica, the large city of Teotihuacan (located near present-day Mexico City), engaged in various forms of contact with many other regions. Forms of interaction included trade, conquest, and cultural dissemination. This project will focus on one location of interaction with Teotihuacan, the Sierra de los Tuxtlas Region of Southern Veracruz, Mexico. It will address the impacts of Teotihuacan influence on local populations in the region and assess the ways in which this influence altered regional social and economic systems. In doing so, this project will contribute to the general study of economic expansion and implements an approach to examine foreign-induced regional economic change from the local perspective, which can be applied broadly. This research will be conducted by Arizona State University doctoral student Nathan D. Wilson, under the direction of Dr. Michael E. Smith. Data from this project will serve as the basis for Mr. Wilson's doctoral dissertation. This research addresses the issue of peripheral incorporation into larger systems and how this process is manifest regionally. It implements a world-systems framework in quantifying interaction between core-affiliated populations and a negotiated periphery. To evaluate this, it will study peripheral consumption of imported goods in the Western Tuxtlas Region (WTR) of southern Veracruz, Mexico. Through multiple lines of evidence, this research will ascertain the regional economic effects for two WTR polities that were connected to an intrusive center (Matacapan) displaying cultural affiliation to the Mexican highland capital of Teotihuacan. Prior research in the region has focused on intensive production and regional, interpolity distribution of specific pottery types associated with Matacapan. This project will build upon this previous research by: (1) more effectively quantifying consumption of these products in two neighboring polities and (2) assessing distribution and consumption of other Matacapan-produced goods. In doing so, it will construct a regional, diachronic view of the different ways through which these two indigenous polities (and different populations within one of the polities) incorporated into a Teotihuacan world-system via interaction with Matacapan. The proposed research is geared toward analytical methods (e.g., attribute analysis, Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis [INAA], and petrography) to help differentiate between Early and Middle Classic Period contexts, assess the accuracy of visual sourcing of obsidian, and separate local utilitarian pottery types from imported versions. Sample selection from previously excavated materials will be done in Mexico, while sample preparation and chemical and mineralogical analyses will be completed by laboratories in the United States.