Loa Traxler and Robert Sharer's The Origins of Maya States makes a substantial contribution to the study of early social complexity in the Preclassic Maya Lowlands. It also explores related developments in adjacent cultural areas that reveal larger trends. This book is currently the most complete sourcebook on the Maya Preclassic period (1000 BC–AD 200).
Astrid Runggaldier and Norman Hammond's chapter presents a fascinating history of the application of the concept of the state to the Maya world. After examining related developments regarding urbanization, kingship, and ideology, they conclude that the nature of Maya states remains disputed, with its characterizations ranging from small and weak to regional. This is a salient point; perhaps we need to reconsider old arguments that some Maya states, even in the Classic period, are better classified as chiefdoms.
David Grove summarizes social complexity in Preclassic central Mexico. Although the Early Preclassic period site of Tlatilco was destroyed, Grove defines a “Tlatilco culture” of sites in the region having similar ceramics. An overemphasis on Olmec influence has negatively affected studies in this region: several Tlatilco culture sites, including Early Preclassic Chalcatzingo, include distinct public architecture, and although less than 5% of Tlatilco culture ceramics have Olmec motifs, these ceramics are the most studied of the assemblage. In the Middle Preclassic period, Chalcatzingo, likely the central site of a chiefdom, had public architecture, Olmec-style sculpture, and some “southern” characteristics such as stelae and Mamom (Maya)-like ceramics. Two other sites in the area also had these characteristics, but Olmec styles disappeared with the decline of these three sites around 500 BC. A fourth center, Cuicuilco, which is poorly known since its burial by lava, continued until the end of the Late Preclassic, later than previously believed. Although poorly understood, the beginnings of Teotihuacan were focused on natural springs and “hydraulic agriculture” and seem to reflect influences from several areas including Pueblo-Tlaxcala.
Ann Cyphers argues for multiple reasons that San Lorenzo was a center of a state: the labor to move stone for sculpture implies a higher level of organization than is typical in a chiefdom; the skill to produce the monuments indicates specialization; and most of the monuments may depict rulers. Furthermore, the distribution of various types of monuments indicates at least three levels in the settlement hierarchy, though varied site sizes in San Lorenzo's hinterland may demonstrate additional levels. Finally, Cyphers agrees with earlier studies suggesting that colossal heads were recycled from thrones, indicating a priori associations with rulership. The labor organization required to build up the San Lorenzo center, inequality in residential architecture, complex exchange networks, and workshops suggest immense complexity.
John Clark's contribution covers Middle and Late Preclassic developments west of the Maya region. He does not imagine the “Maya,” “Olmec,” and others as “monolithic entities,” given that they were never politically unified with firm boundaries. Clark explores several dimensions of social complexity, including settlement planning, monumentality, exchange, social inequality, and hegemony. These data indicate that kingdoms developed throughout the area in the Middle Preclassic period and that larger polities emerged in the Late Preclassic. In the Middle Preclassic, the Olmec seem to have promulgated a particular arrangement of ceremonial architecture and to have strongly influenced many sites, perhaps by creating alliances through marriage exchanges. The Maya were more influential in the region in the Late Preclassic.
Michael Love explores several dimensions of states in his chapter on the development of social complexity on the Pacific coast and at Kaminaljuyu. His detailed definition of states, applied critically, includes elements of planning, population growth, mechanisms of centrality, “economic intensification,” and urbanization, and he questions the validity of using kingship as the sole indicator. Love begins with La Blanca and El Ujuxte, which, he argues, represented a complex chiefdom and a state, respectively. He suggests that the population shift from La Blanca to El Ujuxte may represent political cycling. Love then considers the rise of Kaminaljuyu in the Valley of Guatemala and argues that it emerged as a state in the Late Preclassic period. He cautions that Kaminaljuyu's power did not extend far outside the valley.
Richard Hansen's extensive chapter also addresses a number of dimensions of complexity, focusing on the Mirador Basin in Petén. He begins with a discussion of the environment, agricultural intensification, and the production of surplus and also considers the organization of construction in detail. Hansen argues—on the basis of urbanization, the organization of labor, and the emergence of kingship—that a state emerged at the end of the Middle Preclassic period, made possible by agricultural surplus. Three closely spaced centers, Tintal, Nakbe, and El Mirador, linked by causeways, formed the core of the state. The area's complexity increased in the Late Preclassic period, but the state collapsed thereafter, although it may have been remembered as an ancestral homeland.
Francisco Estrada-Belli takes a regional approach to Mesoamerica in response to earlier explanations of social complexity that used migration as a primary explanation. He discusses the rise of Maya kingship, especially elite burials, which seem to develop in the Late Preclassic period. From there he moves to monumentality and site planning, with special attention to the east–west axis of lowland Maya sites, as well as E-Groups and Triadic groups. Estrada-Belli argues that the transition from the Late Preclassic to the Classic period was not really a major transformation and that the real jump occurred at the beginning of the Middle Preclassic period.
Eleanor King's chapter makes many solid contributions regarding labor in complex societies, too many to mention here. She shows that non-elites made important decisions and that negotiation between elites and commoners (rather than coercion) best describes their relationship. Because labor organization differed across the diverse Maya world, no single economic behavior (cultivation, trade, craft production) led to complexity everywhere. If we really wish to understand Maya complexity, we must examine the variability in the archaeological record and not simply assume consistency across the region or through time.
Marcello Canuto summarizes the developments of the Middle Preclassic period and then creates an excellent model of Maya social organization. Much of the model is constructed both from previous archaeological research and the direct historical approach using colonial-period descriptions of Maya society. The model's remarkable detail makes it of great use to scholars of the Maya of any time period. The chapter also inspires one to consider how the various dimensions of social organization changed over the 2,000 years between the end of the Middle Preclassic period and the Spanish conquest. Would the Itza Maya of Petén have felt at home at El Mirador?
Simon Martin pursues the ideology of Maya rulership. He traces symbols of power of the Classic period, such as the Principal Bird deity and ajaw, to the Preclassic period, arguing a consistency in their use in the Classic period and over time. He suggests that both symbols were transformed during the Late Preclassic with the evolution of hereditary kingship. This well-done chapter also notes one large exception—El Mirador, an immense state existing before the institutionalization of kingship.
This wonderful volume would have been more aptly titled “The Origin of Maya Kingdoms,” because the term “kingdom” is “more ample and generous” (Clark, p. 124) and many chapters use the term “state” loosely. Kingship is not a valid indicator of states because it is not the king who makes the state, but rather the organization around the ruler, who stands as a unifying symbol or as an ultimate power or both. Divine kingship and other strategies of legitimacy enhance the efficacy of centralizing forces, but again are simply part of the state and not “the” state. I worry that following a model based on “kingship as the state” might lead to tomb raiding as an end in itself. Such work would tell us little about social complexity and would be ethically questionable. It seems prudent to give Love (p. 320) the final word here: “it is a fundamental mistake to equate rulership with the state.”
In the end, the volume informs the reader about the Preclassic world, but reveals that we still have much work to do: we must investigate Preclassic Maya social organization along several dimensions, including labor organization, settlement hierarchy, rulership, and urbanization. As the sourcebook on the Maya Preclassic period, a second edition should include a thorough index.
