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Mesoamerican Fortifications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Pedro Armillas
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Extract

This paper concerns the regions of Central and Southern Mexico, Guatemala, British Honduras, and the western parts of Honduras and El Salvador, which are recognized by archaeologists to have constituted a cultural unity in pre-Spanish times. This area was one of the two centres of civilization in pre-Columbian America, Peru, being the other. It includes the several cultural centres north of Tehuantepec, usually grouped together under the name of Mexican Civilization, and those south of that isthmus, in the Mayan zone. For a long time before the Spanish conquest this entire region formed a definite cultural unit—it was a culture area, using this term in the precise meaning as defined by Kroeber—for which the name Mesoamerica is now generally used.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 25 , Issue 98 , June 1951, pp. 77 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1951

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References

1 Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North America.

2 Acta Americana Vol. I, No. 1.

3 I am not considering here the San Juan and Chalco industries, for it is not possible as yet to link the ancient hunting and gathering cultures represented by those artifacts with the later development of Mesoamerican cultures. Radiocarbon dates for ‘Archaic’ (agricultural, ceramic) levels go back to the 15th century B.C. However, since the published list (1 September, 1950) includes dates so clearly conflicting with well-established stratigraphical sequences, I feel that RC dates for Mesoamerica need careful checking before we can use them confidently.

4 In this paper all the dates earlier than A.D. 1000 are based on the Maya Long Count, using Thompson’s correlation (11.16.0.0.0 L.C. : A.D. 1539). In the last few years there has been an increasing tendency to adopt a shorter correlation (11.3.0.0.0 L.C. : A.D. 1543) which would add 256 years to the dates here given. It is true that the evidence for the 11.16.0.0.0 correlation is not irrefutable, but still in his most recent book (Maya Hieroglyphic Writing : Introduction, 1950) Thompson reasserts, after reviewing all the other possibilities, that it seems to be the most acceptable. For later times in the Maya area, I also follow Thompson’s chronology, as presented in his two excellent papers ‘A Trial Survey of the Southern Maya Area’ and ‘A Survey of the Northern Maya Area’, American Antiquity, IX, 1 (July 1943) and XI, 1 (July 1945).

5 Subsequently used only as a burial ground.

6 Ruppert and Denison, Archaeological Reconnaissance in Campeche, Quintana Roo, and Peten.

7 Chávez and Obregón de la Parra, unpublished MSS. in the files of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico.

8 Bernal, Revista Mexicana de Estudios Antropológicos, tomo X.

9 Not to be confused—although both of them are in the same general region—with the Tototepec mentioned above, as I wrongly inferred in a previous paper. Barlow has made clear that the Tototepec stormed by Moteczuma Xocoyotzin, was a Yope border town located near present-day Ayutla. See The Extent of the Empire of the Culhua Mexica.

10 American Antiquity, IX, 1, pp. 124–8.

11 However, the origin of this settlement—as a religious centre, at least—contrary to previous assumptions is dated by recent excavations to nearly 1000 years before the Spanish Conquest. See Woodbury, American Antiquity, XIV.

12 Carnegie Institution of Washington, Notes on Middle American Archaeology and Ethnology, No. 68.

13 Ruz, unpublished MS., Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico.

14 Scholes and Roys, The Maya Chontal Indians of Acalan-Tixchel, p. 70, quoting Oviedo.

15 Tezozomoc, Crónica Mexicana, ch. XXXII. This campaign is dated by Barlow 1461–2 ; see Journal de la Société des Américanistes, XXXVI, p. 218.

16 Tzicoac, Tamapachco, and Tochpan, are mentioned in the account of this campaign. See Tezozomoc, ch. XXVIII, and Durán, Historia de las Indias, ch. XIX.

17 Herrera, Historia General de las Indias, Decade III, bk. III, ch. III.

18 Tello, Crónica Miscelánea, pp. 93, 444, 467.

19 Tello, pp. 19, 20, 90–2, 367, 447, 457. Baltasar de Obregón, Historia de los descubrimientos . . ., pp. 31, 36, 37. García Icazbalceta, Colección de documentos . . ., Vol. 11, pp. 270–1, 309, 343.

20 Baltasar de Obregón, p. 58.

Because of limitations of space, reference has been made only to material, published after, or unknown to me at the time of the publication of my previous paper on this subject. For the remaining sources, see ‘Fortalezas Mexicanas’, Cuadernos Americanos, 1948 : 5.