This volume edited by Michael Love and Julia Guernsey is needed by any serious scholar working with Preclassic Mesoamerican cultures. The editors point out the fallacy that “Mesoamerican cities developed relatively late” and suggest new perspectives of the origins of early Mesoamerican cities. This compilation of a 2014 SAA session on Mesoamerican urbanization was meant to “play a major role” in a global comparative analysis of first-generation cities and urbanism (p. 4).
Love’s introduction notes that the volume was formed with the “hope that . . . it would stimulate a discussion of the nature of early cities . . . how they compared to other(s) . . . and their relationship to late urban manifestations in Mesoamerica” (p. 7). However, the stated goals are not fulfilled. He points out the archaism of the term “Formative” (p. 1), yet it is used throughout the volume. He states that the Olmec center of San Lorenzo may have been “Mesoamerica’s first city” and the “point of origin of Mesoamerica’s first civilization” (p. 8), although it was not until 900–850 BCE that the site had a central core area. This coincides with the emergence of urbanism throughout Mesoamerica. San Lorenzo may not have been the first, and the new data from a variety of areas in Mesoamerica demonstrate new possibilities for peer-polity interactions about this same time.
In chapter 2, Arthur A. Joyce deals with the Late Formative period centers of Oaxaca, focusing on three regions in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mixteca, and the Lower Rio Verde Valley. He argues that the early urbanism in all three regions was “tenuous, contested, and fragmented . . . collapsing within a few centuries of their emergence” (p. 25).
In chapter 3, Christopher Pool and Michael Loughlin present the processes of early urbanization in the Gulf Lowlands of Mexico, particularly at San Lorenzo, La Venta, and Tres Zapotes, and their episodes of “rise and fall” and “fits and starts” (p. 70). They define cities as “nodes within a regional settlement . . . [where] . . . a combination of administrative, commercial, religious and/or more broadly ideological activities and services are concentrated” (p. 51), yet there is “little evidence of horizontal occupational specialization, and nothing to indicate that San Lorenzo itself supported a multi-ethnic population” (p. 56).
In chapter 4, Marcello Canuto and Francisco Estrada-Belli tackle the patterns of early urbanism in the Southern Maya Lowlands from a regional perspective. They cite V. Gordon Childe’s definition of “city” that would have been “reduced or impoverished by the inclusion of the Maya” (p. 73) and then list models of urbanism from a global perspective, including the value of lidar technology to show a “robust” urban landscape for the Maya without examining contemporaneity. They conclude that the glyphic ch’een, a nebulous reference to caves, wells, or geological outcrops, was probably associated with settlements. The administrative, ritual, and resource allocations led to abundance and monumentality of triadic architectural groups, E-Groups, and causeway systems. Unfortunately, the authors neglect to cite published data from many colleagues that would have strengthened this chapter.
In chapter 5, Travis Stanton and Ryan Collins present data about Middle Preclassic “placemaking” at Yaxuná. They claim that early Maya settlements “used similar ritual, economic, and social aggregation strategies as later cities” (p. 100), yet it would be a “mistake to view (Preclassic) kings as equivalent to those of the Classic period” (p. 117). Yaxuná was the “only sizable site in the region during the early Middle Preclassic” (p. 107). It would have benefited them to examine the numerous publications of triadic architectural complexes, E-Groups, and the evidence for kingship by the Middle and Late Preclassic periods.
In chapter 6, Barbara Arroyo presents data from the mostly destroyed site of Kaminaljuyu, occupied from the early Middle Preclassic period until about 900 CE, with a demographic apogee in the Late and Terminal Preclassic periods (p. 121). Arroyo viewed urbanization from an economic perspective with obsidian, the associated natural and symbolic landscapes, and the role of “water and water management as stimuli to the process of urbanization” (p. 122).
In chapter 7, Love and Robert W. Rosenswig studied urbanism on the Pacific Coast and piedmont regions of Chiapas and Guatemala, particularly the site of La Blanca, the urbanized centers of Izapa, and El Ujuxte and associated polities. They note that scattered Middle Preclassic populations aggregated into greater demographic densities and centralized economies by the Late Formative.
In chapter 8, Saburo Sugiyama discusses the early urbanism at Teotihuacan, noting that it occurred by the second and third centuries CE in the Moon complex, the Temple of the Sun, and the Ciudadela. He explains that the Teotihuacan measurement unit (TMU) of 83 cm, the 260-day calendar, and solar alignments were factors in planning, construction, and urbanization of the site.
In chapter 9, Guernsey and Stephanie M. Strauss note the material art are “visual codes” for urbanization with Late Preclassic art found on the western slope and highlands. They argue that as Preclassic rulers “experimented with the visual signifiers of an urban identity they re-inscribed a conception of urban identity that was . . . tied to notions of literacy” (pp. 214–215).
In chapter 10, Monica L. Smith notes concepts of landscapes and leadership as revealed by the use of lidar technology. She states landscapes are “multicomponent and variable” (p. 236) but that the “discontinuity of urban form and function relative to a robust countryside” suggests that the rationale for urbanism “is far from conclusively answered.”
In the concluding chapter, chapter 11, Norman Yoffee, a specialist in Mesopotamian urbanization, explains the wide variety of terminologies used by the authors in the volume which reflect the variant paths taken to describe “urbanism” and “fragility.” Such comparisons are useful in understanding the common denominators inherent is social and political complexity, and many Mesoamericanists would do well to expand the comparisons and contrasts with other complex societies of the world.
One can lament the relative lack of research in the largest Preclassic sites in Chiapas: La Perserverancia and Aquiles Serdán. There also is an absence of scholars that could have contributed to this topic, as none of the papers discussed the development of state-level political, economic, and social institutions (p. 19). The fact that these prime stimuli are intricately intertwined with urban formations shows a broad horizon that can be addressed in the future.
While editors Love and Guernsey and the 16 authors of this volume are to be applauded, the volume is obsolescent because of the absence of numerous contributions that would have enriched it. It is incomplete. Perhaps a similar metaphor would be to present a volume on great ancient civilizations of the world but ignore Rome, Egypt, and China. The process of urbanization could have been enhanced with discussions of landscape topography, geomorphology, hydrology, administrative centralization, agricultural practices, trade and exchange systems, and socioeconomic interactions, all roles in incipient urbanism. Other works that may fill the void include the scholarship of David Anderson, E. Wyllys Andrews, Jaime Awe, George Bey, Michael Blake, Kathryn Brown, David Cheetham, John Clark, William Fash, Vilma Fialko, David Freidel, Richard D. Hansen, Takeshi Inomata, Richard Lesure, Leonardo López-Lujan, Kathryn Reese-Taylor, William Ringle, Loa Traxler, Daniela Triadan, and Debra S. Walker.
