Steve Lekson
University of Colorado at Boulder
The “Post Classic” of North America
“Postclassic” refers to the period in Mesoamerica from the end of Teotihuacan and the Classic Maya to the arrival of the Spanish, or (roughly) A.D. 850 to 1520. Michael Smith and Francis Berdan in The Postclassic Mesoamerican World (University of Utah Press, 2003) list its salient characteristics: (1) explosive population growth; (2) proliferation of small polities; (3) increased quantity and diversity of long distance exchange; (4) commercialization of the economy; and (5) new iconographies and stylistic interaction; to which, many would add (6) heightened militarism.
This was the world in which Chaco (in northwestern New Mexico), Cahokia (near modern St Louis) and Paquimé (in northern Chihuahua) emerged as capitals of secondary states. Archaeology has not thought hard (or even thought much) about secondary states. “How do third- and fourth-generation states differ from first- and second-generation states? … and what to call the polities on the periphery of states when they acquire some of the trappings of that state but are never really incorporated into it?” asked contributors to a recent volume on Archaic States (Gary Feinman and Joyce Marcus, SAR Press, 1998). America north of Mexico is a good place, I think, to address those questions. Chaco, Cahokia and Paquimé were sufficiently state-like: kings, capitals, monuments, regional economies, perhaps even armies (all much smaller and much less successful than, say, Tula), with a degree of permanence (a century or two). And they were surely secondary, historically, to Mesoamerica.
We are accustomed to think of Chaco, Cahokia, and even Paquimé as isolates, cultures evolving in separate Petrie dishes. Atomistic isolation is our default state. We demand hard, solid proof – a bag of exotic sherds, tell-tale trace elements, exact copies of motifs – to demonstrate that Indians on one side of the river knew about Indians on the other side of the river. This seems like a cruel, almost insulting assumption about the people we study. Even the poorest peasant, mired in the mud of mediaeval Europe, had heard of Jerusalem and knew it lay somewhere to the east. How much more might the lords of Cahokia or the rulers of Chaco know about their world?
Let’s assume, instead of atomistic isolation, that everybody knew everything. Not in detail nor with great accuracy, but perhaps Native peoples of North America knew quite a bit more about the continent they had inhabited (for over ten millennia!) than we customarily give them credit for. If we treat Native North America like other continents (including Australia), we would not have to prove that Chaco or Cahokia knew something of the great cities to the South. We can assume that this was so.
When we speak of the “evolution of political complexity at Chaco” or “at Cahokia,” we should pause and reflect that “political complexity” in the form of kings, cities, and state-like entities had “evolved” almost two millennia earlier to the south. Whatever political solutions were offered by leaders of Chaco and Cahokia, those solutions were not made de novo or in a historical vacuum – or in a Petrie dish. There were almost two thousand years of political history and traditions which formed the background for northern political and social experiments. And two thousand years of political history upon which rulers of northern secondary states could draw (à la Mary Helms).
Many characteristics of Postclassic Mesoamerica were mirrored in contemporary societies of the North. In the Southwest, (1) population exploded in the 11th and 12th centuries; (2) a series of small polities rose and fell – Chaco, Aztec, Paquimé, Classic Hohokam; (3) long distance exchange increased markedly in Pueblo IV; (4) market economies flourished in the Hohokam Sedentary and Classic periods; and (5) the remarkable new iconographies and stylistic interaction of Pueblo IV are analogues to the Mixteca-Puebla style (and other “international” styles), far to the south; and without question, (6) violence approaching militarism came after the 11th century. Much the same could be said for the Mississippi Valley and the Southeast. A few examples/observations: Population increased at remarkable rates through the middle Mississippian periods. Small and not-so-small polities rose and fell at Cahokia, Moundville, and scores of subsequent Mississippian “chiefdoms.” The Southeastern Ceremonial Complex was Pueblo IV’s artistic equivalent in the East – if very different in form and content! And militarism rose to levels unheard of in emergent Mississippian, Hopewell or earlier periods. The trends and developments which characterized the Postclassic in Mesoamerica were paralleled in the North.
This is not to say that Mesoamerica caused Chaco or created Cahokia. Causal directions boxed the compass: monumental architecture and metallurgy were earlier in the Mississippi Valley than in Mexico; and Mexica Aztecs were only one of many peoples who arrived in Postclassic Mesoamerica from the desert North. Causal arrows may have pointed south to north at some times and issues, and reversed for other times and causes. Direct historical “causes,” in any event, may have been few and far between in either direction. I am not reviving Charles Di Peso’s pochteca, or James Ford’s diffusion. My point is only this: that to understand the later histories of North American polities in the Southwest, the Southeast, and the Mississippi Valley, we must consider the broader historical context of Postclassic North America – just as the rulers of those North American cities surely did. Events in Sinaloa and Arizona were as much elements of one grand narrative as were events in Tamaulipas and Louisiana. Postclassic North America was one continent.