Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T15:24:44.379Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Changing Patterns of Territorial Organization in the Central Highlands of Chiapas, Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Robert M. Adams
Robert M. Adams*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The results of seven months of archaeological reconnaissance in the Tzeltal-Tzotzil-speaking area of Chiapas are described. Occupation is found to have consisted only of a few, small, widely dispersed centers during the Preclassic period. During the latter part of the Early Classic period there is evidence of a considerable increase in population, and by Late Classic times nucleated ceremonial-dwelling centers were widely distributed on steep, easily defended headlands. Despite great variation in the size of individual settlements, it is argued that independent communities rather than regional coalitions were the prevailing form of socio-political organization. This pattern was replaced gradually during the Postclassic period by one in which more intensive use was made of the larger, more strategically located valleys. Closely spaced, functionally interdependent groups of communities emerged, and probably were increasingly subject to new and more coercive patterns of political, as well as religious, control. At the time of the Spanish conquest hostilities and trade with other Mesoamerican groups were increasing rapidly, but the region as a whole still remained relatively tarriant and isolated.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 26 , Issue 3Part1 , January 1961 , pp. 341 - 360
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1961

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, A. J. O. and Dibble, C. E. (Translators) 1959 Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain, Book 9 — The Merchants, by Bernardino de Sahagún. Monographs of the School of American Research, No. 14, Part 10. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Armillas, Pedro 1951. Mesoamerican Fortifications. Antiquity, Vol. 25, No. 98, pp. 77–86. Newbury.Google Scholar
Díaz Del Castillo, Bernal 1912. The True History of the Conquest of New Spain, Vol. 4, translated by Maudslay, A. P.. Hakluyt Society, 2nd series, No. 30. London.Google Scholar
Feliciano Velázquez, P. (Translator) 1945. Codice Chimalpopoca. Instituto de Historia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico.Google Scholar
Flores R., E. (Editor) 1955. Relación de los Pueblos que comprehende el Obispado de Chiapa remitida por Obispo Fray Juan Manuel García de Bargas y Rivera, 1774. MS, copy in library of Frans Blom, San Cristóbal de Las Casas.Google Scholar
Godoy, Diego de 1858. Relación hecha a Hernando Cortés, en que trata del descrubrimiento de diversas ciudades y provincias, y guerra que tuvo con los indios; y su modo de pelear; de la provinica de Chamula, de los caminos difíciles y peligrosos, y repartimiento que hizo en los pueblos. In “Historiadores Primitivos de Indias,” Vol. 1, edited by Enrique de Vedia, pp. 465–70. Biblioteca Autores Españoles, Vol. 22. Imprenta Rivadeneyra, Madrid.Google Scholar
Herrera, A. 1945. Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos en las islas, y tierra-firme de el Mar-Oceano. Editorial Guarania, Buenos Aires.Google Scholar
Kelly, Isabel and Palerm, Angel 1952. The Tajin Totonac: Part 1, History, Subsistence, Shelter, and Technology. Institute of Social Anthropology, Publication 13. Smithsonian Institution, Washington.Google Scholar
Lowe, G. W. 1959. Archeological Explorations of the Upper Grijalva River, Chiapas, Mexico. Papers of the New World Archaeological Foundation, No. 2. Orinda.Google Scholar
Morley, S. G. 1938. The Inscriptions of Petén, Vol. 4. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 437. Washington.Google Scholar
McQuown, N. A. (Editor) 1959. Report on the “Man-in-Nature” Project of the Department of Anthropology of the University of Chicago in the Tzeltal-Tzotzil Speaking Region of the State of Chiapas, Mexico, three volumes. Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, Chicago.Google Scholar
Olvera, J. 1951. Copanaguastla, Joya del Plateresco en Chiapas. Ateneo, Vol. 2, pp. 115–36. Tuxtla Gutiérrez.Google Scholar
Olvera, J. 1957. El Convento de Copanaguastla: Otra Jova de la Arquitectura Plateresca. Tlatoani, Vol. 11, pp. 4–13. Mexico.Google Scholar
Remesal, Antonio de 1932. Historia general de las Indias occidentales, y particular de le gobernación de Chiapas y Guatemala, two volumes. Biblioteca Goathemala, Vols. 4, 5. Sociedad de Geografía e Historia de Guatemala, Guatemala.Google Scholar
Schumann, E. A. Jr. 1936. A Recent Visit to Southern Mexico. Maya Research, Vol. 3, Nos. 3–4, pp. 296–305. New Orleans.Google Scholar
Smith, A. L. 1955. Archaeological Reconnaissance in Central Guatemala. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 608. Washington.Google Scholar
Vogt, E. Z. 1959. Zinacantán Settlement Patterns and Ceremonial Organization. Paper presented at the 58th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Mexico.Google Scholar