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Merchant Colonies, Semi-Mesoamericans, and the Study of Cultural Contact: A Comment on Anawalt

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Helen Perlstein Pollard
Helen Perlstein Pollard*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824
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Abstract

Using evidence of dress modes, metallurgy, mortuary structures, and language, Anawalt (1992) presents a model of the impact of Ecuadorean trading colonies on West Mexican prehistory. But the model is built on inaccurate data about the Tarascans, and simplifies, to the point of distortion, the prehistory of the region. Furthermore, by linking the hypothesized Ecuadorean colonies to a semi-mesoamerican quality that is assumed to characterize West Mexico, Anawalt perpetuates a normative, typological approach to the definition of Mesoamerica and the study of cultural interaction.

Con evidencia sobre los atavíos, la metalurgia, las estructuras mortuorias (tumbas de tiro) y la lingüística, Anawalt (1992) ofrece un modelo del impacto de comunidades de mercaderes ecuatorianos en la prehistoria del occidente de México. Pero se construye el modelo con datos incorrectos acerca de los tarascos, y se simplifica la prehistoria de la región hasta el punto de confusión. Además se enlazan estos mercaderes ecuatorianos (hipotéticos) a una perspectiva sobre las sociedades prehispánicas de Nayarit, Jalisco y Michoacán como sociedades solamente "semi" mesoamericanas. En este manera, Anawalt continúa con un método normativo y tipológico en relacion a la definición de Mesoamérica y al estudio del intercambio cultural.

Type
Comments
Information
Latin American Antiquity , Volume 4 , Issue 4 , December 1993 , pp. 383 - 385
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1993

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References

References Cited

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