118 UNIT 1 PREHISPANIC MESOAMERICA
Contact-period Mayan society comprised a hierarchical set of complex economic,
political, religious, and social institutions. Like earlier periods, there were distinct
social-class divisions, and local nobles vied for position to control ritual knowledge
and luxury material exchanges to distinguish them from commoners. Oligarchical
structures were well developed during the Postclassic and early sixteenth century
compared with earlier times (prior to Chichen Itza), with multiple priestly and po-
litical offices and councils that supported the leadership of Batabilobor Halach Uini-
cobparamounts.
Trade, which was widespread and well developed, provided opportunities for
surplus exchange in thriving regional markets, but communities did not give up their
efforts to produce their own food supply and meet essential needs. Interregional
contact with Central Mexico involved substantial trafficking of basic and luxury items
across long distances, and this intense contact is reflected in the ideological realm
of Mayan centers. Foreign influence is detected in the use of international stylistic
conventions (popular in Central Mexico) in Mayan art and the adoption of certain
Mexican deities. The lowland Mayan peoples were integrated into a larger Postclas-
sic Mesoamerican world of commerce and information exchange (for more on this
larger Mesoamerican world, see Chapter 3 to follow).SUMMARY OF MAJOR DEVELOPMENTS
IN PREHISPANIC MESOAMERICA
As we have seen in Chapters 1 and 2, Mesoamerican civilization was forged by
processes of change among many different peoples over a time span of millennia. The
developments listed below stand out as the key features that shaped the course of
Mesoamerican history.First, the domestication of maize provided a secure nutritional and agricultural founda-
tion for the emergence of Mesoamerican civilization.
Second, the rise of settled village life and the spread of early religious concepts brought
about the coalescence of Mesoamerican culture in the Formative period.
Third, the development of state-level societies characterized by writing, cities, social strat-
ification, and powerful kings signaled the development of truly complex civilizations in
the Classic period.
Fourth and finally, the Postclassic period witnessed the continuing political and economic
development of these societies, particularly the emergence of smaller polities (city-states)
in which markets and commercial forces came to the fore as dominant institutions.By the time of the arrival of Cortés and the Spanish conquerors in 1519,
Mesoamerica was a distinct cultural tradition whose heritage shaped the continuing
historical development of the area in the colonial, national, and modern epochs.
Before we turn to these later developments, however, it will be important to explore
the Late Postclassic (Contact period) Mesoamerican world in terms of the ways that
it was organized and integrated into a world-system at the time of the Spanish inva-
sion. That is the subject of Chapter 3 to follow.