CHAPTER 3 THE MESOAMERICAN WORLD AT SPANISH CONTACT 123nal ethnic cultural differences. Scholars have pointed out that Mesoamerican states
such as the Aztec empire did not actively seek to impose their own gods and particu-
lar cultural practices on other peoples. Recent research indicates, however, that the
ruling ethnic groups tended to reformulate their particular patron deity cults to pro-
mote religious ideologies that supported broader imperial interests. Ideologies stress-
ing war and human sacrifice were widely promoted by states throughout Mesoamerica,
although the particular features of each ideology varied considerably. We also know
that ethnic ideas and symbols within the core areas of the larger states were often as-
similated to the dominant imperial culture, whereas in the marginal areas, ethnic
groups usually remained segregated as culturally distinct peoples.Regional Networks
Beyond the cultural variation in Mesoamerica based on ethnic and political organi-
zation, broader sociocultural differences were of regional importance; the regional
networks gave rise to expanded cultural expressions that are sometimes referred to
in the literature as “civilizations.” Archaeologists in particular have called attention
to this regional diversity and have shown that it existed in Mesoamerica long before
Spanish contact. Each regional network was characterized by distinctive language
and cultural features promoted by highly influential polities that dominated the re-
gional network. A prototypical case would be the Zapotec peoples who built the
Monte Albán city and later nearby towns in the Valley of Oaxaca, in the process pro-
moting a regional sociocultural network inherited by the peoples of the Oaxaca re-
gion at the time of Spanish contact.
The most important regional networks and corresponding cultures of Mesoamer-
ica, according to one prominent scheme, were associated with the following geo-
graphic regions of Mesoamerica: highland Guatemala, lowland Yucatan, lower Central
America, southern Veracruz-Tabasco, Oaxaca, Central Mexico, central Veracruz,
northeastern Mexico, Guerrero, western Mexico, and northernwestern Mexico (see
the section on ecology in the introductory chapter for the geographic characteristics
of these regions). Some of the specific sociocultural features of these regions will be
described next in conjunction with the positions that their peoples occupied within
the wider Mesoamerican world-system.
In summary, Mesoamerica at the time of Spanish contact was composed of highly
diverse component parts: numerous city-states, empires, ethnic groups, and regional
networks.MESOAMERICA AS A WORLD-SYSTEM
In this section we attempt to describe the unity of Mesoamerica despite the socio-
cultural diversity just outlined. One way that scholars attempt to simplify and make
sense out of sociocultural diversity and complexity is to apply a world-system per-
spective to it. This perspective, as originally elaborated by Immanuel Wallerstein
(1976) in order to explain historical developments in Europe, posits that for several
thousand years the societies of the Old World were embedded in large intersocietal