132 UNIT 1 PREHISPANIC MESOAMERICA
In addition, Oaxaca polychrome ceramics, gold pieces, bone carvings, and other ob-
jects circulated widely throughout the larger Mesoamerican world-system.Mayan Core Zone. This southernmost core zone comprised diverse city-states
and empires occupying the areas of present-day Guatemala and the Yucatán
Peninsula. Like the Central Mexico zone, the Mayan states exercised powerful
influence over a large area of Mesoamerica (in the Mayan case, the northern part
of the Central American region). One of the Mayan zone’s main characteristics
was that its constituent peoples, in both the core and the periphery, were
overwhelmingly Mayan in language and culture. Another defining characteristic
was the relative weakness of ties between its highland and lowland core states,
although important political and economic exchanges between them did take
place.
Broadly speaking, the Mayan core states were distributed in three geographic
areas: the southern highlands (present-day Chiapas and Guatemala), the central lake
and tropical lowlands (Petén and Belize), and the northern lowlands (Campeche, Yu-
catán, and Quintana Roo). More than thirty distinct Mayan languages were spoken
in these three areas, the majority of them in the southern highlands (for example,
Tzotzil, Jakaltec, Mam, Ixil, K’iche’, Kaqchikel, and Poqomam). The languages of
the central lake area and northern lowlands were fewer in number and more simi-
lar to one another (Lacandon, Chol, Mopan, Itza, Chontal, and Yucatec). Most of the
core states incorporated speakers of diverse Mayan languages and, in some cases,
non-Mayan speakers as well.
The political organization of the Mayan core states in the southern highlands has
been the subject of considerable dispute. Some scholars have seen them as alliances
between lineages and larger factions, and thus not centralized states. However, a de-
tailed study of the K’iche’ polity (Carmack 1981), historically the most imortant polity
in the zone, indicates that it was similar in organization to the city-states and empires
of Central Mexico and the other core areas of Mesoamerica.
The K’iche’ Mayan state was centered on its capital of Q’umarkaaj (also known
as Utatlan), an urban center of perhaps 10,000 to 15,000 residents. Through conquest
the K’iche’ imperialized most surrounding Mayan and non-Mayan city-states, orga-
nizing them into approximately thirty tribute-paying provinces. The K’iche’ empire
also competed in military and economic terms with other Mayan core states of the
southern highlands, such as the Kaqchikel and Tzutujil states.
The highland Mayan imperial states were able to peripheralize numerous less
powerful city-states and chiefdoms through warfare, trade, and aggressive diplomacy.
Most of these peripheral peoples were also Mayan speakers: Tzotzils, Tzeltals, and
Mams to the west; Ixils and Poqomams to the north and east. To the south the pe-
ripheral peoples mainly consisted of non-Mayan-speaking Pipils (Nahua) and Xinkas.
The Mangue-speaking Chiapanecs formed perhaps the only non-Mayan imperial
state within this core zone. The Chiapanecs, from their capital city near Chiapa de
Corzo, dominated Zoque-speaking peoples on their western flank and applied mili-
tary pressures against the Tzotzil Mayas to the east.