political rulership, and kingly responsibilities assumed a mili-
tary quotient, as indicated by depictions of Olmec kings with
bound captives. Defensive tactics are evidenced by a site called
La Oaxaqueña, south of the major Olmec settlement of San
Lorenzo, which was encircled by a ditch about 30 feet deep by
50 feet wide, probably made for fortifi cation purposes.
Easily defensible and further fortifi ed, the Zapotec moun-
taintop site of Monte Albán, above what is contemporary
Oaxaca, Mexico, was a naturally defensive position, which
made it an obvious choice of stronghold. Its central location
also helped to unify three converging valleys. Conquest bas-
relief monuments at the site, oft en referred as los danzantes,
testify to military activity. Similarly, there is evidence of the
burning of villages and sacrifi ce of prisoners cut in stone by
600 b.c.e.—evidence, again, of military progressiveness tied
to military expansion. Further evidence of military activity
can be found in architectural constructions at Zapotec-affi li-
ated sites called Quiotepec and La Coyatera, where garrisons
were built expressly for housing military units with the sin-
gular intention of ensuring control over more distant terri-
tory. Evidence suggests, however, that the Zapotec military
was later based on nobles and lacked standardized weaponry,
indicating a lack of command structure and organized units
that could fi ght in formation.
By 500 c.e. at Teotihuacán, oft en considered the earliest
true city and empire in the Americas, a broad military archi-
tecture was well in place that indicated a highly organized
state bureaucracy. Fortifi ed walls within the city acted both as
a partition defi ning social boundaries within the city and as
a defensive mechanism protecting the city limits. Th e artistic
record also provides insight into the nature of Teotihuacán’s
military. Warriors are depicted wielding atlatls and rectan-
gular shields or thrusting spears and bucklers. Th e depictions
suggest the use of standardized weaponry, which typically in-
dicates state control, formations, and complementary arms
use. For example, the atlatlists would engage the enemy with
projectile fi re, and then the spearmen would close in hand-
to-hand combat.
Murals depict gaily clad warriors as eagle and jaguar dei-
ties bearing elaborate knives on the ends of which are stuck
bleeding hearts, which is suggestive both of a growing war cult
and of sacrifi cial practices meant to indulge the gods, a ritual
especially common later in Mesoamerica among the 15th-
and 16th-century Aztec. Military recruitment apparently ex-
tended to all classes of society, and with military service came
the possibility of upward class mobility. Mass recruitment is
refl ected in standardized weapons and suggests that training
must have been standardized and carried out by military soci-
eties, formal schools, or a combination of both.
At the peak of Teotihuacán’s power, its military arma-
ments underwent profound and standardized changes. Spun-
cotton body armor and helmets were introduced to protect
the head, body, and limbs. Some scholars have tied the sudden
increase in the use of cotton to acceleration in the downfall of
Teotihuacán because the state could not aff ord to provide ar-
mor to everyone. Aft er 500 c.e. Teotihuacán began to decline,
and in the ensuing power vacuum regional centers emerged,
all on hilltops and fortifi ed, including Xochicalco, Cacaxtla,
and Teotenango.
Among the ancient Maya the military was largely an en-
terprise of the nobility with small forces, no apparent chain
of command, no standardized weaponry, and no drill-for-
mation combat. Raids rather than battles occurred fi rst to
legitimate kings and their right to rule and, second, to gain
tributaries and labor rather than to conquer and control for-
eign centers or cities. Scholars suggest that raiding included
burning enemy villages and killing their defenders but rarely
annexing land. Similarly, prior to broad agricultural-related
settlement, early hunter-gatherers probably limited warfare
to occasional raids in which men used stone tools as weapons
and sought booty and glory rather than territorial conquest.
Scholars suggest that technological innovation of almost
e ve r y k i nd h a s h i s t or i c a l l y a n s we r e d m or e t o m i l it a r y pu r p o s e
than commonly allowed, and that this is not simply a matter
of technological change fostered by wartime demands. Th e
impact and demands of a specifi c war or war in general, es-
pecially as it outgrows simpler warrior societies, is a powerful
and persistent social force. Similarly, changing technologies,
whether or not they are explicitly military, exert profound
institutional eff ects. What archaeological data there are for
North America provide only a glimpse of the most rudimen-
tary technology in the form of projectile points dating from
approximately 10,000 b.c.e. Because they were too large to
be arrow points, they must have been spear points used to
hunt mammoth and possibly for primitive warfare. A hunter-
gatherer paradigm of isolated raiding probably best describes
military action for much of the ancient period, with changes
occurring in areas where agricultural settlement took hold
and prompted reorganization of a basic defensive nature. Al-
though evidence exists that suggests primitive warfare, little
evidence has been found to indicate the presence of organized
military institutions in North America in ancient times.
In South America some of the clearest evidence of mili-
tary activity in the fi rst few centuries c.e. comes in the form
of Moche and Nazca painted vessels showing warriors and
war-related scenarios. Th e two civilizations were contempo-
raneous but centered in diff erent parts of Peru. Stylistic simi-
larities between the two in later painted vessels are still being
decoded in terms of the relationship between their respective
iconographies, though it is safe to say that military and con-
quest activity is portrayed in the narratives of some vessels
and thus was an active part of society.See also agriculture; architecture; art; borders and
frontiers; climate and geography; empires and dynas-
ties; festivals; foreigners and barbarians; hunting,
fishing, and gathering; pandemics and epidemics; re-
ligion and cosmology; resistance and dissent; seafar-
ing and navigation; ships and shipbuilding; trade and
exchange; war and conquest; weaponry and armor.736 Military: The Americas