CHAPTER 1 ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF MESOAMERICAN CIVILIZATION 61(continued)Box 1.4 Changing Views of Mesoamerican CitiesForty years ago most Mesoamericanists believed that the Classic Maya did not have true cities.
Sites with large architecture were thought to be “empty ceremonial centers” inhabited only by
priests, and the Maya were mentioned along with Old Kingdom Egypt as the only ancient civi-
lizations that lacked urban centers. Today nearly all Mesoamericanists would describe the Maya
as an urban society with true cities and towns. This reversal of opinion came about partly as a re-
sult of archaeological fieldwork at Mayan cities and partly as a result of changes in our definition
of the term “urban.”
The fieldwork most responsible for showing that Mayan sites were indeed true cities was the
University of Pennsylvania Tikal Project in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Most earlier archaeo-
logical work at Mayan sites had concentrated solely on the monumental architecture found in the
centers of sites. The great innovation of the Tikal Project was to extend coverage outward from
the site’s center with a systematic program of mapping and excavations (directed by William
Haviland and Dennis Puleston). Archaeologists learned that the jungle surrounding the pyramids
and palaces was filled with low mounds that were the remains of commoner houses. Tikal was not
an “empty” center at all but a city with a population of 50,000 or more. The fieldwork at Tikal was
part of a larger reorientation of archaeological research in Mesoamerica and elsewhere in the
1960s, away from an exclusive concern with “temples and tombs” and toward a focus on ancient
society and culture, including commoner households and rural areas.
Even after the residential neighborhoods of Mayan sites were identified, mapped, and ex-
cavated, some scholars still suggested that these settlements were not “true cities” like Teoti-
huacan or Tenochtitlán. This interpretation was based on a definition of cities as large settlements
with very dense populations and complex social institutions. In comparison with Teotihuacan
(Figure 1.10), Tikal (Figure 1.11) certainly had a smaller population, a far lower population den-
sity, and more limited expressions of social and economic complexity. But does this mean that Tikal
was not really an urban settlement?
During the 1970s a new functional definition of urbanism was embraced by anthropologists
and other social scientists. Rather than viewing cities as settlements with lots of people, the func-
tional perspective defines cities as settlements that fulfill various functions or roles for a hinter-
land. These functions can be economic (the city as a center for manufacturing or trade),
administrative (the city as a center for government), religious (the city as a setting for important
temples), or cultural (the city as a center for the arts or education). This definition of urbanism leads
to the notion that there are different types of cities, some of which have large, dense populations
and others of which do not.
When the functional view of urbanism was applied to ancient Mesoamerica (initially by
Richard Blanton and Joyce Marcus), it became obvious that there was more than one “type” of
ancient Mesoamerican city. Tikal, Palenque, Copán, and other large Mayan centers were cities
whose major functions were in the realm of administration (as shown by palaces) and religion
(large temple-pyramids), whereas Teotihuacan was an urban center where economic functions
predominated, although administrative and religious functions were also important.
Among Mesoamerican cities there is enormous variation in such features as city size, pop-
ulation density, degree of formal planning, amount of ceremonial space, presence of fortifications,
topographic setting, and arrangement of housing, etc. (compare Figures 1.10, 1.11, 1.15, 2.9).
But does this great variety of urban form mask an underlying similarity in urban function? Today
many archaeologists believe that apart from a few exceptions, Mesoamerican urban centers func-
tioned primarily in the realms of administration and religion. Nearly all Mesoamerican cities were
built around a city center consisting of large buildings carefully arranged around one or more open
public plazas. The most common types of central buildings were palace compounds and temple-
pyramids. The central focus of the plaza and the size of temples and palaces relative to other struc-
tures point to the dominance of religion and administration.