In early Classic times population growth continued, and
competition among neighboring centers increased. Concen-
trated urban development converted regional market and
administrative centers to cities. Similarly, social structural
changes took place that shift ed lineage heads to hereditary
aristocracy. A basic feudal system developed with an aristoc-
racy based on control of land and water and the labor to work
it. By about 350 c.e. Tikal was one of the largest and best-or-
ganized centers, probably in some form of alliance with the
outside imperial infl uence of Teotihuacán. It appears that Ti-
kal had moved far beyond its feudal political system to more
a centralized bureaucratic state, somewhat along the lines of
Teotihuacán. At its height around 750 c.e. the population of
Tikal reached approximately 72,000.
Dynastic lineage is known at Tikal, because ceremonial
elite burials and monumental stone stelae commemorating
rulership are evident in the material record. Beginning in
376 c.e. Tikal witnessed a succession of uniquely named rul-
ers that favor the notion of lineality, with an unbroken chain
of parent-child links over 11 generations. (Th e beginning of
the lineage according to one source is as follows: Jaguar Paw,
Curl Nose, Stormy Sky, Kan Boar, Bu. 160, Jaguar Paw, Bu.
195, Man from Southeast, and so on.) It is possible, therefore,
that there were actual ruling lineages, and succession would
have been restricted to members of a particular ruling lin-
eage, which would favor a sociopolitical structure of rule by
hereditary dynasty.
Succession at Tikal favored the patrilineal line, where the
offi ce in question passes to the son of the previous holder;
in some instances, however, authority transferred through
the woman’s side even though a woman was never a ruler.
Th is happened when there were no patrilineal heirs (sons or
brothers) available. It appears that this happened at Tikal at
least four times in the 11 documented successions, in which
case the favored transition seemed to favor the husband of
the daughter of the previous ruler. Ultimately, most likely the
result of necessity, the rulers of Tikal were willing to suspend
the rules of patrilineal succession in favor of orderly succes-
sion. Tikal maintained a prominent role in the hierarchy of
Maya centers until its collapse around 900 c.e.
THE INTERMEDIATE AREA
Th e so-called Intermediate Area, comprising most of Ecua-
dor, highland and coastal Colombia, western Venezuela, and
Central America east of Honduras, is a region of vast envi-
ronmental diversity. Th ere was little in this area comparable
to architecture on the scale of Tikal or the urban complexity
of Teotihuacán, though the population achieved a high level
of artistry in craft production, particularly in ceramics and
metallurgy. Th e level of sociopolitical organization did not
match anything to the north or south, and small chiefdoms
of a tribal level probably developed in small villages; small
chiefdoms may have developed in coastal Ecuador as early as
2200 b.c.e. More complex societies, such as at La Tolita in
Ecuador and San Agustin in the highlands of southern Co-
lombia, developed between 400 b.c.e. and 200 c.e., though
evidence of any dynastic history is absent and the prospects
of empire far off.THE ANDES
Th e central Andes region comprises modern-day Peru, west-
ern Bolivia, northern Chile, and Ecuador. It includes rugged
mountains, highland grasslands, low forests, and some of the
world’s driest deserts. It is a particularly diffi cult region in
which to succeed, yet the earliest and most advanced civiliza-
tions in South America managed to develop and fl ourish in
this region. Atypical in comparison with their Mesoamerican
neighbors, in western South America monumental architec-
tural construction precedes state development. Nonstate so-
cieties are fully capable of amassing suffi cient labor to build
large monuments, usually through religious means. Th e Inca
civilization, typically held as the supreme example of the South
American empire model, did not evolve until the 15th century.
Some scholars, however, favor a defi nition of empire in which
a major center or capital is supported by other cities, a defi ni-
tion that would disqualify the Inca because of the absence of
cities, despite the fact that they controlled and administered
territory—militarily, politically, economically—stretching
more than 3,000 miles. Th is example is cited to reinforce the
idea that not all defi nitions and models are equally applicable,
especially in the ancient period, and that the South American
example off ers its own possibilities. Nevertheless, true em-
pires did not exist in the ancient period, even though at least
two early civilizations, Chavín and Moche, provide examples
that correlate with imperial tendencies.
Agriculture began in the Andean highlands of Peru
by 5500 b.c.e. At the beginning of the fourth millennium
b.c.e. all peoples in South America lived in small hunting,
gathering, and horticultural camps or, on rare occasions, in
semipermanent villages. On the coast there is evidence of
nonegalitarian societies that did not rely on agriculture for a
signifi cant portion of their diet, practically unknown in other
regions of the world. Th e consensus in the literature is that
the Late Preceramic Period (until about 2000 b.c.e.) repre-
sents at most the development of ranked society typical of
simple chiefdoms. No single site was the center of a regional
polity. Andean sociopolitical development at this time may
have had more in common with the interaction spheres of
the North American Hopewell and Adena, with a network of
chiefdoms linked in alliance and exchange relationships.
By the Early Horizon (800–200 b.c.e.) along the north
coast of Peru, Chavín de Huantár was the apparent center of
an interaction network and stylistic diff usion, which some
archaeologists have interpreted as a marker of some form
of interregional social or political integration. Th e wide-
spread distribution of the Chavín style poses the same sort
of problem as does the occurrence of Olmec fi gurines and
ceramics in the highlands of Mexico. What degree of social,
economic, political, or ideological unifi cation is represented
by the rapid diff usion of an art style? It is generally thoughtempires and dynasties: The Americas 421