The World According to Robert: Macroregional Systems Theory in Mesoamerica

Author(s): Rani T. Alexander

Source: Journal of Anthropological Research, Vol. 64, No. 3, Debating with Robert: Papers on
Mesoamerican Archaeology in Memory of Robert S. Santley (Fall, 2008), pp. 383-394
Published by: University of New Mexico
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THE WORLD ACCORDING

TO ROBERT
Macroregional Systems Theory inMesoamerica
Rani T. Alexander
Departmentof Sociology andAnthropology,New Mexico StateUniversity,MSC 3BV,
PO Box 30001, Las Cruces,NM 88003-8001, USA. Email: raalexan(nmsu.edu
KLEYwoRDs: Classic period Mesoamerica; Matacapan
Systems

(Mexico); Teotihuacan; World

Throughouthis career, Robert Santley soughtto explain the spread of

Teotihuacan-derived
material culture to other areas of Mesoamerica and
to develop

better archaeological

methods for recognizing variation

in the

organization
ofMesoamericanmacroregionaleconomicsystems.
In thispaper,
I review Santley's approaches

to understanding theMesoamerican

World and

outlineunresolved
questionsin thearchaeologicaluse ofworld-systems
theory
I discuss how recent research on trade diasporas
as applied toMesoamerica.
and consider some fruitful new directions
applies to the data fromMatacapan

forresearch.
FOR

ROBERT

SANTLEY,

TEOTIHUACAN

WAS

THE CENTER

OF THE WORLD. We

can well

imagine him living there at the height of theMiddle Classic in a well-appointed

compound in theheart ofthe city,close to thehubbub on theStreet ofthe Dead, with
easy access to theobsidian and craftworkshops in thegreatmarket. Santley would
have made his fortune as one of the city's obsidian moguls, having streamlined
the production process and kept detailed accounts of the ratios of gray to green
for every household in the city and every community in theBasin. He especially
enjoyed carousing with thediaspora merchants fromVeracruz and taking in a ball
game or two on weekends. He branched out to become an importerof Lowland
exotics, wisely situating his business in a thriving enterprise zone in southern
Veracruz. Itwas there that the sons of thewere-jaguar had memorialized their
chiefs inmonumental basalt some 1,500 years before-and, more pragmatically,
itwas the closest spotwith the rightdemographics for taking advantage of product
value disparities thatoccur at the boundaries of economic spheres. He regularly
accompanied themerchants to .Matacapan, tomonitor quality control of Coarse
Orange jars produced by his new manufactory inComoapan.

Throughout his career, Santley sought to explain the spread of Teotihuacan

derived material culture to other areas of Mesoamerica
and to develop better
archaeological methods for recognizing variation in the organization of
Mesoamerican macroregional economic systems (Figure 1). He was interested in

explainingtwothings:

JournalofAnthropologicalResearch, vol. 64, 2008

CopyrightC by The UniversityofNew Mexico
383

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384

JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL

RESEARCH

1.What processes account for archaeologicalvariationamong the

threemacroregionalsystemscenteredon Teotihuacan,Tula, and
Tenochtitlan?
2.What processes structure
variationamong sites locatedoutsideof
Teotihuacan'sClassic periodurbancore?
In this paper, I review his approaches

to understanding theMesoamerican

and outline new directions for debate. Recent work inMesoamerica

has
focused on (1) the degree of political control exercised by polities in theBasin of

World

over peripheries; (2) the direction, volume, and structureof commodity

flows (Minc 2006; Spence 1996; Stark et al. 1992); and (3) the extent towhich

Mexico

were characterized
prehispanic
core-periphery
systems
by a divisionof laborand
periphery dependence on urban cores (Blanton 1996; Smith and Berdan 2003).

Results indicatethatMesoamericanmacroregionalsystemswere organized

quite differently from themodem

capitalist system. I suggest that flourishing

macroregional system-Matacapan,

Kaminaljuyu, Tikal, Monte Alban-hold

politicaleconomieslocatedinthe"semiperiphery"
of the
Middle Classic
regional

the

inmacroregionalsystemstructure.
transitions
keys tounderstanding
Santley's
legacy in the Tuxtlas is directly relevant to continuing inquiry about the role of
outposts and enclaves in the expansion and collapse of preindustrial states in

Mesoamerica.

WHAT'S

WRONG

WITH

WORLD

SYSTEMS

THEORY?

In the early 1980s the big question kicking around the Basin of Mexico was
what had fueled urbanization at Teotihuacan, Tula, and Tenochtitlan, and what
accounted for thevariable organization of theirpolitical economies. In "A Tale of
Three Cities" (Sanders and Santley 1983), William Sanders and Robert Santley
looked at the energetics of agricultural and craft production and the limits of
human transport.They predicted a limited role for foreign, long-distance trade
in structuring urban development in prehispanic Mesoamerica.
Santley was
in theTuxtlas, where he had ample evidence of a
already working atMatacapan
and
Teotihuacan enclave
economic activity linking theGulf Coast to theBasin

ofMexico.

Around the same time, archaeologists began to consider the applicability of

(1974a) world-systems theory topre-modem, non-capitalist systems

Wallerstein's

(Blanton and Feinman 1984; Blanton et al. 1992). Variation inwealth and power
citieswas linked to each center's ability tomanipulate flows

amongMesoamerica's

of material, energy, and people at themacroregional scale by establishing ties of

superordinance and dependency. Santley was already a fan of Abner Cohen's
(1969, 1971) and Philip Curtin's (1984) work on trade diasporas and merchant
enclaves. As Algaze (1993) later explained, expansion of many pristine states
was accomplished by placing a variety of core outposts at key junctions of the
surrounding periphery. Outposts facilitate cost-efficient channeling of exchange
between distant societies that have developmental asymmetries. They represent
extension of economic hegemony to zones outside direct political control-that

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MACROREGIONAL

SYSTEMS THEORY

INMESOAMERICA

385

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386

JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL

is, an early world system

RESEARCH

and are based on the same principles of asymmetrical

and capitalaccumulation
acrosspoliticalboundaries
exchange,interdependence,
(seeStein1999).
Santley saw themodem capitalist world system as a subtype of more general
core-periphery models inwhich the structureof articulations among parts of the
systemwas dendritic (Santley and Alexander 1992, 1996). A world system is an
economic entity integrated by the exchange of staple products and possessing
a single division of labor spanning multiple cultural subsystems. According to
Wallerstein (1974b:40 1), it is composed of (1) a core, a zone with broad-spectrum

economiescontainingcapital-intensive,
high-profit
goods producedwith free

wage

labor; (2) a semiperiphery, containing an intermediatemix of high- and low

profitproductionthatformsa buffer
betweendevelopedcoresandundeveloped
hinterlands; and (3) a periphery, a politically weak, narrow-spectrum economic

and low-capitalintensivegoods and

zone where low-profit,
less-diversified,
were extracted,
coercedlabor.
resources
usuallyinvolving
The articulations
betweencore,semipheriphery,
and periphery
give rise to
two salient characteristics of all world systems (Kepecs and Kohl 2003:16-17):

1. A core-periphery
exchange.
hierarchydevelops throughasymmetrical
Further,because productionin cores and peripheriesis organized
differently,world-system linkages create a division of labor that fosters
periphery dependence on the core (Chase-Dunn and Hall 1991).

2. Systemicand structured
formsof surplusextraction
and interpenetrating
capital accumulation
boundaries,

1996:93).

develop

as elites share surplus across political

interdependence (Gills and Frank

creating macroregional

Nevertheless, as Barbara Price (1986) remarked inher article on the applicability

ofWallerstein's model to Teotihuacan, themodem capitalist world system is a

historicalanalogywhich archaeologists
applied toprehistoric
systems
without
firstdevelopingsufficient
warrantingargumentsor subjectingthenecessary
linkages
betweenarchaeological
dataandpolitical-economic
structure
torigorous
scrutiny. Consequently, Santley focused on several archaeological variables to
First, patterns of
decipher the organization of Middle Classic Mesoamerica.

productionand distribution
of specificartifacts,
especiallyPachuca obsidian,
allow archaeologists to trace the direction and scale of commodity flows. Second,
the technology and institutionsassociated with thephysical movement of primary
and secondary products, especially transport,affect thedistribution ofmaterials in
the archaeological record. Third, archaeological site structureof rural settlements,
craftworkshops, and household contexts, as well as the organization and scale
of craft production in both cores and peripheries, reflect the structure of market

and interdependence.
systems

data reveal
Although Santley's and others' analyses of theMesoamerican
broad similarities with other macroregional
systems, there are significant
the
differences. First, Santley was convinced that inClassic period Mesoamerica,
economy was commercialized and goods were exchanged according to forces of

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MACROREGIONAL

SYSTEMS THEORY

INMESOAMERICA

387

undercompetitive
marketconditions
supplyanddemandoperating
(pace Spence
1996).Yet, thedebatecontinuesoverwhetherlaborwas widely commodified.
Except for thewell-documented

case of tlamemes (human burden bearers) in the

Postclassicperiod,wage labordid not exist inMesoamerica (Hirth1993:29).

Similarly, monetization of the economy and the development of credit systems

functioned
withotherworld systems,
and currencies
quitedifferently
compared
especially in thePostclassic period (Berdan et al. 2003).
is small in spatial scale, limitedby
Second, as world systems go,Mesoamerica
the transport systemwhich relied on human burden bearers. Exercise of military

power over distance was severely limited (Hassig 1985) in contrast toOld World
stateswhere animal traction and mechanical devices were substituted forhuman
muscle power, and goods could be transported in greater quantities over longer
distances (Sherratt 1981). Old World

societies also developed

forms of animal

husbandry
which producedamountsof storable,concentrated
proteinmuch
greater than the amount of protein yielded by the animal's meat. Mesoamericans
did not experience an equivalent secondary products revolution until after the

dissimilaritiesin
Spanish invasion.These observationssuggestsignificant
theworld-systems

trajectories of the Old World

and Mesoamerica

(Kohl and

Chernykh
2003).
betweencoreandperiphery
Finally,thedegreeof economicinterpenetration
is different in Mesoamerica

compared with

the modem

world

system. In

precapitalist
worlds,modes of accumulation
varydepending
onwhethersurplus
takers or primary producers control the factors of production (raw materials,
tools, land, labor, capital, and product) (Wolf 1982). In a capitalist system, profits
are accumulated

in the formof surplus value. Surplus-takers own the factors of

laborers are remunerated inwages worth less than the value
of theproduct theymade. In precapitalist economies, however, primary producers
maintain control of the factors of production, and surplus-takers profit from the
stockpiling and differential circulation of goods. Technologies invented in core
regions can be easily replicated in peripheries (Kohl 1992). As a result, core
periphery dependence and a geographic division of labor is not strictlya defining
featureofMesoamerican macroregional systems (Blanton 1996; Kepecs and Kohl
production, whereas

2003:19).

THE TEOTIHUACAN WORLD

model was applicableto
AlthoughSantleythoughtthegeneralworld-system
prehispanic
Mesoamerica, he definedthreekinds of macroregionalsystems
inwhich the core exercises variable degrees of political and economic control
over the periphery: dendritic political economies, hegemonic empires, and

territorial
empires(SantleyandAlexander1992).FollowingHassig (1992),he

thoughthegemonic empires and territorialempires best described Mesoamerican

macroregional political economy under theAztecs and Spaniards, respectively.
Although he first proposed that Teotihuacan's Classic period periphery was
structuredmore or less dendritically and contained enclaves, interactive nodes,
and receiver nodes, he later envisioned Classic

period Mesoamerica

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as more

388

JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL

RESEARCH

variable,containingdifferent
regionaleconomic industries
nestedwithin the
same macroregional system (Arnold et al. 1993; Pool and Santley 1992; Santley
2004a, 2004b, 2007; Santley et al. 1987; Santley and Alexander 1992:38). Power

transformations
conflicts
occurredamongelitesas politicaleconomiesunderwent

from a narrow-spectrum to a broad-spectrum economic base.

Santley focused on sites of the "semiperiphery," such as Matacapan,
Kaminaljuyu,
and Tikal, which, he argued, supported enclaves-groups
of

residentforeignersfromCentralMexico-as indicatedby the presenceof

and ritualartifacts
Teotihuacan-style
domestic,culinary,
(Santley1983; Santley
et al. 1987). Alternatively, some scholars have proposed that thematerial evidence

indicatesemulationand statusenhancement.
Local "pretenders"
(possiblylocal
merchants) merely claimed Teotihuacan affiliation and identity,which formed
an importantpart of local political strategies (Cowgill 1992; Stark 1990). Santley
nevertheless maintained that a cartel of producers based inTeotihuacan was the
principal conveyer of obsidian goods over long distances in theMiddle Classic.
The foreign residents of the enclaves, he thought,worked in an analagous manner
to today's "economic hit men" (Santley 1983, 2004c). He attributed variation
in the intensity, timing, and frequency of Teotihuacan contact among enclaves
to different targeting strategies by the Teo cartel (Santley 2004c, 2007; see also

Marcus 2003).
In theTuxtlas he envisioned an enclave of foreignmerchants at the head of
regional economic system.Matacapan was the center of a solar

theGulf Coast

economy and a break-of-bulk place that specialized in the collection of raw

materials from the local region for transhipment to the core. It also distributed
manufactures fromTeotihuacan to consumers in the surrounding region. Civic
ceremonial buildings were constructed in talud-tablero style, and domestic
contexts contained Teotihuacan-style artifacts, such as Fine Orange cylindrical
tripods, candeleros, and Pachuca obsidian. Some portable artifactswere imitations
of Teotihuacan orginals, produced locally. They occur throughoutMatacapan,
as well as in smaller sites in the Tuxtlas hinterland, and are not confined to the

Teotihuacanbarrio(Santley2004c:387).Further,
materialevidenceof interaction
between theBasin ofMexico

and theTuxtlas continued for several centuries after

"persons unknown" torched theprincipal structuresalong Teotihuacan's

theDead

Street of

(Millon 1988).

thedegreeof economicinterpenetration
AmongMesoamericanresearchers,
betweenTeotihuacanand theflourishing
regional
politicaleconomiesoutsidethe
Valley ofMexico
al. 1992). Because

is in doubt (Braswell 2003a; Pool and Santley 1992; Stark et

blade obsidian production and the fabrication of thin,orange

were technologies
coloredpottery
andadoptedinregionsoutside
easilyreplicated
theBasin ofMexico, several investigators question the transformative effects of
long-distance tradewith Teotihuacan on regional economies outside the Basin
(Spence 1996; Stark et al. 1992). Motivations forTeotihuacan "interventions" in

Tikal, Monte Alban, Matacapan, Kaminaljuyu, and other sites, as well as local
reception of those interventions (accommodative or resistant) produced material
evidence that is highly variable in time and space (Cowgill 2003). Currently
Teotihuacan's military objectives on the Gulf Coast are being reevaluated in

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MACROREGIONAL

SYSTEMS THEORY

INMESOAMERICA

lightof the discovery that some sacrifical victims inTeotihuacan's

had Gulf Coast origins (White et al. 2007).

389

Temple of the

Moon

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR DEBATE

In recent years, the study of macroregional systems inMesoamerica has seen a
renaissance (Braswell 2003b; Smith and Berdan 2003), yet two issues remain

regionaleconomiccapitalswith the
problematic.
First,why did the thriving
greatest evidence of Teotihuacan interaction-Matacapan, Kaminaljuyu, Tikal,
tobecome thenew cores of theEpiclassic and Early Postclassic

Monte Alban-fail

world economy? Although inCentral Mexico

some of Teotihuacan's

secondary

were primecontributors
toTeotihuacan'sdemise
centerslikely
administrative
and benefited from the spoils of the city's collapse, in general the host cities for
far-flungoutposts bit the dust in theLate Classic.

Teotihuacan's

The Epiclassic

and Early Postclassic world economy was one dominated by

commercialization
andcirculation
ofgoods,militarism,
multiplecores,increased
and new ideological systems centered on the veneration of Quetzalcoatl. These
"leaner and meaner" Epiclassic polities did not extend economic hegemony to
areas outside theirdirect political control by means of colonies and outposts. Yet,
trade and military diasporas developed in the semipheripheries, such as Acalan
in theChontalpa,
theQuiche

the Itza' of theYucatan

and Cakchiquels

peninsula, and the rapid expansion of

In theLate Postclassic, the

in highland Guatemala.

increasing demographic advantage in theBasin ofMexico relative to other areas

allowed theAztecs to reestablish asymmetrical core-periphery
as a political hegemony.
this
time
relations,

of Mesoamerica

as powers and exchange circuits shift

(Alexander and Kepecs 2005:4; Skinner 1985). Secondary economic centers in
the semiperiphery are often well-positioned to assume the role of new cores,
especially since merchants in these zones rise to the topof the social and economic
hierarchy, unfettered by political interference(Braudel 1992:594; Gills and Frank
1996:90-94, 97-99). In Europe, the landlocked capitals of themedieval period
were firstsuperseded by the economic growth of polities located along rivers and
major waterways, and laterby polities with access to coastal ports, as technology
and transport systems developed greater capacity for exchange of bulk staples
World

systems wax

and wane

(Batten 1998). To some extent,we can view the demise ofMatacapan, Palenque,
and theMaya Usumacinta centers as a power shift to the east, in favor of centers
and Itzamkanac, which were advantageously situated on
such as Comalcalco
an extensive riverine system with outlets to the Laguna de Terminos (Ball and
Taschek 1989; Vargas 2001). At the end of theLate Postclassic period, theAztecs
established Nahuatl-speaking enclaves and commercial outposts at Xicalango
and Potonchan in this semiperiphery (Gasco and Berdan 2003; Izquierdo 1997;
Scholes and Roys 1948). Closer toMatacapan, Cuetlaxtlan and Tochtepec became
tributaryprovinces of theAztec Empire (Berdan 1996).

As Algaze (1993:325) explains,civilizationswith recurring

cycles of

expansion initially incorporate peripheries by establishing outposts. Local

elites are usually amenable to economic intrusions because establishing trading

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JOURNAL
OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL
RESEARCH

390

relationships with the core leads to short-termpersonal gain as well as vigorous

local development.
As local politiesexpanded,however,core politieswould

have to either exercise more formal political and economic domination or cede

traderoutestonewlyemerginglocalpowers.Algaze (1993:325) concludesthat

outpoststendtodisappearas regionaleconomicand sociopoliticalasymmetries
leveloff.
Ultimately,
dissatisfiedwith
Santleywas
explanations
forthe
demiseoftheLate

Classic economic system in theTuxtlas. As Blanton et al. (1996:10) note, theGulf

Coast was "Mesoamerica's Mediterranean" for all periods before thePostclassic.
Further, the "leveling off of asymmetries" does not explain the persistence of

Teotihuacan-inspired
materialcultureintotheLate Classic followingthedecline
ofTeotihuacan.
As Spence (2000) indicates,
thepersistence
ofTeotihuacan-style
architecture and material culture in the Epiclassic is not restricted to theGulf
it is also common inWest Mexico and in theChalchihuites region. The
two explanations he proposes for this situation (Spence 2000:257) also resonate

Coast

for the Tuxtlas. First, Teotihuacan-inspired material culture possibly became

a key component of an international style during the Epiclassic (Blanton et al.
1996). Second, Teotihuacan stylewas maintained inLate Classic cities outside the
by refugeeswho fledTeotihuacan's destruction and relocated to

Basin ofMexico

familiar
urbancenters.
relatively
The second issue thatremainsproblematicforworld-systemsresearch
concerns the autonomy of the semiperiphery in structuring the relations between
cores and peripheries. The evidence from the host cities of Teotihuacan's Middle
Classic enclaves suggests that the economic development around Matacapan,
Kaminaljuyu, Tikal, and Monte Alban is the lynchpin for explaining structural
variation and change in the Middle Classic macroregional system. Yet, the
organization of semiperipheries and theirroles are undertheorized inWallerstein's
world-systems model, nor does his framework allow for the agency of societies
outside the core of the system (Dietler 2005; Stein 1999).
Conventionally, Santley and others viewed the enclave merchants as native
Teotihuacanos who intruded on and targeted thrivingMiddle Classic regional
systems outside the Basin of Mexico. Nevertheless, comparative historical
evidence also supports the idea that trade diasporas originate in the semiperiphery,
not in the core (Curtin 1984). Diaspora merchants belong to a distinct ethnic
community and serve as culture brokers, but typically theywork theirway out of
business as communication between distinct cultural systems becomes more fluid
and comfortable.
Spence's

(2005) work identifying a Zapotec

string of "diaspora termini" between

trade diaspora network a

the Tlailotlacan barrio and
Monte Alban-raises
the possibility that elites and merchants seeking greater
opportunities to expand in a thrivingregional economy might actually be targeting
Teotihuacan (rather than vice versa). Not only were these entrepreneurs attracted
to the "city lights" of the great center, they also gained a permanent foothold
commercial

by establishing theOaxaca barrio. Teotihuacan's apparent ethnic pluralism was

the result of several such diaspora groups initiating and establishing economic
and consanguineal ties with groups of Teotihuacanos. The founding of foreign

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MACROREGIONAL

SYSTEMS THEORY

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391

barrios in the citywas an opportunistic strategypursued by elites and merchants

of smaller regional systems, yet the relationship also afforded Teotihuacanos a

significant
politicalandeconomicreturn.

A related issue iswhether the diaspora termini identified by Spence (2005)

are really market centers. Chingu, Tehuacan, Los Teteles, and other diaspora
sites contain a mix of ceramics and material culture suggesting interactionswith
Puebla, and Teotihuacan itself,as well as Zapotec burial complexes and

Oaxaca,

ritualitems,suggesting
commercial
directed
ethnicgroup
activity
by a particular
thatproducesan evendistribution
of goods (seeHirth1998). If so,were these
markets administered by Teotihuacan,. by diaspora merchant guilds, or by elites
in regional capitals? Do diaspora termini or markets represent a distinct kind of
organization, different from systems of long-distance exchange thatcharacterized

theFormative
andEarlyPostclassicperiods?

In closing, Santley would say that it's time for the restof us to get towork on a
inpace, Robert.

new synthesis of theClassic Mesoamerican World. Requiescat

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