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Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 1997. 26:12961
Copyright © 1997 by Annual Reviews Inc. All rights reserved
STATE AND SOCIETY AT
TEOTIHUACAN, MEXICO
George L. Cowgill
Department of Anthropology, Box 872402, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona
85287-2402; e-mail: cowgill@asu.edu
KEY WORDS: archaeology, Mesoamerica, early states, governmentality, ideology
A
BSTRACT
Between 100 BCE and 200 CE, the city of Teotihuacan grew rapidly, most of
the Basin of Mexico population was relocated in the city, immense civic-
religious structures were built, and symbolic and material evidence shows the
early importance of war. Rulers were probably able and powerful. Subse-
quently the city did not grow, and government may have become more collec-
tive, with significant constraints on rulers powers. A state religion centered
on war and fertility deities presumably served elite interests, but civic con-
sciousness may also have been encouraged. A female goddess was important
but probably not as pervasive as has been suggested. Political control probably
did not extend beyond central Mexico, except perhaps for some outposts, and
the scale and significance of commerce are unclear. Teotihuacans prestige,
however, spread widely in Mesoamerica, manifested especially in symbols of
sacred war, used for their own ends by local elites.
INTRODUCTION
Teotihuacan is an immense prehistoric city in the semi-arid highlands of cen-
tral Mexico. It rose in the first or second century BCE and lasted into the 600s
or 700s (Figure 1 outlines the ceramic chronology). Its early growth was rapid,
and by the 100s it covered about 20 km
2
with a population estimated to be
around 60,00080,000 (Cowgill 1979, p. 55; Millon 1992, p. 351). Subse-
quently, there was little change in area, and population grew more slowly, ap-
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COWGILL
parently reaching a plateau of 100,000 or more by the 300s or earlier. No other
Mesoamerican city had such a large and dense urban concentration before Az-
tec Tenochtitlan, in the late 1400s. By the 200s Teo (as I will henceforth call it)
also had the largest integrated complex of monumental structures in Meso-
america: the gigantic Sun Pyramid (with a base area close to that of the largest
Egyptian pyramid), the Moon Pyramid, the 16-ha Ciudadela enclosure with its
Feathered Serpent Pyramid, and the broad 5-km-long Avenue of the Dead,
along whose northern 2 km these and many other pyramids, platforms, and
elite residences are arranged (Figure 2).
Millon et al (1973) published map sheets of the whole city at a scale of
1:2000, based on an intensive surface survey. A 1:40,000 version appears in
Millon (1973, 1974, 1976, 1981, 1988a). Articles by Millon (1981, 1988a,
1992) and Cowgill (1992a,b) include reviews of research and literature on Teo.
I concentrate here on publications since the mid-1960s that bear especially on
state and society. I emphasize relatively accessible sources and do not always
identify earliest publications of specific ideas. Edited volumes with papers on
a wide range of Teo topics include Berlo (1992a), Berrin (1988), Berrin &
Pasztory (1993), Cabrera Castro et al (1982a,b, 1991a), Cardós (1990), de la
Fuente (1995), Diehl & Berlo (1989), McClung de Tapia & Rattray (1987),
Rattray et al (1981), Sanders (1994-1996), Sociedad Mexicana de Antro-
pología (1967, 1972), and special sections of
Ancient Mesoamerica
[1991,
Vol. 2(1,2)] and
Arqueología
(1991). The proceedings of a 1993 Instituto Na-
cional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) workshop on Teo chronology, ed-
ited by Cabrera and Brambila, are in press, and a book by Pasztory (1997) has
vm/mesoam/teo.
METHOD AND THEORY
We still only glimpse the outlines of polity and society in the city and the state
it dominated. Surviving inscriptions are few, brief, and hard to read. Teo soci-
ety was destroyed by the 700s or earlier, and to the Aztecs, about whom we
have a wealth of ethnohistoric data, Teo was a place of mysterious ruins; more
mythical than historical. These problems mean that theoretical preconceptions
and methodological assumptions play a large role in determining which inter-
pretations seem intrinsically plausible or even empirically well founded. Sand-
ers et al (1979) and Santley (1983, 1984, 1989) are strongly cultural-
materialist and favor interpretations and explanations in terms of environ-
mental and economic factors, relatively neglecting warfare and nearly exclud-
ing religion and other ideational aspects and the agency of individual actors.
Others give more weight to ideation and individual agency.
STATE AND SOCIETY AT TEOTIHUACAN
131
Figure 1
Teotihuacan ceramic chronology.
Teo is in a challenging twilight zone for direct historical approaches; close
enough to the 1500s to make it wasteful to neglect evidence from later socie-
ties, yet distant enough to make it unsound to project ethnohistoric data uncriti-
cally. Linguistic evidence suggests that Nahua speakers were absent or at least
not influential in the Basin of Mexico before the decline of Teo (Justeson et al
1983). The Aztecs and other Nahua in-migrants adopted much from earlier
central Mexican traditions, but the possibility of significant ethnic discontinu-
ity adds to the uncertainties of direct historical projections. Kubler (1967) went
STATE AND SOCIETY AT TEOTIHUACAN
133
to a skeptical extreme; Pasztory (1992) has returned to this extreme and favors
a semiotic approach. López Austin et al (1991) and Coe (1981) are at the op-
posite pole. A more nuanced approach is preferable to either extreme. Using
knowledge from the 1500s to understand Teo is neither impossible nor easy,
and it is best to proceed piecemeal, case by case. Many Teo images have no ob-
vious later counterparts. Others do but must be used cautiously; meanings and
clusters of meanings may have shifted.
GROWTH OF THE CITY
It is notoriously difficult to derive accurate population estimates from archaeo-
logical data. Millon (1973) estimated the Xolalpan Phase population by using
sizes, layouts, and inferred uses of rooms in excavated apartment compounds
to infer that a 60
60-m compound would have housed about 60 to 100 people.
His surface survey indicated that over 2000 such compounds were occupied
during Xolalpan times. Making allowances for those larger or smaller than 60
´
´
60 m, he arrived at an estimate of 100,000 to 200,000 for the whole city, with
125,000 a reasonable middle value (Millon 1992, p. 344). Architectural data
for other phases are less clear, so Cowgill (1974, 1979) extrapolated the Xolal-
pan estimate by comparing quantities of phased sherds collected by the Map-
ping Project, with adjustments for estimated phase durations, assuming that
per capita sherd production remained approximately constant. He did not find
a Xolalpan peak. Instead, early rapid growth was followed by a long plateau.
By ca 1 BCE the city covered about 8 km
2
and probably had a population of
20,000 to 40,000 (Cowgill 1979, p. 55). In the century before any known
monumental structures were built, Teo was already a city of exceptional size.
During the Tzacualli phase (ca 1150 CE) increase continued to around
60,00080,000, aided by movement into the city of most people in the Basin of
Mexico. After that, growth was much slower. Urban population may have
reached its maximum by the Miccaotli phase, ca 200 CE. Perhaps Teo had
reached a ceiling imposed by difficulties in provisioning a larger city with the
resources and means of transportation available. Most of the farming popula-
tion was concentrated in and near the city, and Teo seems to have underutilized
the southern Basin, including the lands most suited for
chinampa
cultivation.
It is also possible, if Storeys (1985, 1992) estimates for one low-status
compound can be generalized, that very high infant and child mortality rates
set a limit to the citys growth. In any case, Teos population seems to have
been fairly stable for several centuries. This suggests that whatever environ-
mental degradation may have occurred must have been gradual.
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