The Neighborhood as a Social and Spatial Unit in Mesoamerican Cities

1. Introduction: Neighborhoods and Districts in Ancient Mesoamerica

1 chapter one Introduction Neighborhoods and Districts in Ancient Mesoamerica Michael E. Smith and Juliana Novic All cities known to social scientists and historians have neighborhoods. People living in urban settings universally organize important aspects of their lives on a spatial scale that is intermediate between the household and the city. Urban authorities also tend to organize administrative activities such as tax collection and record keeping on a similar scale. The spatial relationship between these latter units, which Smith (2010) has called districts, and neighborhoods proper, varies among cities and time periods. Given the universality of neighborhoods and districts, it is not surprising that these were important spatial and social units in the cities of ancient Mesoamerica. Archaeological research into Mesoamerican neighborhoods and districts has been slow to develop for a variety of reasons. First, urban residential zones are difficult to identify and analyze with archaeological data. Perhaps not surprisingly, the most thorough analysis of ancient neighborhoods—Elizabeth Stone’s (1987) Nippur Neighborhoods—and the most complete synthesis of neighborhood data in an ancient urban tradition (Keith 2003), both come from Mesopotamia and employ both archaeological and textual sources. Similarly, the most complete data on Mesoamerican neighborhoods are from the Aztec period, during which 2 neighborhood as a social and spatial unit the archaeological remains can be complemented by historical documentation . The development of archaeological methods for the analysis of neighborhoods and districts is still in its infancy (Smith 2010), and much remains to be done. The chapters of the present volume make several important methodological steps forward. A second reason for the slow progress in analyzing ancient Meso­ american residential zones may lie in low population densities of many Mesoamerican cities. We have known for some time that the large, dense central Mexican imperial capitals Teotihuacan and Tenochtitlan were organized into neighborhoods, but what about the Classic Maya? For many years, scholars such as William Sanders and David Webster denied urban status to the Classic Maya centers (e.g., Webster and Sanders 2001). But even when scholars accepted the Maya as an urban society (Ciudad-Ruiz et al. 2001), they were slow to analyze Maya cities as urban settlements; and only a few archaeologists thought to ask what neighborhoods might look like in low-density cities (e.g., Arnauld 2008; Kintz 1983; Robin 2003). The emerging answer is that clusters of houses most likely served as neighborhoods in Classic Maya cities, as well as in other low-density cities of the ancient world (Smith 2011a). In this chapter, we provide a comparative and theoretical context for research on ancient Mesoamerican urban neighborhoods, and we review the work that has been done to date. These sections provide a context for the case studies presented in this book. We conclude with some suggestions for future research. Neighborhoods and Districts Many preindustrial cities known from history and ethnography have two levels of residential zone: the neighborhood and the district (Smith 2010). Neighborhoods are small units based on face-to-face social interaction, and districts are larger zones that serve as administrative units for civic authorities. As the chapters of this volume make clear, neighborhoods and districts were also important units in ancient Mesoamerican cities. A well-documented non-Western example—the Hindu Newar city of Bhaktapur in Nepal—illustrates the nature of neighborhoods and districts in preindustrial cities. An Historical Example: Bhaktapur, Nepal The city of Bhaktapur in Nepal maintained many features of traditional Hindu cities into the twentieth century (Gutschow 1993; Levy 1990), including its organization into neighborhoods and districts. In Bhaktapur, Introduction 3 the same term, twa:, is used to refer to both districts and neighborhoods (Levy 1990: 182). Levy (1990: 774) defines the larger type of twa: (district ) as “a village-like spatial segment of a Newar town or city.” Bhaktapur was divided into twenty-four such districts, which were part of a system of governing councils. Each twa: sent a representative to the town council (Levy 1990: 61). Most districts were centered on a public square used for both commerce and agricultural activities such as drying rice (Gutschow and Kölver 1975: 26). These districts had important roles in public ritual in Bhaktapur. Each twa: had a temple or shrine to the Hindu deity Ganesha (Gutschow and Kölver 1975: 26). The twa: and its Ganesha shrines also played a major role in funeral processions (Gutschow 1993). People identified with their twa: and often used it to describe their place of residence (Levy 1990: 183). The average size...