Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T04:34:45.298Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mesoamerican civilization and the idea of transcendence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2016

Gordon R. Willey
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

How do ideas, or ideologies, articulate with other cultural systems? This is a complex question, and archaeologists, in their study of the rise and growth of civilizations, have been hesitant to address it. There are obvious reasons for this hesitancy. Even in those instances where the archaeological record is text-aided it is difficult, and it is still more so where contemporaneous documentary materials are lacking or equivocal, as in Precolumbian America. Then, too, it is my impression that while many archaeologists are willing to grant ideology a role in cultural development they tend to look upon it as causally ‘secondary’. Subsistence, demography, technology, and ecology—perhaps because they are more directly susceptible to archaeological methods and inferences than are idea systems—are more apt to be seen as the seats of ‘prime cause’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 50 , Issue 199-200 , September 1976 , pp. 205 - 215
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acosta, J.R. 1956–7. Interpretación de algunos de los datos obtenidos en Tula relativos a al época Tolteca, Revista Mexicana de Estudios Antropolgicos, 75–110.Google Scholar
Blanton, R.E. 1972. Prehispanic adaptation in the Ixtapalapa region, Mexico, Science, 175, 1317–36.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Alfonso, Caso. 1950. Explicación del reverso del Codex Vindobonensis, Memoira de El Colegio Nacional, No. 5, 9–46 (Mexico, DF).Google Scholar
Alfonso, Caso. 1952. Sincronológia Cristiana y Mixteca, Memorias del Congreso Científico Mexicano de 1951 (Mexico, DF).Google Scholar
Alfonso, Caso. 1954 Interpretación del Codice Gómez des Orozco (Mexico, DF).Google Scholar
Codex Telleriano-Remensis. 1899. (ed.), Hamy, E.T. (Paris).Google Scholar
Codex Vaticanus A. 1900. (ed.), Duc de Loubat (Rome).Google Scholar
Coe, M.D. 1968. San Lorenzo and the Olmec civilization, Dumbarton Oaks Conference on the Olmec, (ed.), Benson, E.P., 41–71 (Washington, DC).Google Scholar
Coe, M.D. 1973. The iconology of Olmec art, The iconography of Middle American sculpture, 1–12 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art).Google Scholar
Diehl, R.A. and Benfer, R.A.. 1975 Tollan: the Toltec capital, Archaeology, 27, 112–24.Google Scholar
Flannery, K.V. 1968. The Olmecs and the Valley of Oaxaca : a model for inter-regional interaction in Formative times, Dumbarton Oaks Conference on the Olmec (ed.), Benson, E.P., 79–110 (Washington, DC).Google Scholar
Garcia Icazbalceta, J.,(ed.) 1891. Nueva coleccion de documentos para la historia de Mexico, 3 (Mexico, DF).Google Scholar
Garcia Payon, J. 1971. Archaeology of Central Veracruz, Handbook of Middle American Indians, 11, (eds.), Wauchope, R., Ekholm, G.F., and Bernal, I., 505–42 (Austin).Google Scholar
Grove, D.C. 1968. The Preclassic Olmec in Central Mexico: site distribution and inferences, Dumbarton Oaks Conference on the Olmec, (ed.), Benson, E.P., 179–85 (Washington, DC).Google Scholar
Grove, D.C. 1974. The Highland Olmec manifestation: a consideration of what it is and isn’t, (ed.), Hammond, N., Mesoamerican Archaeology, new approaches, 109–28 (London).Google Scholar
Histoyre du Mechique. 1905. (ed.), De Jonghe, E., Journal de la Société des Americanistes de Paris, 2, 1–41.Google Scholar
Humphreys, S.C. 1975. ‘Transcendence’ and intellectual roles: the ancient Greek case, Daedalus, Spring, 91–118.Google Scholar
Jimenez Moreno, W. 1941. Tula y los Toltecas, Revista Mexicanna de Estudios Antropologicos, 5, Nos. 2–3Google Scholar
Jimenez Moreno, W. 1946. Cronologia de la historia Precolumbina de Mexico, (ed.), Hurtado, E., Mexico Prehispanico, 114–23 (Mexico, DF).Google Scholar
Jimenez Moreno, W. 1954–5 Sintesis de la historia precolonial del Valle de Mexico, Revista Mexicana de Estudios Antropologicos, 14, 219–36 (Primera parte).Google Scholar
Jimenez Moreno, W. 1966. Los Imperios prehispanicos de Mexico, Revista de Estudios Antropologicos, 20, 179–95,Google Scholar
Kirchhoff, P. 1955. Quetzalcoatl, Huemac y el fin de Tula, Cuadernos Americanos, 84, No. 6, 163–96.Google Scholar
De Landa, F.D. 1938. Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan, (ed.), Martin, Hector Perez (Merida, Yucatan).Google Scholar
Lehmann, W. 1938. Die geschichte der Konigreiche von Colhuacan und Mexico (Stuttgart).Google Scholar
Millon, R.F. 1973. Urbanization at Teotihuacan, Mexico. Vol. 1: The Teotihuacan map, Part One: text (Austin).Google Scholar
Motolinía, (Fray Toribio de Benavente). 1903. Memoriales de Fray Toribio de Motolinía, (ed.), Luis Garcia Pimentel (Paris).Google Scholar
Nicholson, H.B. 1955 Native historical traditions of Nuclear America and the problem of their archaeological correlation, American Anthropologist, 57, 594–613.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicholson, H.B. 1957. Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl of Tollan : a problem in Mesoamerican ethnohistory (Ph.D. thesis in Anthropology, Harvard University (Peabody Museum Library), Cambridge, Mass.).Google Scholar
Nicholson, H.B. 1973. Western Mesoamerican native historical traditions and the chronology of the Postclassic, ms prepared for volume on New World Chronologies.Google Scholar
Nicholson, H.B. 1974. The Deity 9. wind ‘Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl’ in the Mixteca pictorials. Paper presented to 41st International Congress of Americanists, Mexico, DF, September 2–7, 1974 (unpublished ms).Google Scholar
Parsons, J.R. 1971. Prehistoric settlement patterns in the Texcoco region, Mexico, Memoirs, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, No. 3 (Ann Arbor).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paso Y Troncoso, F. del. 1903. Leyenda de los Soles (Florence).Google Scholar
Porter Weaver, M. 1972. The Aztecs, Maya and their predecessors, Archaeology of Mesoamerica (New York).Google Scholar
Recinos, A. 1947. Popol Vuh: las antiguas historias del Quiche (Mexico, DF).Google Scholar
De Sahagun, B. 1938. Historia general de las Cosas de Nueva España, (ed.), Robedo, P., 5 vols. (Mexico, DF).Google Scholar
De Sahagun, B. 1956. Historia general de las Cosas de Nueva España, (ed.), Garibay, K.A.M., Anotaciones y apéndices, (Mexico, DF).Google Scholar
Schwartz, B.I. 1975. The age of transcendence, Daedalus, Spring, 1–8.Google Scholar
Spores, R. 1972. An archaeological settlement survey of the Nochixtlan Valley, Oaxaca, Publications in Anthropology, Vanderbilt University, No. 1 (Nashville).Google Scholar
Tozzer, A.M. 1957. Chichen Itza and its cenote of sacrifice : a comparative study of contemporaneous Maya and Toltec, Memoirs, Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Vols. 11–12 (Cambridge, Mass.).Google Scholar
Weil, E. 1975. What is a breakthrough in history? Daedalus, Spring, 21–36.Google Scholar
Willey, G.R. and Shimkin, D.B.. 1973. The Maya collapse: a summary view, (ed.), Culbert, T.P., The Classic Maya collapse, 457–502 (Albuquerque).Google Scholar
Winter, M.C. 1975. Residential patterns at Monte Albán, Oaxaca, Mexico, Science, 186, 981–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar