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Unintended Consequences? Monumentality As a Novel Experience in Formative Mesoamerica

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Unintended Consequences? Monumentality As a Novel Experience in Formative Mesoamerica P1: KEE/LOV P2: GCR/LOV/GDP Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory [jamt] pp1114-jarm-481119 January 20, 2004 20:38 Style file version Nov 28th, 2002 Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol. 11, No. 1, March 2004 (C 2004) Unintended Consequences? Monumentality As a Novel Experience in Formative Mesoamerica Rosemary A. Joyce1 To contribute to creation of a model for the initial steps in monumental construc- tion in Formative period Mesoamerica (ca. 1100–700 B.C.), this article employs concepts from theories of structuration. It treats evidence of differential durability of construction materials as sources of insight on possible intended and unintended consequences of the construction of earthen platforms by the generations of peo- ple who lived through these new construction projects. It explores the changes in spatiality, connection to place, and materialization of time at multiple scales that these construction projects produced. KEY WORDS: Mesoamerica; monumentality; structuration; architecture. How can we model ancient processes with attention to the intentions of past actors and the role of existing structures in shaping their actions? In this article, I apply concepts from Giddens’ (1979) discussion of structuration in an exami- nation of the development of early monumental architecture in Mesoamerica. To fully model structuration, archeologists need to consider both the agency of actors (whether individual or collective) and the constraints of the structures within which they act, and which they transform and reproduce through their actions. Actors are always knowledgeable, that is, they act with intention. But their knowledge is not always (or ever) perfect, and as a result, their actions often have unintended conse- quences. From our present perspective, looking backward, we are apt to interpret what we can see were the outcome of actions as those intended by past actors. But what we see is as likely to be a result of unforeseen effects of decisions made with other goals in mind. By instead “looking forward” (Vitelli, 1998), we can better model the possible intended and unintended consequences of actions by agents in the past, taking into account aspects of the structures within which they operated. 1Department of Anthropology, University of California, Kroeber Hall #3710, Berkeley, California 94720-3710; e-mail: [email protected] 5 1072-5369/04/0300-0005/0 C 2004 Plenum Publishing Corporation P1: KEE/LOV P2: GCR/LOV/GDP Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory [jamt] pp1114-jarm-481119 January 20, 2004 20:38 Style file version Nov 28th, 2002 6 Joyce Specifically, I examine here how archeologists working on nonliterate societies can establish that part of structure represented by the knowledge that could have informed the decisions and actions of agents in the past. I make my argument through an examination of the emergence of monumen- tal architecture in early Mesoamerica, drawing specifically on my own fieldwork in Honduras. The first monumental construction projects in this region were under- taken by agents with a long history of architectural manipulation of clay as a raw material. Their earliest innovations on the path leading to 20-m tall pyramids were broad and relatively low platforms that probably did not reflect a radically altered use of space or the invention of a new category of building. But the performance of the familiar material at this enlargened scale led to changes in durability that greatly transformed the temporal persistence these people could expect of build- ings. These more durable buildings permanently changed the spatial arena within which agents lived and worked, and these arguably unintended consequences of the first building projects furnished new sites for innovative practices that, through repetition, became standardized parts of Mesoamerican practices as they were de- scribed centuries later by the first European chroniclers. The practices described for monumental architecture later in Mesoamerican history cannot be taken as the intended outcomes of the actions of Formative Period builders. But neither are the intentional actions of these original builders entirely lost to us, since we can, through meticulous archaeological examination, establish some of the struc- turing forces, including differential knowledge, that came into play when early Mesoamericans exercised their agency. STRUCTURE, AGENCY, AND THE LONG TERM IN MESOAMERICAN MONUMENTALITY In 1519, Spanish troops accompanying Hernan Cort´es became the first Euro- peans to see the impressive cityscape of Tenochtitlan, capital of the tribute empire of the Mexica, or Aztecs. Located in the center of Tenochtitlan was a walled precinct over which loomed a massive pyramid supporting twin temples dedi- cated to the solar patron deity of the Mexica, Huitzilopochtli, and the ancient and widely venerated deity of earthly fertility and rainfall, Tlaloc. In the late twen- tieth century, archeologists working around the main plaza of modern Mexico City reexposed the remains of this great pyramid and its multiple predecessors (Matos, 1988, 2000). They located carefully built chambers placed at the cor- ners and on the centerline during episodes of remodeling, with highly structured caches that intimate complex cosmological orderings (L´opez Luj´an, 1993). The analyses of these material remains support interpretations that parallel knowl- edge generated from the intensive study of documents created during the sixteenth century using the introduced European alphabet, in both native and European languages. The great temple of Tenochtitlan today is understood, as the Mexica P1: KEE/LOV P2: GCR/LOV/GDP Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory [jamt] pp1114-jarm-481119 January 20, 2004 20:38 Style file version Nov 28th, 2002 Monumentality in Formative Mesoamerica 7 people described it in the sixteenth century, as a sacred mountain (Le´on-Portilla, 1978). Built as a replica of Coatepec, “serpent hill,” the site of key events in stories of the wanderings of Nahuatl peoples on their journey to the center of the physical geography and social landscape of the Valley of Mexico, the temple recreated a natural feature charged with ideological significance in a location under the central control of the ruling elite of the city. Mesoamericanists argue that such identifications of the built environment with the natural and supernatural landscape were part of the repertoire of strategies of ruling classes in a wide variety of Precolumbian Mesoamerican societies (Stone, 1992). The decipherment of written texts on earlier Classic Maya (ca. A.D. 250–850) sculptures, for example, has allowed the recognition that temple platforms were often individually named, and as a class were labeled “mountain” (Schele and Mathews, 1998; Stuart and Houston, 1994). An equation of temple enclosures built on top of these artificial mountains with caves has been suggested as well, based on a number of different lines of evidence (Bassie-Sweet, 1991, 1996). Many Maya temples were in fact sited over actual caves, and at least some of these caves were either partly or entirely constructed (Brady, 1997; Brady and Ashmore, 1999; Brady and Veni, 1992). The builders of Classic Teotihuacan in Central Mexico, contemporary with the Classic Maya, did not leave the same kind of textual documentation, but some of their temple platforms were also located over constructed caves, and appear to have been identified with mountains in the surrounding landscape (Heyden, 1975; L´opez Austin et al., 1991; Manzanilla et al., 1994; Sugiyama, 1993). A regional historical tradition of building monumental platforms as effigies of sacred mountains whose interior caves were home to ancestral spirits or other supernatural beings has been posited based on these and other data from Classic and Postclassic Mesoamerican societies. Two and a half millennia before the construction of Coatepec, 1500 years be- fore the builders of Teotihuacan and contemporary Classic Maya centers, earlier Mesoamerican people built the first great pyramids in the history of Central Amer- ica. No written records survive from these early times. The contemporary visual representations created by these Formative period peoples predate the development of writing and calendrical systems that provide information for later precolumbian societies. The very identity of these builders is highly contested, with scholars divided over the question of whether all such monuments stem from inspiration of the Olmec archeological sites of the Mexican Gulf Coast (Clark, 1997; Clark and Pye, 2000; Flannery and Marcus, 2000; Grove, 1989, 1993, 1997). Despite the long span of time and the significant developments that separate these moments in Mesoamerican history, understanding of the earliest monumen- tal construction projects owes most to specifics of the later situations, projected back in time. Explanations of new forms of monumental construction in Formative Mesoamerica emphasize the identification of monumental buildings as features of P1: KEE/LOV P2: GCR/LOV/GDP Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory [jamt] pp1114-jarm-481119 January 20, 2004 20:38 Style file version Nov 28th, 2002 8 Joyce “sacred landscapes,” artificial mountains sheltering the bodies and spirits of de- ceased ancestors. An alternative approach, often complementary to and combined with the first, is to explore the role of would-be “big men” in mobilizing the labor needed for these projects. In the pages that follow, I suggest that such arguments take as cause
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