Reconstructing Sovereignty on Ancient Mesoamerica's Southern Pacific Coast

Abstract

The internal control and external sovereignty that define nation-states today has a long (pre)history.Many archaeologists undertheorize sovereignty by only implicitly inferring the sovereign status of the polities they study. Sovereignty also remains insufficiently operationalized in terms of its material remains, especially for those ancient societies without written accounts. During the final centuries before the Common Era, a network of kingdoms existed along the Pacific coast of Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Large earthen mounds that formed plazas lined with stelae, elaborately carved in a shared art style, defined each kingdom's capital city. Izapa was the largest of these kingdoms, and recent lidar (light detection and ranging) and pedestrian surveys document the entire territory encompassing dozens of political centers. These data reveal an integrated three-tiered political hierarchy within the kingdom with the largest centers arranged defensively around the perimeter of Izapa's territory. Further, the "30 km rule" is defined as a cross-cultural pattern for the spacing of sovereign polities and confirmed based on the location of Izapa and neighboring Pacific coast kingdoms. The record of millennia of hierarchically organized human pluralities generates a more complete, comparative understanding of how sovereignty was established and how it functions. [sovereignty, territoriality, political organization, Mesoamerica] RESUMEN El control interno y la soberanía externa que definen los Estados-nación hoy en día tienen un larga (pre)historia. Muchos arqueólogos subteorizan la soberanía al inferir sólo implícitamente el estatus de soberano de las formas de organización política que estudian. La soberanía también permanece insuficientemente operacionalizada en términos de sus vestigios materiales, especialmente para esas sociedades antiguas sin reportes escritos.Durante los siglos finales antes de la era común, una red de reinos existía a lo largo de la costa Pacífica de México, Guatemala y El Salvador. Grandes montículos de tierra que formaron plazas alineadas con estelas, elaboradamente esculpidas en un estilo de arte compartido, definieron cada ciudad capital del reino. Izapa fue el más grande de los reinos, y un lidar reciente (detección de luz y rango) y una encuesta de superficie documentan el territorio entero comprendiendo docenas de centros políticos. Estos datos revelan una jerarquía integrada de tres niveles políticos dentro del reino, con los centros más grandes organizados defensivamente alrededor del perímetro del territorio de Izapa. Adicionalmente, la "regla de los 30 kilómetros" es definida como un patrón intercultural para espaciar las formas de organizacion política soberanas y confirmadas con base en la localización de Izapa y los reinos contiguos de la costa Pacífica. El récord de milenios de pluralidades humanas organizadas jerárquicamente genera un entendimiento más completo y comparativo de cómo la soberanía fue establecida y cómo funciona. [soberanía, territorialidad, organización ...

Low-Density Urbanism in the Gulf Lowlands of Veracruz

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Mixed Governance Principles in the Gulf Lowlands of Mesoamerica

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LiDAR analyses in the contiguous Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin, Guatemala: an introduction to new perspectives on regional early Maya socioeconomic and political organization

“…Mesoamerica is one of the ideal areas of the world where the process of cultural, political, and economic complexity can be critically evaluated (Clark 2016; Love and Guernsey 2022; Rosenswig 2021a; Traxler and Sharer 2016). The wide range of natural resources and variant cultures within a limited geographical framework permitted social, political, and economic interactions via emulation, adaptation, and/or independent innovation.…”

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