Mesoamerican Political Complexity

Abstract

In 1960, a group of renowned archaeologists met in Burg Wartenstein, Austria, to discuss the path of human history from the late Pleistocene to the threshold of urban civilizations. The symposium, which culminated in the important volumeCourses toward Urban Life(Braidwood and Willey 1962), helped set a foundation for the past four decades of archaeological research. Great empirical contributions have been made during this period (e.g., Meltzer et al. 1986). Nevertheless, although our archaeological database is far richer than it was 40 years ago, my optimism was tempered by the realization that many of the same key theoretical queries and major issues raised in the volume “in play” and “for grabs” today