Decolonizing the Concept of Urbanism: Early Formative Mesoamerica and Native North America in Comparative Perspective

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Ancient Mesoamerican and Andean Cities: Old Debates, New Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The colonialist academic project has long obliterated complexity in the precontact Americas. From the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, the complexity of Mesoamerican societies was erased; for example, the massive cities encountered by Cortés were deconstructed as simple villages/towns inhabited by tribes. Not until the second half of the twentieth century did Western scholars ventured to argue that cities existed prior to Spanish colonialization. More recently, scholars have come to accept prehispanic urbanism in the Andes. However, most colonialist academics continue to expunge the urban history of Native North America. Accordingly, we use a comparative perspective to dive into the emergence of urbanism in Mesoamerica during the Early-Middle Formative as a backdrop for exploring settlement complexity in Mississippian, Fort Ancient, and Puebloan sites in North America. The goal of this work is twofold: to expand scholar understanding of non-Western urbanism and, thereby, challenge the colonialist project.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Ancient Mesoamerican and Andean Cities: Old Debates, New Perspectives   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38681.0