VIII. COMMENTARY ON: THE EMERGENCE OF CIVILIZATION IN THE MAYA LOWLANDS
Gordon R. Willey
Introduction
In his introduction Andrews (1970 Ms.) quite rightly sets down his
beliefs and biases on the nature of "civilization." He eschews what he calls
a itrigid" definition of that condition, meaning by- this a listing of cultural
traits or criteria which would mark such a developmental threshold. He
prefers, instead, to conceive of civilization as an inextricable part of the
whole process of human cultural development, a process of natural and socio-
cultural ecological adaptation. He also feels that "'civilization' knows no
rules of its own fnd develops in varying ways from area to area", ways that
are unpredictable. He admits to an aversion to "Spenglerian and Neo-Speng-
lerian theorists" with their constructs of "chrono-cultural typologies"
which plot an inevitability in cultural growth. Such typologies are, to him,
"rarely valid in more than limited geographical context." This position is
a conservative position, but it is adhered to by a majority of historians
and, probably, by a majority of archaeologists. In brief, it is a position
that is skeptical of ever arriving at valid positive generalizations as to
the uniformity of culture developmental processes.  As such, it is a point
of view that must necessarily hold serious reservations as to the under-
lying theme of this symposium.
Let me now outline my own biases on these matters. In the first place,
I will reject a Korzybskian or semantic approach to the concept of civili-
zation and will argue that there is a specific segment of the continuum of
human social and cultural development that can be marked off and labeled as
civilization and that it is a profitable and legitimate exercise for the
archaeologist to do this. I would claim this for the Maya lowlands, for
Mesoamerica as a whole, and, still more broadly, for the history of human
culture at large. This brings me to another area of disagreement with
Andrews: I do not think that the search for universal regularities in the
processes of cultural development is a hopeless task. Admittedly, much that
has been written on this subject -- and written with great erudition -- has
fallen far short of the goal of the discovery of meaningful explanatory
process.  To tell us, as Spengler does, that a culture, like a plant or a
biological organism, has a youth, maturity, old age, and death, is to tell
us nothing of cause.  Toynbee, less fatally deterministic, provides hypoth-
eses on the mechanisms of culture change, such as "challenge-and-response",
but most of us, at least in anthropologically-oriented archaeology, find such
"explanations" too all-embracingly simplistic.  That hardy perennial,Marx-
ist evolutionism, tends to find more favor -- consciously or subconsciously --
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in archaeological eyes. It has the advantage of focusing on the tangible,
upon the relationships of culture to natural environment, upon subsistence,
and the production and distribution of goods. It has a piece of the truth,
but its doctrinaire insistence that prime cause resides always in the tech-
nico-economic sphere is not convincing. One must concur with Andrews that
the schemes that have attempted to tell us just how and why man has marched
toward civilization have so far failed; but I think the reason for their
failure is that they have not been grounded in a close-up understanding of how
and why change has come about in specific historical situations. It is from
these situations, and their comparative analyses, that we will make progress
in the formulation of "regularities" in culture change.
This preamble, is, of course, an endorsement of the aims of this
symposium, but how does this leave me in a discourse with Andrews, assuming
our views to be so hopelessly at odds? I will answer this by saying that I
don't think that our outlooks are all that far apart. Actually, we have some
very basic agreements.   As all archaeologists should, we see the investi-
gation of regional particulars as a sine qua non.   Further, I am in accord
with his view of culture as essentially systemic, as a phenomenon that deved
lops through natural environmental-socio-cultural adaptations. Finally, in
spite of Andrews' disclaimers, he leaves the door open when he says that
although he "will not attempt to define when 'civilization' began (or ended)
in the Maya lowlands", he "will attempt to outline briefly what now seem the
critical developmental stages of human culture in the area and how they have
been or may be dated." The phrase "critical developmental stages" is the
operative one here. He obviously sees important differences in the Maya
continuum. Perhaps he is willing to be convinced if others can demonstrate
to his satisfaction that these specific, differentiable Maya lowland "stages"
conform to larger patterns of human cultural development.
Questions of Chronology
In pursuing my comments, let us first turn to some factual ground where
I don't think Andrews and I see things very differently. His observations on
chronology, especially as these pertain to radiocarbon dating and the corre-
lation of the Maya calendar, are similar to mine. Given the uncertainties of
the radiocarbon method, the pertinent dates from the southern lowlands support
an 11.16 correlation while the majority of those from the north are more easily
reconciled with a 12.9 correlation. So, lamentably, radiocarbon determinations
have not, as yet, resolved the correlation question.   My own appraisal of the
archaeological dating for all of the Maya lowlands and, beyond this, for Meso-
america as a whole, leads me to favor an 11.16 correlation. As Andrews has
often pointed out, this correlation allows relatively little time to accommo-
date the northern lowland Pure Florescent, Modified Florescent, and Mayapan
periods if we date the inception of the Pure Florescent as late as A.D. 800-900
Such a dating is based on anequation with the end of the Tepeu period in the
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south, the interpretation which Andrews prefers.   On the other hand, if we
allow for chronological overlap between Tepeu and Pure Florescent then
there is more time for the development of the latter. A full contemporan-
eity between Tepeu and Pure Florescent may be going too far in this direction,
and I think now that I would favor the kind of alignment proposed by Parsons
(1969) in a recent monograph where the beginning of the Pure Florescent is
made coeval with the beginning of Tepeu 2 at about A.D. 700.
Although the Maya correlation problem is important to our understand-
ing of events in the lowlands, and particularly the coordination of these
events between north and south, it does not pertain very critically to the
questions surrounding the emergence of Maya civilization. Almost certainly,
the correlation falls somewhere in the range discussed, with a slippage of
only two or three centuries in either direction at most. More crucial to our
concerns here are radiocarbon dates relating to the Formative or Pre-Classic
cultures.  We have a number of these, both from the Maya lowlands and from
elsewhere in Mesoamerica; and, taken in conjunction with stratigraphic exca-
vations, they offer a generally agreed upon chronological framework for the
long Formative Period and its major events. Briefly, and viewing Mesoamerica
as a whole, it would appear that an effective agricultural subsistence came
into being at somewhere around 2000 to 1500 B.C., in what is usually called
the Early Formative. At 1200 B.C., we have the first great ceremonial centers
of the Olmec, and the spread of Olmec influences after this mark the Middle
Formative.  The Late Formative, after about 400 B.C., was the time of the
various successor cultures to the Olmec. The subsequent Classic Period
developments of Teotihuacan, Monte Alban, the Maya lowlands, and elsewhere
arose trom these Late Formative and Proto-Classic cultures in the tirst two
or three centuries of the Christian Era.
Diachronic Configurations of Development in the Maya Lowlands
We need many more radiocarbon dates on the Maya lowland Formative
Period cultures and other kinds of information as well; however, from what
we know now, it looks as though there was no settlement of any kind in these
lowland regions until at least 1000 B.C., or until the Middle Formative Period.
These earliest cultures of the Maya lowlands appear as developed farming,
pottery-making phases, and it is assumed that they result from migrant so-
cieties who entered the jungle lowlands from elsewhere. In this connection,
it is to be remembered that such societies were already extant in a number
of places in southern Mesoamerica at this time -- in the old Olmec heartland
of the Veracruz-Tabascan lowlands, in the Guatemala-Chiapas uplands, and in
Oaxaca, but it is not clear, as yet, just which one of these Mesoamerican
subareas played the parental role with regard to the Peten-Yucatecan cultures,
In the southern lowlands these earliest settlements of the Middle
Formative were small villages. Perhaps the very earliest of these, dating
at ca. 800-600 B.C., are the Xe phase components at Altar de Sacrificios
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(Willey and Smith, 1969) and Seibal (Smith and Willey, 1969), on the Pasion
River. Most of our information on Xe comes from small excavation exposures
beneath later refuse and architecture, and this is also true for the succeed-
ing Mamom phases (ca. 600-400 B.C.). In her current symposium paper, Prosk-
ouriakoff (1970, Ms.) has called attention to a small San Felix Mamom plaza
with surrounding platforms at Altar de Sacrificios, and it may be that these
relatively modest little buildings were temple substructures. Certainly, in
the later Chicanel-like phase at Altar de Sacrificios these small structures
were built over and enlarged, and the plaza in question very definitely be-
came a ceremonial precinct.   This follows developments in other southern low-
land sites in the Chicanel-related, (')or Late Formative, phases. In the
Late Formative Period population increased greatly; new centers sprang up;
and impressive ceremonial architecture marked these centers. Toward the end
of the Late Formative, or in the Proto-Classic, distinctive stylistic features
of Maya culture appear and assemble rapidly -- vaulted architecture, sculp-
ture, hieroglyphics and calendrics, polychrome pottery -- to form the Early
Classic Mayan culture of the third century A.D.
Now there are some contrasts between this southern lowland develop-
mental picture and that which Andrews sketches for the north -- or, at least
there seem to be, and we need further comment from him about these. His
earliest phase at Dzibilchaltun, the Zacnicte, has a median radiocarbon date
of 975 B.C., which would place it as somewhat earlier than Xe and Mamom in
the south. Depending on just how one would draw the line between Early and
Middle Formative, Zacnicte would be either at the end of the Early Formative
or the beginning of the Middle. The architecture which Andrews describes,
while not impressive, seems more advanced than anything we have yet been able
to associate with Xe and Mamom in the south. The pottery, as he describes it,
is definitely more sophisticated than that of Xe-Mamom; and the appearance
of polychrome painting at this early time is most surprising. Thus, although
both the earliest cultures of the southern and northern lowlands give the
impression of pioneer communities that moved into these jungles from else-
where, the status of development of the northern immigrants appears higher
than that of the southerners. This suggests that the original homeland of
the peoples who pioneered northern Yucatan may not have been the same as that
of the early immigrants into the south.
Following Zacnicte, Andrews refers to the "Second Formative stage in
Yucatan" as "one of tremendous development in human culture", featuring ter-
raced and stone-faced pyramids at Dzibilchaltun. He notes widespread modal
similarities in pottery over long distances, stating that "sherds from as far
apart as Dzibilchaltun and Chiapa de Corzo are quite indistinguishable."    He
(1) Following the terminology for phase designations agreed upon at the
GuatemalaCity Conference of 1965, these Late Formative or Late Pre-
Classic phases of the southern Maya lowlands would be linked together
in a "Chicanel Ceramic Spherer (Willey, Culbert, and Adams, ed S, 1967).
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qualifies this last to make clear that he is speaking of similarities of
form and finish; in paste and temper they are quite different. In other
words, the manufacture is local; what is being transmitted are stylistic
features. This participation in widespread ceramic similarities suggests
the Chicanel horizon or sphere in the south, and, if so, this would cor-
relate with the comparable Late Formative configuration of southern archi-
tectural development; however, this correlation seems in doubt as Andrews
refers to a "terminal Formative in Yucatan" which witnessed the beginning
of a long process of decline", with the discontinuation of monumental archi-
tecture and a population drop-off. This does not correspond at all to the
rhythm of development in the south where, contrariwise the Late Formative
followed by the Proto-Classic were periods of steady expansion of popu-
lation and ceremonial center build-up.
As to the emergence of Classic Maya civilization from the antecedent
Formative Period cultures, Andrews and I have basic agreements in that we
both see the rise of the Classic Maya as a lowland phenomenon; that is,
it was not developed en toto elsewhere and then transferred to the Peten
and Yucatecan plains. At the same time we also admit that the "seeds" of
many features of the Classic Maya development were derived from a wide-
spread and early southern Mesoamerican heritage. This is certainly true
of the general forms of ceremonial architecture -- although not of such
specialized things as the corbelled vault. It is true of hieroglyphics,
mathematics, and calendrics although, as Andrews emphasizes, the unique
Mayan evolution of these traits is matched nowhere else in Mesoamerica at
any time. I see this development arising steadily, gradually, and then
with accelerated speed all through the Late Formative and Proto-Classic.
New ideas appear from time to time in the course of development until,
taken cumulatively at a more or less arbitrary point, they can be said to
mark a Classic Period threshold. This is seen very clearly at Tikal
(W. R. Coe, 1965) and also at Uaxactun (A. L. Smith, 1950).    In contrast
to this, Andrews says of his northern Formative Period cultures that they
"seem to have none of that remarkable entity we would call Maya civilization.
The modalities which later made the Maya different are simply not fore-
shadowed." Andrews points up this difference between north and south by
suggesting that, while the north may have been in advance of the south in
the development of Formative Period monumental architecture and complex
societies, the crystallizing elements of Maya civilization of the Classic --
writing, art forms, and the corbelled vault -- were earlier in the south.
From there, presumably, they diffused to the north.
Comments Concerning the Condition of Civilization
At the outset of my discussion I said that I thought civilization
could be defined as a social and cultural condition and that its evidences
could be identified archaeologically. Leaving aside for the moment the
lowland Maya and the Andrews paper, I shall attempt such a definition. I
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conceive of civilization as having three essential dimensions: (1) large
population size and density; (2) marked social complexity; and (3) a com-
plex network of intercommunication among its social components. More
specifically, I submit that a civilization integrates the lives of more
than 5000 persons. This integration may be achieved in either a concen-
trated, or urban, settlement or in a dispersed, or non-urban, settlement.
The crucial factor is that the energies and abilities of a population of
this size are drawn upon and integrated to a common purpose. As to social
complexity, a civilization is characterized by marked divisions of labor,
by a complex ranking system or by social classes, and by an hierarchial
governmental structure. These circumstances and institutions may be re-
flected in various ways in the archaeological record: in differentiation
in the size and elegance of living quarters; in the presence of construct-
ions dedicated to public purposes or personages -- temples and palaces;
in evidences for the specialized manufacture of various goods; in evidences
for the differential distribution and use of these goods as seen in dwell-
ings or in burials. As to the nature of the governmental structure, I
would say that this could be either that of a chiefdom or a state, as these
terms have been used recently by anthropologists(Service, 1962). That is,
I would not restrict the condition of civilization to the political form
of the state. I accept the chiefdom-state distinction and the evolution-
ary implications of this distinction, however; and I would see the sanctions
of a large scale force, as these can be manipulated by the state, as the
essential differentiation between the two.
As to the network of intercommunications, the key points in such a
network are either cities or ceremonial centers. It is from these that
government, religion, and trade are controlled.   Media of communication
are obviously of great importance. Language is the foremost of these in
any human communication, but in the context of a civilization it is
important that the word be recorded, and so writing has become, deservedly,
a classic hallmark of the status of civilization. But this is not the only
way, in a broader sense, that the "word" is recorded. Art is another com-
municative form.   As Proskouriakoff (1970, Ms.) notes, "Monumental ...
arts provided validation for hierarchial society and maintained communi-
cation between administration and the populace." The communication net-
work of a civilization binds not only the present with the Traditions of
the past, but it ties hamlet to village and village to city or major
center.  The construction and enlargement of such a network may be effect-
ed through political or military power, but it may also be effected through
trade.
I make no claim here to great originality in the formulation of these
criteria of civilization. Gordon Childe (1950) and others have offered
similar ones. My attempt here has been to place them in systemic context;
but they can be summarized as traits as follows:
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(1) Communities of more than 5000 people or the clear evidence
of the integration of such numbers in a close-knit cultural
system.
(2) Marked divisions of labor.
(3) A complex ranking system or social classes.
(4) An hierarchial governmental structure.
(5) Monumentality in architecture.
(6) A codified symbolic system (such as writing or a pervasive art
style.)
(7) Interregional trade.
Before turning to the status of civilization in the Maya lowlands, we
should consider one other matter: the different kinds of civilizations. In
their symposium paper Parsons and Price (1970, Ms.) define two basic kinds of
civilization for Mesoamerica.   In referring to what they have said, I beg in-
dulgence for anticipating the formal discussion of their paper, but their
thoughts on the matter are very pertinent both to the symposium theme as a
whole and to the Maya lowlands in particular. They refer to "urban" and
"non-urban" civilizations.   These have, respectively, the diagnostic feature
of the presence or the absence of the trait of true urban settlement. They
also have other associated traits. The urban civilization is associated with
a market economy and a merchandising middle class, with a greater social class
complexity than the non-urban civilization, with a landed aristocracy, and
with a militaristic leadership. It is the setting for the state. The non-
urban civilization is linked to a redistributive economy in the hands of an
aristocracy, to a social ranking system, to corporate or kin ownership of
land, and to a theocratically oriented leadership. It is the setting of
the chiefdom.
The extent to which these two trait clusters are functionally associated
with their respective urban and non-urban settlement types is yet to be
fully demonstrated.   Sanders and Price (1968), and again, Parsons and Price
(1970, Ms.), have argued for functional interrelationships. They see the
urban type civilization as developing in regions of diversified natural re-
sources.  In Mesoamerica, these are the upland valleys, with deep soils suit-
able for intensive cultivation techniques and a variety of items for exchange
obsidian, jadeite, basalt. This micro-environmental diversity was best served
by a local market economy, and such an economy, and the positive feedback
from it, flourished best in a true urban setting.   The lowlands, on the other
hand, lacked environmental differentiation of resources and the symbiosis
between micro-environmental niches. For them, the most important trade was
long-distance trade which was mediated by the nobility or by the lineage
heads whose ceremonial centers were the redistributive points for a dispersed
peasantry. These are instructive models; I am inclined to agree with them;
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whether they are correct or not in all details will be revealed, we hope, by
further archaeological testing. The two models carry with them an implication
of evolutionary sequence, with the stage of non-urban civilization preceding
the urban.  Parsons and Price (1970, Ms.) caution, however, that this need not
be the case and cite Morton Fried's (1960)model of the "secondary state." The
Mesoamerican non-urban civilization of the lowlands could be such a "secondary
state" -- that is, one which developed in response to, and from contact with,
the primary state of an urban civilization, in this case one from the Meso-
american highlands. Although this point is not pressed in the Parsons-Price
paper, it is favored in the earlier Sanders-Price argument where Maya Classic
Tikal is seen in such a "secondary stately relationship to Teotihuacan. In
this particular instance, I am inclined to doubt the"secondary state" model
as being fully applicable to what happened in the Maya lowlands; but, as a
way of going into that, let us get back now to my specific theme, the rise
of civilization in the Maya lowlands.
The Status of Civilization in the Maya Lowlands
The greater part of our Maya lowland evidence for population size,
settlement distribution, clues to social classes, and trade comes from the
Late Classic Period, and, especially in the south for what is designated as
the Tepeu 2 sub-phase (ca. A.D. 700-800). We will take a look at these Late
Classic data first -- in the light of our foregoing criteria of the condition
of civilization -- and then consider how far back in time we may project
these patterns.
That there were Late Classic Maya lowland communities that integrated
the lives and efforts of more than 5000 people is now fully demonstrated.
Earlier versions of Tikal population estimates give figures of 10,000 to
11,000 persons for the 16 square kilometer mapped central zone, and this was
supplemented by another 10,000 persons in a surrounding peripheral belt (Carr
and Hazard, 1961; Haviland, 1965). Now more recent estimates following strip-
sample surveys radiating out from the center of the site have increased these
figures to a total of 49,000 people within a zone of 163 square kilometers
(Haviland, 1969).  As far as we know, this was the largest Classic Maya com-
munity of the south, and it seems to be unique in its great size; however,
other ceremonial centers, although smaller than Tikal, are estimated to have
controlled sustaining areas of more than 5000 people. Seibal is one example
(Gair Tourtellot, personal communication 1970); Benque Viejo, in the Belize
Valley, another (Willey and others, 1965); and in the north, Dzibilchaltan
was the major center in a very large population zone (Andrews, 1961). It
has been argued, indeed, that some of these Maya lowland centers were true
urban communities, not just ceremonial centers with dispersed sustaining
populations. Haviland (1969), especially, has made this point with regard
to Tikal. To settle such an argument requires a more exact definition of
what we mean by urban than I have given so far in this discussion. To me,
there is a significant difference between Tikal's 49,000 persons scattered
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over an area of 163 square kilometers and the 100,000 persons that are esti-
mated as having been grouped within the 19 square kilometers of Teotihuacan
(Sanders and Price, 1968; Millon, 1967, 1968). Still, I admit there is
room for discussion and further examination of this urban question. For our
inmediate consideration, though, whether urban or non-urban, we can affirm
without doubt that the Maya Classic Period culture of the lowlands had inte-
grated communities of over 5000 people.
Marked division of labor seems well attested for the Maya Classic. It
is unlikely that the fine craft goods, the monumental sculptures, Maya writing,
and calendrics were made or manipulated by part-time farmers. Maya society
must have had certain persons whose lives were devoted to such tasks and
activities. Certainly there was an aristocratic leadership.     We see this
depicted in Maya art; we see it in Maya tombs and burials; we see it in the
esoteric knowledge that was part of Maya religion. As to the size and compo-
sition of what might have been a "middle class", we are more in the dark.
As mentioned, professional artisanry is implied by the nature of some of the
luxury products that we find in graves and caches. Other proofs of full-time
craft specialists are more equivocal.   Culbert (1958, Ms.) stated that he
saw no evidence at Tikal for craft barrios, such as are identified for Teno-
chtitlan and Teotihuacan; Haviland (Haviland and others, 1968) contrariwise,
insists that there are indications that certain sections of the site had
been the residences of flint or obsidian workers. Coe's (W. R. Coe, 1967)
tentative identification of a Tikal marketplace is another datum that can be
taken to support both economic differentiation and social differentiation
within Classic Maya society.
An hierarchial governmental structure, monumentality in architecture,
and a codified symbolic system (or systems) are all so heavily and obviously
documented from Maya archaeology that they need no further discussion. The
same now is true for interregional trade.
The Maya Late Classic, then, meets all of the traits or criteria
that I have set down as diagnostics of the condition of civilization. How
far back in time can we push this civilizational threshold for the lowland
Maya? I do not think there can be any question about extending it back to
the Early Classic. --Although settlement data are less secure for this earlier
period, we know that Tikal had a very large population by this time (W. R.
Coe, 1965; Haviland, 1969).   Social class differentiation was probably less
marked than later (Rathje, 1970); nevertheless, it was in the Early Classic
that Tikal enjoyed a trade in luxury goods with Teotihuacan, and the nature
of this trade implies that a non-egalitarian society had already taken form
in the Maya lowlands.   Other traits -- great architecture, sculpture, and
hieroglyphic writing -- are all present at the beginning of the Early Classic.
The Teotihuacan relations with Tikal, and the southern Maya lowlands
as a whole, raise the question of the role of that highland site in the
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development of Maya civilization. Can the Maya achievement be explained as a
response to these contacts?   Or, as we have asked earlier, was Maya lowland
civilization a Isecondaryv formation made possible by Teotihuacan trade and
political influence? I would answer this in the negative. We know that those
unusually sophisticated Maya forms -- its architecture, its art, its hiero-
glyphics, and its calendar -- were all present before Teotihuacan influence
is registered in the Maya lowland sequences; and I think it is highly probable
that those other traits which I have listed here as marking the threshold of
civilization were present then as well.   Without question, Teotihuacan had a
very important effect on Maya culture, but I do not see these Teotihuacan
influences as the levers which raised Maya society and culture from the level
of simple village agriculture to the status of civilization. Rather, the
impact of Teotihuacan had the effect of moving a non-urban Maya civilization
in the direction of full urbanism and the state; but, as I have said in a
previous paper (Willey, 1968, Ms.), I do not believe that this transformation
to the developed state was ever complete.
If we hold to the above arguments, and see Maya lowland culture as
being on the level of a civilization at the beginning of the Early Classic,
can we push this back to the Pre-Classic? Quite probably we can, although
here we are handicapped by our relatively slight knowledge of the lowland
Maya Proto-Classic and Late Preclassic Periods.   For the moment, I think the
best that we can do is to say that the Maya cultural continuum of the low-
lands attained the status of civilization -- as I have defined it here --
in the span of the Late Preclassic-to-Proto-Classic or between about 400 B.C.
and A.D. 200.
Comments on Process and Cause
Of all of the symposium papers, the one most concerned with process
and cause is that of Parsons and Price on "Mesoamerican Trade." They see
this trade as an important factor, perhaps the key factor, in the systemic
relationships that led to civilization. It is their position that the gener-
ation of a non-egalitarian society is the first important step-up to the thres-
hold of civilization; and they ask the question: under what circumstances
will a society produce a surplus of goods and voluntarily cede it to others?
The answer to the first part of the question is essentially an ecological one;
in Mesoamerica it was man as an agricultural exploiter of his natural environ-
ment. Their answer to the second part of the question is that a society will
voluntarily cede a surplus to others if there is some advantage to everyone in
doing so. Such advantages accrue from trade, from the opportunity to obtain
items that are not immediately at hand. These items may be either basic
necessities or exotic luxuries. With the increase of Early Formative Period
populations egalitarian mechanisms for inter-regional trade would be inade-
quate to supply the increasing demands for non-local products. Trade would
come to be administrated by an elite who would, thereby, become an aristo-
cratic leadership through their control of the distribution of wealth.
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This hypothesis deserves very serious consideration and should
prompt further archaeological testing. At the moment, I am inclined to
accept it and to go even further and add another '"twist" to it, one
developed by William Rathje (1970, Ms.) in a recent but still unpublished
paper. This additional aspect of the interpretation impresses me as the
first fully satisfactory explanation for the primacy of Olmec civilization
in Mesoamerica. The early rise of the great lowland Tabasco-Veracruz cere-
monial centers at La Venta and San Lorenzo, dating back before the first
millennium B.C. (see Bernal, 1970, Ms.) has always been a puzzle, especially
if one followed the Sanders-Price (1968) reasoning that Mesoamerican civili-
zation must necessarily have arisen first in a subarea of diversified
natural resources and with a potentiality for irrigation farming. In their
present symposium paper Parsons and Price seem to shift away from this view,
at least to the extent of explaining early Olmec leadership in the march
toward civilization to the advantages in river levee soils for high crop
yields. Undoubtedly, these local riverine conditions gave the early Olmec
an initial boost and provided them with a surplus that they could invest in
trade for needed items; but, to apply Rathje's hypothesis(2) the crucial
transformation of an egalitarian to a non-egalitarian society resulted from
this trade in the desired upland products -- stone for corn-grinding imple-
ments and obsidian for cutting tools. This trade was mediated by early
entrepeneurs who eventuated into a class of aristocratic priest-chiefs, and
with this change Olmec society was on its way toward the civilization whose
monuments and evidences we see not only at San Lorenzo and La Venta but
elsewhere in the Mesoamerican Middle Formative world.
Once trade was established by the lowland Olmec leadership with the
highland regions the peoples of the latter, in a rapid accomodative adap-
tation, converted to non-egalitarian social modes. With their basic ad-
vantages in resources and demographic potential, they outstripped the Olmec
by the end of the Middle Formative. Quite probably, they passed rapidly
through the stage of non-urban civilization; certainly, by Teotihuacan II
times they had become fully urbanized.   The lowlands, on the other hand,
never really accomplished this final step-up to full urban civilization
although the Late Classic Maya, in places such as Tikal, were moving toward
it.
As a final word, I'd like to enter one caution about these hypotheses
concerning the rise to civilization.   Parsons and Price (1970, Ms.) state:
"Archaeologically, the distribution of elite goods is merely
-the indication that we are dealing with a ranked society
based economically on a system of redistributive exchanges.
Such an indication cannot be analytically regarded as in any
sense the cause of that system."
(2) Rathje's (1970, Ms.) hypothesis was applied to the lowland Maya;
however, as he acknowledges (personal communication), it also seems
to apply to the rise of the earlier Olmec.
108
I would accept that the-goods, .p    e  are not the cause of the system -
if this is what the statement is intended to mean. In fact, I would insist
that they are not, A few years ago I published a paper (Willey, 1962) about
the Olmec art style and its horizonal pervasiveness in Mesoamerica. I post-
ulated that this style was the symbolic system of an ideology that had an
important part in synthesizing the first Mesoamerican co-tradition, the first
areal oikoumene of shared beliefs. I did not state that I believed the distri-
bution of this style to have been carried by proselytizing force, nor do I
think so now. In the light of the ideas which Sanders, Parsons, Price, Flan-
ery (1968), Rathje, and others have advanced, I think it very likely that
trade was the mechanism which carried the style.   At the same time, I think
that more was carried than the elite goods or the physical properties of the
style.  There was also transmission of ideas, of a religious ideology; and
this ideology was an important force in the formation of all Mesoamerican
civilizations -- or, if you like, of Mesoamerican civilization.    It helped
make and perpetuate it. The continuity of this ideology - undoubtedly modi-
fied - is seen persisting down to the Aztec empire -- as Bernal has pointed
out to us in his present paper.   In fact, I think we have here a fourth dim-
ension of civilization to add to our other three - the dimension of ideology.
Intercommunication among discrete social segments is a necessity for the rise
of civilization, as I have argued at the beginning of this commentary, and,
undoubtedly, McLuhan's concept that the medium is the message has much to
recommend it; nevertheless, I would argue that the idea content of the message
is the most important of all. For if we do not accept this then we are say-
ing that there are no differences in ideas whatsoever, that ideology can be
held as a constant as we seek for the causes of civilizational growth only
among the variables of ecology, demography, and technology. With what I know
of the world around me and what I know of the past through history and arch-
aeology, this seems highly unlikely, and I cannot accept this view.    I offer
this as no cry of reaction, no retreat from the attack on the ecological-demo-
graphic-technological front. Archaeology has made great advances along this
line in the last two decades, and there is still much ground to be won; but
this approach will not tell us everything worth knowing about past human
affairs. What I am saying is that I am certain that some ideas, some ideolo-
gies were "better" than others or were more successful adaptations that pre-
pared the road to civilization. Whether we will ever be able to reveal the
nature of these Precolumbian Mesoamerican ideologies in any meaningful way,
to appreciate them as adaptive mechanisms of greater or lesser social and
political success, remains to be seen. Obviously, it is archaeology's most
difficult task, but I don't think we should pretend that such a task, such
a challenge, does not exist. (3)
(3) This commentary is published essentially as it was written in June of
1970, prior to the symposium sessions at Burg Wartenstein in early July.
Some minor changes have been made in the body of the text, and the final
paragraph has been expanded somewhat over the original version.
109
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