Am I the most literary archaeologist of all time?

How many archaeologists can say that they have participated in a joint project with the likes of Gore Vidal, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Barbara Kingsolver, and Charles Frazier? The list also includes Annie Dillard, Larrie McMurtry, and Jane Smiley. Well, I have published an essay in a volume together with these and other literary (and historical) luminaries. I guess that makes me a very literary archaeologist! What was I doing together with all these famous novelists? Unfortunately, it was not hobnobbing with them  at a literary cocktail party in Manhattan (nor at a Gatsby party on Long Island, for that matter).

I was invited to contribute an essay to a book edited by historian Mark C. Carnes called Novel History: Historians and Novelists Confront Amerca's Past (and Each Other). Carnes had a bunch of historians write essays about specific historical novels, and then had the novelists write replies. The idea was to stimulate thought and discussion about history, fiction, and the past, but without slipping into nit-picky historical details. My contribution was the exotic case in the volume: Gary Jennings sprawling novel of Aztec adventure, sex, and violence, titled simply Aztec.

When Carnes first asked me to do this, I told him I needed to read the book first! I had started the novel as a graduate student, but had to put it down to avoid confusion. Jennings had immersed himself in the primary sources on Aztec society and history, and he really knew the details. Then, as a novelist, he elaborated where necessary. I found myself getting confused. Where did I read about people avoiding priests because they were worried they might be picked to be sacrificed? Was that in Sahagun, or was it an invention of Gary Jennings? So I dropped the novel, until Mark Carnes's request led me to pick it up again.

I loved the book. It was mostly accurate and full of adventure. The main character was a merchant who could travel in both elite and commoner social contexts. Jennings created practices that were contrary to fact only in key situations necessary for the novel. Thus he portrayed the Aztec writing system as more complete than it actually was, so that he could have people writing messages to one another, a practice that advanced the story in key places. Of course Jennings got a number of picky minor things wrong. But on the other hand, he actually predicted a finding that archaeologists had not yet dared to formulate until well after the novel was published!

Jennings has a merchant carrying obsidian and other goods back and forth across the fortified boundary that separated the Aztec and Tarascan empires. The written sources on the Aztecs, however, claim that this was an impenetrable border that nothing crossed. Aztec archaeologists, being traditionally under the spell of the written record (don't get me started....), had not even considered the possibility of Aztec-Tarascan trade. But if you think about it for more than a couple of seconds, it it clear that one trait EVERY fortified and defended border has in common, is that people and goods move back and forth illegally (I could make a crack here about a proposed wall along the US-Mexican border...). So it was not hard for Jennings to have his characters involved in contraband and smuggling. But only after the novel was published did we get incontrovertible evidence of an active trade across the Aztec-Tarascan border. Obsidian sourcing studies now show a two-way exchange of obsidian across the border, and lead isotope studies of bronze artifacts I excavated, by Dorothy Hosler, show a west-to-east trade).

It was fun writing my essay, and I was looking forward to seeing Gary Jennings's reply. My main beef with him was that he did not include the typical section where he lists his main sources and perhaps thanks some experts. But this is a minor point. Unfortunately, Jennings died before he could reply to my essay. I was really bummed out! So Carnes published, instead, the reply he got to his initial invitation to Jennings to participate in the volume. It is sort of cranky, railing against academics in general who get picky about historical novels. "It may sound to you, Mark, as if I'm already compiling my indignant response to whatever historian may eventually do the critical review of Aztec." He counseled the editor to find "non-ivory-tower historians" for the books in the volume.

I would like to think I would be considered a non-ivory-tower historian (or archaeologist). This was one of my most enjoyable essays. And by keeping company (of sorts) with Gore Vidal, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the rest, I think I can be considered one of the most literary archaeologists of all time!

Carnes, Mark C. (editor)
2001    Novel History: Historians and Novelists Confront America'sPast (and Each Other). Simon and Schuster, New York.

Jennings, Gary
1980    Aztec. Avon Books, New York.

Smith, Michael E.
2001    The Aztec World of Gary Jennings. In Novel History: Historians and Novelists Confront America's Past (and Each Other), edited by Mark C. Carnes, pp. 95-105. Simon and Schuster, New York.

What books influenced my latest book?

When my book At Home with the Aztecs was published last spring, I had an invitation from an organization called "Connect-A-Book" to contribute to their website. The idea was for authors to list several books that were influential in the writing of their book. It sounded interesting, so I prepared some text. Then the company evidently bombed, and the website is gone (but the Twitter account still exists...). It was fun to identify the influences in my thinking, so I decided to put them here. Most of these show the development of my ideas on households and communities, with less attention to the Mesoamerican archaeological context that of course influences most of what I write about in the book.

First, the book blurb:

The lives of the Aztec people lay buried for five centuries until my excavations in Mexico brought them to light. My wife and I uncovered a remarkable series of prosperous communities composed of families with a high quality of life. At Home with the Aztecs tells three stories: (1) How archaeological fieldwork is conducted in Mexico; (2) What it was like raising our daughters on our digs; and, (3) How I pieced together the information from artifact fragments in ancient trash heaps to create a picture of successful ancient communities that have lessons for us today. In the process, I redefine success, prosperity and resilience in ancient societies, making this book suitable not only for those interested in the Aztecs but in the examination of resilient households and communities across space and time.

My influences:

Berdan, Frances F. and Patricia R. Anawalt (editors)  (1992)  The Codex Mendoza. 4 vols. University of California Press, Berkeley.

My quest to uncover the lives of Aztec commoners began with dissatisfaction with the written sources on the Aztecs. The Codex Mendoza, painted by an Aztec scribe shortly after the Spanish conquest, is one of the very few sources that actually shows commoners. The wedding scene on the cover of my book is from this source. While I got lots of ideas from the Codex Mendoza over the years, it also shows the limitations of the historical record of the Aztecs.

Flannery, Kent V. (editor)  (1976)  The Early Mesoamerican Village. Academic Press, New York.

As one of the founding texts of the “household archaeology” approach, this book first showed me the methods and concepts for using archaeology to uncover the lives and conditions of the common people of the distant past. I got excited when I read this as a new graduate student. But then I had to wait until I finished a boring Ph.D. dissertation before I could put the new ideas into practice. This classic work is a stand-in here for the many other articles and books on household archaeology that soon followed.

Netting, Robert McC.  (1993)  Smallholders, Householders: Farm Families and the Ecology of Intensive, Sustainable Agriculture. Stanford University Press, Stanford.

Understanding past households and communities requires more than excavations, houses, and artifacts. Ecological anthropologist Netting supplies the main conceptual foundation for interpreting Aztec households. These were not serfs or slaves, toiling away on the plantations of nobles. Instead, the residents of the houses I excavated were smallholder farmers who engaged in intensive agricultural practices. Netting’s model of smallholders fit my Aztec villages exactly, and I got lots of insights from this book, especially for my chapter 4 on the quality of life of Aztec households.

Ostrom, Elinor  (1990)  Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge University Press, New York.

Nobel economics laureate (and former ASU colleague) Lin Ostrom showed how local villages can manage resources and survive as successful, resilient communities. This generalizes Netting’s household model to the community level, and it helped me see the connections between ancient Aztec communities and those of the modern world. Papers by Sam Bowles and Herbert Gintis also helped me make this connection. These ideas helped me write chapter 7, on resilient Aztec communities.

Sampson, Robert J.  (2012)  Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Sampson’s study of Chicago neighborhoods reinforced the insights of Netting and Ostrom. Whether or not inner-city neighborhoods were communities in a social sense, Sampson’s approach to analyzing neighborhoods as important social units cemented my views that past and present societies can be compared. Rigorous methods and concepts can move social-science research forward, whether in today’s cities or yesterday’s cities and villages. This book helped convince me that human settlements share key processes across history and the globe. Thus my archaeological study of Aztec communities ties in with research on neighborhoods, communities, and cities today.

Check out the book's website: smithaztecbook.wikispaces.asu.edu/ 

Blood, sacrifice, and academic imperialism on PBS: Review of “Secrets of the Dead: The Aztec Massacre”

This PBS documentary is about a fascinating archaeological find in Tlaxcala, Mexico: the sacrificed remains of a group of Spaniards from the conquest of the Aztecs. It is flawed by an overemphasis on blood and gore and by an academic imperialist perspective in which foreign experts seem to take credit for the research findings of Mexicans. The producers had about five minutes of data (the actual finds), which they had to stretch to fill an hour of TV. To do this, they spent a lot of time talking about, and re-enacting, sacrifice and cannibalism. They really played up the violent and grisly aspect of the Aztecs. The show also passed some time at Teotihuacan, which has absolutely nothing to do with the story. I’m sure the producers wanted to film at someplace photogenic, and evidently could get filming permits for Teotihuacan but not for the (very relevant) Templo Mayor (called the “Templo Mejor” by the narrator!).

One thing I find disturbing about this video is that art historian Elizabeth Baquedano (consistently referred to as an “archaeologist”) is portrayed as the person who figured out the mystery of the Zultepec finds. She set off for Mexico to solve a mystery. She went to the right places and talked to the relevant Mexican scholars (Enrique Martínez, the excavator, and Magali Civera, osteologist). Finally, after codex scholar Carmen Aguilera showed Baquedano an illustration in Sahagún’s Florentine Codex, the pieces fell into place and she figured out the meaning of the Zultepec finds. Apart from the fact Baquedano was certainly familiar with the Sahagún illustration long before this event (a well-published figure showing Spaniards and horses on a skull rack, very familiar to Aztec scholars and students), her actions had nothing to do with finding, presenting, or interpreting the Zultepec remains. Enrique Martínez first published these sacrificial finds in 1993, and he published the identification of Spaniards in 2003. It didn’t take Elizabeth Baquedano or a PBS crew to figure this out; it’s all for show.

But just what big mystery was solved by these finds? You’d better hold your breath, this is quite exciting: The Aztecs fought back, and didn’t just accept the Spanish conquest lying down. Wowie-zowie, no wonder they wanted to make a TV documentary! Who would have thought? “The Aztec resistance was forgotten” we are told. Hmmm, I’ve been teaching students about Aztec resistance to the Spaniards for more than 2 decades. Just who is supposed to have forgotten about Aztec resistance? PBS producers? Nearly all of the objectionable lines in the show are delivered by the narrator, not by Baquedano, and it is hard to judge the extent of her agreement with the views expressed in the show. Most of what she says is reasonable and correct (although she does speak with confidence and authority about some technical topics on which she is not an expert).

I found it embarrassing to watch a show that has foreign scholars come and tell Mexican researchers how to interpret their data, particularly when the foreigners are not particularly expert in the subject, and when the Mexicans have figured out their data long before. It is especially bad when one of the “experts” (Adrian Locke, Curator at the Royal Academy of Arts in London) repeats the long-discredited story that Motecuhzoma believed Cortés to be Quetzalcoatl.

Many of us have tried hard to get beyond old stereotypes of academic imperialism (foreign scholars acting superior to local scholars; breezing in and out of the country with minimal interaction with locals; publishing in English and not the local language; etc.). Shows like this paint the wrong image and are regressive in this effort. I’d much rather hear what Enrique Martínez, Magali Civera, Carmen Aguilera, and other Mexican experts have to say about their research and its implications. Instead we see foreigners solving made-up mysteries while actors portray phony sacrificial ceremonies.