Taluds, Tripods, and Teotihuacanos: A Critique of Central Mexican Influence in Classic Period Yucatan

Abstract

The issue of Teotihuacan influence in the northern Maya lowlands has resurfaced in recent years at the sites of Oxkintok and Chac II. Interpretations of Teotihuacanoid traits by investigators working at both sites reveal great differences of opinion as to the relationship between Yucatan and Central Mexico during the period of between A.D. 550-700. In this article, I review data pertaining to Teotihuacan influence at numerous sites across the northern lowlands, but with a focus on the evidence from Chac II, Yucatan where investigators argue that a group of men from Teotihuacan established an enclave that extended from the Early to the so-called Middle Classic. Agreeing with new interpretations from Oxkintok, I suggest that the evidence for a Middle Classic in Yucatan does not exist. The proposed Teotihuacanoid traits tend to be within the local variability of material culture in Yucatan, where such traits had begun to be adopted and transformed prior to A.D. 550. While contact probably existed between Yucatan and Central Mexico during the Classic period, there is no direct evidence of people from Teotihuacan permanently living in the northern Maya lowlands.

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