Urbanization and Religion in Ancient Central Mexico examines the ways in which urbanization and religion intersected in pre-Columbian central Mexico, with a primary focus on the later Formative period and the transition to the Classic period. The major societal transformations of this interval occurred approximately two-thousand years ago and over a millennium before Mexico's best known early civilization, the Aztecs. David M. Carballo presents a synthesis of data from regional archaeological projects and key sites such as Teotihuacan and Cuicuilco, while relying on the author's own excavations at the site of La Laguna as the central case study. A principal argument is that cities and states developed hand in hand with elements of a religious tradition of remarkable endurance and that these processes were fundamentally entangled. Prevalent religious beliefs and ritual practices created a cultural logic for urbanism, and as populations urbanized they became socially integrated and differentiated following this logic. Nevertheless, religion was used differently over time and by groups and individuals across the spectra of urbanity and social status. This book calls for a materially informed history of religion, with the temporal depth that archaeology can provide, and an archaeology of cities that considers religion seriously as a generative force in societal change.

Mexico of five centuries ago was witness to one of the most momentous encounters between human societies, when a group of Spaniards led by Hernando Cortes joined forces with tens of thousands of Mesoamerican allies to topple the mighty Aztec Empire. It served as a template for the forging of much of Latin America and initiated the globalized world we inhabit today. The violent clash that culminated in the Aztec-Spanish war of 1519-21 and the new colonial order it created were millennia in the making, entwining the previously independent cultural developments of both sides of the Atlantic. Collision of Worlds provides a deep history of this encounter, one that considers temporal depth in the richly layered cultures of Mexico and Spain, from their prehistories to the urban and imperial societies they built in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Leading Mesoamerican archaeologist David Carballo offers a unique perspective on these fabled events with a focus on the physical world of places and things, their similarities and differences in trans-Atlantic perspective, and their interweaving in an encounter characterized by conquest and colonialism, but also resilience on the part of Native peoples. An engrossing and sweeping account, Collision of Worlds debunks long-held myths and contextualizes the deep roots and enduring consequences of the Aztec-Spanish conflict as never before.

Urbanization and Religion in Ancient Central Mexico examines the ways in which urbanization and religion intersected in pre-Columbian central Mexico, with a primary focus on the later Formative period and the transition to the Classic period. The major societal transformations of this interval occurred approximately two-thousand years ago and over a millennium before Mexico's best known early civilization, the Aztecs. David M. Carballo presents a synthesis of data from regional archaeological projects and key sites such as Teotihuacan and Cuicuilco, while relying on his own excavations at the site of La Laguna as the central case study. A principal argument is that cities and states developed hand in hand with elements of a religious tradition of remarkable endurance and that these processes were fundamentally entangled. Prevalent religious beliefs and ritual practices created a cultural logic for urbanism, and as populations urbanized they became socially integrated and differentiated following this logic. Nevertheless, religion was used differently over time and by groups and individuals across the spectra of urbanity and social status. The book provides a materially informed history of religion, with the temporal depth that archaeology can provide, and an archaeology of cities that considers religion seriously as a generative force in societal change.