在本文中,我谈到墨西哥中部的一个企业协会的案例。在公元一世纪和四世纪,火山喷发引发墨西哥南部盆地的人口流离失所之后,特奥蒂瓦坎成为一个多种族的定居点。来自不同背景的群体主要定居在大都市的外围;尽管如此,围绕核心,中间精英积极促进了消费品的流动,以及来自不同家乡的工人的到来,以执行一系列专门任务。这些熟练的工匠中的一些人获得了地位,也许是经济实力,这是由于社区之间展示最豪华的奢侈品的激烈竞争的结果,以及制造将一个邻居与另一个邻居区分开的特定身份符号,比如精致的服装和头饰。特奥蒂瓦坎精英穿着的棉质服装可能是对Teopancazco等社区中心具有经济重要性的商品之一,与制造棉布的墨西哥湾沿岸有很强的联系。统治精英控制着来自远方的原材料,而中间精英可能更积极地提供其他奢侈品:颜料,化妆品,石板,绿石,石灰华,外国陶器。Teotihuacan社会的基础和高层的公司组织与由竞争激烈的中级精英领导的社区的排他性组织之间的对比引入了紧张关系,为Teotihuacan的崩溃奠定了基础。
In this paper, I address the
case of a corporate society in Central Mexico. After volcanic eruptions triggered population displacements in the southern Basin of Mexico during the first and fourth centuries A.D.,
Teotihuacan became a multiethnic settlement. Groups from different backgrounds settled primarily on the periphery of the metropolis; nevertheless, around the core, intermediate elites actively fostered the movement of sumptuary goods and the arrival of workers from diverse homelands for a range of specialized tasks. Some of these skilled craftsmen acquired status and perhaps economic power as a result of the dynamic competition among neighborhoods to display the most lavish sumptuary goods, as well as to manufacture specific symbols of identity that distinguished one neighborhood from another, such as elaborate garments and headdresses. Cotton attire worn by the
Teotihuacan elite may have been one of the goods that granted economic importance to neighborhood centers such as Teopancazco, a compound that displayed strong ties to the Gulf Coast where cotton cloth was made. The ruling elite controlled raw materials that came from afar whereas the intermediate elite may have been more active in providing other sumptuary goods: pigments, cosmetics, slate, greenstone, travertine, and foreign pottery. The contrast between the corporate organization at the base and top of
Teotihuacan society and the exclusionary organization of the neighborhoods headed by the highly competitive intermediate elite introduced tensions that set the stage for
Teotihuacan\'s collapse.