Michael E. Smith

Archaeology at last allows the humanity’s deep past to provide an account of the early manifestations of wealth inequality around the world. In this first systematic presentation of quantitative data on ancient inequality, archaeologists explore the nature and implications of wealth disparity in the distant past.

Rethinking the Aztec Economy brings together leading scholars from multiple disciplines to thoroughly synthesize and examine the nature of goods and their movements across rural and urban landscapes in Mesoamerica. In so doing, they provide a new way of understanding society and economy in the Aztec empire.

Recent realizations that prehispanic cities in Mesoamerica were fundamentally different from western cities of the same period have led to increasing examination of the neighborhood as an intermediate unit at the heart of prehispanic urbanization. This book addresses the subject of neighborhoods in archaeology as analytical units between households and whole settlements.