Michael E. Smith
Professor
Ph.D., Archaeology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
SHESC Themes: Urban Societies
Field Specializations: Agrarian Societies, Archaeology, Early States, Economic Anthropology, Ethnohistory, Material Culture, Political Economy, Urban Studies
Regional Focus: Mesoamerica
Contact: Michael E. Smith, MH 102B
Research:
Michael E. Smith is a Mesoamericanist archaeologist with topical interests in ancient urbanism and the economic and political organization of agrarian state societies. He has directed several fieldwork projects focused on Aztec society near Cuernavaca and Toluca in central Mexico. These projects, funded by the National Science Foundation and other agencies, have used the methods of residential excavations to illuminate the nature of local society and its changes under the Aztec empire. This research has addressed a number of topics under the general rubric of archaeological political economy, including urbanism, peasant society, agricultural intensification, craft specialization, trade and imperialism.
Smith has had a strong interest in ancient urbanism since his first taste of anthropology and archaeology as an undergraduate student of George Cowgill at Brandeis University. Smith's excavations of rural Aztec sites in the 1980s illuminated urban processes; he favors a functional approach to urbanism in which cities must be viewed within a regional framework that includes peasant villages. Fieldwork at Yautepec in the 1990s and current fieldwork at Calixtlahuaca address urbanism more directly through excavations of elite and commoner residences in major Aztec-period city-state capitals.
Smith has published extensively on ancient urbanism. His latest book, Aztec City-State Capitals (University Press of Florida, 2008) applies the built-environment approach of Amos Rapoport to the architecture of Aztec cities. This is the first volume to appear in a new book series co-edited by Smith called "Ancient Cities of the New World." He has also published comparative studies of ancient cities around the world. Smith is also interested in issues of archaeological publishing, including open access and new uses of the internet for scholarly communication. He writes blogs on archaeological publishing and on the Calixtlahuaca project.
Smith's immediate research plans include continuation of the Calixtlahuaca project, comparative research on neighborhoods and urban life in preindustrial cities, and construction and installation of an archaeological lab/warehouse facility in Cuernavaca, Mexico. This facility, whose construction will be funded by the National Science Foundation, will house archaeological collections from Morelos from projects by Smith, David Grove and Kenneth Hirth.
Research Projects:
Curation of Archaeological Materials in Cuernavaca, Mexico
Urbanization and Empire at the Aztec City of Calixtlahuaca (Toluca Valley, Mexico)
Teaching:
Before coming to ASU, Smith taught a variety of courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels; most dealt with Mesoamerican prehistory, comparative early civilizations and archaeological method and theory. His most popular undergraduate classes were a large lecture course (ca. 120 students) called "Aztecs, Incas and Mayas" and a smaller, mid-level course, "The Earliest Cities," a comparative look at early civilizations focusing on cities and urbanism. At the graduate level, his seminar "Archaeological Research Design" was successful in training students in scientific approaches to archaeology, as well as teaching them to write grant proposals (a number of NSF dissertation grants developed from this seminar). Smith has taught the combined undergrad/grad "Seminar in Social Archaeology" on a number of topics, including houses and households, ancient cities, economic archaeology and the built environment of early states. He approaches each topic from four perspectives: social theory, comparative data (documentary and ethnographic), archaeological methods and theory and archaeological data. He expects to continue these teaching interests at ASU.
Select Publications:
Smith, M. E. (2008). Aztec city-state capitals. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
Smith, M. E. (2007). Form and meaning in the earliest cities: A new approach to ancient urban planning. Journal of Planning History, 6(1):3-47.
Smith, M. E. (2007). Tula and Chichén Itzá: Are we asking the right questions? In J. K. Kowalski & C. Kristan-Graham (Eds.), Twin Tollans: Chichén Itzá, Tula, and the Epiclassic to Early Postclassic Mesoamerican World (pp. 579-617). Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks.
Smith, M. E. (2005) City size in late Postclassic Mesoamerica. Journal of Urban History, 31, 403-434.
Smith, M. E. (2005). Did the Maya build architectural cosmograms? Latin American Antiquity,16, 217-224.
Smith, M. E. (2004). The archaeology of ancient state economies. Annual Review of Anthropology, 33, 73-102.
Smith, M. E. (2003). The Aztecs (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Smith, M. E. (2003). A quarter-century of Aztec studies. Mexicon, 25, 1-10.
Smith, M. E. & Berdan, F. F. (Eds.) (2003). The Postclassic Mesoamerican world. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
Smith, M. E. & Montiel, L. (2001). The archaeological study of empires and imperialism in prehispanic Central Mexico. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 20, 245-284.
Smith, M. E. (2001). The Aztec world of Gary Jennings. In M. C. Carnes (Ed.), Novel history: Historians and novelists confront America's past (and each other) (pp. 95-105). New York: Simon and Schuster.
Smith, M. E. & Masson, M. A. (Eds.) (2000). The ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica: A reader. Oxford: Blackwell.
Berdan, F. F., Blanton, R.E., Boone, E. H., Hodge, M. G., Smith, M. E. & Umberger, E. (1996). Aztec imperial strategies. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks.