Izapa and the Formative Period Kingdoms of Southern Pacific Mesoamerica

Abstract

The Pacific coast of Chiapas, Guatemala and El Salvador was culturally circumscribed by the late Middle Formative period (700-300 BC) when over a dozen kingdoms were established. These polities reached their florescence by the Late Formative period (300 BC-AD 200) when monumental construction peaked and stone stelae with narrative scenes were erected for the first time. Small polities such as these, which share elite culture focused on rank and myth, are called city-states by some. I argue that the term kingdom is more accurate. I present recent lidar and pedestrian survey results that define the entire Izapa kingdom. Over 40 monumental centers are documented that define secondary and tertiary political centers. The largest centers were defensively placed around the kingdom’s perimeter and defined a territory of ~450 km2. Equivalent data do not yet exist for any of the other Pacific coast kingdoms so we must imagine that each capital was also surrounded by such structured systems of lower-order centers. Focusing on Izapa and its immediate neighbors-El Ujuxte and Tak’alik Ab’aj-I describe how these kingdoms faced off against each other and review how each polity was internally organized with its own distinctive architectural arrangement and site orientation. I end the paper at the regional scale with spacing of the Pacific coast kingdom capitals. Regular spacing suggests sovereign territories were maintained based on one-day return travel time.