M.R. Oudijk’s scientific contributions

The correlation of archaeological and ethnohistorical information should be one of the key methods in the determination of historical processes and events in the Valley of Oaxaca during the Postclassic period. The mere existence of alphabetical and pictorial historical documentation in a region that has received extensive archaeological investigations over the last half a century creates possibilities that scholars in many other Mesoamerican regions envy. It is consequently disturbing and disappointing that historians and archaeologists alike have not taken full advantage of this opportunity. There are two principal reasons for this failure. On the one hand, ethnohistorical studies using pictorials and documents written in Tíchazàa, or the Zapotec language, have only recently begun and the results are still undergoing considerable changes when new material is found or studied. On the other hand, the chronology of the Postclassic period has largely been ignored by archaeologists, leaving an unacceptably long period without any significant subdivisions and making it almost useless for the correlation with short-period historical processes (Chapters 1 and 2). An additional problem is that the archaeological and ethnohistorical discourses are handicapped by the existence of opposing "camps" of scholars, making the exchange of ideas and a constructive discussion virtually impossible. Within the discussion on the Postclassic period, ethnohistorical and archaeological evidence has been used without making any distinction between the two. Consequently, one of the major issues of discussion was caused by an adaptation of the archaeological evidence to the historical model-the fall of Monte Albán. That is, the distinction between two archaeological phases (MA IIIB and IV) was made based on the historical event of the fall of Monte Albán rather than the archaeological evidence. At no time have the two disciplines and the information generated by them been compared independently. The objective of this chapter is to propose a Postclassic chronology based on ethnohistorical information that can then be used for comparison and correlation with the archaeological chronology. With such a method I follow Michael Smith (1987:38), who suggests that "the archaeological and ethnohistorical records should be analyzed independently to yield their own separate conclusions before correlation is attempted. When the two records are compared, one should not confuse any resulting composite models with the independent primary data sets." This approach forms part of a broader discussion in historical archaeology, and between archaeologists and historians in general, concerning the nature and status of their respective sources: The thing and the word (Andrén 1998; Malina and Vasicek 1990; Moreland 2001; Small 1995; Trigger 1989). Although there is still much to be said about this issue, in practice it seems best to follow the method of keeping independent records.