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The Role of the Marketing System in Aztec Society and Economy: Reply to Evans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Michael E. Smith
Michael E. Smith*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801
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Abstract

The major disagreements between Evans and me stem from our very different characterizations of the nature of the Aztec socioeconomic system. Against her picture of a politically controlled, uncommercialized, and fragmented economy I argue for a complex, open, highly commercialized, and integrated economic system. Markets and marketplace trade played a larger role in this system than Evans would allow. From this perspective the central place analysis is elaborated and defended.

Type
Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , October 1980 , pp. 876 - 883
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1980

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