World History, MesoAmerica, and the Native American Southwest

Until recently, the academic discipline of the New Archaeology has largely thought of the people of the American Southwest in small-scale, regional, ahistorical, and cross-cultural terms. 1 Changes in contemporary historiography, especially the rise of a new world or global history (and world-system analyses), are now affecting archaeological (and anthropological) thinking, and the result is a historically-oriented sociology and archaeology of the indigenous Southwest that views regional groups in continental, and even, hemispheric terms. Thus the impact of Mesoamerica in general, and western Mexico in particular, on the American Southwest is becoming a common topic of current archaeological studies. The concern of this essay will be first, to summarize briefly these historiographical trends, then argue generally for the Mesoamerican (and western Mexican) connection.