Michael Smith | ASU Search

Michael Smith | ASU Search Michael Smith Retired Faculty or Staff, School of Human Evolution and Social Change Other ASU affiliations Instructor, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute [emailprotected] Phone: 480-727-9520 &zwnj; SHESC 104C TEMPE, AZ 85287-2402 &zwnj; &zwnj; Biography Research Teaching Public Work Previous Next Long Bio Michael E. Smith is an archaeologist with two research themes: (1) The Aztecs, Teotihuacan, and other societies in ancient central Mexico, and, (2) comparative urbanism. He has directed fieldwork projects at numerous sites in the provinces of the Aztec empire in central Mexico. His fieldwork focuses on the excavation of houses and the study of daily life. He has published seven books and numerous scholarly articles on the Aztecs; his books include the award-winning "At Home with the Aztecs" (2016), the textbook, "The Aztecs" (3rd edition, 2012), "Aztec City-State Capitals" (2008), and "Rethinking the Aztec Economy" (co-edited by Nichols, Berdan & Smith, 2017). He now focuses on the study of urban life, society, inequality and prosperity at the ancient city of Teotihuacan. Smith’s second major theme—comparative and transdisciplinary research on urbanism—has developed since his arrival at ASU in 2005. By analyzing ancient cities using concepts and methods from contemporary urban studies, Smith is exploring the similarities and differences among cities throughout history and around the world. Neighborhoods, wealth inequality, the provision of urban services, and patterns of scaling regularities are among the few urban universals, and Smith is part of several transdisciplinary research groups addressing these topics, These include an informal working group at ASU and the Santa Fe Institute to determine whether the regularities of urban and settlement scaling (worked out for contemporary cities) also apply to ancient cities. This project investigates cities and urbanism at the most fundamental level: the interactions among people in built environments. Smith also publishes on comparative empires, economies, and systems of social inequality. Smith's teaching focuses on Mesoamerican archaeology, comparative urbanism, and archaeological method and theory. Education Ph.D. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 1983 CV Curriculum Vitae Research Website URL https://asu.academia.edu/MichaelESmith Google Scholar URL https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=E8wk1sEAAAAJ&hl=en ORCID Profile ID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0677-8206 Research Interests Research Projects: Completing Research and Sharing the Data of the Teotihuacan Mapping Project Calixtlahuaca Archaeological Project Service Access in Premodern Cities Urban scaling in Premodern Cities Persistence and Continuity of Cities and Neighborhoods through History: Lessons for Sustainability (no website yet) Why did our Neolithic ancestors give up their lifestyles of relative freedom in order to live in crowded cities ruled by kings and elites? Why did Neolithic people who were used to relatively egalitarian village living assent to the social classes, inequality and poverty of early states and cities? This transition—called the Urban Revolution by archaeologists—was one of the most fundamental transformations in human history. Yet it remains one of the most poorly understood episodes of our past. I use four strategies to address these questions with my research: Reconstruct Aztec and Teotihuacan society. Focus on households and communities, not kings and elites. Analyze cities comparatively, from a transdisciplinary perspective. Use knowledge of the past to develop insights for the future. Strategy 1: I study the Aztecs and Teotihuacan, two of the best-known ancient urban societies of central Mexico. Archaeologists need to figure out what life was like in the early cities and states before we can address questions of their origin. Strategy 2: My fieldwork emphasizes the study of houses and domestic conditions, not temples, palaces, and tombs. This “household archaeology” approach studies society from the bottom up, from the "grass roots," in order to avoid the biases that come from traditional emphases on kings and elites. Strategy 3: I analyze cities (and other social institutions) in a comparative, transdisciplinary framework. All social historical research needs to be comparative in order to reach scientifically valid conclusions about conditions in the past; cities and societies are too complex to be understood by any single academic discipline. Strategy 4: I am exploring ways to use knowledge from the past to develop insights for the future. The past as revealed by archaeology has lessons for us today, but these can only be discovered and applied if research is done in a rigorous fashion, with serkious attention to social conditions today. CLICK HERE for a non-technical introduction to strategies 1 and 2. CLICK HERE for a non-technical introduction to strategies 3 and 4. My lattest book is a general-audience introduciton to my research on Aztec households and communities: At Home with the Aztecs: An Archaeologist Uncovers their Daily Life. My publications on Academia.edu Research Group Service Access in Premodern Cities The Social Reactors Project Mesoamerican Archaeology Lab Teotihuacan Mapping Project Calixtlahuaca Archaeological Project. Quantitative studies of ancient inequalilty Publications Stay tuned for a more up-to-date list. See my page on Academia.edu for a better list and downloads. Books: Berdan, Frances F. and Michael E. Smith (2020) Everyday Life in the Aztec World. (in press). Cambridge University Press, New York. Smith, Michael E. (editor) (2019) Excavaciones de casas en la ciudad azteca de Yautepec, Morelos, México. BAR International Series. 2 vols. Archaeopress, Oxford. Smith, Michael E. (n.d.) Urban Life in the Distant Past: A Comparative Archaeological Approach. (completed manuscript; final pre-submission edits in process). Kohler, Timothy and Michael E. Smith (editors) (2018) Ten Thousand Years of Inequality: The Archaeology of Wealth Differences. University of Arizona Press (in press), Tucson. Nichols, Deborah L., Frances F. Berdan and Michael E. Smith (editors) (2017) Rethinking the Aztec Economy. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Smith, Michael E. (2016) At Home with the Aztecs: An Archaeologist Uncovers their Domestic Life. Routledge, New York. Smith, Michael E. (editor) (2015) Artefactos Domésticos de Casas Posclásicas en Cuexcomate y Capilco, Morelos. BAR International Series vol. 2696. Archaeopress, Oxford. Arnauld, Marie Charlotte, Linda R. Manzanilla and Michael E. Smith (editors) (2012) The Neighborhood as a Social and Spatial Unit in Mesoamerican Cities. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Smith, Michael E. (2012) The Aztecs. 3rd ed. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford. Smith, Michael E. (editor) (2012) The Comparative Archaeology of Complex Societies. Cambridge University Press, New York. Smith, Michael E. (2008) Aztec City-State Capitals. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. Smith, Michael E. (2003) The Aztecs. 2nd ed. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford. Smith, Michael E. and Frances F. Berdan (editors) (2003) The Postclassic Mesoamerican World. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City. Smith, Michael E. and Marilyn A. Masson (editors) (2000) The Ancient Civilizations of Mesoamerica: A Reader. Blackwell, Oxford. Berdan, Frances F., Richard E. Blanton, Elizabeth H. Boone, Mary G. Hodge, Michael E. Smith and Emily Umberger (1996) Aztec Imperial Strategies. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC. Hodge, Mary G. and Michael E. Smith (editors) (1994) Economies and Polities in the Aztec Realm. Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, Albany. Smith, Michael E. (1992) Archaeological Research at Aztec-Period Rural Sites in Morelos, Mexico. Volume 1, Excavations and Architecture / Investigaciones arqueológicas en sitios rurales de la época Azteca en Morelos, Tomo 1, excavaciones y arquitectura. Memoirs in Latin American Archaeology vol. 4. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh. Articles since 2013 2021 - Smith, Michael E., José Lobo, Matthew Peeples, Abigail York, Benjamin Stanley, Katherine Crawford, Nicolas Gauthier and Angela Huster. The Persistence of Ancient Settlements and Urban Sustainability. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2021 - Smith, Michael E. Durable Inequality in Aztec Society. Journal of Anthropological Research 77(2):162-186. 2021 - Smith, Michael E. Why Archaeology's Relevance to Global Challenges Has Not Been Recognized. Antiquity 95:1061-1069. (with comments and response) 2021 - Smith, Michael E., Timothy S. Hare, Lisa Montiel, Anne Sherfield and Angela C. Huster. Settlement Patterns and Urbanization in the Yautepec Valley of Central Mexico. Open Archaeology 7(1):378-416. 2021 - Smith, Michael E., Scott G. Ortman, José Lobo, Claire E. Ebert, Keith M. Prufer, Amy E. Thompson, Rodrigo Liendo Stuardo and Robert M. Rosenswig. The Low-Density Urban Systems of the Classic-Period Maya and Izapa: Insights from Settlement Scaling Theory. Latin American Antiquity 32(1):120-137. 2020 - Cesaretti, Rudolf, José Lobo, Luís M. A. Bettencourt and Michael E. Smith. Increasing Returns to Scale in the Towns of Early Tudor England. Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplilnary History 53(3):147-165. 2020 - Lobo, José, Luis M. A. Bettencourt, Scott G. Ortman and Michael E. Smith. Settlement Scaling Theory: Bridging the Study of Ancient and Contemporary Urban Systems Urban Studies 57(4):731-747. 2020 - Ortman, Scott G., José Lobo and Michael E. Smith. Cities: Complexity, Theory, and History. PLOS-One 15(12):e0243621. 2020 - Ortman, Scott G., Michael E. Smith, José Lobo and Luís M.A. Bettencourt . Why Archaeology is Necessary for a Theory of Urbanization. Journal of Urban Archaeology 1:152-167. 2020 - Smith, Michael E. Ancient Egyptian Urbanism in a Comparative, Global Context. Journal of Egyptian History 13 (published in 2021) :77-100. 2020 - Smith, Michael E. The Comparative Analysis of Early Cities and Urban Deposits. Journal of Urban Archaeology 2:197-205. 2020 - Smith, Michael E. Definitions and Comparisons in Urban Archaeology. Journal of Urban Archaeology 1:15-30. 2020 - Smith, Michael E. Mesoamerica's First World City: Teotihuacan in Comparative Context. In Teotihuacan: The World Beyond the City, edited by Kenneth G. Hirth, David M. Carballo and Barbara Arroyo, pp. 33-56. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC. 2020 - Smith, Michael E. Teotihuacan and its Distant Neighbors: Models for Interaction. In Teotihuacan: The World Beyond the City, edited by Kenneth G. Hirth, David M. Carballo and Barbara Arroyo, pp. 463-478. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC. Smith, Michael E. and Maëlle Sergheraert (2020) The Aztec Empire. In The Oxford World History of Empire, edited by Peter F. Bang, C.A. Bayly and Walter Scheidel, pp. 671-691. vol. 2. Oxford University Press, New York. 2020 - Smith, Michael E., M. Oralia Cabrera Cortés, Karen Cowgill, Keith W. Kintigh, Deborah L. Nichols, Ian G. Robertson and Barbara L. Stark. George L. Cowgill, 19 December 1929 - 31 July 2018. Ancient Mesoamerica 31:377-385. 2019 - Smith, Michael E. (2019) Energized Crowding and the Generative Role of Settlement Aggregation and Urbanization. In Coming Together: Comparative Approaches to Population Aggregation and Early Urbanization, edited by Attila Gyucha, pp. 37-58. State University of New York Press, Albany. 2019 - Smith, Michael E. and José Lobo (2019) Cities through the Ages: One Thing or Many? Frontiers in Digital Humanities, 6 (Special issue: Where to Cities Come From and Where are They Going to? Modelling Past and Present Agglomerations to Understand Urban Ways of Life):Article 12. 2018 - Smith, Michael E. (2018) De Teotihuacan a Tenochtitlan: Dos Trayectorias de Cambio Social (in English). Revista Española de Antropología Americana 47:239-254. 2018 - Smith, Michael E. (2018) El Posclásico: Yautepec. Arqueología Mexicana 153:54-59 2018 - Huster, Ange…