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Civic and Household Community Relationships at Teotihuacan, Mexico: a 
Space Syntax Approach
Shawn G. Morton, Meaghan M. Peuramaki­Brown, Peter C. Dawson and Jeffrey D. Seibert

Cambridge Archaeological Journal / Volume 22 / Issue 03 / October 2012, pp 387 ­ 400
DOI: 10.1017/S0959774312000467, Published online: 

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0959774312000467

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Shawn G. Morton, Meaghan M. Peuramaki­Brown, Peter C. Dawson and Jeffrey D. Seibert (2012). Civic and Household 
Community Relationships at Teotihuacan, Mexico: a Space Syntax Approach. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 22, pp 
387­400 doi:10.1017/S0959774312000467

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 Civic and Household Community Relationships at Teotihuacan, Mexico

Civic and Household Community Relationships at

Teotihuacan, Mexico: a Space Syntax Approach

Shawn G. Morton, Meaghan M. Peuramaki-Brown,

Peter C. Dawson and Jeffrey D. Seibert

It is held that the study of complex societies can effectively focus on the human interactions that
define communities. Given the operational primacy of architectural survey in archaeological
investigations, with some prominent exceptions, it is surprising how little attention has
been paid to how communities of varying scales can actually be identified using these data
sets. This article weds a modified version of Yaeger and Canuto’s (2000) ‘interactional
approach’ to community identity with a materialist (empirical) body of method-theory
known as space syntax in a discussion of community structure and systems of authority
represented in the architectural structures and spaces of epicentral Teotihuacan, Mexico.

Mesoamerican cities have long intrigued scholars and,
as Joyce Marcus (1983, 195) noted nearly three decades
ago, Mesoamerican cities are remarkable in their
diversity of urban form and by extension the social
structures they exhibit. It is this diversity of form that
has led to investigation of the similarities and differ-
ences both between cultural traditions in the greater
Mesoamerican culture area and between individual
cities (Joyce 2009; McCafferty & Peuramaki-Brown
2007). Teotihuacan, the great central Mexican metropo-
lis, is a particularly intriguing Mesoamerican city
due to its massive scale, apparent social complexity,
and ‘grid-like’ pattern, to name but a few of the more
prominent features. This city has been argued as hav-
ing set the precedent for later urban forms in central
Mexico, namely the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan.
The rigorous mapping project carried out by
René Millon and colleagues (Millon 1973; Millon et
al. 1973) in the 1960s and early 1970s revealed that
Teotihuacan was a metropolis of gigantic size and pro-
portion. Covering some 20 km2, this ‘City of the Gods’
was one of the largest cities of the Pre-Columbian New
World, surpassing many large European cities of its
day. Already in the first centuries ad Teotihuacan may
have housed a population upward of 60,000–80,000
people (Cowgill 1997, 133) and the Teotihuacan
experienced by visitors today (Fig. 1), is a palimpsest
reflecting the city’s growth and change over the
Cambridge Archaeological Journal 22:3, 387–400 © 2012 McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research
doi:10.1017/S0959774312000467 Received 16 Jan 2012; Revised 18 Apr 2012;387
Accepted 7 Jun 2012
quarter millennium of the Early Classic Period. Most
of what is visible today was constructed during the
Tlamimilolpa (c. ad 200–350) and following Xolalpan
(c. ad 350–550) phases (Cowgill 1997, 131) during
which its population grew to a conservative plateau
of approximately 125,000 people (Cowgill 1997, 133;
Millon 1992, 344; Sugiyama 2004, 97). Much of this
expansion is thought to be the result of a long process
of in-migrations of neighbouring populations over
several centuries, the catalyst for which may have
been the major plinian eruption of the Popocatépetl
volcano in central Mexico in the latter half of the first
century ad (Plunket & Uruñuela 2005, 100). While
expansion ultimately slowed, it appears that the
population continued to diversify over subsequent
generations, with the development of the site into a
metropolitan ‘Mecca’ attracting groups from around
Mesoamerica (Parsons 1968, 876–7; 1974; Sugiyama
2004). This civic expansion was accompanied by a
massive urban development project that, midway
through the Tlamimilolpa phase and continuing
through the early part of the Xolalpan, swept aside
the earlier residences of the city’s already substantial
population and introduced its famed sine qua non:
the multi-apartment compounds and ‘grid pattern’
aligned to the Street of the Dead (Millon 1973). The
urban reforms of this period have been suggested to
correspondingly reflect sweeping, if enigmatic, socio-
 Shawn G. Morton et al.

Pyramid of the Moon

Street of the Dead

Pyramid of the Sun

Great Compound Ciudadela

Temple of the Feathered Serpent

Figure 1. Simplified map of central Teotihuacan, Mexico (based on Millon et al. 1973, maps 1 and 2). Epicentral
architecture highlighted in red.

388
 Civic and Household Community Relationships at Teotihuacan, Mexico
political reforms (Sugiyama 1998; see also O’Neill
2009 and Scott 1998 for historical examples of the
co-occurrence of urban reform and socio-political
reform). However, its monolithic civic authority may
be what truly sets Teotihuacan apart as, during the
Tlamimilolpa and Xolalpan phases, the city seemingly
lacked the self-aggrandizing charismatic leadership
(Cowgill 1997; cf. Trigger 2003, 73) that appears to
have been the hallmark of many early urban societies
(Beeston 1972; Clark 1997; Feeley-Harnik 1985; Kang
2006; Smith 1957; Trigger 2003). This article focuses
on exploration of the basis for civic identity and civic
authority at Teotihuacan.
Our analysis here focuses on the Xolalpan phase,1
as archaeological data on architectural form and func-
tion at both the city and multi-apartment levels are
clearest for this span. We apply a modified version of
Yaeger and Canuto’s (2000) ‘interactional approach’
to community identity (also Doolittle & MacDonald
1978), alongside a materialist body of method-theory
known as space syntax, to explore a model of civic
authority at Teotihuacan through a discussion of
community identity at both of these levels. We wish
to make clear at the outset that we make no claims
to directional power/planning relations (top-down,
bottom-up, etc.), neither is it within the scope of
this article or the resources of these authors to offer
empirical proof of the model here constructed; the
validity of the model and the underlying body of
theory upon which it is formulated will remain for
future archaeological work.
What we wish to engender is discussion. Pri-
marily, we wish to highlight the specific interpretive
framework of this article as well as its archaeological
application as an explicit approach to architectural
data sets in archaeology and encourage continued
investigation of material/architectural indices on
human behaviour. Further, we would highlight the
identification of material structures identified in this
analysis that foster parallel community identities at
both the household and civic levels and suggest that
this offers a unique perspective for the reinterpretation
of Teotihuacan socio-political organization and the
grounds for civic authority. Finally, we feel that this
article offers insight, more generally at an anthropo-
logical level, for the study of ancient urbanism and its
material correlates.
A sense of community: the constitution of identity
A growing body of scholarship has demonstrated that
communities are one of the most important and mean-
ingful contexts for social interaction and socio-political
legitimization (Anderson 1991; Isbell 2000; Kolb 1997;
389
Kugler 2003; McAnany & Bartlett 2000; Read 1997).
But what is a ‘community’? Despite a number of
prominent publications stressing the importance of
explicitly theorizing the concept of community (e.g.
Canuto & Yaeger 2000; Inomata & Coben 2006; Insoll
2007; Peterson & Drennan 2005), many authors still
demonstrate a tendency to employ the term uncriti-
cally. In the archaeological literature, ‘community’ is
often used as a generic term in place of ‘site’, ‘popula-
tion’, or a portion thereof, suggesting that ‘community’
is a de facto artefact of human cohabitation with little
interpretive value. To the contrary, in this article we
offer an explicit ‘theory of community’ and treat it as
our primary interpretive focus.
Theorizing ‘community’
‘Community’ may be defined as an ever-evolving,
negotiable social institution that is generated pri-
marily through quotidian interactions and practices,
structured and synchronized by a set of places within
a particular span of time (following Yaeger & Canuto
2000, 5–6). We reject the notion that communities are
inherently supra household in scale; we see no theo-
retical justification (though we admit a lexical utility)
for drawing an artificial line between the concepts of
household and community, particularly communi-
ties of daily interaction (cf. usage in Wylie 2007). Nor
would we explicitly separate civic-level identities from
a concept of community; we judge these differences to
be a matter of scale and degree, marked by levels of
increasing and nested complexity (at the higher levels
of city and state, transcending the individual in favour
of the institution), rather than of kind (see Anderson
1991; Isbell 2000; re. ‘imagined communities’).
Interactional approaches see communities as
socially constituted through the patterned interac-
tions of everyday life (Barth 1966; Firth 1961; Peterson
& Drennan 2005; Yaeger & Canuto 2000, 3). In this
approach, practice is the locus for the production of
the patterned processes that create and recreate social
institutions, communities included (Bourdieu 1977;
Giddens 1984). Further, a practice theory perspective
is particularly compelling for an archaeological theory
of community as it highlights the role of material
conditions in constituting the structures that pattern
interaction (Cunningham 1973; Fisher 2009). Thus,
the activities and institutions that characterize the loci
of community determine to some extent the nature
of community. We can speak of ‘market or crafting
communities’ (McAnany & Bartlett 2000), ‘labour
communities’ (Kolb 1997), ‘agricultural communities’
(Kolb & Snead 1997) ‘residential communities’ (Read
1997), or ‘religious communities’ (Kugler 2003) among
an infinite variety of others. It is given that such forms
 Shawn G. Morton et al.
of community may simultaneously exist as either hier-
archically or heterarchically nested subdivisions in
any given spatio-temporal social unit; spaces are mul-
tiplex. This leaves us with the difficult task of teasing
apart particular community identities in such a way
as to allow, through comparison, the identification of
their place in the overall structure of the spatial unit
in question. Methodological traction may be gained in
this task by explicitly pairing an interactional concept
of community with analyses that focus on the structur-
ing influence of architecture and space (at a variety of
scales) on human interaction (Wylie 2002). Such an
approach is offered by space syntax.
A syntactic approach to community
Space syntax is a body of techniques and theories that
seeks to understand how society and space are mutu-
ally constituted (for thorough overviews see Hillier
1996b; Hillier & Hanson 1984). Traditionally theorized
in reference to ‘cognition’ (Hillier 1999), space syntax
can be effectively wed to an interactional theory of
community through ‘practice’ and the mutual rec-
ognition that material conditions — architecture and
space — play a role in constituting the structures that
pattern practice — human interaction — and therefore
community.
The principal unit of space discussed in this arti-
cle is the ‘grid’, defined as the pattern of linked spaces,
regardless of its degree of geometric regularity (Hillier
2002, 153). The object of this analysis is the ‘structure’
of the grid, defined as ‘the pattern brought to light by
expressing the grid as an axial map and analyzing it
configurationally’ (Hillier 2002, 153). In space syntax,
the particular characteristics of a space are defined by
its position in relation to other spaces. Axial analysis
is a method by which these elements are quantified.
The building blocks of this analysis are convex spaces
and axial lines. In space syntax, a convex space is a
space within which all locations are mutually visible
and as ‘fat’ as possible (where the length and width
of the space are approximately equal: Fig. 2).2 Axial
lines represent possible, arrow-straight, lines of inter-
visibility and hence, movement, through more than
one convex space.
The most important measure in the analysis
presented later in this article is ‘integration’, defined
as the ‘total depth’ of any one space from all others
in the grid where depth is the minimum number of
intermediary steps or lines of movement (axial lines)
that one must travel if moving between two points
(Hillier 1996a). An interactional theory of community
articulates with space syntax as an outcome of three
‘spatial laws’ (more properly, ‘hypotheses’) related to
integration:
390
• The Law of Natural Movement (Hillier 2002; Hillier et
al. 1993): The structure of the grid has independent
and systematic effects on movement patterns. This
law states that the degree of integration of a space
can be used as a predictor for how ‘busy’ or how
‘quiet’ that space will be (more integrated spaces
are likely to be more busy: Dawson 2000, 471;
Peponis & Wineman 2002, 271).
• The Law of Virtual Community (Peponis & Wineman
2002, 271): As a by-product of natural movement,
communities can be formed based on a pattern of
co-awareness and co-presence. This is the point of
direct contact between the interactional theory of
community and space syntax. It is worth noting
that co-present people are not a community by
simple virtue of co-presence. Rather, co-presence
fosters the social interaction necessary for the
constitution of community.
• The Law of Movement Economy (Hillier 1996a; 2002):
Highly integrated spaces, by encouraging relatively
high levels of co-presence in turn foster activities
and institutions for which such co-presence is
desirable. As suggested above, the activities and
institutions attracted to these spaces, the people
with whom they interact, and the circumstances
dictating this interaction all serve to influence
the particular types and scales of communities
created. In this article, we do not suppose which
activities should be associated with various levels
of integration, but rather infer this with reference
to published archaeological field data.
A space syntax approach to spatial analysis allows us
to look at different scales of community within the
particular unit being analysed by sidestepping tradi-
tional approaches to identifying interaction that may
defy comparison (e.g. looking at multivariate spatial
distributions of objects, art, and people) in favour of
a monolithic and directly comparable data set (i.e. the
spatial grid). In a given spatial unit, areas of integra-
tion could be ranked to give some idea of community
‘structure’: first-order areas of integration (i.e. highly
integrated areas) would be expected to foster the dens-
est level of co-presence, and through social interaction,
the greatest number of people united under a single
community identity. In other words, the transmission
of a unified ideology and the centripetal social force
that this affords would be most effective in these loci.
The creation of such centralizing spaces has been
suggested to be a universal concern of all state-level
societies (Scott 1998; Trigger 2003). Second-order areas
of integration on the other hand, suggest the forma-
tion of communities on smaller scales. These could
be termed sub-communities, and could act in either
harmony or discord in a nested community structure.
 Civic and Household Community Relationships at Teotihuacan, Mexico
Second-order communities may be suggested to add
multi-vocality to the larger spatial unit in question.
Areas of low integration (termed ‘third order’ in this
model) play their parts as well. By encouraging the
least amount of social interaction, these areas are
capable of producing the smallest and most exclusive
communities within the overall social structure. We
will return to these ideas later in the discussion of
community structure at Teotihuacan.
A sense of community at Teotihuacan and the
construction of an explanatory model
The model: the Xolalpan phase multi-apartment
compounds
While an appreciable number of multi-apartment
compounds have been investigated at Teotihua-
can, few have been sufficiently excavated to allow
a space syntax-based analysis of their plans; the
‘Zacuala Palace’ Compound is a notable exception
(indeed, this same compound has been the subject
of past space syntax analyses: see Hopkins 1987;
Robb 2007). Figure 3a depicts the floor plan of this
compound. Spaces are colour-designated according
to their assumed function within the household
complex, based on excavated examples from a wide
variety of compounds (e.g. Linné 1934; Manzanilla
1996; Séjourné 1966; Sempowski 1994): blue spaces
designate central courtyards associated with house-
hold ritual/ancestor shrines (Spence 1974); orange
spaces designate patios associated with household/
craft production areas (Evans 2004, 273); and green
spaces designate terminal rooms linked to patios
and associated with nuclear family/domestic areas.
Using information from these excavations, similar
functions can be attributed to designated spaces in
two other Xolalpan phase compounds: Tetitla (Fig.
3b) and Yayahuala (Fig. 3c).
Following Hillier (1999), the average total
depths of the three different categories of spaces
listed above were calculated for each of the three
compounds3 (see Fig. 4 for an example of the depth
counts for one such space). The results are presented
in Table 1; as the absolute number of spaces in
each compound varies, a ratio for the average total
depth of designated categories in each is similarly
presented. As explained above, there is an assumed
relationship between the total depth (or integra-
tion) of a space and the level of co-presence that it
affords (see Fisher 2009; Hammond 1975 for related
analyses at Enkomi, Cyprus and Lubaantun, Belize,
respectively). In this case, shallower spaces (those
with lower total depths) are interpreted as attracting
movement, while deeper spaces are considered more
391
controlled and hence, more private. The picture of
the residential community is thus one focused on
the first-order space of the household shrine and
generalized ancestor/lineage head (Cowgill 1997,
140–41; Headrick 1996; Millon 1976; Spence 1974),
with second-order interaction zones in patios asso-
ciated with craft production and surrounded by a
deep, private, third-order residential zone (a pattern
similarly identified by Hopkins’ 1987 access analysis).
This understanding of such spaces may be
further developed with a consideration of drama-
turgical or performative approaches to spaces,
essentially dividing the house compound ‘stage’
into what essentially becomes ‘Front’ (first-order)
and ‘Back’ (second- and third-order) stage areas and
associated practices and interactions (Goffman 1959;
Hall 1966). While the entire household community
is unified through ritual interaction (presumably
under the central authority of the lineage head), a
series of smaller communities simultaneously exist,
focused around the domestic economy of the vari-
ous patios. Differential wealth within the household
may suggest that these economic communities were
competitive and a threat to overall social cohesion
within the household (Evans 2004, 271). The nuclear
families occupying the most private spaces formed
a final, exclusive community. In the following axial
analysis we suggest that the community structure of
the multi-family apartment compound is replicated
at the larger civic scale (or vice versa): The two levels
are tied together in a mutually constitutive socio-
spatial structure, the possible implications of which
are explored below.
Civic-level community identity at Teotihuacan
Using the map of epicentral Teotihuacan produced by
the Teotihuacan Mapping Project (Millon et al. 1973,
map 2), a base map identifying the grid to be analysed
was produced (Fig. 5a). White space on this map indi-
cates areas of the spatial grid that are interpreted as
having been open to public traffic (though, not neces-
sarily level) and hence served in constituting city-level
community structure. Temple platforms, apartment
compounds, boundary walls, and bodies of water are
marked as inaccessible by black blocks or lines. An
all-line axial analysis4 of the urban grid was performed
at radius-35 (Fig. 5b). The integration of each line is
represented using a colour gradient from red to violet
(in order: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo,
violet) where red represents the most integrated lines
and violet the least.6 As can be seen when viewing the
axial map, the most heavily integrated (first-order)
area of epicentral Teotihuacan (red and orange) is the
Street of the Dead. Areas of second order integration
 Shawn G. Morton et al.

a b

Figure 2. While in (a) the highlighted spaces are indeed convex spaces, they are both long and thin. Convex spaces are
supposed to be as ‘fat’ as possible as in the spaces represented in (b). Programs such as Depthmap help to standardize
such determinations.

a b c

*not to scale

Figure 3. Xolalpan phase multi-apartment compounds: (a) ‘Zacuala Palace’; (b) Tetitla; (c) Yayahuala (based on Millon
et al. 1973, map 2). Blue spaces = central courtyards associated with household ritual/ancestor shrines; orange spaces
= patios associated with household/craft production areas; green spaces = terminal rooms linked to patios and associated
with nuclear family/domestic areas.

5 4 4 5 4 5 6 3
3
4 3 4 2 3 2
3
3 2 1 1 1
1 4
1
4
5 4
2 1
*
1
4 1
1 1 6
4 3 2 1 Figure 4. An example of a depth analysis completed for one space
2 4 5
4 2 at ‘Zacuala Palace’ (based on Millon et al. 1973, map 2). Numbers
2 3 4 on the floor plan represent the minimum depth of each space from
5 4 3 the central space indicated in blue (*). Note that in this particular
example, the ‘Total Depth’ of the space indicated corresponds to that
Total Depth = 161 4 5 noted in Table 1. Similar analyses of each space designated in orange
and green were similarly completed and averaged by category.

392
 Civic and Household Community Relationships at Teotihuacan, Mexico

Table 1. Table noting the average total depths of the three different categories of spaces for three different multi-apartment compounds (also noted in
the form of a ratio). The complete data set for ‘Zacuala Palace’ has been provided as an example.
Average total depth: Average total depth: Average total depth: Ratio of depth
Multi-apartment compound
first-order space second-order space third-order space first- : second- : third-order spaces
‘Zacuala Palace’ 161 277.5 344.29 1 : 1.72 : 2.14
Tetitla 68 98.33 131.63 1 : 1.45 : 1.94
Yayahuala 627 741.3 944.7 1 : 1.18 : 1.51
Example of calculations for ‘Zacuala Palace’
First-order spaces Second-order spaces Third-order spaces
Total depth of spaces 161 224 369
312 320
269 320
319 320
257 270
230 270
283 308
326 308
370
356
356
324
409
412
334
430
377
Sum 161 2220 5853
Average total depth of spaces 161 277.5 344.29

a b

Figure 5. (a) The urban grid of epicentral Teotihuacan; (b) an axial map of epicentral Teotihuacan (based on Millon 1973, map 2).

393
 Shawn G. Morton et al.
(yellow) are generally associated with small areas to
the west of the Pyramid of the Moon, the East and
West Avenues, the large open spaces surrounding
the Ciudadela and Great Compound, and indeed the
Great Compound itself. In comparison, the densely
packed multi-apartment compounds, particularly to
the west of the Street of the Dead, seem awash in a sea
of poor integration (third-order).
What may already be apparent are the paral-
lels that can be drawn between the community
structure of the city epicentre during the second
half of the Tlamimilolpa/Xolalpan Phases, and that
of the Xolalpan multi-apartment compounds (see
similar suggestions by Headrick 1999; 2001; Plun-
ket & Uruñuela 1998). As suggested by the axial
analysis, the civic community is focused on the ritual/
religious institutions and symbols of elite authority:
the temples, pyramids, and shrines of the Street of
the Dead. As discussed above, this would not have
been an association unfamiliar to residents of the city
at the household level. Straddling this avenue, the
Street of the Dead Complex and nearby ‘elite’ resi-
dences (Robertson 2001; 2005; Smith 2010a) may have
provided an unambiguous link between the ruling
elite and these symbols. Following Headrick’s (1996)
proposal that descent groups at the multi-apartment
compound level may have been hierarchically organ-
ized into much larger groups, whose heads would
have been of elite status and resided in this zone,
the linkage is thus not only symbolic, but directly
articulated. As a first-order area of integration, these
symbols of civic and elite authority constituted the
dominant unifying ideology transmitted to the urban
community of Teotihuacan.
Also, as in the household compound model,
areas of second-order integration are typically associ-
ated with craft production and economic transaction.
Spence (1981) has demonstrated the existence of obsid-
ian workshops in many of those areas so identified
(northeast of the Ciudadela, west of the Great Com-
pound, and due west of the Pyramid of the Moon).
One of the clearest instances of large-scale ceramic
production is similarly situated in the large enclosure
off the north side of the Ciudadela (Múnera 1985;
cited in Cowgill 1997, 142). If the Great Compound
indeed proves to be a marketplace, as previously
suggested by Millon (1973, 46) then the pattern is
likewise confirmed. In an urban society as complex
as Tlamimilolpa/Xolalpan Phase Teotihuacan appears
to have been, with outsiders presumably attracted to
the city for economic, religious, and political reasons,
the institution of the marketplace may have provided
a focal point for the competing and clashing interests
of the various sectors of Teotihuacan society. As in the
394
case of the household model, competition may have
fostered the growth of an economically-based coun-
ter- or sub-community, nested within the overarching
civic identity.
Finally, we can look to areas of low integration
within the site plan. In our modern cities the most
vibrant communities tend to be those that appear
as pockets of local integration (Hillier 1996b; Read
1997). In general, no such pockets characterize the
densely packed residential zones of Teotihuacan.
Teotihuacan’s apartment compounds (the regular
blocks in Fig. 1) are roughly rectangular, varying
widely around average dimensions of approximately
50–60 m on a side (Cowgill 2008; 1997, 137); in scale
they are truly grand. Excavations carried out to date
indicate that the exterior walls of these compounds
were without windows; rather than looking out at
the street and one’s neighbours, residents and visi-
tors typically entered through a solitary door into a
relatively private compound arranged around spa-
cious courtyards and patios such as in the ‘Zacuala
Palace’ Compound (Fig. 3a). Analogies from beyond
the Mesoamerican world might be drawn from
medieval Near Eastern cities, with their inwardly
facing unelaborated compounds, or from the Ancient
Near East and Old Babylonian Ur (Brusasco 2004);
Brusasco investigates the sociology of residential
areas in ancient Ur, as well as modern Baghdad,
through the use of space syntax. The household
community model fits here as well; with a poorly
integrated, loosely co-present, and hence, largely
non-interactive residential population existing on
the periphery of the site, residential areas represent
the minimally definable community production zone
at the city level.
Discussion
It may be suggested that comparing commoner house-
holds and civic-level planning, presumably by an elite
class, is like ‘comparing apples and oranges’. We wish
to make emphatically clear that we do not suppose
that these clearly different socio-spatial categories
should be referential one to the other. Rather, we are
suggesting that, in this case, whether intentional or
not, these different levels are symbolically referential.
To this extent, while we are able to offer no concrete
conclusions, we will end this article with a brief dis-
cussion of some of the potential consequences of this
relationship for community identity and civic author-
ity in epicentral Teotihuacan and explore this model
within a broader context of early urbanism.
Bourdieu (1977) notes that all totalitarian socie-
ties, the world over, seek to produce new citizens
 Civic and Household Community Relationships at Teotihuacan, Mexico
through the processes of deculturation and recul-
turation. This is most successfully achieved at a base,
everyday scale. The use of space, with its undeniable
sense of permanence and naturalness, makes it a most
productive means from which to achieve such goals.
Such an argument is rooted in the idea of a dialectical
relationship between governance and spatiality, which
serve to both structure and reinforce one another
(Foucault 1977; Lefèbvre 2005; O’Neill 2009; Soja 2000).
The use and organization of space is therefore crucial
to the establishment and maintenance of political
orders: spatial forms being produced in particular
manners as to encourage a sanctioned social order
while discouraging alternatives.
The key to understanding how space functioned
in this sense comes by availing ourselves of another
interpretive tool available in space syntax: ‘Intelligi-
bility’. Intelligibility has a very specific definition in
the space syntax literature and refers to the degree
with which local spatial patterns reflect those of the
overall grid (Hillier 1996b, 94–8). In a highly intelli-
gible system, like many of the post-modern planned
cities discussed by Scott (1998), the character and
function of the city is made transparent by its very
fabric; the urban form of any one piece is reflective
of the whole. The city is easy to navigate even as an
outsider and more importantly, it is easy to administer
and control. An unintelligible system, on the other
hand is characterized by dissimilarity between local
and city-level organization. An unintelligible system
is administratively opaque and prone to small-scale,
local level, fracturing and isolation.
Intelligibility can be explored as a scatter plot
using global integration (radius-n) and connectiv-
ity (a measure indicating the number of other axial
lines any one axial line is connected to) as axes. In
a highly intelligible system, the data should scatter
tightly around a positive trend line. Viewing such
a plot for Teotihuacan (Fig. 6), the spatial grid is
revealed to be highly unintelligible: an unexpected
contrast to the typically understood Western notions
of ‘grid’ organization often cited when referring to
Teotihuacan civic planning. The reason for this is
simple: Contrary to cursory examination and wide-
held belief, Teotihuacan does not conform to a grid in
the strict Euclidean sense of the word. This is a point
worth exploring.
It is true that the city was effectively laid out in
a vaguely grid-like pattern aligned to 15.5 degrees
east of astronomical north and framed by the three
major streets of the city (see Millon 1973; Millon et
al. 1973 for descriptions and depictions of the layout
of the city), however the ‘rigorous regularity and
harmonious spatial distribution of the buildings’
395
2.5
2.0
Integration (radius-n)
1.5
1.0
0.5
0 5 10 15 20
Connectivity
Figure 6. Intelligibility of the Teotihuacan grid based on
a simplified (least line) axial analysis.
(Evans & Berlo 1992, 8; Sugiyama 2004, 102) appears
somewhat over-stated. In previous, published,
syntactic analyses of epicentral Teotihuacan (Hillier
1996b; Robb 2007), this error of perception finds its
way into the analysis: The axial analysis prepared
by Ruben Garnica for Hillier’s (1996b) Space is the
Machine mistakenly draws the streets dividing
Teotihuacan’s many apartment compounds as long
and continuous when they are, in reality short and
discontinuous, forcing an individual walking down
them to frequently jog left and right slightly (in
stair-like fashion) to continue. Robb’s (2007) analysis
perpetuates this error by similarly using Garnica’s
flawed map. The results are significant: while our
analysis shows the centrality of the Street of the
Dead and its associated structures, and the relative
isolation of the surrounding apartment compounds,
both Hillier and Robb’s analyses are the polar oppo-
site. Contrary to Hillier’s conclusion that the Street
of the Dead integrated the city at a symbolic rather
than an instrumental level (Hillier 1996b, 175–6), we
find that it does both.
The ‘unintelligible’ status of the Teotihuacan
grid means that, for an individual experiencing the
city grid, their local environment would provide lit-
tle instruction concerning the arrangement of the city
as a whole: we might contrast this with the readily
intelligible (though dauntingly intricate) system of a
modern metropolis such as Manhattan (Blanchard &
Volchenkov 2008). There is therefore little in the way
of local spatial reinforcement for the patterns of com-
munity and authority suggested by the larger system.
In such an environment, the representation of the city
as a macrocosm of the household may have provided
congruity to the system. Peoples’ daily household
practice would have served as an intelligible and
hence, stabilizing, reminder of the Civic system of
authority.7
 Shawn G. Morton et al.
Concluding remarks
Teotihuacan during the Tlamimilolpa/Xolalpan
phases was one of the largest cities of the Pre-Colum-
bian New World; in terms of its ideological and
economic reach it was also one of the most vibrant.
And yet, Teotihuacan at that time seemingly lacked
a self-aggrandizing charismatic leadership (Cowgill
1997). The question thus posed was ‘what was the
basis for civic identity and authority at Teotihuacan?’
Through the heuristic lens of an interactional theory
of community wed to a space syntax approach, a
model was proposed for household interaction in
three nested, and often competing, levels of com-
munity. This wedding of method and theory is an
attempt to address not only the increased need for
‘empirical’ studies of urban areas in Mesoamerica
(Smith 2010b), but to also address what Brusasco
(2004, 144) sees as the main tenets of post-processual
interpretive archaeology: understanding ‘the role of
agents actively using material culture and space …
and that cultural meanings are often understood in
terms of practice’. A similar analysis of Teotihuacan’s
urban grid demonstrates a parallel pattern where
nested and competing communities are created
through varying intensities of interaction. The spe-
cific institutions and activities associated with each
of these communities determine their character.
For the authors, the strengths of this article lie
in its novel application of an explicit approach to
architectural data sets in archaeology. Further, we offer
that the parallel and reflective community structures
identified at both the civic and household levels likely
served as an ever-present, legible, and hence, power-
ful force for socio-political stability. Moreover, this
article explores this topic by side-stepping traditional
top-down/bottom-up (Ashmore & Sabloff 2002; 2003;
Cowgill 2004; 2000; Smith 2003; Sugiyama 1993) and
centralist/decentralist (Balkansky 1998; Demarest
2004; Fox et al. 1996; Mathews 1991; Sharer 1993; Smith
& Schreiber 2006) debates in Mesoamerican archaeo-
logy that we feel detract from an understanding of
the social mechanics of the city. In this article we
are discussing, not the level or direction of planning
within the urban form (though the spatial grid does
serve as our basic analytical unit), but rather the cul-
turally structured aspects of the city created through
practice. The point is not that the city is modelled
on the household or vice versa in an architectural
sense, but that society encourages replicative/paral-
lel organization, making use of spaces with similar
spatial characteristics, for similar purposes, at both
levels. The various types of communities created at
both levels are, thus, similarly weighted.
396
A final observation may be appropriate with
regards to the larger question of ancient urbanism
and as a prologue to future work. Urban centres may
come into existence for a variety of reasons, such
as trade, ceremony/religion, strategic placement,
administrative demands, environmental features,
etc. (Jacobs 1961). These areas may be legislated into
existence (see for example Cowgill’s (2004) thoughts
on individual initiative); however it takes consider-
ably more to lead them to prosperity. As such, urban
centres cannot be understood apart from the larger
societal structures in which they are embedded, how-
ever it is important that methods are attempted that
aim to escape our preoccupation with larger debates
regarding socio-political complexity in order to rec-
ognize patterns previously only assumed or denied
without support. Fluid, dynamic conceptualizations
in which settlement dimensions are not mechanically
correlated with the activities performed within their
boundaries or the identities and statuses of their
occupants are required. Who lived within a site and
what they did are matters to be determined through
direct observation and not to be assumed on a priori
principles. This is not to suggest that we flounder in
unattainable empiricism, delaying theory building
until all the ‘facts’ are available (Smith 1989). Rather,
we must create concepts appropriate to describing
the newly perceived complexity with which we are
confronted every day in the study of prehistoric
societies and urban forms.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks are due the faculty, staff, and students of the
Department of Archaeology, University of Calgary. We
would also like to acknowledge the organizers of the 2010
meetings for the Canadian Archaeological Association
where the foundation of this article was first presented and
the many helpful comments that followed. Thank you espe-
cially to Ian Robertson, George Cowgill, Wendy Ashmore,
Michael Smith, and our anonymous reviewers for their
invaluable input. All errors of content or interpretation are
those of the authors.
Notes
1. It should be noted that alternative chronologies and
corresponding architectural assignments exist. Linda
Manzanilla (1996, 228) defines the end of the Tlamim-
ilolpa and beginning of the Xolalpan phase as a transi-
tion period (with the Tlamimilolpa phase spanning ad
200–350/400) and places all of the multi-apartment com-
pounds in our study (Tetitla, Yayahuala and ‘Zacuala
Palace’) within the terminal end of the Tlamimilolpa
phase.
2. There are two primary reasons for making convex
 Civic and Household Community Relationships at Teotihuacan, Mexico
spaces ‘fat’. First, by introducing a rule governing the
delineation of convex spaces among multiple options
we ensure methodological consistency. Second, ‘fat’
spaces help to mitigate the effects of distance on vision
and movement, the human-level behaviour at the root
of all space syntax analyses.
3. The ‘total depth’ of any given space within a category
was calculated by summing the minimum number of
convex spaces one must traverse in order to move from
that space to all other spaces within the system. This
same calculation followed for all other spaces within
a particular category and the ‘sum total depth’ for the
category was divided by the number of designated
spaces within it to calculate the ‘average total depth’
for each category.
4. The analysis was conducted using a program called
Depthmap, available for free academic download on the
Space Syntax Laboratory website: www.spacesyntax.org.
5. The program automatically identified a total of 36,710
individual axial lines. Radius-3, means that the total
depth of any one line is calculated by counting how
deep or shallow each line is from all other lines up to
three steps away. At the city level, radius-3 integration
presents a localized picture that best predicts smaller-
scale, or quotidian pedestrian movement (Hillier 1996a;
1996b, 99).
6. The average integration value for the system is 6.405,
with a minimum value of 1.547 and maximum value
of 12.171.
7. Plunket and Uruñuela (2005, 98) note that, in the ubiq-
uitous use of the talud-tablero style, ‘Rather than create
an entirely new symbol, Teotihuacan drew upon the
canons of the past — the emblem of house and lineage
— in order to deal with the problems of continuity and
change in a complex urban environment.’
Shawn G. Morton
Department of Archaeology
University of Calgary
2500 University Drive N.W.
Calgary, Alberta
T2N 1N4
Canada
Email: sgmorton@ucalgary.ca
Meaghan M. Peuramaki-Brown
Department of Archaeology
University of Calgary
2500 University Drive N.W.
Calgary, Alberta
T2N 1N4
Canada
Email: mmpeuram@ucalgary.ca
Peter C. Dawson
Department of Archaeology
University of Calgary
397
2500 University Drive N.W.
Calgary, Alberta
T2N 1N4
Canada
Email: pcdawson@ucalgary.ca
Jeffrey D. Seibert
Cataraqui Archaeological Research Foundation
611 Princess Street
Kingston, Ontario
K7L 1E1
Canada
Email: jseibert@carf.info
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Author biographies
Shawn G. Morton is a doctoral candidate in Archaeology at
the University of Calgary. His research focuses on changes
in ritual behaviour in subterranean sites associated with
the developmental trajectory of ancient complex polities in
central Belize. He is conducting his research with the Caves
Branch Archaeological Survey project.
400
Meaghan M. Peuramaki-Brown is a PhD candidate in
Archaeology at the University of Calgary. She received her
MA from the University College London and her BA from
the University of Calgary. Her current research centres on
issues of Precolumbian urbanism, the ancient Maya, and
issues of societal collapse and decline.
Peter C. Dawson is an Associate Professor of Archaeology
at the University of Calgary. His research interests lie in
Arctic Archaeology, spatial analysis, and the visualization
of archaeological data using computer modelling, virtual
reality and augmented reality. His current research projects
investigate shifting subsistence-settlement systems in the
southern Keewatin District of Nunavut.
Jeffrey D. Seibert currently focuses on the history of southern
and eastern Ontario (Canada) and surrounding areas, but
has a background in Mesoamerican archaeology, having
completed a PhD on Classic Maya architecture and politi-
cal structure. He is currently Senior Archaeologist at the
Cataraqui Archaeological Research Foundation.