8 August 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

Clarifying The Complexities Of Communication Across Millennia In Mesoamerica

The long-held consensus that the more populated and “civilized” a society, the more complex their communication may be more nuanced than previously thought.

After systematically analyzing written and otherwise recorded evidence of shared information in prehispanic Mesoamerica over 3,000 years, two archaeologists say governance appears to be a more influential factor than society size in determining the complexity of computational communications.

They published their findings in a special theme issue of the Journal of  Social Computing focused on the collective computational abilities of prehistoric societies.

“Mesoamerica — much of today’s Mexico and Central America — is considered one of the few places in the world that saw pristine development of writing systems, without input from other scripts,” said paper author David M. Carballo, assistant provost for general education and associate professor of archaeology, anthropology, and Latin American studies at Boston University.

Mesoamerica’s relative geographic isolation from Eurasia from about 1500 BCE to 1520 CE, according to Carballo, makes it a unique case study in the contexts of how writing and other computational communications might evolve, or not, especially in neighboring cultural groups with different approaches. Carballo and Gary M. Feinman, MacArthur Curator of Mesoamerican, Central American and East Asian anthropology at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, examined the correlation between society size and 10 specific communication practices in 30 localities, then in six regional areas and finally in Mesoamerica as a whole.

Late Classic limestone stela from Tonina, Chiapas [Photo: Haupt & Binder]

“The systematic analysis of 30 Mesoamerican population centers demonstrated that, while a correlation did exist between the presence and application of computational communication, including writing, and social complexity, viewed in terms of urban populations and area of political control, it was not a clean, linear relationship,” Feinman said. “Instead, another axis of sociopolitical organization — how people were organized, the nature of the relationships among political elite and between leaders and followers– had a direct effect on their communication and writing.”

Computational communications in areas ruled by autocratic rulers and kings was highly elaborate, but largely focused on extoling the ruler’s virtues to other elite or influential people since most people likely had low literacy rates. In areas governed by councils or other more “collective” means with distributed power arrangements, the computational communications were generally less elaborate, such as annual calendar systems related to agricultural, ritual, and market cycles. Those less elaborate approaches also made use of more symbolic narratives, so that the information could be understood across spoken languages regardless of literacy levels.

“This isn’t an issue of ‘oh, people aggregated and needed a way to communicate and the technology was magically developed and spread,’” Feinman said. “The process is much more variable, complicated, and linked to how people were organized and the resultant communications.”

The understanding deviates from more regular correlations determined by two other models, published in 2018 and 2020, respectively. As part of a Santa Fe Institute conference in late 2020, Feinman and Carballo assessed the two empirically based and cross-cultural models that outline the correlation on a global scale, but with different temporal relationships and smaller scalar units. The 2018 and 2020 publications used regional-scale empirical units from Seshat. 

The 2018 model concluded a generally linear relationship between societal scale and advances in communications, while the 2020 model used a finer time scale and determined a punctuated, stepwise-correlation, wherein population grows, necessitating more advanced communications. The increase in size and complexity even out, before one jumps again, bringing the other with it.  

Carballo cautioned that, despite the apparent discrepancy, the assessment of the more pristine Mesoamerica context does not invalidate the more global models.

“This work is highly interdisciplinary between high-level computational modelers and those studying the fine cultural details,” Carballo said. “It’s the forest and the trees. We can say to the modelers, these variables look a little simple, we need to understand how they correlate in the context of politics.”

Feinman echoed the sentiment.

“We’re seeing a pattern that technology is embedded in the cultural system, and that relationship may not hold everywhere,” Feinman said. “That doesn’t mean the model is completely wrong, in fact we find some support for the step-wise model; instead, it indicates that history is complicated. Demographic and spatial scale, though relevant, do not alone determine time/space diversity in media of computational communication.”

Carballo and Feinman plan to continue investigating how and why governance varied so greatly across Mesoamerica and its relationships to other aspects of life.

“Fifty years ago, most scholars believed that all premodern political units, especially outside of Europe, were governed despotically with direct administration of the economy,” Carballo said. “This model has now been shown to be completely off-base for many historical cases, and some Mesoamerican polities may be highly informative regarding how sustainable governance was maintained without great concentrations of wealth and power.”

Tsinghua University

Cover Photo: Teotihuacan carved stone with glyph from plaza of the columns (photograph by david m. Carballo, illustrations by pedro cahuantzi hernández).

Related Articles

Tajik Buddha in Nirvana – the Largest in the World: 42 feet long and 9 feet high

31 December 2023

31 December 2023

In the past, while Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan destroyed two immense statues of Buddha, art historians in neighboring Tajikistan meticulously...

India’s Ancient ‘Dwarf Chambers’: Hire Benkal’s 2,500-Year-Old Mysterious Megalithic Legacy

26 July 2025

26 July 2025

Tucked away in the rugged granite hills of Karnataka lies Hire Benkal, a vast prehistoric necropolis that silently guards the...

Derinkuyu: A Subterranean Marvel of Ancient Engineering with 18 Levels and Capacity for 20,000 Inhabitants

2 May 2025

2 May 2025

Beneath the sun-drenched plains of Cappadocia, where otherworldly “fairy chimney” rock formations pierce the sky, lies a secret world carved...

Ireland’s most beautiful round tower and Romanesque architecture

21 August 2021

21 August 2021

Romanesque means “from the Romans”, “descendant of the Romans”. This architectural style is called “Norman architectural style” in England and...

“Nikasitimos Was Here Mounting Timiona,” 2,500-year-old erotic graffiti on Astypalaia, Greece

7 April 2024

7 April 2024

In 2014, an archaeologist working on Astypalaia, a remote Greek island of the Dodecanese discovered one of the world’s oldest...

Ancient musical instrument “Chang” symbolizing Azerbaijan’s rich cultural heritage

16 March 2022

16 March 2022

Harp is a world-famous, ancient, stringed musical instrument. Chang, in terms of structure, is a harp-like stringed musical instrument. The...

Istanbul’s Iron Church of Unique Beauty

1 November 2021

1 November 2021

The Bulgarian Church of St. Stephens was constructed like a cross-shaped Basilica. St. Stephen Church is also known as The...

Venice of the Pacific: The mysterious Micronesian ruins of Nan Madol

12 July 2022

12 July 2022

Sometimes art and architecture challenge our perceptions of what was formerly thought to be feasible and what our forefathers were...

The Ephesus Massacre: 80,000 Romans Slaughtered in a Single Night of Blood and Betrayal

29 May 2025

29 May 2025

The Ephesus Massacre saw 80,000 or more Romans killed overnight during the Asiatic Vespers — one of the deadliest uprisings...

4,000 Years of Wisdom: Women’s Rights and Inheritance in the Kültepe Tablets

8 March 2025

8 March 2025

The Kültepe Tablets, discovered in the ancient site of Kültepe (ancient Kanesh) in central Anatolia, are approximately 4,000 years old...

Birkleyn Caves is “the Place Where The World Ends”

18 January 2025

18 January 2025

The Birkleyn Caves were known as “the place where the world ends” and as “the place where the water of...

Queen Kubaba: Some 4,500 years ago, a woman rose to power and reigned over one of the largest civilizations in ancient Mesopotamia

28 December 2023

28 December 2023

Is it possible to say who was the first queen in history? Given the size and diversity of human civilization,...

The World’s oldest and first swords ever discovered

11 March 2023

11 March 2023

The 5,000-year-old swords found 43 years ago during the excavations in the old mud-brick palace structure in Malatya Arslantepe Mound...

The Enigmatic Architecture of Sacsayhuaman: The Sacred Stronghold of Massive Stones and Mysteries

14 March 2025

14 March 2025

Sacsayhuaman Fortress, located just outside Cusco, Peru, is one of the most astonishing archaeological complexes in the world. Initiated by...

When Stones Speak of Faith: The Most Significant Religious Archaeological Discoveries of the Last Decade

13 July 2025

13 July 2025

In a world where ancient faith still echoes beneath our feet, the most significant religious archaeological discoveries of the last...