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SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 146 
ogy. Claims that irrigation was extensively practiced by any Classic 
peoples have never been fully substantiated, and in many important 
areas like that occupied by the lowland Maya, such techniques would 
have been impossible. Rather, the mainsprings of the Classic must be 
sought in the widespread adoption of the social and political or- 
ganization that made civilized life in Mesoamerica possible in the first 
place. From the very beginnings of Olmec Culture here, in the Olmec 
area, monolithic states must have imposed a system of internal tribute 
and corvee labor which alone would have enabled peoples on a primi- 
tive, even slash-and-burn, level of agricultural technology to have built 
the elite centers and produced the artifacts that are diagnostic of 
civilization. 
The peculiar and transitory Proto-Classic opens the Classic Period ; 
whether it lasted more than a few decades is unknown. The Proto- 
Classic in southeastern Mesoamerica is more of a burial complex or 
cult than a bona fide occupation and has never been found at all in 
many regions. In mortuary ceramics, such as those found at Holmul 
in the Maya area, in Chiapa VI-VII in the Grijalva drainage, or in 
Monte Alban II in Oaxaca, more of the "Q" Complex traits appear, 
such as greatly swollen tetrapod supports. In the eastern Peten, Maya 
polychrome makes its first appearance. The origins of the Proto- 
Classic are enigmatic, and it is possible that some of its elements 
were born outside Mesoamerica, to the south in the Intermediate 
Area (M.D. Coe, 1962, pp. 176-177). Monte Alban II, however, be- 
sides containing these traits intrusive from the south (polychrome ex- 
cepted), has many continuities with the civilization of Monte Alban 
I, including the bas-relief style, the calendar, and writing (Bernal, 
1958, pp. 4-5). The Valley of Oaxaca always seems to have been a 
self-sufficient domain of the Zapotec peoples, essentially undisturbed 
until the Mixtec invasions. 
One fact must be stressed in understanding the Early Classic of 
southeastern Mesoamerica: the overwhelming importance of Teoti- 
huacan. In the period from a.d. 300 to 600, this tremendous city in the 
Valley of Mexico, truly urban in contrast to the elite centers of the 
rest of Mesoamerica, exerted heavy influence on the rising states of 
the southeast. The art styles and pottery of Monte Alban, in spite of 
regional isolation, show the influence, and at Kaminaljuyu, on the 
outskirts of Guatemala City, what were probably invaders from Teo- 
tihuacan built a center that is in many respects a copy on a far smaller 
scale of the mother city in the Valley of Mexico, and stocked the 
tombs of their great with Classic Teotihuacan vessels (Kidder, Jen- 
nings, and Shook, 1946). Recent excavations at Tikal have shown 
