lineage, class, and power in the Aztec state

Abstract

A processual analysis of state formation in the Aztec city Tenochtitlan shows that rigid class stratification developed as a strategy for coopting the traditional leaders of the lineage segments of the prestate polity and for integrating these leaders into a centralized state power system. The dynasty that ruled this increasingly centralized structure used control over tribute revenues from the city's empire to separate the traditional leaders from their old constituencies, and, with a variety of legal and symbolic measures, to foster their self‐identification as an elite ruling class.