1 Neighborhoods and Districts in Ancient Mesoamerica Michael E. Smith (mesmith9@asu.edu ) Juliana Novic (juliana.novic@asu.edu ) Chapter under review for: Neighborhoods in Mesoamerican Archaeology: The Assessment of Intermediate Units of Spatial and Social Analysis, edited by Linda Manzanilla and Charlotte Arnauld, (book in preparation). December 1, 2010 Abstract We introduce urban neighborhoods and districts as archaeological concepts, and illustrate them with the example of Bhaktapur, a Hindu city in Nepal. We describe the Aztec calpolli, the best-documented case of neighborhoods in Mesoamerica, as a basis for understanding other Mesoamerican residential zones. A review of previous research on Mesoamerican neighborhoods provides a context for the contributions of the chapters in this volume. We argue that the term “barrio” is an inappropriate terms for the neighborhoods and settlements of ancient Mesoamerica. We close with suggestions for future research on three topics: neighborhoods in low-density cities; the spatial patterns of social variation in neighborhoods; and the role of the state and elites in forming and organizing urban neighborhoods and districts. ll cities known to social scientists and historians have neighborhoods. People living in urban settings universally organize important aspects of their lives at a spatial scale intermediate between the household and the city. Urban authorities also tend to organize administrative activities such as tax collection and record keeping at a similar scale. The spatial relationship between these latter units, which Smith (2010a) has called districts, and neighborhoods proper, varies among cities and time periods. Given the universality of neighborhoods and districts, it is not surprising that these were important spatial and social units in the cities of ancient Mesoamerica. Archaeological research into Mesoamerican neighborhoods and districts has been slow to develop, for a variety of reasons. First, urban residential zones are difficult to identify and analyze with archaeological data. Perhaps not surprisingly, the most thorough analysis of ancient neighborhoods—Elizabeth Stone’s (1987) Nippur Neighborhoods—and the most complete synthesis of neighborhood data in an ancient urban tradition (Keith 2003), both come from Mesopotamia and employ both archaeological and textual sources. Similarly, the most complete data on Mesoamerican neighborhoods are from the Aztec period, where the (rather meager) archaeological remains can be complemented by detailed historical documentation (see discussion below). The development of archaeological methods for the analysis of neighborhoods and districts is still in its infancy (Smith 2010a), and much remains to be done. The essays in the present volume make several important methodological steps forward. A second reason for the slow progress in analyzing ancient Mesoamerican residential zones may lie in low population densities of many Mesoamerican cities. We have known for A