Michael E. Smith

Emeritus Archaeologist, Arizona State Univ. Aztecs; Ancient & modern cities. Transdisciplinary, materialist, historical, occasionally musical. Kino the dog.

[Michael E. Smith @MichaelESmith]

My book is now out in paperback! It is a comparative perspective on early cities, from a social-science perspective (population, economics, politics). I cover both top-down & bottom-up influences on urban life. 29 case studies, and many illustrations. https://t.co/q5kJ7fD0vY

[Encyclopaedia Britannica @Britannica]

Unlike Microsoft Outlook, these bad boys never go down.

[Michael E. Smith @MichaelESmith]

@AnthropologisTL Stale Honduran tortillas ( fat little things, almost what we call gorditas in Mexico)

[Michael E. Smith @MichaelESmith]

We excavated THOUSANDS of circular sherd disks at Calixtlahuaca, but never figured out their use. We analyzed the heck out of them (size, decoration, vessel form, etc.). They are from household contexts. We can't prove or disprove the idea that they were gambling tokens.

[Michael E. Smith @MichaelESmith]

@BigJetTVLIVE Looks like my dog scooting his butt on the ground.

[Michael E. Smith @MichaelESmith]

@AnthropologisTL Excellent suggestion

[Michael E. Smith @MichaelESmith]

My dad, Dudley B. Smith, in officers training at the end of WWII. Happy Veterans Day.

[Khalil Andani, PhD @KhalilAndani]

Plagiarism is the act of intellectual theft of using another person's ideas/words/research and presenting them as your own. Here is a roundup of @WesleyLHuff committing plagiarism in his uploaded papers, websites, tweets, etc.

Example 1: Huff's uploaded paper Christological Claims: A Textual Consideration of John’s Gospel plagiarizes from a 2010 paper by Brian J. Wright - as shown by @maklelan in his video: https://t.co/TdAZzNkeV7

[Michael E. Smith @MichaelESmith]

@Polit_eurOpines Not likely, not standardized enough

[Michael E. Smith @MichaelESmith]

@Tayo2074 Their use at Teo is not known, although Linda Manzanilla has published (speculative) interpretations. Calix is weird - the other Aztec sites I've excavated yielded maybe 10 or 20 of these in total, yet we have more than a thousand at Calixtlahuaca.

[Michael E. Smith @MichaelESmith]

@blepharopsis Good idea, but they are not very standardized. Also, there is a lot written by the Spaniards on Aztec money, and the use of disks like this is not mentioned.

[Michael E. Smith @MichaelESmith]

@cafanzano I like this! But they are mostly 2-3 cm in diameter.

[Michael E. Smith @MichaelESmith]

@rvrsecrets Not sure about that. People likely played at home, no? When I first reported musical instruments (flutes, whistles,drums) in commoner domestic contexts, colleagues who worked on temples and elite contexts refused to believe me. Its all published now

[Michael E. Smith @MichaelESmith]

@WetDirt2000 I don’t think,their backstrap looms used weights

[Michael E. Smith @MichaelESmith]

@CharterVanilla @ai_rivera Email me

[Michael E. Smith @MichaelESmith]

@samhaselby These people are obviously nuts

[Michael E. Smith @MichaelESmith]

@CharterVanilla @ai_rivera Yes they are all from vessels, and it’s usually clear what form and decoration. Game pieces makes sense, but the known Aztec games don’t seem to need a lot of pieces

[Michael E. Smith @MichaelESmith]

@guidedby1der Not regular enough

[Michael E. Smith @MichaelESmith]

Cool paper, Ortman, SG (2026) Consequences of Climate-Driven Relocation in the Prehispanic US Southwest. iScience 29(11):118133.
https://t.co/RmQwEQABei

This was a spin-off of our paper on urban relocation in Nature Cities (which, they tell us, is now in production.....).

[Michael E. Smith @MichaelESmith]

I think Cindy misses Denmark. Last year at this time we were tourists in Copenhagen, after 6 weeks of research and writing at @AarhusUni_int. This is the ad for the 2025 Tuborg Christmas beer. Our neighbors are getting used to the weird Danish things we put in the window.

[Michael E. Smith @MichaelESmith]

@xplosion_metal @neilalexanderw1 @Majora__Z None of this stands up as solid archaeological evidence.

[Michael E. Smith @MichaelESmith]

Is there a sampling problem here? The goal is to compare 2 types of early cities (those from humid & semiarid settings). Pick 1 Mesoamerican city for each (Tikal & Teotihuacan) & describe it, with no quant data. Shockingly bad sampling.
https://t.co/tFS3AI55qh