Toltec Influence In Mesoamerica

For centuries, historians have pored over written and archaeological records of pre-Conquest Mesoamerica trying to form a coherent historical narrative of the region before the Europeans arrived. However, many historians have used documents and archaeological interdependently, instead of independently. This methodological failure has resulted in revisionist history and the contortion of dates and stories in a flawed attempt to make a narrative functional and linear. Stories turned into myths, which turned into legends; all where supported in their own ways by altered documents from either the Aztec period or the post-Conquest period, resulting in opaque evidence. Specifically, the Toltecs have become embroiled in the historiographical debate between scholars, and their role in the Mesoamerican world
As a point of clarification, the Toltecs did not settle and construct Chichén Itzá; the city existed before the Toltec diaspora. With that being said, the architectural similarities between Chichén Itzá and Tula denote a cultural link between the two, seemingly distant people. Feathered-serpent columns, chacmools, warrior columns, atlantean figures, wall panels, and other sculptural motifs which were discovered in Tula in the early twentieth century seemed to parallel those excavated in Chichén Itzá. Moreover, the Toltec presence is observed through building techniques, pottery types, artistic depictions of warriors, and small sculptural details. Even though there is mythological evidence suggesting that the flow of people went from Chichén Itzá to Tula, the material evidence recovered at both sites affirms the argument that the Toltecs were the source of inspiration. In sum, analogous to the influence on Palenque and Calakmul by Teotihucan, Chichén Itzá experienced a similar cultural force from