The authors challenge the argument by other world-system scholars that
Lower Central America fell outside the Mesoamerican world-system during
the late Postclassic period. Drawing on ethnohistoric and archaeological
information, it is argued that native peoples along the Pacific Coast of
Central America from El Salvador to the Nicoya Peninsula (Costa Rica) are
best understood as part of the Mesoamerican periphery. The Central
American peoples south of Nicoya formed both a chiefly world-system of
their own and part of the Mesoamerican frontier by engaging in networks of
trade and preciosity exchanges with the coastal Mesoamericans in Nicoya
and Nicaragua. Support for this argument is based primarily on two
“microhistoric” case studies of peoples located on both sides
of the Mesoamerican/Lower Central America border, specifically the
Chorotegans of the Masaya/Granada area of Nicaragua and the Chibchans
of the Diquis/Buenos Aires area of Costa Rica. Archaeological
information on sites in both areas and documentation from Spanish colonial
sources that refer to native peoples in these areas strongly indicate that
the Masaya/Granada peoples were active participants in the
Mesoamerican regional network. In contrast, information from the
Diquis/Buenos Aires area for this period reveals only weak
Mesoamerican ties but strong relations with a Chibchan intersocietal
network of chiefdoms.