Michael E. Smith

Michael E. Smith is Professor of Anthropology in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University. He is an archaeologist who has directed excavations at numerous Aztec sites in central Mexico. His fieldwork emphasizes houses and domestic contexts in order to study questions of urbanization, imperialism, and household-level activities and conditions. He has also published comparative research on ancient states, and comparative studies of ancient and modern cities and urbanism. He directs a transdisciplinary research project that compares neighborhoods and urban life from the earliest cities to the present. His books include The Aztecs (3rd edition, 2012), Aztec City-State Capitals (2008), and The Comparative Archaeology of Complex Societies (2012). For more information, see his website.