Possibly one of the most controversial topics which has arisen among Chichen Itza scholars is the presence of certain features and elements which could be typified as “foreign,” and which are associated with what is known as Toltec culture.

This was first noted in the nineteenth century by the French photographer and scholar Desiré Charnay, and the debate has continued ever since (Charnay, 1885). Initially the presence of these traits was explained as the result of conquest and invasion by Toltec-affiliated groups arriving from central Mexico (Piña Chan, 1980). Nevertheless, as several authors including Baddeley (1983), Cohodas (1989) and Jones (1995) have indicated, this view is based on a traditional model from Europe which proposes a dichotomy between “civilized” and “savage” people, in which the Maya would be classed as a culture with peaceful tendencies while the Toltecs were a culture which excelled in warfare.

This perspective has changed over the years with the increase in archeological, iconographic and textual studies, giving us a deeper knowledge of ancient Mayan society. Now, for example, we know how important warfare, captive-taking and sacrifices were to the Maya; as well as the power struggles between different elites. A notable case is the study of royal dynasties using textual analysis (Schele, 1990).

With the benefit of these discoveries, authors such as Wren and Schmidt (1991) have characterized Chichen Itza as the result of the coming together and convergence of two regional cultures which essentially shared the same world view, although with certain differences (López Austin, 1999). According to the authors mentioned above, this process did not come about as a result of the Toltec conquest of the Mayan lands, but rather from the cultural accumulation of different ethnic groups, which formed part of wider processes of social, political, economic and religious transformation that correspond to and define the period known as the Mesoamerican Early Postclassic, between 800 and 1100 AD.