User:Newty123/Aztec warfare/ReyesT2 Peer Review

General info
I was reviewing the article of Smm323
 * Whose work are you reviewing?


 * Link to draft you're reviewing:User:Smm323/Aztec religion
 * Link to the current version of the article (if it exists):Aztec warfare

Evaluate the drafted changes
(Compose a detailed peer review here, considering each of the key aspects listed above if it is relevant. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what feedback looks like.)

Firstly, I looked over the entire Aztec Warfare article. It overall seemed to have a lot of very detailed information, however much of it wasn’t backed up with citations (which was noted on your sandbox). Much of the information was said without any idea of how people know this (for instance Aztec Birth Rituals). I think that because much of these ideas aren’t backed with actual evidence, it’s a good opportunity to be able to use archaeological evidence. This can especially apply to things like appearance of soldiers, fortifications, and even organization (where there must be archaeological evidence of this social stratification).

Another really great area to incorporate archaeological evidence is under equipment. The first section about ranged weapons doesn’t contain any sources, though there is a lot of archaeological evidence to supplement this information. Similarly, under warrior societies they describe the equipment and dress of some sects, but not all. I think that there is a lot of information that you can find on this topic just by looking through archaeological sources.

Much of the information appears to be from the Spanish Codexes, which is a very biased source. If the information comes from the codexes, perhaps acknowledge early on in the article that a lot of the ideas of Aztec warfare come from a colonialist mindset. A good way to do this may be to move Spanish eye-witness accounts earlier, and expand that section to recognize extreme biases that the Spanish had, and how they often portrayed the Aztec with a colonialist mindset. It would make this section more detailed and less of a random stand-alone, and prepare readers to think critically about the documented information.

On your sandbox under lead, you said that you weren’t very sure about Aztecs sacrificing prisoners. It didn’t have any citations. For my article, I’ve looked a little bit into human sacrifice, and there are a lot of sources about this. Maybe this source, if you want to make this area more detailed (it was really useful in my research about religion): Hansen, Linda. "The Myth of the Willing Human Sacrificial Victim: The Complex Nature of Human Sacrifice in Aztec Ceremonialism." Ritual Human Sacrifice in Mesoamerica: Recent Findings and New Perspectives. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2024. 393-415.

l know you’re aware that the bibliography and reference section are very small and unvaried, and your sandbox stated goal of finding sources is a very good one, and I think what this article needs most! I would recommend looking more at archaeological evidence, just because a lot of the article already seems built on Spanish testimony, which is extremely biased. Good luck with this, and I’m excited to see how the article changes :)