Reddit reviews Twin Tollans: Chichén Itzá, Tula, and the Epiclassic to Early Postclassic Mesoamerican World, Revised Edition (Dumbarton Oaks Pre-Columbian Symposia and Colloquia)

For those confused or wanting to learn more, Twin Tollans by J.K. Kowalski et al might be a book you'd really appreciate on this subject.

Basically, early historians took the Aztecs' mythologized history of Tula at face value and interpreted Tula-like features around Mesoamerica as evidence of Toltec influence, but the reality of it was that there was a much larger cultural phenomenon going on and not only was Tula just following the crowd, but they're far from the first to do so.

Tula still had some level of popularity within Central Mexico, which is why later cultures around the Valley of Mexico like the Acolhua and Tepanecs liked to trace their ancestry to them, and later the Aztecs did the same by marrying into these polities and claiming that same legitimacy through ancestry.

Essentially the Toltecs (if we should even call them that) were that kid in school that repeated a joke louder and everyone credited him for it since. In other words,

Toltecsn't.

https://www.amazon.com/Twin-Tollans-Postclassic-Mesoamerican-Pre-Columbian/dp/0884023729

> In the Twin Tollan book, the authors more or less take a world system approach to suggest that both cities experience connectivity, thus moving away from notions of one influencing the other

I had to ask my friend for the source he had told me. But he says the debate isn't settled and more work needs to be done at both sites to work out their chronology.

Which reminds me of this Michael Smith article

http://www.academia.edu/download/37635563/MES-07-TulaChichen.pdf