[1] Unlike most Maya sites, some of Chichen Itza's buildings have the traits of the Toltecs, a historically powerful indigenous group from modern-day Mexico.
An account of the Tula records a ruler of the Toltecs travelling east, which, paired with another account of Chichen that records a ruler from the west coming and teaching the Maya of that city many things, supported a direct influence of the Toltecs on the Maya around 900–1000 A.D.[2][3] However, recent radiocarbon dating suggests that Chichen Itza's ‘mexicanized’ and pure Maya constructions were built at the same time, and that both were built prior to any recorded Toltec invasion, and prior to the banishing of the semi-historical ruler.
[4] The precise connection between these two nations is unknown, and fiercely contested among scholars of Toltecs and Maya, but it is not disputed that no other counterparts to these two cities are found in the 800 mile distance between them.
Established contradicting theories and a lack of information cause the precise relationship between Chichen Itza and Tula, Hidalgo to be fervently contested.
Tula, Hidalgo and Chichen Itza share numerous architectural similarities not found in other Maya or Toltec sites.
[7] There is also a large series of columns, which originally supported a tremendous enclosed space, surrounding the Temples of the Warriors in both of the two sites, and in other areas.
Many theories were established explaining the precise nature of this connection by well-known scholars (of the time), but these early efforts were directly contradicted by later information.
After they abandoned Chichen, the Itza wandered for a time, found a renegade group of Toltecs led by Kukulcan, and subsumed them, learning new crafts and traditions in the process.
Tozzer argued that the Maya ruled between these three waves of violence and negative culture, and that this creates the dichotomy within Chichen Itza architecture.
There is no strong evidence that there was a Toltec dominance of Chichen Itza outside of the buildings in question, and so Tozzer's work remains mainly within the boundary of speculation.
Recent radiocarbon dating of the ceramics of Chichen Itza shed new light upon this subject, and invalidated many of the older arguments.
[4] The unanticipated results of the dating of Chichen Itza and Tula, Hidalgo cause many of the older theories explaining the similarities to be entirely discredited.
There is no widely accepted theory for how Tula, Hidalgo came to mirror the Toltec architecture present in Chichen Itza.
[13] Another theory, similar to Sylvanus Morley's years earlier, is that the people of Chichen Itza were of two ethnicities: Toltec and Maya, and that this led to the duality of style within the site.
The more Chichen Itza has grown as a tourist attraction, the more that unfounded but popular theories concerning the Toltec influence have been entrenched.