sociopolitical complexity (Other Keyword)
1-5 (5 Records)
Two dozen monumental buildings lie at the heart of Chaco Canyon, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the Southwest United States. However, ancient Chaco Canyon was not a single locality but a focal point for outlier settlements spanning a region of 60,000 square miles. The canyon-outlier relationship is key to understanding the Chacoan polity. Residents of canyon and outlier settlements within a dialectical relationship gathered periodically to share resources, marriage partners, and ritual...
The Chicama Valley Archaeological Project (1989-2000) Revisited (2017)
Between 1989 and 2000, the Chicama Valley Archaeological Project, lead by Glenn S. Russell, Banks Leonard and Christopher Attarian, conducted archaeological survey and excavations in the lower Chicama Valley. This presentation will focus on a broad summary of settlement pattern change with reference to key excavation data that informs interpretation of the survey data. A focus will be how sociopolitical complexity developed in the context of control of irrigation systems. Approximately 25% of...
Integrating Archaeological Evidence on the Origins and Transformation of Sociopolitical Complexity During the Holocene (2016)
Investigating changes in sociopolitical complexity is an important theme in archaeological research. Building upon previous work, the research project presented in this paper investigates the changes in complexity worldwide, questioning where increasing complexity first occurred and whether identifiable stages exist. The assessment compares patterns of change by pulling from archaeological and economic theories and data. Global archaeological sites are recorded from authoritative sources and...
A microstratigrapic perspective on early civic and ritual architecture: a case from the Kala Uyuni site, Bolivia (2015)
This paper brings a microstratigraphic perspective to debates about the origins of sociopolitical complexity though a study of floors from nondomestic structures. Such civic and ceremonial buildings are central to models of community formation and leadership development. In the Bolivian Middle Formative Period I (800-200 BCE) communities became aggregated and expanded the range of civic architecture as populations rose. Demonstrating these trends, the Kala Uyuni site expanded and developed two...
The Social Dynamics of Obsidian Use in the Prehistoric Western Mediterranean: Temporal Changes in Maritime Capabilities, Lithic Technology, and Sociopolitical Complexity (2017)
In the western Mediterranean, obsidian was an important lithic material, coming from four Italian islands and found at archaeological sites up to several hundred kilometers away. Analytical studies of many thousands of artifacts have identified their specific geological sources, and revealed chronological and geographic changes in their selective use through the Neolithic and Bronze Ages (ca. 6000-1000 BC). These data are used to assess economic and social dynamics regarding access to and...