Social and Political Organization (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn Grossman. Tate Paulette.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Despite decades of critique, the study of early state formation remains bound up with an evolutionist narrative that situates the state as the natural endpoint of sociopolitical development. It is clear, however, that alternative political projects and trajectories were not only possible but common in the human past. Particular attention has been drawn to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paige Lynch.

This is an abstract from the "Life and Death in Medieval Poland" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Jagiellonian Period (1386–1572) in Poland underwent a shift toward a feudal sociopolitical and economic structure leading to an increase in social stratification and unequal distribution of power, opportunity, and resources (e.g., food). The medieval site of Gać (fourteenth–sixteenth centuries) provides a unique opportunity to gain insight into the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eleanor King. Neil Hansen. Richard Terry. Christine Taylor. Michael Brennan.

This is an abstract from the "Ancient Maya Landscapes in Northwestern Belize, Part I" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2016 the Maax Na Archaeology Project systematically tested the soils of two major plazas at Maax Na, a large prehispanic site located in the Three Rivers Region of Belize. Tests in the West Plaza sought to determine whether phosphorus levels there supported its identification as a marketplace during the Late Classic (C.E....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carla Hernández Garavito. Peter Kaulicke.

This is an abstract from the "Dedication, Collaboration, and Vision, Part II: Papers in Honor of Tom D. Dillehay" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The well-known protohistoric Inca Empire of the late fifteenth century had achieved a remarkable degree of social complexity preceded by a similar expansive state some 500 years earlier. The lack of pre-European writing systems, however, obscures access to these earlier social formations. Thus, the social...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard Lange.

The US Southwest has attracted numerous adventurers and researchers since the mid-19th Century, including the three individuals noted in the title. Although more than 60 years passed between their respective journeys, their approaches to understanding native Southwest cultures were remarkably similar. Their work melded data and insights from ethnology, anthropology, history and historical documents, and archaeology. The later researchers could not have known when they began their journeys that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeff Stanley. Mariela Pérez Antonio. Nawa Sugiyama.

During the Early Classic period (250-550 CE), Teotihuacan in what is now central Mexico was the largest city in the Western hemisphere. Occupying 76,400 m2 of Teotihuacan’s ceremonial center, the Plaza of the Columns, which consists of three mounds and the surrounding area, has been posited as the site of a palatial-administrative complex. The occupational history of the Plaza of the Columns is interpreted in light of a three-dimensional distribution map of ceramics, organized according to two...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dolores Dávalos Navarro.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The site of Paquimé in Chihuahua, Mexico, is part of the debate of social organization of prehistoric pueblos. Using statistical and Geographic Information Systems this research attempts to determine the degree of status differentiation and intra-site organization of the site by revisiting published archaeological data and using a revised classification and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Byron Smith. Marisol Cortes-Rincon.

Late Classic hinterland agronomy presents a compelling glimpse into the socioeconomic dynamics of production and demand in the Three Rivers region. This project focused on a prominent house-group located 350 meters east of the site of Dos Hombres which was known to exhibit intensive agricultural strategies as well as a specialized degree of stone working. Additionally, a series of four karst depressions bordered the site and likely leveraged moisture demand resulting from agricultural needs as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sherman Horn.

This is an abstract from the "Where Is Provenance? Bridging Method, Evidence, and Theory for the Interpretation of Local Production" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Middle Preclassic (1000 – 400 B.C.) Maya Lowlands were peppered with autonomous communities connected by webs of socioeconomic interactions at the local and regional scales. Increasingly complex social relationships were forged in Middle Preclassic centers and later developed into...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cléa Moulin.

This is an abstract from the "Lost in Transition: Social and Political Changes in the Central Southern Andes from the Late Prehispanic to the Early Colonial Periods" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tambo Colorado is one of the most impressive Inca sites on the coast of Peru. Its mural paintings have drawn attention and yet, little is known about it, in particular about its pre-Inca occupation and its possible re-occupation after the Spanish...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexander Baer.

This is an abstract from the "Rethinking Hinterlands in Polynesia" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While core-periphery studies have long been employed to highlight distinctions between areas within a shared sociopolitical sphere, less articulated is what it means to actually be "peripheral." Or, for that matter, "liminal," "a hinterland," or "marginal," among others. This paper uses examples from two regions, the district of Kaupo, Maui, and the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Edwin Roman-Ramirez.

This is an abstract from the "La Cuernavilla, Guatemala: A Maya Fortress and Its Environs" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the first centuries of the CE, the Maya Lowlands underwent many changes in its political landscape, which were caused by the abandonment of the main Formative centers, including El Palmar, which was the most powerful center in the Buenavista Valley. Taking advantage of these compulsive times, Tikal begins to become the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Williams.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mississippian and related sedentary settlements in the eastern United States often appear unstable in the archaeological record. The eastern US is also in the most tornadically active area on earth. Tornadoes have been an impetus of settlement and social change in both the historic and modern era. Using 50 years of data collected by the National Weather...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Borislava Simova.

This is an abstract from the "The Preclassic Landscape in the Mopan Valley, Belize" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One of the earliest known examples of permanent architecture in the Maya Lowlands, a distinctive plaza-structure complex known as an E Group, is also one of the most commonly encountered architectural groups present within Preclassic sites throughout the region. The rapid adoption of permanent architecture and widespread...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christina Sampson.

This is an abstract from the "Complex Fisher-Hunter-Gatherers of North America" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper examines changes over time in the ways that fisher-hunter-gatherer communities on the central Gulf coast of peninsular Florida participated in the regional trade of specialized crafted goods. The social landscape of the greater Tampa Bay area appears to have become increasingly politically integrated between the end of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mikael Fauvelle. Peter Jordan.

This is an abstract from the "Negotiating Watery Worlds: Impacts and Implications of the Use of Watercraft in Small-Scale Societies" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One critical aspect of complex watercraft is their transformative power to amplify the impacts of social connections with distant places by allowing for longer, larger, and more frequent interactions. In many small-scale and indigenous societies, the use of advanced boats allowed for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chihhua Chiang.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper discusses the transition from the Middle to the Late Neolithic period in the Yilan Plain, Northeast Taiwan (ca. 4,200~3,700 B.P.) with a specific focus on analysing the material objects excavated from two sites, the Tatsuwei site (4,200-3,700 cal. B.P.) and the Wansan site (3,900-2,500 cal. B.P.). Previous research emphasized the importance of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Milan Kovac.

In the beginning of the 20th Century Uaxactun was considered to be the cradle of the Maya civilization. Later, other monumental Maya centers were found and scholars lost interest for Uaxactun. The former popularity of Uaxactun was interpreted as just a coincidence because the first large excavations were carried out there. Newly identified important Maya sites were considered to be older and more interesting. The new archaeological project in Uaxactun has dealt with the Preclassic horizon of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hirokazu Kotegawa.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. El sitio arqueológico de Estero Rabón fue uno de los centros secundarios de San Lorenzo y probablemente también de La Venta durante el Preclásico Inferior y Medio. Según los estudios previos de la cultura olmeca, los centros secundarios de estas capitales tenían su propia finalidad para sostenerlas. Así, Estero Rabón también se ubicó en un punto estratégico...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brenton Willhite.

It has been hypothesized that social ties between the Salinas Pueblo Province and the Jornada Mogollon sparked cultural change in both regions. In this study, I use Social Network Analysis to characterize these interactions from A.D. 900 to 1450 via the spread of Chupadero Black-on-white pottery. Integral to the study of social interaction and the emergence of Chupadero Black-on-white ceramics is the nature of the pithouse-to-pueblo transition in each region. Prior to the emergence of pueblo...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joanna Troufflard.

The socio-political organization of the Tapajó people living in the Lower Amazon region during late precolonial times has been studied through two main sources: contact chronicles and archaeological data coming from the Santarém site located at the mouth of the Tapajós River. Based on these sources, researchers have formulated three models to explain the socio-political organization of the Tapajó. However, recent surveys and excavations conducted in the upland Belterra plateau provide new data...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Deborah Huntley. Suzanne Eckert.

This is an abstract from the "Attention to Detail: A Pragmatic Career of Research, Mentoring, and Service, Papers in Honor of Keith Kintigh" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As graduate students, Keith Kintigh shaped each of our careers in significant ways. Keith introduced us to the archaeology of the Cibola region, a place that remains dear to us. He also inspired an enthusiasm for the use of statistics, particularly for ceramic typological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eleanna Prevedorou. Jane E. Buikstra. Stella Chrysoulaki.

Ancient Athens is cited as the contentious caldron from which the western political tradition emerged. During the formative Archaic period (ca. 700-480 BC), Athenian history was marked by major political developments (e.g., early law codification, citizenship formalization), social stratification (e.g., classes), and conflict (e.g., tyrants). To date, such processes are known to us through texts, artistic representations, and elite-centered mortuary grounds. The collaborative Phaleron...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul R. Duffy. Péter Czukor.

A variety of new groups emerged during the Bronze Age in the Carpathian Basin —some had powerful rulers holding feasts and controlling the trade in commodities, and some were egalitarian peoples leaving little evidence for social differentiation outside of age and gender. This paper uses a comparative and multi-scalar perspective to study two different social trajectories in the Carpathian Basin during the second millennium BC: the Lower Körös Basin in Eastern Hungary, and the Danube and its...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Leah Larsen. Matthew Brown.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cuzco, Peru has long been recognized as an important archaeological area in the Andes. Despite this recognition, earlier periods prior to the emergence of the Inka state remain under researched, especially regarding pre-Inka political organization. In particular, the Late Formative (600 BCE - 200 CE) is a period in which several important political...