Political economy (Other Keyword)
126-140 (140 Records)
This is an abstract from the "The Current State of Archaeological Research across Southeast Asia" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The religious transition of the Khmer Empire (ca. 802–1431 CE) from Saivaite and/or Mahayana Buddhism to the religion known today as “Theravada Buddhism” is thought today to be one of the defining social phenomena of the late Angkorian period (ca. fourteenth to fifteenth centuries) in medieval Cambodia. However, despite...
Through a Smoke Cloud Darkly: The Possible Social Significance of Candeleros in Terminal Classic Naco Valley Society (2015)
Candeleros, fired clay artifacts with one to over 20 chambers, are widely distributed across Terminal Classic (AD 800-1000) contexts in the Naco valley of northwestern Honduras. Though reported from other parts of Mesoamerica, little is known about the varied ways this distinctive artifact figured in tasks engaged in by people of diverse ranks and might have been used in negotiating interpersonal transactions. This presentation provides initial responses to these queries based on a functional...
Toyah Mitotes: Feasting in the Terminal Late Pre-Hispanic Southern Plains (2018)
The proto-historic period within North America provides a framework for assessing the transformations brought on by contact and conflict between indigenous peoples and European colonizers. In central and south Texas, a distinct archaeological culture, Toyah, spans some 400 years, 1250-1650 CE. The hallmark projectile point and first systemic, locally-produced ceramic tradition in the area have intrigued archaeologists for over a hundred years; interpretations of the phenomena have been...
Transformations in Political Economy and Routes of Exchange on the Eve of the Classic Maya Collapse: New Evidence from the Port Kingdom of Cancuen and the Classic Maya Frontier (2015)
The Classic period archaeology and history of the Pasion River "highway" and its connecting land routes demonstrate the vital role of riverine exchange systems and also register major changes in routes, agents, and economies. The riverine port city of Cancuen held a critical position at the intersection of both river and land routes that connected the southwest Classic Maya cities to other Peten centers, to southern highland trading partners, and to the more distant realms of Tabasco and...
Tribute Lists and Bureaucrats: Understanding Classic Maya Politics (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Regimes of the Ancient Maya" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper, I will explore how much we know about Maya politics during the Classic period (AD 250–950), in view of new perspectives that leave behind the centralization vs. decentralization debate. Rather than viewing Maya states as unitary, unchanging, and centralized or decentralized, new perspectives have revealed variation, multiple sources of...
Understanding Interactions Between Iron Age Polities in Cyprus through the Microscopic Lens (2017)
This paper will address economic and political interactions of two Cypriot polities during the Iron Age prior to political transitions in about 450 BCE. Idalion is a polity in the interior, near the copper-bearing Troodos Mountains and Kition is a port town on the southern coast. These polities are separate by 20km of rolling hills and plains. By 450 BCE, Kition had obtained political control of Idalion, but there has been little research about these two urban areas interactions prior to this...
Urban Economies and State "Peripheries": Angkorian Stoneware Ceramic Production and Distribution (2018)
Angkor’s agro-urban capital covered more than 60 square miles, and its landscape housed farmers and artisans. Constraints of the archaeological record limit our ability to document production scale of most activities; the genealogical skew of Angkor’s epigraphic record in another reason. Yet Greater Angkor’s gardens and fields must have fed residents in the Angkorian state’s epicenter. Artisans built its temples, sculpted temple images, and cast metal goods; specialists and communities tended...
The Use of Balances in Late Andean Prehistory: Merchants or Bureaucrats? (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Political Economies on the Andean Coast" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In prehistory, scales were used by both merchants and bureaucrats and their use had profound impacts on economic and administrative practices. Research in the Andes has not critically addressed the role of balances in political economies, but their presence throughout the Andean coast highlights the need to explore how they were used and by whom....
The Usefulness of Institutional Analysis (IAD) for Defining Focal Action Situations in Mexican Cultural Heritage: PROCEDE-INAH and CONACULTA Outcomes after 1992 Reforms (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper analyzes how polycentricity governance is articulated around cultural heritage (CH) performance in an overview of changing contextual factors and focal action situation in Mexican Cultural System (MCS). This paper adds to conversation historical analysis from law changes across time in both countries, and also uses the Network of Adjacent Action...
Using Remote Sensing to Re-evaluate Prehistoric Land Use in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Remote sensing has been used extensively the past several years to study prehistoric land use in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. Previous land use models for Chaco predict economic activities such as agriculture and water management near some of the major sites within the canyon, and these models have been critical to understanding how land use contributed to the...
Utilitarian Lithics as Commodities: Comparing Classic Period Specialized and Multi-craft Producers in the Maya Lowlands (2023)
This is an abstract from the "An Exchange of Ideas: Recent Research on Maya Commodities" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Economic studies in the Maya region have illustrated that the Classic period Maya utilized a variety of exchange networks to circulate commodities such as market exchange, redistribution, and gifting. The study of specific types of goods provides information on how different materials circulated through these exchange mechanisms...
Village to City: Formative Period Political Evolution in Central Mexico (2018)
Current research has prompted rethinking about the early development of sedentism, agricultural economies, and complex societies in Central Mexico. We discuss new evidence of significant interconnected changes ca.1000 BC that through multiple trajectories involved intensified maize production, expansion of sedentary villages, expanded interaction networks, and increased social complexity. With the establishment of the first cities, the Late Formative saw corporate political economy strategies...
Wealth Inequality in the Late Classic Valley of Oaxaca: A Domestic Perspective (2016)
The Late Classic period in the Valley of Oaxaca is marked by shared practices in residential organization, design, the layout of houses, and domestic artifact assemblages both within and between sites throughout the region. This degree of homogeneity allows for cross-site comparison of excavated residences to examine household wealth inequality on a systemic and regional scale. In this paper, we employ different indices to explore multiple lines of evidence (e.g., patio size and other...
Wicked Problems in Archaeology: Applying a Social Impact Framework and Entrepreneurship Mindset to Cultural Heritage Management (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists operate within a conflicted position in the commercial business of cultural heritage management. As collaborators with industry and as players within a state bureaucracy, they are beholden to regulations and complicit in the destruction of sites. While archaeologists aim to produce practical benefits for society in general, or at the very least,...
The Yaxhom Valley Survey II (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The second season of the Yaxhom Valley survey, conducted during the summer of 2018, continued its assessment of LiDAR imagery collected by an NSF-sponsored mission flown over the eastern Puuc region of Yucatan, Mexico. Our focus shifted to Muluchtzekel, which LiDAR revealed to be the dominant site of the entire valley. We covered approximately one square...