Political economy (Other Keyword)
101-125 (161 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Olmec Manifestations and Ongoing Societal Transformations in the Tuxtlas Uplands: A View from Matacanela" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Matacanela’s chipped stone assemblage overwhelmingly is dominated by nonlocal obsidian, including both products and by-products of multiple reductive technologies. Overarching temporal trends and classification of Matacanela’s obsidian assemblage have previously been discussed within...
Over the Andes, and Through their Goods: Integration Period Relations in Northern Ecuador (2018)
While highland Peru’s Late Intermediate Period (AD 1000-1400) is characterized by community isolation, regional violence and shrinking exchange networks, the contemporary northern Ecuadorian Late Integration Period was a time of large-scale interregional activity that saw the flourishing of market economies. The northern Ecuadorian Andes demonstrated highly diverse cultural practices amongst an intimately connected Barbacoan world that stretched from between the highlands of northern Ecuador and...
Overland Travel Routes and Exchange Spheres of Pacific Nicaragua Using Obsidian and Ceramic Data from Chiquilistagua (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Centralizing Central America: New Evidence, Fresh Perspectives, and Working on New Paradigms" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The emergence of social complexity often incorporates social, political, and economic inter- and intra-regional interactions. In this paper we examine the emerging social spheres and exchange networks that developed during the Tempisque period (500 BC–AD 300) among small prehistoric agrarian...
Place-Making, Fire, and the Praxis of Becoming Angkor (2024)
This is an abstract from the "States, Confederacies, and Nations: Reenvisioning Early Large-Scale Collectives." session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ninth- to fifteenth-century Angkorian state was premodern Southeast Asia’s earliest large-scale collective, and its roots extend back to an early first-century CE polity described as Funan, and then to a confederation of successor states called Chenla. Place-making was intrinsic to Angkorian rulership:...
Political Change and the Social Power of Potters at Idalion, Cyprus during the First Millennium BCE (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Mediterranean Archaeology: Connections, Interactions, Objects, and Theory" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. On Iron Age Cyprus, the polities are described as "city-kingdoms" that are autonomous, independent, and led by kings. Idalion is one such polity located in the south central region of Cyprus. Using petrographic analysis, I investigated the way craft production was impacted by economic, social, and political power...
Political Economy at a Casma Valley Middle Horizon Center: Evidence from Pan de Azúcar de Nivín, Peru (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since 2017 the Proyecto de Investigación Arqueológico Nivín seeks to clarify the cultural affiliation of the groups that occupied the middle Casma Valley, Peru. Architectural and ceramic features demonstrate the influence of both Wari and Casma cultural traditions at Pan de Azúcar de Nivín (PAN), a site occupied AD 950-1150. While the Wari Empire expanded from...
Political Economy in Neighborhood Public Space at Angamuco, Michoacan (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Ways to Do, Ways to Inhabit, Ways to Interact: An Archaeological View of Communities and Daily Life" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper looks at changes in the relationships between elites and commoners in neighborhood public spaces at the site of Angamuco, Michoacan, Mexico, drawing from a combination of Marxian political economy and collective action theory. The study uses a combination of viewshed analysis,...
The Political Economy of Qalas and Canals in Greater Khorasan (2016)
Neo-evolutionary models for the emergence of early complex polities propose a causal relationship between political centralization and the development of large-scale irrigation networks. Decades of field research and historical analysis have made available a large dataset of settlement patterns and irrigation networks in lowland Central Asia, but information regarding settlement and agriculture in the highlands of Central Asia during this time is less well understood. The relationship between...
Political Economy, Praxis, and Aesthetics: The Institutions of Slavery and Hacienda at the Jesuit Vineyards of Nasca, Peru (2016)
At the time of its expulsion from the Spanish Empire in 1767, the Society of Jesus was among the largest slaveholders in the Americas. The two Jesuit Nasca estates (San Joseph and San Xavier) were their largest and most profitable Peruvian vineyards, worked by nearly 600 slaves of sub-Saharan origin. Their haciendas and annex properties throughout the Nasca valleys established agroindustrial hegemony in the region. This paper explores the political and economic dynamics among enslaved subjects...
Politics along the Rivers: An Example from the Gulf of Fonseca, Honduras (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Reconstructing the Political Organization of Pre-Columbian Nicaragua" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The relationship between environment, politics, and economies has often been observed in the archaeological record. In the Gulf of Fonseca, where archaeological sites concentrate around mangrove swamps, rivers and estuaries; politics were intricately tied to the affordances of riverine systems. Based on the ceramic...
The Politics of Commerce: Aztec Pottery Production and Exchange in the Basin of Mexico, A.D. 1200-1650 (2006)
The relationships between market and political institutions have varied in different times and places, but no market system was (or is) devoid of political involvement. The contrasting approaches of the Aztec empire and Spanish colonial regime to the Basin of Mexico market system are instructive about the ways that commercial agents (producers, traders) respond to “top-down” pressures from state elites to steer and direct the commercial economy to their political advantage. The results of this...
Post-Chavín Political Developments in Ancash: Comparative Perspectives from the Nepeña and Pallasca Regions (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Peering into the Night: Transition, Sociopolitical Organization, and Economic Dynamics after the Dusk of Chavín in the North Central Andes" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper, we present preliminary results of our 2019 excavations at the centers of Cerro San Isidro (Nepeña) and Pashash (Pallasca) in the Moro and Cabana regions of north-central Peru, respectively. Both are multicomponent hilltop sites that...
Pottery Production at Idalion, Cyprus: Investigating First Millennium BCE Politics and Culture through Ceramic Petrography. (2018)
On the island of Cyprus, the first millennium BCE was a period of change in politics and culture brought about by new people, new governance, and new technology. This paper attempts to analyze these changes using one site. Idalion is located in the east-central part of the island. The polity went through many changes from its founding, c. 1200 BCE, through the first millennium BCE and I have begun to investigate some through petrographic analysis of pottery. Pottery production can represent...
Power before Paquimé? Hypotheses on Political Economies in Casas Grandes. (2015)
In this paper, I outline alternative hypotheses on the nature of the late-Viejo and early-Medio Period political economies in the Casas Grandes Regional System from what is now Chihuahua, Mexico. Recent research has described in impressive detail the productive base and the ideology that may have emerged at Paquimé during its late-Medio Period (AD 1350-1450) florescence. However, little is known about power in the Casas Grandes region either prior to Paquimé’s brief 14th Century expansion into...
Power Cooking...Or Not (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Hot Rocks in Hot Places: Investigating the 10,000-Year Record of Plant Baking across the US-Mexico Borderlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Paquimé-centered tradition is one of the most influential communities in northwestern Chihuahua and U.S. Southwest (NW/SW). We have argued that food production and preparation was central to this polity. Some of best evidence of this are earthen ovens, one of which is...
A Preliminary Investigation into the Political Economy of Santa Cruz, an Associated Community with Ichmul de Morley, Yucatan, Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper centers on the analysis of shell, lithics, and ceramics recovered from the ancient Maya community of Santa Cruz, located 3 km south of the secondary site of Ichmul de Morley in northern Yucatán. Ichmul de Morley appears to have had an expansive growth during the Late and Terminal Classic periods that might have encouraged local development of nearby...
Preliminary Results of Ancient Maya Marketplace Investigations at La Milpa, Belize (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Prehispanic Maya Marketplace Investigations in the Three Rivers Region of Belize: First Results" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. With support from a National Science Foundation Grant, fieldwork was conducted at the Ancient Maya site of La Milpa, located in the northwest corner of the Three Rivers Region. Archaeological matrix samples were collected from three areas within La Milpa for soil analysis as a method for...
A Preliminary Study on Food and the Emergence of Archaic States in the Hawaiian Islands (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists approach the topic of ancient foodways in two major ways: by focusing on ‘diet’ and adaptation to local environments, or more recently, by focusing on ‘cuisine,’ through culturally specific rules about how food is acquired, prepared, consumed, and discarded. Few, however, have attempted to consider how changes in diet and cuisine have...
Producing Community and Communal Production: Examining Evidence for Collective Practices at Complex B, Cerro de la Virgen, Oaxaca, Mexico (2018)
Recent research in the lower Río Verde Valley of Pacific coastal Oaxaca, Mexico has indicated that, during the Terminal Formative Period (150 BC - AD 250), public buildings were loci of communal practices such as feasting, collective labor, cemetery burial, and object caching. Idiosyncrasies in these practices among Terminal Formative sites in the valley suggest that political authority and community identity was constituted on the local level. While the best evidence for these practices comes...
Production in Urban Spaces: Lithic Production and Economic Organization at La Corona, Guatemala (2021)
This is an abstract from the "The Urban Question: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Investigating the Ancient Mesoamerican City" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Studies of urban spaces have often relied on specialized production as a marker of urbanism. More recently, our understandings of production activities in urban environments have been used to understand the variety of activities that occurred within these spaces and the ways in which they...
Production, maintenance, and exchange in a young Maya community: Ceren, El Salvador (2016)
What is now El Salvador was devastated by the Ilopango eruption, probably in AD 536. A small group of Maya immigrants founded the Ceren village in the uncontested landscape some three decades later. Only about four generations lived in and constructed the functioning community before it was buried by the tephra from the Loma Caldera eruption in about AD 650. Production and maintenance activities of the recently discovered sacbe are presented, along with its various functions. Evidence indicates...
Recent Investigations of War, Economy, and Population at Piedras Negras, Guatemala (2018)
This paper presents a synthesis of current results from the 2016 - 2017 research seasons at Piedras Negras, Guatemala with implications for understanding warfare, economy, politics, and population dynamics throughout the ancient kingdom. First, while project members had identified a series of fortified centers and palisades in the region’s hinterlands, the recent identification of fortifications in the near periphery of Piedras Negras makes it one of the rare polity capitals in the southern...
Reconstructing Synchronous Ritual Events in a Central Honduran Chiefdom: An Analysis of Conjoined Artifacts (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Innovations and Transformations in Mesoamerican Research: Recent and Revised Insights of Ancestral Lifeways" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Reconstructing past ritual events is always a challenge under the best of archaeological conditions. Between cal AD 238 and 352 the ancient residents of the site of Salitrón Viejo accumulated an assemblage of carved jade and marble artifacts that were used in a series of ritual...
Reducing Collective Action Problems among Larger-Scale Societies: Building Trust, Assurance, and Cooperation at Late Postclassic Tlaxcallan, Mexico (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Advances in Puebla/Tlaxcala Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Collective action problems arise when individuals expend energy or resources to obtain a common goal or outcome. However, conflicting interests hinder cooperation and preclude joint action. Visibility and trust are two factors that reduce collective action problems among small and mid-sized groups, but research is limited on how these variables...
Regimes and the Classic Maya Market Economy “Writ Large” (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Regimes of the Ancient Maya" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The concept of regimes can be critical to the ongoing transformation of understandings of the Classic Maya economy. Currently, many scholars continue to refer to anthropomorphized mythical agents, e.g., exchange between “Tikal” and “Holmul” or between “Cancuen” and “the highlands,” as simply black boxes inhibiting economic research. With populations in the...