Political economy (Other Keyword)
126-150 (161 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Dynamic Frontiers in the Archaeology of Chiapas" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Middle Usumacinta River was a politically fragmented and contested region during the Classic Maya period, with neighboring polities vying for territory, prestige, and wealth. Recent archaeological and epigraphic work is continuing to delineate the shifting borders and alliances of this time period, with the goal of understanding the...
Regional Political Economies in the South Caucasus: Tracing Social Boundaries in a Eurasian Context (2017)
After more than a century of Russian Imperial and Soviet research dominated by the excavation of tumulus burials, researchers in the South Caucasus have now spent two decades investigating exactly how settlement archaeology sheds light on the inhabitants of the region's earliest polities (ca. 1500-1150 BC). Most of this data has emerged from the sites of the Tsaghkahovit Plain, which have served as a micro-regional laboratory for Bronze and Iron Age studies since 1998. But how exactly do these...
Relocate, Aggregate, or Fortify?: Exploring Local Responses to Atlantic Era Entanglement in Southeastern Senegal (2016)
The 16-19th centuries in West Africa marked a period of dramatic social and cultural change fueled, in part, by the opening of Atlantic markets and the rise of predatory states. The responses of societies peripheral to these political economic processes often involved strategic shifts in the production of space—including relocation to highland refuge areas, aggregation into larger villages, increases in residential mobility, and fortification of elite houses and/or entire settlements. In this...
Running with the Mules: Integrating Zooarchaeological, Archaeological and Textural Evidence to Reconstruct the Exploitation of Equids in Southwest Asia (2018)
The equid had a vital role in animal economy in Southwest Asia, whether as a wild animal providing primary/secondary products to prehistoric communities, or as a domestic source of energy which supported war affairs and trade during historic periods. Reconstructing the dynamics of humans and the four-equid species, which were present in the region, is a complicated endeavor due to the paucity of skeletal evidence in faunal assemblages; the difficulties in distinguishing morphological traits to...
Rural economies at agrarian houselots before and after the rise of urban Mayapán (2016)
This paper examines wealth and occupational diversification of rural houselots of the Terminal Classic and Postclassic northern Plains of Yucatan. Eight dwelling groups are compared that were situated in different types of rural/peripheral contexts. Ubiquitous Terminal Classic dwellings in the study area were located at the margins of a modest town (the Rank IV center of Tichac/Telchaquillo) far from cities of any size or political significance. In contrast, Postclassic houses were within one or...
Scale and Political Integration of Ancient Maya Polities: Ideology, Frame Analysis, and Caracol, Belize (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Regimes of the Ancient Maya" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Interpretations of ancient Maya society may be cast in different ways based on the bodies of data that are used and on the frame of analysis considered. New data and syntheses are changing what sometimes have been polarized perspectives. Excavation, survey, and particularly lidar data show both scalar relationships and regional variability on all levels,...
Seeding the Clouds: A Model of Late Classic Puuc Political Process (2016)
This paper synthesizes the growing body of chronological, settlement, economic, epigraphic, and iconographic data generated from recent research to critically examine traditional models of a short Terminal Classic occupation for the Puuc. The Late Classic period (600-800 AD) was the period in which the political and economic systems of Puuc states crystallized. Settlement patterns suggest that land was a widely available resource during the seventh century, but that the rapid infilling of the...
Selfish for Shellfish, or Magnanimous about Mollusks? The Transformation of Cooperation across the First Millennium CE at Crystal River and Roberts Island, Florida, USA (2019)
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. Blanton and Fargher (2016) critique evolutionary theorists for the assumption that cooperation was a single evolutionary hurdle; even if our species overcame such an obstacle in our distant evolutionary development, it is simplistic to assume that cooperation and collective action have been unchanged around the world over the last 100,000...
SEM-EDS Analysis of Ceramics from the Mongol Empire (2018)
I will use scanning electron microscope with an energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (SEM-EDS) to investigate both elemental compositions and mineral microstructures of ceramics from the Mongol Empire. I will analyze and compare sherds from multiple contexts, including ceramic production centers, burials and residential areas to acquire qualitative and quantitative data on porcelain bodies, glazes, and pigments with the SEM-EDS technique. A high degree of similarities in chemical compositions...
Shifting Patterns of Obsidian Procurement within a Distant Consumer Region (2024)
This is an abstract from the "El principio del fin, el inicio del principio: Arqueología de la transición del Formativo al Clásico en Los Tuxtlas, Veracruz, México" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. By the Formative period, prehispanic societies in southern Veracruz primarily relied on obsidian for numerous daily activities. However, as the geological sources of obsidian that were exploited occur in central Mexico and the Guatemalan and Honduran...
Sicán Political Economy: Converting Regional Productivity to Interregional Prestige Economy and Religious Eminence (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. Within a matter of a few generations, during the late tenth century AD, the Middle Sicán polity with its geospatial focus in the extensive Lambayeque Complex on the north coast attained seemingly unprecedented material wealth and established an interregional sphere of trade and influence primarily along the coast of Peru and Ecuador. The truly...
The Significance of Debt to Household and Political Economies of Postclassic and Contact Period Maya Societies (2018)
Debt was important to late Maya societies in religious and political terms. This paper explores the many facets of debt that tied together household and regional economies, including bottom-up mechanisms employed by families and communities, as well as top-down institutions that garnered support for religious and political bureaucracies. Graeber’s distinction between moral and impersonal economies outlines a comparative continuum with profound implications for issues of human rights in the past....
Slow violence and environmental inequality in the Valley of Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Legacies of The Basin of Mexico: The Ecological Processes in the Evolution of a Civilization, Part 1" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Valley of Mexico project was unprecedented in its documentation of demographic, social, and environmental processes over millennia. Nevertheless, its findings are limited because participants did not systematically collect archaeological data about settlements after the Spanish...
Small Sites as Evidence for Seneca and Cayuga Settlement Expansion, circa 1640-1690 (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Recognizing and Recording Post-1492 Indigenous Sites in North American Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Sites in Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) territory that yield small numbers of artifacts diagnostic of Postcolumbian indigenous occupations typically are treated as ephemeral occurrences: travel stop-overs, resource-procurement stations, and the like. Concentration on obvious diagnostic artifacts such as glass...
Sociopolitical and Environmental Change and its Effect on the Biology of a Medieval Polish Population through Isotopic Analysis (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Life and Death in Medieval Central Europe" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Late Medieval to Early Modern periods in Poland underwent a shift toward a feudal sociopolitical structure and experienced environmental changes leading to an increase in social stratification and an unequal distribution of power, opportunity, and resources (e.g., food). This project examines how a non-elite Polish population biologically...
State Formation and Economic Integration: New Perspectives from Ceramic Sourcing in the Oaxaca Valley, Mexico (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Checking the Pulse: Current Research in Oaxaca Part II" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The two occupations at Tilcajete, El Mogote and El Palenque, offer a unique perspective on the political and economic changes surrounding the rise of Monte Albán. Located in the southern arm of the Valley of Oaxaca, El Mogote was an important Rosario phase (700–500 BCE) community that grew in size and political importance during the...
The Storage Systems in the South Coast Region: The Case of the Cañete Valley (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. Undoubtedly, storage systems played a key role in Inca political and economic organization in the Andes. The Inca state employed these goods stored for different purposes, such as supporting military campaigns, financing state works, and hosting ceremonial activities. However, most research on Inca storage has focused on the storage facilities...
Subsistence and Political Economy: Dairying and Change in Late Prehistoric Ireland (2017)
Cattle played a critical role in the economic and socio-political structure of the Iron Age in Ireland, yet the nature of this relationship is not yet clear. The Irish Iron Age (~500 BC - AD 500) is characterized by scant settlement evidence yet with several large, complex, ceremonial centers. It has been difficult, therefore, to contextualize the nature of social change leading into the Early Medieval Period. The Early Medieval Period (~ AD 500-1100), emerged with a fully-developed dairying...
Százalombatta Archaeological Expedition (SAX). Hungary: A 20-year History of Theories, Methods, and Results of an International Project in Central Hungary (2018)
This paper documents the theories, methods, and results of SAX, an international, collaborative Bronze Age project in the Carpathian basin. Three topics are emphasized: First is the value added by international collaboration, which creates an intellectual openness to research objectives and theoretical discussion. Second are technological transfer and creative problem-solving approach to field and laboratory research. And third is an inherent comparative agenda, for which results are seem always...
Then and Now: Conservative and Progressive Politics at the Mimbres Site of Swarts (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Journeying to the South, from Mimbres (New Mexico) to Malpaso (Zacatecas) and Beyond: Papers in Honor of Ben A. Nelson" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Social inequality exists simultaneously in a number of domains, and can often be traced - or allegedly traced - to founding lineages. Antecedence is the demonstration of longevity in place and, therefore, claims to moral authority. In this paper, we explore the...
Theravada Buddhist Monastic Activity at Angkor: A Discussion of What, Where, and When (2021)
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...