Show me what you have and I’ll tell you who you stick around with: A model of economical-political interaction in the Upper Usumacinta

Summary

Walking, although commonly seen as a simple activity, represents in fact, a very important aspect of the relationship that develops between human groups and the physical environment on which they live. In this way, the nature of this environment will bestow the singularities of the political, social and economic organization of societies. We can approach human mobility through the application of GIS in terms of the estimation of cost of movement. Various algorithms have been developed that allow us to estimate cost in terms of time, distance, or calories consumed during the stride. In this context, the upper Usumacinta region constitutes an ideal scenario to model human movement over a rugged landscape, and thus estimating the territorial extent of its different regional capitals. In this paper we intend to delve deeper in the definition of the territorial limits of these centers by approaching along with the characteristics of the terrain, the fluctuations in time to access of certain prestige goods. To this end it becomes necessary to quantify objectively the economic fluctuations in relation to the geopolitical adjustments throughout time, through the application of the contextual valuation methodology developed by Izquierdo.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Circulation of People, Things & Ideas: Practices of Mobility in the Upper Usumacinta Basin

Keywords

Spatial Coverage