Interregional Exchange and the Rise of Inequality in the Intermediate Area

Summary

Interregional exchange has long played a prominent role in explanations of hierarchical development among early complex societies in lower Central America and throughout the Intermediate Area. It is argued to have been a primary basis of social power among highly developed chiefdoms of the sixteenth century, and to have played a vital role in the onset of inequality approximately 1000 years earlier. However, while interregional exchange was undoubtedly an important element of early inequality in many parts of the Intermediate Area, its role has often been emphasized at the expense of other activities that were also important, and of the factors that prompted inequalities to develop. Recent archaeological research has revealed that the factors underlying early inequality (including the activities that were used to support it) were highly variable from one region to the next, and that more attention must be paid to local and regional-scale processes in studying the development of inequality in the Intermediate Area.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Caminos perdidos y vías olvidadas: Trade Routes and Exchange Networks in Late Pre-Hispanic Central America   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

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