Politics along the Rivers: An Example from the Gulf of Fonseca, Honduras

Summary

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 record of different regional sites, we argue that the location of a site alongside a river offered the possibility to make foreign connections and integrate a site in different economic spheres. In the Gulf area, waterways would have been a determining factor in establishing political relationships: it seems that sites along the same river often exhibit more similarities in their assemblages than sites located in close proximity from one another. Distance herewith becomes an irrelevant factor in the determination of political affinity; rather riverine systems would have bound or isolated sites to and from economic spheres and barter systems. In return, isolation from sites along the rivers reflects a local political choice to reject foreign influence.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Reconstructing the Political Organization of Pre-Columbian Nicaragua

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25958