The Institutional Basis of Sustained Farming Systems

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Property Regimes" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

For key agricultural resources, people form and refine social institutions of property tailored to biophysical constraints and affordances of the local environment. As known from indigenous texts and practices, and a large body of historical research, in Oaxaca—and by extension Mesoamerica and beyond—intensive terracing, irrigation, and rainfall-dependent farming, etc. are associated with different institutions of property and resource management, and varying patterns of labor and social inequality. The agroecosystems, and associated institutions, knowledge, and cultural practices forming the social means of production have archaeological correlates that can often be traced back in time for several thousand years. Here, property regimes do not form an evolutionary sequence, they do not necessarily become more exploitive over time, nor are they responses to population pressure. In fact, the most land- and labor-intensive farming systems can make for relatively low wealth inequality and democratic local governance. Property regimes are created and maintained because they work in specific contexts, they provide for sustained use of resources.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Archaeology of Property Regimes   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37783.0