Water Access and World-Systems: Aquarian versus Terrestially Oriented Polities

Summary

This is an abstract from the "World-Systems and Globalization in Archaeology: Assessing Models of Intersocietal Connections 50 Years since Wallerstein’s “The Modern World-System”" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The primary focus of world-systems analysis (WSA) is the impact of systemic-level interaction on long-term sociopolitical and economic stasis and change. Differentiation (not equalization) among polities is one of its predicted outcomes. WSA is methodologically transdisciplinary. Traditional academic disciplines play a role in the advancement of knowledge but eventually form barriers to understanding as our silos retard the ability to link important phenomena. In this paper we adopt a long-term process model of social change from the comparative world-systems perspective (Inoue and Chase-Dunn 2019). Using archaeological, historical, geographic, political, and social evidence, we identify differences between largely terrestrial and largely aquarian human interaction networks in 12 important linked social processes. The impact of access proves significant, and primarily positive, in 11 of those processes. Advances in maritime archaeology (especially the ability to find both submerged port areas and new wrecks) and metallurgy (the ability to track the origins of metals found on shipwrecks) suggest significant future advances in these regards. Understanding the differences between terrestrial and aquarian systems will allow us to better comprehend social formations and acquire a firmer foundation for the study of polity differentiation and systemic social change.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• World-Systems and Globalization in Archaeology: Assessing Models of Intersocietal Connections 50 Years since Wallerstein’s “The Modern World-System”   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38502.0