Despots, optimization, and cooperative transitions in Maya society

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Cooperative and Noncooperative Transitions in the Archaeological Record" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Major evolutionary transitions in sociality are premised on the formation of cooperative groups and transformation of the collective group into an entity. Prior to the development of institutions, the kin group was the primary locus of cooperation and was limited largely by environmental and physical constraints. With the emergence of institutions, humans were able to dictate the rules for social organization, creating systems where cooperation could be advantageous to an individual, even when members of the group are unrelated. Resulting institutions could be self-regulating, conferring benefits to those who follow the rules and those who sanction rule breakers. In Human Behavioral Ecology, despotism is a common evolutionary development in human history, with far different strategies than the despots of Whittfogel’s absolutist states. Despots are individuals able acquire and defend a disproportionate share of resources, potentially including labor and prestige. Status is maintained by optimizing concessions sufficient to outweigh the costs and uncertainties of migration. For ancient Maya elites and their agrarian subjects, the context for decision-making changed drastically over 14 centuries along with increasing population densities, conversion of land to agriculture, management of ecosystem services, and volatile climate conditions. We discuss applications of this model to three impactful transitions.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Cooperative and Noncooperative Transitions in the Archaeological Record   •
• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51617