Gold and heterarchy: from Crete to Colombia

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Archaeometallurgy, Eurasia and Beyond: Papers in Honor of Vince Pigott" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The role of metals in prehistoric societies is typically linked to concepts of power and hierarchy. Challenging established assumptions, the project led by Vince Piggott and colleagues in the KWPV of Thailand was one of the first to introduce heterarchy in archaeometallurgy. They demonstrated that large-scale, complex metallurgical technologies could be sustained in societies that were not dominated by vertical and coercive power structures.

Following in their footsteps, the REVERSEACTION project (www.reverseaction.org) focuses on the study of luxury technologies in heterarchical societies. We investigate craft organisation, technological sustainability, and the consumption of exotic materials in social organisations without state structures.

This presentation will outline some contextual studies of the production and consumption of goldwork in Prepalatial Crete and Pre-Hispanic Colombia. Object biographies illustrate that, while gold can be understood as a luxury material, its provision, manufacture and use were not restricted to political elites. Rather than power and social stratification, concepts of collective action and sharing become more useful to explain the archaeological record.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Archaeometallurgy, Eurasia and Beyond: Papers in Honor of Vince Pigott

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51272