Archaeology of Political Organization
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€87.99
A01=Barbara L. Stark
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
and Mangrove Swamp
Archaeology of the Ancient Americas
Author_Barbara L. Stark
automatic-update
Blanco River Delta
cacao
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HBJK
Category=NHK
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
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eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
jaguars
Language_English
lowland Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica
Mexico
PA=Available
Paleodunes
Papaloapan basin
Price_€50 to €100
Proyecto Arqueologico La Mixtequilla
PS=Active
softlaunch
Tlalixcoyan Drainage
Veracruz
Product details
- ISBN 9781950446148
- Publication Date: 31 Jan 2022
- Publisher: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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The Archaeology of Political Organization is an examination of settlement in the rich coastal plain of lowland Mesoamerica, a region which was wealthy by Mesoamerican values, with fertile soil and tropical commodities such as jaguars, cacao, avian species with bright plumage, and cotton.
The book provides basic archaeological data about regional settlement from three decades of survey research in south-central Veracruz in the western lower Papaloapan basin, a region with low density urbanism. The data reveals political and social change, with consolidation of wealth by elite families during the Late Classic period.
The political analysis considers archaeological evidence related to several organizational principles: collective versus autocratic, corporate versus exclusionary/network, and segmentary (unspecialized versus specialized). Many variables related to these principles used by other scholars are either suited to historically documented states, not archaeological ones, or ambiguous. Many published studies either focus on a particular city or use documents or other evidence drawn from the top of the settlement hierarchy, characterizing the whole society politically from a biased sample. This political analysis is regional in scope and attentive to variation in the settlement hierarchy, providing a guidepost to analysis of political principles with archaeological data.
