Pub Date : 2019-06-18DOI: 10.1007/s10814-019-09134-9
John K. Millhauser, Lisa Overholtzer
This paper applies the interdisciplinary approaches of commodity chain, commodity circuit, and commodity network analyses—common in sociology, anthropology, and geography—to cotton cloth in the Aztec economy to demonstrate how these techniques can enrich archaeological understandings of ancient economies. Commodity chain analysis draws attention to social and economic dependencies that link people and processes along a production sequence and across wide geographic areas. Commodity circuits and commodity networks highlight the bundling of goods and knowledge in nonlinear and multidirectional flows, the relationships that link participants through these flows, and the flexible meanings and values of goods for participants. By applying these approaches to the archaeological study of cotton cloth in the Aztec economy, we show how they provide a holistic framework for studying goods that bridges the microscale (household) and macroscale (world system).
{"title":"Commodity Chains in Archaeological Research: Cotton Cloth in the Aztec Economy","authors":"John K. Millhauser, Lisa Overholtzer","doi":"10.1007/s10814-019-09134-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-019-09134-9","url":null,"abstract":"This paper applies the interdisciplinary approaches of commodity chain, commodity circuit, and commodity network analyses—common in sociology, anthropology, and geography—to cotton cloth in the Aztec economy to demonstrate how these techniques can enrich archaeological understandings of ancient economies. Commodity chain analysis draws attention to social and economic dependencies that link people and processes along a production sequence and across wide geographic areas. Commodity circuits and commodity networks highlight the bundling of goods and knowledge in nonlinear and multidirectional flows, the relationships that link participants through these flows, and the flexible meanings and values of goods for participants. By applying these approaches to the archaeological study of cotton cloth in the Aztec economy, we show how they provide a holistic framework for studying goods that bridges the microscale (household) and macroscale (world system).","PeriodicalId":47005,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Research","volume":"119 1","pages":"187-240"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2019-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138514931","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-06-10DOI: 10.1007/s10814-019-09133-w
Shadreck Chirikure
This review draws from old and new archaeological data and takes interpretive flavor from indigenous African concepts to demonstrate that, within a context of local and external interfaces, Great Zimbabwe’s political economy was a mosaic rooted more in a mix of seasonally specific, household-based, compositional strategies of production and circulation and less in the redistribution of archaeologically low-frequency exotics from the Indian Ocean. An ideology based on the hierarchical triad of land, ancestors, and belief in God underwrote custodial rights and extractive powers that at times enabled rulers to access a share of productive, allocative, and circulative activities in their territories. Simultaneously, households and communities freely participated in the economy, often inside and outside state control and influence, demonstrating the individual, collective, mixed, embedded, and capillary nature of the political economy.
{"title":"New Perspectives on the Political Economy of Great Zimbabwe","authors":"Shadreck Chirikure","doi":"10.1007/s10814-019-09133-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-019-09133-w","url":null,"abstract":"This review draws from old and new archaeological data and takes interpretive flavor from indigenous African concepts to demonstrate that, within a context of local and external interfaces, Great Zimbabwe’s political economy was a mosaic rooted more in a mix of seasonally specific, household-based, compositional strategies of production and circulation and less in the redistribution of archaeologically low-frequency exotics from the Indian Ocean. An ideology based on the hierarchical triad of land, ancestors, and belief in God underwrote custodial rights and extractive powers that at times enabled rulers to access a share of productive, allocative, and circulative activities in their territories. Simultaneously, households and communities freely participated in the economy, often inside and outside state control and influence, demonstrating the individual, collective, mixed, embedded, and capillary nature of the political economy.","PeriodicalId":47005,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Research","volume":"30 1","pages":"139-186"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2019-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138514929","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-04-09DOI: 10.1007/s10814-019-09132-x
F. Klimscha
{"title":"New Research on the “Kings of Metal”: Systems of Social Distinction in the Copper Age of Southeastern Europe","authors":"F. Klimscha","doi":"10.1007/s10814-019-09132-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-019-09132-x","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47005,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Research","volume":"28 1","pages":"99 - 138"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2019-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s10814-019-09132-x","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"52323192","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-03-20DOI: 10.1007/s10814-019-09131-y
P. Sabloff
{"title":"The Political Agency of Royal Women: A Comparative Analysis of Eight Premodern States According to Societal Rules and Roles","authors":"P. Sabloff","doi":"10.1007/s10814-019-09131-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-019-09131-y","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47005,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Research","volume":"28 1","pages":"53 - 97"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2019-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s10814-019-09131-y","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47262935","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-03-16DOI: 10.1007/s10814-019-09130-z
Stephen A. Kowalewski
The last 20 years have seen advances in the understanding of city-states, especially in ancient Greece, where textual information fuels new theories about institutions and the ancient economy. Archaeological research makes significant contributions with data comparable across multiple city-states on settlement patterns, urban and rural development, political and ritual activities, and other materializations of institutionalized behavior. Using a new corpus of 74 city-states from Oaxaca, Mexico, I show that city-states differ from one another in patterned ways, and I argue that this variation depends on internal factors such as the social mode of production and external factors including place in regional and interregional exchange.
{"title":"Advances in City-State Research, with an Example from Mesoamerica","authors":"Stephen A. Kowalewski","doi":"10.1007/s10814-019-09130-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-019-09130-z","url":null,"abstract":"The last 20 years have seen advances in the understanding of city-states, especially in ancient Greece, where textual information fuels new theories about institutions and the ancient economy. Archaeological research makes significant contributions with data comparable across multiple city-states on settlement patterns, urban and rural development, political and ritual activities, and other materializations of institutionalized behavior. Using a new corpus of 74 city-states from Oaxaca, Mexico, I show that city-states differ from one another in patterned ways, and I argue that this variation depends on internal factors such as the social mode of production and external factors including place in regional and interregional exchange.","PeriodicalId":47005,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Research","volume":"41 1","pages":"3-52"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2019-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138514916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-02-21DOI: 10.1007/s10814-019-09129-6
N. Erb-Satullo
{"title":"The Innovation and Adoption of Iron in the Ancient Near East","authors":"N. Erb-Satullo","doi":"10.1007/s10814-019-09129-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-019-09129-6","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47005,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Research","volume":"27 1","pages":"557 - 607"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2019-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s10814-019-09129-6","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"52323167","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-02-07DOI: 10.1007/s10814-019-09128-7
Colleen Zori
Metal production in the prehistoric Andes entailed an array of political, economic, and ritual relationships that are increasingly the focus of archaeological investigation. One theme directing recent research is the link between metallurgy and political organization, including the origins of metal production, its relationship to sociopolitical complexity, and how shifts in the organization of metal production reflect and shape diachronic political transformations. A second theme is the use of metals to identify and interrogate interregional connections. Patterns in the circulation of different alloys and metal isotopes, as well as the transfer of technology, provide insight into the shifting constellations of economic and political connections maintained by prehispanic Andean populations. A final theme is ritual and meaning in Andean metallurgy, where I explore how the stages of mining, extractive metallurgy, and the production of metal objects added multivalent layers of meaning and value to metal artifacts. Operating in distinct ways across time and space, metallurgy in the ancient Andes could stimulate political complexity, drive geopolitical expansion and the integration of new subject populations, differentiate individuals and groups, connect people to one another and to the landscape, and harness the power of the numinous.
{"title":"Extracting Insights from Prehistoric Andean Metallurgy: Political Organization, Interregional Connections, and Ritual Meanings","authors":"Colleen Zori","doi":"10.1007/s10814-019-09128-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-019-09128-7","url":null,"abstract":"Metal production in the prehistoric Andes entailed an array of political, economic, and ritual relationships that are increasingly the focus of archaeological investigation. One theme directing recent research is the link between metallurgy and political organization, including the origins of metal production, its relationship to sociopolitical complexity, and how shifts in the organization of metal production reflect and shape diachronic political transformations. A second theme is the use of metals to identify and interrogate interregional connections. Patterns in the circulation of different alloys and metal isotopes, as well as the transfer of technology, provide insight into the shifting constellations of economic and political connections maintained by prehispanic Andean populations. A final theme is ritual and meaning in Andean metallurgy, where I explore how the stages of mining, extractive metallurgy, and the production of metal objects added multivalent layers of meaning and value to metal artifacts. Operating in distinct ways across time and space, metallurgy in the ancient Andes could stimulate political complexity, drive geopolitical expansion and the integration of new subject populations, differentiate individuals and groups, connect people to one another and to the landscape, and harness the power of the numinous.","PeriodicalId":47005,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Research","volume":"39 1","pages":"501-556"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2019-02-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138514915","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-02-04DOI: 10.1007/s10814-019-09127-8
Matthew A. Peeples
Formal network analyses have a long history in archaeology but have recently seen a rapid florescence. Network models drawing on approaches from graph theory, social network analysis, and complexity science have been used to address a broad array of questions about the relationships among network structure, positions, and the attributes and outcomes for individuals and larger groups at a range of social scales. Current archaeological network research is both methodologically and theoretically diverse, but there are still many daunting challenges ahead for the formal exploration of social networks using archaeological data. If we can face these challenges, archaeologists are well positioned to contribute to long-standing debates in the broader sphere of network research on the nature of network theory, the relationships between networks and culture, and dynamics of social networks over the long term.
{"title":"Finding a Place for Networks in Archaeology","authors":"Matthew A. Peeples","doi":"10.1007/s10814-019-09127-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-019-09127-8","url":null,"abstract":"Formal network analyses have a long history in archaeology but have recently seen a rapid florescence. Network models drawing on approaches from graph theory, social network analysis, and complexity science have been used to address a broad array of questions about the relationships among network structure, positions, and the attributes and outcomes for individuals and larger groups at a range of social scales. Current archaeological network research is both methodologically and theoretically diverse, but there are still many daunting challenges ahead for the formal exploration of social networks using archaeological data. If we can face these challenges, archaeologists are well positioned to contribute to long-standing debates in the broader sphere of network research on the nature of network theory, the relationships between networks and culture, and dynamics of social networks over the long term.","PeriodicalId":47005,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Research","volume":"13 1","pages":"451-499"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2019-02-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138514899","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-10DOI: 10.1007/s10814-018-9125-7
Michael D. Mathiowetz
Cacao economies in far western Mexico developed between AD 850/900 and 1350+ along with the adoption of a political–religious complex centered on the solar deity Xochipilli as the Aztatlán culture became integrated into expanding political, economic, and information networks of highland and southern Mesoamerica. The Xochipilli complex significantly transformed societies in the Aztatlán core zone of coastal Nayarit and Sinaloa and parts of Jalisco, Durango, Zacatecas, and Michoacán. West Mexican cacao was acquired in the U.S. Southwest by Chaco Canyon elites in New Mexico through macroregional prestige goods economies as Ancestral Pueblo societies became integrated into the Postclassic Mesoamerican world.
{"title":"A History of Cacao in West Mexico: Implications for Mesoamerica and U.S. Southwest Connections","authors":"Michael D. Mathiowetz","doi":"10.1007/s10814-018-9125-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-018-9125-7","url":null,"abstract":"Cacao economies in far western Mexico developed between AD 850/900 and 1350+ along with the adoption of a political–religious complex centered on the solar deity Xochipilli as the Aztatlán culture became integrated into expanding political, economic, and information networks of highland and southern Mesoamerica. The Xochipilli complex significantly transformed societies in the Aztatlán core zone of coastal Nayarit and Sinaloa and parts of Jalisco, Durango, Zacatecas, and Michoacán. West Mexican cacao was acquired in the U.S. Southwest by Chaco Canyon elites in New Mexico through macroregional prestige goods economies as Ancestral Pueblo societies became integrated into the Postclassic Mesoamerican world.","PeriodicalId":47005,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Research","volume":"49 1","pages":"287-333"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2018-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138514948","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-04DOI: 10.1007/s10814-018-9126-6
Marko Porčić
The subject of this paper is the social structure and sociocultural evolution of Balkan Neolithic and Eneolithic societies between 6500 and 4200 BC. I draw on archaeological evidence from three major regions of the Balkans related to demography, settlement, economy, warfare, and differences in status and wealth between individuals and groups to evaluate the degree and kind of social complexity and inequality. The trend in these data is of increase in social complexity and inequality over two millennia following the introduction of agriculture to the Balkans, as the simple and small hamlets of the late seventh and early sixth millennia transformed into large villages and tell sites of the late sixth and fifth millennia, in parallel with the development of copper metallurgy and regional exchange networks. There is no evidence of social stratification or the formation of complex systems of regional integration such as (proto)states or urban centers. The Balkan communities of this period were essentially village communities with social inequalities, when present, limited to differences in prestige and potentially rank.
{"title":"Evaluating Social Complexity and Inequality in the Balkans Between 6500 and 4200 BC","authors":"Marko Porčić","doi":"10.1007/s10814-018-9126-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-018-9126-6","url":null,"abstract":"The subject of this paper is the social structure and sociocultural evolution of Balkan Neolithic and Eneolithic societies between 6500 and 4200 BC. I draw on archaeological evidence from three major regions of the Balkans related to demography, settlement, economy, warfare, and differences in status and wealth between individuals and groups to evaluate the degree and kind of social complexity and inequality. The trend in these data is of increase in social complexity and inequality over two millennia following the introduction of agriculture to the Balkans, as the simple and small hamlets of the late seventh and early sixth millennia transformed into large villages and tell sites of the late sixth and fifth millennia, in parallel with the development of copper metallurgy and regional exchange networks. There is no evidence of social stratification or the formation of complex systems of regional integration such as (proto)states or urban centers. The Balkan communities of this period were essentially village communities with social inequalities, when present, limited to differences in prestige and potentially rank.","PeriodicalId":47005,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Research","volume":"18 1","pages":"335-390"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2018-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140886902","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}