Kurella, Doris Trade and social organization in pre-columbian Colombia, map.pdf (original) (raw)
Journal of Archaeological Research, 2005
a region historically occupied by Chibchan-speaking peoples, have long been acknowledged as valuable sources of information on chiefdoms and other forms of prestate social organization. Most studies, however, have focused on chiefdoms that are known ethnographically or ethnohistorically with an emphasis on the sixteenth century and the immediate precontact period. This paper reviews archaeological evidence from an earlier period in an attempt to elucidate general patterns associated with the earliest appearance of social inequality. The centuries between AD 300 and 600 are characterized by the first widespread use of prestige goods manufactured from gold and jade, special cemeteries for the interment of elites, and a rich iconography. Detailed consideration of recent research relevant to the events of this period highlights some of the problems inherent in the archaeological identification of hierarchy, chiefdoms, leadership, and other features of prestate complex societies.
The societies of southern Central America and northern South America, a region historically occupied by Chibchan-speaking peoples, have long been acknowledged as valuable sources of information on chiefdoms and other forms of prestate social organization. Most studies, however, have focused on chiefdoms that are known ethnographically or ethnohistorically with an emphasis on the sixteenth century and the immediate precontact period. This paper reviews archaeological evidence from an earlier period in an attempt to elucidate general patterns associated with the earliest appearance of social inequality. The centuries between AD 300 and 600 are characterized by the first widespread use of prestige goods manufactured from gold and jade, special cemeteries for the interment of elites, and a rich iconography. Detailed consideration of recent research relevant to the events of this period highlights some of the problems inherent in the archaeological identification of hierarchy, chiefdoms, leadership, and other features of prestate complex societies.
SUBSISTENCE ECONOMY AND CHIEFDOM EMERGENCE IN THE MUISCA AREA. A STUDY OF THE VALLE DE TENA
For many years the argument has been advanced that the agricultural use of different ecological zones by a single ethnic group—usually known as verticality—was an important part of the political economy of chiefdoms and states in the Andes. Such vertical economies would constitute agricultural intensification used to extract surplus and finance the enterprises of elite groups. Specifically, this has been suggested for some Muisca chiefdoms, located in the northern Andes of Colombia. Ethnohistoric accounts suggest an important economic role in the especially large Bogotá chiefdom for the provision of agricultural products derived from this kind of vertical economy in the nearby Valle de Tena region. This research sought to document the patterns of human occupation in the Valle de Tena and their relationship with agricultural productivity. The main goal was to evaluate the possible relevance of a vertical economy in the Valle de Tena to the emergence of Muisca chiefdoms in the Sabana de Bogotá. To accomplish this goal archaeological data were collected in a systematic survey of 144.7km2. Several lines of evidence argue against the idea that the Valle de Tena was a major supplier of agricultural products to the Sabana de Bogotá. They also cast serious doubt on the existence of agriculture in this region organized into a vertical economy. On the contrary, archaeological evidence indicates the presence of independent, compact local communities in the Valle de Tena.
“I against my brother”: Conflict and confederation in the south-central Andes in late prehistory
Embattled Bodies, Embattled Places: War in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and the Andes, ed. Andrew Scherer and John Verano, 2014
This chapter considers how the concept of segmentary organization in non-state societies can illuminate conflict and political relationships in the context of the Andean highlands in the Late Intermediate Period (ca. AD 1100-1450). Societies at this time were fundamentally shaped by acts of military opposition and confederation at multiple scales. In the face of threat, families aggregated into defensive towns and villages, and these communities were drawn together into local and regional confederations, yet small-scale conflicts between neighboring groups remained present and perhaps frequent. These patterns conformed to a nested social logic, familiar from ethnographies of non-state segmentary societies in other world regions. In those societies, warfare is central to the identity of groups at different scales – an observation that can be applied usefully to the Andes.
University of California - San Diego (PhD Thesis), 2022
This dissertation develops a community ecology framework, which utilizes methods developed through network-analysis and the broader study of complex adaptive systems. Unlike most models of state growth that have tended to support either top-down, macroscale explanations, or bottom-up or more microscale-focused perspectives to connect between state and individual, my approach privileges the mesoscale, considering the community as the pivotal middle ground. I focus on Tiwanaku, one of the first state-level societies to expand in the Middle Horizon of the Central Andes, (ca. AD 600-1100), using results from several seasons of archaeological research at the Tiwanaku occupation of the Cerro San Antonio (L1) site, in the middle Locumba Valley on the far south coast of Peru. This work included survey and mapping, systematic surface collection, and extensive household archaeology excavations and material analysis. Using the community ecology framework, I synthesize these data to reconstruct the culture history of the site, understand the daily lives of Cerro San Antonio’s Tiwanaku residents, and delineate the role this node played in Tiwanaku’s dynamic multimodal community network on its western frontier. In doing so I shed light on the nature of Tiwanaku statecraft and contribute to the anthropological understanding of how individuals, communities, and institutions operated within nascent states of the past.
ABSTRACT Recent theoretical work has underscored the importance of multiple strategies in the dynamic political and economic land- scapes in which archaic states developed. This research emphasizes how the interaction among various non-state polities drives the growth of political centers within a region. It is in this context that numerous intermediate peer-polities emerged, and, on rare occasions in a few places around the world, it is the context of state development. War and trade have emerged as particularly important forms of strategic interaction in the theoretical literature, representing strategies of both coop- eration and competition between and within complex, non-state polities. In this paper we present a detailed case study that tests and illustrates one of these theoretical propositions. We examine the role of trade in this process of social evolution as evidenced in the northern Titicaca Basin ca. 500 B.C.–A.D. 300. Based on intensive analyses of a large excavated data set, we suggest that the emergence of one regional center, called Taraco, is strongly linked to strategic participation in local and long-distance exchange networks.
Ñawpa Pacha , 2020
This essay presents a reconstruction of principles of sociocultural affiliation among sixteenth century native societies of the Cauca River area of Colombia, South America. In a comparative appraisal of documentary and archaeological evidence, I contend that systems of inter- and intra–societal affiliations tended to be of a more inclusive, flexible, and group–oriented nature. This principle is exemplified by the presence of relatively formal homogeneity in portable industries found alongside the Cauca River area. In addition, evidence for funerary rituals strongly indicates a greater emphasis on collective over individualized representations of the dead.
Tribe versus Chiefdom in Lower Central America
It has commonly been argued that chiefdoms were the dominant form of prehispanic political organization in Lower Central America. Reexamination of the data, however, reveals that tribal forms of organization were also present in Lower Central America at the time of Spanish contact and before. The salient characteristics of both tribes and chiefdoms are discussed, and criteria for identifying tribes and chiefdoms in the archaeological record are outlined. Data from the Central Provinces of Panama and the Gulf of Nicoya are then examined in light of these criteria. We argue that while a chiefdom form of organization prevailed in Panama, the Gulf of Nicoya was occupied by tribal groups immediately prior to contact with the Spanish.
The Evolution of the Bogotá Chiefdom: A Household View
2003
The purpose of this investigation was to examine the evolution of Muisca chiefdoms from the viewpoint of household dynamics at the scale of a particular polity. The Bogota polity, located near the modern town of Funza, was the core of one of the most powerful Muisca chiefdoms encountered by the Spanish. The investigation focused on the evolution of the Bogota polity through the Herrera (800 B.C. - A.D. 800), Early Muisca (A.D. 800-1200), and Late Muisca (A.D. 1200-1600) periods. Artifacts were recovered through shovel probes and surface collections at 40 sites in order to identify discrete residential areas and recover samples of artifacts for inter-household comparison. Artifact distribution maps were used to delimit individual houselots from each of the three periods. Evidence for wealth and status differences among households was apparent as early as the Herrera period. The evidence from the Early Muisca and Late Muisca periods indicated increasing restrictions on access to wealt...
Routledge eBooks, 2016
In late pre-Hispanic periods much of modern Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina and Ecuador was connected by a network of intense interactions through the long distance movement of people as well as goods and ideas. Rather than prioritising an analysis of the movement of goods as a measure of globalisation this article stresses the more limited role of market exchange in the Andes but that the movement of people, knowledge and skills is strongly expressed in the transfer of technologies and sharing of stylistic elements. It presents a broad description of cross-cultural and interregional contacts that were taking places in the Andean highlands and Pacific coast from around 500 CE till the period of European colonization around 1600 CE, including the Wari and Inka Empires. It reviews mechanisms of social and economic integration that shaped the globalizing tendencies in the Andes through a review of archaeological evidence as well as early historical records. Integrative mechanisms in the Ancient Andes Many of the behaviours that shape modern globalization were common to earlier periods and places (Feinman this volume). But, some of the primary economic structures and technologies that drove early globalization of ancient Eurasia were of less significance in the Ancient Andes. Latter pre-Hispanic Andean economies undoubtedly had a 'complex connectivity' (Jennings 2011: 2, citing Tomlinson 1999: 2) with a dense network of intense interactions and interdependencies that integrated disparate people through the long distance movement of goods, ideas, and individuals. The primary forms of connectivity (Jennings this volume) and networking (Knappet this volume) that shaped Andean societies are expressed in the transfer of technologies and the borrowing of stylistic elements as well as large-scale movement of people. Although the long-distance movement of artefacts reveals important aspects of cultural interaction in the Andes (Vaughn 2006), in comparison to Europe and Asia the range and quantity of goods moving long-distances is exceedingly limited. On a Roman period Villa in Britain we find significant quantities of heavy amphora from the Mediterranean, Samian dinning wear from Gaul and probably some colour-coated drinking vessels from Germany as well as a wide range of forms from Romano-British pottery industries from 10 to 200km's away. In contrast, all the excavations of Inka period sites in the Mantaro valley, a region strongly reorganized under Inka rule, over 99% of the pottery, including Inka style pottery, was locally produced with only a few sherds from the Junín and Chimu and two plate fragments of possible Cuzco origin, shells from the Pacific coast and Bronze using tin from Bolivia were imported although still in very small quantities (Earle 2001). While some prestige materials moved longdistances there is little evidence that the economic systems of any period in the Andes facilitated the sequential trading of goods as seen along the Silk Road, and the quantity of artefacts that were being moved is minimal in comparison to what was happening in the Roman Empire. This is only partly due to the lack of navigable rivers and a 'Middle Sea' (Broodbank 2013) or the absence of traction animals and wheeled vehicles, in the Andes llama caravans and people were capable of regular long distance transport. When the Spanish arrived in South American they
The Handbook of South American Archaeology, 2008
The main objective of this paper is to discuss what we have learned of the relationships of these chiefdom societies with their environments and the transformations of the landscape as case studies in historical ecology. In both complexes of chiefdoms, Sinú and Tairona, the human populations shaped the landscape to such a degree that they are best understood as anthropogenic—two great archaeological landscapes transformed by human activities involving intensive selection and modification (Denevan 1992: 375). The impact of these chiefdoms on the landscape is apparent even in the present, defining the ecology of the regions. Only recently have they become more “natural” after the depopulation created by the Spanish conquest that decimated the native population to a fraction of its pre-Hispanic size. This chapter considers how and why these pre-Hispanic societies developed a degree of complexity that places them in the chiefdom category. All of them had a strong impact on their landscapes, to the point that the modern environments can be characterized as archaeological artifacts still in use today. Descendents of the original inhabitants still live in both regions. Linguistically, the descendents of the Sinú have lost their language, making it impossible to classify them in terms of known linguistic families (Adelaar and Muysken 2004). However, taking toponyms into consideration the area seems to have been occupied by Chibchan speakers. In the case of the SNSM, the various groups that still exist also belong to the Chibchan language family.
Journal of Sociocybernetics, 2014
All political systems have limitations in their information processing and action capacities to face large-scale crises and challenges, but especially if they happen to be too hierarchically and centrally controlled systems. In contrast, some other cultures whose political structure is heterarchically organized, such as the Zenú, the Muiscas, and the Tayronas in pre-Hispanic Colombia, presented adaptiveness even without advanced scientific knowledge and without powerful centralized top-down control. We therefore propose that creating and analyzing computer models of their decentralized processes of management could provide a broader perspective on the possibilities of self-organized political systems. Our hope is that this approach will eventually go beyond the scope of basic science. It seeks to promote more computer model-based research of social systems that exhibit an adaptive balance of flexibility and robustness, i.e., systems that do not rely on the current ideal of rule-based control of all systemic aspects, with the practical aim of improving current social and political processes.
Latin American Antiquity
Economic directness is a new model of socioeconomic organization for the Paracas culture (800–200 BC) in southern Peru, with wider implications for economic theory of the prehispanic Andean past. Using an archaeoeconomic approach to analyze settlement patterns, obsidian artifacts, malacological material, and camelid skeletal remains, this study reconstructs the Paracas economy by using primary archaeological data from the northern Nasca Drainage. Its results force reconsideration of existing socioeconomic models for the ancient Andes such as verticality, circuit mobility, llama caravan mobility, transhumance, and market concepts. Whereas components typical of these models are often absent in the case of the Paracas economy, our new proposal of economic directness integrates their relevant aspects. Economic directness is defined essentially by direct access to important resources from diverse ecological tiers, direct and down-the-line exchanges, reduced transaction costs, llama carav...
Assembling States: Community Formation and the Emergence of the Inca Empire
2019
This dissertation investigates the processes through which the Inca state emerged in the south-central Andes, ca. 1400 CE in Cusco, Peru, an area that was to become the political center of the largest indigenous empire in the Western hemisphere. Many approaches to this topic over the past several decades have framed state formation in a social evolutionary framework, a perspective that has come under increasing critique in recent years. I argue that theoretical attempts to overcome these problems have been ultimately confounded, and in order to resolve these contradictions, an ontological shift is needed. I adopt a relational perspective towards approaching the emergence of the Inca state – in particular, that of assemblage theory. Treating states and other complex social entities as assemblages means understanding them as open-ended and historically individuated phenomena, emerging from centuries or millennia of sociopolitical, cultural, and material engagements with the human and ...
Empires as social networks: roads, connectedness, and the Inka incorporation of northern Chile
Ñawpa Pacha, 2017
Under the rubric of "connectedness," we investigate the Inka incorporation of northern Chile (A.D. 1450-1532). Using ceramic diversity as a proxy for economic connections, we argue that the Inka selected Tarapacá Viejo as an administrative center because of its already extensive trade relationships. Applying social network analysis we then evaluate how the Inka structured their administration of northern Chile. Four measures of centrality demonstrate that Tarapacá Viejo was well positioned to exert influence over the movement of people, goods, and information under the Inka; however, declining ceramic diversity indicates both local and imperial actors promoted vertical ties over interregional trade. Bajo la rúbrica del concepto de "conectividad," investigamos la incorporación inkaica del norte de Chile (1450 a 1532 d.C.). Usando una medida estadística de diversidad de cerámica en siete asentamientos preinkaicas como un proxy para las conexiones económicas, sostenemos que los Inkas seleccionaron el sitio de Tarapacá Viejo como un centro administrativo debido a las relaciones diversas y amplias mantenidas por sus habitantes. Luego, empleamos las técnicas de análisis de redes sociales para evaluar cómo los Inkas estructuraban su administración en el norte de Chile. Cuatro medidas de centralidad demuestran que Tarapacá Viejo era en una buena posición, en relación de los otros sitios en la región, para ejercer influencia sobre el movimiento de personas, bienes e información debajo de los Inkas. Sin embargo, una disminución de la diversidad de cerámica durante el Horizonte Tardío indica que ambos actores locales e imperiales promovidas lazos verticales a expensa de intercambio interregional. A ncient empires faced myriad challenges in incor- porating diverse peoples and ecological zones under a single administrative machinery. For premodern expansive states, exerting direct political control simultaneously across entire geographic regions was neither possible nor necessary. Instead,
2008
On September 15, 2007, the PCS/DC presented its annual symposium on the ancient cultures of the steamy tropics between the Mesoamerican and Andean cultures. As moderator of the symposium, Dr. John W. Hoopes presented the opening talk that discussed the region between the southern frontiers of Mesoamerica and the northern frontiers of the Central Andes-often referred to as the "Intermediate Area" -that remains unfamiliar to many specialists. A growing body of multidisciplinary scholarship from the fields of historical linguistics, human genetics, archaeology, ethnohistory, and sociocultural anthropology offers a new perspective on the cultures that connected southern Mesoamerica with the northern Andes and the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean. Hoopes' talk provided an introduction to how scholars are addressing this new paradigm and discussed its implications for Pre-Columbian studies. It also described the region's principal iconographic motifs as they are represented in ceramics, stone sculpture, jade carving, and metallurgy and explained what they reveal about ancient belief systems of the predominantly Chibchan-speaking peoples and their neighbors in Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia. Dr. Hoopes received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from Harvard University. He is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Kansas. He is also a courtesy curator at the Museum of Anthropology at the university. His research interests include the archaeology of Central and South America, Chibchan culture, internet archaeology, cultural evolution, prehistoric trade and exchange, origins of agriculture and sedentism, and prehistoric ceramics.