Suchergebnisse

The evolution of human cooperation -- Economic anthropology of stateless societies: the rise and fall of homo economicus -- Conditional cooperators: the evolutionary game theory revolution -- The role of coercion in social theory -- The ritualized economy: how people in stateless societies cooperate -- An anthropological game theory model for the evolution of ritualized economies -- The evolution of ritualized economies: the archaeological evidence -- Epilogue: "no beans, no Jesus

How do people living in small groups without money, markets, police and rigid social classes develop norms of economic and social cooperation that are sustainable over time? This book addresses this fundamental question and explains the origin, structure and spread of stateless societies. Using insights from game theory, ethnography and archaeology, Stanish shows how ritual - broadly defined - is the key. Ritual practices encode elaborate rules of behavior and are ingenious mechanisms of organizing society in the absence of coercive states. As well as asking why and how people choose to co-operate, Stanish also provides the theoretical framework to understand this collective action problem. He goes on to highlight the evolution of cooperation with ethnographic and archaeological data from around of the world. Merging evolutionary game theory concepts with cultural evolutionary theory, this book will appeal to those seeking a transdisciplinary approach to one of the greatest problems in human evolution

▪ Abstract  The earliest states developed in the central Andean highlands and along the central Pacific coast of western South America. The consensus in the archaeological literature is that state societies first developed in the central Andes in the early part of the first millennium C.E. A minority opinion holds that first-generation states developed as early as the late second millennium B.C.E. in the same area. The Andean region constitutes one of a few areas of first-generation state development in the world. This area therefore represents an important case study for the comparative analysis of state formation. This article outlines the arguments for state formation in South America, presents the evidence, analyzes the underlying assumptions about these arguments, and assesses the South American data in terms of contemporary anthropological theory of state evolution.

Early State Formation in the Titicaca BasinThe Lake Titicaca Basin in highland Peru and Bolivia ranks as one of the great centers of early state development in the world. This paper outlines the complex processes of early state formation in this region during the time period from approximately 500 B.C. to A.D. 400. During this Upper Formative Period, there were dozens of complex non-state level societies throughout the Titicaca region. Over time, one of these societies known as Tiwanaku, successfully competed with other polities in the region for economic, political and ideological power. By A.D. 400, Tiwanaku had become the first fully integrated state system in the region powerful enough to expand well beyond its core territory in subsequent centuries. The key process involved in early state development in the Titicaca Basin centers on the control of domestic labor by emergent elites during the Upper Formative Period. This paper defines the nature of these elite strategies including the intensification of agricultural systems, the expansion of interregional trade, the creation of elite ideologies and successful competition with other elites. ; La cuenca del lago Titicaca en la sierra del Perú y de Bolivia está considerada como uno de los grandes centros del desarrollo estatal temprano en el mundo. Este trabajo esboza los procesos complejos de la formación del estado temprano en esta región durante el periodo entre 500 a.C y 400 d.C. Durante este periodo del Formativo Superior existían docenas de sociedades complejas en toda la región de Titicaca, todas de un nivel no estatal. Con el curso del tiempo, una de estas sociedades, conocida como Tiwanaku, compitió exitosamente con las demás formaciones políticas de la región en busca del poder económico, político e ideológico. Alrededor de 400 d.C., Tiwanaku se convirtió en el primer sistema estatal plenamente integrado de la región con suficiente poder para expandirse mucho más allá del núcleo territorial en los siglos siguientes. El proceso clave dentro del desarrollo estatal temprano de la cuenca del Titicaca se centra en el control de la labor doméstica por elites que aparecieron durante el Periodo Formativo Superior. En este trabajo se define la naturaleza de las estrategias de estas elites, las que incluyen la intensificación de los sistemas agrícolas, la expansión del comercio interregional, la creación de ideologías de elite y la competencia exitosa con otras elites.

Defining ethnicity in archeological settlements is a major methodological problem in the South Central Andes. In this region, pre‐Hispanic political and economic organization has been understood within the theoretical framework known as zonal complementarity or verticality. Due to a process of direct colonization by independent polities in key ecological zones, these models are characterized by a striking regional ethnic heterogeneity in space and time. The use of the household as an analytical unit is proposed as the most successful means of defining ethnically distinct populations in pre‐Hispanic contexts. This methodology is applied to Late Intermediate period (ca. A.D. 1000–1475) sites in the Osmore Drainage of southern Peru. Two domestic architectural types are defined that are hypothesized to correspond to ethnically distinct groups. Excavation data are analyzed to further differentiate these household types and provide a framework for addressing the dynamics of pre‐Hispanic cultural process in the South Central Andes.

Excavations at the site of Taraco in the northern Titicaca Basin of southern Peru indicate a 2,600-y sequence of human occupation beginning ca. 1100 B.C.E. Previous research has identified several political centers in the region in the latter part of the first millennium B.C.E. The two largest centers were Taraco, located near the northern lake edge, and Pukara, located 50 km to the northwest in the grassland pampas. Our data reveal that a high-status residential section of Taraco was burned in the first century A.D., after which economic activity in the area dramatically declined. Coincident with this massive fire at Taraco, Pukara adopted many of the characteristics of state societies and emerged as an expanding regional polity. We conclude that organized conflict, beginning approximately 500 B.C.E., is a significant factor in the evolution of the archaic state in the northern Titicaca Basin.

Insights into prehistoric region-wide political consolidation were suggested by simulation results from an agent-based model of pre-state societies. The case study was the late prehistoric period circa 2500 BC to AD 1000 in the Lake Titicaca basin of Peru and Bolivia. Over a series of simulation runs the model produced a range of alternative political pre-histories. A substantial proportion of those runs were classified as matching the scenario archeologists believe actually happened during this time period. Classification was based on multidimensional quantitative measures of empirical criteria for the emergence of simulated macro-level patterns corresponding to observed patterns in the archaeological record. The model's structure consisted of a grid of cells, each scaled to 1.5 km x 1.5 km, representing the geography, hydrology, and agricultural potential of the 50,000 sq. km basin. A collection of multiple agents--Settlements, Peoples, Polities, and Chiefs (political leaders) -- interacted with the environmental grid and with each other. The agents' behavior was modeled as micro-level condition-action rules based on the hypothesized causal factors of: agriculture, migration, competition, and trade. Internal structure and dynamics as well as the simulation results showed strong indicators of the model's structural realism. Uncertainties associated with the model were also assessed.

En este artículo se describe el hallazgo de una ofrenda extraordinaria depositada en las capas finales de enterramiento ritual del patio hundido del edificio principal Paracas de Cerro del Gentil, ubicado en el valle medio de Chincha, costa sur del Perú. Por su excelente estado de preservación y la calidad de los elementos que la integraban, esta ofrenda nos permite adentrarnos en las prácticas rituales desarrolladas en el contexto de una actividad de suma importancia para los usuarios del edificio de Cerro del Gentil justo antes de su abandono durante el III siglo antes de Cristo.

Centers of Pilgrimage as Mechanisms of Political Integration in Complex Societies in Titicaca´s AltiplanoPilgrimages to sacred places were a common practice in many prehispanic Andean societies. For example, the islands of the Sun and the Moon, located in southern Lake Titicaca, formed one of the most important pilgrimage routes imposed by the Inca state as part of its politics of state domain. Similarly, the mortuary centers of Cutimbo and Sillustani, belonging respectively to the Lupaqa and Colla chiefdoms, received annual pilgrimages as part of cult ceremonies dedicated to the ancestors.Using ethnohistorical documentation and archaeological information with regard to such pilgrimage centers, we discuss the hypothesis that the pilgrimages served as ideological mechanisms of social and political control on the part of complex societies. ; Las peregrinaciones a lugares sagrados fueron una práctica común en diversas sociedades andinas prehispánicas. Las islas del Sol y de la Luna, en el lado sur del lago Titicaca, se interpolan en una de las más importantes rutas de peregrinación que impusieron los incas como parte de su política de dominio estatal. De igual modo, los centros funerarios de Cutimbo y Sillustani, pertenecientes a los señoríos Lupaqa y Colla respectivamente, convocaron peregrinaciones anuales en el marco de ceremonias de culto a los antepasados.Utilizando documentación etnohistórica e información arqueológica, referentes a tales centros de peregrinaje, se discute la hipótesis sobre el uso de las peregrinaciones como mecanismos ideológicos de control social y político por parte de sociedades complejas.

Considerable debate surrounds the economic, political, and ideological systems that constitute primary state formation. Theoretical and empirical research emphasize the role of religion as a significant institution for promoting the consolidation and reproduction of archaic states. The Tiwanaku state developed in the Lake Titicaca Basin between the 5th and 12th centuries CE and extended its influence over much of the south-central Andes of South America. We report on recent discoveries from the first systematic underwater archaeological excavations in the Khoa Reef near the Island of the Sun, Bolivia. The depositional context and compositional properties of offerings consisting of ceramic feline incense burners, killed juvenile llamas, and sumptuary metal, shell, and lapidary ornaments allow us to reconstruct the structure and significance of cyclically repeated state rituals. Using new theoretical tools, we explain the role of these rituals in promoting the consolidation of the Tiwanaku polity.

This article describes and analyzes a highly significant archaeological context discovered in a late Paracas (400-200 BCE) sunken patio in the monumental platform mound of Cerro Gentil, located in the Chincha Valley, Peru. This patio area was used for several centuries for ritual activities, including large-scale feasting and other public gatherings. At one point late in this historical sequence people deposited a great deal of objects in what is demonstrably a single historical event. This was quickly followed by a series of minor events stratigraphically immediately above this larger event. This entire ritual process included the consumption of liquids and food, and involved the offering of whole pottery, pottery fragments, botanical remains, bone, lithics, baskets, pyro-engraved gourds, mummies, and other objects. We interpret these events as an "abandonment ceremony" or "termination ritual" during the late Paracas period, one that may have lasted for weeks or even months. The subsequent Topará occupation at the site (ca. 200 BCE- AD 100) involved the architectural enhancement of the mound area, but the pattern of use of the patio itself ended. Such a termination ritual signals a reorganization in the regional political structure of Paracas society.

Recent archaeological discoveries on the south coast of Peru demonstrate that Paracas period peoples constructed a complex set of geoglyphs to mark ceremonial mounds and residential sites. Paracas societies in this region created a built or artificial landscape in an open desert to mediate periodic social events. Several of these architectural features were oriented to the sunset during the winter solstice. These data provide insight into the ways by which people in stateless societies organized their social, economic, and political life. Social units, labor, and astronomically significant periods mesh, attracting participants to cyclical events in the midvalley zone. This case study refines our understanding of the processes of human social evolution prior to the development of archaic states.