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Alternative Pathways to Complexity ALTERNATIVE PATHWAYS TO COMPLEXITY ALTERNATIVE PATHWAYS TO COMPLEXITY A Collection of Essays on Architecture, Economics, Power, and Cross-Cultural Analysis in Honor of Richard E. Blanton EDITED BY Lane F. Fargher and Verenice Y. Heredia Espinoza UNIVERSITY PRESS OF COLORADO Boulder © 2016 by University Press of Colorado Published by University Press of Colorado 5589 Arapahoe Avenue, Suite 206C Boulder, Colorado 80303 All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America The University Press of Colorado is a proud member of Association of American University Presses. The University Press of Colorado is a cooperative publishing enterprise supported, in part, by Adams State University, Colorado State University, Fort Lewis College, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Regis University, University of Colorado, University of Northern Colorado, Utah State University, and Western State Colorado University. ∞ This paper meets the requirements of the ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). ISBN: 978-1-60732-532-1 (cloth) ISBN: 978-1-60732-533-8 (ebook) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Blanton, Richard E., honouree. | Fargher, Lane, editor. | Heredia Espinoza, Verenice Y., editor. Title: Alternative pathways to complexity : a collection of essays on architecture, economics, power, and cross-cultural analysis / edited by Lane F. Fargher and Verenice Y. Heredia Espinoza. Description: Boulder : University Press of Colorado, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Includes bibliographical references. Identifiers: LCCN 2016020071 | ISBN 9781607325321 (cloth) | ISBN 9781607325338 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Social archaeology. | Economic anthropology. | Architecture and archaeology. | Archaeology—Cross-cultural studies. | Technological complexity. Classification: LCC CC72.4 .A47 2016 | DDC 930.1—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016020071 Cover illustration: Detail of Prosperous Suzhou by Xu Yang. Public domain image. Contents List of Figures ix List of Tables xiii Introduction Lane F. Fargher, Verenice Y. Heredia Espinoza, and Cynthia L. Bedell 3 Section 1: Mesoamerican Cases chapter 1 It Was the Economy, Stupid Stephen A. Kowalewski 15 chapter 2 Alternative Pathways to Power in Formative Oaxaca Arthur A. Joyce and Sarah B. Barber 41 chapter 3 Built Space as Political Fields: Community versus Lineage Strategies in the Tequila Valleys Christopher S. Beekman 59 chapter 4 Complexity without Centralization: Corporate Power in Postclassic Jalisco Verenice Y. Heredia Espinoza 79 chapter 5 Central Precinct Plaza Replication and Corporate Groups in Mesoamerica Barbara L. Stark 105 chapter 6 Featherwork as a Commodity Complex in the Late Postclassic Mesoamerican World System Frances F. Berdan 131 chapter 7 Classic Maya Marketplaces and Exchanges: Examining Market Competition as a Factor for Understanding Commodity Distributions Lisa J. LeCount 155 Section 2: Old World Cases chapter 8 Enduring Nations and Emergent States: Rulership, Subjecthood, and Power in Early Scandinavia T. L. Thurston 177 chapter 9 The Bakitara (Banyoro) of Uganda and Collective Action Theory Peter Robertshaw 207 chapter 10 Cognitive Codes and Collective Action at Mari and the Indus Rita Wright 225 chapter 11 “We Shape Our Buildings and Afterwards Our Buildings Shape Us”: Interpreting Architectural Evolution in a Sinhalese Village Deborah Winslow 239 Section 3: Cross-Cultural Studies chapter 12 Network Strategy and War Peter N. Peregrine and Carol R. Ember 259 vi contents chapter 13 Framing the Rise and Variability of Past Complex Societies Gary M. Feinman and Linda M. Nicholas 271 chapter 14 Pathways to Power: Corporate and Network Strategies, Staple and Wealth Finance, and Primary and Secondary States Tim Earle 291 chapter 15 Corporate Power Strategies, Collective Action, and Control of Principals: A Cross-Cultural Perspective Lane F. Fargher 309 References 327 List of Contributors 395 Index 397 contents vii Figures 0.1. Richard Blanton at age 18 on a climbing expedition in the Rockies with a friend 5 1.1. Spatial distribution and sizes of cities 22 1.2. Postclassic sites in the Central Mixteca Alta 27 1.3. Twentieth-century pottery-making villages and agricultural core areas in the Mixteca Alta 31 1.4. Relative interconnectedness of Mixteca Alta and Valley of Oaxaca regions 33 2.1. View of the Main Plaza of Monte Albán 45 2.2. The carved-stone monuments from Building L-sub 48 2.3. Plan: eastern half of Río Viejo, Mound 1 and Mound 9, Structure 4 51 2.4. Retaining wall of an adobe platform on the acropolis at Río Viejo 52 3.1. Forms of built space associated with specific social institutions and strategies 64 3.2. Ceramic model: burial procession with the dead and pallbearers 65 3.3. Ceramic model: simplified guachimontón public architecture 67 3.4. Ceramic model: ballcourt with ballgame in progress 69 3.5. Map: Tequila valleys, Jalisco, with sites by site-size hierarchy 73 3.6. Map: large residential groups, shaft tombs, and guachimontones 75 4.1. Central valleys of Jalisco, showing settlement patterns for the Postclassic 89 4.2. Postclassic settlement tiers, based on site size 91 4.3. Santa María architectural settlement clusters 94 4.4. Three sections of Santa María, residential groups: highest point of site 95 4.5. Three sections of Santa María, residential groups: hill 96 4.6. Three sections of Santa María, residential groups: piedmont 98 4.7. Late Postclassic ceramic diagnostic forms 100 5.1. South-central Veracruz: selected sites and regions 106 5.2. The secondary center of La Mixtequilla 108 5.3. Summary of facings of SPPGs and Long Plaza Plans 117 5.4. Mixtequilla survey: SPPG variants 122 6.1. Merchants’ feather merchandise 139 6.2. Aztec tribute demands in quetzal feathers 152 6.3. Aztec tribute demands in quetzal-feathered devices 152 7.1. Select archaeological sites, eastern periphery of the Maya lowlands 161 7.2. Civic centers: Xunantunich, Actuncan, and Buenavista del Cayo, Belize 162 7.3. Obsidian-to-sherd ratio over time in elite and commoner contexts 171 8.1. The Småland Plateau 179 8.2. Sweden, major regions and the “small lands” of Småland 192 8.3. Four study blocks with varying proximity to Visingsö Island 198 x figures 8.4. Skärstad-Ölmstad Valley: changing landscape use, Iron Age to Medieval period 202 9.1. Approximate location of kingdom of Bunyoro, nineteenth century 209 10.1. Archaeological sites in northern and southern Mesopotamia 228 10.2. Locations of Indus civilization sites 232 11.1. Floor plan and its graph 242 11.2a. Walangama pil gē, built around 1940 246 11.2b. Floor plan of typical Walangama pil gē 247 11.3a. Walangama California-style house, built in 2011 250 11.3b. Floor plan of typical California-style house 251 11.4. Walangama two-story house under construction in 2013 256 12.1. Relationship between network strategy and natural disasters 263 13.1. Time from first settled agricultural villages to large villages 276 13.2. Village formation and state development in eight world areas where states ultimately developed 277 13.3. Sequence from first sedentary villages to more nucleated centers 278 13.4. Size of largest cities in early states 279 13.5. Internal and external sources of funds 284 13.6. Model of collective action 285 13.7. Relationship between population size, hierarchical complexity, and social capital/ collective action 287 13.8. Relationship between population size and increasing complexity for collective and autocratic organization 288 15.1. Correlation plots for corporate power: public goods and control of principals 319 figures xi Tables 1.1. Spacing and size range of centers in the central Mixteca Alta 25 5.1. Counts of SPPG, partial SPPG, and a Cotaxtla Standard Plan variant 121 5.2. Monumental complexes or subsidiary segments with single laterals 123 5.3. Distribution of partial SPPGs in the Mixtequilla settlement hierarchy 125 6.1. Raw Materials Used in the Manufacture of Feathered Adornments 137 7.1. Archaeological correlates for approaches to market systems 158 7.2. Outcomes for Hirth’s distributional model of exchange modes 158 10.1. Mari: a collective of plural leadership 231 11.1. Accessibility ranks of nodes in figure 11.1 reveal two hierarchical levels 243 11.2. Accessibility ranks of an older Walangama house 248 11.3. Accessibility ranks of a newer Walangama house 253 12.1. Predictors of network strategy 264 12.2a. Predictors of overall warfare (Embers’ model) 264 12.2b. Predictors of overall warfare 264 12.3a. Predictors of external warfare 265 12.3b. Predictors of external warfare 265 13.1. Human behavior: basic principles 279 13.2. Theoretical frames on the preindustrial past 279 13.3. Organizational thresholds of human groups 282 13.4. Variation in modes of finance and leadership 283 15.1. Corporate power variables 316 15.2. Degree of horizontal power-sharing codes 317 xiv tables ALTERNATIVE PATHWAYS TO COMPLEXITY Although archaeology experienced a major reorienta- Introduction tion with the rise of New Archaeology and the incor- poration of neoevolutionist theory beginning in the 1960s and early 1970s (e.g., Binford 1962; Flannery 1972, Lane F. Fargher, Verenice 1973; Sanders and Price 1968; Watson et al. 1971), it was Y. Heredia Espinoza, and only somewhat later that a mature, theoretically and Cynthia L. Bedell epistemologically complex, processual archaeology began to take shape. This mature processual archae- ology, also called “alternative pathways to complexity,” moved beyond neoevolutionism’s obsession with ex- plaining centralization,
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