Matching Items (2)
Description
Environmental change has often been cited as affecting choices made whether to pursue cooperative or competitive strategies. The Flagstaff region provides a unique opportunity to address how environmental changes may affect choices made between competition and cooperation. Part of the region was a prehistoric frontier zone between three archaeological cultures and these groups had to contend with a marginal and highly variable climate for agriculture. These regional patterns of climatic variation are well documented and further the eruption of Sunset Crater Volcano in the midst of this frontier zone devastated local environments and reshaped the landscape. As groups re-colonized the frontier zone, they actively sought to negotiate new boundaries using both competitive and cooperative strategies that can be discerned archaeologically, including intergroup violence and the construction and use of communal ritual architecture. Dendroclimatological data is used to identify periods of environmental change and expectations for cooperative and competitive responses to these changes are developed based on anthropological theory and ethnographic case studies. These expectations are then tested against the archaeological record. Three lines of evidence are used to assess changes in levels of competition: (1) use of defensive sites, (2) presence of skeletal trauma, and (3) emergence of specialized social roles and weapons technologies. Two lines of evidence are used to assess changes in levels of cooperation (1) use of communal ritual architecture and (2) patterns of exchange. In some cases the expected relationships between favorable conditions and evidence of increased cooperation and between unfavorable conditions and evidence of increased competition are found. However, in other cases the expectations are not supported, with local historical and cultural contingencies appearing to override environmental influences. Contrasts between patterns of cooperation and competition found in the culturally diverse frontier zone versus the patterns found in the more culturally homogenous heartland are identified that suggest greater likelihood of the emergence of conflict in settings with pre-existing contexts of social differences.
ContributorsO'Hara, Frederick Michael (Author) / Hegmon, Michelle (Thesis advisor) / Kintigh, Keith W. (Committee member) / Abbott, David R. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Violence has been characterized as a force for both political change and maintenance of the status quo in human societies. The present study examines how outbreaks of violent events led to a legacy of prolonged warfare among neighboring communities and shaped the formation of new political institutions during the late prehispanic era in the North-Central Andes. Drawing on data collected through archaeological excavation, osteological analysis of human remains, and radiocarbon dating, this work reconstructs life and death histories of 287 individuals recovered from nine archaeological sites to investigate diachronic patterns in physical violence. The observed individuals inhabited settlements located within the high-altitude, mountainous terrain of the Callejón de Huaylas, a region that has received little attention from bioarchaeologists, and the majority lived during the Late Intermediate Period (1000-1450 CE). Archaeological research has indicated local livelihoods changed significantly around 1000 CE. In the wake of Wari state disintegration and an increasingly arid climate, communities faced a series of social, political, and economic transformations. Less is known about how these shifts affected embodied practices of violence in the region. This study documents a stark change in who experienced head injuries during the Late Intermediate Period, as compared to data from preceding eras. Individuals of all ages exhibited both antemortem and perimortem trauma throughout the four and a half centuries. Results reveal people experienced novel forms of physical violence beginning in the mid-1200s—not only did more individuals sustain head injuries, including juveniles, but the inflicted trauma was more lethal and severe at this time. These trauma patterns persisted for generations, continuing through Inka conquest around 1450 CE. The frequency and type of observed cranial trauma are consistent with warfare documented ethnographically among some small-scale societies, suggesting an association between violence and political autonomy. Beyond identifying cultural transformations in victim identities and intergroup dynamics, this research contributes to a growing body of work across the Americas investigating mounting evidence of social strife and conflict from the 13th to 15th centuries. Finally, it sheds light on intergenerational consequences of violent actions by centering individual experiences within contexts of long-term historical trajectories.
ContributorsSharp, Emily Anne (Author) / Buikstra, Jane E. (Thesis advisor) / Knudson, Kelly J. (Committee member) / Stojanowski, Christopher M. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022