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- All Subjects: Archaeology
- Creators: Abbott, David R.
- Creators: Stark, Barbara L.
Description
The causes and consequences of stylistic change have been a concern of archaeologists over the past several decades. The actual process of stylistic innovation, however, has received less attention. This project explores the relationship between the process of stylistic innovation on decorated pottery and the social context in which it occurred in the Hohokam area of south-central Arizona between A.D. 800 and 1300. This interval was punctuated by three episodes of reorganization, each of which was characterized to varying degrees by significant shifts in ideology, economics, and politics. Each reorganization episode was also accompanied by a rapid profusion of stylistic innovation on buff ware pottery. The goal of this study was to build a framework to understand the variation in the process of innovation as a response to different incentives and opportunities perceived in the changing social environment. By bringing stylistic analyses and provenance data together for the first time in Hohokam red-on-buff studies, I investigated how the process of innovation was variously influenced by social reorganizations at three different periods of time: the 9th, 11th, and 12th centuries A.D. Four variables were used to evaluate the process of innovation at each temporal period: 1) The origin of a stylistic invention, 2) the rate of its adoption, 3) the pattern of its adoption, and 4) the uniformity of its adoption among all buff ware potting communities. To accomplish the task, stylistic innovations and provenance were recorded on over 3,700 red-on-buff sherds were analyzed from 20 sites in the Phoenix Basin. The innovation process was found to vary with each reorganization episode, but often in different ways than expected. The results revealed the complexity and unpredictability of the process of stylistic innovation among the Hohokam. They also challenged some assumptions archaeologists have made regarding the scale and extent of the changes associated with some of the reorganization episodes. The variables utilized to measure the innovation process were found to be effective at providing a composite picture of that process, and thus warrant broader application to other archaeological contexts.
ContributorsLack, Andrew D (Author) / Abbott, David R. (Thesis advisor) / Hegmon, Michelle (Committee member) / Spielmann, Katherine A. (Committee member) / Nelson, Ben A. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This project examines the social and economic factors that contributed to the development of a specialist-based economy among the Phoenix Basin Hohokam. In the Hohokam case, widespread dependence on the products of a few concentrated pottery producers developed in the absence of political centralization or hierarchical social arrangements. The factors that promoted intensified pottery production, therefore, are the keys to addressing how economic systems can expand in small-scale and middle-range societies. This dissertation constructs a multi-factor model that explores changes to the organization of decorated pottery production during a substantial portion of the pre-Classic period (AD 700 - AD 1020). The analysis is designed to examine simultaneously several variables that may have encouraged demand for ceramic vessels made by specialists. This study evaluates the role of four factors in the development of supply and demand for specialist produced red-on-buff pottery in Hohokam settlements. The factors include 1) agricultural intensification in the form of irrigation agriculture, 2) increases in population density, 3) ritual or social obligations that require the production of particular craft items, and 4) reduced transport costs. Supply and demand for specialist-produced pottery is estimated through a sourcing analysis of non-local pottery at 13 Phoenix Basin settlements. Through a series of statistical analyses, the study measures changes in the influence of each factor on demand for specialist-produced pottery through four temporal phases of the Hohokam pre-Classic period. The analysis results indicate that specialized red-on-buff production was initially spurred by demand for light-colored, shiny, decorated pottery, but then by comparative advantages to specialized production in particular areas of the Phoenix Basin. Specialists concentrated on the Snaketown canal system were able to generate light-colored, mica-dense wares that Phoenix Basin consumers desired while lowering transport costs in the distribution of red-on-buff pottery. The circulation of decorated wares was accompanied by the production of plainware pottery in other areas of the Phoenix Basin. Economic growth in the region was based on complementary and coordinated economic activities between the Salt and the Gila River valleys.
ContributorsKelly, Sophia E (Author) / Abbott, David R. (Thesis advisor) / Darling, J. Andrew (Committee member) / Moore, Gordon (Committee member) / Spielmann, Katherine A. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The Hohokam of central Arizona left behind evidence of a culture markedly different from and more complex than the small communities of O'odham farmers first encountered by Europeans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries A.D. Archaeologists have worked for well over a century to document Hohokam culture history, but much about Pre-Columbian life in the Sonoran Desert remains poorly understood. In particular, the organization of the Hohokam economy in the Phoenix Basin has been an elusive and complicated subject, despite having been the focus of much previous research. This dissertation provides an assessment of several working hypotheses regarding the organization and evolution of the pottery distribution sector of the Hohokam economy. This was accomplished using an agent-based modeling methodology known as pattern-oriented modeling. The objective of the research was to first identify a variety of economic models that may explain patterns of artifact distribution in the archaeological record. Those models were abstract representations of the real-world system theoretically drawn from different sources, including microeconomics, mathematics (network/graph theory), and economic anthropology. Next, the effort was turned toward implementing those hypotheses as agent-based models, and finally assessing whether or not any of the models were consistent with Hohokam ceramic datasets. The project's pattern-oriented modeling methodology led to the discard of several hypotheses, narrowing the range of plausible models of the organization of the Hohokam economy. The results suggest that for much of the Hohokam sequence a market-based system, perhaps structured around workshop procurement and shopkeeper merchandise, provided the means of distributing pottery from specialist producers to widely distributed consumers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the results of this project are broadly consistent with earlier researchers' interpretations that the structure of the Hohokam economy evolved through time, growing more complex throughout the Preclassic, and undergoing a major reorganization resulting in a less complicated system at the transition to the Classic Period.
ContributorsWatts, Joshua (Author) / Abbott, David R. (Thesis advisor) / Barton, C Michael (Committee member) / Van Der Leeuw, Sander (Committee member) / Janssen, Marcus (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Understanding agricultural land use requires the integration of natural factors, such as climate and nutrients, as well as human factors, such as agricultural intensification. Employing an agroecological framework, I use the Perry Mesa landscape, located in central Arizona, as a case study to explore the intersection of these factors to investigate prehistoric agriculture from A.D. 1275-1450. Ancient Perry Mesa farmers used a runoff agricultural strategy and constructed extensive alignments, or terraces, on gentle hillslopes to slow and capture nutrient rich surface runoff generated from intense rainfall. I investigate how the construction of agricultural terraces altered key parameters (water and nutrients) necessary for successful agriculture in this arid region. Building upon past work focused on agricultural terraces in general, I gathered empirical data pertaining to nutrient renewal and water retention from one ancient runoff field. I developed a long-term model of maize growth and soil nutrient dynamics parameterized using nutrient analyses of runoff collected from the sample prehistoric field. This model resulted in an estimate of ideal field use and fallow periods for maintaining long-term soil fertility under different climatic regimes. The results of the model were integrated with estimates of prehistoric population distribution and geographical characterizations of the arable lands to evaluate the places and periods when sufficient arable land was available for the type of cropping and fallowing systems suggested by the model (given the known climatic trends and land use requirements). Results indicate that not only do dry climatic periods put stress on crops due to reduced precipitation but that a reduction in expected runoff events results in a reduction in the amount of nutrient renewal due to fewer runoff events. This reduction lengthens estimated fallow cycles, and probably would have increased the amount of land necessary to maintain sustainable agricultural production. While the overall Perry Mesa area was not limited in terms of arable land, this analysis demonstrates the likely presence of arable land pressures in the immediate vicinity of some communities. Anthropological understandings of agricultural land use combined with ecological tools for investigating nutrient dynamics provides a comprehensive understanding of ancient land use in arid regions.
ContributorsKruse-Peeples, Melissa R (Author) / Spielmann, Katherine A. (Thesis advisor) / Abbott, David R. (Committee member) / Hall, Sharon J. (Committee member) / Kintigh, Keith W. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
My dissertation contributes to a body of knowledge useful for understanding the evolution of subsistence economies based on agriculture from those based on hunting and gathering, as well as the development of formal rules and norms of territorial ownership in hunter-gatherer societies. My research specifically combines simple formal and conceptual models with the empirical analysis of large ethnographic and environmental data sets to study feedback processes in coupled forager-resource systems. I use the formal and conceptual models of forager-resource systems as tools that aid in the development of two alternative arguments that may explain the adoption of food production and formal territorial ownership among hunter-gatherers. I call these arguments the Uncertainty Reduction Hypothesis and the Social Opportunity Hypothesis. Based on the logic of these arguments, I develop expectations for patterns of food production and formal territorial ownership documented in the ethnographic record of hunter-gatherer societies and evaluate these expectations with large ethnographic and environmental data sets. My analysis suggests that the Uncertainty Reduction Hypothesis is more consistent with the data than the Social Opportunity Hypothesis. Overall, my approach combines the intellectual frameworks of evolutionary ecology and resilience thinking. The result is a theory of subsistence change that integrates elements of three classic models of economic development with deep intellectual roots in human ecology: The Malthusian, Boserupian and Weberian models. A final take home message of my study is that evolutionary ecology and resilience thinking are complementary frameworks for archaeologists who study the transition from hunting and gathering to farming.
ContributorsFreeman, Jacob (Author) / Anderies, John M (Thesis advisor) / Nelson, Margaret C. (Thesis advisor) / Barton, C Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This research explores how people's relationships with the spirits of the dead are embedded in political histories. It addresses the ways in which certain spirits were integral "inhabitants" of two social environments with disparate political traditions. Using the prehistoric mortuary record, I investigate the spirits and their involvement in socio-political affairs in the Prehispanic American Southeast and Southwest. Foremost, I construct a framework to characterize particular social identities for the spirits. Ancestors are select, potent beings who are capable of wielding considerable agency. Ancestral spirits are generic beings who are infrequently active among the living and who can exercise agency only in specific contexts. Anonymous groups of spirits are collectives who exercise little to no agency. I then examine the performance of mortuary ritual to recognize these social identities in the archaeological record. Multivariate analyses evaluate how particular ritual actions memorialized the dead. They concentrate on treatment of the body, construction of burial features, inclusion of material accompaniments, and the spaces of ritual action. Each analysis characterizes the social memories that ritual acts shaped for the spirits. When possible, I supplement analysis of archaeological data with ethnohistoric and ethnographic information. Finally, I compile the memories to describe the social identities for the spirits of the dead. In this study, I examine the identities surrounding the spirits in both a Mississippian period settlement on the Georgia coast and in several Protohistoric era Zuni towns in the northern Southwest. Results indicate that ancestors were powerful members of political factions in coastal Mississippian communities. In contrast, ancestral spirits and collectives of long-dead were custodians of group histories in Zuni communities. I contend that these different spirits were rooted in political traditions of competition. Mississippian ancestors were influential agents on cultural landscapes filled with contestation over social power. Puebloan ancestral spirits were keepers of histories on landscapes where power relations were masked, and where new kinds of communities were coalescing. This study demonstrates that the spirits of the dead are important to anthropological understandings of socio-political trajectories. The spirits are at the heart of the ways in which history influences and determines politics.
ContributorsThompson, M. Scott (Author) / Buikstra, Jane E. (Thesis advisor) / Kintigh, Keith W. (Committee member) / Abbott, David R. (Committee member) / Goldstein, Lynne G (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This study evaluates five different hypotheses potentially accounting for the prehistoric movement of vesicular basalt during the Hohokam occupation of the Salt-Gila Basin (ca. A.D. 700-1450): 1) direct procurement; 2) direct exchange; 3) down-the-line exchange; 4) market exchange; and 5) elite-controlled exchange. The plausibility of each hypothesis is assessed by examining the relative frequency of different vesicular basalt source types at sites as related to the geographic distance from their source; intra-site variance in vesicular basalt source type diversity; inter-site variance in vesicular basalt source type diversity; and temporal specificity and continuity in source preference. The study sample is comprised of 484 vesicular basalt artifacts recovered from nine Hohokam sites: Casa Grande, Gila Crossing, the Hospital Site, La Plaza, Las Colinas, Los Hornos, Lower Santan, Pueblo Grande, and Upper Santan. Geographic provenance data for artifacts are generated by comparing their chemical composition to a geochemical reference database composed of more than 700 vesicular basalt raw material samples from 17 different source areas in the Salt-Gila Basin. Geochemical data for both artifact and raw material samples were collected using a portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometer and a newly developed sampling procedure that provides an efficient, reliable, and nondestructive means of analysis.
The results of the hypothesis testing found that direct procurement is a possible material provisioning practice for perhaps only a small number of households in the Salt-Gila Basin; specifically those located less than 10 km from a vesicular basalt outcrop. Direct exchange is also an unlikely explanation, though it cannot be rejected outright. The other exchange hypotheses, down-the-line, market, and elite-controlled exchange, as defined in this study, are all rejected as possible explanations. From these results, a new model of Hohokam vesicular basalt provisioning practices is developed for future testing. This model posits that vesicular basalt groundstone tools were produced by specialists in a handful of locations during both the Preclassic and Classic periods, and that finished tools were acquired through workshop procurement or local distributers. The implications of these findings for understanding the organization of Hohokam domestic and political economies are also discussed.
The results of the hypothesis testing found that direct procurement is a possible material provisioning practice for perhaps only a small number of households in the Salt-Gila Basin; specifically those located less than 10 km from a vesicular basalt outcrop. Direct exchange is also an unlikely explanation, though it cannot be rejected outright. The other exchange hypotheses, down-the-line, market, and elite-controlled exchange, as defined in this study, are all rejected as possible explanations. From these results, a new model of Hohokam vesicular basalt provisioning practices is developed for future testing. This model posits that vesicular basalt groundstone tools were produced by specialists in a handful of locations during both the Preclassic and Classic periods, and that finished tools were acquired through workshop procurement or local distributers. The implications of these findings for understanding the organization of Hohokam domestic and political economies are also discussed.
ContributorsFertelmes, Craig M (Author) / Abbott, David R. (Thesis advisor) / Simon, Arleyn W (Thesis advisor) / Darling, J Andrew (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This study analyzed archaeological residential inventories from the center of Sauce and its hinterlands to address the possible appearance of markets and the structure of exchange during the Middle Postclassic period (A.D. 1200-1350) in south-central Veracruz, Mexico. Economic development is rarely the result of a coherent strategy either on the part of managing or consuming elites or on the part of the average consumer. Instead, a combination of strategies and overlapping exchange systems provided the context, rather than any one explanation, for how commercial market exchange develops. Identifying the context is challenging because economies have multiple exchange mechanisms, which require clearly defined expectations that separate spatial and network (distributional) data. This separation is vital because different exchange mechanisms such as centralized redistribution versus central-place marketing produce similar spatial patterns. Recent innovations in identifying exchange mechanisms use network (distributional) instead of spatial expectations. Based on this new body of knowledge, new quantitative methods were developed to distinguish between exchange through social networks versus market exchange for individual items based on comparisons of household inventories, later combining this information with spatial and contextual analyses. First, a Bayesian-inspired Monte Carlo computer simulation was designed to identify exchange mechanisms, using all household items including cooking utensils, serving dishes, chipped stone tools, etc., from 65 residential units from Sauce and its hinterland. Next, the socioeconomic rank of households, GIS spatial analyses, and quality assessments of pottery and other items were used to evaluate social and political aspects of exchange and consumption. The results of this study indicated that most products were unrestricted in access, and spatial analyses showed they were acquired in a market near Sauce. Few restrictions on most of the polychromes, chipped stone, and assorted household items (e.g., spindle whorls) lend strong support to commoner household prominence in developing markets. However, there were exceptions. Dull Buff Polychrome was associated with the Sauce center; analyses showed that its access was restricted through social networks. "Cookie-cutter" style figurines and incense burners also showed restriction. Restricted items found in Sauce and wealthier residences indicate enduring political and social inequalities within market development. For Sauce, a combination of elite and commoner household interests was crucial in supporting the growth of commercial exchange rather than a top-down directive.
ContributorsOssa, Alanna (Author) / Stark, Barbara L. (Thesis advisor) / Cowgill, George L. (Committee member) / Smith, Michael E. (Committee member) / Simon, Arleyn W. (Committee member) / Umberger, Emily (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
There has been debate and uncertainty on two important issues in the Basin of Mexico: the formation of Epiclassic city-states following Teotihuacan state collapse (ca. A.D. 650), and the nature of the subsequent Early Postclassic Tula state expansion. I evaluate the Basin as a case of regeneration of socio-political complexity using stylistic and compositional pottery analysis to examine patterns of interaction from the Epiclassic (ca. A.D. 600/650-850) through the Early Postclassic (ca. A.D. 850-1150). I selected representative specimens of temporally diagnostic pottery from the three large settlement clusters in the northwestern Basin (Tula and the Zumpango region), the northeastern Basin (Teotihuacan Valley), and the southeastern Basin (Cerro Portezuelo, the Ixtapalapa and Chalco regions) to assess: 1) participation in regional cultural complexes, 2) direct exchange or local production of particular pottery types, 3) regional variation in the production of pottery. For certain time periods, ceramic patterns among smaller settlements clusters were distinguished. The combination of chemical and attribute analysis provided a robust method for identifying regional variation in pottery. Chemical characterization using Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) was used to provide fine-scaled compositional reference groups to assess regional production and exchange. Stylistic and technological attributes were used to define highly visible decorative traditions that were easily copied and low visibility production steps that were learned. Teotihuacan withdrawal from the southeastern Basin prompted reorganization and adoption of a distinctive pottery complex. Epiclassic settlement patterns throughout the Basin were reorganized into nucleated settlement clusters with unoccupied areas between them. Results indicate regional participation in the Coyotlatelco pottery tradition and a strong pattern of consumption of locally produced pottery by settlement cluster. Tula underwent significant urban growth in the Early Postclassic, while the Basin was marked by a process of "ruralization" as the Epiclassic centers dispersed and settlements filled the previously unoccupied landscape. Tula expanded its influence into the Basin with varying degrees of integration. The closest settlements in the northwestern Basin acquired the most Tula-produced pottery. The Teotihuacan Valley and Cerro Portezuelo settlements consumed mostly locally produced Tula style pottery. The southeastern settlements were least connected to Tula and initiated interactions towards Puebla-Tlaxcala.
ContributorsCrider, Destiny Lynn (Author) / Cowgill, George L. (Thesis advisor) / Simon, Arleyn W (Thesis advisor) / Stark, Barbara L. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This dissertation investigates socio-economic strategies adopted by a small craftworking community situated on the edge of one of the earliest, largest and most complex cities in Mesoamerica. The focus of investigation is San Jose 520, a hamlet located on the southeastern margin of Teotihuacan and occupied primarily during the Tlamimilolpa and Xolalpan phases (ca. A.D. 200-500). Its inhabitants were potters of low socio-economic status living in small, architecturally simple residential structures. The investigation complements much more numerous studies of higher-status groups residing in Teotihuacan's famous apartment compounds, much larger and architecturally more formal structures clustered primarily within built-up parts of the city. The founding residents of San Jose 520 might have initially been immigrants, arriving at Teotihuacan after most of the city was already filled in and occupied, and therefore settling in a spatially marginal area with limited potential for farming. Archaeological field and lab investigations demonstrate that they adopted ceramic production as a strategy of economic survival in a competitive urban system. They specialized in the manufacture of the outcurving bowl--a vessel widely used at Teotihuacan for food service and certain ritual activities. At smaller scales of production, these potters also made other types of serving and ritual vessels and figurines. Evidence relating to mortuary and domestic rituals indicates participation in a number of the rituals typical of other sectors of Teotihuacan society, but not all. The most general goal of this investigation is to improve understanding of how socially and spatially marginal peoples possessing low economic status developed and exploited viable economic niches in pre-industrial urban systems. The San Jose 520 potters appear dynamic in their economic adjustment--in part by enhancing their production system over time through the adoption of various specialized pot-making tools (some as yet undocumented for Teotihuacan), and to some extent by modifying their product line, they survived for many generations. Nevertheless, they never succeeded in significantly raising their economic status; at the time of their apparent disappearance sometime in the Xolalpan phase, these potters and their households continued to constitute a case study of urban poverty in a massive pre-industrial city.
ContributorsCabrera Cortes, Mercedes Oralia (Author) / Stark, Barbara L. (Thesis advisor) / Cowgill, George L. (Thesis advisor) / Falconer, Steven E. (Committee member) / Spielmann, Katherine A. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011