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Frontiers of Colonialism
University Press of Florida Florida A&M University, Tallahassee Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers Florida International University, Miami Florida State University, Tallahassee New College of Florida, Sarasota University of Central Florida, Orlando University of Florida, Gainesville University of North Florida, Jacksonville University of South Florida, Tampa University of West Florida, Pensacola
frontiers of
colonialism
Edited by Christine D. Beaule
University Press of Florida Gainesville / Tallahassee / Tampa / Boca Raton Pensacola / Orlando / Miami / Jacksonville / Ft. Myers / Sarasota
Copyright 2017 by Christine D. Beaule All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper This book may be available in an electronic edition. 22 21 20 19 18 17
6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Beaule, Christine D., editor of compilation. Title: Frontiers of colonialism / edited by Christine D. Beaule. Description: Gainesville : University Press of Florida, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017005520 | ISBN 9780813054346 (cloth : acid-free paper) Subjects: LCSH: Colonies—History. | Colonization—History. | Imperialism—History. | World politics—History. | Antiquities. | Archaeology and history. | Social archaeology. | Ethnoarchaeology. Classification: LCC JV105 .F76 2017 | DDC 325/.309—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017005520 The University Press of Florida is the scholarly publishing agency for the State University System of Florida, comprising Florida A&M University, Florida Atlantic University, Florida Gulf Coast University, Florida International University, Florida State University, New College of Florida, University of Central Florida, University of Florida, University of North Florida, University of South Florida, and University of West Florida. University Press of Florida 15 Northwest 15th Street Gainesville, FL 32611-2079 http://upress.ufl.edu
Contents
List of Figures vii List of Tables ix List of Maps xi 1. Challenging the Frontiers of Colonialism 1 Christine D. Beaule Part I. Local Adaptations 27 2. Haudenosaunee Settlement Ecology before and after Contact in Northeastern North America 31 Eric E. Jones 3. Negotiating Colonialism on the Southern Frontier of Spanish Yucatán 59 Adam R. Kaeding 4. The Romans in Britain: Colonization on an Imperial Frontier 89 Richard Hingley 5. Contextualizing the Chinook at Contact: The Middle Village 110 Douglas C. Wilson, Kenneth M. Ames, and Cameron M. Smith Part II. Movement, Conflict, and Transformation 145 6. Power and Resilience: Flooding and Occupation in a Late-NineteenthCentury Philippine Town 149 Grace Barretto-Tesoro and Vito Hernandez 7. “Is This Like the Nile that Riseth Up?” Ethnic Relations at Thmuis 179 Robert J. Littman and Jay E. Silverstein 8. Violence in Early Maritime Encounters in the Pacific 208 Geoffrey Clark
9. Population Migrations, Colonization, and Social Changes in the Late Prehistoric Lower Yangtze River 236 Tianlong Jiao Part III. Rethinking Categories 257 10. Using a Graphic Model to Explore the Range of Cross-Cultural Interaction in Ancient Borderlands 261 Ulrike Matthies Green and Kirk E. Costion 11. This Land Is My Land: Identity and Conflict on the Western Frontier of the Aztec Empire 293 Jay E. Silverstein 12. Images of Evangelization and Archipelagos of Spanish Colonialism in Latin America and the Philippines 325 Christine D. Beaule 13. Conclusions 352 Christine D. Beaule List of Contributors 357 Index 363
Figures
3.1. 3.2. 3.3. 3.4. 3.5. 3.6. 5.1.
Populated negotiation model 65 CRAS colonial site distribution 68 Colonial negotiation of congregación 72 Terrenos baldios claims, 1832–1845 75 Negotiation of criollo influx 77 Monuments to the Caste War on the local landscape 80 Contemporary view of the Middle Village park unit of Lewis and Clark National Historical Park 115 5.2. Top of plankhouse site at Middle Village 116 5.3. Close-up of the base of the southern wall trench 117 5.4. Fragments of a reconstructable hand-painted creamware tea caddy 130 6.1. Facade of Structure A 159 6.2. View of Structure B 159 6.3. The west side of the old church in Pinagbayanan 160 6.4. Stratigraphy of Pinagbayanan 161 7.1. Statue of Queen Arsinoë II deified as Isis (Tell Timai) 188 7.2. Kilns from the northern portion of Tell Timai, Unit N7-11 196 7.3. Examples of a ballistae stone and an iron arrowhead 197 7.4. Assemblage from N7-5, Tell Timai 198 7.5. Human remains from Unit N7-6, Tell Timai 199 7.6. Figurine of Ptolemy V, Tell Timai, and Ptolemy V portrait on coin 199 8.1. Lithograph prints showing eighteenth-century New Zealand, Tahitian, and Tongan canoes 223 9.1. Profile of the Liangzhu city wall 245 9.2. Liangzhu jade cong-tube 246 9.3. Liangzhu jade crown-shaped ornament 247 9.4. Liangzhu jade fork-shaped ornament 247 9.5. Guangfulin ceramic tripods 250 9.6. Guangfulin ceramic jars 250
10.1. Graphic model of cross-cultural interaction emphasizing both intensity and directionality of exchange 263 10.2. Rejected top-down model of cross-cultural interaction 272 10.3. Rejected side-by-side model of cross-cultural interaction 273 10.4. Circular frontier model 274 10.5. Levels of intensity of cultural exchange 275 10.6. Cultural interaction in the Moquegua Drainage during the early Middle Horizon 279 11.1. Ridgetop view of cathedral in San Simón Oztuma, 1998 311 11.2. View northeast of main Aztec fortress of Oztuma 311 11.3. Pages from the Ixtepec archive with Don Diego Osorio’s signature 314 12.1. Indigenous Filipino domestic architectural elements in Spanish colonial structures 332 12.2. Late-eighteenth-century facade (with detail) of Iglesia de San Francisco, La Paz 343 12.3. Virgin of Candelaria, Oruro, and Virgin of Cerro Rico, Potosí 345 12.4. Spanish colonial period carved wooden image of Jesus 346 12.5. Black Nazarene and Virgin of Antipolo, both in the Philippines 347
viii
Figures
Tables
1.1. Working definitions for this volume 6 2.1. Specific landscape characteristics and the categories of influence on settlement location choice 41 2.2. Discriminant function analysis model for the comparison of all precontact to postcontact individual Haudenosaunee settlements using 1609 for the dividing date 44 2.3. Discriminant function analysis model for the comparison of individual Haudenosaunee settlements using individual dates of first depopulation for the dividing date 45 2.4. Discriminant function analysis model for the comparison of individual Haudenosaunee settlements using 1570 for the dividing date 46 2.5. Discriminant function analysis model for the comparison of individual Haudenosaunee settlements using 1540 for the dividing date 47 2.6. Discriminant function analysis model for the comparison of individual Haudenosaunee settlements using 1670 for the dividing date 48 5.1. Contact period, Lower Columbia River sites 119 5.2. Station Camp, Cathlapotle, and Meier lithic artifact assemblages 122 5.3. Comparison of sites near the mouth of the Columbia River by frequency and density of artifacts 124 5.4. Comparison of bead frequencies for three Chinookan sites 129 5.5. Comparison of copper/cupreous artifacts for three Chinookan sites 129 8.1. Islands in the vicinity of Taumako recorded by the Spanish and identified by researchers 214 11.1. Kings of Oztuma 304
Maps
2.1. Geographic distribution of Northern Iroquoian societies, 1450–1720 34 2.2. Location of the settlement sites used in this research 40 3.1. Beneficios Altos, Yucatán Peninsula 60 4.1. Map of Roman provinces, including the frontier province of Britannia 91 4.2. Map of Roman features, sites, and areas of Britannia possibly under Roman civitas control 92 5.1. Location of Middle Village and other major archaeological comparator sites mentioned in this chapter 114 6.1. Philippine Islands showing the area of San Juan, Batangas, and location of Pinagbayanan sites 150 6.2. Simplified land-use and landscape feature map 162 7.1. Landsat image of the Nile Delta with Hellenistic rivers and lakes superimposed 181 7.2. Tell Timai (Thmuis) and Tell el Rub’a (Mendes) 194 8.1. Map of the South Pacific showing the location of the main islands mentioned in the text 217 8.2. Geographic knowledge of Pacific Islanders 219 9.1. Location of major archaeological sites in the text 243 9.2. Major sites in the Liangzhu area 245 10.1. Map of the Moquegua Valley showing the locations of Yahuay Alta and Cerro Trapiche 264 11.1. Central Mexico and the Aztec-Tarascan frontier in the Late Postclassic 294 11.2. Political boundaries on the Chontal-Cuitlateca frontier 298 11.3. Palos Altos–La Montaña wall 308 11.4. Maps of the Cerro Ixtepec and Cerro Oztuma fortresses 313 11.5. Aztec and Chontal claims to the altepetl of Oztuma 316 12.1. The Spanish Empire at its height 327
1 Challenging the Frontiers of Colonialism C H R I S T I N E D . B E AU L E
The archaeology of colonialism has, perhaps more than most specialties in the discipline, had a strongly interdisciplinary character for many decades. However, as scholars are increasingly recognizing, we remain constrained by our intradisciplinary regional and temporal specializations. Specialties within academic research reflect communities of practitioners working on related questions about some area of the human experience or natural world. Within archaeology, those boundaries have tended to be regional, with Mesoamericanists or China specialists largely writing for, working with, and responding to the arguments of their regional colleagues. We are often further specialized by cultural group (Nahuatl, Zapotec), chronological period (Formative Period, Postclassic Period), methodological specialty (lithic analysis, remote sensing), or theoretical tendency (Marxism, postprocessualism). This does not preclude reading about, borrowing from, or actively engaging with scholars in different subspecialties, but it is rare indeed that a scholar of Roman settlement patterns might engage substantially with a specialist in Mesopotamian ceramics. In part, this natural tendency to specialize afflicts every discipline of knowledge production, and may simply reflect the exponential proliferation of expertise and publication venues. But these theoretical divides can also be a hindrance to the fruitful cross-pollination of ideas, methodologies, and ways of interpreting patterns. As an Andean Late Formative Period household archaeologist, I have a sizable community of Andeanists to draw upon, but I may also benefit from new models and new approaches that my colleagues working in historic Vietnam have to offer. This is not a call to ignore regional, methodological, or other kinds of boundaries, of course, but to consider what we may be inadvertently cutting ourselves off from when we attend the same regionally specific symposia at conferences, peruse the same journals and book series that publish the research of colleagues working in the same specialty, and ignore the rest.
The central objective of this edited volume is to call critical attention to two particular intradisciplinary boundaries and their dampening effect on fruitful cross-cultural and cross-temporal comparison. Archaeologists are hindered by the self-imposed boundary between historic and prehistoric archaeology and by assumptions about different rates and kinds of cultural continuity and change before and after the arrival of Europeans. This is especially relevant to studies of colonialism in history and archaeology, where scholars wrestle with case studies of states and empires that may be interregional or international in scale. Did, for example, the Spanish Empire truly do something unprecedented, something that had never before been accomplished in human history? Was it simply the fact that to establish and maintain colonies, the Spanish had to cross first the Atlantic, and then the Pacific? Did that make for a qualitatively different kind of empire than, for example, that produced by the Qing or Akkadians? Archaeologists working on examples of historic European colonialism rarely make use of scholarship on non-European or prehistoric colonialism. The chapters in this volume collectively challenge those self-imposed theoretical frontiers in our discipline. The European/non-European and prehistoric/ historic frontiers between archaeologies of colonialism are the frontiers we seek to call attention to and, where possible, blur. Smith makes a similar point in the introduction to her edited volume on ancient cities (2003:3–4): “While analysts of modern cities often use the configurations that they see as indicators that the Industrial Revolution brought irreversible and substantial changes to the phenomenon of concentrated populations, archaeological evidence indicates that these same types of transformations are visible in the premodern world.” Like debates about ancient and modern forms of globalization (Appadurai 1990; LaBianca and Scham 2006), the comparative archaeology of colonialism allows us to challenge those assumptions. The premodern/modern divide is commonly and colloquially used to draw a line between the non-Western civilizations that dominated their respective regions before the sixteenth century, on the one hand, and the European-driven empires that developed afterward, on the other. But turning a critical gaze onto these dividing lines reveals the imprecise and variable meanings of all of the major conceptual pieces of these schema: “modern” (and its corollary, premodern), “European” (and non-Western), and “states” (and empires) are neither fixed nor clearly defined. As the chapters in this volume reveal, many of the features we associate with colonialism may not be present at all, or may only appear in very different forms than we expect. The effects of colonialism and colonization in local contexts 2
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are highly variable. By including several regions (e.g., the Philippines, Pacific, China, and Egypt) alongside better-known cases of colonialism (e.g., Mesoamerica, the Andes, North America, and Britain), that heterogeneity may take surprising forms. This unusual set of case studies extends existing scholarship on colonialism by encouraging archaeologists to seek comparative parallels in untapped scholarship on other regions and time periods. Crossing our intradisciplinary theoretical frontiers can only enrich the power of explanations for aspects of the heterogeneous local impacts of colonialism. Part of the effect of this tendency to work mostly within our regional and temporal silos is that key concepts such as colonialism, cross-cultural contact, and colonization are defined quite differently, increasing the danger of our talking past each other about these critical terms. The following section reviews some of these definitional debates and advocates for a specific set of working definitions.
States, Empires, and Colonialism: Definitions and Variability Historians (Coronil 2007; Jones and Phillips 2005; Perdue 1998) have challenged the tendency to call European colonial powers “empires,” while non-European examples retain the lesser label of “states.” Coronil (2007:254) defines “empire” as a category subsuming different forms of centralized rule over populations in usually adjacent territories, especially in premodern cases. Its root is the Latin term “imperium,” which referred to “systems of authority of strong political centers over peoples generally located in contiguous territories. In the modern period, ‘empire’ came to be associated with European political systems based on strong states that exerted control over distant populations, propelled in part by the expansion of trade and industry” (254). States are regional polities, and they are smaller and presumably simpler than empires. Modern empires, beginning in the West with the Spanish conquest of Latin America and cemented by Spain’s colonial outposts in the western Pacific Ocean, differ in scale as well as the intensity and nature of cross-cultural interaction. At least three traits differentiate them from earlier, smaller conquest states. First, empires require the construction of ideologies of justification, such as the civilizing mission at the heart of anthropology and archaeology’s colonial ancestry (Gosden 1999; Mendy 2003; Thomas 2000). Second, empires necessitate the organization of new, imposed socioeconomic hierarchies that subsume previous cultural, linguistic, political, and regional distinctions (e.g., the invention of the “Indian” in the Americas). Third, the vast geographic distances between colonial nations and colonized groups require an administrative and Challenging the Frontiers of Colonialism
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military complex that far exceeds the needs of powers that conquer and administer territorially contiguous lands and populations. Geographers, like historians, have tackled the conceptual difference between empires and colonial powers. Jones and Phillips (2005:142) define imperialism as “unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships based on domination and subordination.” Colonialism is a form of imperialism that includes “the establishment and maintenance of rule and/or the tangible settlement of people and the displacement or subordination of others.” The two are both interrelated and overlapping, and hence difficult to compartmentalize. This recognition of colonialism as one form of imperialism is a good first step, but a more comprehensive conceptual framework comes from Coronil (2007). Colonialism is one of five modalities of imperialism that also include (Coronil 2007:242) polities that accord full membership status to conquered subjects, absorb them within the home polity, attempt to wipe out the conquered, and isolate indigenous populations socially and geographically. A mix of these strategic relationships between imperial home and subject groups may be found within an empire or over the course of a polity’s history. But colonialism involves a particular set of features, which I outline below. For the moment, it is important to conceptually distinguish between imperialism, as a form of state territorial expansion, and colonialism, which is one way that that expansion may occur. The project of defining colonialism is further complicated by the need to separate colonialism from colonization. Stein’s work (2002a, 2002b, 2005a, 2005b; see also Domínguez 2002) conceptually teases apart the two phenomena, and in so doing it allows for relationships between colonizers and local populations to be arranged along a continuum. The need to distinguish between processes of colonialism and the establishment of archaeologically recognizable colonies is apparent even in Stein’s reworked definition of a colony. Colonies are implanted settlements of foreigners, socially and spatially distinct from local communities (which makes them archaeologically visible), that may or may not be controlled by the metropole or core power. Thus, a group of colonists whose presence is merely tolerated and who do not dictate the terms of trade with locals may function more like a trading post or ethnic enclave than a center of colonial control over a conquered people. Colonists, in other words, are not necessarily in charge of local affairs. How are we to distinguish then between a transplanted group of foreigners and a center of colonial administration? When we identify a site as a colony, we need to be careful to avoid assumptions about power dynamics, what (or who) caused notable changes in material culture, whether (or not) intensified 4
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subsistence or craft production constitutes economic exploitation, and the hierarchical nature of relationships between representatives of a foreign power and local peoples. Their transplantation and continued ethnic identity with a more powerful, distant homeland alone does not make a group colonists. Colonization is a state-driven process with particular objectives (e.g., labor exploitation, direct resource extraction, tribute collection, religious conversion). Colonies are the groups of individuals charged with carrying out those missions. In this sense, a transplanted group of fisherman or farmers in lowland Peru from Tiwanaku (Goldstein 2005), though far from regional administrators in their scope or power, represent a colonial presence comparable to the Dutch in Indonesia. The danger, of course, is that the term “colony” carries heavy conceptual baggage in the form of a strong association with the exercise of political power and economic extraction. So those Tiwanaku colonists may very well have extracted local resources (crops unable to be grown on the high, dry Bolivian altiplano), but there is little evidence of territorial domination, of cultural assimilation or conversion, or even of intensive interaction and exchange with local Moquegua populations (Goldstein 2005; Janusek 2008; Williams and Nash 2002). “Diaspora” is a more flexible term than “colony,” when those larger political relationships of centrally directed exploitation and control simply do not exist (as in chapters 10 and 12, this volume). (The literature on diasporas is extensive and is not well integrated into the archaeology of colonialism. Given limited space, I leave it to chapter authors to describe as needed.) In this sense, the comparative archaeological study of colonialism offers a crucial counterpart to the overreliance on historical texts. We more often see the daily habitus of colonies’ inhabitants and local neighbors, and that long-term perspective on material culture allows us to see correlations between rapid changes in political contexts and daily life. Those patterns receive relatively little attention in the historical record, compared to the concerns of empires, or the Histories writ large by those in charge. Some of the chapters in this volume challenge the conceptual frameworks of state, empire, and colonialism. Chapter 4 critically assesses postcolonial approaches to research on the Romanization of indigenous peoples in Britain. His discussion of empire, colonialism, and colonies offer a richly textured framework that should be thought-provoking to scholars working on questions of assimilation, resistance, identity formation, and conquest elsewhere. Similarly, chapter 8, which discusses the impact of European colonialism on Pacific interisland/inter-archipelago conflict puts indigenous Pacific Islander societies front and center. Their cross-cultural trade, wars, raids, and long-distance voyagChallenging the Frontiers of Colonialism
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ing complicate inherent theoretical notions about mobile colonizers and static colonized peoples. Chapters 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 11 marry archaeological and historical data in different ways, fleshing out or reconstructing local, indigenous perspectives in the process. The chapters in this book demonstrate tremendous variability in the processes of colonialism, forms of colonization, and impacts of imperial formations on indigenous populations. The details of those highly variable case studies stretch our definitions. All of the chapters in this and other recent volumes on the archaeology of colonialism challenge the inclusivity and generality of definitions of colonialism. But if we are to build a comparative explanatory framework for the variability we see in colonialism’s processes and impacts, then we need a common vocabulary. The following set of definitions is not intended to be static, but it offers common ground for putting European and non-European, historic and prehistoric case studies of colonialism into dialogue. It may very well be the case that readers Table 1.1. Working definitions for this volume Colonialism
A form of imperialism that is state-driven and state-directed, which usually (but not always) employs a strategy of colonization to administer distant territories and conquered populations, for the explicit purpose of exploiting local populations’ labor or resources.
Colonization State-driven process with particular objectives (e.g., labor exploitation, direct resource extraction, tribute collection, or religious conversion) related to imperial expansion. Colonization, and its manifestation of colonies, is one form of imperialism.
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Colony
An implanted settlement of foreigners, socially and spatially distinct from local communities (which makes them archaeologically visible), that may or may not be controlled by the metropole or core power.
Diaspora
An implanted settlement of foreigners, like a colony, but without larger political relationships of centrally directed exploitation of local populations. Diaspora is a more neutral term than colony, because the latter carries with it strong connotations of domination.
Empire
An imperial polity that exercises some degree of political or economic control over usually contiguous territories. Empires develop ideologies of justification for their aggression, new socioeconomic hierarchies that are imposed over conquered populations and which subsume previous local distinctions, and an administrative and military complex to administer distant territories.
Imperialism
The process through which a state expands its territory and political hegemony over another population, usually through force or the threat of force.
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would exclude some of the case studies in this book on the basis of these definitions. But all describe archaeological examples that we believe merit inclusion because of the operation of large empires in the background. The definitions of key terms employed in this chapter and by most of the authors in this volume are given in Table 1.1. Specific case studies of colonial powers and colonies or studies of the impact of colonialism on native or local populations may very well expand or challenge any of these definitions. But more important perhaps is the difference between the ways that scholars of European or non-European, prehistoric or historic cases of colonialism approach these phenomena.
The Pitfalls and Advantages of Texts The presence or absence of written records is one remarkably pervasive divide between areas of archaeological research. Jennings (2011:4) writes of a “Great Wall” that divides the ancient and modern worlds in the way we conceive of history: “The greatest strength of the wall is its unobtrusiveness—it’s so deeply embedded that we forget that it is there.” Archaeologists often fail to see how we box ourselves in with intradisciplinary walls such as prehistoric/historic. There are different regional versions of this disciplinary Great Wall, but a good example is the debate over how the North American chronological phrase “Contact Period” masks the violence and power dynamics of early encounters between Native Americans and Europeans (Carlson 2000; Deagan 1998; Gosden 2004; Lightfoot 1995; Lightfoot, Martinez, and Schiff 1998; Loren 2000; Paynter 2000; Silliman 2005). The availability of archival documents has a profound effect on those who use them. As a Prehispanic Andeanist, I will never have texts to complement my archaeological materials. The research presented in many chapters in this volume demonstrates that although ancient and modern documents can richly texture our knowledge of the past, they can also be contradicted by the archaeological record. That does not, of course, stop prehistorians from tackling questions about ancient mind-sets or from attempting to give voice to those whose perspectives are not typically included in the historical record. But the links drawn between evidentiary support and their interpretations or reconstructions are more indirect than those enjoyed by historians and geographers (Baxter 2005; Hodder 2012; Mancke 1999; Pauketat 2012; Renfrew 2009). In addition to the variable richness of interpretations, the absence or presence of written records imposes methodological differences on researchers. In Chinese Challenging the Frontiers of Colonialism
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and Egyptian studies, for example, there are acute differences of training, language acquisition, methodological approaches, and research questions between those focused on documents and those focused on sites and artifacts. Epigraphers have different tools and theoretical frameworks than anthropological archaeologists, and both differ in crucial ways from the foci of classical scholars. “Classics” is a bit of a catch-all term that subsumes the rigorous study of texts and sites from classical civilizations, those commonly designated as the intellectual and sociopolitical forebears of Western society (Greece, Rome, the biblical Near East, and sometimes Egypt). The analysis of those texts may draw more on comparative literature, political science, religion, or art. It may or may not be combined with more traditional archaeological research questions and methodologies involving material remains (e.g., chapter 7). The strongly interdisciplinary and highly diverse nature of classical archaeology, coupled with the tendency to avoid comparison with modern or prehistoric states, have historically set it apart from anthropological archaeology (research on Roman settlements throughout Britain and France are notable exceptions: e.g., chapter 4, this volume; Luley 2014). The timing of the introduction of writing systems also varies significantly from region to region. In Mesopotamian Uruk, written records developed over about a millennium, with cuneiform script on clay tablets appearing in Uruk temple archives by around 3200 B.C.E. In China, a recognizable script emerged by the late Shang Dynasty in 1200–1050 B.C.E., while the same phenomenon transformed Old Kingdom Egypt by 3000 B.C.E. The Maya script, dating to the third century B.C.E., gives Mesoamerican archaeologists a rich corpus of data to complement archaeological remains. And other case studies of ancient states and empires, most notably in Andean South America, are only known through the lens of archaeology. Although some might use the 1492 start of the Age of Exploration as a key dividing line in the Americas, the division between prehistoric and historic may in fact have come quite a bit earlier in different areas of the globe. The relationship between this divide (prehistoric/historic) and between modern/premodern is a complicated one. For the sake of simplicity, I seek to capture both of those internal disciplinary frontiers in thinking, for example, about what premodern, non-Western colonial powers have in common with modern, nonWestern ones. Thus the Mongolian empire of the Zhungars (1671–1760 C.E.) (Perdue 1998, 2005) and the Russian colonial presence in northwestern North America (1741–1867 C.E.) (Lightfoot 2003; Sunderland 2010) are two examples that do not fit neatly on either side of the beginning of the sixteenth century. 8
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The identification of the sixteenth century as a pivotal historical moment dividing premodern from modern, and indeed captured in the very label “Age of Exploration” (always capitalized, it must be so important), reflects the common perception of the Spanish Empire as the first in a truly different kind and scale of interregional interaction and power brokering. But of course that is precisely one of the assumptions that we want to challenge in this book, as others have recently (Mattingly 2011; Rubertone 2012; Stahl 2012).
Crossing Boundaries or Simply Ignoring Them? There are three important implications of this challenge to the prehistory/history divide in the archaeology of colonialism. The first is that globalization as it has developed since the Spanish built a transatlantic empire is not a strictly modern phenomenon. Scholars such as Friesen (2013), Jennings (2011), and LaBianca and Scham (2006) draw clear parallels between globalization and earlier forms of state-sponsored conquest and exploitation, demonstrating that in some ways, globalization is a new version of an ancient pattern, albeit on a larger scale. Chapters 3, 5, 6, and 8 in this volume offer further support to that critical body of work. The second implication of such a wide-ranging collection of case studies of one kind of cross-cultural interaction (colonialism) is to challenge the boundaries between regional specialties. Much of the literature on topics such as changes in household organization or gender identities within colonialism has concerned specific geographic areas like the Americas or Mediterranean. Putting disparate examples side by side helps to highlight notable similarities and parallel sequences of change in different regions and times. For example, chapter 9 in this volume, on the Liangzhu culture, challenges Chinese archaeologists to critically assess concepts of migration and diffusion. In similar ways, Jones (chapter 2) questions the extent to which the arrival of Europeans dictated Haudenosaunee settlement location choices. Reading Silverstein’s research (chapter 11) alongside Green and Costion’s (chapter 10) offers new ways of thinking about colonialism in multiethnic contexts. The third implication of crossing the intradisciplinary frontiers of colonial prehistory/history, European/non-European, and regional specialties may be the most important of all. Stahl (2012:159) notes that archaeology’s central focus on identifying and giving meaning to discontinuities or significant changes in the archaeological record unintentionally supports the assumption that continuity (the absence of change) implies stability. She writes, “As in history, the absence of Challenging the Frontiers of Colonialism
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change has often seemed to require no explanation.” Fox (2010) has also written on this issue. This question of continuity is relevant not only to archaeologists but also to indigenous and aboriginal populations who have been dispossessed of their lands and cultural resources and who may be legally asked to demonstrate long-term continuity in their efforts to reclaim what was theirs (Stahl 2012:160). Changes in material culture do not necessarily represent population displacement; archaeologists may understand this basic point, of course, but the subtleties of legal codes and interpretations, and cultural assumptions about continuity and change, have profound consequences for indigenous peoples (Silliman 2009). Archaeologists have a real opportunity to contribute to cross-disciplinary academic conversations about parallel histories, how history is told and by whom (Rubertone 2012), what colonialism is or was, and what impact colonial processes had on both ancient and modern indigenous cultures (Mahoney 2010). But in order to move forward with these metatheoretical and activist projects, if that is something we want to do, we must turn a critical eye on our own tendencies to build walls around our specialties. In the next four sections I summarize some recent examples of research questions and theoretical approaches to colonialism in what I call the four areas of colonial scholarship. Given this volume’s objective to challenge selfimposed frontiers between Western and non-Western colonialism and between prehistoric and historic archaeologies of colonialism, the four research areas include (1) premodern non-Western colonialism, (2) premodern Western colonialism, (3) modern non-Western colonialism, and (4) modern Western colonialism. The Western/non-Western label mirrors their colloquial use and refers to colonial powers in areas of the world commonly thought of as part of the West (i.e., Europe and the Americas) or East (i.e., Asia, Africa, and Oceania). Thus the Dutch colonies in Indonesia would be part of a modern Western example of colonialism, while the Japanese possessions in Taiwan are a non-Western modern example. The purpose of this four-section overview is to highlight some of the different research questions, methodologies, and terminology that scholars in each area use.
Premodern Non-Western Colonialism Archaeological research on case studies of colonialism that predate the Age of Exploration and whose imperial capitals lie outside of Europe is quite prolific. Here I highlight two projects that challenge the distinction between state and empire. Papantoniou argues that the Persian Achaemenid Empire (ca. 550–330 B.C.E.), centered in southwestern Iran, was “essentially tributary—that is, with 10
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little interest in political control” (Cadogan et al. 2012:4, as cited in Papantoniou 2013:171). Instead, a process of cultural borrowing is evident in elites’ assemblages, such as Cypriot coins with images of Greek deities instead of previously used Near Eastern symbols (e.g., Persian ram, Egyptian ankh) (171). The Cypriot basileis (kings) were also dedicants to major Panhellenic sanctuaries (172). These were, he argues, some of the mechanisms that enabled a long process of Hellenization to take place from the Cypriotic city-states through the classical Hellenistic period. Changes in royal ideologies and material cultural influences intensified in the Ptolomaic era, but there is little evidence for Hellenic colonies, Achaemenid administrators, or attempts at territorial control. Papantoniou’s research serves as a reminder that imperialism and colonialism are not interchangeable. This important distinction is supported by Khatchadourian’s work on the Achaemenid presence in the central Armenian site of Tsaghkahovit. Sites like Gumbati (in Georgia), Sari Tepe and Qarajamirli (in Azerbaijan), and Beniamin (in Armenia) have monuments stylistically related to distant imperial centers (2014:137). However, a “material assemblage of governance” such as tablets and seals is virtually absent in the provinces (138). Persian and Greek textual sources agree that the Armenian region paid tribute to the Achaemenids for more than two centuries, but this tribute extraction was apparently accomplished through mechanisms other than colonization and direct rule. These works highlight the shaky foundations that the “emulation hypothesis” rests upon. When we find objects with obvious foreign origins or which display stylistic emulation of objects from the heartland of an empire, we often interpret those objects as reinforcing relationships between subject populations and distant (or not so distant) rulers via conscious emulation of material referents to more powerful polities and their ideologies. The expression of political submission, of religious affirmation, or of subjugation can be read into local uses of Achaemenidan coins or Inkan ceremonial drinking vessels in peripheral contexts. But, Khatchadourian argues, this assumes “deferential, acquiescent subjects who willfully submit to the conditions of their own subjection with the help of a world of well-behaved objects that work reliably in the service of the crown to reproduce the relations of macropolitical asymmetry”; things are not, however, “hopelessly beholden to the human intentions of their masters. We now understand that mimesis is always flawed” (2014:163). This reinforces the need for multiple, complementary lines of evidence to make convincing arguments about the specific nature of cross-cultural relationships (see also argument in chapter 10, this volume). In at least these two examples, archaeologists Challenging the Frontiers of Colonialism
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working on premodern, non-Western colonialism are critically questioning the assumed link between colonization and imperialism and between stylistic boundaries and elite emulation of distant imperial powers.
Premodern Western Colonialism Compared to historical archaeology in the Americas, prehistoric examples of colonialism with European or American capitals have received relatively little attention from anthropological archaeologists. Classical archaeologists working in Greece, Rome, the Near East, and Egypt may have different sets of research questions, sources of data, and theoretical frameworks, or they may operate within the same frameworks as anthropological archaeologists. Data come from archaeological remains, but they may reference a large, well-studied corpus of literary sources also employed by historians, art historians, historical linguists, and researchers in translation studies and cultural studies. Multiple historical colonial powers developed, from the Greeks in southern Italy and western Asia, to the Phoenicians throughout the western Mediterranean, to the Roman settlements in Britain, France, and North Africa. But van Dommelen (1997:306) has argued that classical archaeology has generally shied from theories of colonialism, preferring local, particularistic interpretations of foreign colonies that use Greek or Roman concepts, and individual figures and events as their analytical basis rather than comparative, critical perspectives taken from anthropology or archaeology. Mattingly (2011:7) argues that all empires exhibit a conscious effort to exercise power on a large scale. He asserts: “I do not accept that the ancient land empires can have nothing in common with the capitalist sea empires of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries or the American airstrip and aircraft carrier empire of the later twentieth and twenty-first centuries.” His study of the history of the Roman Empire pays close attention to its periodic discontinuities, its uneven nature and dynamic history, captured in the notion of multiple imperialisms (17). There is, of course, room for both in any field of archaeological study—the local and the regional are appropriate scales of analysis in our efforts to better understand big historical phenomena such as colonialism. Papatoniou (2013) uses a similarly broad Mediterranean political context in his interpretations of Cypriot populations’ responses to Hellenistic and Ptolemaic polities. His work critiques the common assumption that Alexander the Great successfully fused many different peoples into a single multicultural empire. Instead, he argues, Ptolemaic political and material influences (strategically focused on coastal towns and fort settlements) interacted with Hellenistic ones, in turn overlaid onto local Crete cultural contexts. Thus both the Hellenization and 12
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Ptolemaic melting-pot models come up short. Papantoniou’s focus on identity and material culture alongside abundant historical records from this period provides a good example of a conscious balance between texts and artifacts, and this makes it attractive for comparison. It is an example that has much in common with research at Fort Ross (Lightfoot, Wake, and Schiff 1993) and with research on the Spanish presence in the Philippines (see chapters 6 and 12, this volume). Although the forms of evidentiary support may differ between early or premodern Western and non-Western cases of colonialism, the research questions are not all that different. The conceptual line dividing classical from prehistoric archaeology is self-imposed, but it fails to hold up to close scrutiny. Classical archaeologists such as Papantoniou (2013), Littman and Silverstein (chapter 7, this volume), and Hingley (chapter 4, this volume) may use ancient texts to generate research questions or enrich interpretations. These few examples show that, placed side by side, similarities in their research programs have more to teach us about comparative approaches to the mechanisms and impact of empire than about the superficial differences between them. As the next two sections show, this argument can be extended to historical or modern cases of colonialism, wherever their capitals happen to fall on a world map.
Modern Non-Western Colonialism Khatchadourian’s point about objects being imperfect conveyers of foreign ideologies is reinforced by Lightfoot, Martinez, and Schiff ’s (1998) research in pluri-ethnic Fort Ross, California. The Russian-American Company, unlike most of its European counterparts, was not a state-sponsored or directed arm of territorial expansion. It was a private corporate enterprise (Lightfoot 2003), more like a multinational corporation than the East India Company, headquartered in Great Britain. The Russian-American Company relocated Native Alaskan men (mostly Alutiiq from Kodiak Island) to harvest sea mammal furs, some of whom established households with Native Californian women (primarily Kashaya Pomo, Coast Miwok, and Southern Pomo). Household assemblages are used to map identity construction and individual intentionality in mixed social settings. Wilson, Ames, and Smith offer a similarly complex critique of foreign goods in Chinook cultural contexts in chapter 5 (this volume). In contrast, case studies of ancient Chinese conquest and colonization tend to be uncritically subsumed under culture contact, with few notable exceptions (see chapter 9, this volume). Yan’s research (2006) focuses on Zhou colonialism of the vassal Yan state. The Zhou became the third dynastic state on the Central Plain when they conquered the Shang Dynasty around the mid-elevChallenging the Frontiers of Colonialism
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enth-century B.C.E. Faced with a drastically expanded territory to administer and a highly diverse ethnic population, the Zhou court sent out royal family members and others to rule through an exchange of land (with inheritance rights) for loyalty (161). On the frontiers, such newly established vassal states often built a capital surrounded by moats and defensive walls, where colonists called guoren (men in the capital) lived separately from local populations called yeren (men in the field). This hierarchy discouraged assimilation or cultural hybridity. Sang royal family members married local women, who were given the court title fu (lady) (166), but there is little information about the local impact of tribute demands or intermarriage (beyond local elites’ grave goods). Yan writes that “other local cultural traditions remained largely intact” (173). Jaffe’s work (2015:13) on the Yan demonstrates, in contrast, that Zhou elite burials have evidence of local customs incorporated into their own. In other words, the colonizers’ material culture reveals traces of localization. Fang et al. (2015:2) add that the Zhou conquest of the Shang around 1046 B.C.E. was just one example of invaders on the Central Plain adopting local customs. Labor investments in massive public-works projects and an intensification of agricultural production and craft specialization would have had deep impacts on local economies. But those imposed changes were highly variable too; as Yao’s (2008) work on the southwestern Han frontier shows, local responses to Han imperialism were mediated through native value systems. Allard’s (2015) research on Chinese-style artifacts in Yunnan mortuary contexts during the first century C.E. shows similarly limited acculturation. On the other hand, research on the impact of the Qin dynastic expansion that resulted in the unification of China between 246 and 221 B.C.E. uses regional settlement patterns to test and complement the textual record of Emperor Qin Shihuangdi’s exploits (Fang et al. 2015; Feinman et al. 2010). Because there were no diagnostic artifacts allowing separation of the brief Qin interval from the subsequent Han period in southeastern Shangdong Province, the QinHan period (221 B.C.E.–220 C.E.) is treated as one. Nonetheless, the researchers demonstrate that a much higher regional population than in earlier times was dispersed between three population centers; these data corroborate textual claims that the emperor ordered 30,000 households (an estimated 150,000 people) to move into the area (Feinman et al. 2010). Such a massive population influx would have certainly had a greater impact on local peoples than a small number of foreign officials in a walled capital. In either case, these Chinese case studies show great potential for challenging ideas about the directionality of assimilation or the impact of colonizers on local populations. In the Zhou case, 14
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small contingents seem to have largely walled themselves off from the local populations, whereas the Qin’s efforts at settler colonialism created the conditions for more intensive and sustained cross-cultural interaction. Both case studies deserve more attention from archaeologists interested in colonialism.
Modern Western Colonialism One of the critical issues that scholars of European colonialism struggle with stems from the well-known adage that “It is a privilege of empires to make their histories appear as History” (Coronil 2007:245; see also Williamson 2004). It is indisputable that historic European and American imperialism dominates ideas about how the geopolitical present came to be. So too is the idea that the Age of Exploration set off an inevitable march toward modern forms of interregional interaction subsumed under the amorphous label of globalization. This Eurocentric notion is complicated by Coronil’s point that “Europe” itself (as the symbolic hub of civilization) is a moving target. Coronil (2007:244) illustrates the conceptual association between Europe and modernity or civilization when he describes a childhood car trip across the Pyrenees from France to Spain. During the journey, his relatives remarked that they were “leaving” Europe. He writes of having since learned that “from the vantage point of the dominant centers of Europe, Spain appeared then as ‘non-Europe,’ or at least as ‘not Europe yet,’ a region that, like my home country and the rest of Latin America, needed to ‘catch up’ in order to become fully modern. Now I see that ‘Europe’ means the shifting apex of modernity.” Imperial Spain and Portugal were not just the “crucible of modern colonialism”; they also created model empires later emulated by other European nations. In Latin America, the Spanish (and to a lesser extent the Portuguese) built on indigenous sociopolitical structures. Later, Great Britain, France, and most recently the United States have all functioned as colonial or imperial powers of different sorts in the region. Coronil continues (245): “The recognition that it is now common to exclude Spain and Portugal from Europe and to place the United States at Europe’s center makes evident that ‘Europe’ is an imaginary construct that blurs the boundaries between literal and metaphorical frontiers. As a hyper-real construct . . . ‘the West’—is a geohistorical sign that points to the apex of modernity and contains it within limits no less constraining for being shifting and imaginary.” But that realization does not help us to disentangle colonialism from an ethnocentric exceptionalism according to which there is something qualitatively different between ancient forms of territorial expansion and modern Euro-American imperialism. Challenging the Frontiers of Colonialism
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Archaeologists and historians counter this ethnocentrism with arguments about complex parallels between modern and ancient political formations, processes of identity formation, and other aspects of the cultures we study and inhabit. For some this may simply entail a conscious shift in perspective. Skowronek (1998), for example, writes about Asian trade networks centered in the Philippines, with Europeans firmly placed on the periphery. “European states wanted to participate as equal players in the Asian core but were economically, militarily, and politically too weak to challenge the East through Eurasia or south Asia,” writes Skowronek (46). Similarly, Richard (2012:140) argues that descriptions of the Senegalese Siin kingdom as a “predatory state” reflect Portuguese racial biases more than empirical rigor. Applying this conscious shift in perspective to specific local contexts of colonialism, Fennell (2000, 2003) reconstructs the ways in which core symbols and religious rituals were reinterpreted and, even in abbreviated form, reinforced the BaKongo cosmology among enslaved Africans in the United States. Such diasporic studies offer one way of isolating a community that may not be the colonial power. Studies of diasporas are useful to comparative research on identity formation among subaltern populations who, almost by definition, may not have a clear sense of, nor the freedom to express, their ethnicity through material culture. In the case of enslaved peoples, but also among those conquered by others, the abrupt break in artifact forms and styles (see chapter 9, this volume) may stem from people’s limited access to materials and freedom to modify them. Stylistic breaks may also reflect deliberate attempts by agents of the hegemonic power to suppress the colonized’s foreign origins through processes such as renaming individuals and ethnic groups, breaking up families, forbidding marriages, and absorbing individuals into urban households. Those breaks in material style need not be abrupt, however. Bayman and Dye (2013) describe very different rates and degrees of changes in postcontact Hawaiians’ adoption of Western holokū dresses, metal adzes, and architecture. Their research reflects an adept juxtaposition of historical records and archaeological remains, tying specific technological changes to the social identities of indigenous elites and commoners. Of their three data sources, only adzes are readily visible in the archaeological record of the Hawaiian archipelago. They rely heavily on historical documents and photographs to reconstruct patterns in houses and clothing, both of which were usually made of highly perishable materials. The historical context and the rich corpus of records available to the researchers allow for chronological specificity; individuals, families, sites, and legal and political changes can be tied to the archaeological data in Hawai‘i in 16
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ways that are not possible in most archaeological case studies. But Bayman and Dye’s interpretive approach, using material culture to get at identity formation processes, provides a valuable comparative case study. These studies offer ways to explore interactions between different groups of people within historical contexts that may or may not be colonial. Silliman’s (2005, 2012) point that the label “Contact Period” fails to conceptually recognize the violence of these encounters is a good one. But the violence inherent in the system of slave ownership, for example, was not necessarily the key factor determining how and why new languages, religious ideologies, and social and racial identities were born of those contexts (Fandrich 2007; van de Port 2005). Thus the assertion of geopolitical power by ethnic Europeans in the Americas during the colonial period did not mean that European settlers determined the form, pace, or terms of sociocultural changes among Native American, African, Caribbean, or other specific populations. In some cases, “colonial period” may be as misleading as “contact period.” Jones’s research in chapter 2 and the Chinook case study by Wilson, Ames, and Smith in chapter 5 both offer thoughtful examples to debates about the line between contact and colonialism. Multifaceted research on settlement patterns or detailed studies of complex and subtle material culture changes in different archaeological contexts can reveal nuanced responses to cross-cultural interaction. Clothing and bodily adornment patterns are especially sensitive indicators of cultural hybridity in colonial or multiethnic contexts, as recent case studies indicate (e.g., Beaule 2015; Loren 2010). These areas of material culture show high degrees of agency in public expressions of identity and status. The cross-cultural interactions that are reflected in changing patterns of dress, jewelry, tattooing, and other individualized contexts clearly took place within colonial settings with European settlers who claimed political hegemony over non-European locals. But Europeans did not always determine the terms under which individuals and households chose to adopt or reject certain elements of practices, economic strategies, political organization, and material culture into their lives (Alexander 1998:477, as cited in Bayman and Dye 2013:113). Chapters 5 and 12 in this volume focus on material culture as a lens through which to view processes of cultural change and continuity. These chapters reveal highly variable, even subtle material influences on artifacts from the creative interplay of different cultures, different styles of goods, and different ideas in colonial settings. Diasporic studies may offer a way to sidestep this conflict. By using ethnogenesis, material culture, or other theoretical perspectives to explore change in the archaeological record of a settlement or region, we can limit the influence Challenging the Frontiers of Colonialism
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of emotional considerations of colonialism/postcolonialism on our interpretations. It is important to confront the unintended consequences of using or avoiding terminology such as “colonial period” or “contact period.” But research on diasporic communities, which may or may not be colonies (see Table 1.1), offers a way to reconstruct the impact (or lack thereof) of intense or periodic interaction in specific circumstances that may have been politically controlled either by locals or foreigners. Voss and Casella’s (2012) edited volume brings together research focused on sexualities and gender. These case studies interrogate materiality precisely because they focus attention on intimate sites of colonial entanglements that rarely leave archaeological traces. For example, Casella’s (2012) research on nursery wards in nineteenth-century colonial Australian female prisons aims to expand both our methodological and interpretive toolboxes. Casella and Voss (2012:4) argue that “it is precisely the juxtaposition of unfamiliar imperial contexts that can sharply reveal the commonalities and diversities inherent to colonialisms.” Similarly, Friesen (2013) challenges us to think outside the box about sites of colonialism. He advocates for hunter-gatherer world-systems theory, focused on intersocietal interaction’s contribution to social change among the Inuvialuit of the western Canadian Arctic. Friesen treats documentary and archaeological evidence as complementary, though he emphasizes the latter when reconstructing precontact sociopolitical organization. While openly acknowledging the vast differences in power, scale, and wealth between the indigenous Inuvialuit and European settlers, he employs a theoretical framework that gives equal weight to all players’ abilities to direct and shape responses to change. Extending world-systems theory (Wallerstein 1974), his work offers several layers of peripheries with varying degrees of interaction with and dependence on the European economy. (Green and Costion provide a similarly useful model of multiple interactions in chapter 10 of this volume.) Friesen’s work is part of a recent, welcome shift in the archaeology of colonialism, particularly among North Americanists, to treat indigenous or local cultures as dynamic agents of change rather than its passive recipients (Ferris 2009; Gosden 2004; Lyons and Papadopolous 2002; Rubertone 2000; Silliman 2005). A common focus of these studies of interaction with historical European powers in geographically distant places is a self-conscious reexamination of conceptual frameworks. Revised ways of thinking about these issues give a central place to indigenous or local communities—their perspectives, oral histories, social actors, and interpretations. This carries the risk of paying insufficient 18
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attention to the very real, sometimes quite substantial differences in status and power underlying those interactions in some places and times. And this careful, deliberate reframing of the archaeology of European colonialism is playing a substantial role in efforts to decolonize the discipline, to extract our assumptions, research questions, and methodologies from the colonial past.
Organization of This Volume This edited volume explicitly challenges the Western/non-Western and historic/prehistoric frontiers in our discipline by bringing together scholars in each of these four areas of scholarship to encourage cross-fertilization of ideas, approaches, field and analytical methodologies, conceptual frameworks, and bibliographic references. The case studies that follow are organized into three groups of contributions. Each part is preceded by an introduction that provides information about the chapters grouped in each section. Part I, “Local Adaptations,” includes four case studies of indigenous populations who variably adapted to colonial intrusions in ways that ensured a measure of cultural persistence and survival, or that were at least locally determined. Eric E. Jones (chapter 2) examines Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) communities’ settlement patterns during the early North American colonial period. Adam R. Kaeding (chapter 3) frames Maya responses to Spanish colonialism as choices made by residents of Beneficios Altos in Yucatán, Mexico. Richard Hingley’s work (chapter 4) complicates our understanding of Roman colonialism in Britain by contextualizing it within processes of population resettlement and interaction. Douglas C. Wilson, Kenneth M. Ames, and Cameron M. Smith (chapter 5) link changes in Chinook social organization to the impact of the colonial period fur trade in the North American Pacific Northwest. Collectively, the four chapters in part I make a strong case for rethinking assumptions about the loss of sociopolitical autonomy among indigenous peoples who are “colonized.” Part II, “Movement, Conflict, and Transformation,” groups four case studies of local populations who experienced significant social, political, economic, and ideological change under colonialism. Grace Barretto-Tesoro and Vito Hernandez (chapter 6) document conflicting accounts by Spanish colonial priests and townspeople to a devastating flood in the Philippines, using archaeological data to resolve those different accounts. Robert J. Littman and Jay E. Silverstein (chapter 7) reconstruct local rebellions in the context of multiple imperial claims to Egypt. Geoffrey Clark (chapter 8) also examines the movements of people and the impact of conflict, but in the culturally diverse and Challenging the Frontiers of Colonialism
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geographically vast setting of the Pacific undergoing waves of European colonialism. He uses European texts to reconstruct indigenous perspectives on conflict (vs. non-conflict) voyaging watercraft and crew composition. Tianlong Jiao’s reconsideration of migration (chapter 9) attributes the dramatic decline of the prehistoric Liangzhu culture to waves of colonizers fleeing conflict on the Central Plains of China. The four chapters in part II make variable uses of textual and archaeological data in their exploration of conflict in colonial encounters. Finally, the three chapters in part III, “Rethinking Categories,” challenge common assumptions about the degrees to which different levels of political power determine the form and degree of state agents’ impact on indigenous peoples and material cultures on colonial frontiers. Ulrike Matthies Green and Kirk E. Costion (chapter 10) build a graphical model of complex interactions within frontier zones; this model could be applied to the case studies described in each of the chapters in parts 1 and 2. The complexity and flexibility of their model provides a way to conceptualize and analyze multiple kinds of cross-cultural interaction in a frontier setting. Jay E. Silverstein’s work (chapter 11) critically explores the impact of identifying borderlands as peripheral. This chapter reconstructs the responses of the Chontal to complex politics at the interface of the Aztec and Tarascan polities in Mexico. Finally, Christine D. Beaule (chapter 12) offers a comparative look at the highly localized impact of Spanish evangelization and missionary efforts on religious artifacts in Bolivia and the Philippines. This last case study challenges our assumptions about homogeneity in colonies. The rationale behind these groupings, instead of ones using geographical or chronological frameworks, is to divorce comparisons from our usual tendencies to stick to the familiar. These three groupings deliberately cross both intradisciplinary frontiers, sampling all four areas of colonial scholarship discussed earlier in this introduction. Even the artificial frontiers created by these groupings themselves invite erasure or creative reorganization. These themes are further developed, both in the text that introduces parts 1, 2, and 3 and in the volume’s conclusions (chapter 13).
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Cusick, pp. 476–495. Occasional Papers 25. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. Allard, Francis 2015 China’s Early Impact on Eastern Yunnan: Incorporation, Acculturation, and the Convergence of Evidence. Journal of Indo-Pacific Archaeology 35:26–35. Appadurai, Arjun 1990 Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy. Theory, Culture, and Society 7:295–310. Baxter, Jane Eva 2005 The Archaeology of Childhood: Children, Gender, and Material Culture. AltaMira, Walnut Creek, California. Bayman, James M., and Thomas S. Dye 2013 Hawaii’s Past in a World of Pacific Islands. SAA Press, Washington, D.C. Beaule, Christine 2015 Andean Clothing, Gender and Indigeneity in Colonial Period Latin America. Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion 2(1):55–73. Cadogan, Gerald, M. Iacovou, Katerina Kopaka, and James Whitley (editors) 2012 Parallel Lives: Ancient Island Societies in Crete and Cyprus. British School at Athens Studies 20. British School at Athens, London. Carlson, Catherine C. 2000 Archaeology of a Contact-Period Plateau Salishan Village at Thompson’s River Post, Kamloops, British Columbia. In Interpretations of Native North American Life: Material Contributions to Ethnohistory, edited by Michael S. Nassaney and Eric S. Johnson, pp. 272–295. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. Casella, Eleanor Conlin 2012 Little Bastard Felons: Childhood, Affect, and Labor in the Penal Colonies of Nineteenth-Century Australia. In The Archaeology of Colonialism: Intimate Encounters and Sexual Effects, edited by Barbara Voss and Eleanor Casella, pp. 31–48. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Casella, Eleanor Conlin, and Barbara L. Voss 2012 Intimate Encounters: An Archaeology of Sexualities within Colonial Worlds. In The Archaeology of Colonialism: Intimate Encounters and Sexual Effects, edited by Barbara Voss and Eleanor Casella, pp. 1–10. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Coronil, Fernando 2007 After Empire: Reflections on Imperialism from the Americas. In Imperial Formations, edited by Ann Laura Stoler, Carole McGranahan, and Peter C. Perdue, pp. 241–271. School for Advanced Research Press, Santa Fe. Deagan, Kathleen 1998 Transculturation and Spanish American Ethnogenesis: The Archaeological Legacy of the Quincentenary. In Studies in Culture Contact: Interaction, Culture Change, and Archaeology, edited by James G. Cusick, pp. 23–43. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper No. 25. Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. Domínguez, Adolfo J. 2002 Greeks in Iberia: Colonialism without Colonization. In The Archaeology of Colo-
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Jones, Rhys, and Richard Phillips 2005 Unsettling Geographical Horizons: Exploring Premodern and Non-European Imperialism. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 95(1):141–161. Khatchadourian, Lori 2014 Empire in the Everyday: A Preliminary Report on the 2008–2011 Excavations at Tsaghkahovit, Armenia. American Journal of Archaeology 118(1):137–169. LaBianca, Oystein S., and Sandra Arnold Scham 2006 Connectivity in Antiquity: Globalization as Long-Term Historical Process. Equinox, London. Lightfoot, Kent G. 1995 Culture Contact Studies: Redefining the Relationship between Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology. American Antiquity 60:199–217. 2003 Russian Colonization: The Implications of Mercantile Colonial Practices in the North Pacific. Historical Archaeology 37(4):14–28. Lightfoot, Kent G., Antoinette Martinez, and Ann M. Schiff 1998 Daily Practice and Material Culture in Pluralistic Social Settings: An Archaeological Study of Culture Change and Persistence from Fort Ross, California. American Antiquity 63(2):199–222. Lightfoot, Kent G., Thomas A. Wake, and Ann M. Schiff 1993 Native Responses to the Russian Mercantile Colony of Fort Ross, Northern California. Journal of Field Archaeology 20(2):159–175. Loren, Diana DiPaolo 2000 The Intersections of Colonial Policy and Colonial Practice: Creolization on the 18th-Century Louisiana/Texas Frontier. Historical Archaeology 34(3):85–98. 2010 The Archaeology of Clothing and Bodily Adornment in Colonial America. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. Luley, Benjamin Peter 2014 Cooking, Class, and Colonial Transformations in Roman Mediterranean France. American Journal of Archaeology 118(1):33–60. Lyons, Claire, and John K. Papadopoulos (editors) 2002 The Archaeology of Colonialism. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. Mahoney, James 2010 Colonialism and Postcolonial Development: Spanish America in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Mancke, Elizabeth 1999 Early Modern Expansion and the Politicization of Oceanic Space. Geographical Review 89(2):225–236. Mattingly, David J. 2011 Imperialism, Power, and Identity: Experiencing the Roman Empire. Princeton University Press, Princeton. Mendy, Peter Karibe 2003 Portugal’s Civilizing Mission in Colonial Guinea-Bissau: Rhetoric and Reality. International Journal of African Historical Studies 36(1):35–58. Papantoniou, Giorgos 2013 Cypriot Autonomous Polities at the Crossroads of Empire: The Imprint of a Trans-
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formed Islandscape in the Classical and Hellenistic Periods. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 370:169–205. Pauketat, Timothy R. 2012 An Archaeology of the Cosmos: Rethinking Agency and Religion in Ancient America. Routledge, New York. Paynter, Robert 2000 Historical and Anthropological Archaeology: Forging Alliances. Journal of Archaeological Research 8(1):1–37. Perdue, Peter C. 1998 Boundaries, Maps, and Movement: Chinese, Russian, and Mongolian Empires in Early Modern Central Eurasia. International History Review 20(2):263–286. 2005 China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia. Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Renfrew, Colin 2009 Prehistory: The Making of the Human Mind. Modern Library, New York. Richard, Francois G. 2012 Lost in Tradition, Found in Transition: Scales of Indigenous History in Siin, Senegal. In Decolonizing Indigenous Histories: Exploring Prehistoric/Colonial Transitions in Archaeology, edited by Maxine Oland, Siobhan M. Hart, and Liam Frink, pp. 132–157. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Rubertone, Patricia E. 2000 The Historical Archaeology of Native Americans. Annual Review of Anthropology 29:425–446. 2012 Archaeologies of Colonialism in Unexpected Times and Unexpected Places. In Decolonizing Indigenous Histories: Exploring Prehistoric/Colonial Transitions in Archaeology, edited by Maxine Oland, Siobhan M. Hart, and Liam Frink, pp. 267–281. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Silliman, Stephen W. 2005 Culture Contact or Colonialism? Challenges in the Archaeology of Native North America. American Antiquity 70(1):55–74. 2009 Change and Continuity, Practice and Memory: Native American Persistence in Colonial New England. American Antiquity 74(2):211–230. 2012 Between the Longue Durée and the Short Purée: Postcolonial Archaeologies of Indigenous History in Colonial North America. In Decolonizing Indigenous Histories: Exploring Prehistoric/Colonial Transitions in Archaeology, edited by Maxine Oland, Siobhan M. Hart, and Liam Frink, pp. 113–131. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Skowronek, Russell K. 1998 The Spanish Philippines: Archaeological Perspectives on Colonial Economics and Society. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 2(1):45–70. Smith, Monica L. 2003 Introduction: The Social Construction of Ancient Cities. In The Social Construction of Ancient Cities, edited by Monica L. Smith, pp. 1–36. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. Stahl, Ann B. 2012 When Does History Begin? Material Continuity and Change in West Africa. In Decolonizing Indigenous Histories: Exploring Prehistoric/Colonial Transitions in Ar24
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chaeology, edited by Maxine Oland, Siobhan M. Hart, and Liam Frink, pp. 158–177. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Stein, Gil J. 2002a From Passive Periphery to Active Agents: Emerging Perspectives in the Archaeology of Interregional Interaction. American Anthropologist 104(3):903–916. 2002b Colonies without Colonialism: A Trade Diaspora Model of Fourth Millennium B.C. Mesopotamian Enclaves in Anatolia. In The Archaeology of Colonialism, edited by Claire Lyons and John K. Papadopoulos, pp. 27–64. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. 2005a Introduction: The Comparative Archaeology of Colonial Encounters. In The Archaeology of Colonial Encounters: Comparative Perspectives, edited by Gil J. Stein, pp. 3–31. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe. 2005b The Political Economy of Mesopotamian Colonial Encounters. In The Archaeology of Colonial Encounters: Comparative Perspectives, edited by Gil J. Stein, pp. 143–172. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe. Sunderland, Willard 2010 The Ministry of Asiatic Russia: The Colonial Office That Never Was but Might Have Been. Slavic Review 69(1):120–150. Thomas, David Hurst 2000 Skull Wars: Kennewick Man, Archaeology, and the Battle for Native American Identity. Basic Books, New York. van de Port, Mattijs 2005 Circling around the Really Real: Spirit Possession Ceremonies and the Search for Authenticity in Bahian Candomblé. Ethos 33(2):149–179. van Dommelen, Peter 1997 Colonial Constructs: Colonialism and Archaeology in the Mediterranean. World Archaeology 28(3):305–323. Voss, Barbara, and Eleanor Casella (editors) 2012 The Archaeology of Colonialism: Intimate Encounters and Sexual Effects. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Wallerstein, Immanuel 1974 The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. Academic Press, New York. Williams, P. Ryan, and Donna Nash 2002 Imperial Interaction in the Andes: Huari and Tiwanaku at Cerro Baul. In Andean Archaeology I: Variations in Sociopolitical Organization, edited by William H. Isbell and Helaine Silverman, pp. 243–265. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York. Williamson, Christine 2004 Contact Archaeology and the Writing of Aboriginal History. In The Archaeology of Contact in Settler Societies, edited by Tim Murray, pp. 176–199. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Yan, Sun 2006 Colonizing China’s Northern Frontier: Yan and Her Neighbors during the Early Western Zhou Period. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 10(2):159–177. Yao, Alice 2008 Culture Contact and Social Change along China’s Ancient Southwestern Frontier, 900 B.C.–100 A.D. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Challenging the Frontiers of Colonialism
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PA RT I Local Adaptations
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he four chapters in this section present case studies of colonialism with marked power differences between the imperial polities who
intruded on indigenous lands and societies. In three of the four (chapters 2, 3, and 5), the colonizers are tied to historical-period European polities, while the fourth (chapter 4) concerns the Roman Empire. All four make a strong case for rethinking assumptions about the devastating impact of European colonialism and the loss of sociopolitical autonomy among indigenous peoples who are “colonized.” Chapters 2 and 3 look critically at the impact of the presence of European colonizers and their imported goods on native populations, focusing on diseases and trade networks in chapter 2 and on priests in chapter 3. Both researchers reconstruct specific local contexts to get at decision-making, concluding that Europeans and colonial demands had less influence than previously thought. Eric E. Jones’s (chapter 2) comparison of five Native American nations provides a detailed empirical reconstruction of Haudenosaunee settlement patterns that takes into consideration many factors, including settlement location choice and landscape uses. This human-ecology approach determines that the Haudenosaunee exercised considerable agency in their settlement patterns and landscape-use choices before, during, and after the arrival of European colonists in the American northeast. Adam R. Kaeding’s (chapter 3) concept of negotiation greatly enriches
what it means to critically assess the impact of colonialism on indigenous populations. Kaeding frames negotiation, moreover, as an element that contributes to the stability of colonial institutions. Both chapters 2 and 3 are model studies of colonialism’s impact that reveal nuance which is invisible at the regional scale. Chapter 4, in contrast, presents a classical archaeological case study of colonialism that provides an interesting contrast in methods, theoretical approaches, and data sources. Richard Hingley deftly connects contemporary British archaeologists’ discussions of Romanization, Roman identity, barbarianism, and civilization to the past. His critical assessment of the extent to which Roman colonization affected the indigenous British population draws on non-classical and non-European research on colonialism, and this comparative focus suggests more local continuity in material culture and local identity than previously thought. In chapter 5, Douglas C. Wilson, Kenneth M. Ames, and Cameron M. Smith document the “glocalization” of imported European and Chinese artifacts into local Chinook cultural contexts in the brief colonial period of this part of the Pacific Northwest Coast. The authors find little evidence that colonialism had a direct impact on Chinook settlement patterns or material assemblages, despite the density of imported artifacts. This chapter represents a valuable contribution to scholarship on the fur-trade encounters between indigenous and colonizers; the shift in focus from colonizers’ needs to local adaptations and uses of imports illustrates the importance of considering those encounters from an indigenous or local perspective. The utility of this shift in perspective is tied to indigenous political agency today in the Pacific northwestern North America, as in chapter 4. The four case studies in this section challenge us to rethink disciplinary boundaries between prehistoric/historic and Western/non-Western
examples of colonialism. All four can be put into conversation with one another on several fronts, because all address a common set of themes that would interest most archaeologists of colonialism, such as how we make conceptual space for indigenous or local agency in thinking about the impact of colonists (e.g., their diseases, cultural conversion activities, imported goods). Chapters 2, 4, and 5, for example, do so in part through careful, detailed documentation of archaeological contexts, while chapter 3 uses selective details from historical records to bring indigenous perspectives to life. The relatively minor impact of colonial administrators, policies, and material culture on local populations also offers a valuable opportunity to question assumptions about the impact of power imbalances in colonial histories. North American archaeologists would probably not look to Roman Britain or Spanish Belize for comparable case studies—because of the intradisciplinary divisions discussed in chapter 1—and vice versa.
2 Haudenosaunee Settlement Ecology before and after Contact in Northeastern North America ER IC E . JONES
In North America, approaches to studying the impact of European colonization on Native American societies, cultures, and people have undergone several theoretical shifts in the last three decades. The traditional focus was to use European material culture as a measure of the impact of their presence and actions on Native American cultures. It was often discussed in this manner, focusing on culture contact as the locus of change with much less exploration of the goals of colonialism or the processes of colonization. For example, a major goal of European colonialism was economic profit through extracting fur and hide resources in exchange for cheaply produced utilitarian and decorative objects. Thus, the amount of European-made items found at Native American sites became a measure of the magnitude of changes experienced by Native American people and societies (Deetz 1963; Di Peso 1974). More European items at Native American sites meant more cultural changes; specifically, it signified the Europeanization of Native values and behaviors (Lightfoot et al. 1998:200). Over the last two decades, with more collaborative and indigenous archaeology and the postprocessual critique encouraging researchers to be more explicit about the impact of modern society and politics on their interpretations, archaeologists began discussing imperialism, colonialism, and colonization as intentional processes and actions and examining their impact on Native American societies. These researchers stopped focusing primarily on finding change and turned to designing approaches capable of finding examples of both change and continuity. It is important to note here that continuity does not mean the absence of change. It can be stability, but it can also account for Native-driven change not affected by European ideas or technologies. This shift to a more practical and empirical approach, ushered in by several researchers (e.g., Jordan
2008, 2013; Lightfoot 1995; Lightfoot et al. 1998; Silliman 2001), sought to challenge and test assumptions—even the assumption of whether colonization was successful in all places and at all times—using a range of archaeological data representing a variety of cultural dimensions at several scales. This included using settlement and landscape data in addition to the traditional use of material culture (Jordan 2008; Lightfoot et al. 1998). Today this approach strives to describe lives of people during the era of interaction with Europeans and explain the cultural processes at work. As such, the impacts of colonialism and colonization need to be researched, not assumed. Because of the good preservation of archaeological materials and rich written and oral historical records, northeastern North America has been a key region for archaeological research into the impact of the arrival of Europeans on Native American societies. Northern Iroquoian societies in particular have had long and complex relationships with several European countries, the United States, and Canada. As a result, they have been the focus of a large number of history and archaeology research projects for over a century. These tended to follow the trends in theory outlined above. As a result, many of the traditional descriptions and explanations of Northern Iroquoian experiences and cultural processes during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries are being reworked into new narratives that account for both change and continuity. My work in this chapter uses a combination of settlement locations, reconstructions of past landscapes, spatial analyses, and ethnohistory to examine Haudenosaunee settlement location choice preceding and following initial interactions with Europeans. I select several historically important and arbitrary dates to examine whether Haudenosaunee settlement location choices changed over time from 1450 to 1720 C.E. The historically important dates are those of Laurentide Iroquoian migration (ca. 1570), first contact (1609), and depopulation from Old World diseases (various group-specific dates in the mid-1600s). Settlements occupied before these dates are compared to those occupied after to examine whether early interaction with European people, societies, political systems, economies, and pathogens affected settlement location choices of Haudenosaunee communities. The arbitrary dates are used to set a baseline of settlement location choice change/continuity over this time period. I take this approach in an attempt to determine whether European colonial goals of dominating economic networks, introducing Old World domesticated plant and animal species, and modifying landscapes led to changes in Haudenosaunee ecology. The locations of the archaeological remains of settlements are a reflection of human behavior, specifically, human decisions about use of landscapes, both 32
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natural and cultural, and the resources contained within them. Resources can be subsistence-related, tied to social, political, and economic interactions with other communities or societies, or symbolically important. Stone (1996) describes decisions as mental balance sheets where all of the factors are evaluated and weighed against one another. Decisions about where to live reflect which of those factors, and the places on the landscape tied to them, weighed most heavy. Thus the proximate goal of this research is examine whether the arrival of Europeans and resulting demographic changes in the Northeast precipitated changes in Haudenosaunee settlement location choices. The broader goal is to explore these results in the light of what we know currently about Haudenosaunee society and culture during this time period to identify and explain the relationships between specific dimensions of colonialism and ecology.
Background From the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries, the constituent Haudenosaunee nations—Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca—represented five of the many Northern Iroquoian–speaking societies living in northeastern North America (Map 2.1). The Haudenosaunee practiced a semisedentary settlement strategy and a mixed subsistence regime of swidden agriculture and foraging, with as much as 60 percent of the diet derived from maize alone (Heidenreich 1971:163; Katzenberg et al. 1995; Schwarcz et al. 1985). However, remains of a wide variety of domesticated and wild plant species and animal species are found at archaeological sites and mentioned in historical texts (Cowan 1985; Socci 1995; Thwaites 1959:42:71–73; van den Bogaert 1996:8; Wykoff 1988; for overviews see Engelbrecht 2003; Snow 1994). Warfare was common in the region before the arrival of Europeans and continued after, as evidenced in both the archaeological and historical records (Brandão 1997; Engelbrecht 2003; Keener 1999; Parmenter 2010; Richter 1992; Snow 1994). Reflecting the wider discussions about colonialism, debates exist as to whether warfare patterns changed after the arrival of Europeans. Some argue that large-scale war, or total war, did not exist before Europeans introduced the concept (Trigger 1976). Others argue that few to no changes in warfare patterns occurred (Keener 1999). Richter (1992) makes a compelling case that the type of warfare did not change but the scale did as populations declined from Old World diseases. The long-standing Haudenosaunee tradition of adopting outsiders to replace those who died increased in scale as mortality rates increased. In this view, the unintentional consequences of European colonization Haudenosaunee Settlement Ecology in Northeastern North America
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Map 2.1. Geographic distribution of Northern Iroquoian societies, 1450–1720.
had more of an impact than the intended one. However, that change was only one of degree, not type. Haudenosaunee nations were also active participants in regional exchange networks, traced primarily by the movement of marine and freshwater shells and European goods (Bradley 1977, 1987, 2007; Sempowski 1989; Snow 1995a). Prior to the arrival of Europeans, a number of exchange networks existed within the Northeast and connecting that region to others. The primary movement of materials appears to have been north-south, with shell material coming from the Chesapeake Bay region into the Great Lakes and Northeast (Bradley 1987). Bradley (1987) argues that this geographic pattern changed after the arrival of Europeans to a more east-west flow of goods incorporating the English and Dutch colonies in New York and New England. Both of these examples are discussed in more detail below. With regard to the factors that influenced settlement location choice, research has identified a number of environmental and climatological factors. 34
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Areas of agricultural productivity were of interest to Haudenosaunee farmers; specifically, sediment properties conducive to maize agriculture and locations with longer growing season have been identified as factors (Allen 1996; Hasenstab 1996a, 1996b; Jones 2010a). Allen (1996) followed her results by creating a classification scheme for successful maize yields based on these variables. For the period of interest in this research, she found that sites were concentrated in the second- and third-ranked areas, possibly because of communities prioritizing defensibility or other sociopolitical concerns over agricultural productivity. Wetlands have been cited as influences on settlement location choices (Bradley 1987:13; Engelbrecht 2003:90; Funk 1992:25, 32), but this influence has not been studied empirically. Several species of hardwood trees have been identified as important sources of fuel, building materials, and food (nuts); coniferous trees, such as cedars, have also been noted as important building materials (Fecteau et al. 1991; Warrick 1988). Hardwoods in particular have been identified as influencing settlement location choices (Jones 2010a). Few other wild resources have been examined with regard to settlement patterning. Defensibility is one of several cultural landscape factors thought to have influenced Haudenosaunee settlement location choice. This could be met in several ways: building in topographically difficult-to-reach places (Snow 1995a), in locations with good visibility of the surrounding landscape and other settlements (Jones 2006), or in areas secluded or distant from major transportation routes (Hasenstab 1996a). In addition, in earlier research I identified access to transportation routes and the social, political, economic, and ritual interaction they facilitate as the most influential factor in settlement location choices (Jones 2010a). While several researchers have examined generalized settlement location choice, less work has been done to explore how this process may have changed over time or with respect to interactions with Europeans. A large body of literature exists examining the experience of the Haudenosaunee in general and individual nations after the arrival of Europeans. Studies of politics (Fenton 1998; Richter 1992) and warfare (Brandão 1997; Hunt 1940) have dominated history research. Few studies have explored settlement patterns, with Parmenter’s (2010) historical examination of space and territoriality being the exception. Because so many volumes do exist, I will not provide a detailed overview of Haudenosaunee-European interactions. I will focus primarily on important events and the work in archaeology and history that has been done on settlement patterns during this time period. Interaction between Northern Iroquoians and Europeans began in 1535 along what is today the St. Lawrence River. Jacques Cartier sailed up the river, Haudenosaunee Settlement Ecology in Northeastern North America
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encountered several settlements in the valley, and interacted with the inhabitants, often referred to as Laurentide Iroquoians or Jefferson County and St. Lawrence Iroquoians (Snow 1994). Within 20 years after this encounter, it appears that most of the Laurentide Iroquoian people moved their settlements out of the valley. Ceramic styles suggests that many of them moved to and were adopted into Wendat and Haudenosaunee communities during the second half of the sixteenth century (Birch and Williamson 2013; Bradley 1987; Snow 1995a). Population increases identified among the Mohawk and Oneida during this time may have resulted from this migration (Jones 2010b). First contact between Haudenosaunee and Europeans occurred in 1609, when a group of Mohawk and possibly Oneida fought with a group of French led by Samuel de Champlain (Snow 1994). Several similar interactions occurred over the next decade (Parmenter 2010:21–31). Beginning in the mid-seventeenth century, French, Dutch, and English trading posts, settlements, and missions began to alter the cultural and natural landscapes of the Northeast. All three nations established colonies at least in part to gain economically from resources in the region. There are even accounts of Dutch traders using physical violence to impose their will on Native traders (Bradley 2007:36). Trade networks eventually shifted directions as described above. In particular, the Seneca began trading more with their Haudenosaunee allies to the east instead of groups to the south, so the colonization of trade networks was successful in this regard (Sempowski 1989). Old World diseases dramatically reduced Haudenosaunee populations starting in 1633 and continuing throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Mohawk were struck first and experienced the most severe population loss, possibly approaching 70 percent (Jones 2010b; Snow 1995b; Snow and Starna 1989). The Seneca and Oneida were affected next and only slightly less severely, likely 50–60 percent. The Onondaga and Cayuga followed with similar population losses (Jones 2010b, 2010c). It must be noted that research on this topic only produces total numbers, and thus losses may have been larger but were mitigated by the Haudenosaunee practice of adopting outsiders to bolster declining populations (Jones 2010b, 2010c). European domesticated and wild species were introduced to North America with the earliest contacts. Although Europeans adopted many plant species native to the Americas, they also continued to use many of their previous domesticates. Patterns of plant and animal use for the Haudenosaunee were similar. They continued to use their domesticated plants but began adopting some European species, such as pigs and horses, as early as the mid-1600s (Bradley 2007:139–159; 36
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Engelbrecht 2003:168–169). In the mid-1700s, faunal remains from the Mohawk leader Joseph Brant’s house show a mixture of native species, such as deer, and introduced species, such as pigs, cows, and chickens (Engelbrecht 2003:169). A series of wars undertaken by the Haudenosaunee against neighboring societies, the best-known being that with the Wendat, took place during the mid- to late seventeenth century, resulting in migrations and reconfigurations of societies. Cited causes of these wars vary from control over the fur trade (Hunt 1940), which has largely been shown to be either a nonfactor or a very small one (Brandão 1997), to mourning wars, the aforementioned practice of obtaining captives to adopt and replace those that have died (Richter 1992). The latter works well to explain the historical and archaeological data. Two villages, one in the Seneca area and one in the Mohawk area, show strong evidence of being populated by Wendat. Some attribute these migrations to a large-scale adoption to offset the losses from disease (Snow 1995b; Jones 2010c). Finally, conversion of some Northern Iroquoians to Christianity precipitated their movement closer to European settlements during the mid- to late seventeenth century (Snow 1994). In addition, several settlements were established north of Lake Ontario during and after the wars with the Wendat (Parmenter 2010). After the Seven Years’ War and again after the American Revolution, significant numbers of Haudenosaunee moved to Canada (Snow 1994). As mentioned, archaeological research into the Native American colonial experience traditionally focused on changes. Research focused on artifact assemblages and was often undertaken to determine how change occurred and to what degree. This was often calculated by comparative percentages of types of tools constructed from Native American and European materials (Deetz 1963; Di Peso 1974). The assumption was that the more items of European origin found in a Native American community or society, the more change toward a European way of life that group had undergone. Measuring these percentages was essentially measuring the “Europeanization” of the culture in question (Lightfoot 1995:206–207; Lightfoot et al. 1998:200). This approach, however, was based on two problematic assumptions: first, that Native Americans passively adopted European cultural features as they were introduced to them during colonization; and second, that the use of European goods meant changes in Native American cultures and values (Brandão 1997). There was little consideration of how European items and ideas were being used, how they were perceived, or how they interfaced with existing material culture and cultural practices. Does the mere presence of European materials at Native American archaeological sites truly index assimilation or Haudenosaunee Settlement Ecology in Northeastern North America
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acculturation resulting from European colonialism? After all, we know from ethnographic accounts that the use of outside technology by indigenous groups does not always change the cultural perceptions of associated activities or identity formation related to those practices (Omura 2002). Lightfoot and colleagues (Lightfoot 1995; Lightfoot et al. 1998) began applying these theoretical concepts to the archaeology of colonial experiences at Fort Ross in California. By examining not just the relative counts of artifacts but also their spatial distribution, the layout of households, and the arrangement of communities, they were able to show that many aspects of daily life were remaining constant or were changing in ways consistent with existing values. This continuity occurred even with the incorporation of a significant amount of European-made items. The conclusion was that technology was changing with the introduction of new items, but many cultural practices were being maintained or were changing in Native-directed ways. This latter point is important to emphasize. The move away from focusing on European-induced cultural change is not a search just for a lack of change (Brandão 1997), although that can be part of it. We must recognize that all cultures are constantly changing. As such, there is a wide range of possible causes of change, including internally driven change independent from European ideas, values, and technology and change that results from the blending, or Creolization, of Native American and European cultures. The latter was explored by Silliman (2001) and showed the complexity of Native Californian cultural changes during the mission period that resulted from a variety of processes, including forced and willing conversion, active and passive resistance to assimilation policies, and new identity formation as “mission Indians.” A similar theoretical trajectory exists specifically for the Haudenosaunee. Building on the work of Lightfoot and colleagues (Lightfoot 1995; Lightfoot et al. 1998) and Silliman (2001), Jordan (2004, 2008, 2009) convincingly showed that the theories of drastic Haudenosaunee cultural change based on artifact counts alone need to be reevaluated for two primary reasons. First, they focused almost exclusively on artifact assemblages, while other cultural dimensions, such as house forms and settlement patterns, had largely gone unstudied. Discussing cultural change or continuity must include more than just one particular subset of material culture. Second, these models were constructed from a single scale of analysis and broadly applied across all nations based on a limited amount of research sites. To date, there have been few attempts to explore the impact of the arrival of Europeans on scales smaller than the nation level (i.e., communities or households). Currently, research into Haudenosaunee so38
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ciety and culture after contact is being rebuilt from its foundation. Research is needed that examines a multitude of cultural characteristics on several scales through a number of different lines of archaeological evidence. As defined in chapter 1, colonialism is a form of state-directed imperialism that employs a strategy of colonization to administer distant territories and conquered populations for the explicit purpose of exploiting local populations’ labor and resources. With the identification of considerable continuity in Seneca communities, Jordan (2008) challenged the notion that colonization had drastic and immediate impacts on their society and culture. There is no doubt that Europeans, and later Americans, were trying to colonize the region and its inhabitants, and that they were successful eventually; however, we must be critical in our examinations of when these changes occurred and what they looked like throughout the process of colonization. By the definition of colonialism above, there should be evidence of Haudenosaunee society and culture being changed and their people and resources exploited. In the case of settlement ecology—and considering the European goals of dominating economic markets, introducing their own domesticated species, and reshaping the landscape—to definitively identify European influence on Haudenosaunee society and culture, the evidence should show changes in cultural values related to ecology and in how communities made decisions regarding where to live.
Methods I obtained site locations through survey and archival research (as described in Jones 2010a). I included every identified Haudenosaunee settlement site located in their traditional territory with any period of occupation dating between 1450 and 1720 C.E. (Maps 2.1 and 2.2). The fact that the Haudenosaunee established villages in the former Neutral, Wendat, and Laurentide territories during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries is well documented (Parmenter 2010), but the sites themselves are not well known archaeologically. It would be productive to study settlement location choice relating to the expansion of Haudenosaunee into the territories of active and former enemies, but very little archaeological research has been conducted at these sites. Thus, I focus here on the set of sites located the traditional territory to examine how those communities reacted to interactions with Europeans during the first 100 years after their arrival. This allows for the exploration of how the initial interactions affected settlement patterns and processes and the ecology surrounding Haudenosaunee Settlement Ecology in Northeastern North America
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Map 2.2. Location of the settlement sites used in this research.
them. Once we know more about them, examining the settlements involved in the aforementioned expansion will be a useful complementary study into how Haudenosaunee geographic expansion into new territories affected settlement behaviors and ecology. I chose the earlier date of 1450 because of significant settlement changes that occurred just before this time. The most critical were the move of Northern Iroquoians to upland locations during the thirteenth century (Engelbrecht 2003:89) and the coalescence of Northern Iroquoian settlements that occurred from the mid-fourteenth through mid-fifteenth centuries (Bamann 1993; Birch and Williamson 2013; Snow 1994; Tuck 1971). Settlements from the mid-fifteenth century through the seventeenth century tend to have similar layouts and organization. Thus, I assume that settlements occupied between 1450 and 1720 would have approached the issue of where to place a settlement in similar enough ways that they can be compared. I did not include settlements occupied after 1720 in this study, because only a small number have been studied and have the necessary information about their function and dates of occupation 40
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(Jordan 2008:18–21). Examining the settlement ecology of a site requires that it be archaeologically situated both functionally and temporally. I estimated the location of past landscape features in ArcMap using a combination of digital elevation models (DEMs), U.S. Geologic Survey digital soil surveys, National Wetlands Inventory digital hydrographic maps, and historic maps of overland trails. The trails were digitized from Morgan’s (1851) maps using DEMs and major bodies of water for reference points. Visible areas from each settlement location, or viewsheds, were constructed using the spatial analyst tool within ArcMap. I recorded 17 landscape characteristics of each settlement or associated 2 km-radius catchment (5 km for one measurement of wetlands). I then classified these characteristics into broader environmental or cultural influences on settlement location choice (Table 2.1). I conducted five separate analyses of the settlement locations. In the first, the settlements from each individual nation were divided into those occupied prior
Table 2.1. Specific landscape characteristics and the categories of influence on settlement location choice to which they were assigned Factor in settlement location choice
Specific landscape characteristic (variable)
Agricultural productivity
Average solar radiation in catchment Area of moderate frost action land in catchment Area of well-drained sediments in catchment Area of loam sediments in catchment Majority slope class in catchment Average aspect in the catchment
Wild resources
Area of good tree growth sediment in catchment Area of wetlands in catchment Area of wetlands in 5 km catchment Number of wetlands within catchment
Communication/
Distance to trade route
transportation
Distance to waterway Percentage of contemporaneous settlements visible
Defensibility
Cumulative viewshed size Slope at site Elevation Elevation above surroundings
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to 1609 and those after. This date was used because 1609 is the first date of direct contact between any Haudenosaunee and Europeans. It is also a point in time when European goods are present on many Haudenosaunee settlement sites (Bradley 1987; Sempowski and Saunders 2001; Snow 1995a; Tuck 1971; Wray et al. 1991). My goal with this analysis is to assess if the arrival of Europeans and their technology had any impact on how Haudenosaunee communities interacted with their landscape through settlement. Using discriminant function analysis in SPSS, I compared the two sets of settlements and their characteristics to one another. Discriminant function analysis is similar to multiple regression analysis in that the results show the variables that most distinguish two datasets (Poulsen and French 2004; Sokal and Rohlf 1995:679–80). It produces function values for the individual variables, displaying those that most strongly discriminate the two groups. These values will be positive or negative, showing which group had a higher average for that variable. This is necessary to establish whether significant spatial correlations existed between settlements and particular features. These correlations are the basis for conclusions about settlement location choice. In the subsequent analyses I used the date of first significant depopulation for each individual nation as the means for creating groups. This analysis assesses whether drastic population change from Old World diseases affected settlement location choice. These dates are 1633 for the Mohawk and Oneida (Jones 2010b; Snow 1995b; Snow and Starna 1989), 1640 for the Cayuga and Seneca (Jones 2010c), and 1650 for the Onondaga (Jones 2010b). We do not currently have a strongly supported estimate for when Cayuga depopulation occurred, so I selected the same date as the Seneca to mirror the trend seen with the Oneida and Mohawk, who shared a similar close social and political relationship. In the third analysis, I used 1570 because the migration of Laurentide Iroquoians into Mohawk and Onondaga communities occurred around that time (Bradley 1987; Engelbrecth 2003; Snow 1995a). Thus, this analysis examines whether that in-migration—largely a result of contact-related events and the addition of their new cultural ideas—affected settlement location choices. I chose arbitrary dates of 1540 and 1670 for the last two analyses to examine a baseline of change in settlement location choice during this time period. If there are no differences recognized across either the arbitrary or significant dates, the results will indicate that settlement location choice was unchanging throughout this period regardless of contact-related events. If site locations are different across both the arbitrary and significant dates, and similar landscape features influence them in similar ways, it will indicate that these changes were 42
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likely constant and not affected by specific contact-related events. If changes are recognized but different for the arbitrary and significant dates, the results will indicate that particular contact-related events may have changed settlement location choice. If there are no differences between sites on either side of the arbitrary dates, but are for the significant dates, this will also indicate contactrelated events may have caused changes.
Results The analyses for each nation at each date created a separate discriminant function model that displays the variables that most distinguished the groups of settlements from one another. Discriminant function analysis returns a numerical value for each variable indicating the degree to which it distinguishes the two groups of settlements. Interpreting the models requires some subjective comparison of these numerical values across all variable function values to determine what is a discriminating factor. In this work I set a standard of 0.200 for values to be considered as distinguishing groups of sites. For those values over 0.200, I used natural breaks within the set of values to determine the most influential variables. With regard to the significance of the models, for all but three of the individual nation’s results within the five models created, the p-values were below 0.010. The values of those three were 0.016, 0.089, and 0.204. Statisticians (Goodman 1999; Ziliak and McCloskey 2008) have begun to call into question the utility of p-values, so to alternately test the significance of these three models I ran several iterations of each with a combination of different settlements. The results remained similar across these iterations, supporting all of the models as being significant. When I used 1609 for the dividing date, only the Mohawk and Seneca models had values that suggested different strategies for settlement location choice (Table 2.2). For the Mohawk, settlements occupied before 1609 had more defensive positioning, as they were farther from waterways and overland trails and had larger viewsheds. They also had better agricultural land nearby, as they had higher solar radiation and more loam. Post-1609 settlements resided on land with more slope. There is a large numerical break between these variables and those ranked lower, so I identified these as the most significant. For the Seneca, settlements occupied before 1609 were located at higher elevation and were farther from waterways, which could have been for defensive reasons. They also had higher average solar radiation within their catchments. As with Haudenosaunee Settlement Ecology in Northeastern North America
43
the Mohawk, there is a large numerical break between these values and those remaining. Looking at the Oneida, Onondaga, and Cayuga results, the values for each factor are below 0.200, indicating that none of the factors significantly discriminate these groups of settlements. With the first evidence of depopulation from Old World diseases used as the dividing date, we see somewhat similar results as the analysis using 1609 (Table 2.3). The Mohawk and Seneca continue to have discriminating factors while the Onondaga and Cayuga do not. The one difference is that the Oneida settlements
Table 2.2. Discriminant function analysis model for the comparison of all precontact to postcontact individual Haudenosaunee settlements using 1609 for the dividing date Variable
Seneca Cayuga Onondaga Oneida Mohawk
Area of good tree growth sediment in catchment
0.022
0.010
-0.018
-0.023
-0.141
Area of loam sediment in catchment
0.091
-0.040
-0.135
0.014
0.314
Area of moderate frost action land in catchment
0.032
0.053
-0.134
-0.065
0.147
Area of well-drained sediment in catchment
0.013
-0.074
-0.022
-0.173
0.020
-0.038
-0.041
0.144
Area of wetlands in catchment
0.083
0.094
0.041
Average aspect in catchment
-0.026
-0.034
0.019
-0.141
0.075
0.240
-0.016
0.026
0.081
0.563
Distance to overland trail
-0.056
0.008
0.046
-0.012
0.445
Distance to waterway
0.372
0.051
0.072
-0.102
0.640
Elevation
0.524
0.035
-0.022
0.139
Elevation above surrounding area
0.035
-0.013
-0.017
-0.074
Majority slope class in catchment
0.087
0.030
0.093
0.034
-0.027
0.051
0.092
-0.072
Area of wetlands in 5 km catchment
Average solar radiation in catchment
Number of wetlands within catchment
Percentage of contemporaneous sites visible 0.106
0.103
0.165
0.093
-0.066
Slope at location
-0.030
-0.037
-0.044
-0.084 -0.244
0.059
Viewshed size
-0.099
0.022
-0.033
-0.086
0.239
Note: For each nation, the values in bold are those that distinguished in their higher function value, indicating that they discriminate between the groups the most. A positive value indicates that pre-1609 settlements had higher averages of that value; a negative value indicates that post-1609 settlements had higher averages. Function values below 0.200 were determined to be of low discriminating value, so if no value for a nation was above that figure, no variables were noted as discriminatory. Variables have no value if one or more settlements in the nation did not have a measurement for that variable. 44
Eric E. Jones
show one discriminating variable: pre-depopulation settlements had more slope in their catchments. For the Mohawk, the two most discriminating factors remained the same but switched rank. Pre-depopulation settlements had higher average solar radiation and were farther from waterways and overland trails. Slope at location and slope within catchment were also higher for pre-depopulation settlements. These factors point toward pre-depopulation settlement location choices being influenced more by defensive positioning and longer growing seasons. For the Seneca, pre-depopulation settlements were at higher elevations and had higher average solar radiation. Similar to the Mohawk settlements, they appear to have been more influenced by defensive positioning and agricultural
Table 2.3. Discriminant function analysis model for the comparison of individual Haudenosaunee settlements using the individual dates of first depopulation for the dividing date Variable
Seneca
Area of good tree growth sediment in catchment
Cayuga Onondaga Oneida Mohawk
0.055
0.004
-0.022
0.094
-0.079
Area of loam sediment in catchment
0.014
-0.031
-0.022
-0.036
0.258
Area of moderate frost action land in catchment
-0.054
0.022
0.000
-0.070
0.154
Area of well-drained sediment in catchment
-0.065
-0.023
0.024
-0.135
0.119
Area of wetlands in 5 km catchment
-0.067
-0.040
0.004
Area of wetlands in catchment
-0.008
0.052
0.005
Average aspect in catchment
0.006
-0.006
0.026
-0.091
-0.078
Average solar radiation in catchment
0.214
-0.010
0.001
0.072
0.604
Distance to overland trail
-0.043
0.010
0.021
-0.013
0.363
Distance to waterway
0.183
0.029
0.007
-0.114
0.540
Elevation
0.275
0.022
0.014
0.060
Elevation above surrounding area
0.038
0.005
0.005
-0.116
Majority slope class in catchment
0.037
0.012
-0.025
0.207
Number of wetlands within catchment
-0.034
0.018
0.015
-0.101
Percentage of contemporaneous sites visible
0.009
0.035
0.015
-0.061
-0.206
Slope at location
0.093
-0.012
0.005
0.006
0.367
Viewshed size
-0.108
0.015
0.000
-0.094
0.278
0.379
Note: Values in bold were noted as most discriminatory, and positive values indicate that settlements before the date had higher averages. Haudenosaunee Settlement Ecology in Northeastern North America
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production when making settlement location choices. It is important to note that these factor values were less distinguished by differences in values than when 1609 was used for the dividing date. This could indicate that the date of depopulation had less of an impact on settlement location choices than contact itself. For the Onondaga and Cayuga, depopulation appears to have had little impact on settlement location choices for them. With 1570 used as the dividing date, the Mohawk, who show evidence of accepting Laurentide migrants (Snow 1995a), continue to show a similar pattern where pre-event settlements were farther from overland trails and waterways (Table 2.4). This trend of moving closer to trails and waterways over time may have started in the sixteenth century and continued through the early eighteenth with little impact from European activities. The Oneida, Onondaga, and Cayuga models did not have any values above 0.200, but each had variables
Table 2.4. Discriminant function analysis model for the comparison of individual Haudenosaunee settlements using 1570 for the dividing date Variable
Seneca Cayuga Onondaga Oneida Mohawk
Area of good tree growth sediment in catchment
0.114
-0.021
0.053
0.012
Area of loam sediment in catchment
0.187
-0.021
-0.030
0.108
Area of moderate frost action land in catchment
0.031
-0.032
-0.036
0.017
-0.110
-0.029
-0.081
0.031
Area of well-drained sediment in catchmentå
0.018
-0.031
Area of wetlands in 5 km catchment
-0.004
0.109
Area of wetlands in catchment
-0.022
0.065
Average aspect in catchment
-0.029
0.035
Average solar radiation in catchment
0.029
0.008
0.002
0.234
-0.040
-0.053
-0.066
0.341
Distance to waterway
0.008
-0.170
0.127
0.562
Elevation
0.045
-0.077
-0.025
Elevation above surrounding area
-0.074
-0.034
-0.032
Majority slope class in catchment
-0.020
-0.049
0.046
Number of wetlands within catchment
0.035
0.043
-0.049
Percentage of contemporaneous sites visible
0.027
0.145
0.037
-0.041
-0.017
0.006
0.105
0.022
-0.035
-0.040
-0.017
Distance to overland trail
Slope at location Viewshed size
0.068 -0.109
Note: Values in bold were noted as most discriminatory. Little is known about Seneca settlements that date prior to 1570, so they were not included in this analysis. 46
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with a markedly higher values that should be discussed. The pre-1570 Cayuga settlements had more loam sediments within their catchments and more sediment with high potential for tree growth; the Onondaga were closer to waterways; and the Oneida were farther from waterways and had less well-drained sediments in their catchments. The Onondaga are the only one of these three nations with evidence of Laurentide Iroquoian in-migration (Bradley 1987), and these results suggest this demographic event had only a minor impact on settlement location choices. Only two Seneca settlements used in the study were occupied prior to 1570, precluding their analysis. When I divided settlements at 1540 (one of the two arbitrary dates), the Mohawk and Onondaga show similar patterns to the previous models (Table 2.5). The Mohawk settlements occupied before 1540 were farther from waterways and overland trails and had higher average solar radiation in their catchments.
Table 2.5. Discriminant function analysis model for the comparison of individual Haudenosaunee settlements using 1540 for the dividing date Variable
Seneca Cayuga Onondaga Oneida Mohawk
Area of good tree growth sediment in catchment
0.065
0.076
0.137
0.092
Area of loam sediment in catchment
0.052
0.076
-0.112
0.075
Area of moderate frost action land in catchment
0.113
0.074
-0.178
-0.078
-0.378
-0.130
-0.137
0.037
0.038
0.104
Area of wetlands in 5 km catchment
Area of well-drained sediment in catchment
-0.009
0.139
Area of wetlands in catchment
-0.047
0.080
Average aspect in catchment
-0.061
-0.013
0.063
-0.004
-0.079
0.210
-0.086
-0.142
-0.183
0.222
Distance to waterway
0.017
-0.271
0.191
0.459
Elevation
0.095
-0.126
-0.110
Elevation above surrounding area
-0.158
-0.097
-0.138
Majority slope class in catchment
-0.042
-0.070
0.088
Number of wetlands within catchment
0.493
0.073
-0.148
Percentage of contemporaneous sites visible
0.057
0.081
0.150
Average solar radiation in catchment Distance to overland trail
Slope at location Viewshed size
-0.140 -0.156
-0.087
-0.110
-0.002
0.182
0.047
-0.062
-0.075
-0.070
Note: Values in bold were noted as most discriminatory. Little is known about Seneca settlements that date prior to 1540, so they were not included in this analysis. Haudenosaunee Settlement Ecology in Northeastern North America
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The values for the Onondaga settlements are all well below 0.200 except distance to waterways, suggesting that the earlier settlements were closer to them. The Oneida settlements occupied before 1540 had less well-drained sediments in their catchments. Cayuga settlements occupied before 1540 had more wetlands within their catchments. Again, I did not examine the Seneca, because we only have information on two settlements occupied before 1540. When I used 1670 to divide the settlements (the second arbitrary date) (Table 2.6), pre-1670 Mohawk settlements had more loam in their catchments, were on eastern-facing slopes, and were located on terrain with higher slope. Pre-1670 Oneida settlements had less loam in their catchments. There were no distinguishing variables for the Onondaga or Cayuga. Pre-1670 Seneca settlements had more solar radiation. Table 2.6. Discriminant function analysis model for the comparison of individual Haudenosaunee settlements using 1670 for the dividing date Variable
Seneca Cayuga Onondaga Oneida Mohawk
Area of good tree growth sediment in catchment
0.084
-0.038
-0.064
-0.112
-0.057
Area of loam sediment in catchment
0.005
-0.033
-0.064
-0.233
0.435
Area of moderate frost action land in catchment
0.060
-0.023
0.023
0.014
0.146
-0.049
0.133
Area of well-drained sediment in catchment
0.055
-0.026
0.034
-0.021
0.019
0.053
Area of wetlands in catchment
0.021
0.015
-0.003
Average aspect in catchment
0.017
-0.031
-0.033
-0.081
-0.349
Average solar radiation in catchment
0.219
0.009
0.101
0.016
-0.002
Distance to overland trail
-0.089
0.016
0.057
0.044
0.234
Distance to waterway
0.061
0.006
0.053
0.074
0.195
Elevation
0.146
0.003
0.061
-0.098
Elevation above surrounding area
0.001
0.018
-0.004
0.036
Majority slope class in catchment
0.019
0.010
-0.039
0.054
-0.064
0.007
0.069
-0.001
0.017
0.029
0.046
0.100
0.149
0.070
-0.014
0.040
0.080
0.334
-0.151
-0.009
0.010
-0.165
0.126
Area of wetlands in 5 km catchment
Number of wetlands within catchment Percentage of contemporaneous sites visible Slope at location Viewshed size
Note: Values in bold were noted as most discriminatory. 48
Eric E. Jones
0.233
Viewed from the perspective of each individual nation, the results show that the later a Mohawk settlement was occupied, the more likely it was to be closer to overland trails and major waterways. It also appears that several variables related to agricultural production changed during the 270-year period. Average solar radiation, area of loam around settlements, and average slope all decreased around settlements later in time. The first two represent lower agricultural productivity, and the last represents higher productivity. Slope at the settlement location was lower at settlements occupied after 1609 and again at those occupied after 1670. Many Haudenosaunee villages were located at the top of ridges with steep embankments, so this preference for areas with less slope could also represent less of a concern with defense or a combination of less concern with defense and more concern with agricultural production. For Oneida settlements, the only variables that distinguish different groups are related to agricultural productivity, and the trend is for later sites to be surrounded by better agricultural lands. Settlements occupied after 1540 had more well-drained sediments; settlements occupied after the first depopulation in 1635 had less slope in their catchments; and post-1670 settlements had more loam sediments in their catchments. As with the Mohawk, the preference for less slope could have been about less concern for defense as well. Onondaga settlements moved away from waterways at both 1540 and 1570. Cayuga settlements after 1540 tended to have fewer wetlands within their catchments. There are fewer results for the Seneca, but those produced show changing settlement location choices with respect to intergroup interaction and agricultural production. After 1609, settlements were at lower elevations and closer to waterways. Settlements occupied after the first evidence of depopulation in 1640 also show lower elevations. After this date and after the arbitrary 1670 date, settlements also tend to have lower average solar radiation in their catchments.
Discussion Settlement Ecology The results indicate that Mohawk settlements changed locations with regard to defensibility and agriculturally productive locations at all dates examined. Onondaga settlements moved farther from waterways after 1540 and 1570; the former was an arbitrary date. Cayuga settlements moved to locations with more wetlands after the arbitrary 1540 date. According to my hypotheses, this suggests that contact-related events did not affect settlement location choice or Haudenosaunee Settlement Ecology in Northeastern North America
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existing changes that were generally occurring throughout this time period for any of these three nations. The Oneida results show moves toward locations with better agricultural productivity after depopulation and for the two arbitrary dates. This suggests that depopulation did not change normal patterns of changing settlement location choice. However, we must consider that the post-depopulation preference for locations with less slope could be a change toward choosing less-defensible locations (i.e., not protected by steep natural embankments, which is common at Haudenosaunee sites). The Seneca results show moves toward locations with less solar radiation at both significant and arbitrary dates. Thus, contact-related events likely had little impact on settlement location choices regarding these locations. However, Seneca communities moved closer to waterways after contact and to lower elevations after contact and depopulation, suggesting that these events precipitated changes relating to intergroup relations and/or defensibility. In sum, these results suggest that contact events had little to no impact on the Mohawk, Onondaga, or Cayuga settlement location choices. Depopulation may have lessened Oneida and Seneca concerns about the defensibility of settlements, and contact may have drawn Seneca settlements closer to waterways. I will first offer explanations for the nations whose settlement patterns appear to have been influenced by contact-related events and follow it with a discussion of those nations that do not appear to have been influenced by those events. Seneca movements closer to waterways after contact could have resulted from the advent of the European-induced fur trade. By the early 1600s, the Mohawk controlled major water routes from the Hudson River to the St. Lawrence River (Snow 1995a:197). Control of these waterways brought both trade and security in the eastern Haudenosaunee territory, as the probability of enemies traveling along them decreased. Artifact analyses suggest that the Seneca shifted their trading patterns after joining the Haudenosaunee Confederacy to obtaining items from their Confederacy brethren to the east (Parmenter 2010; Sempowski 1989). As mentioned earlier, they also shift during the seventeenth century likely to access more European-made goods. Given the Mohawk control of the eastern networks and the evidence for increasing Seneca involvement in that direction, shifting trade patterns offer the best explanation for the move closer to waterways in the early seventeenth century. The Seneca appear to have been choosing less-defensible locations after depopulation. As mentioned above, the trend of Oneida settlements selecting locations with lower slope could be viewed similarly as a lessening concern 50
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with defense, especially when we consider that a lower percentage of post-depopulation Oneida settlements have palisades (Jones 2010a). Although it is not entirely clear why depopulation would create less of a concern with defense, it should be noted that 1640 is close to the time of the defeat and dispersal of the Wendat, and the conclusion of that conflict could have led to less concern with defense. With the Seneca being the closest to the Wendat geographically, it offers a reasonable explanation. The Oneida, however, were the second farthest from the Wendat, which could suggest the lower slope result as being more related to agriculture than to defensibility. Unlike the Seneca, the Mohawk show virtually no influence by contactrelated events on their settlement location choice. Because of the observed changes with both the arbitrary and significant dates for the Mohawk, it is best to interpret their changes in settlement location choice around these dates as snapshots of a long-standing and consistently fluid pattern of behavior that existed prior to and after the arrival of Europeans in the Northeast. Either Europeans did little to change the landscape initially for the Mohawk, or they simply represented another change like those that had been altering the landscape for centuries and millennia prior. Their shifts closer to transportation networks with some sacrifice of agricultural productivity were likely happening before the arrival of Europeans. This change may have occurred in association with alterations in existing exchange networks and simply continued with the introduction of new trading partners, reflecting a consistent preference for locations that facilitated economic exchange and other regional interactions. The Onondaga and Cayuga results suggest a similar lack of impact from Europeans on settlement location choices. The Onondaga movement away from waterways existed independent of the major contact-related events, suggesting a similar changing preference unaffected by contact or colonial activities. The absence of any distinguishing variables across all but one model for the Cayuga suggests stability in the process of settlement location choice over this time period. While Mohawk communities appear to have been constantly shifting their priorities of where to settle based on intrinsic values, Cayuga communities appear to have remained relatively static. We must consider the geographic and symbolic landscape factors that may have influenced these observed patterns. The two nations at the extreme eastern and western ends, the Seneca and Mohawk, show the most fluid settlement location strategies. With the establishment of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy during the sixteenth century (Engelbrecht 2003; Parmenter 2010; Snow 1994), the metaphor of this new political unit as a longhouse was established Haudenosaunee Settlement Ecology in Northeastern North America
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(Snow 1994). Haudenosaunee longhouses were multi-family dwellings with entry points (doors) only on the ends of the building. The Confederacy existed on an east-west axis through modern-day upstate New York (Map 2.1), with each of the constituent nations symbolizing families within the metaphorical longhouse. The Keepers of the Eastern (Seneca) and Western (Mohawk) Doors were tasked with diplomatic and economic relations with outside groups (Engelbrecht 2003; Snow 1994). This higher frequency and intensity of interaction, along with the fact that cultural landscapes can change more rapidly than natural landscapes, could explain why their settlement patterns shifted more regularly than those of the three interior nations. The lack of changes across agricultural factors fits well with current historical interpretations. There is evidence to suggest that changes in farming practices occurred as early as the mid-1600s with the introduction of new techniques, metal tools, and new plant and animal species from the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, and South America, but significant changes did not occur until after 1700 (for examples see Bradley 1987:120; Fenton 1998: 23; Grant 1959:249; Keener and Kuhns 1997:332; Snow 1994:90; Waugh 1973:143). As a larger number of the post1700 Haudenosaunee sites are examined archaeologically, applying the methods used here may reveal how these historically recorded changes in farming practices affected settlement patterns.
The Impact of Colonialism As mentioned, several studies (Lightfoot 1995; Lightfoot et al. 1998; Reddy 2015; Silliman 2001) challenge the assumption that Native American societies changed soon after initial interactions with Europeans and challenge the idea that evidence of European technology on Native American sites signifies significant cultural change. With regard to Haudenosaunee archaeology, site-level research focusing on Seneca material culture (Sempowski and Saunders 2001; Wray et al. 1987, 1991) shows increasing percentages of European items in overall assemblages throughout the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In addition, items like combs become more intricately designed and constructed with the introduction of metal implements. Changes in Seneca technology with the introduction of European items are apparent. What impact this had on the overall Seneca society and culture remains less clear. Through the spatial analysis of houses and activity areas, Jordan’s (2008) study of the Townley-Read site (1715–1754 C.E.) provided strong evidence for continuity in Seneca daily life even while material culture was changing. The results presented in this chapter show changes in regional Seneca settle52
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ment at contact and with depopulation that are likely related to defensibility and access to trade. Combining these results with Jordan’s work shows a complex pattern in which the Seneca underwent changes as a result of new trade networks and warfare patterns at very small scales and at the regional scale, but they also show a considerable amount of persistence at the community level. Thus, the changing trade patterns may have influenced large-scale Seneca settlement strategies and the tools they used, but this did little to change people’s daily activities and lives. This interpretation further promotes the approach of examining the effects of colonization at multiple scales and across many lines of evidence in order to fully understand the experience of Native Americans and cultural processes after the arrival of Europeans. Many consider Mohawk society and culture to have changed significantly during the first two decades of interaction with Europeans (Jordan 2008:354). Increasing proportions of European goods and changes in settlement layout and house form suggest a degree of change at the community level not seen among the Seneca (Snow 1995a). However, the results in this chapter show that European colonization (i.e., engaging in trade, establishing settlements, introducing new technologies and species, provoking conflicts, etc.) had little impact on Mohawk strategies for settlement location choice. Regional-scale analyses suggest that changes in technology may have, unlike with the Seneca, led to changes in daily life and community structure but that they meant very little with regard to how Mohawk communities interacted with the landscape and environment. The Seneca and Mohawk results, the two cases in which we have the most information from multiple scales, show considerable variability in how the different nations reacted to interaction with Europeans, the introduction of new technology, and depopulation. In both cases, persistence and change in values were occurring at different scales. As such, there does not appear to be one model that accurately describes the experience of even these two Haudenosaunee nations, much less one that covers all five. Finally, these results encourage us to rethink our notions of the impact of colonization broadly across the Haudenosaunee, particularly before 1700 C.E. Europeans were no doubt trying to colonize the Haudenosaunee and their territory through the introduction of new technologies and species of plants and animals, interjection into trade networks, establishment of settlements, and participation in intergroup conflicts. The seemingly negligible impact of the presence of Europeans and their ideas and things on Mohawk, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Oneida settlement location choices suggests a lack of change in the natural and cultural landscapes to which these choices were an adaptation. It Haudenosaunee Settlement Ecology in Northeastern North America
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appears that even widespread mortality from Old World diseases only altered interactions with the landscape for the Seneca, and these changes were already being altered by shifting trade networks and patterns of warfare that were occurring before European attempts to colonize the region.
Conclusions This research marks the first attempt to examine the impact of early interactions with Europeans on Haudenosaunee settlement ecology. As others (Jordan 2008; Lightfoot 1995; Lightfoot et al. 1998; Reddy 2015; Silliman 2001) have suggested, archaeological studies of colonial encounters need to broaden their focus to include more than just technology. Like Native peoples at Fort Ross (Lightfoot et al. 1998) and Mission San Antonio de Padua (Silliman 2001), the Seneca show how these dimensions can reveal that diffusion of ideas and cultural traits occurred at variable rates and with differential impacts on cultural practices at different societal scales. Multiscalar diachronic work is the key to understanding how Native people, societies, and cultures experienced European attempts at colonization. Similarly, this research is one of the first attempts to answer questions about settlement location choice over time and the impact of European ideas and technology on these decisions. Even at this early stage I believe the results give us a number of useful pieces of information. First, archaeologists, myself included (Jones 2010a), have examined and discussed the Haudenosaunee as a monolithic group with regard to both settlement ecology and reactions to colonization. The current results suggest we should be exploring individual nations with more intensity. Second, examining Haudenosaunee settlement patterns after contact gives us a different perspective than that provided by artifact analyses. Jordan (2008) noted that broadening beyond artifacts gives us a picture of much more stability and internally driven change in Haudenosaunee communities, societies, and cultures during this time. When combined with Jordan’s findings, my results here present a mosaic of change and persistence at varying scales with few commonalities across the Haudenosaunee nations. Finally, the study of settlement patterns is ultimately the study of how a group of people interacts with their natural and cultural landscapes. It appears that Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, and Cayuga communities did not significantly alter their interactions with their landscape as a result of European attempts to colonize the region. Either the landscape changed little from their perspective or they continued to adapt to new situations as they 54
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had for prior generations. In any case, as we explore more cultural dimensions at more scales of analysis, our perception of Haudenosaunee cultural change during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries altered from one of change driven by European influence to one of change based on existing values while adjusting to the presence of newcomers and the impacts of their diseases.
References Cited Allen, Kathleen M. S. 1996 Iroquoian Landscapes: People, Environments, and the GIS Context. In New Methods, Old Problems: Geographic Information Systems in Modern Archaeological Research, edited by H. G. Maschner, pp. 198–222. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. Bamann, Susan 1993 Settlement Nucleation in Mohawk Iroquois Prehistory: An Analysis of a Site Sequence in the Lower Otsquago Drainage of the Mohawk Valley. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York at Albany, Albany. Birch, Jennifer, and Ronald F. Williamson 2013 The Mantle Site: An Archaeological History of an Ancestral Wendat Community. Altamira, Lanham, Maryland. Bradley, James K. 1977 The Pompey Center Site: The Impact of European Trade Goods 1600–1620. New York State Archaeological Association Beauchamp Chapter Bulletin 2(1):2–16. 1987 Evolution of the Onondaga Iroquois. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse. 2007 Before Albany: An Archaeology of Native-Dutch Relations in the Capital Region 1600– 1664. New York State Museum Bulletin 509. New York State Museum, Albany. Brandão, José António (editor) 2003 Nation Iroquoise: A Seventeenth-Century Ethnography of the Iroquois. Translated by José António Brandão with K. Janet Ritch. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln. Cowan, C. Wesley 1985 Understanding the Evolution of Plant Husbandry in Eastern North America: Lessons from Botany, Ethnography, and Archaeology. In Prehistoric Food Production in North America, edited by Richard Ford, pp. 205–243. Anthropological Papers 75. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Deetz, James 1963 Archaeological Investigations at La Purisma Mission. Archaeological Survey Annual Report 5:161–241. Di Peso, Charles Corradino 1974 Casas Grandes: A Fallen Trade Center of the Gran Chichimeca. Vol. 3. Amerind Foundation, Dragoon, Arizona. Engelbrecht, William 2003 Iroquoia: The Development of a Native World. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse. Fecteau, Rudy, James Molnar, and Gary Warrick 1991 Iroquoian Ecology. Birdstone 5(1):1–19. Haudenosaunee Settlement Ecology in Northeastern North America
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Fenton, William N. 1998 The Great Law and the Longhouse: A Political History of the Iroquois Confederacy. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman. Funk, Robert 1992 Some Major Wetlands in New York State: A Preliminary Assessment of Their Biological and Cultural Potential. Man in the Northeast 43:25–41. Goodman, Steven N. 1999 Toward Evidence-Based Medical Statistics, Part 1: The P-Value Fallacy. Annals of Internal Medicine 130:995–1004. Grant, William Lawson (editor) 1959 Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, 1604–1618. Barnes & Noble, New York. Hasenstab, Robert J. 1996a Settlement as Adaptation: Variability in Iroquois Village Site Selection as Inferred through GIS. In New Methods, Old Problems: Geographic Information Systems in Modern Archaeological Research, edited by H. G. Maschner, pp. 223–241. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. 1996b Aboriginal Settlement Patterns in Late Woodland Upper New York State. Journal of Middle Atlantic Archaeology 12:17–26. Heidenreich, Conrad E. 1971 Huronia: A History and Geography of the Huron Indians, 1600–1650. McClelland and Stewart, Toronto. Hunt, George T. 1940 Wars of the Iroquois: A Study in Intertribal Trade Relations. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison. Jones, Eric E. 2006 Using Viewshed Analysis to Explore Settlement Choice: A Case Study of the Onondaga Iroquois. American Antiquity 71:523–538. 2010a An Analysis of the Factors Influencing Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Settlement Locations. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 29:1–14. 2010b Population History of the Onondaga and Oneida Iroquois, A.D. 1500–1700. American Antiquity 75(2):387–407. 2010c Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Population Trends in Northeastern North America. Journal of Field Archaeology 35:5–18. Jordan, Kurt A. 2004 Seneca Iroquois Settlement Pattern, Community Structure, and Housing, 1677–1779. Northeast Anthropology 67:23–60. 2008 The Seneca Restoration, 1715–1754: An Iroquois Local Political Economy. University of Florida Press, Gainesville. 2009 Regional Diversity and Colonialism in Eighteenth-Century Iroquoia. In Iroquoian Archaeology and Analytic Scale, edited by Laurie E. Miroff and Timothy D. Knapp, pp. 215–230. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville. 2013 Incorporation and Colonization: Postcolumbian Iroquois Satellite Communities and Processes of Indigenous Autonomy. American Anthropologist 115(1):29–43. Katzenberg, M. Anne, Henry P. Schwarcz, Martin Knyf, and Jerry Melbye 1995 Stable Isotope Evidence for Maize Horticulture and Paleodiet in Southern Ontario, Canada. American Antiquity 60(2):335–350. 56
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Keener, Craig 1999 An Ethnohistoric Analysis of Iroquois Assault Tactics Used Against Fortified Settlements of the Northeast in the Seventeenth Century. Ethnohistory 46:777–807. Keener, Craig, and Erica Kuhns 1997 The Impact of Iroquoian Populations on the Northern Distribution of Pawpaws in the Northeast. North American Archaeologist 18(4):327–342. Lightfoot, Kent G. 1995 Culture Contact Studies: Redefining the Relationship between Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology. American Antiquity 60(2):199–217. Lightfoot, Kent G., Antionette Martinez, and Ann M. Schiff 1998 Daily Practice and Material Culture in Pluralistic Social Settings: An Archaeological Study of Culture Change and Persistence from Fort Ross, California. American Antiquity 63(2):199–222. Morgan, Lewis Henry 1851 Map of the Ho-De-No-Sau-Nee-Ga or the Territories of the People of the Long House in 1720. R.H. Pease, Albany. Omura, Keiichi 2002 Construction of Inuinnaqtun (Real Inuit-way): Self-Image and Everyday Practices in Inuit Society. Senri Ethnological Studies 60:101–111. Parmenter, Jon 2010 The Edge of the Woods. Michigan State University Press, East Lansing. Poulsen, John, and Aaron French 2004 Discriminant Function Analysis (DA). San Francisco State University. Reddy, Seetha N. 2015 Feeding Family and Ancestors: Persistence of Traditional Native American Lifeways during the Mission Period in Coastal Southern California. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 37:48–66. Richter, Daniel K. 1992 The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill. Schwarcz, Henry P., Jerry Melbye, and M. Anne Katzenberg 1985 Stable Isotopes in Human Skeletons of Southern Ontario: Reconstructing Palaeodiet. Journal of Archaeological Science 12:187–206. Sempowski, Martha L. 1989 Fluctuations through Time in the Use of Marine Shell at Seneca Iroquois Sites. In Proceedings of the 1986 Shell Bead Conference: Selected Papers, edited by C. F. Hayes III and L. Ceci, pp. 82–86. Rochester Museum and Science Center, Rochester. Sempowski, Martha L., and Lorraine P. Saunders 2001 Dutch Hollow and Factory Hollow: The Advent of Dutch Trade Among the Seneca, Parts I-III. Rochester Museum and Science Center, Research Records No. 24. Silliman, Stephen W. 2001 Theoretical Perspectives on Labor and Colonialism: Reconsidering the California Missions. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 20:379–407. Snow, Dean R. 1994 The Iroquois. Blackwell, Cambridge. 1995a The Mohawk Valley Project: The Sites. Pennsylvania State University, University Park. Haudenosaunee Settlement Ecology in Northeastern North America
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1995b Microchronology and Demographic Evidence Relating to the Size of Pre-Colombian North American Indian Populations. Science 268:1601–1604. Snow, Dean R., and William A. Starna 1989 Sixteenth-Century Depopulation: A View from the Mohawk Valley. American Anthropologist 91:142–149. Socci, Mary Catharine 1995 The Zooarchaeology of Mohawk Valley. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Yale University, New Haven. Sokal, Robert R., and F. James Rohlf 1995 Biometry. 3rd ed. Freeman, New York. Stone, Glenn Davis 1996 Settlement Ecology: The Social and Spatial Organization of Kofyar Agriculture. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Thwaites, Rueben Gold (editor) 1959 The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, 1610–1791. 73 vols. Pageant, New York. Trigger, Bruce G. 1976 The Children of Aataentsi: A History of the Huron People to 1660. 2 vols. McGillQueen’s University Press, Montreal. Tuck, James A. 1971 Onondaga Iroquois Prehistory: A Study in Settlement Archaeology. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse. van den Bogaert, Hermen M. 1996 A Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country. In In Mohawk Country: Early Narratives about a Native People, edited by Dean R. Snow, Charles T. Gehring, and William Starna, pp. 1–13. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse. Warrick, Gary A. 1988 Estimating Ontario Iroquoian Village Duration. Man in the Northeast 36:21–60. Waugh, Frederick Wilkerson 1973 Iroquois Food and Food Preparation. Anthropological Series 12, Memoirs of the Canadian Geological Survey 86. 1916. Reprint. Government Printing Bureau, Ottawa. Wray, Charles F., Martha L. Sempowski, Lorraine P. Saunders, and Gian Carlo Cervone 1987 The Adams and Culbertson Sites. Rochester Museum and Science Center, Research Records No. 19. Wray, Charles F., Martha L. Sempowski, and Lorraine P. Saunders 1991 Tram and Cameron: Two Early Contact Era Seneca Sites. Rochester Museum and Science Center, Research Records No. 21. Wykoff, William M. 1988 Iroquoian Prehistory and Climate Change: Notes for Empirical Studies of the Eastern Woodlands. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Cornell University, Ithaca. Ziliak, Stephen Thomas, and Dierdre N. McCloskey 2008 The Cult of Statistical Significance: How the Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.
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3 Negotiating Colonialism on the Southern Frontier of Spanish Yucatán A DA M R . K A E D I N G
The story of the Spanish Empire’s invasion and domination of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula and its Maya residents possesses many elements that characterize traditional models of colonialism. Some descriptions focus on the bravery of the colonizers: fierce battles of conquest, intrepid men of the cloth risking their lives to save the souls of the unenlightened; the labored foundation of European-style cities; and the transformation of an impenetrable jungle and its denizens to a civilization and its citizens. Other representations emphasize the glory of the colonized: a fierce and proud people who had lived in harmony with the land; crafted massive cities, monuments, and works of art; dedicated themselves to lofty pursuits of mathematics and astronomy; and were decimated, compromised, and ultimately subsumed by a race of foreign invaders. Neither account can be wholly embraced or wholly discounted, but the realities of the colonial experience in Yucatán lay between the two extremes. This chapter presents a model for a fundamental process that allowed all of the characters of the two vastly different narratives to coexist in the same space—the process of negotiation. To illustrate, this chapter turns to the Spanish colonial frontier province of Beneficios Altos. Following a brief introduction to the area, this chapter will recount some of the specifics of the conquest and Early Colonial Period as they were experienced in that particular corner of the Spanish Empire. Next, a model of colonial negotiation will be introduced and described with a series of examples from throughout the colonial period in Beneficios Altos. Finally, this chapter will explain how events surrounding the period of Mexican Independence (officially dated to 1821) weakened the effectiveness of the negotiation process and the dramatic changes that this brought to the landscape, events, and people of Beneficios Altos.
Beneficios Altos Each of the ten provinces that made up Spanish Colonial Yucatán possessed unique characteristics that influenced its own particular historical trajectory. Characteristics that distinguish Beneficios Altos include a fiercely truculent resistance to the initial advances of Spanish conquest, the peninsula’s densest population at that time, and the colonial period’s poorest region (Chamberlain 1939:353; Chamberlain 1966:100–113, 160, 220, 223; Clendinnen 2003:26; Gerhard 1993:79). Most significant to this conversation is the fact that the southern border of Beneficios Altos (Map 3.1) was the undefended, unmarked, highly permeable line between the taxation, surveillance, and oppression of Spanish imperialism and a difficult and potentially dangerous, but autonomous life in the monte (the general term for the wilderness beyond and interspersed within Spanish borders) (Farriss 1984:16–18; Gerhard 1993:79–80; Graham 1991:319; Restall 1997:170,174–176; Roys 1965:660).
Merida
Valladolid
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Approximate Limit of Spanish Control Boundary of Province
Map 3.1. Beneficios Altos, Yucatán Peninsula. 60
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Any individual Beneficios Altos resident or family was, at any time, only hours away from being free of the Spanish imperial yoke, of entirely escaping the force and threat of force by which the Spanish state expanded its political hegemony (see chapter 1). While the untold stories and fates of those who made the decision to leave are intriguing, the nature of the colonized frontier is better illuminated by the vast majority who chose to stay. If the Spanish hegemony was as soul-crushing, relentless, and unbearable as simpler models would indicate, what rational individual would choose to endure that oppression for a lifetime instead of walking south for a matter of hours? Archaeological and historical evidence may offer a suggestion: Colonialism in frontier areas like Beneficios Altos was not crafted through rigid policies implemented from afar, but created daily by individuals through a process of negotiation.
Spanish Colonization of Beneficios Altos The extension of the Spanish Empire into the Americas has provided the prototypical example of historical, Western colonialism (see chapter 1, this volume). This chapter discusses colonialism by investigating the colonization process at the scale of the colony—“the groups of individuals charged with carrying out” the “particular objectives” of the “state-driven process” characterizing colonization—and the interaction between those colonies and the local communities among whom they have been implanted (chapter 1, this volume). As discussed below, the character of those colonies changed over time. Following the initial culture contact and events of conquest, the first major sustained wave of Spaniards into Yucatán’s remote areas was staffed by missionaries motivated by the desire to create a utopian society built on Christian ideals (Blom 1936:75–80, 99; Bretos 1992:11–13; Chamberlain 1966:31; Clendinnen 1987:46; Clendinnen 2003:44, 45–56; Deagan 2001:183,185; Early 2006:117; Farriss 1984:24, 90–94; Lockhart and Schwartz 1983:109–110). This process clearly represents the “ideology of justification” driving the Spanish colonial advance— the first trait of an empire introduced by Beaule (chapter 1, this volume). This first wave also established the frontier colony, defined by Beaule as “implanted settlements of foreigners, socially and spatially distinct from local communities” (chapter 1, this volume). It was through interaction between the Maya residents of Beneficios Altos and Franciscan missionaries that the colonial negotiation process to which we return below was created and refined (Blom 1936:91, 93–94; Chamberlain 1966:137–138; Clendinnen 2003:26, 30–31; Roys 1972:77). According to colonial law, it was illegal for almost any Spaniard to take up Negotiating Colonialism on the Southern Frontier of Spanish Yucatán
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residence in Maya villages (Alexander 2004:48–49; Patch 1993:21–23). Colonialism, as a “state-driven process with particular objectives,” was delivered by priests and friars serving as representatives of Spain as well as the church (chapter 1, this volume). At the scale of the frontier Beneficios Altos village, these religious agents—the only foreigners among the local population, tasked with carrying out the colonial mission of the empire—may themselves constitute colonies (chapter 1, this volume). As we will see below, this was not always a one-sided role. First, it is important to briefly review the evolution of perspectives concerning Spanish colonialism among Maya communities in order to better contextualize the negotiation model presented here. Events of colonization—including military conquest, spiritual conquest, and the administration of Spanish imperial policy—have been viewed from a variety of theoretical perspectives that can be condensed to a fairly simple outline. In the earliest assessments, Spanish colonialism was viewed as a persistent, unstoppable force of cultural change and assimilation (Chamberlain 1966:38, 337–339; Farriss 1984:7).This theoretical perspective was undermined by a growing corpus of ethnographic, archaeological, and historical data that consistently highlighted a great degree of diversity of interactions between local populations and the structures and agents of colonization while also indicating the many varied and often successful instances when those colonized peoples opposed, slowed, and stopped the perceived cultural juggernaut (Lightfoot 2005:88–89, 111–112; Schroeder 1998). In the light of these insights coming from areas that had been under Spanish rule as well as the wider field of colonial studies, scholars began to shift their attention to discussions of resistance. In Yucatán, as elsewhere, tenets of colonial life—such as economy, politics, and religion—could be viewed as the net result of the accommodation and resistance employed by Maya populations (Bricker 1977:256–257; Bricker 1981:179; Clendinnen 1987:73–74; Farriss 1984:110; Graham 1991:328–332; Jones 1989:678–679; Lockhart and Schwartz 1983:108, 175; Macleod 2003:152). This approach reduces the passivity of indigenous subjects in the path of the colonial cultural steamroller and is, therefore, an improvement to the assimilation model presented above, but it continues to conceive of Maya peoples as a single-minded, collectively motivated entity. As Astor-Aguilar (2009:167–168) states regarding the uncritical application of this perspective to a strictly religious context, “its use impl[ies] the existence of pure culture and this ultimately fail[s] to describe actual human and historical process.” The theoretical development within which the negotiation model presented here belongs maintains a priority of place for the agency of the individuals living under circumstances of colonialism (Alexander 2003a:5; Alexander 2004:8, 62
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17; Farriss 1984:22–23; Keen 1985:167; Lockhart and Schwartz 1983:112–113; Restall 1997:87; Torrence and Clarke 2000:10). When interactions of colonialism are viewed as interactions between monolithic, self-identifying entities (like “Spaniards” or “Maya”), they are irreconcilable with our understanding of subordinate, disparate peasant populations (Scott 1985; Stern 1987). Instead, it is conceptually necessary to view the interactions that characterized, constituted, and defined almost all of the colonial period as relatively mundane interactions taking place at the level of individuals. In the model and examples presented below, the case is made that these interactions are best viewed as negotiations carried out on a case-by-case basis between individuals motivated by the general desire to maximize their advantage or minimize their disadvantage (Alexander 2004:8; Farriss 1984:22; Lockhart and Schwartz 1983:164–176).
Colonial Negotiation The implication of the simple but undeniable historical fact that the residents of Beneficios Altos largely chose to remain within the Spanish Empire is that the realities of colonialism were strictly defined neither by assimilation in the face of hegemonic oppression nor by resistance to that oppression, but by the creation of wholly new circumstances determined through negotiation. These new circumstances were preferable to living entirely outside of imperial control. While the illustration of negotiation presented below focuses on specific evidence from Beneficios Altos, the role of negotiation in colonial circumstances adheres to “no one, simple pattern” and is by no means specific to this area (Torrence and Clarke 2000:23). To the contrary, colonial negotiation provides a topic like many in this volume for which cross-pollination from intradisciplinary research is fruitful. The most direct comparison comes from studies of colonial interactions elsewhere within the Spanish Americas. Such research provides additional evidence by which to refine the negotiation model, but it also provides new avenues for research, such as a closer analysis of the role of negotiation in the redefinition of identity, or specific changes to constructed landscapes negotiated during colonization (Blomster 2008:301; Wernke 2013). Crossing the prehistoric/historical boundary within Mesoamerica suggests means by which to bolster the methodology for studying such interactions among people who are less thoroughly documented in the historical record, as in the negotiation of status between commoners and nonruling elites (Joyce 2008:223, 243). Further afield, studies of colonial interactions among various groups in Oceania have highlighted negotiation as fundamental to the mitigation of imperial expansion Negotiating Colonialism on the Southern Frontier of Spanish Yucatán
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(Torrence and Clarke 2000). Cross-reference to examples from Oceania helps to illuminate some aspects of negotiation that are not immediately apparent among the data from Beneficios Altos, including the role of local craft production and exchange, the instability of negotiation outcomes, the sometimes mutually beneficial outcomes of seemingly one-sided exchange, and the role of the negotiation process in guiding subsistence strategies of foragers (Birmingham 2000; McBryde 2000; Torrence 2000). The small sample above indicates that crossing the Western/non-Western and prehistoric/historical boundaries promises to be as enlightening for the specific study of colonial negotiation as this volume demonstrates it to be for the study of colonialism in general. Key to the function of the negotiation model is an understanding of resistance as a series of tactics along a continuum spanning from such behaviors as laboring less efficiently than expected, to sabotage, to outright armed conflict (Scott 1985). While dramatic violent manifestations of resistance leave a starker signature in the archaeological and historical records, the aggregate of the more mundane acts of resistance over centuries of their practice have surely had a greater effect on history (Scott 1985). With this in mind, colonial negotiations are defined as a process in which tactics are selected from along the continuum of resistance by individuals living under colonial circumstances, practiced in order to alleviate some of the oppressive pressures of colonialism, and either allowed or battled by individuals representing the interests of the colonial hegemony. Figure 3.1 presents a model populated abstractly with some of the potential individuals involved in colonial interactions, some of their potential motivations, and some of the categories of tactics at their disposal. The basic categories structuring the negotiation process are determined by the relationships of individuals to the oppressive pressures of Spanish hegemony in the context of a given interaction. Agents representing the interests of the colonial hegemony—the “colony,” per chapter 1—might include a rural priest or the owner of a hacienda (a landed agricultural estate often characterized by an indebted resident labor force and prominent infrastructure), both of whom are likely to come from Spanish families. While the hegemony was Spanish, the same was not necessarily true of the members of the colony; for example, a local politician, the owner of a smaller agricultural installation, or a tax/tribute collector would often be village residents of Maya descent. These individuals, regardless of ethnicity, would impose the oppressive pressures of hegemony in activities such as exacting tribute, gathering the profits of the imbalanced repartimiento exchange relationships, collecting church fees, imposing conversions, investigating reports of idolatry, enforcing labor demands, and maintaining records of deepening debt peonage. Because 64
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Figure 3.1. Populated negotiation model.
individuals acting in any of these capacities would be “carrying out the objectives of ” colonization, they are listed under the category of “Colony.” To the right of the list of individuals within the colony in Figure 3.1 is a list of potential influences or motivating factors that inspired their position and tactics in the negotiation process. Some individuals within the colony directly identified with aspects of colonial hegemony and acted on its behalf; for example, a priest could likely be expected to act in the best interest of the church. When considered from the perspective of the frontier individuals who enacted these negotiations on a daily basis, such motivations can be conceptualized as a desire to maximize individual or family advantage; for example, a hacienda owner interacting with a plantation worker may seek to expand the duration or severity of that laborer’s indebtedness in order to increase the power and wealth of that landowner. The same considerations apply among individuals who were on the receiving end of and opposed to those impositions of colonial hegemony, examples of which are listed in Figure 3.1 under “Contra-Colony.” The weight of hegemony did not always rest solely on those of Maya descent, as local politicians and small-scale landowners might find themselves on either side of the equation regardless of their ethnic background. As was the case with members of the colony, those in contra-colony roles were enacting their positions and selecting their tactics from the continuum of resistance based on a vast collection of motivations. The simple and abstract among those motivating factors includes resistance for resistance’s sake. Perhaps a more complicated motivation would include resistant behaviors intended to preserve cultural traits or traditional practices that, while running counter to the proscriptions of imperial policy, continued to possess social or cultural value among their practitioners. Negotiating Colonialism on the Southern Frontier of Spanish Yucatán
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Perhaps the simplest and most encompassing motivation for the positions taken by individuals acting from a contra-colony position was to minimize their individual or family disadvantage. The subsistence corn farmer starts the negotiation from a position of disadvantage, as some of his corn is owed as tribute to the colony. This farmer might underreport his yield, secret away a larger share for the family, and thereby minimize their disadvantage. A single individual might have occupied either side of the negotiation process at different times. For example, a rural priest may have meted out penance to his Maya parishioners, acting in that case on behalf of the colony. That same priest might have actively petitioned against what he considered excessive tribute burdens placed on those same parishioners, thereby realigning himself to a contra-colony position (Deagan 2001:188–189). The roles of the negotiation process were not entrenched based on ethnicity or class, but were selected based upon individual, familial, and collective motivations (Kellogg 2010:231). The circle at the center of the model in Figure 3.1 represents the product of the negotiation process. In specific studies, this central circle might be better defined in subjects like language or landscape and could be better populated with specific manifestations such as loan words or architectural features (Hanks 2010). Tactics spanning the continuum of resistance from which individuals acting from a contra-colony position are listed below the central circle of the model in Figure 3.1. This way, the model represents the many different facets of the process: the agents who perform these negotiations, the motivations influencing those actors, the specific tactics used during negotiation, and the result of the process.
Early and Middle Colonial Periods (1546–1750): Negotiated Frontier Settlement A primary example of how Beneficios Altos colonial life was created through individual negotiations rather than hegemonic policy is evident in the settlement pattern formed during the Early Colonial Period—in this case, starting in the 1550s—and largely persisting to this day. Settlement throughout the Maya area was already dispersed prior to the arrival of Europeans, likely as an adaptation to environmental constraints and the fluctuations of regional politics (Butzer 1992:352, 354–356; Denevan 1992:370–371). While this historical circumstance armed the polities of the Maya area with formidable strategies for repelling conquest forces and made these communities particularly resistant to the devastation of European diseases, it concurrently presented a population distribution to which Spanish administrative policies had already been adapting (Farriss 1984:12–14). 66
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Key among these adaptations was congregación, which displaced the far-flung residents of the area from their homes, agricultural fields, and ancestral landscapes, moving them often by force to centralized locations structured according to Spanish conventions with the intention to “facilitate missionary instruction and surveillance” (Hanks 2010:2). The new settlements—novel additions to the landscape drawing from Spanish and Roman precedents—featured central plazas ringed by large public buildings, most notably a masonry church on the plaza’s eastern side (Alexander 1997:29; Black 1997:87; Deagan 2001:189; Farriss 1978:198; Hanks 2010:2; Lockhart and Schwartz 1983:39; Low 1995:749–751; Low 1996:867; Orellana 1973:129; Prem 1992:445; Weeks and Black 1991:246–248). The settlements expanded from that plaza on a network of roads arranged in a pattern of concentric rectangles oriented to the cardinal directions. Blocks closest to the plaza would house the highest-status residents, and those further away were occupied by those of lesser means. As time went on this status differentiation was embodied by a distribution of masonry versus perishable structures that largely continues to characterize Beneficios Altos towns today. The process of congregación displacement has been documented as a brutal and violent redefinition of the landscape that featured the burning of homes and fields and was attended by death. Congregación, a fundamental policy of Spanish colonization throughout the empire, was implemented in the Yucatán Peninsula in 1552. The first central towns to house the recently nucleated population were cabeceras (Figure 3.2). Satellite communities that developed around the cabeceras over time were officially recognized and drawn into the colonial settlement network. These were designated as visitas, so named because they would receive regular visits from the priest or friar who resided in the associated cabecera. Members of the Cochuah Regional Archaeological Survey (CRAS) team, led by Shaw and Johnstone, have been documenting the Precolumbian, colonial, and historical archaeological sites within a portion of the Beneficios Altos area. Their research demonstrates the dynamic and complex frontier settlement distribution system initiated by congregación policy. Figure 3.2 displays the distribution of sites with colonial components as documented through several seasons of CRAS research (Shaw 2004, 2005, 2008). The lower register of Figure 3.2, the map of the province of Beneficios Altos, displays the two primary settlement types of congregación: cabeceras and visitas. A solid line connects each of the visita settlements to the cabecera whose priest was responsible for ministering to that community. These lines do not represent roads or trails, but they do demonstrate that the cabecera-visita relationship was not necessarily one of geographic convenience. Part of the reaNegotiating Colonialism on the Southern Frontier of Spanish Yucatán
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Figure 3.2. CRAS colonial site distribution.
son why a cabecera might have jurisdiction in distant visitas and not in those more proximate may have had to do with when visitas were established. Figure 3.2 also demonstrates the changing nature of the settlement pattern over time. While most of the place-names on Figure 3.2 are found in tribute records dating to before the implementation of congregación policy as existing populations, indications of settled communities associated with these current locations appear somewhat sporadically throughout the documentary record. Interestingly, frontier population trends do not tend to present a pattern of steady increase, which suggests that the accretion of sites was not likely a response to population pressures (Alexander 2004:43; Patch 1993:44,139). Instead, this pattern is 68
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more likely a result of a process recognized by Patch (1993:52) as “people simply mov[ing] from one settlement to another regardless of what the colonial authorities wanted them to do.” One succinct example comes from the small Beneficios Altos village of Polyuc. Polyuc was listed among the Maya villages whose population was forcibly moved to the nucleated cabecera of Chunhuhub in the earliest congregación of the 1550s (Gerhard 1993:80; Relaciones Históricogeográfica de la Gobernación de Yucatán 1983:163–164). However, starting with the very next documentation of the region, in 1655, Chunhuhub is listed as ministering to a visita named Polyuc (Bretos 1992:209; Gerhard 1993:80). The process that explains this sequence is not difficult to imagine: first, congregación mandated that the population of Polyuc transplant to Chunhuhub, which they almost certainly did under duress; second, those relocated individuals and families, unsatisfied with the new arrangement, moved back to Polyuc; third, following a period of likely but undocumented struggle, agents representing both sides of the colonial negotiation equation settled on acceptance that residents would stay in Polyuc. The other side of the negotiation in this example is that Polyuc would be converted into a proper Spanish colonial settlement, represented in this case by architectural elements, such as a central plaza housing a church, and cardinally oriented gridded streets. Contra-colony-motivated individuals were able to live just far enough away to be free from constant oppression and oversight while enjoying the benefits of inclusion within colonial society. Members of the colony were able to continue missionary activities, exact tribute, and maintain a level of supervision without constant conflict. This process is well illustrated in the case of Polyuc, but is one that was frequently repeated throughout Beneficios Altos. In fact, during the early 1700s, Spanish colonial documentation records the struggle against this process, lamenting that between 12 and 25 percent of the population lived outside authorized settlements (Patch 1993:52). Many of the visita and cabecera settlements displayed in Figure 3.2 undoubtedly share similar historical trajectories. The inset map of Figure 3.2 zooms in on the smaller settlements documented by CRAS team members in Beneficios Altos during research focused most intensively around the towns of Saban and Sacalaca (Shaw 2008). These settlement types include cabeceras or visitas, which have been discussed above; haciendas, which are defined as agricultural sites with large masonry residential structures; and ranchos, which are smaller-scale agricultural installations lacking evidence for masonry residential structures, but characterized by a well along with any combination of additional agricultural features. Negotiating Colonialism on the Southern Frontier of Spanish Yucatán
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Of the 45 colonial sites identified, 20 have been reoccupied during the fairly recent repopulation of the region following roughly a century of abandonment (Instituto Nacional de Estadístoca y Geografía 2013; Mason and Spinden 1927:xi). Among these 20, only 5 lack any indication of Precolumbian antecedents. Thus, the 28 colonial sites that were located among and above Precolumbian ruins make up the majority of the sample. While a detailed analysis of the processes that created this pattern must await further archaeological research, the evidence suggests that even in the shadow of colonial hegemony and proscriptive policies, land-use patterns during the colonial period were not wildly different than they had been prior to the implantation of the colony. In fact, we see more continuity in the transition from precontact to postcontact than we do as the population moved from colonial to postcolonial circumstances. While excavated archaeological data remain to be collected for a sufficient sample of colonial-period sites, there is a body of data that provides some suggestions of what might be expected of the archaeological record in Beneficios Altos. Alexander has conducted research in the areas of Yaxcaba parish and the region around Ebtun north of Beneficios Altos (Alexander 1997, 2003a, 2003b, 2004, 2012). In both of these areas, a pattern has emerged suggesting that Beneficios Altos sites may be unlikely to yield many nonlocal artifacts. During the colonial period, new materials entered the archaeological record of the peninsula. Notable among those materials for the Yucatán frontier were glazed ceramics and metal objects. While the collections from Alexander’s research include these artifacts, excavated contexts were nevertheless dominated by local, utilitarian ceramics (Alexander 2004:146–147). We might expect to see the same pattern in Beneficios Altos: relatively few nonlocal items likely concentrated nearest the residential structures on larger haciendas and in association with the higher-status residences of the cabeceras (Alexander 2004:147). Some preliminary excavations into colonial contexts in Beneficios Altos match these patterns, though sample sizes are too small to permit robust comparisons (Kaeding 2005; Kaeding and Flores Colin 2005). Such artifact distribution would align well with the negotiation model, as it would seem to indicate that individual residents of the frontier pursued different criteria and acted upon different influences in selecting the material culture with which to surround themselves. The examples drawn from the settlement data presented in Figure 3.2 share a theme: settlement patterns and the likely associated archaeological assemblage reflect neither a rejection nor an adoption of imperial hegemony. Instead, these lines of evidence indicate the creation of new land-use patterns with new 70
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architectural and archaeological signatures (see also Wernke 2013). Cabeceras, visitas, ranchos, and haciendas all represent entirely new types of sites on the Beneficios Altos landscape during the colonial period. However, these new types of sites are frequently distributed across the region in a fashion matching patterns from much earlier. Negotiation helps to explain this pattern as each new settlement decision had to be made, avoided, condoned, condemned, or embraced by individuals on either side of the equation each time in accordance with their own particular goals and motivations. The ability to live in communities just beyond the ever-present supervision of colonial administrators was not won in battle, settled in a courtroom, ceded by a military commander, or granted by royal decree; rather, it was negotiated by the individual agents of the frontier. When a royal order dictated that Maya residents move into cabecera centers, those residents established or reestablished communities just beyond the outskirts of town; when Maya families insisted upon reoccupying their traditional homelands or establishing a new settlement nearer to their agricultural fields, rural priests or friars began to pay regular visits to those communities and tax collectors changed their routes. Throughout the colonial period, a diversity of settlements continued to proliferate across the frontier landscape. The intentions of congregación— to increase the efficiency of religious instruction, economic extraction, and administrative supervision—were weakened by the tendency to return toward dispersed settlement. The agricultural demands of the Yucatán Peninsula required a high ratio of land to farmer, which favored a dispersed settlement system (Alexander 2004:113; Farriss 1984:124–127; Patch 1993:15; Rugeley 1996:9). While this could certainly contribute as a motivating factor in an individual’s decision to leave a congregated settlement, it seems unlikely that it was ever an economic necessity. In fact, as discussed below, even after historical circumstances resulted in massive immigration to the frontier, such areas do not seem to have been stressed beyond their agricultural capacities (Alexander 2004:113–114). The distance any individual or family chose to put between themselves and the centers of imperial control was a calculated act of resistance rather than survival; the creation of preferred circumstances was not forced by lack of alternatives but by the desire to minimize disadvantage. While resistant, such an act was not as final as flight beyond the borders of Spanish control—the route that was selected by many residents of Tituc, Chunhuhub’s other visita, who joined two thousand others who left in response to the repartimiento abuses of 1669’s colonial administrator Rodrigo Flores de Aldana (Garcia Bernal 2005:180–182). Figure 3.3 demonstrates some Negotiating Colonialism on the Southern Frontier of Spanish Yucatán
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Figure 3.3. Colonial negotiation of congregación.
of the potential motivations, individuals, and tactics that may have factored into this colonial negotiation.
Late Colonial and Early Mexican Republic Periods (1750–1847): Strained Negotiation on the Frontier The process of negotiation allowed the residents of Beneficios Altos to maintain a level of equilibrium between the influences of resistance and those of hegemony for hundreds of years. These were not years of peace by any means—violence, abuse, exploitation, flight, apostasy, and even uprisings were not uncommon throughout the days of the Spanish Empire—but negotiations generally mitigated excesses and, for better or worse, the status quo was consistently restored (Schroeder 1998). Thus, the system was maintained until the Late Colonial Period (1750– 1821), during which time the balance was thrown off so dramatically that mitigation efforts were strained and eventually broken—an occurrence that brought severe consequences. This section describes the changes that took place following the Late Colonial Period that ultimately undermined the negotiation process. Taking effect in the colonies during the 1760s, political events in Europe began to fundamentally reshape the nature of political leadership throughout the Spanish Empire. These events, collectively referred to as the Bourbon Reforms, included some of the most dramatic changes in colonial process to visit Yucatán since conquest (Alexander 2004:45–49; Kellogg 2010:231; Taylor 1996:13). In an effort to maximize economic production in the empire, the Spanish monarchy instituted an overhaul to colonial representation that included the dissolution of an institution known as the Repúblicas de Indios. Within colonial structure prior to the Bourbon Reforms, indigenous subjects of the Spanish Empire were 72
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considered to be a separate class and were governed accordingly as citizens of the Repúblicas de Indios or Repúblicas de Indígenas (Patch 1993:21, 137). Although this arrangement effectively solidified a racially inequitable social structure, it also offered indigenous residents a certain degree of protection from potential abuses. For example, as a separate and recognized entity, the Repúblicas provided a legal status and collective voice that facilitated negotiation (Kellogg 2010:231; Patch 1993:21; Taylor 1996:13). One reflection of this structure that worked to the benefit of the Maya residents of Yucatán was the policy that non-Maya people were largely prohibited from residing in Maya villages (Alexander 2004:48–49; Patch 1993:23). The size and reach of colonies in frontier areas were severely restricted by such policy. This created a buffer between colony and contra-colony interests, protected access to agricultural land and resources required by villages, and enshrined a degree of political autonomy within Maya communities (Alexander 2004:16–17, 54, 23; Patch 1993:21, 23, 25, 68; Reed 1964:265–268; Rugeley 1996:13). The removal of the Repúblicas recast the terms of colonial hegemony, removed restriction on colonization in frontier areas, and dramatically tipped the scales of the negotiation process that had tenuously sustained Beneficios Altos colonial relationships for centuries (Taylor 1996:13–14). Although Bourbon Reforms introduced a great many changes to the ways in which authority was expressed and wealth was extracted, the most directly relevant effect on the landscape of Beneficios Altos was embodied by an influx of criollo (non-Maya) residents into frontier settlements (Rugeley 1996:34; Taylor 1996:13). In the interest of making the colonies more financially beneficial to the Crown, the Bourbon Reforms and the dissolution of the Repúblicas not only allowed but encouraged the relocation of criollo residents into frontier villages who were drawn to the area courtesy of a boom in the sugar market during the late 1700s and early 1800s (Alexander 2004:29; Dumond 1997:46, 64; Patch 1993:142, 167, 204; Quezada 2001:135–137; Rugeley 1996:34; Taylor 1996:26). This population shift brought a direct and legitimate threat to the negotiated equilibrium that had sustained the region for generations. While these changes permeated culture and lifestyle, the focus here is on their effect upon a foundational element of the frontier population: agriculture. The vast majority of the Beneficios Altos population was composed of indigenous corn farmers and their families. These farmers employed swidden agricultural techniques practiced in modern times, reported from the colonial period, and with Precolumbian precedents, in which a single milpa (the Nahuatl loan word for agricultural field) would have functioned as only the most active cultivation area of a much larger system (Clendinnen 2003:139–140; Roys 1972:38). Negotiating Colonialism on the Southern Frontier of Spanish Yucatán
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A crop-filled milpa would have been only one among several counterparts that were lying in a state of fallow for possibly a decade or more while secondary growth naturally reinfused nutrients into the soils (Alexander 2004:113; Farriss 1984:124–127; Patch 1993:15; Rugeley 1996:9). Within this system of generally sustainable agriculture, a farmer’s milpa represents an area possibly ten times as large that would be required over the course of time. This system does not seem to have been considered when the Bourbon Reforms opened terrenos baldios—so-called empty lands—for private acquisition starting in Beneficios Altos as early as 1825 (Alexander 2004:109; Dumond 1997:65; Rugeley 1996:63–68). From any perspective, these were very turbulent times for the residents of areas like Beneficios Altos and throughout Mexico. While circumstances including military conscription and training should not be understated, for Beneficios Altos the reclassification of terrenos baldios from common land available for the agricultural pursuits of frontier residents to state property available for sale to private ownership appears to be an equally if not more significant factor in the conflict that ultimately erupted in the region.
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Figure 3.4. Terrenos baldios claims, 1832–1845.
The uppermost frame of Figure 3.4 shows the amount of land that had been officially allotted to each of the communities of Beneficios Altos during the colonial period. These lands had long been protected as the immutable property of the indigenous communities of each settlement. Based on their populations, each pueblo would have been granted four square leagues (6,960 ha) (Alexander 2004:54, 107; Dumond 1997:64). Given the nature of the milpa system, however, this allotment was rarely sufficient. The second frame in Figure 3.4 shows the amount of land that would have actually been required for the populations of each of the Beneficios Altos settlements as recorded in 1832 (Archivos General del Estado de Yucatán [AGEY] 1832a, 1832b, 1832c). The gray areas indicate how much land beyond the allotted acreage would have been necessary assuming a standard percentage of the recorded population of each settlement consisted of farmers. In a frontier area like Beneficios Altos, this strain was manageable; farmers in the area had access to more than enough land in the monte so long as they were willing to walk further to reach their fields. Presumably, this was an acceptable compromise at the time of the 1832 census. At the same time that terrenos baldios became available for private ownership in Beneficios Altos, market factors aligned to make those same lands particularly appealing to entrepreneurs. Records indicate that in 1844, 1.5 square leagues of land associated with Beneficios Altos settlements was claimed as terrenos baldios (Centro de Apoyo a la Investigacion Historica de Yucatán [CAIHY] 1844). These lands are represented in the black boxes that appear first in the third frame of Figure 3.4. Even considering that the vast majority of these 1844 plots bordered land already listed as privately owned, it is not a particularly stunning number. The 6 square leagues lost in 1845, represented in Figure 3.4’s fourth frame, also do not appear devastating to the farmer population of Beneficios Altos towns. It is worth noting, however, that 6 square leagues represents a 400 percent increase in land lost since the previous year. The next year saw another 325 percent increase in land claims, this time totaling 19.5 square leagues as represented by the black boxes in the fifth frame of Figure 3.4. Over the course of these three years, 27 square leagues—the equivalent of seven fully allotted populations—of agricultural land had been removed from the pool available to the frontier farmers. Perhaps more effective than the realities of land lost and land available would have been the perception of a criollo invasion. Beneficios Altos farmers would likely have understood that at the rates experienced over recent years, they could expect to lose around 50 more square leagues in the following year. At 76
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the same time, this influx of criollos was effectively edging indigenous residents out of local politics; instigating a massive exodus of Maya families from the cabeceras to what had previously been smaller villages; and literally changing the face of the frontier landscape with the construction of masonry houses, ranchos, and haciendas (Alexander 2004:49, 54, 56–57, 82–89; Patch 1993:145; Rugeley 1996:93). It is reasonable to expect that these changes would have been experienced as a rapid and rapidly intensifying invasion that undermined all aspects of daily life. Under these circumstances, tried-and-true negotiation practices would have seemed ineffectual. In fact, they were almost certainly futile: farmers likely already walked further to make their milpas, but eventually it was too far; local indigenous politicians likely already campaigned to preserve their level of representation, but eventually they were outnumbered and outspent; indigenous residents had likely already moved out of the cabeceras, but eventually the villages were overwhelmed. Figure 3.5 presents the negotiation system as it was available after the effects of the Bourbon Reforms had reached and transformed Beneficios Altos. In this version, criollo ranchers and politicians are included within the colony. Census information gathered in 1784, 1821, and 1832 provides a glimpse into some of the nuance of this frontier population phenomenon. In 1784, a year for which we have very detailed census data, the criollo residents in Beneficios Altos cabeceras made up an average of 26 percent of the population (Archivo de la Mitra Emeritense, Mérida [AME] 1784a, 1784b, 1784c). Within the villages, criollo residents accounted for an average of only 5 percent (AME 1784a, 1784b, 1784c). Between 1784 and 1821 (the next year from which we
Figure 3.5. Negotiation of criollo influx. Negotiating Colonialism on the Southern Frontier of Spanish Yucatán
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have comprehensive data) the population of Beneficios Altos sees a massive increase, doubling almost exactly from 14,201 to 28,338 people (AME 1784a, 1784b, 1784c; CAIHY 1821). Unfortunately, the data from 1821 do not record ethnicity, so the more detailed portrait of this demographic trend cannot be compiled. A suggestive proxy is provided, however, from 1832 data for the Beneficios Altos cabecera of Ichmul and one of its visitas, Tiholop—two of the settlements that saw among the highest increases in population (AGEY 1832a, 1832b, 1832c; AME 1784a). Over the course this 48-year span, these two settlements saw a net increase of 9,319 people. In 1784, Ichmul was made up of a 37 percent criollo population. This was the highest percentage in Beneficios Altos at the time, likely reflecting the town’s political role as a regional capital. Meanwhile, the 1784 population dynamics in the visita of Tiholop were more standard for the region, with the criollo residents accounting for 6 percent. Jumping ahead to 1832, after the great spike in population numbers, we see the criollo component of Tiholop dropping to 5 percent, while Ichmul’s criollos increase to 42 percent. The population increase was fairly equitable between cabecera (an increase of 2,209 people) and visita (2,356 people). In sum, the demonstrated trend is toward an equal distribution of a relatively massive increase in population between cabecera and visita with a demographic increase only in the amount of cabecera criollos. This evidence is drawn solely from the two settlements in 1832, but it is reasonable to expect not only that other Beneficios Altos towns were experiencing this phenomenon similarly but also that the overall process was under way from before 1784 and continued after 1832. Clearly, the nature of the frontier was changing rather dramatically. The tactics of negotiation available given these rapidly changing circumstances would have been severely limited. Back to Figure 3.5, we see that the options that had been available are crossed out. Contra-colony perspectives had previously found voice in the political sphere. During the criollo influx, we see a documented reversal of that tradition as criollo families representing the goals of the state take over the governance of frontier settlements (Alexander 2004:49, 56–57). With the dissolution of the Repúblicas, residents with contra-colony objectives were no longer afforded a particular class or collective representation, making individuals more vulnerable to exploitation. As demonstrated above, agricultural lands were disappearing, so the negotiated response of simply walking further from home to address subsistence needs was no longer feasible. Among the options that did remain viable were to attempt relocation—from town to town and, as always, beyond the boundaries of colonial authority—or resort to armed uprising. 78
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Caste War: Frontier without Negotiation The loss of the negotiation system left the contra-colony elements of Beneficios Altos with few choices: they could accept their alienation from and within the very towns and lands that they had maintained through generations of colonialism and earlier; they could embrace the relief valve that had always existed for the province during times of strife in the form of the porous southern border; or they could opt for the extreme end of the resistance spectrum and raise arms against the colony. True to form, the residents of Beneficios Altos—the individual agents who had populated the colonial negotiation process—made these decisions individually, and both history and archaeology attest to those who chose each path (Dumond 1997:84, 192–196, 253, 269–271; Reed 1964:189). In spite of its nuance, this climactic era in the history of the Yucatán Peninsula is collectively referred to as the Caste War in reference to those who selected armed opposition. The Caste War of Yucatán, “the most successful Indian revolt in New World history,” is a singularly important event in the history of the region and of Mexico, in the study of uprisings and peasant rebellions, in the conversation of indigenous resistance, and in the investigation of colonization and its effects (Bricker 1981:87). In a very simplified sense, the Caste War pitted the population of Maya agriculturalists and their allies—a faction that had numerical majority—against the criollo population that held power and wealth. In many respects, the Maya-aligned, contra-colony faction was victorious, carving out a section of the peninsula in which they lived with considerable autonomy for over 50 years. The Caste War provides a powerful illustration of the foundational importance of negotiation as an institution of colonial stability. During the years of the Caste War, frontier life was redefined in its entirety. All aspects, including social structure, power relations, settlement patterns, wealth and prestige, safety, and religion, were recast and re-created. The landscape itself serves as perhaps the most archaeologically demonstrable manifestation of this severe redefinition. Throughout the deep history of the area that was Beneficios Altos, negotiation had manifested on the landscape in many different ways. In the example from the Early and Middle Colonial Periods discussed above, these changes to the cultural landscape were more of degree than of kind. Some visitas grew into cabeceras, some smaller communities sprouted up and grew into visitas, and each type of residential population center expanded and contracted internally and in its hinterlands, but many of the main elements remained. Settlements were distributed throughout the province according to a fairly regular pattern and were characterized by gridded streets oriented to cardinal directions. An open plaza surrounded Negotiating Colonialism on the Southern Frontier of Spanish Yucatán
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by masonry buildings lay at the center of the towns. The east side of each plaza was dominated by a monumental stone church constructed in a standardized T-shaped layout. Though there were exceptions, this was the landscape that influenced, was created by, and provided the backdrop for colonial frontier life. Today, the landscape of the Beneficios Altos area is largely a Caste War landscape. The surviving remnants of the Precolumbian and colonial landscapes have been scarred and re-created as monuments to the conflict. Even the hallmarks of recent development do not obscure the prominence of the Caste War
Figure 3.6. Monuments to the Caste War on the local landscape. 80
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on the landscape and in the perceptions of the residents. The primary examples are the literal monuments: statues of the locally born leaders of the rebellion and cannon exhibited in a central plaza (Figure 3.6; upper left, lower left, and lower central frames). Some signatures of the war are slightly less obvious but ubiquitous along the roads and wooded paths of the area, like the expediently constructed walls built to protect guerrilla fighters during ambushes and skirmishes (Figure 3.6; upper central frame). Some are tucked into the forests used only as landmarks for passing hunters, including the archaeological remains
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left from the prolonged encampment of the Mexican army sent to quell the rebellion, or the frontier fortress built as a more permanent headquarters for that same effort. Others are preserved as constant and timeless reminders of the lessons of the war, exemplified by the church of Tihosuco, whose massive and elaborate facade was splintered during the conflict and has been intentionally kept that way since (Figure 3.6; right frame). The failure and abandonment of negotiation processes may be best illustrated by the conflict landscape presented above, but perhaps it is equally well embodied by a brief anecdote from Caste War history. Empowered by dramatic successes, including driving the criollo army and all members of the colony from Beneficios Altos, one of the semi-official leaders of the insurgency, Jacinto Pat, offered terms of peace. This was a negotiation in the strictest sense. Pat’s terms included, among others things, a reversal of the excesses of the Bourbon Reforms, tax relief, reduction and standardization of church fees, and the return and protection of agricultural lands. Yucatecan representatives fully acquiesced to every single demand. That is, from the perspective of the resistant forces, Pat’s negotiation had been 100 percent successful, peace could be restored, and equilibrium could be reestablished under terms that were more favorable for the majority residents of frontier areas like Beneficios Altos than they had been for generations if not centuries. No more than five days later, the virtual second in command of the insurgency, Cecilio Chi, turned his faction of the army against Pat’s. Within five months, Pat himself had been ambushed and murdered by Chi’s men. Peace was dashed, and the Caste War proceeded to carve the landscape for over fifty more years. Jacinto Pat had not failed; his negotiation for peace had not failed— quite the opposite, in fact, it had been enormously successful—but the Caste War raged on. Viewing this event through the lens of the negotiation model, it is possible to see it as an indication that negotiation itself was no longer viewed as a process that could create a result preferable to the alternative—in this case, autonomy, abandonment, relocation, social restructuring, and war.
Frontier Negotiation The examples provided above are intended to illustrate the degree to which the process of negotiation characterized the realities of frontier colonial life in Beneficios Altos. Through the Early and Middle Colonial Periods, the very settlement pattern of the province was created and crafted by the negotiation of the policy of congregación. Skipping to the very end of the colonial period reveals 82
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increasingly desperate attempts to negotiate the severe and rapidly intensifying pressures instigated by the Bourbon Reforms. Ultimately, the signatures of the Caste War demonstrate the dramatic effects that attended the destruction and abandonment of the negotiation process. By tracking its role through the colonial period, the critical role negotiation played in the maintenance of equilibrium is demonstrated. The negotiation process demonstrated in Beneficios Altos was successful in no small part due to the frontier location of the province. Such negotiations can only succeed when an acceptable level of equilibrium can be reached. When that equilibrium either is or is perceived to be unattainable, the negotiation process cannot possibly succeed, as is demonstrated by the events of the Caste War. In the major Spanish and criollo population centers of the Yucatán Peninsula, like the capital city of Mérida, members of the colony severely tipped the balance of the negotiation equation. The effectiveness, frequency, and magnitude of the daily individual negotiations of these and contra-colony pressures might be assumed to have been equivalently decreased. An option remained, however, in the very existence of the frontier. In the same way that the porous southern border of Beneficios Altos necessarily meant that frontier colonial pressures must be negotiable or they would be abandoned, the very existence of frontier areas like Beneficios Altos meant the same had to be true at least to a degree within the centers. In viewing this case study through the perspective of colonial negotiation, we see again that the role of the frontier was critical in determining the nature and maintenance of colonialism throughout the colony. This element of the frontier colonial relationship has benefited and will continue to benefit from application to and investigation of colonial circumstances on all sides of the prehistoric/historical and Western/ non-Western boundaries.
References Cited Alexander, Rani T. 1997 Settlement Patterns of the Late Colonial Period in Yaxcabá Parish, Yucatán, Mexico. In Approaches to the Historical Archaeology of Mexico, Central & South America, edited by Janine Gasco, Greg Charles Smith, and Patricia Fournier-Garcia, pp. 29–40. University of California Institute of Archaeology, Los Angeles. 2003a Introduction: Haciendas and Agrarian Change in Rural Mesoamerica. Ethnohistory 50:3–14. 2003b Architecture, Haciendas, and Economic Change in Yaxcabá, Yucatán, Mexico. Ethnohistory 50:191–220. 2004 Yaxcabá and the Caste War of Yucatán. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. Negotiating Colonialism on the Southern Frontier of Spanish Yucatán
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Prohibido Tocar este Cenote: The Archaeological Basis for the Titles of Ebtun. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 16(1):1–24. Archivo de la Mitra Emeritense, Mérida 1784a Santa Visita de los Curatos de Ychmul, Sacalaca, Hecha por el Ythmo y Rmo Snr Don Fray Luis de Pina y Mano. Visitas Pastorales, Volumen 2, Expediente 26. 1784b Santa Visita del Pueblo de Chkinsonot Hecha por el Yltmo Senor D-n Fray Luis de Pina, Mazo. Visitas Pastorales, Volumen 3, Expediente 48. 1784c Santa Visita del Pueblo de Tihosuco; Echa por el Ytlmo y rmo Sor Don Fray Luis de Pina y Mazo. Visita Pastorales, Volumen 3, Expediente 47. Archivos General del Estado de Yucatán 1832a Chunhuhub Padron de las Habitantes del Pueblo de Chunhuhub y su Comprension 8 Octubre de 1832. Poder Ejecutivo, Censos y Padrones, 1832, Volumen 1, Expediente 10. 1832b Ichmul Padron de las Habitantes del Pueblo de Ichmul y su Comprension 8 Octubre de 1832. Poder Ejecutivo, Censos y Padrones, 1832, Volumen 1, Expediente 13. 1832c Tihosuco Padron de las Habitantes del Pueblo de Tihosuco y su Comprension 8 Octubre de 1832. Poder Ejecutivo, Censos y Padrones, 1832, Volumen 1, Expediente 12. Astor-Aguilar, Miguel 2009 Mesoamerican Communicating Objects: Mayan Worldviews Before, During, and After Conquest. In Maya Worldviews at Conquest, edited by Leslie G. Cecil and Timothy Pugh, pp. 159–182. University Press of Colorado, Boulder. Birmingham, Judy 2000 Resistance, Creolization or Optimal Foraging at Killalpaninna Mission, South Australia. In The Archaeology of Difference: Negotiating Cross-Cultural Engagements in Oceania, edited by Robin Torrence and Anne Clark, pp. 360–404. Routledge, New York. Black, Nancy Johnson 1997 The Mercedarians and the Missionization of the Lenca in Santa Bárbara de Tencoa, Honduras. In Approaches to the Historical Archaeology of Mexico, Central, and South America, edited by Janine Gasco, Greg Charles Smith, and Patricia Fournier-Garcia, pp. 83–89. Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles. Blom, Frans 1936 The Conquest of Yucatan. Riverside Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Blomster, Jeffrey P. 2008 Legitimation, Negotiation, and Appropriation in Postclassic Oaxaca: Mixtec Stone Codices. In After Monte Albán: Transformation and Negotiation in Oaxaca, Mexico, edited by Jeffrey P. Blomster, pp. 295–330. University Press of Colorado, Boulder. Bretos, Miguel 1992 Iglesias de Yucatán. Producción Editorial Dante, Mérida. Bricker, Victoria Reifler 1977 The Caste War of Yucatán: The History of a Myth and the Myth of History. In Anthropology and History in Yucatan, edited by G. D. Jones, pp.251–258. University of Texas Press, Austin. 1981 The Indian Christ, the Indian King: The Historical Substrate of Maya Myth and Ritual. University of Texas Press, Austin. Butzer, K. W. 1992 The Americas before and after 1492: Current Geographical Research. Annals of the American Association of Geographers 82:345–368. 2012
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Centro de Apoyo a la Investigacion Historica de Yucatán 1821 Curatos del Partido de Ichmul y de Sotuta. XII 1821 1/2. 023. 1844 Registro de Terrenos Baldios Registro de Anotaciones de la Denuncias de Terrenos Baldios con Secuente al Ant. Lo de Acuerdao de la Excelentisima Asamblea Departmental de 5 de diciembre de 1844. Chamberlain, Robert S. 1939 Spanish Methods of Conquest and Colonization in Yucatan, 1517–1550. II. Scientific Monthly 49(4):351–359. 1966 The Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 1517–1550. Octagon Books, New York. Clendinnen, Inga 1987 Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatán, 1517–1570. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 2003 Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatán, 1517–1570. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Deagan, Kathleen 2001 Dynamics of Imperial Adjustment in Spanish America: Ideology and Social Integration. In Empires: Perspectives from Anthropology and History, edited by Susan E. Alcock, Terence N. D’Altroy, Kathleen D. Morrison, and Carla M. Sinopoli, pp. 179–194. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Denevan, W. M. 1992 The Native Population of the Americas in 1492. 2nd ed. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison. Dumond, Don E. 1997 The Machete and the Cross: Campesino Rebellion in Yucatan. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln. Early, John D. 2006 The Maya and Catholicism: An Encounter of Worldviews. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. Farriss, Nancy M. 1978 Nucleation versus Dispersal: The Dynamics of Population Movement in Colonial Yucatán. Hispanic American Historical Review 58:187–216. 1984 Maya Society under Colonial Rule: The Collective Enterprise of Survival. Princeton University Press, Princeton. Garcia Bernal, Manuela Cristina 2005 El gobernador de Yucatán, Rodrigo Flores de Aldana. In Economía, política, y sociedad en el Yucatán colonial, edited by M. C. García Bernal, pp. 141–260. Ediciones de la Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, Mérida. Gerhard, Peter 1993 The Southeast Frontier of New Spain. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman. Graham, Elizabeth 1991 Archaeological Insights into Colonial Period Maya Life at Tipu, Belize. In Columbian Consequences, edited by David Hurst Thomas, pp. 319–335. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. Hanks, William F. 2010 Converting Words: Maya in the Age of the Cross. University of California Press, Berkeley. Negotiating Colonialism on the Southern Frontier of Spanish Yucatán
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Instituto Nacional de Estadístoca y Geografía 2013 Online documents referenced November 2013. http://www.inegi.org.mx/est/contenidos/Proyectos/ccpv. Jones, Grant D. 1989 Maya Resistance to Spanish Rule: Time and History on a Colonial Frontier. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. Joyce, Arthur A. 2008 Domination, Negotiation, and Collapse: A History of Centralized Authority on the Oaxaca Coast before the Late Postclassic. In After Monte Albán: Transformation and Negotiation in Oaxaca, Mexico, edited by Jeffrey P. Blomster, pp. 219–254. University Press of Colorado, Boulder. Kaeding, Adam R. 2005 Xbalche. In Final Report of the Cochuah Regional Archaeological Survey’s 2005 Field Season, edited by Justine M. Shaw, pp. 130–143. College of the Redwoods, Eureka, California. Kaeding, Adam R., and Alberto G. Flores Colin 2005 Ichmul Operation 3. In Final Report of the Cochuah Regional Archaeological Survey’s 2005 Field Season, edited by Justine M. Shaw, pp. 31–44. College of the Redwoods, Eureka, California. Keen, Benjamin 1985 Recent Writing on the Spanish Conquest. Latin American Research Review 20:161–171. Kellogg, Susan 2010 Afterword: The Consequences of Negotiation. In Negotiation within Domination: New Spain’s Indian Pueblos Confront the Spanish State, edited by Ethelia Ruiz Medrano and Susan Kellog, pp. 229–232. University Press of Colorado, Boulder. Lightfoot, Kent G. 2005 Indians, Missionaries, and Merchants: The Legacy of Colonial Encounters on the California Frontiers. University of California Press, Berkeley. Lockhart, James, and Stuart B. Schwartz 1983 Early Latin America: A History of Colonial Spanish America and Brazil. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Low, Setha M. 1995 Indigenous Architecture and the Spanish American Plaza in Mesoamerica and the Caribbean. American Anthropologist, New Series 97:748–762. 1996 Spatializing Culture: The Social Production and Social Construction of Public Space in Costa Rica. American Anthropologist 23:861–879. Macleod, Murdo J. 2003 Indian Confraternity Lands in Colonial Guatemala, 1660–1730: Some Uses and Trends. Ethnohistory 50:151–159. Mason, Gregory, and Herbert Spinden 1927 Silver Cities of Yucatán. Putnam, New York. McBryde, Isabel 2000 “Barter . . . Immediately Commenced to the Satisfaction of Both Parties”: CrossCultural Exchange at Port Jackson, 1788–1828. In The Archaeology of Difference: Negotiating Cross-Cultural Engagements in Oceania, edited by Robin Torrence and Anne Clark, pp. 238–277. Routledge, New York. 86
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Orellana, Sandra L. 1973 Ethnohistorical and Archaeological Boundaries of the Tzutujil Maya. Ethnohistory 20:125–142. Patch, Robert W. 1993 Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan, 1648–1812. Stanford University Press, Stanford. Prem, Hanns J. 1992 Spanish Colonization and Indian Property in Central Mexico, 1521–1620. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 82:444–459. Quezada, Sergio 2001 Breve historia de Yucatán. Serie breves historias de los Estados de la República Mexicana. Mexico, D.F.: Colegio de Mexico, Fideicomiso Historia de las Americas. Reed, Nelson 1964 The Caste War of Yucatán. Stanford University Press, Stanford. Relaciones Históricogeográfica de la Gobernación de Yucatán 1983 Relaciones Histórico-Geográficos de la Gobernación de Yucatán (Mérida, Valladolid, y Tabasco). 2 vols. Edited by Mercedes de la Garza. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México, D.F. Restall, Matthew 1997 The Maya World: Yucatec Culture and Society, 1550–1850. Stanford University Press, Stanford. Roys, Ralph L. 1965 Lowland Maya Native Society at Spanish Contact. In Archaeology of Southern Mesoamerica, Part Two, edited by Gordon R. Willey, pp. 659–678. Vol. 3 of Handbook of Middle American Indians. University of Texas Press, Austin. 1972 The Indian Background of Colonial Yucatan. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman. Rugeley, Terry 1996 Yucatán’s Maya Peasantry and the Origins of the Caste War. University of Texas Press, Austin. Schroeder, Susan 1998 Introduction. In Native Resistance and the Pax Colonial in New Spain, edited by Susan Schroeder, pp. xi–xxiii. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln. Scott, James C. 1985 Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. Yale University Press, New Haven. Shaw, Justine M. (editor) 2004 Final Report of the Cochuah Regional Archaeological Survey’s 2004 Field Season. College of the Redwoods, Eureka, California. 2005 Final Report of the Cochuah Regional Archaeological Survey’s 2005 Field Season. College of the Redwoods, Eureka, California. 2008 Final Report of the Cochuah Regional Archaeological Survey’s 2008 Field Season. College of the Redwoods, Eureka, California. Stern, Steve J. 1987 New Approaches to the Study of Peasant Rebellion and Consciousness: Implications of the Andean Experience. In Resistance, Rebellion, and Consciousness in the Andean Peasant World, 18th to 20th Centuries, edited by Steve J. Stern, pp. 3–25. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison. Negotiating Colonialism on the Southern Frontier of Spanish Yucatán
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Taylor, William B. 1996 Magistrates of the Sacred: Priests and Parishioners in Eighteenth-Century Mexico. Stanford University Press, Stanford. Torrence, Robin 2000 Just Another Trader? An Archaeological Perspective on European Barter with Admiralty Islanders, Papua New Guinea. In The Archaeology of Difference: Negotiating Cross-Cultural Engagements in Oceania, edited by Robin Torrence and Anne Clark, pp. 104–139. Routledge, New York. Torrence, Robin, and Anne Clarke 2000 Negotiating Difference: Practice Makes Theory for Contemporary Archaeology in Oceania. In The Archaeology of Difference: Negotiating Cross-Cultural Engagements in Oceania, edited by Robin Torrence and Anne Clark, pp. 1–28. Routledge, New York. Weeks, John M., and Nancy Johnson Black 1991 Mercedarian Missionaries and the Transformation of Lenca Indian Society in Western Honduras, 1550–1700. In Columbian Consequences, edited by David Hurst Thomas, pp. 246–261. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. Wernke, Steven A. 2013 Negotiated Settlements: Andean Communities and Landscape under Inka and Spanish Colonialism. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
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4 The Romans in Britain Colonization on an Imperial Frontier
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This chapter addresses the means through which the southern and eastern parts of the British Isles were incorporated into the Roman Empire during the first century C.E. It assesses the significance of the value of the concept of colonialism in explaining this process of military and cultural annexation. It also provides a brief assessment of some significant themes that relate to the colonial archaeology of the Roman province of Britannia, including the impact, since the mid-1990s, of postcolonial theory upon this field of study and the recent movement toward theories that address the Roman period as a form of globalization (Hingley 2015a). Many of the accounts of Britannia written by classical authors were rediscovered during the sixteenth century, including the influential writings of Julius Caesar and Tacitus. From the late sixteenth century, antiquaries also became interested in finding material evidence for Roman society in Britain, locating the ruins and artifacts that remained aboveground or were uncovered (Hingley 2008). Several centuries of archaeological research has supplemented these early antiquarian works, providing a detailed understanding of the Roman occupation of Britannia and the impact of imperial rule upon the indigenous people. There are a number of summaries of the archaeology and historical evidence for Roman Britain (Braund 1996; James and Millett 2001; Mattingly 2006; Millett et al. 2016; Rogers 2015). Knowledge of Roman Britain was initially mainly based upon the writings of classical authors who had outlined a series of ideas about the “barbarian” peoples of northwestern Europe. Accounts of the British Isles included those of Julius Caesar, Tacitus, and Cassius Dio (Braund 1996). These writings described nonRoman peoples as unsettled pastoralists who wore little clothing and had violent
and aggressive temperaments (Woolf 2011:89–94). It has long been thought that the indigenous occupants of Britain became Romanized as a result of their incorporation into the empire (Haverfield 1912; Millett 1990). Nevertheless, despite the process of the Roman conquest and settlement of Britannia, classical views of these indigenous peoples appear to have been slow to change. Woolf (2011:94) has argued that Britain represented “Rome’s permanent barbarian theme park” from the first to the fourth centuries C.E., observing that an “ethnographic discourse” of barbarity had become so well marked that the “lived experience” of Mediterranean visitors to Britain had little impact. Woolf wonders whether visitors from elsewhere in the empire traveled to Britain in late Roman times expecting to find “savages” still in control; if so they would have had to pass the Roman monuments of the city of Londinium (London) and Hadrian’s Wall to reach the barbarians (Woolf 2011). Rather than dismissing the idea of native savagery, it is interesting to wonder to what extent the barbarian identity of communities across the entire province, including the “civil” southern and eastern parts, might have continued to make an impression on elite visitors from the Mediterranean even during the fourth century.
Britain and the Roman Empire The Roman Empire at its peak ruled a vast territory encircling the Mediterranean and extending into northern Europe (Woolf 2012). Throughout Rome’s territories the indigenous peoples were incorporated into a series of Roman provinces, including the frontier province of Britannia (Map 4.1). Rome came into direct contact with the people of southeastern Britain during the middle of the first century B.C.E., and the conquest of this province commenced in 43 C.E., under the emperor Claudius. The Romans conquered much of the south and east of the British Isles during the later first century C.E., incorporating these areas into their province; however, the northern and western parts of the British Isles (present-day Scotland and Ireland) were never subdued or incorporated (Map 4.2). At the time of conquest Britain was divided into a large number of communities—often called “tribes” by modern scholars (Moore 2011). Violent military action was used to force many of the indigenous peoples of Britain to accept Roman rule, while other communities submitted to the Roman army without armed resistance (Mattingly 2006:87–113). After the initial phase of conquest, the frontiers of the Roman Empire in Britain were maintained by a substantial military force of up to fifty thousand men— stationed, from the latter part of the first century C.E., across central and western 90
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Map 4.1. Map of Roman provinces, including the frontier province of Britannia.
Map 4.2. Map of Roman features, sites, and areas of Britannia possibly under Roman civitas control (after Mattingly 2006, Figure 10).
Britain. This military occupying force was far outnumbered by members of the indigenous communities, since the Roman province may have had a population of at least two million. Although the deployment of Roman soldiers was sufficient to keep order, classical writers recorded that there was trouble on the frontiers from time to time, particularly during the later Roman period. Colonial control was articulated by the assimilation of members of the indigenous communities of much of Britannia into the Roman Empire. Their incorporation into a set of new cultural practices spread with the extension of imperial control (Hingley 92
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2005, 2013). Roman rule in Britain lasted until the early fifth century and then collapsed, at least in part, as a result of pressure of peoples from beyond the imperial frontier upon the lands within. As a result, Roman ways of life were entirely lost during early medieval times. Classical models and materials were reintroduced and reformulated during and after the Renaissance (Hingley 2008).
Roman Colonialism and Britain At the heart of the issues addressed in this chapter is the term colonial; this word ultimately derives from the Latin term colonia—a colony or a colonial settlement. There has been considerable discussion in classics and classical archaeology of the twin terms colonialism and imperialism, the meanings of which are often argued to be almost interchangeable (Goff 2005:2; Hingley 2000:7; Mattingly 2011:6–7). Such works build upon the contribution of the influential postcolonial scholar Edward Said (1993:8), who defined imperialism as “the practice, the theory, and the attitudes of a dominant metropolitan center ruling a distant territory.” Colonialism, he argued, “is the implanting of settlements in a distant territory” and almost always resulted from imperialism. Therefore, colonialism derives from the classical notion of the colony as a permanent settlement of people who have moved away from their home territory, but this has been extended to all instances of direct political control by a foreign state, irrespective of the number of people present (Hingley 2000:7). The term colonialism is therefore effectively interchangeable with imperialism; both terms are adopted by archaeologists and ancient historians to address comparable processes that occurred in the Roman Empire (Mattingly 2011:6–7). These definitions of aspects of the Roman past link to the discussions of concepts in chapter 1 of this volume (the concept of diaspora has also recently found some favor in Roman archaeology; see Eckardt 2010). Despite the common use of the concept of “imperialism” in the archaeology of the Roman empire (e.g., Mattingly 2011), a powerful intellectual movement in the past twenty years has defined itself as postcolonial rather than post-imperial (see below). The Romans are usually regarded as having been “imperial” in their conquest and subsuming of peoples across their vast empire, since many were incorporated by armed force and through cultural assimilation without any sustained and substantial acts of colonization (Morley 2010). In other words, the Roman Empire did not witness the creation of substantial communities of settlers from the imperial core to replace indigenous communities. In addition, it was usually argued until the 1990s that indigenous communities progressed rather than The Romans in Britain: Colonization on an Imperial Frontier
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being marginalized as a result of incorporation into the Roman Empire. In this chapter I will draw upon the concept of “indigenous people” to contemplate the impact of Rome upon the British Isles. I am using this term to refer to the people resident in Britain at the time of the Roman conquest. The population of the British Isles was probably fairly mixed at the time of conquest, and there are likely to have been waves of people who had moved to these lands in preRoman times, although archaeologists do not agree about the extent and character of population movement prior to the Romans. The basis of government in the Roman Empire was local, with significant decisions and administration, wherever possible, devolved to local communities in the individual civitates forming the basis of the civil areas of the province (Mattingly 2006:260). The civitates of Roman Britain often appear to have been derived from the preexisting Iron Age tribes, although these political groupings were manipulated by the Roman authorities for their own colonial requirements (Moore 2011). Gosden (2004:82–113) has defined the Roman Empire as an example of “middle-ground colonialism,” based on a high level of accommodation between the colonizers and the colonized and the idea that cultural change was multilateral, not unilateral. This is a useful definition, but we also need to allow for the power asymmetries inherent in Roman colonial contexts and for the widespread acts of violence through which Rome established imperial landscapes. These are more characteristic of Gosden’s alternative colonial model of terra nullius (“nobody’s land”) (Mattingly 2011:32–33). This chapter explores the degree to which cultural change in Roman Britain was multilateral or focused on power asymmetries. It seeks to establish the degree to which Roman colonization reduced Britannia to a peaceful and prosperous Roman province and also the extent of the impact of Roman culture upon both the indigenous population and settlers.
Changing Theories During the first half of the twentieth century, traditional approaches to the Romanization of society viewed cultural changes from barbarian to civilized as beneficial, casting a positive view on the impact of Roman imperialism. A range of new approaches derived from postcolonial theory and globalization studies have developed over the past two decades to explain cultural change and identity in Roman Britain (Gardner 2013). Initially, postcolonial accounts emerged as the result of the development of an approach that I have recently titled “postcolonial Roman archaeologies” (Hingley 2014). Drawing upon the writings of scholars including Said (1993) and Bhabha (1994), this movement developed in 94
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order to unmask the hidden colonial agendas of the previous generations of ancient historians and archaeologists, accounts that had developed overtly positive assessments of the character and consequences of Roman imperialism. Much of this postcolonial work was highly critical of how previous generations had interpreted the Roman past and, in particular, the rather simplistic ways that earlier accounts drew upon a theory of Romanization that accounted for a glorious progression under Roman influence from barbarian lives prior to conquest and civilized Roman lives in Britain (Hingley 2000; Mattingly 1997; Webster and Cooper 1996). The postcolonial movement in Roman archaeology emphasized that past research underplayed the complex evidence for the Roman-period past to present a message that supported the civilizing mythology of modern empires. In the context of the Roman Empire, it also focused archaeological research onto the elite, concentrating attention upon the cities, villas (country houses), and military, downplaying the lives of rural populations and the dispossessed and simplifying the nature of cultural change (Hingley 2014). Traditions of archaeological research in Britain are changing to reflect the purportedly postcolonial world in which we live, and greater attention is now focused on the marginalized and the less wealthy (Mattingly 2006). My own work has come to focus more fully on the idea of Roman culture as an incorporative medium—a set of practices and material items that allowed people across the Roman Empire to live in flexible new ways (Hingley 2005:72–116; Hingley 2013, 2015a). There is a deeply critical dimension to this approach, since it draws upon the contemporary context in which theories of the past are developed and also upon the suggestion that as the global world order has changed over the past half century, the situation for much of the world’s population has not improved (Mooers 2015). González-Ruibal (2014:7) argues that certain approaches that have recently become popular in Roman archaeology, including research that focuses upon hybrid and discrepant experiences, are far from politically innocent and might well serve, unwittingly, to endorse neoliberal ideologies. The celebration of the fluidity of identities in the ancient and contemporary worlds may serve to mask power inequalities in contemporary cultures (Hingley 2015a). As a result, the focus on globalizing Roman culture that I have sought to develop in my recent research seeks to recast Roman cultural incorporation as one of the means through which the empire spread and perpetuated its deeply unequal power structures. These structures created and transformed inequality, and as Woolf ’s observations about Britannia as a Roman “barbarian theme park” may illustrate, many of the peoples incorporated into the Roman province were marginalized rather than fully incorporated. The Romans in Britain: Colonization on an Imperial Frontier
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This approach seeks to place a critical focus upon the forms of theory that have come to replace previous approaches to the Roman Empire, since it views the heterogeneous forms of Roman culture that arose across the empire as part of the binding force that created imperial expansion and stability (Hingley 2005, 2015a). Roman culture is assessed as an assimilative force and as a vital aspect of how Rome created and maintained control. It is important to address the extent to which this flexible means of incorporation can be considered a process of colonization.
Colonizing Roman Britain We can idenfity three processes of colonization that affected the peoples of ancient Britain. First, a formal type of colonization was characterized by the establishment of colonies or cities populated by Roman citizens during the first century C.E. These urban centers constituted one element in the imposition of control during the violent military subjugation of the province. Second, lessformal types of colonization involved fairly large-scale movement of people into the province throughout the Roman period. This included the movement of the military units used to impose control on the province and to maintain the frontiers, and also the movement of traders and other people who came into Britannia from other parts of the empire. An alternative approach is to conceptualize the movements of such people within the empire as a form of diaspora (Eckardt 2010). This might help to undermine the concept that these population movements were well-defined and simple processes to colonization (see chapter 1, this volume). Third, a more general form of colonization involved a process through which certain peoples across much of the southern and eastern parts of the British Isles were assimilated into an incorporative Mediterraneanstyle of culture that is often called Roman. The degree to which this third process should really be considered a form of colonization is debatable if this term is used exclusively to define the implanting of settlements in a distant territory. The first two processes brought newcomers into the province, while the third formed part of a broader process of cultural change that involved people across the Roman Empire and beyond its borders during the later first millennium B.C.E. and the early centuries of the first millennium C.E. (Hingley 2005, 2013; Woolf 1998). A key question regarding these three forms of colonization concerns the extent to which indigenous people across Britannia became incorporated into a culture that might be identified as Roman in any meaningful sense. This question also relates to the makeup of the population of Britannia. How 96
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many people in the province apparently following Roman ways of life were derived from indigenous communities, and how many had settled in Britain or were the descendants of such individuals? At the core of this discussion is the issue of the degrees to which the indigenous population of Britain became, in any real sense, Roman.
Colonization and Settlers Initially, during the expansion of the Roman Empire across the Mediterranean, Roman colonies (coloniae) were the chartered towns of Roman citizens, with constitutions based on that of the city of Rome (Mattingly 2006:260). Roman culture was defined by citizenship, and the city and the colony were the legally defined settlements of Roman citizens (Laurence et al. 2011:4). Colonies were often established in new territories during the expansion of the empire in order to create stability in frontier regions, with the population of individual colonies often made up of retired members of the Roman army. Three colonies were established in Britannia during the first century C.E., at Colchester (Essex), Gloucester (Gloucestershire), and Lincoln (Lincolnshire). It is clear from the archaeological evidence that these were the settlements of discharged veterans who had previously served in the Roman army and that they developed on the site of Roman legionary fortresses as the army moved further northward and westward into Britain (Mattingly 2006:260). Excavation and survey at these sites have produced an understanding of the chronologies and forms of these cities, which clearly represented an important element in the military subjugation and pacification of the province (Mattingly 2006:271–272). At Colchester the colony was founded at the former political center (oppidum) of a powerful late Iron Age tribe, where the emperor Claudius had accepted the submission of twenty British rulers in 43 C.E. It would appear that part of the pre-Roman community continued to live alongside the colony of retired veterans at Colchester, since a high-status pre-Roman burial ground at Stanway was in use for over a decade after the Roman conquest (Mattingly 2006:77–78). Colchester developed as a Roman city with the public buildings that defined Roman urbanism. The colonies of Gloucester and Lincoln were established later in the first century C.E. to aid in the establishment of settled life, while a few additional cities were defined as colonies later in the history of the province (Mattingly 2006:271–272). If colonization is defined more loosely, in terms of the movement of peoples into Britannia from other parts of the empire, it probably involved quite a substantial number of people arriving to settle in the province. Britannia was The Romans in Britain: Colonization on an Imperial Frontier
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administered by imperial officials who usually derived from the Mediterranean parts of the empire, including the provincial governor and the procurator responsible for finances. Both were regularly replaced and were accompanied by groups of officials to help them carry out their responsibilities (Mattingly 2006:129). There was also a substantial military presence in Britannia, a province with probably as many as fifty thousand soldiers present at the height of military activity, mostly based in the frontier regions of the north and west (James 2001; Mattingly 2006:130). Many Roman legionary and auxiliary soldiers posted to Britain with their units for a period of time may have retired to live in the province, although the majority are likely to have returned to their homes at the end of their period of service. Roman soldiers in Britain were recruited from present-day Spain, Germany, and other parts of the empire. Units of the Roman army were moved around the empire and were accompanied by communities of people, including women and children (common soldiers were not officially allowed to marry), and by traders who sought to make a profit from selling goods to the soldiers. This suggests that there was a substantial group of incomers to a province among a total population of perhaps around two million, a figure that is a rough estimate based on a number of factors (see Mattingly 2006:368). Soldiers were also recruited from the population of Britannia during the first few centuries C.E. The general policy in the empire was to send military recruits to serve away from their home provinces, although some eventually returned. People involved in trade, craft, and industry moved to the province during its conquest, the establishment of settled life, and throughout its history, generally to exploit new economic opportunities. Evidence for their origins is provided by inscriptions on stones and writing on wooden writing tablets found at Romanperiod sites across the province (Collingwood and Wright 1995; Noy 2010). The scientific analysis of human bones has begun to provide some impression of the scale of the movement of people into Roman Britain by exploring information for where those who died and were buried in Britain had been born (Eckardt 2014:77–79; Eckardt et al. 2010). Although it remains unclear how ethnically and genetically mixed the population of Roman Britain became, it is likely that in the major towns and the military zone of central Britain there was a highly varied community. In towns, settlers from overseas would have exploited the new opportunities provided by the development of the market economy, and some evidence has emerged from recent work to indicate the mixed origins of urban populations (Eckardt et al. 2010). The vast majority of the people of Roman Britain, however, lived in the countryside, and the evidence derived from the excavation of rural settlements may suggest a considerable degree of 98
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continuity across much of the province. The rather gradual changes that occurred in the architecture, ways of life, and agricultural organization of many of these rural settlements suggests that there was a good degree of population stability from the late Iron Age into the Roman period (Fulford and Holbrook 2011; Hingley 1989; Hingley and Miles 2001; Taylor 2001, 2007). Since Britannia was primarily a rural society, with a limited number of towns, it is likely that settlers from other parts of the empire were always substantially outnumbered by descendants of the indigenous peoples, although additional research is certainly required (Mattingly 2006:356–357). The relative status of indigenous people and settler communities during the Roman period remains difficult to assess. Retired soldiers were relatively well paid during their time of service and were given land on retirement; as a result, they may have been able to maintain a relatively high standard of living compared to the descendants of many indigenous communities. Traders and industrial specialists would also have had opportunities to make profits in the towns that developed in the province, but this would also have applied to members of the indigenous population. It would have been inevitable that many people responded to new opportunities and also that they often intermarried with newcomers. The idea that Iron Age tribes were converted into Roman civitates also supports the idea of native continuity. Members of the local preconquest elite were able to take over the government of their local area, thereby establishing their status within their own communities and enabling them to compete in the broader cultural context by being incorporated into the empire (Millett 1990).
Cultural Colonization The prime emphasis in Roman archaeology for much of the past century has been upon the incorporative nature of Roman culture, together with the idea that substantial numbers of indigenous peoples were assimilated to Roman ways through a process of Romanization (e.g., Millett 1990; Woolf 1998). In other words, the dominant explanation for Roman Britain has been that it was conquered by a substantial military force and settled by the Roman administration, namely, the provincial governor and his staff. This was largely accomplished by the encouragement of people across the civil zone of the south and east to become Roman in their governmental organization and lifestyles, a process that led to the spread of Roman urbanism, architecture, and material culture. The expansion of the Roman Empire created stability across its territories through the twin strategies of military force and the institution of local self-government (Hingley The Romans in Britain: Colonization on an Imperial Frontier
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2013). This process used to be defined through an approach to the Romanization of society in Britannia, but this term is now particularly unpopular with many archaeologists, since it seems to drive a very simplistic view of cultural identity and social change (Hingley 2005:30–45; Hingley 2014; Mattingly 2011:14–17). As the Roman army moved forward from the lowland areas that became what archaeologists call the civil zones of the province, a system of self-governing civitates was set up in which members of the indigenous elite are likely to have played a significant role (Mattingly 2006:260–263; Millett 1990). Evidently, these political and cultural central places were not colonial in the strict sense of the term, since much of their populations derived from the peoples living in these places prior to conquest. These civitates included a civitas capital, or tribal center, which formed the administrative center for a substantial territory (Map 4.2). These were centers for local justice and taxation, containing public buildings such as fora, bathhouses, temples, and places of spectacle (amphitheaters and theaters), presumably often built by the ruling families of the civitas. The standard explanation for the development of the province is that, as a result of their incorporation into an international imperial society, members of the indigenous elite were able to create a profit with which to live a more Roman style of life and usually to construct the public buildings in the civitas capitals. Fifteen civitas capitals are identified in Britannia, mostly in the civil zone but with a few examples across the military district (Mattingly 2006:Figure 10). The Roman villas that developed widely across the civil area of the province were possibly the homes of this elite that was adopting new Roman ways of life (Mattingly 2006:369–375; Taylor 2007). The empire also seems to have offered opportunities to live in new ways for those who did not belong to the indigenous elite (Hingley 2005:91–116). A free man could join the Roman army as an auxiliary soldier and acquire a military form of Roman identity that resulted, if he survived until retirement, in the awarding of Roman citizenship (Hingley 2005:93–94; James 2001). A substantial number of retired soldiers and their families would therefore have gradually settled in the province. New ways of life were also established by people moving to one of the developing Roman urban centers of the province to take up an occupation as a trader, craftsperson, or industrial worker, for which there is considerable archaeological information from the cities and towns of Roman Britain. Evidently, there are some strong parallels here with colonial contexts across America, where the establishments of colonial outposts created cultural interaction involving diverse communities (e.g., Lightfoot et al. 1998). Another way to construct a new life in Roman Britain was to work to expand the ag100
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ricultural surplus produced at a farm. The Roman state imposed taxation on all members of provincial society, and this was usually required to be paid in cash. Consequently, there may have been pressure on individuals and families to make a profit through industry, trade, and agriculture to pay tax. Once a surplus had been produced and tax paid, any additional resource would have been used within a local market to purchase other manufactured goods (Mattingly 2006:361). The flexibility of the culture that spread throughout the empire offered a variety of new ways of life and material items that could indicate new status, such as building new types of housing, visiting the local bathhouse, and buying imported pottery. When individuals engaged with these innovations they were effectively becoming more Roman (Woolf 1998), or were at least becoming more fully integrated into new Mediterranean ways of life. As a result, society changed as people found new ways to express their identities. We will see that not all, however, were fully involved in this process of cultural change. Postcolonial approaches have tended to take a more critical perspective, and it is possible to view the spread of Roman culture as a form of cultural imperialism (or cultural colonialism), as one of the mechanisms through which Rome spread its power and subjugated indigenous communities across its empire (Hingley 2005, 2015a). Roman power was consolidated through the incorporation of disparate groups of people into a relatively unified and pacified whole. Roman culture offered new ways of life to members of the elite, but it also provided many people who had less status and power with opportunities to create new identities. Certain groups were excluded from these changes, since these innovations would have been far more relevant to the free male members of the population. Slaves formed a substantial element of society, and many would have had a miserable life (Mattingly 2006:294–295). Women were also politically and economically marginalized, although we do know of some female traders and landowners (Allason-Jones 1989). People were incorporated, in part, according to both their natural abilities and also the available materials, but under the imposed rules of imperial engagement (Hingley 2013:275). It is currently impossible to estimate the extent to which the Romanized people living in Britannia were descended from the pre-Roman indigenous populations or were incomers from others parts of the empire. Since the Romanization discourse has placed a premium on the idea of the process by which indigenous peoples became Roman (Pitts 2014:134), it may be useful to focus greater attention on the idea that many of the apparently Roman families living in towns and rural parts of the province were actually descended from incomers. Some of the members of the councils who administered the civitates and the occupants of The Romans in Britain: Colonization on an Imperial Frontier
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villas in the civil zone are likely to have been settlers who came to the province, or the descendants of those settlers. The analysis of human remains is beginning to provide some information from which to assess the origins of members of the population of Roman Britain, but much further work will be required before we have an adequate understanding of the character of the processes of cultural incorporation that operated in Britannia.
A Romanized Province? The process of Romanization has been imagined to include the growth of Roman cities across the province, the development of gracious country living in villas, and the spread of Roman ways to a substantial proportion of the population (Millett 1990; Woolf 1998), but there are some notable exceptions to this straightforward interpretation. Across the military zone on the northern and western frontiers of the province, the way of life for indigenous people appears to have changed little during Roman times, and most in the northern frontier zone appear to have continued to live in small settlements characterized by Iron Age–style roundhouses (Hingley 2004). The typical homes of the pre-Roman population, roundhouses were clearly not replaced by Roman-style rectangular houses across the entire province (Hingley 1999). The practice of developmentfunded archaeology since the late 1980s has led to the excavation of a far wider range of settlements across Britain. Earlier excavation work focused on the apparently more Roman styles of sites—towns, villas, and forts—but an increasing number of excavations have focused on the less Roman site types, including nucleated settlements often called small towns and other types of nonvilla settlements (Taylor 2007). Roundhouses are being found in rural and urban contexts across the south, and it now appears that these house types, which until the 1990s were thought to represent a distinctive Iron Age type, probably constituted the most common housing type during the Roman period (Fulford and Holbrook 2011:337; Hingley 1989, 1999; Mattingly 2006:367–378). Romanization has also been thought to have given people across Roman Britain access to new types of industrially produced and imported goods (Evans 2001). Wheel-made pottery started to be made across southern Britain during the late Iron Age, replacing earlier handmade wares, but the finer wares were imported from the European continent, and this continued after the Roman conquest. Roman contact and conquest enabled wealthy and wellconnected people to import wine and olive oil from Gaul and the Mediterranean, together with a variety of luxury and more everyday goods. Supplied 102
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by the Roman state to members of the military, such items were also available at the markets in the colonies and civitas capitals of the province. These innovations also found their way to rural settlements across much of the civil zone, and most communities in the Roman period apparently had access to some Roman (nonlocal) goods. This process of Roman incorporation has primarily been viewed as enabling progress, without a full assessment of variations in the degree to which new materials and objects were available to communities in rural areas, but ideas are beginning to change. Outside the southern and eastern parts of the province, the prevalence of Roman-style pottery may not have been very common on rural sites (Fulford and Holbrook 2011:326). The overarching picture that is emerging from recent research is that life for many across Britannia may not have changed very much as a result of Roman rule. The systems for taxation and enslavement are likely to have become more efficient as a result of the conquest and imposition of order, but many communities and individuals may not have had improved opportunities. Indeed, the continuity of rural culture across much of the province fits well with the dominant view in the classical texts that address Britannia, which Woolf characterizes as the “barbarian theme park.” Classical authors described Britannia as a barbarian and backward land throughout the period of Roman control, as Woolf has observed. For instance, in an early-third-century context Cassius Dio emphasizes the barbarity of northern British in a way that replicates some of the earlier writings of Tacitus and Caesar: There are two principal races of Britons, the Caledonians and the Maeatae. . . . Both tribes inhabit wild and waterless mountains and desolate and swampy plains, and they possess neither walls, nor cities, nor cultivated fields. They live on their flocks, wild game, and certain fruits. (quoted in translation by Woolf 2011:94) As Woolf has explored, comments such as these from classical writers are part of a civilizing rhetoric that was first created in classical times and has been handed down, modified, and reapplied by imperial and colonial powers at different times and in various places since the fall of Rome. Archaeologists and ancient historians have tended to dismiss the significance of these images by drawing attention to the apparent Romanization of the provincial populations, as demonstrated by the growth of cities and villas across the south and east (e.g., Millett 1990). Woolf (2011:94) favors the idea that classical authors were downplaying the degree to which Britannia had become integrated into the Roman Empire by stressing out-of-date literary conceptions. The Romans in Britain: Colonization on an Imperial Frontier
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I wonder, however, if the tales of continuing barbarity in the texts might not have been a result of stories told in the province by the descendants of the people who had come to settle in Britannia. Perhaps the Roman assimilation of the province was always a rather shallow process and limited to a relatively small number of members of the urban, military, and rural elites. The recognizably Mediterranean-inspired culture of Roman Britain may have been primarily restricted to the towns and a scattering of rural villas, while much of the population continued to live in traditional ways in rural areas and nucleated small towns that developed to exploit the new economic opportunities along the Roman roads. Some of the people who resided in these settlements evidently adopted new ways of building and also some innovations such as imported pottery and Roman coinage, but their lifeways may have changed only gradually. These ways of life may not have impressed Mediterranean visitors to Roman Britain who were more used to the urban centers of Mediterranean civilization and had also grown up with tales of British barbarity. In fact, the continued need for a substantial Roman military force on the frontiers of the province during the entire period of Roman rule might have served to emphasize, in the minds of Roman officials, the unsettled and uncivil nature of people both within and beyond the frontiers of Britannia (Hingley and Hartis 2011). It is also clear that Britannia was not the only part of the Roman Empire that did not become fully Romanized. Writing about the Roman province of Baetica in Iberia, Downs (2000:209) argued that the image of this territory as a Romanized landscape is colonial, produced by Roman authors and reproduced by modern scholars. Many parts of the Roman Empire never became particularly Roman (Hingley 2005), but perhaps Britannia was considered by Mediterranean authors to be remarkable in the degree to which Mediterranean ways of living failed to permeate much beyond the colonists and certain members of the elite.
Conclusion: Colonization and Decolonization One key issue for future research will be to establish the extent to which the Romanized culture of urban and rural areas of the civil province was the result of the settlement of peoples from other areas of the empire that already had considerable experience of Mediterranean ways of life and to what extent indigenous people came to live in Roman ways. The twentieth-century fixation for finding evidence for a relatively highly Romanized province (Haverfield 1912; Millett 1990) was the result of an agenda in English society that searched for parallels that told positive tales about the national past. These ideas empha104
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sized how indigenous Britons across the civil areas of the province were able to take on Roman ways and, in the process, become more modern and more like the Victorian and Edwardian gentlemen who ran the British Empire (Hingley 2000). Postcolonial Roman archaeologists have come to argue in detail that Romanization was a vital element in a search for a discourse of civilization that was used to justify violent and oppressive acts across British colonial territories at a time of incipient imperial decline during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Hingley 2000; Webster 2001). Archaeologists are now seeking to develop new interpretations that interact more effectively with contemporary concerns in a world that has been characterized as postcolonial (Hingley 2015a). The Romans in Britain have long been drawn on to provide rich examples and warnings for contemporary people, and the study of the archaeology of this period has reflected the concepts of civilization and barbarity that relate to the later history of the British Isles (Hingley 2000, 2008). It is ironic that the intention of postcolonial Roman archaeologists to decolonize the Roman period in the British Isles seems to be working to free ancient Britons from the shackles of Roman oppression by articulating a concept that indigenous people had greater agency in the colonized past. Postcolonial archaeologies of Roman Britain do not really appear to possess a comparable ethical focus to the indigenous and descendant archaeologies that have been developed during the past twenty years in the Americas and in Australasia (Hingley 2015b). Indeed, there remains something of a contradiction at the core of the idea of developing a postcolonial Roman archaeology of Britannia. I have argued in this context that one of the main purposes of this field of study is to enable archaeologists to continue to focus critical attention on the entanglement of the past and the present and to ensure that powerful classical concepts are not used simplistically to justify modern political and military actions (Hingley 2014; Morley 2010). The study of colonization and Roman Britain should also aim to consider the entanglement of the past and present and the connotations of their relationship. This expresses the value of addressing the incorporative nature of Roman culture as a reflection of debates about how economic and political power are exemplified in the contemporary world (González-Ruibal 2014:7; Hingley 2005, 2014). This is why, in particular, we require a sustained focus upon power relations in the Roman Empire, upon the “un-Roman,” slaughtered, marginalized, dominated, resistant, and dispossessed populations of the Roman Empire. Such a refocusing of attention should help to counter the continued emphasis within classical archaeology on the culture of the elite, especially in the context of ideas of the global spread of an incorporative Roman culture—an idea that may well The Romans in Britain: Colonization on an Imperial Frontier
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tell us more about the global present than help to inform understandings of the ancient past (Hingley 2015a). The case study of Roman Britain presented above helps to set in context aspects of the archaeology of colonialism and colonies. Evidently, these concepts are only partly relevant to classical Rome. Colonies were established, but those living in these cities formed a small proportion of the provincial population. In addition, large numbers of soldiers were sent to control the frontiers of the province, and other people including traders and industrialists came to live in Britain at this time. Britannia was not, however, intensively colonized by the Roman Empire. This is why Gosden (2004:82–113) defined the Roman Empire as an example of “middle-ground colonialism,” based on a high level of accommodation between the colonizers and the colonized. This accommodation was also accompanied, however, by widespread acts of military violence and force and the enslavement of large numbers of the defeated, meaning that it is helpful to think of Britannia as an “Imperial Possession” (Mattingly 2006). One element of the change that Rome brought to its empire involves the cultural assimilation of many into a way of life that integrated them more fully into the empire. The degree to which this assimilative culture spread throughout the population is, however, unclear. Britannia appears in superficial terms to have become a relatively peaceful and prosperous Roman province, but many of the wealthiest may have been incomers, and the lives of the majority of people may have changed relatively little in the long term as the result of the Roman conquest. The analysis of Roman Britain may help us to rethink assumptions about how frontier populations (including but not limited to local elites) adopted the material cultures and ideologies of colonists. The population of Roman Britain was made up of local residents, traders, merchants, migrant laborers, slaves, and a small number of administrative officials, but it represented an imperial possession rather than a formal colony. Indeed, the term colony, as Christine Beaule suggests, implies a level of economic and political control that, in reality, has probably always been rare in world history.
References Cited Allason-Jones, Lindsay 1989 Woman in Roman Britain. British Museum, London. Bhabha, Homi K. 1994 The Location of Culture. Routledge, Abingdon. Braund, David 1996 Ruling Roman Britain: Kings, Queens, Governors and Emperors from Julius Caesar to Augustus. Routledge, London. 106
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Collingwood, R. G., and R. P. Wright 1995 The Roman Inscriptions of Britain. Allan Sutton, Stroud. Downs, Mary 2000 Reconfiguring Colonial Categories on the Roman Frontier in Southern Spain. In Romanization and the City: Creation, Transformations, and Failures, edited by Elizabeth Fentress and Susan E. Alcock, pp. 197–211. Journal of Roman Archaeology, Supplementary Series 38. Eckardt, Hella 2010 Introduction: Diasporas in the Roman World. In Roman Diasporas: Archaeological Approaches to Mobility and Diversity in the Roman Empire, edited by Hella Eckardt, pp. 7–12. Journal of Roman Archaeology, Supplementary Series 78. 2014 Objects and Identities: Roman Britain and the North-Western Provinces. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Eckardt, Hella, Carolyn Chenery, Stephany Leach, Mary Lewis, and Gundula Müldner 2010 A Long Way from Home: Diaspora Communities in Roman Britain. In Roman Diasporas: Archaeological Approaches to Mobility and Diversity in the Roman Empire, edited by Hella Eckardt, pp. 99–130. Journal of Roman Archaeology, Supplementary Series 78. Evans, Jeremy 2001 Material Approaches to the Identification of Different Romano-British Site-Types. In Britons and Romans: Advancing an Archaeological Agenda, edited by Simon James and Martin Millett, pp. 26–35. Council for British Archaeology, York. Fulford, Michael, and Neal Holbrook 2011 Assessing the Contribution of Commercial Archaeology to the Study of the Roman Period in Britain, 1990–2004. Antiquaries Journal 91:323–345. Gardner, Andrew 2013 Thinking about Roman Imperialism: Postcolonialism, Globalisation and Beyond? Britannia 44:1–25. Goff, Barbara 2005 Introduction. In Classics and Colonialism, edited by Barbara Goff, pp. 1–24. Duckworth, London. González-Ruibal, Alfredo 2014 An Archaeology of Resistance: Materiality and Time in an African Borderland. Rowman & Littlefield, Plymouth. Gosden, Christopher 2004 Archaeology and Colonialism: Cultural Contacts from 5000 BC to the Present. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Haverfield, Francis 1912 The Romanization of Roman Britain. Clarendon Press, Oxford. Hingley, Richard 1989 Rural Settlement in Roman Britain. Seaby, London. 1999 The Imperial Context of Romano-British Studies and Proposals for a New Understanding of Social Change. In Historical Archaeology: Back from the Edge, edited by Pedro Paolo A. Funari, Martin Hall, and Sian Jones, pp. 137–150. Routledge, London. 2000 Roman Officers and English Gentlemen. Routledge, London. The Romans in Britain: Colonization on an Imperial Frontier
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2004 Rural Settlement in Northern Britain. In A Companion to Roman Britain, edited by Malcolm Todd, pp. 327–348. Blackwell, Oxford. 2005 Globalizing Roman Culture: Unity, Diversity and Empire. Routledge, London. 2008 The Recovery of Roman Britain, 1586–1906: “A Colony so Fertile.” Oxford University Press, Oxford. 2013 Exploitation and Assimilation: The Roman Empire from Augustus to Trajan. In A Companion to Roman Imperialism, edited by Dexter Hoyos, pp. 265–276. Brill, Leiden. 2014 Struggling with a Roman Inheritance: A Response to Versulys. Archaeological Dialogues 21(1):20–24. 2015a Post-colonial and Global Rome: The Genealogy of Empire. In Globalisation and the Roman World: World History, Connectivity and Material Culture, edited by Martin Pitts and Miguel John Versluys, pp. 32–46. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 2015b Working with Descendant Communities in the Study of Roman Britain: Fragments of a Project Design. In Rethinking Colonialism: Comparative Archaeological Approaches, edited by Craig N. Cipolla and Katherine Howlett Hayes, pp. 161–190. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. Hingley, Richard, and Rich Hartis 2011 Contextualizing Hadrian’s Wall: The Wall as “Debatable Lands.” In Frontiers in the Roman World: Proceedings of the Ninth Workshop of the International Network Impact of Empire (Durham, 16–19 April 2009), edited by Olivier Hekster and Ted Kaizer, pp. 79–96. Brill, Leiden. Hingley, Richard, and David Miles 2001 The Human Impact on the Landscape: Agriculture, Settlement, Industry and Infrastructure. In The Roman Era: Short Oxford History of the Roman Empire, edited by Peter Salway, pp. 141–172. Oxford University Press, Oxford. James, Simon 2001 Soldiers and Civilians. In Britons and Romans: Advancing an Archaeological Agenda, edited by Simon James and Martin Millett, pp. 77–89. Council for British Archaeology, York. James, Simon, and Martin Millett (editors) 2001 Britons and Romans: Advancing an Archaeological Agenda. Council for British Archaeology, York. Laurence, Ray, Simon Esmonde-Cleary, and Gareth Sears 2011 The City in the Roman West, c. 250 B.C.–A.D. 250. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Lightfoot, Kent G., Antionette Martinez, and Ann M. Schiff 1998 Daily Practice and Material Culture in Pluralistic Social Settings: An Archaeological Study of Culture Change and Persistence from Fort Ross, California. American Antiquity 63(2):199–222. Mattingly, David J. (editor) 1997 Dialogues in Roman Imperialism: Power, Discourse and Discrepant Experiences in the Roman Empire. Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series, Portsmouth, Rhode Island.
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Mattingly, David J. 2006 An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman Empire. Penguin, London. 2011 Imperialism, Power and Identity: Experiencing the Roman Empire. Princeton University Press, Princeton. Millett, Martin 1990 The Romanization of Britain: An Essay in Archaeological Interpretation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Millett, Martin, Louise Revell, and Alison Moore (editors) 2016 Oxford Handbook of Roman Britain. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Mooers, Colin 2015 Imperial Subjects: Citizenship in an Age of Crisis and Empire. Bloomsbury, London. Moore, Tom 2011 Detribalizing the Late Prehistoric Past: Concepts of Tribes in Iron Age and Roman Studies. Journal of Social Archaeology 11(3):334–360. Morley, Neville 2010 The Roman Empire: Roots of Imperialism. Pluto Books, New York. Noy, D. 2010 Epigraphic Evidence for Immigrants at Rome and in Roman Britain. In Roman Diasporas: Archaeological Approaches to Mobility and Diversity in the Roman Empire, edited by Hella Eckardt, pp. 13–26. Journal of Roman Archaeology, Supplementary Series 78. Pitts, Martin 2014 Reconsidering Britain’s First Urban Communities. Journal of Roman Archaeology 27:133–174. Rogers, Adam 2015 The Archaeology of Roman Britain: Biography and Identity. Routledge, London. Said, Edward W. 1993 Culture and Imperialism. Chatto & Windus, London. Taylor, Jeremy 2001 Rural Society in Roman Britain. In Britons and Romans: Advancing an Archaeological Agenda, edited by Simon James and Martin Millett, pp. 46–59. Council for British Archaeology, Research Report No. 125, London. 2007 An Atlas of Roman Rural Settlement in England. Council for British Archaeology, York. Webster, Jane 2001 Creolizing the Roman Provinces. American Journal of Archaeology 105:209–225. Webster, Jane, and Nicholas Cooper (editors) 1996 Roman Imperialism: Post-Colonial Perspectives. School of Archaeological Studies, University of Leicester, Leicester. Woolf, Greg 1998 Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 2011 Tales of the Barbarians: Ethnography and Empire in the Roman West. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester. 2012 Rome: An Empire’s Story. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
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5 Contextualizing the Chinook at Contact The Middle Village
DOUGL AS C . W IL SON, K EN NETH M. A M ES, A N D CA M ERON M. SM ITH
Compared to elsewhere in the world, the historic period in the Pacific Northwest of North America is very brief. While there are oral traditions of indigenous Native Americans that stretch back centuries, or even millennia, there was only limited outside contact with European, Asian, and other peoples prior to the late eighteenth century, and no written records. The change over the past two hundred years has been remarkable, both in the introduction of technological innovations and in the social changes brought about by the many waves of immigration of Europeans and others into the area. The Chinook Middle Village (qí’qayaqilxam) dates to the earliest period of Pacific Northwest colonial history. Its archaeological study provides a means to explore the Chinook Indians of the mouth of the Columbia River at contact from the vantage of the material objects that they received as gifts, purchased, used, modified, repaired, and discarded. These materials are situated within the remains of houses, hearths, and the other camp facilities of a traditional Chinook summer village. The artifacts and data from this site allow us an opportunity to assess the fur trade’s effects on the Chinook at the height of their power and influence.
Theoretical Orientation The Chinook of the mouth of the Columbia River are uniquely placed in the history of the Pacific Northwest. They were among the first indigenous American Indians of the Pacific Northwest encountered by European and American explorers and traders. Because of the abundant natural resources, unique geographic position at the junction of major trade routes between the coast and interior, and their (perhaps resultant) trading acumen, the Chinook became
powerful and influential in the indigenous political and economic systems of the fur-trade era. The fur trade, however, provided a new economic engine to drive the political, economic, and other cultural systems that had developed over millennia (Lang 2013). The penetration of new commodities into the traditional Chinook “market,” and other changes marked by colonialism, is of particular interest in exploring the history of the Pacific Northwest. The consensus among anthropologists is that the fur trade actually had little impact on Native societies (e.g., Acheson and Delgado 2004; Cole and Darling 1990) beyond the exchange of goods and an intensification of trends already present (e.g., increasing social differentiation, heightened levels of warfare), despite the devastating effects of epidemics. Precontact patterns are thought to have continued well into the period of colonialism when they were recorded by ethnographers. Cole and Darling (1990:133) write: Contact brought significant change to the Indians of the Northwest Coast. Resources that previously had had only a limited, domestic use suddenly became valuable commodities for export and sale; and new materials and technologies were available. The new resource exploitation, the resulting wealth, and the new goods were incorporated and adapted into existing social and cultural patterns. Change, even enrichment, occurred, but it did not revolutionize Indian society or significantly lessen native autonomy. Indians retained almost unimpaired control over their territory. The fur trade had little interest in placing limitations on Indian land or in more than altering the emphasis of the traditional hunting, fishing, and gathering economy. A minority view, primarily held by some archaeologists, is that depopulation was so devastating that precontact and postcontact cultures were very different (e.g., Dobyns 1983, 1991; Dunnell 1991). However, even this “catastrophist” position sees the fur trade having little direct effect beyond its role as a disease vector. Archaeology played almost no role in these discussions. Our expectations of the fur trade’s impact differ from Cole and Darling’s (1990) assessment. Lawrence and Shepherd (2006:69) define colonialism as “the process by which new societies emerge in both the new territories and the core because of colonization, and the new systems of relations that result.” Their focus on social relations differs from that of Beaule (chapter 1, this volume), who emphasizes the objectives of the imperialists in exploitation of labor and resources of the colonized. The manner in which new forms of capital, such as Contextualizing the Chinook at Contact: The Middle Village
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glass trade beads, muskets, European and Chinese ceramics, copper and iron goods, and glass bottles, were integrated into the ancient economic and political systems of the Chinook is of profound interest in the study of colonialism (or in Beaule’s sense, the effects of colonialism on the colonized). These items, and perhaps the meanings that were attached to them by the Chinook, were spread along the coast and Columbia River and its tributaries throughout the Pacific Northwest. The fur-trade era led to dramatic changes in Chinook culture, both social and demographic. These were transferred to the rest of the Pacific Northwest through trade, warfare, intermarriage, and other cultural mechanisms. The fur trade likely augmented regional leaders’ ability to aggrandize status, power, and labor, but it also may have allowed new processes that subverted local hierarchies and extant social relations through making the symbols of power (including trade items) more available to commoners. Analysis of the artifacts, features, and other archaeological phenomena of the Middle Village yielded data with which to explore these important changes, contextualizing the material culture of the early history of the fur trade at one of the earliest phases of colonialism. The excavations provide a new means to test these differing sets of expectations. Most of the region’s fur-trade archaeology focuses on fur-trade forts such as Fort Vancouver (e.g., Carley 1982; Chance and Chance 1976; Ross 1976; Thomas 1987; Thomas and Hibbs 1984; Wilson and Langford 2011), Fort Spokane (e.g., Combes 1964), and Fort Langley (Porter 1997; Porter et al. 1995; Steer et al. 1980)—all Hudson’s Bay Company posts—and Fort Ross (Lightfoot et al. 1991, 1997, 1998), the Russian fur-trading post in northern California. There are important exceptions focusing on Native responses to the fur trade (Fladmark 1973; Marshall 1993; Martindale 1999, 2005; Prince 1998; Rahn 2002) that use archaeological data such as changing settlement and subsistence patterns. There is also a lengthy tradition of excavating contact-era Native sites to supplement ethnographies (de Laguna 1960). More than forty years ago, Fladmark (1973) argued that archaeology should be used to test rather than supplement the ethnographic record (see chapter 6 for a good example of this). While this is now increasingly being pursued (e.g., Martindale 1999), archaeology has had little impact on fur-trade scholarship in the Northwest beyond the trading posts (see Klimko 2004). This circumstance mirrors broader, even global, problems in the North American archaeology of colonialism, including how best to conceptualize the period and its issues (e.g., Paynter 2000a, 2000b; Silliman 2005a, 2005b); the extent to which studies of colonialism should focus on the local and particular and to 112
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generalizing and theory building (e.g., Panich 2013); what, beyond description, the research goals are (e.g., Lightfoot and Martinez 1995); what archaeology’s role is in researching a period with rich documentary records; what the relationship is between the archaeological and historical records (broadly defined—to include oral traditions) and how can each be most fruitfully used (e.g., Cusick 1998; Wylie 1999, 2000); and how to overcome paradigms that divide study of the colonized from that of the colonizers (e.g., Beaudoin 2013; Lightfoot 1995, 2005; Tveskov 2007). There seems to be a consensus emerging on some of these questions. It is essential for research to tack between the particular of local case studies and broader issues. Archaeology and history are the products of very different creative dynamics that may or may not overlap (e.g., Silliman 2004; Wylie 1999). Rather than a weakness, this is a methodological opportunity. Leone and Potter (1988) outline a methodology based on Binford’s version of middle-range theory (see Wylie 1999, 2000) that can be updated using his concept of “frames of reference” (Binford 2001). The different kinds of data the project employs are frames of reference that can be projected against each other to identify contradictions and ambiguities (Binford 2001). These become targets of productive future research. The temporal scale appropriate for studying the colonial era is necessarily larger than the era itself, because “the study of long-term change in both prehistoric and historic contexts is necessary to evaluate the full implications of Columbian consequences (epidemics, novel trade goods, alien fauna and flora)” (Lightfoot 1995:210–211). Relevant archaeological data are often rare (Chilton 2001; Fitzhugh 1985). Research on colonialism must be multidisciplinary (Beaule, chapter 1, this volume; Chilton 2001; Lightfoot 1995; Murray 2004; Rubertone 2000; Silliman 2005a, 2005b; Wesson and Rees 1997; Williamson 2004). It requires multiple lines of evidence (or frames of reference or “cables of inference” (Wylie 1993) from many disciplines and from different research areas within archaeology itself, drawing upon the integration of, for example, environmental archaeology (e.g., Deagan 1996; Jones, chapter 2, this volume), lithic analyses (e.g., Cobb 2003a, 2003b; Silliman 2004), discard behavior (e.g., Hamilton 2000; Lightfoot et al. 1998), and household archaeology (e.g., Deagan 2005), among others. The Middle Village is an unparalleled opportunity to use archaeological data to examine the participation of Native people in the maritime fur trade both on the Lower Columbia River and the Pacific Coast. The remainder of this chapter explores some of the attributes of this site as it pertains to the penetration of fur-trade objects into a Chinook summer village site (Wilson et al. 2009). Contextualizing the Chinook at Contact: The Middle Village
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The Archaeological Site and Development of the Park The Middle Village is a component of the Station Camp/McGowan site (45PC106), which is located on the north (Washington State) side of the Columbia River approximately 18 km from the Pacific Ocean (Map 5.1). The site is west of the Astoria-Megler Bridge landing at Point Ellice and east of an Endicott-period fort called Fort Columbia, which dates to between 1896 and 1947. Chinook Indians inhabited a complex of aeolian-formed dunes adjacent to the Columbia River near its estuary. Excavations at the Station Camp/McGowan site were associated with the realignment of U.S. Highway 101 to create an interpretive space for the newly expanded Station Camp Unit of the Lewis and Clark National Historical Park. This interpretive area commemorates the encampment of the Lewis and Clark expedition during November 1805, the history of the indigenous Chinook Indians, and the important salmon cannery town established by P. J. McGowan (Figure 5.1). The Lewis and Clark expedition described a Chinook Indian village
Map 5.1. Location of Middle Village and other major archaeological comparator sites mentioned in this chapter. (Source: Kenneth Ames, Wapato Valley Archaeological Project.)
114
Douglas C. Wilson, Kenneth M. Ames, and Cameron M. Smith
Figure 5.1. Contemporary view of the Middle Village park unit of Lewis and Clark National Historical Park. The Chinookan canoe replicas face toward the Columbia River, and the overlook interprets Chinook heritage and colonial contact history. (Photograph by Doug Wilson.)
at about the location of the Middle Village and camped near there November 15–25, 1805, while they reconnoitered the coast prior to settling into their winter encampment at Fort Clatsop (Nicandri 2010). While there are abundant furtrade objects that were found at the site, none could definitively be associated with the Lewis and Clark expedition (Wilson et al. 2009). The National Park Service and Portland State University conducted the archaeological work at Middle Village as part of the compliance process for Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (Wilson et al. 2009). Portland State University and National Park Service archaeologists conducted test excavations of areas within the new park unit and more extensive area excavations within the proposed highway realignment.1 These excavations identified at least three plankhouse dwelling sites (and possibly up to five), exterior midden and activity areas, and other use areas of the Chinook Indians (Figures 5.2 and 5.3). Contextualizing the Chinook at Contact: The Middle Village
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Figure 5.2. Top of one of the plankhouse sites at Middle Village, showing preserved roof or wall plank stains (left), the central hearth area (lower right), and other features. (Photography courtesy of the National Park Service.)
Controlled hand-excavations were in blocks and utilized nested ¼- and ⅛-inch (6 and 3 mm) mesh sieves to recover artifacts of indigenous manufacture and fur-trade goods. Due in part to the significance of the finds and their association with a named Chinook summer village, the road realignment was canceled and the park design reworked to emphasize Chinook Indian heritage and the impacts of colonialism on regional history.
Historical and Ethnographic Background The Middle Village was inhabited by the Chinook Indians of the Lower Columbia River (Ames and Maschner 1999; Boyd et al. 2013; Silverstein 1990). The Chinook at the mouth of the Columbia River were at the crux of a larger regional social network that is called the Greater Lower Columbia Region (Boyd et al. 2013; Hajda 1984). The Chinookan peoples of the Greater Lower Columbia 116
Douglas C. Wilson, Kenneth M. Ames, and Cameron M. Smith
Figure 5.3. Close-up of the base of the southern wall trench series of the same plankhouse shown in Figure 5.2, looking north, and showing excavated plank molds and post holes. Features 274 and 275 are not yet excavated. Multiple plank trenches suggested that the house had been rebuilt numerous times. (Photography courtesy of the National Park Service.)
Region stretched from The Dalles at the eastern edge of the Columbia River Gorge to the mouth of the Columbia and areas north and south along the coast. The Chinook were complex semi- to fully sedentary hunter-gatherer-fishers who lived in substantial cedar plankhouses, often with extended households of between 30 and 200 people. Like many other complex Pacific Northwest Indians, they collected productive resources, like salmon, herring, and elk, but also many other types of food resources, including tubers, seeds, berries, sturgeon, and deer. The abundance of these food resources and the ability of Chinookan peoples to collect them led to some of the largest regional populations north of Mexico and one of the highest among hunter-gatherer-fishers. Villages tended to be concentrated along major rivers and could include winter, summer, and year-round habitations. Contextualizing the Chinook at Contact: The Middle Village
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The Chinook, like most of the Pacific Northwest groups, had developed social hierarchies with permanent leadership positions. There was both formalized warfare and the existence of slavery (Ames and Maschner 1999; Hajda 2005). The Chinook had a well-defined and distinctive art form and, importantly for this discussion, a well-developed system of long-distance trading that utilized impressive dugout canoes, a variety of exchange mechanisms, and a trade jargon. The Middle Village represents a summer village of the Chinook. Along with radiocarbon dating and geoarchaeology, the stylistic and technological analyses of diagnostic artifacts, including trade ceramics, glass, beads, and indigenous projectile points and other stone tools, were used to date the Middle Village. Within the study area, the Middle Village appears to date to the early colonial period (ca. 1790 to 1820) with very limited evidence for precontact use. Most of the pit, plank wall, and other features contained fur-trade artifacts in the fill, and there was no evidence for a component of greater antiquity or that was more deeply buried.2 The Middle Village site appears to have developed over a short period, perhaps 30 years or less, during the commencement of the fur-trade period (ca. 1788). Based on ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and archaeological data, it appears that the site was occupied recurrently as a summer village. Silverstein (1990) suggests that the name of a village at this geographic locality (see also Minor 1983) was qìq’ayaqilxam, “Middle Town” or “Middle Village,” and it is likely that the cultural remains recovered from the site represent the debris from a portion of this village. This location is also the same as that identified by early maritime fur traders and European and American explorers as “Chinook” (Wilson 2012; Wilson et al. 2009). While Zenk et al. (2016:8–9) identify these as two separate villages, and notwithstanding the ambiguity of ethnohistoric and ethnographic data, the preponderance of explorer’s cartographic evidence and Curtis’s (1911:182) description place both named villages at the same location. The maritime and later terrestrial fur traders used the mouth of the Columbia River as a principal depot for the acquisition of animal pelts and other trade goods (Lang 2013). The Middle Village is at one of the main anchorages for furtrade ships identified on early maps (Wilson 2012; Wilson et al. 2009:18–20) and is across the river from Fort Astoria/Fort George, the first terrestrial fur-trade post in the Greater Lower Columbia Region, founded in 1811. It is uniquely situated, likely intentionally, to facilitate interaction with British and American traders. Concomly is likely the Chinook chief who presided at the Middle Village. His ties to the fur trade are well documented, and he is reported to have 118
Douglas C. Wilson, Kenneth M. Ames, and Cameron M. Smith
controlled the trade in the Greater Lower Columbia Region, acting as a middleman between the fur traders and other indigenous groups (Ross 1849:77). At the founding of Fort Vancouver in 1825 he was identified as one of the three most important chiefs controlling trade in the region (Simpson 1931:86, 98).
Comparator Sites Because the Middle Village is a unique site, we make comparisons with other excavated fur-trade-era Native sites on the Lower Columbia River, including the large-scale excavations by Portland State University at Meier (35CO5) and Cathlapotle (45CL1) (Table 5.1). These sites provide the needed temporal and spatial scales and additional lines of evidence against which to compare the Middle Village.
Meier (35CO5) The Meier site is on the western edge of the Portland/Vancouver Basin (referred to as “Wappato Valley” by Lewis and Clark). Excavations exposed a large plankhouse, exterior midden deposits, and activity areas in an area of 60 × 30 m (Ames et al. 1992; Smith 2005, 2008). No Euro-American accounts mention it. Accessible by boat via small channels, it is about 4 miles (6.4 km) from the Columbia and 2 miles (3.2 km) from the nearest major waterway. It dates to between 1400 and circa 1810 C.E. and contains fur-trade-era European goods in its later-period deposits (Banach 2002; Kaehler 2002).
Table 5.1. Contact period, Lower Columbia River sites
Smithsonian # Excavations Age Site area Mean depth Number of houses Mean house area ±σ Excavated % of Total site volume sampled Shaped artifacts
Middle Village
Meier
Cathlapotle
45PC106
35CO5
45CL1
2002–2005
1987–1991
1991–1996
ca. 1790–1820 C.E.
1400–ca. 1810 C.E.
ca. 1350 C.E.–ca. 1835 C.E.
200 × 80 m
60 × 30 m
300 × 60 m
0.4 m
1.5 m
2.0 m
3–5
1
6
80
m2
492
m2
175 ± 121 m2
143.3 m2
154.6 m2
204 m2
2.4
5.7
1.1
3,256
12,825
10,047
Contextualizing the Chinook at Contact: The Middle Village
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Cathlapotle (45CL1) Cathlapotle is on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge (Ames et al. 1999). It was one of Wapato Valley’s major Chinookan towns, with at least six plankhouses and an estimated population as high as nine hundred (Boyd and Hajda 1987). Founded about 1350 C.E., it appears frequently in Euro-American accounts from 1792 (Sobel 2004; Vancouver 1926) until its abandonment about 1835 and was deeply involved in the fur trade (e.g., Jones 1999). Lewis and Clark visited it on March 29, 1806, on their way back to St. Louis, writing lengthy accounts (Moulton 1990). It is 18 miles (29 km) below Fort Vancouver and covers an area of 300 × 60 m. The initiation of the fur trade at the site is archaeologically distinct. Trade goods appear abruptly about 70 cm below surface in deposits 2 m deep.
Traditional Technology and Fur-Trade Artifacts The technological characteristics of the assemblage of traditional indigenous artifacts at the Middle Village provide a means to compare the site with the fur-trade items that were imported there (see Sobel 2012). The Middle Village lithic assemblage is essentially indistinguishable from the Meier and Cathlapotle assemblages, farther upstream. These assemblages are characterized by (a) technological expedience (rather than curation), (b) essential unifunctionality (rather than multifunctionality) per lithic artifact or utilized element of a given artifact, and (c) an essential, overall lack of nonutilitarian design elements in most lithic artifact forms (Hamilton 1994; Smith 1996, 2015). Of note, at Meier and Cathlapotle the bone/antler and ground stone assemblages represent the more highly curated artifacts. The artifact types present are standard for the southern Northwest Coast. While their absence in the Middle Village is negative evidence, the scale of the excavations and overall richness of the fur-trade assemblage at the Middle Village suggests the absence is real. Generally speaking, the Meier, Cathlapotle, and Middle Village people apparently invested relatively little time or energy in the production of most of their stone implements (most are expediently produced, lightly trimmed flakes removed from minimally prepared cores). They used those implements for relatively brief periods (evidenced in the general lack of highly developed usewear traces) and discarded them rather rapidly rather than expending effort in reshaping them for rehafting (evidenced in an overall low incidence of hafting use-wear and evidence of recycling). The overall impression presented by the Meier, Cathlapotle, and Middle Village lithic artifacts is that while they 120
Douglas C. Wilson, Kenneth M. Ames, and Cameron M. Smith
were important implements—being one of the primary material adaptations of the people to the Greater Lower Columbia Region ecosystem—most were not items of great worth or even concern. The raw materials composing most of the assemblages were locally abundant cherts (98 percent at Meier, 99 percent at Cathlapotle, and 97 percent at Middle Village), and this led to what Hamilton (1994) has characterized as “expedience” in stone tool design and use, as opposed to conservative curation, which we would expect to find among more mobile populations with less-abundant raw materials. At the Middle Village there is particular evidence for the reuse of both gunflints and glass bottles as tools. The pattern of expedience is reinforced when looking at the reuse of these fur-trade items for tools. The near absence of formal categories of glass tools and the abundance of utilized glass edges with or without retouched/flaked edges parallels that of the stone tools (Simmons 2014; Wilson et al. 2009). What is most distinctive about the Middle Village stone tool assemblage compared to other sites of the early colonial period upstream is not its artifact dimensions, styles, or the technologies and/or raw materials used to create them; in all respects they are typical Lower Columbia River precontact and contact-period artifacts. What is distinctive, however, is the assemblage structure and the relative proportion of tools and debitage composing the assemblage. The results of analysis of tool types at the Middle Village demonstrate that what is rare at Meier, Cathlapotle, and other Chinookan sites was common at Middle Village (and the inverse). This fact is borne out by a numerical examination of these assemblages (Table 5.2). Projectile points, cores, and general lithic implements dominate the Meier and Cathlapotle assemblages but are a relatively small percentage of the Middle Village. Lithic debitage is in very low frequencies and densities, comprising only 213 pieces at Middle Village. This is surprisingly low in comparison to other domestic sites, considering the extent of the excavations. In contrast, over 160 clay balls and nodules (rare at other sites) were recovered from the three Station Camp house sites, and stone smoking pipes comprised nearly 20 percent of the Station Camp lithic assemblage, with 34 stone pipe fragments and 14 clay pipe fragments concentrated in one of the plankhouses, also relatively high numbers for Lower Columbia River sites. Abraders, manuports, and imported gunflints are all substantial proportions of the Middle Village lithic assemblage but are in very low relative frequencies or totally absent at the Meier and Cathlapotle sites. This distinct pattern for the Middle Village also holds up when it is compared with other excavated Chinook sites with colonial contexts at the mouth of the Contextualizing the Chinook at Contact: The Middle Village
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34
Pipes
176
Sum (without debitage)
3.14 to 1
461
Sum (with debitage)
Nontool:Tool ratio
43
Abraders and other pumiceous items
1
15
Net weights
Other lithic Items
4
38
Manuports
Cores
15
Gunflints
9
17
General CCS lithic implements
Projectile points
285
Debitage items
Station Camp (n)
-
-
100
9.3
3.3
0.2
0.9
8.2
3.3
2.0
7.4
3.7
61.8
Station Camp (%) with debitage
-
100
-
24.4
8.5
0.6
2.3
21.6
8.5
5.1
19.3
9.7
-
Station Camp (%) without debitage
5.11 to 1
6,668
38,077
371
45
64
1,070
194
0
1,468
12
3,444
31,409
Cathlapotle (n)
Table 5.2. Station Camp, Cathlapotle, and Meier lithic artifact assemblages
-
-
100
0.97
0.12
0.17
2.81
0.51
0
3.86
0.03
9.04
82.49
-
100
-
5.6
0.7
1
16.0
2.9
0
22.0
0.2
51.6
-
11.0 to 1
8,136
85,184
435
27
41
1,327
442
1
1,595
0
4,268
77,048
Cathlapotle Cathlapotle (%) with (%) without debitage debitage Meier (n)
-
-
100
0.51
0.03
0.05
1.56
0.52
0
1.87
0
5.01
90.45
Meier (%) with debitage
-
100
-
5.3
0.3
0.5
16.3
5.4
0
19.6
0
52.5
-
Meier (%) without debitage
Columbia River. Four sites tested by Minor (1983) contained deposits associated with the early colonial period. These are compared with the Middle Village assemblage in Table 5.3. These sites include representatives of coastal, estuarine, riverine, and inland environments in the vicinity of the Middle Village site. As shown in Table 5.3, the Middle Village, located in an estuarine environment, is significantly different in relative frequencies and densities of artifacts. The most obvious difference is in the quantities of fur-trade goods. The four sites tested by Minor contain assemblages that range between 6.6 percent (35CLT36) and 25.7 percent (35CLT37) trade goods. More than 80 percent of the artifacts recovered from the Middle Village are trade goods. Even given that Minor used ¼-in (6 mm) mesh sieves, which could have deflated the number of smaller items such as trade beads, there are still substantially more large-sized trade goods at Middle Village, including gunflints, musket balls, cupreous items, ceramics, and glass, suggesting that these patterns are not due to methodology. Likewise, the indigenous-manufactured items at the Middle Village are dramatically different in relative frequency and density. Three of the four historicperiod sites contain debitage frequencies that represent over 60 percent of the indigenous-manufactured artifacts. Even the shell midden site (45PC35) that Minor explored, whose site type traditionally yields sparse frequencies of lithic debitage, contained over 50 percent debitage. Densities of lithic debitage for these sites ranged from relatively dense at the inland Reith site (142 pieces/ m3) to quite sparse at 45PC35 (10 pieces/m3). Of the indigenous-manufactured artifacts from Middle Village, only 43 percent were lithic debitage. The density of debitage was less than the shell midden at only 5 pieces/m3. In contrast, clay balls and fired clay objects were found at densities as high as that of the debitage. Beads, ceramics, bottle/vessel glass, munitions, and copper items are found in substantially higher densities than the other sites of the colonial period (Table 5.3). DePuydt’s (1994) excavation results for 45PC101 on Willapa Bay reinforces these points. The excavations produced a small “traditional” artifact assemblage of 177 artifacts as well as trade goods. Of that assemblage, 39 artifacts, or 22 percent, were whole or fragmentary projectile points, as is typical of these sites in the Pacific Northwest. This small assemblage included artifacts associated with a range of manufacturing and subsistence activities, including 35 abraders. The principal point of similarity with 45PC106 was the relative lack of cores (n = 1) and lithic waste. The diversity and density of fur-trade objects at the Middle Village indicates that trade there was of particular importance. The overall impression was that Contextualizing the Chinook at Contact: The Middle Village
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n
Cores
0.1
0 0 0
Shell tool
Shell bead
267
Bone/antler tool
Clay ball, fired clay object
43
1
Pecked and ground stone
Abrader
0
Used cobble flake 34
0
Stone pipe
1
Chopper/chopper anvil
0.0
0.0
0.0
5.0
0.8
0.6
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
5.3
4 285
Pounder/hammerstone/anvil/slab
Debitage
0.1 0.2
3
0.0
0.2
n/m3
12
Scraper
Other (generalized) stone toolb
0
11
Biface/knife/drill
Projectile point/point fragment
53.6
Station Camp (45PC106)
A R T I FA C T S O F I N D I G E N O U S M A N U FA C T U R E
Artifact type
Volume excavated (m3)
Sitesa
0
1
13
0
6
0
0
0
0
0
32
0
4
4
0
3
n
0.0
0.3
4.1
0.0
1.9
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
10.0
0.0
1.3
1.3
0.0
0.9
n/m3
3.2
Fishing Rocks (45PC35)
1
0
54
0
19
0
8
9
2
29
420
9
36
27
13
39
n
0.1
0.0
4.7
0.0
1.6
0.0
0.7
0.8
0.2
2.5
36.2
0.8
3.1
2.3
1.1
3.4
n/m3
11.6
Ivy Station (35CLT34)
0
0
0
0
18
1
5
9
3
39
345
7
34
22
4
32
n
8.8
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
2.0
0.1
0.6
1.0
0.3
4.4
39.2
0.8
3.9
2.5
0.5
3.6
n/m3
Knappa Docks (35CLT37)
Table 5.3. Comparison of sites near the mouth of the Columbia River by frequency and density of artifacts
0
0
0
1
27
0
1
0
7
16
566
8
27
40
14
27
n
4.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.3
6.8
0.0
0.3
0.0
1.8
4.0
141.5
2.0
6.8
10.0
3.5
6.8
n/m3
Reith (35CLT36)
6 3
6.3 66.1
3,541
0.2
3.2
0.1
338
11
169
1.2
0.1
0.0
0.1
21.2
0.3
5.6
1.2
12.4
0.3
1.4
0.3
71
2
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
0
0
0
4
0
0
0
22.2
0.6
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.6
0.0
0.0
0.0
1.3
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
896
18
2
194
0
0
5
0
0
2
0
3
4
2
0
0
0
77.2
1.6
0.2
16.7
0.0
0.0
0.4
0.0
0.0
0.2
0.0
0.3
0.3
0.2
0.0
0.0
0.0
Notes: a. Data from 45PC35, 35CLT34, 35CLT37, and 35CLT36 derived from Minor (1983). b. Includes “flake knives” and “used flakes.” c. Station Camp frequencies do not include the very thin, painted flat glass that appears to be from a lamp chimney. d. From Strata 3 and below in main blocks, excludes supplemental test units.
T O TA L
Unidentified metal fragment
Knife blade/dagger
Nail/fastenerd
Metal and glass projectile point
65
Button/buckle
Copper pendant/ornament
2
3
1,135
14
Coin
Chimney
glassc
Bottle glass
Clay pipe fragment
299
65
Other ceramics
662
18
Rolled copper bead
Chinese porcelain
75
Lead shot (musket, buck, etc.)
Glass trade bead
15
F U R - T R A D E A R T I FA C T S
Gunflint
634
8
5
6
1
1
1
1
0
31
3
13
1
36
7
1
0
72.0
0.9
0.6
0.7
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.0
3.5
0.3
1.5
0.1
4.1
0.8
0.1
0.0
786
0
0
36
0
1
0
0
0
4
0
1
7
2
0
1
0
196.5
0.0
0.0
9.0
0.0
0.3
0.0
0.0
0.0
1.0
0.0
0.3
1.8
0.5
0.0
0.3
0.0
the penetration of Euro-American products was higher at the Middle Village than at other sites. Far from indicating greater Europeanization of the inhabitants of this site, however, the artifacts translated into Chinookan society in a manner that had great meaning at the local level. Glocalization is the means by which traders and customers transform a global product to fit into a local market. As Nassaney (2015:33) writes, “The fur trade is a prime example of glocalization and deserves to be viewed from the perspective of the global and the local simultaneously.” Northwest Coast cultures traditionally linked prestige and trade (or exchange in its various forms) such that access and control of specialized goods and subsistence surpluses maintained the status hierarchies (see Ames 1995, 2001; Ames and Maschner 1999; Drucker 1963; Hajda 1984, 2005). The fur trade added new objects of wealth and prestige and may have expanded the importance of exchange in the acquisition of wealth, power, and prestige (Codere and Smith 1950; Cole and Darling 1990; Gibson 1992; Hajda 1984, 2005). It increased the importance of traditional chiefs who happened to be strategically placed to play the role of middleman, or to control trade between fur traders and other Native peoples (Ames 1995). Among the Coast Tsimshian, for example, it may have triggered the formation of a paramount chiefdom (Martindale 2003). On the Lower Columbia the fur trade precipitated the rise of regional or great chiefs (Ames 1995; Lang 2013), one of whom, Concomly, is well known from the ethnohistoric literature and, as noted above, is likely to have been the chief of Middle Village (Wilson 2012; Wilson et al. 2009). Trade goods, representing new materials and forms developed in European and Chinese workshops and factories, flooded into the region and, it is hypothesized, significantly affected the Chinook and other Pacific Northwest cultures (e.g., Sobel 2012). To understand the influence of these new technological materials on the Chinook, we briefly explore the importance of the indigenous Precolumbian trading system. Ray (1938:99–101) indicates that dentalium shells were the principal medium of exchange for the Lower Chinook and were traded in from the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Interestingly, dentalia are rare archaeologically. Generally very few are recovered in Northwest Coast sites, including Meier and Cathlapotle. Other traded goods included dried fish (such as salmon, sturgeon, smelt, and shellfish), marine mammals (including seal meat and blubber), dried terrestrial animal meat, dressed elk, deer skins, furs, dried berries, obsidian, canoes, and slaves. Importantly, the Chinook apparently acted as intermediaries in the trade between interior groups and regions on the coast and to the north and south. The institution of slavery, which may have developed in the region as early 126
Douglas C. Wilson, Kenneth M. Ames, and Cameron M. Smith
as circa 1500 B.C.E. (Ames 2001), was integral to this trading system. Hajda (2005) explores slavery among the Chinook, suggesting that the acquisition of slaves on the Greater Lower Columbia was crucial to the maintenance of elite or chiefly power, while Ames (2008) argues that slaves may have been significant to household production and the creation of wealth. The principal means to acquire slaves was through exchange mechanisms, including wedding transactions, inheritance, gambling, and trading for wealth items like beaver pelts, otter skins, dentalia, or Euro-American trade goods (e.g., glass and copper trade beads, muskets, and blankets). Slave exchange appears not to have been related to the exchange of food. Hajda suggests that the fur trade stimulated trade and competition for wealth among the Chinook, which increased the prevalence of slavery. Probably as a result of the control that the Chinook exerted over other group’s trade with the British and Americans at the mouth of the Columbia, this region exhibited the highest densities of slaves anywhere in the Pacific Northwest, ranging between 16 percent and 47 percent in the 1820s (Ames 2001, 2008; Donald 1997). The Lower Columbia River was at the center of trade networks extending as far north as southeast Alaska and south into northern California. Major nodes in this north-south trade were at the river’s mouth, in the Wapato Valley (Portland Basin), and at The Dalles at the upstream end of the Columbia Gorge (Stern 1993, 1996). Trade also moved east. Major east-west nodes were again at the river’s mouth, the Wapato Valley, The Dalles, and then further east in Idaho’s Boise Valley and Yellowstone. The south-to-north flow of material is archaeologically well documented by obsidian sourcing (Ames 2008; Sobel 2012) and studies of marine shell. North-to-south and east-west trade is poorly known archaeologically but is reflected in the ethnohistoric and ethnographic records (e.g., Anastasio 1972; Stern 1993, 1996). Ames and Maschner (1999) suggest that exchange networks developed on the Northwest Coast during the early Holocene and that the ethnograpically documented networks were already in place by circa 1800 B.C.E. In the interior, exchange networks seem to have been oriented toward California during the early and middle Holocene and shifted in orientation to the coast after circa 2000 B.C.E. Trade on the Northwest Coast was facilitated by canoes (Ames 2002). The great influx of fur-trade goods at the Middle Village reflects the abundance of goods appropriated by the Chinook at this particular site. During this period, the ethnohistoric record suggests that the Chinook largely controlled trade with inland groups. The acquisition of fur-trade goods led to enhanced prestige, but it also provided the means to acquire other means of enhancing Contextualizing the Chinook at Contact: The Middle Village
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prestige and controlling labor, namely, through the acquisition of slaves. What is not clear in the current data is how these trade goods were redistributed through the traditional trade networks. We have noted the small numbers of trade goods at Meier, and while trade goods are more common at Cathlapotle, they are also surprisingly rare there, given the size of the excavated assemblage and Cathlapotle’s long involvement in the fur trade. A consideration of projectile points provides a useful contrast in the roles of traditional versus new products in the Chinook prestige system. While most stone arrow points probably did not have any defined status in late prehistoric Chinook culture, black-powder firearms were highly valued. As noted above, only 9 stone projectile points (and 2 likely bifacial projectile point fragments) were recovered from the site. In addition, 3 iron and 1 glass projectile points were recovered. In contrast, the assemblage contains more gunflints (n = 15) than projectile points, and there are 75 pieces of lead shot collected, including 16 lead musket balls and 4 buckshot. To indigenous people who first saw them, muskets were undoubtedly impressive with their billowing clouds of smoke and loud reports (e.g., Roe 1967:118–119). While muskets clearly functioned in Chinookan warfare, as signals and salutes, and in hunting, it may be their prestige value that was of greatest importance, although there may have been disillusionment with firearms. A rifle barrel was recovered at Cathlapotle stuck vertically in the ground next to a posthole as though serving as reinforcing rebar. The numbers of firearm-related items are consistent with our interpretation that the occupants of the Middle Village were wealthy and probably elite. Firearms exemplify the differential distribution of trade goods among Middle Village, Meier, and Cathlapotle. Evidence of any kind for firearms is very rare at Meier and Cathlapotle, despite the clear high status of at least some of the occupants. This may suggest control of and differential access to elite trade goods among the region’s elites during the fur-trade period. Supporting these patterns, the amount and diversity of other fur-trade items recovered from the site make Middle Village unique. The frequencies of beads, ceramic sherds, and glass fragments are each greater than that of lithic debitage. Analysis of trade beads from Middle Village by DeCorse (2009) indicates that there are 211 drawn and 432 wound beads. There are almost as many glass trade beads recovered from Middle Village as Cathlapotle (see Kaehler 2002), even though the volume of matrix excavated was only about a third that of the Cathlapotle excavations. Looking at artifact density per cubic meter, there are 4.3 times the density of trade beads at Middle Village compared with Cathlapotle and 41.3 times the density compared with Meier (Table 5.4). 128
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Table 5.4. Comparison of bead frequencies for three Chinookan sites Site
Excavated Drawn Wound Indeterminate Density volume (m3) beads (n) beads (n) (n) Total (n/m3)
Meier (35CO5)
160
26
23
49
0.3
Cathlapotle (45CL1)
240
447
257
704
2.9
Station Camp (Middle Village component) 45PC106
53.6
211
432
662
12.4
19
Note: Meier and Cathlapotle data based on Kaehler (2002).
Table 5.5. Comparison of copper/cupreous artifacts for three Chinookan sites Site
Excavated volume Copper/ cupreous (m3) artifacts (n)
Density (n/m3)
Meier (35CO5)
160
52
0.34
Cathlapotle (45CL1)
240
120
0.50
Station Camp (Middle Village component) (45PC106)
53.6
83
1.55
Note: Meier and Cathlapotle data based on Banach (2002).
Copper wealth and prestige items are also prevalent at Middle Village. Copper was found in the form of bracelet fragments, pendants and pendant fragments, copper sheets, copper tube beads, and awls, totaling 86 artifacts. Again compared with the sites upriver, there are 3.1 times the copper objects by density at Middle Village compared with Cathlapotle and 4.6 times the objects compared with Meier (Table 5.5). The largest number of cupreous artifacts were found in a plankhouse (identified as Area F), with cupreous items concentrated in the area of inferred benches (sleeping benches) and storage pits on its western and southern edges. Notably, a midden associated with the plankhouse and its central hearth area contained almost no cupreous artifacts. The artifacts also tended to represent finished forms, with a hawk bell, cupreous buttons, a chain, a coin, all of the obvious pendants, two trade rings, and a thimble represented. The location of these items within the plankhouse and their relative completeness suggest that they were lost or abandoned in situ as primary refuse. Our conclusion is that ornaments were manufactured elsewhere at the site but were actually worn (and Contextualizing the Chinook at Contact: The Middle Village
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sometimes lost) by the inhabitants of the Area F plankhouse. At Cathlapotle, copper fabrication occurred in a middle-status house segment, while at Meier it may have occurred in the low-status end of the house. Overall, there is no strong association at either Meier or Cathlapotle between the distribution of cupreous artifacts and inferred status. This may indicate that while cupreous ornaments remained popular, their value as status markers deflated as they became common (Banach 2002). However, cupreous objects were most often recovered in the storage pit complexes and hearths rather than in the middens. Cromwell’s (2009) analysis of ceramics at Middle Village identified 364 ceramic sherds from the Middle Village, of which 230 were English creamwares (most plain or hand-decorated), 65 were Chinese export porcelain (both Canton and Nanking types), and 36 were stoneware (both European and Chinese types). The number of ceramic sherds is nearly three times that found at Cathlapotle (Ames et al. 1999), and while Chinese porcelain is in comparable densities to other indigenous sites of the colonial period near the mouth of the Columbia River, creamware and other ceramics are much more highly concentrated at Middle Village (Table 5.3). Some of the forms, including a tea caddy with lid, represent expensive English forms (Figure 5.4). The large number of bottle fragments associated with the Middle Village is
Figure 5.4. Fragments of a reconstructable hand-painted creamware tea caddy found at the Middle Village. 130
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also notable. It is dominated by rum/brandy/wine bottles, many of these exhibiting extensive reuse in the form of abraded bases, edge reduction (including the creation of cutting and scraping edges on bottle bases and other bottle parts), and the production of glass debitage, probably from tool manufacture, including the creation of expedient flaked glass tools. That most of these bottles appear to be containers for ethyl alcohol suggests that rum, brandy, and wine were probably being given or traded to the Chinook at the site. However, the vessel itself was also deemed valuable in ways perhaps unintended by the colonial fur traders. These objects had some intrinsic value as tool material which transcended their original function as containers. In this sense, the Chinook incorporated new technological materials into their expedient tool traditions (Simmons 2014). At this early stage of colonialism, it is probably inappropriate to think of this bottle reuse as a form of resistance or rejection of European power (see Martindale and Jurakic 2006:426), but rather that the Chinook were experimenting with the new materials to see how they could fit into older patterns of tool use. Adding to this complexity, the addition of metal tools (e.g., knives) and firearms likely affected Chinook tool-related behaviors. Regardless, that the unique form of the glass “core” altered the traditional reduction techniques of the Chinook is of some importance in exploring the consequences of colonialism (see Simmons 2014). Based on the abundant evidence for domestic structures and the large numbers of trade goods, the function of the Middle Village site seems to be a summer settlement where people probably conducted some domestic and productive activities but where the main focus was trade. The most abundant artifacts at the site are the trappings of consumption of manufactured goods. Even some of the food remains might relate to feasting associated with trade as opposed to daily consumption. Thus, the Middle Village appears to be dedicated to the acquisition and consumption of fur-trade goods. These activities occurred within traditional Chinook summer houses.
Discussion Lawrence and Shepherd (2006:70), discussing colonialism, note historical archaeology’s focus on the European side of European expansion: Historical archaeologists from the beginning have been interested in sites associated with early colonial settlement, be they forts, trading posts, missions, farms, villages, or cities. However, the main subject of Contextualizing the Chinook at Contact: The Middle Village
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these studies has generally been the European colonists, with interest in indigenous peoples and the slaves forced to migrate against their will being of secondary consideration. Most studies have been of settlements where Europeans were present, and until recently there has been little interest in contemporaneous sites occupied exclusively by indigenous or enslaved peoples. Archaeologists exploring colonialism and colonization in the Pacific Northwest have expended much effort on fur-trading establishments and their multicultural colonial settlements, like Fort Vancouver and the Hudson’s Bay Company Village (Caywood 1947, 1955; Cromwell 2006; Kardas 1971; Wilson 2014); Christian missions, like Jason Lee’s Willamette Mission (Sanders et al. 1983); or American immigrant sites, like Champoeg (Speulda 1988). While these sites are important in understanding the nature of culture change in the Pacific Northwest, to gain a more complete understanding of this change, particularly in the earliest phases of colonization, archaeologists must give attention to colonialism of contact-period indigenous peoples of the Greater Lower Columbia Region. To date, few historical archaeologists in the Pacific Northwest have explored the fur trade from an American Indian perspective. Surely, archaeologists have explored American Indian sites whose occupations extend into the nineteenth century (e.g., Ames and Maschner 1999:112; Ames et al. 1992, 1999; Minor et al. 1989). In spite of early calls for archaeological exploration of indigenous structures of the colonial period in the Pacific Northwest (e.g., de Laguna 1960; Fladmark 1973), investigators have only recently begun to explore more fully the entanglements of the Chinook with English, Canadian, American, and other colonizers. The Middle Village is situated at a unique time in the history of the Pacific Northwest. Like those archaeological studies that have focused on colonial and creole settlements, explanation of the Middle Village in terms of purely Anglo or American imposition on the Native Chinook is not exactly tenable. The Middle Village appears to contain traditional Chinookan post-on-beam plank structures, apparently from a summer village, associated with large numbers and high densities of fur-trade items. Compared with other Chinook and regional Pacific Northwest sites, the Middle Village has a chiefly assemblage. This may reflect our poor understanding of Lower Chinook settlement patterns. Even three decades after Minor’s (1983) dissertation work, we know little of summer or winter villages, especially the architectural details of their structures, at the mouth of the Columbia River. Archaeologists of the Greater Lower Columbia 132
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Region should conduct research like that of Jones (chapter 2, this volume) on settlement patterns associated with colonialism. The variety and density (by count) of wealth items at the Middle Village, including copper and weapons, suggest that it was either the residence of a chiefly person, perhaps even Concomly himself or a close relative. Alternatively, the power aggrandized by the Chinook may have been liberally spread through the elite of the villages and houses around Concomly. That this contrasts with patterns at Meier and Cathlapotle upriver is significant. Abandonment of the Middle Village appears to have been sudden. Many of the fur-trade items, like glass trade beads, ceramics, and glass bottles, are technologically earlier in time and predate the establishment of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fort Vancouver (1825–1860). The abandonment is correlated with two important events in the history of the mouth of the Columbia River—the 1825 abandonment of Fort George (formerly Fort Astoria) associated with the merger of the Northwest Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1821, and the onset of the malaria epidemics of 1830–1834 (Boyd 1975, 1990, 1999). That changes in the structure of the trade with the British and the adverse effects of infectious disease on the Lower Chinook are probably causative in the abandonment of the Middle Village is not disputed. It is unclear, however, which was the more powerful factor. Likewise, unrelated events may have led to the abandonment of the site. Dr. John Scouler (1905b:277), surgeon for the Hudson’s Bay Company ship William and Anne, reported in 1825 that Concomly lived in one of the villages between Chinook Point and Point Ellice but had abandoned the site: “Point Ellis used to be the favourite residence of the Chinooks, but since the calamities of the chief ’s family, Comcomly & most of his people have abandoned it.” The calamity noted by Scouler was the death of two of Concomly’s sons by an unknown illness, deaths that were attributed to the shaman who attempted to cure it. Following the assassination of the shaman by another of Concomly’s sons, a battle among the Chinook took place near Fort George (Scouler 1905a:165–168). Clearly, the time period around 1825 was one of disruption for the Lower Chinook. In comparing the Middle Village with other Chinookan sites upriver and along the coast, there are significant differences in the types and frequencies of trade goods and in the form and function of the village. The ability of the Chinook at the mouth of the Columbia River to acquire and redistribute this wealth upriver and elsewhere speaks to the way in which the fur trade affected the Chinook people at the mouth of the Columbia River. It is an interesting point of comparison with other Chinook houses upriver and at the mouth of the CoContextualizing the Chinook at Contact: The Middle Village
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lumbia. The dramatic differences in the colonial-era assemblages between the centuries-old houses in the Portland/Vancouver basin and the Middle Village suggest that colonialism struck the upriver and downriver Chinookan peoples very differently. While typically interpreted as a move to cement British claims to the areas north of the Columbia River and to build strategic depth for the furtrade headquarters (Hussey 1957), it may be that a principal reason for shifting its operations upstream was in recognition that the Chinook at the mouth of the Columbia River had become too wealthy and powerful from the fur trade and that the trade needed to move into the interior to improve on the mercantile colonists’ profitability (see Bergmann 2008:47). Further research should explore this possibility in greater detail.
Conclusion Excavations at the Middle Village provide a new set of data for the mouth of the Columbia River, one of the centers of the British and American fur trade on the Pacific Coast at the onset of the colonial period. By utilizing different frames of reference, including ethnohistoric and archaeological data, we argue that the complexity of colonialism for the Greater Lower Columbia Region and at the mouth of the Columbia River among the Chinook is significantly greater than each frame of reference by itself might indicate. Localized variability in the acquisition and distribution of trade goods and variations in the use of these new objects and materials in terms of glocalization is of fundamental importance when addressing the impact of colonizers on the colonized in the Pacific Northwest, and for that matter, elsewhere in the world. Information from the Middle Village provides a useful contrast to data from indigenous sites of colonialism explored further upstream and elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest (e.g., Ames et al. 1999; Kaehler 2002; Marshall and Maas 1997; Martindale 2009; Sobel 2012). Likewise, these archaeological contexts provide a means to explore the nature of exchange across the Greater Lower Columbia Region complementing (or perhaps contrasting with) the ethnohistoric record (e.g., Hajda 1984, 2005). These comparisons of frames of reference illustrate the dynamic nature of colonialism on indigenous peoples and the variable roles of time, place, and individuals on its expression. The particular aspects of this case study suggest that researchers of colonial periods elsewhere in the world should explore local variability in colonialism and its related cultural adaptation. We suggest one way in which indigenous structures of material use and human interaction adjusted to (or intertwined with) new colonial 134
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landscapes. These patterns are complex. Similar exploration of patterning elsewhere is likely to produce equally rich interpretations of material and social adaptation.
Acknowledgments The park project was a partnership among the National Park Service, the Federal Highway Administration, the Washington State Department of Transportation, the Washington State Historical Society, and the State of Washington Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation. Our many thanks go to the Chinook Nation, who monitored, inspected, and advocated for the Middle Village, and whose enduring history is central to the Pacific Northwest region.
Notes 1. The fieldwork at the site was initiated by Brian Harrison of Columbia Diachronic Services, who initiated survey and testing work at the site. 2. This runs counter to Chinook oral traditions, and as the entire site area could not be explored, it is possible that areas which were not intensively investigated—including those underneath the current highway or otherwise outside the project area—contain precontact cultural deposits.
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Hamilton, Stephen C. 1994 Technological Organization and Sedentism: Expedient Core Reduction, Stockpiling and Tool Curation at the Meier Site (35CO5). Unpublished Master’s thesis, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon. Hussey, John A. 1957 The History of Fort Vancouver and Its Physical Structure. Washington State Historical Society, Abbott, Kerns, and Bell, Portland, Oregon. Jones, Robert F. (editor) 1999 Annals of Astoria: The Headquarters Log of the Pacific Fur Company on the Columbia River, 1811–1813. Fordham University Press, New York. Kaehler, Gretchen A. 2002 Patterns in Glass: The Interpretation of European Glass Trade Beads from Two Protohistoric Sites in the Greater Lower Columbia River Region. Unpublished Master’s thesis, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon. Kardas, Susan 1971 “The People Bought This and the Clatsop Became Rich”: A View of Nineteenth Century Fur Trade Relationships on the Lower Columbia between Chinookan Speakers, Whites, and Kanakas. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Klimko, Olga 2004 Fur Trade Archaeology in Western Canada: Who Is Digging Up the Forts? In The Archaeology of Contact in Settler Societies, edited by Tim Murray, pp. 157–175. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Lang, William L. 2013 The Chinookan Encounter with Euro-Americans in the Lower Columbia River Valley. In Chinookan Peoples of the Lower Columbia, edited by Robert T. Boyd, Kenneth M. Ames, and Tony A. Johnson, pp. 250–271. University of Washington Press, Seattle. Lawrence, Susan, and Nick Shepherd 2006 Historical Archaeology and Colonialism. In The Cambridge Companion to Historical Archaeology, edited by Dan Hicks and Mary C. Beaudry, pp. 69–86. Cambridge University Press, New York. Leone, Mark P., and Parker B. Potter (editors) 1988 Introduction: Issues in Historical Archaeology. In The Recovery of Meaning: Historical Archaeology in the Eastern United States, edited by Mark P. Leone and Parker B. Potter, pp. 1–22. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. Lightfoot, Kent G. 1995 Culture Contact Studies: Redefining the Relationship between Prehistoric and Historic Archaeology. American Antiquity 60(2):199–217. 2005 Mission, Gold, Furs, and Manifest Destiny: Rethinking an Archaeology of Colonialism for Western North America. In Historical Archaeology, edited by Martin Hall and Stephen Silliman, pp. 272–292. Blackwell Studies in Global Archaeology. Blackwell, Malden, Massachusetts. Lightfoot, Kent G., and Antoinette Martinez 1995 Frontiers and Boundaries in Archaeological Perspective. Annual Review of Anthropology 24:471–492. Contextualizing the Chinook at Contact: The Middle Village
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Lightfoot, Kent G., Antionette Martinez, and Ann M. Schiff 1998 Daily Practice and Material Culture in Pluralistic Social Settings: An Archaeological Study of Culture Change and Persistence from Fort Ross, California. American Antiquity 63(2):199–222. Lightfoot, Kent G., Ann M. Schiff, and Thomas A. Wake (editors) 1991 The Archaeology and Ethnohistory of Fort Ross, California, Volume 1, Introduction. University of California, Berkeley. 1997 The Archaeology and Ethnohistory of Fort Ross, California, Volume 2, The Native Alaskan Neighborhood. University of California, Berkeley. Marshall, Yvonne 1993 A Political History of the Nuu-chah-nulth People: A Case Study of the Mowachaht and Muchalaht Tribes. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, B.C. Marshall, Yvonne, and Alexandra Maas 1997 Dashing Dishes. World Archaeology 28(3):275–290. Martindale, Andrew 1999 The River of Mist: Cultural Change in the Tshimshia Past. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario. 2003 A Hunter-Gatherer Paramount Chiefdom: Tsimshian Developments through the Contact Period. In Emerging from the Mist: Studies in Northwest Coast Culture History, edited by R. G. Matson, Gary Coupland, and Quentin Mackie, pp. 12–50. University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver. 2005 The Tsimshian Household through the Contact Period. In Household Archaeology on the Northwest Coast, edited by Elizabeth A. Sobel, D. Ann Trieu, and Kenneth M. Ames, pp. 140–158. International Monographs in Prehistory, Ann Arbor, Michigan. 2009 Entanglement and Tinkering: Structural History in the Archaeology of the Northern Tsimshian. Journal of Social Archaeology 9(1):59–91. Martindale, Andrew, and Irena Jurakic 2006 Identifying Expedient Glass Tools from a Post-contact Tsimshian Village Using Low Power (10–100X) Magnification. Journal of Archaeological Science 33:414–427. Minor, Rick 1983 Aboriginal Settlement and Subsistence at the Mouth of the Columbia River. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oregon, Eugene. Minor, Rick, Kathryn Anne Toepel, and Stephen Dow Beckham 1989 An Overview of Investigations at 45SA11: Archaeology in the Columbia River Gorge. Heritage Research Associates Report No. 83. Report to the Portland District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by Heritage Research Associates, Eugene, Oregon. Moulton, G. E. (editor) 1990 The Journals of Lewis and Clark, Volumes 6 and 7. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln. Murray, Tim 2004 The Archaeology of Contact in Settler Societies. In The Archaeology of Contact in Settler Societies, edited by Tim Murray, pp. 1–18. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Nassaney, Michael S. 2015 The Archaeology of the North American Fur Trade. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. 140
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Nicandri, David L. 2010 River of Promise: Lewis and Clark on the Columbia. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman. Panich, Lee M. 2013 Archaeologies of Persistence: Reconsidering the Legacies of Colonialism in Native North America. American Antiquity 78(1):105–122. Paynter, Robert 2000a Historical and Anthropological Archaeologies: Forging Alliances. Journal of Archaeological Research 8(1):1–37. 2000b Historical Archaeology and the Post-Columbian World of North America. Journal of Archaeological Research 8(3):169–217. Porter, John 1997 Fort Langley National Historic Site: A Review of Archaeological Investigations. The Midden 29(1):6–9. Porter, John, Malcolm James, Karlis Karklins, Charles Bradley, Lynne Sussman, Stephan Davis, and Alison Landals 1995 Archaeological Investigations at Fort Langley National Historic Site, British Columbia 1986–89, Microfiche Report Series No. 532, Parks Canada, Ottawa, Ontario. Prince, Joseph M. 1998 The Plains Paradox: Secular Trends in Stature in 19th Century Nomadic Plains Equestrian Indians. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Rahn, Robert Brian 2002 Spatial Analysis of Archaeological Sites in Barkley Sound, Vancouver Island. Unpublished Master’s thesis, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg. Ray, Verne F. 1938 Lower Chinook Ethnographic Notes. University of Washington Publications in Anthropology 7(2):29–165. University of Washington Press, Seattle. Roe, Michael (editor) 1967 The Journal and Letters of Captain Charles Bishop on the North-West Coast of America, in the Pacific and in New South Wales, 1794–1799. Cambridge University Press, London. Ross, Alexander 1849 Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River. Reprinted in 1986 by the University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln. Ross, Lester A. 1976 Fort Vancouver, 1829–1960: A Historical Archaeological Investigation of the Goods Imported and Manufactured by the Hudson’s Bay Company. Manuscript, Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, U.S. National Park Service, Vancouver, Washington. Rubertone, Patricia E. 2000 The Historical Archaeology of Native Americans. Annual Review of Anthropology 29:425–46. Sanders, Judith A., Mary K. Weber, and David R. Brauner 1983 Willamette Mission Archeological Project: Phase III Assessment. Anthropology Northwest: Number 1. Department of Anthropology, Oregon State University, Corvallis. Contextualizing the Chinook at Contact: The Middle Village
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Scouler, John 1905a Dr. John Scouler’s Journal of a Voyage to Northwest America: [1824–’25–26]. II. Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society 6(2):159–205. 1905b Dr. John Scouler’s Journal of a Voyage to Northwest America: [1824–’25–26]. III. Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society 6(3):276–287. Silliman, Stephen W. 2004 Lost Laborers in Colonial California: Native Americans and the Archaeology of Rancho Petaluma. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. 2005a Culture Contact or Colonialism? Challenges in the Archaeology of Native North America. American Antiquity 70(1):20–74. 2005b Social and Physical Landscapes of Contact. In North American Archaeology, edited by Timothy R. Pauketat and Diana D. Loren, pp. 273–296. Blackwell, Malden, Massachusetts. Silverstein, Michael 1990 Chinookans of the Lower Columbia. In Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 7, Northwest Coast, edited by Wayne Suttles, pp. 533–546. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Simmons, Stephanie C. 2014 Exploring Colonization and Ethnogenesis through an Analysis of the Flaked Glass Tools of the Lower Columbia Chinookans and Fur Traders. Unpublished Master’s thesis, Department of Anthropology, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon. Simpson, George 1931 Fur Trade and Empire: George Simpson’s journal entitled Remarks connected with the fur trade in the course of a voyage from York Factory to Fort George and back to York Factory 1824–25, with related documents. Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Smith, Cameron M. 1996 Social Stratification within a Protohistoric Plankhouse of the Pacific Northwest Coast: Usewear and Spatial Distribution Analysis of Chipped Lithic Artifacts. Unpublished Master’s thesis, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon. 2005 Formation Processes of a Chinookan Plankhouse. In Household Archaeology on the Northwest Coast, edited by Elizabeth A. Sobel, D. Ann Trieu, and Kenneth M. Ames, pp. 233–269. International Monographs in Archaeology, Ann Arbor, Michigan. 2008 The Organization of Production among Sedentary Foragers of the Southern Pacific Northwest Coast. British Archaeological Reports International Series S1741. Archaeopress, Oxford, England. 2015 Use-wear, chaîne opératoire and Labour Organisation among Pacific Northwest Coast Sedentary Foragers. Antiquity 89(345):662–682. Sobel, Elizabeth A. 2004 Social Complexity and Corporate Households on the Southern Northwest Coast, A.D. 1400–1840. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. 2012 An Archaeological Test of the “Exchange Expansion Model” of Contact Era Change on the Northwest Coast. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31:1–21. Speulda, Lou Ann 1988 Champoeg: A Frontier Community in Oregon, 1830–1861. Anthropology Northwest No. 3, Department of Anthropology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon.
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Steer, Donald, Helen Lemon, Linda Southwood, and John Porter 1980 Archaeological Investigation at Fort Langley National Historic Park. Microfiche Report Series No. 114. Parks Canada, Ottawa, Ontario. Stern, Theodore 1993 Chiefs & Chief Traders: Indian Relations at Fort Nez Perces, 1818–1855. Oregon State University Press, Corvallis. 1996 Chiefs and Change in the Oregon Country: Indian Relations at Fort Nez Perces, 1818– 1855. University of Oregon Press, Eugene. Thomas, Bryn 1987 Archaeological Testing and Data Recovery Excavations for a Proposed Utility Corridor at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site. Eastern Washington University Reports in Archaeology and History, pp. 100–57. Eastern Washington University, Cheney. Thomas, Bryn, and Charles Hibbs Jr. 1984 Report of Investigations of Excavations at Kanaka Village/Vancouver Barracks, Washington, 1980/1981. Volumes 1 and 2. Washington State Department of Transportation, Olympia. Tveskov, Mark A. 2007 Social Identity and Culture Change on the Southern Northwest Coast. American Anthropologist 109(3):431–441 Vancouver, George 1926 The Exploration of the Columbia River by Lieutenant W. R. Broughton, October 1792: An Extract of the Journal of Captain George Vancouver. Press of the Longview Daily News, Longview, Washington. Wesson, Cameron B., and Mark A. Rees 1997 Protohistory and Archaeology. In Between Contacts and Colonies: Archaeological Perspectives on the Protohistoric Southeast, edited by Cameron B. Wesson and Mark A. Rees, pp. 1–11. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa. Williamson, Christine 2004 Contact Archaeology and the Writing of Aboriginal History. In The Archaeology of Contact in Settler Societies, edited by Tim Murray, pp. 176–199. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Wilson, Douglas C. 2012 Middle Village. Columbia Magazine 26(2):4–9. 2014 The Decline and Fall of the Hudson’s Bay Company Village at Fort Vancouver. In Alis Volat Proprisiis: Tales from the Oregon Territory 1848–1859, edited by Chelsea Rose and Mark Tveskov, pp. 21–42. Occasional Papers No. 9, Association of Oregon Archaeologists. Wilson, Douglas C., Kenneth Ames, Kristine M. Bovy, Virginia Butler, Robert Cromwell, Loren G. Davis, Christopher R. DeCorse, Brian F. Harrison, R. Lee Lyman, Michele L. Punke, Cameron Smith, and Nancy A. Stenholm 2009 Historical Archaeology at the Middle Village: Station Camp/McGowan Site (45PC106), Station Camp Unit, Lewis & Clark National Historical Park, Pacific County, Washington. Northwest Cultural Resources Institute Report No. 1. Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, National Park Service, Vancouver, Washington.
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Wilson, Douglas C., and Theresa E. Langford (editors) 2011 Exploring Fort Vancouver. University of Washington Press, Seattle. Wylie, Alison 1993 A Proliferation of New Archaeologies: “Beyond Objectivism and Relativism.” In Archaeological Theory: Who Sets the Agenda? edited by Norman Yoffee and Andrew Sherratt, pp. 20–26. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 1999 Rethinking Unity as a “Working Hypothesis” for Philosophy of Science: How Archaeologists Exploit the Disunities of Science. Perspectives in Science 7(3):293–317. 2000 Questions of Evidence, Legitimacy, and the (Dis)unity of Science. American Antiquity 65(2):227–238. Zenk, Henry, Robert Boyd, and David Ellis 2016 Table S 2.1. Lower Columbia Chinookan Villages: Named Sites from Contemporary Observers or Multiple Primary Sources. Supplemental Materials for Chapter 2: Cultural Geography of the Lower Columbia, by David V. Ellis. In Chinookan Peoples of the Lower Columbia, edited by Robert T. Boyd, Kenneth M. Ames, and Tony A. Johnson. University of Washington Press, Seattle. Electronic document, https:// www.pdx.edu/anthropology/sites/www.pdx.edu.anthropology/files/Online%20Villages.2016.04.17.pdf, accessed September 23, 2016.
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PA RT I I Movement, Conflict, and Transformation
T
he chapters in part II of this volume examine case studies in which profound cultural change resulted from cross-cultural conflict
or violence. These are examples of colonialism that had a substantial impact, in various ways, on indigenous settlement patterns and household and community organization. Those effects were, however, filtered through the lenses of adaptation, negotiation, compromise, conflict, and resilience, just as we saw in the examples in part I (chapters 2 through 5). Thus we see colonialism as a negotiated process of give-and-take, one characterized by the highly variable exercise of power and of resistance to or reframing of that power. In chapter 6, Grace Barretto-Tesoro and Vito Hernandez use archaeological, geological, and archival evidence in their study of a major flooding event in nineteenth-century Spanish Philippines. Different experiences of that event within the colony, along with local resistance to the Spanish priest’s request to relocate the settlement, played out in the historical records used by the researchers. They interpret both that resistance to the relocation request and continued occupation of the site after relocation orders were issued as resilience. Indigenous actions and the priest’s manipulation of some of the principales (indigenous elites) are interpreted using a corpus of indigenous cultural values. In chapter 7, Robert J. Littman and Jay E. Silverstein highlight some of the key traits that differentiate Ptolemaic Egypt from other case
studies of colonialism, such as their unique status as an empire whose homeland was simultaneously their conquered territory. This stretches conversations about colonialism and its archaeological manifestations in new directions. The chapter also emphasizes the extent to which Ptolemaic colonialism required fusion with local Egyptian religion, politics, and iconography. The authors balance archaeological and literary/textual evidence by using the latter to read or interpret the former. Doing so deepens our understanding of the nature of local rebellion and resistance in Egypt (abundantly clear in the written records), in contrast to an archaeological picture largely characterized by continuity. Both chapters 6 and 7 therefore confront conflicts between the historical and archaeological records, something likely familiar to archaeologists working on many different examples of historicalperiod colonialism around the globe. In chapter 8, Geoffrey Clark reconstructs indigenous Pacific Islander perspectives on European exploration visits, also using a combination of archaeological evidence and ethnohistoric literature (but in a very different way). He distinguishes between conflict voyaging and nonconflict voyaging, describing what would have been the typical characteristics of both kinds of seafaring vessels and crews. Clark pulls details from written accounts to reconstruct indigenous expectations for encounters with others in different parts of Oceania. Some islander societies at the time of European contact had long been engaged in intersocietal conflict, while others had been more focused on trade, inter-island visits, and other forms of nonaggressive contact. Both archaeological and textual evidence are employed in Clark’s efforts to explain different reactions to European voyagers early in the contact period. This research adds a valuable counterpoint to simplistic dismissals of contact archaeology (see chapter 1) and supports the kind
of work done in most of this volume’s chapters to contextualize the processes and impacts of contact, colonization, and colonialism from multiple perspectives. It also provides an important example of how one can make selective use of details from texts (even those written by agents of the eventual colonial state) to flesh out our knowledge of nonliterate indigenous cultures. In chapter 9, on the other hand, Tianlong Jiao relies exclusively on archaeological data to offer evidence of colonization as a process of cultural replacement. His chapter includes a brief review of Chinese archaeological approaches to explaining culture change—a history that must be understood in order to contextualize the focus on different research questions and methodological approaches that are commonly employed in the archaeology of colonialism. Jiao then systematically lays out the archaeological evidence for the Zaolutai colonization of the Liangzhu polity’s territory, particularly with evidence of the sudden appearance of the complex site of Guangfulin coupled with the previously unexplained collapse of the Liangzhu. The case studies in chapters 6, 7, and 8 model innovative ways to incorporate different kinds of evidence in arguments that have much to offer archaeologists working on prehistoric colonialism. Chapters 6 and 7 together make a powerful argument for the use of multiple frames of reference to better understand cross-cultural interaction within colonial contexts. Chapter 8 offers an innovative method to reconstruct indigenous perspectives from details taken from the written accounts of some who would later play the role of colonizers. This argument also brings “contact” back into the picture, as cross-cultural encounters—even between agents of colonial states and colonized peoples—should not assume the one-sided exercise of political or military power. The Chinese case study in chapter 9, on the other hand, offers an archaeological manifestation
of true cultural transformation, perhaps even wholesale replacement. This should be useful as a testable analogy for those whose research involves the intrusive presence of a powerful empire. Jiao’s reliance on strictly archaeological data, moreover, offers prehistorians a comparable case study of devastating colonialism. Together, these four chapters deal with conflict between historical and archaeological records, between indigenous societies and native-colonizer cultures, and between ancient states in complex, multipolity (pre)histories. Read together, they offer a picture of colonialism fraught with violence, conquest, domination, and two-way transformation.
6 Power and Resilience Flooding and Occupation in a Late-Nineteenth-Century Philippine Town
G R AC E B A R R E T T O -T E S O R O A N D V I T O H E R N A N D E Z
The archaeological study of the historical site of Pinagbayanan, San Juan, Batangas, on the southwestern coastal landscapes of the island of Luzon (Map 6.1), presents an interesting picture of colonial life in nineteenth-century Philippines. Here, as in the other cases presented in this volume, we find a level of negotiation in colonialism. Pinagbayanan is a colonized settlement of Filipinos who are capable of negotiating to their own interest with the Spanish-controlled church and state, based on their indigenous values and their knowledge of landscape. This presents a dynamic picture of colonization wherein the indigenous community actively engages the interests of the powerful colony instead of being passively dominated by those interests. Pinagbayanan’s story is tied to social and environmental change. Pinagbayanan was the original central village of the town of San Juan after it had gained political and economic independence from the then much larger town of Rosario. It was also a colony that managed indigenous communities through forced resettlement on a newly forming coastal floodplain identified through our geoarchaeological research (Hernandez and Barretto-Tesoro 2012). Thus, in particular ways it was both a promising and a problematic example of colonization. The locals saw Pinagbayanan as an opportunity to control trade, as it was not landlocked and its natural resources were diverse and abundant. The church, tasked with administering the local population, eventually faced increasing and worsening regional flooding, perhaps associated with urban development (Hernandez 2015). This prompted a church recommendation to move San Juan’s población (administrative center) from Pinagbayanan to Calit-Calit. Although the seat of the government was transferred to Calit-Calit, many of its residents initially resisted this move and stayed on in Pinagbayanan. Even-
Map 6.1. Left: Philippine Islands, showing the area of San Juan, Batangas (in box), island of Luzon. Right: Close-up of San Juan showing sites recorded along the eastern coast. Enclosed sites are in Pinagbayanan.
tually, many of the landed elite came to maintain residences in both villages. Those who stayed remained resilient despite environmental and social changes.
Spanish Colonial Encounters in the Philippines Spanish colonization in the Philippines is a product of imperialism driven by the mandate to convert the islands’ natives to Christianity (Felipe II 1585). While this was the most popular reason given for colonizing the islands, the Spanish Crown also exploited indigenous labor, collected tribute, and extracted resources for its own purposes, including control of global commerce.1 Phelan identifies these as part of the “Hispanization” of the Philippines (1959). The Spanish reorganized settlement, introduced new infrastructure, and appropriated colonial architecture, signified by the plaza complex and its massive structures such as stone churches, stone houses, and fortresses. Other than these structures and new settlement layouts, archaeologists working on historical sites have little evidence of Spanish colonization in the Philippines. In fact, Asian artifacts dominate the assemblages from many of these historical sites, including known colonies (e.g., Archaeological Cultural and Environmental Consultancy, Inc. [ACECI] 2005). European items brought by the galleon trade (1573–1815) were mostly consumed by Spanish residents in the Philippines (Skowronek 1998), and they did not enjoy the same wide distribution as Asian ceramics in archaeological sites before and after the Spanish conquest. Although the Philippines opened its ports to world trade by 1834 (Skowronek 1998), historical sites like Pinagbayanan continue to yield very few European artifacts. Even locally produced earthenware vessels with European forms, known as Manila ware, had limited distribution during the Spanish colonial period (Arriola 2010). Thus, it might be more apt to refer to Spanish colonialism in the Philippines as a commercial or trading post (Skowronek 1998; see also chapters 1 and 12, this volume).
The Archaeology of Colonialism The archaeology of colonialism in the Philippines is synonymous with historical archaeology, and “historical” refers to the period beginning with the Spanish occupation. Historical sites include stone churches, stone chapels, stonebased houses, forts, lighthouses, and cemeteries. To date, more sites dating to the Spanish occupation of the Philippines have been investigated than those from the U.S. occupation (1898–1946). Many of those are documented through contract work (e.g., ACECI 2005, 2010, 2011; Barretto-Tesoro, Hernandez, et al. Flooding and Occupation in a Late-Nineteenth-Century Philippine Town
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2014; Barretto-Tesoro, Ochoa, et al. 2014; Bautista and Orogo 1992; Cuevas and Bautista 2009; Dizon and Bautista 2000; Jago-on et al. 2003; Katipunan Arkeologist ng Pilipinas, Inc. [KAPI] 2006; Mijares et al. 2007). Thus they often fail to incorporate social, political, and cultural factors in site interpretations (e.g., Alba 2008; Bautista 2005; Ceron et al. 2009; Cuevas and Bautista 2009; Dizon et al. 2005; Neri 2011; Neri et al. 2008; Orillaneda and Santiago 2007; RomualdezValtos 2005). It is only recently that the archaeology of colonialism has synthesized archaeological data within their historical contexts (e.g., Arriola 2010; Basilia 2014; Cruz 2014; Dizon 1993; Eusebio 2009; KAPI 2006; Kintanar 2014; Luga 2014; Nazareno 2002; Padilla 2013; Sales 2013). Few studies have comprehensively addressed historical archaeology in the Philippines (Belmonte 2003; Paz 2003a, 2009; Tatel 2003). More research should examine the discrepancies between written documents and artifacts, nature of power relations, hidden histories of non-dominant social groups, interaction between world systems and local systems, and culture change among the indigenous population and the colonies. This is perhaps the first attempt to, at the very least, describe the nuanced relationship of documents and artifacts and to explore the power relations between Spanish colonies and the indigenous inhabitants of the Philippines. It is the first investigation to explain power relations between colonizer and colonized using local indigenous values and the locals’ knowledge of landscape to define the resilient nature of indigenous communities as a demonstration of their power.
Power, Resilience, and Landscapes The idea of power in Philippine archaeology is mostly rooted in the discourse of precolonial chiefdoms and precolonial socioeconomic and sociopolitical ranking and authority (Junker 1999; Junker and Niziolek 2009). Barretto-Tesoro (2008) discusses the different contexts of power within the context of reciprocity in the fifteenth century. To date there is little or no archaeological attempt to investigate power dynamics during the Spanish colonial occupation of the Philippines. Resilience or continuity in Philippine archaeology is established through material studies (Patole-Edoumba et al. 2012; Paz 2012), cosmology and practice (Paz 2012), and, recently, settlement studies (Hernandez 2007, 2010; Paz et al. 2010). These identify resilience as the persistence of forms, meanings, or groups within the context of changing milieus or in the context of social and/ or environmental stress. In this study, resilience is also captured—and used—within an approach de152
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veloped by Sauer (2015) that combines archaeology, ethnography, and ethnohistory to explore Pinagbayanan cultural change and resilience through time. Moreover, resilience plays an important role in investigations of human-environment interactions such as those developed by Crumley (1994), Hirsch and O’Hanlon (1995), and Redman (1999), particularly in studying flooding and Pinagbayanan settlement responses. However, like the concept of power, resilience is rarely discussed in the archaeology of more recent Philippine history. Urbanization is also an important process in archaeological research on the histories of the Philippines’ sociopolitical and cultural centers (Paz 2009). This chapter offers an especially interesting case study of urbanization in that it adds layers of complexity to the colonial power dynamics at issue between the state and church on the one hand and the indigenous inhabitants on the other. And those power dynamics within the context of urbanization are contextualized in a changing landscape. This particular combination—a changing landscape, colonial power dynamics, and a history of urbanization—makes this chapter a valuable contribution to this volume’s comparative project (chapter 1, this volume). This research also offers a different approach to landscape studies, because what we mean by landscape is more than just the physical environment of humans. It also signifies humans’ perception of and adaptation to their physical environment through time. In this sense landscape can be treated like an artifact. Patterns can be discerned in the physical environment that manifest human population dynamics and human conceptions of that environment. These patterns include land use, the construction of settlements, and choices of settlement locations that are central to settlement pattern research in archaeology (Chang 1968). The landscape and settlement patterns in this research project are dramatically affected, moreover, by flooding. Flooding in the coastal lowlands and floodplains of the Philippines is a late Quaternary phenomenon (Mines and Geosciences Bureau 2010) that has affected human occupation at different temporal and spatial scales. It has been archaeologically demonstrated in the last one thousand years in the central western coastal region of Luzon (Gaillard et al. 2008; Hernandez 2010). This geographical focus is extended in this chapter to southwestern coastal Luzon. The settlement of Pinagbayanan is located on a coastal floodplain of recent alluvium, fluviatiles, paludal, and beach deposits sandwiched between Quaternary active volcanoes and Plio-Pleistocene volcanic plains or foothills formed from active tectonism during these earlier geological periods (Mines and Geosciences Bureau 2010). Environments such as these were often settled or poFlooding and Occupation in a Late-Nineteenth-Century Philippine Town
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tentially settled beginning in the mid- to late Holocene (Bellwood et al. 2008; Hernandez 2010; Mijares 2006). Indigenous settlement patterns were variably affected during the Spanish colonial period. Reducción, the systematic resettlement of the indigenous population to newly established towns, was primarily a tool used to facilitate the objectives of Spanish colonialism. These towns were either built in new areas, such as Pinagbayanan, or on existing older settlements, as dictated by the Leyes de Indias (Laws of the Indies) (Alarcon 1998; Barretto-Tesoro 2015; Javellana 1998; Lico 2008). The reappropriation of space to suit Spanish needs was arguably the most radical transformation of the San Juan coastal landscape. One fundamental feature of reducción was the church’s placement at the center of town. The layout of reducción towns centered on the church and government offices fronting an open formal space called the plaza. The plaza was in turn surrounded by the houses of the principales (indigenous or local elites), while the houses of non-elites spread out from that center. All roads radiated from the center following the four cardinal directions. Thus the church’s location determined the rest of a town’s layout on the landscape. In the Philippines, reducciones have been identified via excavations in or around old cities (Bautista 2009; Bautista and Dalumpines 2010; Bautista and De La Torre 1992; Cuevas 1996; Orogo 1993) and through identification of the ruins of old churches (ACECI 2005, 2011; University of the Philippines-Archaeological Studies Program [UP-ASP] 2005, 2009, 2012; Bautista 2005; Bautista and Orogo 1992; Bersales and Garong 2010; Dizon and Bautista 2000; Dizon et al. 2005; Neri et al. 2010; Paz 2003b, 2004, 2006; Teodosio 2005), stone houses (ACECI 2010; UP-ASP 2010, 2011; Barretto-Tesoro 2015; Barretto-Tesoro, Piper, et al. 2009; Barretto-Tesoro, Hernandez, et al. 2014; Barretto-Tesoro, Ochoa, et al. 2014), and forts (Accion 1982; UP-ASP 2007; Gatbonton 1985; Padilla 2013).
Flooding and the History of San Juan San Juan, which was known before as San Juan de Bolboc (the Spanish wrote it as Bocboc, as they could not pronounce the “l”), was established late in the Spanish occupation of the Philippines. In 1846, after the political separation of San Juan from the town of Rosario, the population of San Juan settled on a deltaic plain straddling the Bambang and Bancoro Rivers along the northern coast of Tayabas Bay, located in the southwestern sector of the island of Luzon. By the turn of the twentieth century, the population of the settlement, now renamed Pinagbayanan, was reportedly about ten thousand, including six 154
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families belonging to the principalia (noble class) who had migrated from different Batangas towns. Archaeological research (Barretto-Tesoro 2013a, 2015) has established that Pinagbayanan was a reducción. Its church’s construction had been discontinued in 1866 due to the lack of funds. Pinagbayanan literally means “former settled area” (UP-ASP 2010, 2011, 2012). Its location was likely selected because of its proximity to the sea and potential as trading post. An 1890 report from Manila by the colonial government’s chief engineer stated that Pinagbayanan’s wealth came from sugar, coffee, and rice. An 1890 declaration of Batangas town properties includes warehouses and stone structures for residential and commercial use in Pinagbayanan.2 In January 1886, despite documents attesting to the wealth produced by Pinagbayanan’s cash crops,3 the parish priest Victor Lopez submitted to the colonial government a petition to transfer the capital town elsewhere. Lopez cited flooding as the primary reason for the transfer. He was concerned by health hazards brought by the skeletons that floods had exposed and carried away from the cemetery next to the riverbank (Lopez 1887). Sastron (1895) points to the town’s low elevation, proximity to the sea, and overflowing rivers as conditions that contributed to flooding. Floods in Pinagbayanan brought diseases and damaged livestock and agriculture. However, details about the flooding itself were not described in the petition. For example, the word continuas (continuous) was mentioned in a May 1886 document, but it was not clear if the flooding was seasonal (yearly) and consistent, or if the flooding failed to recede over long periods of time. What was clearly documented was a “massive” flood that hit Pinagbayanan on October 28 in 1882 or 1883.4 Residents in Calit-Calit, the site of San Juan’s present población, have corroborated this event.5 They said that the flood level reached the Calit-Calit bridge, which was marked in the plan as located 5,519 m from the sea. The flood was so extensive that it reached the convent where indigenous residents, who had evacuated their huts, took refuge. Soon after this massive flood, locals began to canalize the Bancoro River to mitigate future flooding. Public records and official letters often mention that floods were rarely as extensive as the 1882/1883 flood.6 They also mention that flooding, while seasonal, affected only portions of the barangay (the smallest sociopolitical unit in the Philippines; a village) regardless of heavy rains recorded between 1883 and 1885; this assertion is supported by archaeological deposits (UP-ASP 2012). In July 1886, the petition to transfer the town proper from Pinagbayanan to Calit-Calit was approved.7 The new site was chosen because it had met all conditions set by the colonial government, such as having available potable water, Flooding and Occupation in a Late-Nineteenth-Century Philippine Town
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being free from flooding, and having around 60 km2 of land area to develop. The colonial government granted approval despite the absence of flooding since 1882/1883. In fact, 1886 even saw a drought that affected Pinagbayanan. Provincial documents dated to 1887 and 1888 indicate that flooding in Pinagbayanan frequently occurred only during typhoon season, and only because the Malaking Ilog (“big river”) overflowed its banks.
The Contrary View Initially, the principales opposed the petition to transfer San Juan’s población from Pinagbayanan to Calit-Calit. Their opposition is perhaps best captured in a document dated January 1888 narrating the account of Don Mariano Castillo, who was one of the principales and the grandson-in-law of Camilo Perez, San Juan de Bolboc’s first gobernadorcillo (mayor) (Pineda 1992). Don Castillo appeared at the Governor General’s office to protest both the settlement’s relocation and the manner in which signatures had been procured for the petition. This was recorded in an official document written by the Director General of the Civil Administration. He argued that only the parish priest, Victor Lopez, wanted the transfer. Castillo said that only Lopez would benefit from the transfer, as Calit-Calit was much closer to Tiaong in the province of Tayabas (now Quezon) and to Rosario, two well-established colonial parishes. Regarding the manner in which the petition was signed, Castillo said that Lopez met with the principales in a feast. His demeanor was described as friendly, in contrast to his usual reserved and serious self. After the feast, he required the principales to sign the petition, and about a third did so. Castillo believed that people signed because they were either drunk, did not understand Spanish, and/ or were morally pressured to do so after having been wined and dined by Lopez. In this document, Castillo lays out several reasons for the principales’ opposition to the relocation. First, Pinagbayanan’s location near the sea was more commercially advantageous to the local elites, and it was centrally located near other barrios (villages) in the area. This is similar to what was mentioned in the October 1886 document. Second, the elites’ houses were made of stone and thus, for Castillo and the other principales, it was not rational to abandon the town because of an “accident” that happened four years prior to the petition, because it did not cause much personal loss or harm. Third, they were also obliged to construct public buildings and to buy land in the proposed new location of Calit-Calit, which for them was an isolated site far from the commercial center. It should be noted that in a November 1887 document it was stipulated 156
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that, although the construction of certain public buildings was necessary, the locals were not obliged by the colonial state to either buy the land or construct those buildings in Calit-Calit.8 Local objections to the petition for relocation were acknowledged by the colonial administration. In its February 1888 report, Information on the Transfer of the Center of the Town of San Juan De Bocboc of the Province of Batangas, the administration acknowledges the parish priest’s deception of the town’s principales and residents.9 The report also clarified the priest’s insinuation of “bad hygiene” brought about by the floods in his 1886 petition, and it further clarified the nature of these “floods,” which was Lopez’s main reason for the town’s relocation. According to the Director General, there had been no reported cases of “bad hygiene” caused by flooding in the last 50 years, and the floods described by the priest were not actually floods, but rather minor incidents of surplus water in a small part of the town caused by weeds and trash blocking the Bancoro River. This is also supported by Pinagbayanan’s geoarchaeological record (UPASP 2012). The report also requested an independent parish for Pinagbayanan, so that those who chose to stay could continue to hear mass and still be involved in ecclesiastical activities for the “salvation of their souls.” However, on December 11, 1890, an official order from Manila was issued to transfer the población of San Juan from Pinagbayanan to Calit-Calit in the shortest possible time and without further complaints of any type, despite the reiterations and clarifications made in the 1888 report.
Pinagbayanan’s Archaeology Archaeological studies (UP-ASP 2010, 2011; Barretto-Tesoro 2013a, 2013b; Barretto-Tesoro, Campos, and Pineda 2009; Barretto-Tesoro, Piper, et al. 2009) of Pinagbayanan offer a fascinating counterpart to these complex power relations between indigenous residents, the colonial state, and church officials on this dynamic landscape. Excavations reveal very recent occupations in Pinagbayanan, with possibly no pre-1800 occupation in the general stratigraphy of San Juan’s coastal shelf. This is yet another indicator that this nineteenth-century site was a reducción, where natives lived under the control of the colonial government and “within the hearing of the church bells” (Reed 1978). The 2008 and 2010 archaeological surveys in Pinagbayanan (Barretto-Tesoro 2013a; Barretto-Tesoro, Campos, and Pineda 2009) established the locations of the principales’ residences, the municipal hall, the town plaza, and the church complex. Two ruins of stone houses were excavated in Pinagbayanan and desigFlooding and Occupation in a Late-Nineteenth-Century Philippine Town
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nated as Structures A and B (Figures 6.1 and 6.2) (UP-ASP 2010, 2011; BarrettoTesoro, Campos, and Pineda 2009). These ruins are located southeast of the old church ruins of San Juan, along what was arguably its old main road, the Calle Real (Barretto-Tesoro 2015). The two stone houses and the church ruins were made of volcanic tuff blocks bound with lime mortar and modern cement. The foundations were made of either volcanic tuff blocks or lime mortar poured in construction ditches that also served as molds. The house ruins are located adjacent to each other and demonstrate very similar archaeological sequences. Their location in relation to the church complex, the materials used for their construction, and the artifacts excavated at the site strongly suggest that these were houses of the principalia (Barretto-Tesoro 2015). Their archaeological stratigraphy and the nature of excavated materials also suggest that from the time of their construction to their abandonment, these houses were continuously used and well maintained (UP-ASP 2010, 2011; Barretto-Tesoro, Campos, and Pineda 2009). More important, none of the excavations in the area in and around these two house ruins showed evidence of flooding. Large-scale excavations of the church ruins (Figure 6.3) established its plan and determined the nature of the complex’s structures and their relationships through different episodes of occupation or use. These structures include an Lshaped stone pavement, a lime kiln, a water well near another stone feature, features and their associated materials (or perhaps the lack of materials, especially in comparison to artifact assemblages from the house ruins), data from extant studies of old churches (Galende and Javellana 1993), and other archaeological studies of church ruins in the Philippines (Dizon and Bautista 2000; Neri et al. 2010; Paz 2003b, 2004), all of which indicate that the area and ruins studied in Pinagbayanan are part of a church complex. Excavations of the church ruins reveal that its construction was never finished and that the church was eventually abandoned. More importantly, sedimentological investigations of the old church complex’s area reveal at least two relatively massive deposits of clays and silts across and within the structures—and deposited over occupation floors—as a consequence of flooding (UP-ASP 2012; Hernandez and Barretto-Tesoro 2012). Structures A and B were built on soils like those from the coast, while the old church complex was built on soils like those from further inland. Although these excavation areas are almost adjacent to each other—as they are part of the plaza complex (UP-ASP 2012) and across a road from each other—their subsurface sedimentary and soil features differ. Structures A and B had sandy soils composed of a subsurface sequence of silts and sands that generally grow 158
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Figure 6.1. Facade of Structure A, one of the two stone houses excavated in Pinagbayanan. (Photograph by A. Tesoro.)
Figure 6.2. View of Structure B from the northeast showing one of the entrances to the house. (Photograph by A. Tesoro.)
Figure 6.3. The west side of the old church in Pinagbayanan, where flood deposits were archaeologically recorded. (Photograph by A. Tesoro.)
coarser in progressively deeper levels into coarse sand (UP-ASP 2010, 2011; Barretto-Tesoro, Campos, and Pineda 2009), whereas the old church complex matrix was composed of clayey soils over organic rich silty soils and coarse sands (Hernandez and Barretto-Tesoro 2012). The catena (a series of distinct soils that are formed within a particular climate and parent material) survey also provided a quick picture of land-use in Pinagbayanan, including man-made canals, fishponds, and certain maintained vegetated areas (e.g., mangroves, rice fields). Using archaeological features from excavated areas and the site’s stratigraphy for the purposes of relative dating these land-use features indicates their development or maintenance over at least the last century. For instance, the Bambang River directly behind the old church complex has likely been trenched and widened several times in the last century and a half. This is evidenced by its approximated depth and correlating substrate, that is, clay and sands that are essentially poorly drained soils. The nature of substrata and the hydrological characteristics of the soils also suggest that flooding consisted of a low-energy overflow from the river and the buildup of water around the river, due to poorly drained soils that act like aquitards. 160
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Significantly, Pinagbayanan’s catena and land-use features allow for several hydrogeomorphological deductions, especially regarding the nature and timing of flooding in different historical areas within the site. In addition to the Bambang River behind the old church complex, Pinagbayanan’s beach zone is also generally characterized as a barrier beach. The beach is made up of deposits with minimal soil development or entisols, which create a barrier that keeps
Figure 6.4. Stratigraphy of Pinagbayanan, demonstrating its observed environments, archaeology, and flood events. (Diagram prepared by Vito Hernandez.) Flooding and Occupation in a Late-Nineteenth-Century Philippine Town
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floodwaters from rivers within Pinagbayanan’s landscape and protects the area from the tides and waves of the sea outside it. There are, however, land-use features that also serve as catchments during flood events (e.g., fishponds) or barriers to flooding (e.g., maintained mangrove areas around the rivers, canalized estuaries, and even the beach itself). Our archaeological and geoarchaeological research suggests that flooding in the coastal settlement is a relatively recent phenomenon. The flooding seems to coincide with the development of the town, as it has happened only within the last two hundred years (Figure 6.4). More interestingly, the land-use features around Pinagbayanan served simultaneously as necessary adaptations to flooding, whether floods were periodic or constant problems for the residents.
Landscapes, Power, and Urbanization The picture of Pinagbayanan’s landscape in the nineteenth century (Map 6.2) is made richer by this geoarchaeological study of the extent and timing of floods during its colonial history and of its land-use patterns. Furthermore, this geoarchaeological landscape approach was used to clarify and corroborate public
Map 6.2. Simplified land-use and landscape feature map: (a) San Juan and surveyed archaeological sites with Pinagbayanan inset (Barretto-Tesoro 2013a); (b) satellite image from Bing Maps with results from preliminary soil and lithology survey (modified by Vito Hernandez from Barretto-Tesoro 2013a). 162
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historical documents. For instance, the Director General’s February 1888 report, in which the flooding was described as surplus water that affected a small portion of the town, was supported by the absence of evidence for flooding at Structures A and B. And while it is possible that servants who worked the lands could have perhaps easily cleaned up flood deposits (UP-ASP 2010, 2011), the geoarchaeological survey found no geomorphological indication of flooding within the well-drained sandy soils and partly estuarine environment that these houses were built on. Remarkably, it is also within this same estuarine environment area that canals, smaller streams, ditches, dikes, and fishponds were maintained around Pinagbayanan. Maintained land-use features such as fishponds, ditches, dikes, and canals in estuaries suggest an environment that regularly floods and a human population that needs, for whatever reason, to manage this flooding. Flood management is a primary reason to build and maintain these kinds of features. And while not all these features within the landscape might be deliberately meant to alleviate flooding, they nonetheless do this, as is the case for the fishponds. The locations of the excavated stone houses and of the remaining homes belonging to old Pinagbayanan families are themselves remarkable features of the landscape. The sites of these residences illustrate the nineteenth-century residents’ choices or preferences. These older house sites are found east of the old church complex and closer to the estuarine and beach environments. Currently, the preferred building sites are on the poorly drained clayey soils, in the same area as the old church complex; locals say this area of the town experiences very minor (ankle-deep) annual flooding, especially during the Philippine rainy season between May and December. One might argue that this more recent preference for building locations on the clayey soils has much to do with the perceived better building materials used today and with this area’s proximity to the lands these people work in. Most residents of Pinagbayanan today, despite living in a coastal settlement, till lands and tend fishponds rather than fishing in the open sea. This may simply be an instance of the common social phenomenon of preferring or being attached to a place despite significant environmental problems; this phenomenon has been demonstrated ethnographically and archaeologically in several parts of the world (Torrence and Grattan 2002), including the Philippines (Crittenden and Rodolfo 2002; Hernandez 2010). The archival documents referenced earlier in this chapter also suggest that Pinagbayanan residents led landward-oriented lives in the nineteenth century. Land-use and landscape features noted during the geoarchaeological surveys testify to this “land-boundedness.” The settlement is located in a transitional enFlooding and Occupation in a Late-Nineteenth-Century Philippine Town
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vironment between a marine coast and a river that floods, as demonstrated by our geoarchaeological research in the area. There, flooding continues to occur and is slowly encroaching on the coastal sandy soils of the locality. Residents’ immediate adaptation to major floods such as the 1882/1883 flood and their ability to arrest this environmental phenomenon through land use and infrastructure management are also a testament to the kind of knowledge they had of this transitional environment and their capacity to adapt to it. We believe that flooding was an indirect effect of the “urbanization” of Pinagbayanan. It has most of what Kumaran (2014:580) says are “generally agreed” to be the “chief characteristics of urbanization”: a large population, a strong agricultural base, the growth of skilled craftsmen, developed trade, and, most importantly, “behind it all . . . the centralized power structure which acts as the binding force.” In the case of Pinagbayanan, the town was populated by migrants who came from various parts of Batangas (Garcia 1968) into a previously uninhabited area. The presence of mostly imported items from the stone-based houses (UP-ASP 2009, 2010, 2011; Barretto-Tesoro 2015) demonstrates regular trade, most likely with the economic center in Manila. The Catholic Church, represented by the parish priest was the “binding force” of reducción settlements in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial period. However, Pinagbayanan’s archival history and landscape features suggest that power was not monopolized by the church. Increased flooding, especially in coastal Philippines areas, is recognized today as an almost instant effect of urbanization, making flood control and drainage management imperative (Liongson 2000). This too was recognized during the U.S. occupation (1898–1946) of the country. The U.S. Philippine Commission reported in 1902 that there were very few and rather insufficient public works constructed during the Spanish colonial occupation of the Philippines to address increased and worsening floods. And while public documents, both from the Spanish and U.S. regimes, describe what are mostly their own efforts at flood management, there are some (e.g., Pinagbayanan) where local efforts were documented and mentioned, and now archaeologically supported. Despite ordinances made during the Spanish occupation to engage in floodcontrol-related public works, efforts were perhaps, as suggested by American commentary, insufficient to deal with flooding in urbanizing communities. However, even though the colonial government appears to have neglected flood-management planning or construction in Pinagbayanan, we observed flood-control features in the town and its landscape. These locally initiated efforts to adapt to flooding are testaments to local resilience, perhaps brought 164
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about by an acceptance of the nature of environment and the limited resources available to them. This resilience may also explain why locals, particularly the principales, objected strongly to the town’s relocation, especially because there was no major damage or lives lost during the great flood of 1882/1883. Flooding was for locals, after all, an inevitable feature of life in the coastal lowlands. They were, if not fully aware of this, knowledgeable enough to deal with it. This is a demonstration of local resilience to the environmental stress of flooding and a changing landscape, supported by both archival and archaeological evidence.
Hidden Histories and Alternative Narratives The colonists and the local populations have histories that reflect their perceptions of their shared physical environment. The great flood of 1882/1883 produced different reactions from the priest and residents. Archaeological evidence points to flood deposits in the church complex (UP-ASP 2012) but not in the nearby stone-based houses of the principales (UP-ASP 2010, 2011, 2012; Barretto-Tesoro 2015; Barretto-Tesoro, Piper, et al. 2009). These indigenous residents opposed the relocation of the town primarily for economic reasons, such as the presence of a good harbor crucial to their businesses. Looking at archival documents, we suspect that there were other reasons for the transfer that coincided with the flooding. These reasons may have included encounters with bandits and dealing with the consequences of the flooding that posed health risks to the inhabitants. The vicar secretariat of Batangas received a letter dated May 3, 1853, from Archbishop Jose Aranguraen Diguismo, reporting that Father Damaso Mojica (the first parish priest of San Juan after its separation from Rosario in 1846 [Pineda 1992]) complained of the increasing attacks by bandits on the church (Diguismo 1853). Vagabonds were stealing from the church and harassing the priest visiting San Juan to administer to the sick. Robbery obviously drains the financial reserves and provisions of the church, and is an assault on the priests’ emotional and psychological well-being. Documents also indicate that flooding in San Juan brought waterborne diseases (Sastron 1895) that could have included dysentery and cholera. In 1881 there was a cholera epidemic in San Juan. There was no hospital, so the sick went to the church. The priest unfortunately could find neither the source of contamination nor a solution to it. This might explain the dramatic decrease in population from 17,837 in 1882 to 12,070 in 1887. Medicine bottles recovered Flooding and Occupation in a Late-Nineteenth-Century Philippine Town
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from the excavated stone houses (UP-ASP 2011; Barretto-Tesoro, Piper, et al. 2009; Cruz 2014) were perhaps purchased to fight these flood-borne diseases. Father Lopez reported on August 30, 1887, that the flooding eroded the soil where the cemetery was located, exposing and transporting corpses and skeletons to the town. He submitted a proposal to buy land for the new cemetery and to bless it. Lopez’s proposal was approved on September 29, 1887. Lopez was the same priest who compelled the principales to sign the petition to transfer the town to a new site. The exposed corpses and epidemic outbreak threatened locals’ lives, and a population decrease would have affected the amount of tribute collected to support the Spanish colonial administration and develop the town (Arcilla 1998). Thus, we believe that from the colonists’ perspective, embodied by the priest, it was imperative to relocate the town for sanitation and fiscal purposes.
Filipino Values, Resilience, and Power By exploiting the local’s indigenous value of utang na loob (debt of gratitude), the parish priest, as colonial representative, exerted his power. Utang na loob is a reciprocal relationship that entails people to repay a debt, usually in the form of goods and services that created the indebtedness (Andres 2004; Cannell 1999; Enriquez 1982; Kaut 1961; Rafael 1988). The debt can be paid immediately or years later. Utang na loob can be exploited when asking for repayment in the form of favors that may be difficult to dispense, but the original debtor cannot decline, because he is expected to observe the rules of this social transaction particularly when utang na loob is mentioned. A person who has utang na loob is usually seen as someone who is of inferior status to the person who granted the utang (debt). Barretto-Tesoro (2008) has argued that the social relations and relative status in Philippine societies were governed by utang na loob. Utang na loob is practiced together with other traits, such as pakikisama (comradeship), hiya (shame), and galang (respect). Pakikisama is to be one with the group, and its practice shows galang. It emphasizes cooperation to foster unity and cohesion. Through pakikisama, the group can present a strong united front in the face of conflict or obstacles. If one does not practice pakikisama and utang na loob, then one loses face and his dangal (honor); he is said to be walang hiya (without shame), a social embarrassment that often leads to ostracism. We interpret Lopez’s request to sign the relocation petition immediately after wining and dining the principales as an exploitation of utang na loob. The principales who signed the petition practiced pakikisama, because they were 166
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nahihiya (ashamed) to refuse to sign, because they had just been fed. Manipulating the values of the native population to the colonial authorities’ advantage can be seen as a form of exercising power. On the other hand, refusing to sign the petition was also arguably a show of power, a demonstration of indigenous resilience to the stresses of the changing physical environment. Resilience demands creativity from individuals to persevere, in spite of unpleasant or stressful conditions. Despite the flooding and health issues, local residents, particularly the principales, wanted to remain in Pinagbayanan primarily for economic reasons, since the location of Pinagbayanan afforded them harbors and arable agricultural fields and because they were not perturbed by the stress of flooding, the threat of bandits, or the scourge of disease. Many of the pioneer residents were migrants who comprised the principalia from the nearby towns of Batangas and Quezon. It is understandable that they would not want to relocate within a few years of migrating to San Juan, if one considers the costs of moving to Pinagbayanan and building their stone houses. To do so a second time to Calit-Calit would have been expensive. In addition, they were financially obligated to construct the public buildings in the new town, despite promises to the contrary. We also see evidence for local values in the actions of the indigenous residents during this conflict with the colonial authorities. Only one-third of Lopez’s visitors signed the 1888 petition. This demonstrates the pakikisama of the two-thirds with each other. However, the pakikisama with non-principales cannot be determined, since archival documents present only the principales’ sentiments against the town’s transfer. Attitudes such as bahala na (come what may), may awa ang diyos (god has pity or god is merciful), pakikiramay (to show compassion), and bayanihan (cooperation) were critical in their choice to remain in the old town. Bahala na is a fatalistic belief that whatever happens is due to destiny. This attitude is most of the time coupled with may awa ang diyos, that god will not abandon one in times of trouble. Pakikiramay is sympathy for those facing physical or emotional adversities. To show pakikiramay is to practice bayanihan. From the root word bayan (community/town), bayanihan is communal cooperation to achieve something that produces ginhawa (comfort/solace). All of these values are played out during the flooding in Pinagbayanan. What happens to the town happens because it is the fate of the town, but the residents have faith that god will not abandon them. As in many small Philippine villages that can still be observed in modern-day Pinagbayanan, most resiFlooding and Occupation in a Late-Nineteenth-Century Philippine Town
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dents are related to each other by blood or marriage. Relatives and neighbors are always present to help during unfortunate events such as when flooding damages a house, destroys agricultural fields, or causes the death of people or livestock. These are characteristics of a resilient community. It is also perhaps the reason why people continued to occupy Pinagbayanan after the official town’s relocation. Adaptation to the flooding was evidenced in the church ruins when two floors were constructed on top of the flood deposits found on the original floor. Eventually colonial rule was reinforced. Today, Pinagbayanan continues to experience flooding, but the local government mitigates this by dredging the river or by pouring cement over flood deposits to create new floors. Yet residents continue to live there. Similar resilient responses have been documented in traditional societies in the Philippines in the face of large-scale natural disasters (Gaillard 2006), and they were probably common during the Spanish colonial period and in more recent history.
Conclusions This reconciliation of Pinagbayanan’s archaeological and historical records supports as well as challenges historical claims. On the one hand, public documents on Pinagbayanan provide little detail about particular events, especially the floods, and do not describe commoners’ feelings about the relocation petition. On the other hand, documents discussed above, including the 1886 petition of Father Lopez and the 1888 account by Don Castillo opposing the relocation, provide insight into this indigenous-colonist conflict. The strong opinions harbored by both sides suggest a potential tendency to exaggerate or to skew descriptions to support the author’s opinions. But the details of the flood and relocation events, the archaeological and geological evidence relevant to them, and the relevant historical documents also suggest the play of indigenous values in negotiations between colonizers and colonized. It is because the historical records we discussed harbored biases and lacked detail that archaeological research is needed to flesh out and contextualize the different narratives. The variety of evidence we unearthed allowed us to reconcile our data at different spatial and, importantly, temporal scales. The site-specific approach we used to better understand the historical record of Pinagbayanan, for example, gave us insights into the principales’ experience (UP-ASP 2010, 2011; Barretto-Tesoro, Piper, et al. 2009) as well as the difficulties the church encountered in establishing a physical presence in Pinagbayanan. The landscape-geo168
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archaeological approach yielded data about the nature of the flooding there in the late nineteenth century (UP-ASP 2012; Hernandez and Barretto-Tesoro 2012). Our study of Pinagbayanan’s archaeology and history explores the interplay of power and resilience against the backdrop of colonialism and the urbanization prompted by colonization. Understanding the value of indigenous knowledge of the landscape and environment allows us to see the role of local knowledge in the planning and management of a colonial settlement. We view this indigenous knowledge of the landscape as a form of resilience against colonialism, because it gives local residents the ability to adapt to the environmental threats—an ability that the colonizers lacked. The Laws of the Indies considered landforms and bodies of water integral to the selection of spaces where towns should be established. There was logic to the dispersed indigenous settlement that was inconvenient for Spanish efforts to conquer and evangelize the natives. Hence the Laws of the Indies intended to bring together the local population in the new town through the policy of reducción, which ignored the challenges inherent in the tropical climate, such as typhoons and flooding. The Spanish eventually adapted by issuing building ordinances to protect against earthquakes such as those that damaged many churches and stone houses in the nineteenth century (Zialcita and Tinio 1980). Yet other environmental threats, such as flooding, were often ignored when locating and establishing colonial towns. The establishment of settlements during the Spanish occupation, although a political activity, was closely linked to the church’s authority and power. It was important to decide the location of the church before other development could follow, since the former determined the locations of other public buildings and residential units on the landscape. Clearly, indigenous knowledge of the environment was ignored by the colonial administrators; the effect of flooding during the annual rainy season was not considered when towns were sited. However, flooding is a regular phenomenon in many parts of Manila and its environs, Candaba in Pampanga, and various other places. Flooding affected many early Spanish towns, and many Spanish priests later relocated their parishes further inland; examples include Cabuyao and Pila in Laguna, Sariaya in Quezon, and Taytay in Rizal (Layug 2007). Despite the annual flooding, people continued to live in flood-prone areas because they had learned to adapt to it, a form of resilience. Archival records concerning Pinagbayanan outlined the conflict and uncertainty of the relocation, because of the directly conflicting experiences and opinions of the parish priest and the locals. There were attempts to alter the Flooding and Occupation in a Late-Nineteenth-Century Philippine Town
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church complex’s layout, such as the addition of new walls and new floors that incorporated the flood deposits into the construction. Strong archaeological evidence indicates that the church’s construction was not completed because the priest was determined to relocate the parish. Crucial to the priest’s mission was the church, and without the completed church his liturgical duties were limited. The priest exercised his power to relocate the parish, and in response, the población (or at least the majority of the principales) disapproved. Local elites demonstrated their power by continuously occupying their houses even after the colony was relocated. Lastly, our research has shown that power was exercised by the colonial government’s implementation of its urbanization program through the forced resettlement of the population and eventually its relocation by the church. Resilience was key to the survival of the indigenous population as they continued to survive amid seasonal flooding. At present, Pinagbayanan has not been abandoned, and the floods continue. The local government continues to dredge the river, and residents continue to cement over flood deposits. The current local residents are not new migrants, and many bear the family names of the principales recorded in the archives. These are the descendants of the earlier population who opted to stay and live in Pinagbayanan, a clear testimony to their resilience and, in fact, their power.
Acknowledgments This work was funded by the UP System Emerging Inter-Disciplinary Research Program (OVPAA-EIDR-C06-04). Funding for the excavation was granted by UP Diliman Office of the Vice-Chancellor for Research and Development through the Outright Research Grant Award. Mrs. Belen Dimayuga Bautista and family gave us access to the site. Additional support came from Inna Briton, Michael Armand Canilao, Danny Galang, Lorenz and Chit Lasco, Richard Manjares, Love Reynante, and Archie Tesoro. The excavation team included Melodina Sy Cruz, Marian Reyes, Angel Sales, Marie Louise Antoinette Sioco, Kathleen Tantuico, Nico Unay, Harpy Valerio, and Arcadio Pagulayan. Eligio C. Obiller Jr. gave a short lecture on the geology background of the site. Urban planner Boj Capati gave insights on urbanism and urbanization. Our gratitude goes to the individuals who translated the Spanish documents to English and Filipino: Kathryn Ann B. Manalo, Melodina Sy Cruz, Dr. Rhommel Hernandez, Riczar Fuentes, Natasha Kintanar, Noel Amano, Tara ReyesHernandez, Jose Primo Santos II, and Jose Andoni Santos. 170
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Notes 1. Prestacion personal, unpublished documents, National Archives documents, Manila, 1552–1900; Tributos, unpublished documents, National Archives documents, Manila, 1552– 1900; Minas, unpublished documents, National Archives documents, Manila, 1552–1900. 2. Declaración para fincas urbanas: Batangas, unpublished report, National Archives documents, Manila, 1890. 3. Erecciones de los pueblos: Batangas, unpublished documents, National Archives documents, Manila, 1767–1896; Obras publicas: Batangas, unpublished documents, National Archives documents, Manila, 1867–1897. 4. Erecciones de los pueblos: Batangas. 5. Erecciones de los pueblos: Batangas. 6. Erecciones de los pueblos: Batangas. 7. Erecciones de los pueblos: Batangas. 8. Erecciones de los pueblos: Batangas. 9. Erecciones de los pueblos: Batangas.
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Dizon, Eusebio Z. 1993 War at Sea: Piecing Together the San Diego Puzzle. In Saga of the San Diego, 21–26. Concerned Citizens for the National Museum, Manila. Dizon, Eusebio Z., and Angel P. Bautista 2000 Archaeological Assessment (Additional Documentation for the Restoration of the San Agustin Church at Paoay, Ilocos Norte). National Museum Papers 10(2):1–25. Dizon, Eusebio Z., Sheldon Clyde Jago-on, Nida T. Cuevas, and Alexandra S. De Leon 2005 Archaeological Report on the Old Taal Church Ruins, San Nicolas, Batangas. Proceedings of the Society of Philippine Archaeologists 3:13–27. Enriquez, Virgilio G. 1982 Sikolohiyang Pilipino: Perspektiba at Direksyon. In Sikolohiyang Pilipino: Teorya, Metodo at Gamit, edited by Rogelia Pe-Pua, pp. 5–21. University of the Philippines Press, Quezon City. Eusebio, Michelle S. 2009 Did Our Church Builders Use Egg Whites as Mortar Ingredients? The Biomolecular Reason behind Collecting Mortars from Historical Sites. Proceedings of the Society of Philippine Archaeologists 7:71–82. Felipe II, King of Spain 1585 Royal Decree Ordering Ecclesiastics to Visit Their Districts, Benefices and Curacies (Barcelona, June 1). In The Philippine Islands, 1493–1898, translated, edited, and annotated from the originals by Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson, with historical introduction and additional notes by Edward Gaylord Bourne, vol. 6, 1583–1588, pp. 45–46. A. H. Clark, Cleveland, Ohio. 1903. Gaillard, Jean-Christophe 2006 Traditional Societies in the Face of Natural Hazards: The 1991 Mt. Pinatubo Eruption and the Aetas of the Philippines. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, 24(1):5–43. Gaillard, Jean-Christophe, Michael R. M. Pangilinan, Jake R. Cadag, and Virginie Le Masson 2008 Living with Increasing Floods: Insights from a Rural Philippine Community. Disaster Prevention and Management 17(3):383–395. Galende, Pedro G., and Rene B. Javellana 1993 Great Churches of the Philippines. Bookmark, Makati. Garcia, Cosme 1968 Inside the Philippines. Garotech, Quezon City. Gatbonton, Esperanza B. 1985 Bastión de San Diego. Intramuros Administration, Manila. Hernandez, Vito 2007 After the c. 1700–1500 BP Eruptive Phase of Mt. Pinatubo: Archaeological Perspectives from Lubao, Pampanga. Proceedings of the Society of Philippine Archaeologists 5:1–6. 2010 Human Occupation of Pampanga’s Coastal Lowlands: Implications of the Effects of Post-Depositional Processes on Artefacts and Sediments from Lubao, Pampanga (Philippines). Unpublished Master’s thesis, Archaeological Studies Program, University of the Philippines, Quezon City. 2015 Social Values and Western Coastal Landscapes of Flooding in Luzon Island (Philip-
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7 “Is This Like the Nile that Riseth Up?” Ethnic Relations at Thmuis
R O B E R T J . L I T T M A N A N D J AY E . S I LV E R S T E I N
Colonialism is often seen as the deliberate extension of control over a weaker people by a stronger power, usually where an indigenous majority is dominated by a minority of foreign invaders.1 In its most widespread form, colonialism has been an aspect of imperialism and is often part of a deliberate strategy that serves economic and territorial ambitions of the stronger power, which often exploits the resources of the conquered people. Yet colonialism is not intrinsic to imperialism, and foreign control does not automatically imply a colonial relationship. For instance, Egypt was subject to conquest by many powers in its history, including the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian Empires. The Persian occupation encompassed Egypt from 525–402 B.C.E. and again from 343–332 B.C.E., and it is during this period just prior to the Macedonian “liberation” of Egypt that the Mendesian nome formed a center of Egyptian resistance and leadership. Most occupations treated Egypt as a vassal state with limited importation of population or culture. This changed with the Macedonian rule as well as other conquests that followed. One great power after another conquered and exploited Egypt: the Greeks (332–30 B.C.E.), the Romans (30 B.C.E.–641 C.E.), the Arabs (641 C.E.), the Ottomans (1516 C.E.), the French (1798–1801), and then the British (1882– 1953). In many of the periods there was a tremendous influx of foreign populations, but few as dramatic as that of the Hellenistic period. During the first millennium B.C.E., imperial economies exploited Egypt as a tributary province as opposed to a colony in which direct intervention controlled the fiduciary capital for investment in economic growth and the means and modes of production (see Manning 2003). The scope of imperialism shifted under Hellenistic control. To a greater degree than before, Hellenism heralded
the gradual dissolution of the power of the priestly temple complexes that had managed economic, political, and spiritual control of the Egypt for thousands of years, replacing traditional institutions with more secular administration. Accelerating this trend was the fact that the Ptolemaic Empire itself, with the collapse of the Alexander’s empire, was embedded within its own occupied colony. While Alexandria served as a very Greek metropolis and capital, different in population and structure from most of Egypt, the chora maintained its Egyptian identity and infrastructure until, through various gradual and punctuated transitions, the hinterland was molded into a form consistent with the Ptolemaic and later Roman political economies. What most sets the Ptolemaic Empire apart from those that preceded it was the geographical reality that the occupiers ruled and existed side by side with the occupied: the coterminous geography of Hellenes and Egyptians. The asymmetrical Greek-Egyptian sociopolitical relationship engendered an economic environment that required much greater intervention than Assyrian, Babylonian, or Persian hegemony had demanded.2 Colonialism has often been the servant of empire; however, Ptolemaic Egypt differs greatly from some other examples of colonial imperialism in which the colony is established and draws political authority from the imperial core, as in the case of Aztec Oztuma (see chapter 11, this volume). The United States of America after severing its ties with Europe, the Boers in South Africa, or the Romans in Britannia when support from Rome ceased circa 410 C.E. all represent scenarios of colonial imperialism in which the occupiers and the occupied became one nation, leading to a range of adjustments including culture-cide, apartheid, and often if not inevitably after several hundred years, assimilation into a hybrid culture. For example, 500 years after La conquista in Mexico, the ethnic, linguistic, and political identities of Chontal and Nahuatl have become nearly invisible. Likewise, in Muslim Egypt the Coptic Church is perhaps the last vestige of ancient ethnic divides, and without that one might be hard pressed to draw direct correlations between Muslim and Copt regarding their Egyptian, Greek, or Roman antecedents. In this chapter we focus on the period of Greek rule in Egypt and the influence of Hellenism from Alexander’s conquest of Egypt in 332 B.C.E. to the death of Cleopatra VII, the last Ptolemaic pharaoh, in 30 B.C.E. We attempt to discern some of the particulars of the imposition of imperial authority and the transition to a Greek model of administration represented in the documents and archaeology of Thmuis as opposed to the temple complex rule of adjacent Mendes. The most recent archaeological discoveries from the city of Thmuis in 180
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Map 7.1. Landsat image of the Nile Delta with Hellenistic rivers and lakes superimposed, Tell Timai.
the eastern Nile Delta offer a new perspective on the process of Hellenism and the agency of the Egyptian people and priests in the complex milieu of colonialism, assimilation, exploitation, and resistance (Map 7.1).
Hellenism in Egypt Hellenism encompassed an amazingly diverse portion of the world, stretching from North Africa to India. Upon this ethnic mosaic, Hellenic values, ideology, economy, and populations were injected with unprecedented vigor and scale. With the death of Alexander the Great of Macedon, and the death of his son Alexander IV before he reached adulthood, collapse threatened the Macedonian world system. Alexander’s generals, called the Diadochi, seized the various territories of the empire as their own, all sharing common values of Hellenism and legitimacy ascribed by their association with Alexander the Great. Ptolemy, one of Alexander’s closest generals and friends, claimed Egypt as his own. Soon the young kingdoms entered into fierce internecine conflict. Overshadowed by the phenomenon of Hellenism, and under-recorded in history, are the social, economic, and ideological forces that solidified and resisted the rule of the Diadochi. At Thmuis we are gaining insights into the dynamic between Egyptians and their Macedonian overlords and the strategies employed by the Ptolemaic dynasty to effect rule over Egypt. The processes at work in the archaeology of Thmuis can be interpreted within the larger context of Hellenism and the Egyptian reaction to it. Alexander entered Egypt in 332 B.C.E. as a liberator of a people who had violently resisted Persian rule earlier in the fourth century. He quickly set about solidifying his position by co-opting the accepted Egyptian institutions and trappings of legitimate rule. He visited the Oasis of Siwa, where the Oracle of Amun revealed him as son of Amun, recast as Zeus-Ammon, and he was crowned as pharaoh on November 14, 332, in Memphis. Alexander promulgated the syncretism of local gods and cultures with Greek gods, a practice continued by his successors with such success that many of the cults spread throughout the Hellenistic world and carried on into the Roman Empire. He assumed the status and symbols of a pharaoh, identified with Osiris and Horus: his name appeared in a cartouche in hieroglyph inscriptions and documents, and he is depicted wearing the pschent, the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. It was during his stay in Egypt that Alexander identified the location and laid the foundation for the city of Alexandria,3 one of nearly twenty cities he named after himself (Fraser 1996). 182
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Alexander went on to defeat the Persian Empire in 331 and to push east into India. He reached the Indus River by 326 and, with his army exhausted, turned back and marched to Babylon, where he died in 323. The conquered Persian Empire was now part of the unified Macedonian empire of Alexander the Great, and the peoples within that empire, whether through fear, admiration, or awe, accepted and venerated Alexander. With the death of Alexander the Great in 323, the dream of a unified dynastic empire dissolved and Egypt, like the other territories of Macedonian conquest, became an independent kingdom. In 311, Cassander, regent of Macedon, had the young Alexander IV and his mother, Roxanne, assassinated. In 304, Ptolemy, now Ptolemy I Soter (Savior), had himself crowned pharaoh, officially assuming the status from Alexander the Great and declaring unequivocal independence from the Macedonian homeland. This represents the official inauguration of the Ptolemaic dynasty, that lasted until the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 B.C.E. Under Ptolemy I and his successors, tens of thousands of Greeks immigrated to Egypt and dominated much of the Delta (Fisher-Bovet 2007; Lewis 2001). The new capital was Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great but built by Ptolemy I and his successors. Each of the successor kingdoms of the Diadochi faced vastly different challenges based on the physical and cultural geographies of their realms, and the analysis of pan-Hellenism must avoid overgeneralization. The establishment of Ptolemaic rule in Egypt differed in a major way from other conquests and examples of colonialism. As Manning (2009:36) notes, “the ancient experience is sufficiently different to warrant caution in analyzing Ptolemaic state formation through the lens of either the nineteenth-century nation state colonial experience or twentieth century postcolonial reactions to colonization.” Davies (2002:6), using the model of the British Raj, says that Hellenistic states were “predatory, exploitative, monopolist, racist and colonialist.” Conquest brought many routine trappings of colonization, such as the foundation of new towns, Greek administrative structure of the country, and the billeting of soldiers in rural areas; however, Ptolemaic Egypt lacked many features we normally associate with colonization. Certainly, hallmarks of Hellenism spread in Egypt through the immigration of large numbers of Greeks, the use of the Greek language for official documents, and a royal court who maintained their Hellenic culture for three hundred years. Hellenistic values were encouraged in various ways—for example, an exemption of the salt tax for teachers of the Greek language (Clarysse and Thompson 2006:52–53). Yet all of the apparent manifestations of Hellenism are balanced against the impact of Egyptian religion “Is This Like the Nile that Riseth Up?” Ethnic Relations at Thmuis
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and symbolism on the Hellenistic world. In spite of the right inherent in the Hellenistic concept of “spear won land,” rule in Egypt had to be consistent with Egyptian ideology and consent of the established theocracy and acceptance of commoners. The usual Hellenocentric view of Ptolemaic Egypt has yielded to a more nuanced and complex dialectic of cultural interactions (Hornblower 1996; Manning 2009). In the case of Egypt we have a vast corpus of papyrus documents both in Greek and Demotic Egyptian that give an introspective view into the relationship of Greeks and Egyptians (Lewis 2001; Manning 2009). These documents reveal a coexistence of new Ptolemaic structures and ideologies with older Egyptian ones. Although Greek became the administrative language, Demotic Egyptian script continued at the local level, and hieroglyphs continued to be used by the temple administrative complex. Thus the wealth of textual records provides a level of insight into Greco-Roman Egypt unparalleled in the ancient world. They reveal a level of detail about Greek colonialism in Egypt which shows that this colonialism differs in important ways from apparent other colonial analogies (Manning 2009; Tsetskhladze 2006). A number of unique circumstances must be taken into consideration when considering the colonial experience of Egypt in the Ptolemaic period. To begin with, the land colonized by the Hellenes was not a territory of decentralized chiefdoms or city-states but rather a vast, centralized complex society layered with ancient institutions of state religion and a legacy of empire itself. Second, Egyptian and Aegean peoples had a long complex history beginning with trade relations of at least a thousand years prior to the arrival of Alexander the Great (Barber 1991). Mycenaean Greeks were trading with Egypt at least since the fourteenth century B.C.E. (Kelder 2009). The turbulence of the late Bronze Age washed against the shores of New Kingdom Egypt as the Sea Peoples (Aegean Greeks) invaded Egypt in the twelfth century (Cline 2014). Greek myth also reflects Helleno-Egyptian interactions in the late Bronze Age. Homer’s Odyssey, a work of the eighth century but with an oral tradition that dates back hundreds of years before, records the words of Odysseus, who, upon being captured during a raid on the Egyptian coast, reports, “I stayed seven years, and much wealth did I gather among the Egyptians, for all men gave me gifts” (14:285). Even the Egyptian female pharaoh Tausert (Nineteenth Dynasty, 1187–1185 B.C.E.) finds a mention in the Odyssey (14:228–275). By the seventh century, with the rise of the Saite Dynasty in the Nile Delta, Greek mercenaries and merchants were established in enclaves in Egypt, and settlements at Daphnae, Heracleion, Naucratis, and other locations were embedded within 184
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the Egyptian economy4 and power structure (Boardman 2006; Leonard 2001; Manning 2009; Möller 2000; Spalinger 1976; Thompson 1988). Already, two hundred years before Alexander, Hellenic ideas had cachet in Egypt and were recognized as an important part of a worldly education for some elites. Herodotus (2:154) notes that to the Ionians and Carians who had lent him their assistance Psammetichus assigned as abodes two places opposite to each other, one on either side of the Nile, which received the name of “the Camps.” He also made good all the splendid promises by which he had gained their support; and further, he entrusted to their care certain Egyptian children whom they were to teach the language of the Greeks.5 A third factor that sets colonialism of the Ptolemaic period apart from many other colonial experiences is that the Ptolemaic dynasty was a displaced monarchy dispossessed of their homeland. The diasporic nature of Hellenistic imperialism is perhaps best illustrated in the story about Seleucus I Nicator, founder of the Seleucid Empire and once friend and companion of Alexander and Ptolemy. At nearly eighty years of age he was murdered in 281 B.C.E. in Thrace during his attempt to return to his Macedonian motherland, a home he had left in 334 B.C.E. when he marched off with Alexander’s army of fifty thousand to build an empire (Kosmin 2014:94–100). For Ptolemy I Soter, ambitions of reclaiming the homeland were transcended by the dream of building a new homeland. Ptolemy launched his effort first by kidnapping the body of Alexander as it was being transported home for burial and entombing his remains in Alexandria, thereby establishing Alexandria Egypt as a new Macedonian homeland. It was in Alexandria that Ptolemy built a city that became the archetype of the Hellenistic ideal. From this city, the Ptolemaic dynasty built an identity very much apart from the indigenous Egyptians yet still embedded within the realm it ruled. Finally, Hellenism brought with it unprecedented agricultural expansion through hydrographic engineering, mining, and interstate commerce facilitated by a common tongue, new canals, and garrisoned roads. The opening of new lands and economic opportunity complemented the vast cadre of retiring soldiers looking to homestead. Further, young Hellenistic states were anxious to settle non-native soldiers in strategic places to secure economic resources and to mitigate the threat of rebellion (Fisher-Bovet 2007). What Lewis (2001) refers to as “El Dorado on the Nile” was in many ways a case of colonialism within a colony (Manning 2009). The embedded nature of Ptolemaic rule in Egypt created an imperial anom“Is This Like the Nile that Riseth Up?” Ethnic Relations at Thmuis
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aly, a domestic empire without allegiance to a foreign state. This has led some scholars to debate if Ptolemaic Egypt even qualifies as an empire, since their primary foreign possession was also their homeland (Mueller 2006:42–55). In the end, the territorial and maritime reach of Ptolemaic Egypt earns its place in history as a thalassocracy (a state with primarily maritime realms) of notable imperial accomplishment. The internal relationship between Hellenes and Egyptians, however, does challenge models of colonial imperialism based on other analogies. Legitimacy to rule Egypt could not be obtained without consent of the theocratic infrastructure. Egyptian religion could not be ignored if the Greeks hoped to co-opt the temple priests and win acceptance of the people. Here, more than in any other aspect of Greco-Egyptian relations, legitimacy depended upon compromise, syncretism, and accommodation. While the Ptolemaic dynasties Hellenized the Egyptians, the Egyptians in turn Egyptianized the Hellenes. The new pantheon that emerged was rooted in Egyptian ideology with a distinctly Hellenistic character. The Ptolemaic rulers became the embodiment of the holy trinity of Serapis, Isis, and Harpocrates (cf. Osiris, Demeter, Horus) (Witt 1997). Serapis was an amalgamation of the Egyptian god Osiris, the Apis bull as the Ka of Osiris,6 and Zeus. The general representation of Serapis followed Hellenic styles for Zeus or Hades, often accompanied with symbols associated with fertility, such as the modius carried on the head of Serapis and symbols of the underworld such as Serapis’s three-headed companion, Cerberus. Harpocrates, derived from the Graecized Egyptian name Harpa-khered, which means “Horus the child,” is depicted as a naked youth with his finger on his mouth (Malaise 2005). The Ptolemaic pharaohs also were routinely shown in their deified royal position in a manner that fused Greek concepts of kingship with Egyptian iconographic representations of kingship. For example, in the Raphia decree of 217 B.C.E., Ptolemy IV is represented wearing Macedonian armor but also the double crown of Egypt. The child pharaoh Ptolemy V is often depicted with the hair sideknot of Horus, and the queens of Egypt are regularly depicted as Isis. The Ptolemies imposed on Egypt a new bureaucracy with a professional army garrisoned throughout Egypt, and with Greek urban centers that appeared not only in the Delta but also in Upper Egypt, the Fayum, and the coast of the Red Sea. In Egypt the temples and the priesthoods controlled vast estates and, following the lead of Alexander, the Ptolemies left these as well as private landholding in place (Manning 2003). Priestly appreciation of the Ptolemaic dynasty’s founder is articulated in the Satrap Stela of 316 B.C.E. Ptolemy I is lauded for his military prowess, for being a man of his word, and for restoring 186
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the statues and lands of the Temple of Buto in the Nile Delta that had been taken by the Persians (Mueller 2006:18). This was not just manifestation of religious toleration, but a pragmatic program of rule that took advantage of millennia of development of a theocratic state economy in which temples coordinated land management, kept records, and were economic centers (Haring 1997). Settlement reorganization in other parts of the Hellenistic world has been described in terms of the consolidation of populations into urban centers (synoecism) or the relocation of urban centers (metoecism) (Demand 1990; Kosmin 2014:192–199; Mueller 2006:72–73). These strategies allowed the movement of peoples according to economic and military objectives, depopulating strongholds that might support rebellion and exploiting agricultural lands opened by aggressive programs of canal construction and land reclamation. The Ptolemaic Empire certainly engaged in such practices in their non-Egyptian territories (Mueller 2006), but the degree to which it was practiced within Egypt seems much more limited. The Egyptian settlement of Rakote, which was later absorbed as a suburb of Alexandria, translates to “construction site” and may well have been a settlement that grew specifically to house the workers building the new city (Chauveau 2000:57; cf. Mueller 2006:15–22). Likewise, the canalization and growth of agriculture in the Fayum greatly expanded under Ptolemaic rule, leading to the foundation of no fewer than thirty new settlements, the majority of which would have been Egyptian, indicating that relocation and consolidation must have been in play in order to tend the newly available fields. New settlements were also put in place along the Red Sea coast associated with elephant hunting, exploration, and trade in the south and east. Elsewhere in Egypt, the impact of resettlement appears minimal. Greek colonists tended to establish new urban centers such as Alexandria or to assume control of newly reclaimed land in the chora as estate gentry called cleruchs (the land allotment is called a kleros). In some cases, districts of colonists might settle on the fringes of existing cities, but in all cases they remained apart from the subjugated populace. New or expanded settlements often grew on the outskirts of Egyptian cities rather than attempting to enter into a program of usurpation of older structures and urban core renewal. Thmuis is a good example of this pattern. Maturing from a tributary settlement just a half kilometer south of the primate center of Mendes, it grew to become a major Greek urban center. There are indications that the relationship between the Ptolemaic dynasty and the Mendesian priests of the ram god Ba-neb-djed was a mutually beneficial one throughout the first half of the third century B.C.E. The Great Mendes Stele illustrates the symbiosis achieved between the temple “Is This Like the Nile that Riseth Up?” Ethnic Relations at Thmuis
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Figure 7.1. Statue of Queen Arsinoë II deified as Isis (Tell Timai).
complex and Ptolemy II. This stele recounts the visit and support of Ptolemy to the Mendesian temple complex, his participation in rituals there, and the establishment of a temple to the deified Queen Arsinoë II (Clarysse 2007) (Figure 7.1). In spite of the bureaucratic harmony evidenced in the mid-third century B.C.E. between Egyptian and Hellenistic religious and political institutions, the degeneration of the succeeding generations of rulers from the founding Diadochi, the widening internecine conflicts of succession, the slowdown of economic growth, the devaluation of bronze currency, and inflation associated with the funding of war fed the friction between the classes. Hazzard’s (1995:82– 85) analysis of Ptolemaic coinage discusses the 210 B.C.E. Copper Standard imposed by Theogenes, the dioiketes (minister of finance) under Ptolemy IV. The new Copper Standard essentially devalued bronze against silver, reducing the value of bronze to about one-quarter of what it had been. This effort to increase revenues and the value of those invested in gold and silver had a devastating impact on those of the chora who lived on the bronze coin economy. The inflation that stemmed from this economic reform exacerbated the tensions between colonists and indigenous peoples that already simmered across the Hellenistic world (Chauveau 2000; Hazzard 1995; Kosmin 2014).
Greco-Egyptian Relations Manifestations of the strain between Greek and Egyptian occur throughout society. Thanks to an array of legal archives and documents, we are given a very personal view worthy of American daytime television (Lewis 2001; McCoskey 2002). One particularly vivid example of the little ways in which ethnic tensions between Egyptians and Greeks played out in the colonies occurred in May 218 B.C.E., after a century of Greek domination. In this legal petition to Ptolemy IV, a Greek woman complains: I am wronged by Psenobastis who lives in Psya in the aforementioned district. For in the 5th year of the tax-calendar on the 21st of Phamenoth I went to Psya in the same district on some private business. As I was going along . . . an Egyptian woman, whose name is said to be Psenobastis, leaned out and poured urine all over my clothes so that they were soaked. When I was angry and reproached her, she was abusive. When I was abusive back . . . Psenobastis . . . assaulted me . . . and she spat in my face in front of some people. . . . So I beg you, your majesty, not to ignore the fact that I have been assaulted so unreasonably by an Egyptian woman, me being a Greek. . . . Farewell, Year 4. (English translation, Lewis 2001: 61) “Is This Like the Nile that Riseth Up?” Ethnic Relations at Thmuis
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Evidence of Greek efforts to maintain policies of tolerance is exemplified in documents like a papyrus from Saqqara (Peukestas papyrus) where Peukestas, commander in Memphis, orders the Greek soldiers in Egypt to respect the sacred space of the Egyptians.7 Such efforts, however, were hardly adequate to convince Egyptians to accept a secondary status in their own homeland. The first major resistance to Ptolemaic rule occurred in 245 B.C.E., and by the end of the third century revolt was a constant factor in Ptolemaic Egypt (McGing 1997:273). Yet not all Egyptians were ill disposed to Ptoelamic rule. Several temple complexes and their constituents, such as the priests of Ptah, sided with the Ptolemaic pharaohs. While the complexities of motives for rebellion certainly go beyond what can be discerned from the limited sources available, factors such as anti-Greek Egyptian nationalism and socioeconomic inequality were leading causes (McGing 1997; Veïsse 2004). As is inevitable with colonial rule, the cracks of socioeconomic discontent open to fissures of rebellion when the opportunity presents itself. War can offer opportunities for empowerment and change.
The Fourth Syrian War and the Great Revolt The Ptolemaic and Seleucid Empires engaged in a hundred-year conflict known as the Syrian Wars. The First Syrian War raged from 274–271 B.C.E., and the Sixth Syrian War from 170–168 B.C.E. The largest battles of these wars occurred in the Fourth Syrian War, 219–217 B.C.E. In the largest battle of the age, Ptolemy IV Philopator (reigned 221–204 B.C.E.) fought Antiochus III the Great (241– 187 B.C.E.), culminating in the the Battle of Raphia in 217 B.C.E. According to Polybius (5:107), Ptolemy IV was outnumbered by the Seleucid forces until he recruited twenty thousand native Egyptian troops, which gave him a slight numerical advantage. On June 22, 217, the forces met near Gaza at Raphia. Ptolemy IV was victorious, confirming Ptolemaic control over Coele-Syria and opening the door for further inroads north. However, the Battle of Raphia contributed to further upheaval in Egypt. After Raphia these Egyptian troops were disbanded and returned to their cities, but their recruitment, training, and victory gave them new confidence and created a cadre of veteran warriors who could support future native Egyptian revolt. Polybius recognizes this in his analysis of the problems in Egypt: As for Ptolemy, his war against the Egyptians followed immediately on these events. This king, by arming the Egyptians for his war against Antiochus, took a step which was of great service for the time, but which was a 190
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mistake as regards the future. The soldiers, highly proud of their victory at Raphia, were no longer disposed to obey orders, but were on the lookout for a leader and figure-head, thinking themselves well able to maintain themselves as an independent power, an attempt in which they finally succeeded not long afterwards. (Polybius 5:107, Events of 204–186 B.C.E.)8 The Great Revolt broke out in 207/206 B.C.E. in Edfu in Upper Egypt and lasted until 186 B.C.E. With support from the Kushite pharaoh of Meroë, two native Egyptian kings emerged in Upper Egypt in Thebes: Har-wennefer (Haronnophris) and Ank-wennefer (Chaonnophris). Haronnophris was crowned pharaoh in Thebes in 205 B.C.E. and ruled until 199 B.C.E., when he was killed in battle against the forces of Ptolemy V. This did not end the revolt, since Chaonnophris crowned himself pharaoh in Thebes. Although Ptolemy apparently regained Thebes, we find that Chaonnophris continued his activities until he was finally defeated by the general Komanos in 186 B.C.E., south of Thebes. Although the revolt in Upper Egypt was more successful, revolt was also present in the Delta. Our understanding of the Great Revolt comes from an assortment of historical and monumental references. The Greek historian Polybius (200– 118 B.C.E.) was a contemporary of the events, and The Histories covers the period of Greek history from 264–146 B.C.E. In addition, numerous inscriptions and papyri from Egypt deal with the events. For example, the Second Decree of Philae is a demotic and hieroglyphic text found on the walls of the Temple of Royal Birth (mammisi) at Philae.9 It describes the victory of Komanos over Har-wennefer: On the 3rd of Mesore it was announced to his Majesty: Hr—wnf has been captured alive in the battle against him in year 19, on 24 Epeiph. His son was killed, the commander of the army of impious men, together with the leaders of the Ethiopians who fought on his side. He was brought to the place where the king was. He was punished by death for the crimes which he had committed, and so were the other criminals, those who had rebelled in the sedition, which they had made. The most famous of these inscriptions is the Rosetta Stone. This diorite stele was found in Lower Egypt in the town of Rashid (Rosetta) in 1799 by PierreFrançois Bouchard, a soldier in the army of Napoleon. The Rosetta Stone is a version of the Third Memphis Decree issued on March 27, 196 B.C.E. The Rosetta Stone decree reaffirms the support of priests of Ptah for the Ptolemaic dynasty, recognizes the Ptolemaic house as the manifestation of the holy trinity of Osiris, Isis, and Horus, and prescribes annual rituals celebrating the birth and corona“Is This Like the Nile that Riseth Up?” Ethnic Relations at Thmuis
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tion of Ptolemy V and temple and shrine dedications and statuary. It goes on to recognize the generous contributions of comestibles and coin Ptolemy V granted to the temple. The decree promises to end conscription of priests operating boats between Memphis and Alexandria and grants amnesty to prisoners. It also recounts the siege of rebel strongholds in the Delta, to the west of Thmuis: he went to the fortress of Sk3n [which had] been fortified by the rebels with all kinds of work, there being much gear and all kinds of equipment within it; he enclosed that fortress with a wall and a dyke (?) around (lit. outside) it, because of the rebels who were inside it, who had already done much harm to Egypt, and abandoned the way of the commands of the King and the commands [of the god]s; he caused the canals which supplied water to that fortress to be dammed off, although the previous kings could not have done likewise, and much money was expended on them; he assigned a force of foot soldiers and horsemen to the mouths of those canals, in order to watch over them and to protect them, because of the [rising] of the water, which was great in Year 8, while those canals supply water to much land and are very deep. (Rosetta Stone, Simpson 1996:258–271) Various sources tell of the decades of rebellion that stretched from Upper to Lower Egypt wracking the country with violence and civil war that threatened to unseat Hellenistic rule. In the aftermath of the rebellion there was some political and economic realignment in the relationship between temple complexes and the Ptolemaic dynasty. At Mendes, Redford (2010:199–201) notes: By the beginning of the second century B.C., however, the end was in sight for Mendes of old. Coins from the harbor facilities come abruptly to an end with the death of Ptolemy IV (who, incidentally, is the last Ptolemy to contribute to the temple’s decoration), and some of the storage buildings were abandoned at about the same time. It is a fair guess that Mendes became caught up in the unrest which ravaged the Delta from the last decade of the third century B.C., although it was certainly not the center of the rebellion. While the uprising in Upper Egypt was essentially political in nature, resulting in an independent Thebaid which survived for twenty years, the Lower Egypt uprising combined aspirations of independence with social grievances. Redford (2010:201) goes on to note that, contemporaneous with this, the meander of the Nile to the east eventually left the harbor of Mendes derelict. Thus 192
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the priests of Ba-neb-djed appear to have been abandoned by the dynasty that had, fifty years before, paid them the honor and support outlined in the Mendes Stele. Meanwhile, the Memphite priests of Ptah flourished in a refortified alliance with their overlords. The Second Decree of Philae, for instance, reaffirms in no uncertain terms the favor of Ptah (declared by the priests of Ptah) for Ptolemy V and his family. Likewise, priests are granted rights and protections in the Third Memphis Decree of the Rosetta Stone. In one rare example of elite Greco-Egyptian marriage, the high priest of Ptah, Psenptah II, marries Berenike circa 122 B.C.E. (Reymond 1981). Yet in spite of the magnitude and duration of this conflict, there has been little evidence for the rebellion itself in the archaeological record. What has been noted in the form of nontextual evidence has been inferred from changes at Mendes and modification of artistic styles. Our recent discoveries at Tell Timai appear to present a much more dramatic archaeological signature of the Great Revolt, a destruction episode followed by a horizon of rebuilding that coincides with the rise of Thmuis as a Greek metropolis and the loss of royal support for the temple complex at Mendes. Excavations in the north part of Tell Timai are providing a glimpse into the violence of Egyptian resistance, the impact of Greek suppression, and an aftermath that includes assertion of Greek political and cultural authority at Thmuis, a polis destined to become the very Hellenistic colonial capital of the Mendesian nome.
Tell Timai The ruins of the Greco-Roman Egyptian city of Thmuis are found at Tell Timai near the city of El-Mansoura. Thmuis is about a half kilometer south of Tell el Rub’a, the site of the ancient city of Mendes (Holz et al. 1980; De Meulenaere and McKay 1977; Redford 2010) (Map 7.2). Tell Timai has a perimeter of approximately 5.4 km and covers more than 90 ha. The well-preserved core of the city has streets and alleys defined by mudbrick buildings, some with walls still two or three stories tall (Map 7.2). The high point of the tell is 12.5 m above sea level with the outer edges sloping to 1 m above sea level. The tell is flanked by the modern towns of Kafr el Amir Abdallah Ibn al Salam and Timai el Amdid, both of which have begun to encroach on the site. Across time the usual looting of construction material has taken place. Of particular importance here is that in the 1920s industrial extraction of mudbrick resulted in the north portion of the tell being stripped almost uniformly to a first century B.C.E. strata. An area of approximately 2.2 ha in “Is This Like the Nile that Riseth Up?” Ethnic Relations at Thmuis
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Map 7.2. Tell Timai (Thmuis) and Tell el Rub’a (Mendes).
the north had been slated for leveling for the construction of a stadium. The entire outer perimeter of the north half of the tell was subjected to salvage pitting which generally consisted of 5-×-5 m pits with minimal recording. In 2007 the authors, under the auspices of the University of Hawai‘i, conducted a survey of the site to determine if there should be an attempt to save it from destruction. A 50-×-50 m alphanumeric grid10 was superimposed on the site as a control for research, and this remains the primary control for excavation designations. In 2009 the authors received the concession for the site from the Egyptian Supreme Council for Antiquities (SCA) and initiated excavation of the site. The first objective was to study the areas slated for destruction. The 194
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preleveling salvage work had left hundreds of units open which still offered a chance to collect a wealth of data. Fortunately, based on discoveries made by the University of Hawai‘i and SCA, a case was eventually made to halt the construction. While working in this salvage area evidence began to build indicating widespread destruction overlaid with a uniform episode of leveling and reconstruction. The archaeological correlates for a Great Revolt destruction event follow, presented generally following the pattern of discovery that led to the conclusion that the episode correlated with the Great Revolt. Most of the Hellenistic discoveries are from the northern portion of the tell.
The Archaeology of Destruction From the surface, the northern expanse of the tell appears to be a sunken silt basin flanked on the west by a limestone casemate foundation from a temple to a deity yet to be determined (Grid M6). This plain silt basin is the consequence of the systematic removal of eight centuries of history in which all mudbrick, redbrick, and limestone, along with items of archaeological interest, were stripped away. A French company had actually built a miniature railroad at the site to facilitate the removal of sebbakh (mudbrick) to extract nitrates for fertilizer and armaments. The tragic loss of this history offered one benefit; it opened a wide expanse of occupation dating to the first century B.C.E. In 2009, when the University of Hawai‘i project began, we faced a situation where, within a season or two, the entire area was slated to be leveled by bulldozer for construction. The salvage work done prior to the leveling had been systematic, but it was mostly done in haste and with inconsistent analysis. The area was a chessboard of open units generally to a depth of 1.0 to 1.5 m below the surface, the level where the water table interfered with further work. Our first objective was to capture what details we could of the open pits in the north, particularly in an area that consisted of a complex of kilns (see Figure 7.2). During the 2009 and 2010 seasons, the most obvious observation about the kilns exposed in the salvage work was that they had all been truncated at the same level, suggesting that the manufacturing area had been closed down and built over in a single episode of reconstruction rather than piece by piece. Materials from the area indicated Late Persian occupation (mid-fourth century B.C.E.) evidenced by Late Persian wares and a body sherd from an Athenian Red-figure krater (Hudson 2010–2011). The kilns appeared to be used for ceramic production including aryballoi (perfume bottles/ungunetaria). Of particular interest was the discovery of two amphorae not far from the kiln complex filled with fine imported clay. One amphora was a reused Knidian import, but XRF analysis “Is This Like the Nile that Riseth Up?” Ethnic Relations at Thmuis
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Figure 7.2. Kilns from the northern portion of Tell Timai, Unit N7-11.
showed that the clay within it had been imported from the Esne-Edfu area in Upper Egypt. Possible implications of this will be discussed below. Curiously, on top of one of the kilns was a human body. Because the context above the remains had been opened without documentation, it was originally assumed that the body was an intrusive burial from a later period. However, subsequent excavation of the remains suggest that it was not a burial at all, but simply a body discarded on top of the broken kiln, or one that collapsed into the truncation level when the roof of the kiln was caved in. Skeletal analysis indicated a male, in his late teens or early twenties, with no associated materials. It seemed that the body was not formally buried. The poor state of preservation made further analysis impossible. Commensurate with the truncation of the kiln complex was a distinct and very systematic fill and leveling, clearly in preparation for a new episode of construction. The kiln complex appeared to represent an industrial area south of Mendes that supported the perfume industry for which Mendes was known and that was in operation prior to the Macedonian conquest of Egypt, yet with established ties, if not occupation, by Greeks (de Rodrigo 2000). In 2010 a magnetometer survey was completed over the area not yet dis196
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turbed by salvage operations and that expanded on an earlier excavation. Here, well-defined walls and roads indicated dense occupation and a settlement that grew by accretion, with curved and irregular, non-orthogonal streets. A new series of excavations were put in place to explore these buildings. The magnetometer data served as a guide to select excavation units that would help determine the use of buildings in the area west of the kiln complex. In Grids N6 and N7, southwest of the kiln complex, evidence of a violent destruction layer was found under a uniform level, as was apparent in the kiln complex. Burning, in situ ceramics, and ballistae stones (Figure 7.3) were found in the first units. One collection of stacked drinking bowls articulates with a multiroom house to the west. In one room in this house (Unit N6-5), an excellent collection of in situ ceramics was found and a small collection of large coins were buried under the same floor. The ceramic assemblage falls squarely into the period of 200–175 B.C.E. (Hudson 2010–2011). The coin assemblage consisted of 13 large (33.7–46.2 mm) Ptolemaic coins attributable to Ptolemy II, Ptolemy III, and Ptolemy IV (285–203 B.C.E.), yielding a terminus post quem circa 203 B.C.E. In the leveling fill above the destroyed house a coin was found attributable to Ptolemy V or VI (see Figure 7.4). Also, the fill layer contained ceramics apparently taken from a single dump area. In Units N7-1 and O6-18, two sherds
Figure 7.3. Examples of a ballistae stone (left) and an iron arrowhead (right) from the early-secondcentury B.C.E. destruction layer at Tell Timai. “Is This Like the Nile that Riseth Up?” Ethnic Relations at Thmuis
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Figure 7.4. Assemblage from N7-5, Tell Timai, including ceramics and coin from destruction event and coin found in leveling fill above destruction event.
from the same amphora were recovered from fill deposits approximately 80 m apart. This indicates that the fill was part of a unified construction effort that used leveling material from the same source midden to spread and prepare the surface for new construction. Between the house and the kiln compound in Unit N7-6, a skeleton was found on the floor of the destruction layer (Figure 7.5). It appears to have been left or dumped there upon death, and there were no indications of a burial. It was a robust man in his fifties with signs of combat-related trauma both in his youth and at death. Most striking was a healed parry fracture on his left arm with a massive osseous callus that had led to the near fusion of his radius and ulna. Even more revealing was the perimortem parry fracture on top of the healed one. Other perimortem damage included a powerful blow that broke his lower left molars and mandibular ramus, and possible blunt trauma fractures to the left fibula, the C1 and C2 vertebrae, and some ribs. A number of other pieces of evidence correlating with the destruction episode have been found in the north area near Unit N6, including a midden deposit that may have been part of the cleanup of debris from the destruction. In this mixed fill material, a human skull cap and a terra-cotta figurine head were recovered. The figurine is consistent with representations of Ptolemy V (Figure 7.6).11 198
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Figure 7.5. Human remains from Unit N7-6, Tell Timai. Insert shows close-up of left radius and ulna, illustrating both healed and perimortem fractures.
Figure 7.6. Figurine of Ptolemy V (left), Tell Timai, Unit N6-7, circa 200–185 B.C.E, destruction layer. Ptolemy V portrait on coin (right), 202–200 B.C.E. (Private collection.)
Northwest of the house, in Unit N6-9, an iron arrowhead was found in the fill layer. In 2012 an emergency salvage recording was made at Unit S10-1, at a municipal construction site on the east edge of the tell, 300 m to the east of the north salvage area. Evidence of a destruction episode with intense burning appeared to correspond to the same early second century B.C.E. horizon as the destruction layer in the north. Also, a deep sondage in the center of the tell at Unit R13-2, almost 400 m southeast of N7, contained a layer of burning and destruction that corresponds to the same time period.
Analysis Three episodes of occupation became apparent in the northern salvage area: one dating to the Late Persian or Early Hellenistic, one that ended abruptly and uniformly in the early second century B.C.E., and one that was then placed on top of the second one and ran at least until the first century B.C.E. The abrupt ending shows clear signs of widespread destruction, unburied remains (one with signs of violent death), and some weaponry. It is also worth considering the age at time of death of the man found in N7-6. If he died circa 185 B.C.E. in his fifties, at the time of the Battle of Raphia he would have been in his late twenties or early thirties, an age appropriate for a warrior. His healed parry fracture is likewise consistent with the occupation of a soldier, a set of circumstances that teases at the idea that he may have been one of those veterans who returned to Egypt and became involved in rebellion. The chronology for the destruction is quite well and consistently fixed in the first quarter of the second century B.C.E. based on ceramics and coins. The aftermath of the destruction include a well-organized effort to level by truncating architecture and filling the interstitial space to create a completely new and clean surface for rebuilding. Paralleling these events is the abandonment of the Mendes harbor and the disenfranchisement of the temple of Ba-ned-djed by the Ptolemaic dynasty. The ram god cult itself may offer some insights into the network of temple complexes and placement of allegiances during the rebellion. As discussed above, fine imported clay arrived at Thmuis from Esne-Edfu in Upper Egypt. The dominant deity at Esne was Khnum, who, like Ba-neb-djed, appeared as a ram god. That Khnum was the creator of the human body who fashioned bodies from clay on a ceramic wheel and placed them in the womb suggests that the imported clay may have had a particular symbolic or ritual significance. It is worth considering the possibilities that the deities of Mendes and 200
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Esne shared more than an anthropomorphized ram representation, and that temple networking might have extended to economic interaction. Historically, the events of the Great Revolt included the military intervention in the Delta described in the Rosetta Stone (see above) and the eventual treacherous end of the rebel leaders described by Polybius in the Delta at Saïs, some 70 km west of Thmuis. Polycrates got the rebels into his power. For Athinis, Pausiras, Chesufus and Irobastus, the surviving chieftains, forced by circumstances, came to Sais to entrust themselves to the king’s good faith. But Ptolemy, violating his faith, tied the men naked to carts, and, after dragging them through the streets and torturing them, put them to death. On reaching Naucratis with his army, when Aristonicus had presented to him the mercenaries he had raised in Greece, he took them and sailed off to Alexandria, having taken no part in any action in the war owing to the unfairness of Polycrates. (Polybius 22:17) In the aftermath of the Great Revolt there were clearly concessions made to priests as well as to the people of Egypt, but there were also consequences. Iconographic representations of the pharaohs went through a reform with a new emphasis on Hellenistic rather than Egyptian motifs. Stanwick (2002:50), in his analysis of Ptolemaic portraits, observed that “the earliest and most securely attributed examples of Hellenized, Egyptian-style royal portraits fall in the reigns of Ptolemies V and VI, coinciding with the disastrous native rebellion of 206–186 B.C. and its aftermath.” Clearly, those who supported the victorious Ptolemy V fared better than those on the losing side. The abandonment of the harbor at Mendes and rise of Thmuis as a metropolis and the seat of the nomarch of the Mendesian nome is often attributed to meanders of the Nile that were the consequence of natural forces and engineered hydrology to support agriculture and transport (see, e.g., Blouin 2014; Redford 2010). Yet it is oddly coincidental that after two thousand years the siltation of the harbor happens to coincide with the events of the Great Revolt. Furthermore, Hellenism in Egypt saw some of the most remarkable feats of hydraulic engineering, including a program of canalization that revolutionized transport and agriculture. It is inconceivable that, had there been a desire to maintain the harbor of Mendes, the Greco-Egyptian engineers could not have done so. That said, the Rosetta Stone does describe a devastating flood in the eighth year of the reign of Ptolemy V, even as sieges progressed in the Delta. It “Is This Like the Nile that Riseth Up?” Ethnic Relations at Thmuis
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is certainly possible that this contributed to changes in the Nile in the MendesThmuis lands, and this may have even been exacerbated as an unintended consequence of some of the anthropogenic changes to the hydrography of Egypt, or even as a consequence to the modification of waterways associated with siege activities. We suggest that other ethno-political factors should be taken into consideration when considering the transition of power in the Mendesian nome. The rebellion may have provided the raison d’être for a shift from the longheld system of temple administration that lasted throughout thirty dynasties of Egyptian pharaohs, as well as for urban renewal at Thmuis. The influx of Greek colonists and the first four Ptolemaic pharaohs now resulted in a transition to a system more in line with the Greek ideal of the polis and the rule of aristocracy. The friction that persisted seemed in many ways to have reached a point of assimilation and acceptance in the final decades of Ptolemaic Egypt. By the reign of Cleopatra VII (51–30 B.C.E.), Greeks and Egyptians were better integrated, and in fact Cleopatra was the first of the Ptolemies to speak Egyptian. But a new wave of conquest and colonization, that of the Romans, inaugurated a new cycle of cultural and political imperialism that manifests as Greco-Roman Egypt.12
Colonial Imperialism More often than not, history is the chronicle of unintended consequences that extend far beyond the lifespan of the agents. From a diachronic perspective this is easily observed in colonial endeavors that foreshadow the rise and fall of empires, the creation of nations, the devastation of peoples, and the birth of new ethnic identities. The reasons for migrations are manifold, fueled by economic, environmental, political, and ideological forces that drive people to seek new lands and opportunities. In cases where migration is encouraged or mandated by a political superpower, the motivation of the individual is subsumed in the motivation of the state. Colonies established and supported by an imperial metropole represent a strategic motive usually rooted in economic exploitation and security (see chapter 1, this volume). This accounts for the common practice in history of retiring soldiers on homestead lands in conquered provinces, particularly those with security vulnerabilities (similar cases are discussed in chapters 3 and 4 of this volume). At least by the reign of Ptolemy II, cleruchic lands were being granted 202
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to Greek soldiers, most pronouncedly in reclaimed lands in the Fayum and Middle Egypt. These soldiers provided the labor, or at least the management of labor, along with a security presence in the chora. The wealth and social power of the cleruchs outstripped that of their indigenous peers, and reduced tax liabilities ensured an uneven economic playing field, as may be inherent in colonial relations. However, the exclusivity of the foreign cleruchs began to break down sometime after Raphia (217 B.C.E.) and the Great Revolt of 205–186 B.C.E., during the rule of Ptolemy VIII (145–116 B.C.E.), when Egyptian soldiers were admitted to the cleruchy (Thompson 2012), a major step forward in cultural and economic fusion of conqueror and conquered. It is in this same period that we see the marriage of Psenptah II, high priest of Ptah, to Berenike, presumably a woman of the Ptolemaic royal household, suggesting that after nearly two centuries of Greek rule, socioeconomic barriers had become permeable. Set in the middle of this transition is the shift of power from Mendes to Thmuis, a shift paralleled at other cities in Egypt. The change is profound in that, as is well illustrated in the carbonized fiscal archives from Thmuis for the second century C.E. (Blouin 2014), it encompasses an administrative shift from a temple to a secular bureaucracy (Manning 2003). As Egyptian temples yield to obsolescence, their written script fades to an enigma along with multilingual proclamations like the Rosetta Stone. These events are manifestations of prolonged colonial contact that resulted in the eventual assimilation of colonizer with colonized and the genesis of new institutions and socio-ethnic groups. It is a process that was fraught with violent convulsions, as evidenced by the violence at Thmuis in the early second century B.C.E. Imperial colonial relationships are one of the most volatile forms of human organization. All parties are forced to confront alien ways of life in an environment that engenders conflict and struggle for control or parity. Imperial colonies are rooted socioeconomic asymmetries dependent on a minority’s ability to maintain control in a foreign land that it is destined to lose control of through assimilation, liberation, or rebellion. Thmuis provides an example of how Ptolemaic institutions backed by a powerful military imposed control, yet rebellions and concessions of Greek privilege continued along the inevitable path toward assimilation and admixture.
Notes 1. For a theoretical view see Osterhammel 2005. 2. Note that Kushite rule of the 25th Dynasty actually represented a revitalization of many “Is This Like the Nile that Riseth Up?” Ethnic Relations at Thmuis
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early Egyptian traditions, and although it could certainly be discussed in terms of an imperial conquest, the cultural continuities could be viewed as an internecine political struggle that differed significantly from other foreign invasions. 3. See description of the foundation by Plutarch, Life of Alexander 26:3–10. 4. The Naucratis Decree Stele is written in hieroglyph only, but it lauds the virtues of the pharaoh Nectanebo I and discusses a 10 percent import tax on goods and trade from the “Sea of the Greeks.” 5. Herodotus, The Histories, trans. Tom Holland (New York: Random House, 2013). For the Greek text, see Herodotus, Herodoti Historiae, volume 1, books 1–4, ed. Carolus Hude, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1927). 6. The association of the Apis as the herald of Ptah and a manifestation of the god associated with the pharaoh diminished in the Ptolemaic period, yet the strong connection between the priests of Ptah and the prominence of Serapis suggests that this relationship bears much closer examination. 7. See Thompson (1988:106–54) for Ptolemaic policies toward Egyptian religious shrines. 8. Polybius, The Histories, trans. Robin Waterfiled and Brian McGing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). For the Greek text, see Polybius, Historiae, edited by T. BüttnerWobst, 5 vols. (Teubner: Leipzig, 1889–1905). 9. For the text see Müller (1920:59–88). A recent copy of the Philae Decree was uncovered in Taposiris Magna in 2015. 10. Alphas run west to east and numbers run north to south. The northern area discussed here encompasses Alphas N-P with a North-South range from 4 to 7. 11. The style of this figurine matches that of an alabaster figurine identified as Ptolemy V or Ptolemy VI at the Ägyptishes Museum, Berlin, 14568. Stanwick (2002:56–57, Figures 46–47) identifies as the portrait as one of the boy kings, Ptolemy V or Ptolemy VI. The pointy chin is slightly more consistent with Ptolemy V. 12. For Thmuis under Roman rule see Blouin (2014). For Roman Egypt see Bowman (1996), Bagnall and Frier (1994), and Riggs (2012).
References Cited Bagnall, Roger S., and Bruce W. Frier 1994 The Demography of Roman Egypt. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Barber, Elizabeth 1991 Prehistoric Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neoltihic and Bronze Ages with Special Reference to the Aegean. Princeton University Press, Princeton. Blouin, Katherine 2014 Triangular Landscapes: Environment, Society and the State in the Nile Delta under Roman Rule. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Boardman, John 2006 Greeks in the East Mediterranean (South Anatolia, Syria, Egypt). In Greek Colonisation: An Account of Greek Colonies and Other Settlements Overseas, edited by Gocha R. Tsetskhladze, pp. 507–34. Brill, Leiden. Bowman, Alan K. 1996 Egypt after the Pharaohs: 332 BC–AD 642. University of California Press, Berkeley.
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Chauveau, Michel 2000 Egypt in the Age of Cleopatra. Translated by David Lorton. Cornell University Press, Ithaca. Cline, Eric H. 2014 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed. Princeton University Press, Princeton. Clarysse, Willy 2007 A Royal Journey in the Delta in 257 B.C. and the Date of the Mendes Stele. Chronique d’Egypte 82(163/64):201–206. Clarysse, Willy, and Dorothy J. Thompson 2006 Counting the People in Hellenistic Egypt. 2 vols. Cambridge Classical Studies. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Davies, John K. 2002 The Interpretation of Hellenistic Sovereignties. In The Hellenistic World: New Perspectives, edited by Daniel Ogden, pp. 1–21. Classical Press of Wales, London. Demand, Nancy H. 1990 Urban Relocation in Archaic and Classical Greece: Flight and Consolidation. Bristol Classical Press, Bristol. De Meulenaere, H., and Pierre McKay 1977 Mendes II. Aris & Phillips, London. de Rodrigo, Alicia D. 2000 An Ancient Mendesian Industry. Bulletin of the Egyptological Seminar 14:33–39. Fisher-Bovet, Christelle 2007 Counting the Greeks in Egypt: Immigration in the First Century of Ptolemaic Rule. Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics, Stanford. Fraser, P. M. 1996 Cities of Alexander the Great. Clarendon Press, Oxford. Haring, Ben J. J. 1997 Divine Households: Administrative and Economic Aspects of the New Kingdom Royal Memorial Temples in Western Thebes. Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, Leiden. Hazzard, R. A. 1995 Ptolemaic Coins: An Introduction for Collectors. Kirk and Bentley, Toronto. Holz, Robert K., David Stieglitz, Donald P. Hansen, and Edward Ochsenschlager 1980 Mendes I. Edited by Bernard V. Bothmer and Emma Swan-Hall. American Research Center in Egypt, Cairo. Hornblower, Simon 1996 Hellenism, Hellenization. In Oxford Classical Dictionary, edited by Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth, pp. 677–679. 3rd ed. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Hudson, Nicholas 2010–2011 Preliminary Report on the Pottery at Tell Timai (Thmuis). Unpublished report. Kelder, Jorrit M. 2009 Royal Gift Exchange between Mycenae and Egypt: Olives as “Greeting Gifts” in the Late Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean. American Journal of Archaeology, 113:339– 352.
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Kosmin, Paul J. 2014 The Land of the Elephant Kings: Space, Territory, and Ideology in the Seleucid Empire. Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Leonard, Albert, Jr. 2001 Ancient Naukratis: Excavations at a Greek Emporium in Egypt. Part II: The Excavations at Kom Hadid. American Schools of Oriental Research, Atlanta. Lewis, Napthali 2001 Greeks in Ptolemaic Egypt: Case Studies in the Social History of the Hellenistic World. Clarendon Press, Oxford. Malaise, Michel 2005 Pour une terminologie et une analyse des cultes Isiaques. Académie Royale de Belgique, Brussels. Manning, J. G. 2003 Land and Power in Ptolemaic Egypt: The Structure of Land Tenure. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 2009 The Last Pharaohs: Egypt under the Ptolemies, 305–30 BC. Princeton University Press, Princeton. McCoskey, Denise E. 2002 Race before “Whiteness”: Studying Identity in Ptolemaic Egypt. Critical Sociology 28(1–2):13–39. McGing, B. C. 1997 Revolt Egyptian Style: Internal Opposition to Ptolemaic Rule. Archiv für Papyrusforschung 43:273–314. Möller, Astrid 2000 Naukratis: Trade in Archaic Greece. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Mueller, Katja 2006 Settlements of the Ptolemies: City Foundations and Settlement in the Hellenistic World. Studia Hellenistica 43. Peeters, Leuven. Müller, W. M. 1920 Egyptological Researches III: The Bilingual Decrees of Philae. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, D.C. Osterhammel, Jurgen 2005 Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview. Translated by Shelley Frisch. Markus Weiner, Princeton. Redford, Donald B. 2010 City of the Ram-Man: The Story of Ancient Mendes. Princeton University Press, Princeton. Reymond, Eve A. E. 1981 From the Records of a Priestly Family from Memphis, Vol. 1. Oito Harrassowitz Wiesbaden. Riggs, Christina (editor) 2012 The Oxford Handbook of Roman Egypt. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Simpson, R. S. 1996 Demotic Grammar in the Ptolemaic Sacerdotal Decrees. Griffith Institute, Oxford.
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Spalinger, Anthony John 1976 Psammetichus, King of Egypt: I. Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 13:133–147. Stanwick, Paul E. 2002 Portraits of the Ptolemies: Greek King as Egyptian Pharaohs. University of Texas Press, Austin. Thompson, Dorothy J. 1988 Memphis under the Ptolemies. Princeton University Press, Princeton. 2012 Cleruchs, Egypt. Thomson, Dorothy J. In The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine, and Sabine R. Heubner. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford. DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah22057. Tsetskhladze, Gocha 2006 Greek Colonisation: An Account of Greek Colonies and Other Settlements Overseas, Vol. 1. Brill, Leiden. Veïsse, Anne-Emmanuelle 2004 Les “Révoltes Égyptiennes”: Recherches sur les troubles intérieurs en Égypte du règne de Ptolémée III Évergète à la conquête romaine. Studia Hellenistica 41. Peeters, Leuven. Witt, R. E. 1997 Isis in the Ancient World. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
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8 Violence in Early Maritime Encounters in the Pacific
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Violence, theft, and conflict accompanied the arrival of Europeans in the Pacific, with islander cannibalism graphically marking the apparently vast gulf between the bearers of Enlightenment society and the people of Oceania, who were seen as distant in space, culture, and technology from Western civilization. A high frequency of intergroup violence during the early culture contact phase is regarded as originating from a volatile mix of exotic European valuables on the one hand and, on the other, the cultural misunderstandings that invariably attend meetings between previously isolated peoples with different social rules and behaviors and who speak different and mutually unintelligible languages. In addition, economic pressures caused by European voyagers needing to replenish shipboard supplies, and of island societies to provision and control visitors, ensured that conflict was a common and often perplexing response in meeting the Other because the reason for violent acts could not always be established by the party on whom those acts were perpetuated. This chapter considers the maritime systems of several Pacific Islander societies to determine whether the arrival of Europeans in Oceania conformed with indigenous understanding of conflict voyaging, which contributed to an early tier of violence. Historical sources suggest that warfare and violence in some Pacific Islands involved the use of canoes that in their size, form, and number were culturally recognizable symbols of maritime aggression. Added to this was a crew/passenger number characterized by a high proportion of males who carried with them an abundance of weapons such as stones, spears, and clubs. If Pacific Islanders had a clear idea of what “conflict voyaging” looked like, we should ask how European ships and crews might have matched indigenous perceptions. It is argued here that the martial status of European vessels was indicated by their large size, their quantity of arms,
their onboard hierarchy, and, most importantly, by an all-male crew that collectively projected a capacity for conflict that heightened cultural tensions and contributed to outbreaks of intergroup violence. The twofold approach used to explore how the maritime systems of Pacific Islanders and Europeans might have increased the likelihood of conflict focuses, first, on establishing the geographic knowledge of Pacific Islanders. Frequent conflict during the contact era is often seen as stemming from the shock that isolated islanders experienced when confronted by people from the distant and utterly foreign societies of the West. Reconstructing the voyaging spheres of Pacific Islanders contributes a more nuanced view of European arrival by showing that isolation cannot by itself explain the high frequency of violent encounters. The extent of islander voyaging is derived from island names obtained from indigenous people by early European visitors and archaeological results, especially geochemical sourcing of stone tools, that demonstrate extensive indigenous interaction in several parts of Oceania prior to the appearance of Europeans. Second, historical observations and accounts are used to examine Pacific Islander maritime activity, particularly that associated with seaborne warfare and raiding, in order to identify the characteristics of indigenous conflict voyaging and to determine how the projection of maritime force differed from traditional nonconflict voyaging. Aspects of indigenous conflict voyages are then compared to early European voyages to suggest that new arrivals from the West were probably perceived as having the capacity to deliver warfare and violence. (As in chapter 5 of this volume, the shift to an indigenouscentered perspective is enlightening and helps us to challenge common assumptions about the nature and impact of European colonialism around the world.) Historical texts are the primary source to investigate this issue as the archaeological record of early contact in Oceania is still scarce, particularly for the period from the sixteenth to the late eighteenth century when many islands were first visited. European accounts of contact with Pacific Islanders are one-sided and need to be interpreted cautiously. However, the textual accounts of seaborne aggression include detailed descriptions of conflict involving Pacific Islanders and Europeans, as well as accounts of maritime hostility between Pacific Islander groups that throw light on aspects of indigenous oceanic raiding and warfare. These features provide an initial framework for understanding why violence features so prominently in the culture-contact record of the Pacific.
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Colonial Expansion in the Pacific Because states, polities, and chiefdoms are ever alert to the political, economic, and strategic opportunities of expansion, complex societies, contact, and colonialism are intimately linked. Centralized societies frequently develop transport systems that make contact, colony emplacement, and the extraction of valuables feasible. From a South Pacific perspective it is difficult not to conclude that, however events played out in a particular archipelago, the key influence driving the process of European colonialism was the relative costs of marine transport. (The enormous costs of cross-oceanic exploration and expansion are also noted in chapter 12 of this volume.) When the risk of losing ships and crew in a largely unexplored ocean meant that transport costs were extremely high, Europeans focused on extracting luxury goods from Asia and the Americas such as gold, spices, ivory, and silk. The Pacific Islands were largely epiphenomenal to these transoceanic networks except as strategic navigation and provisioning waypoints. The opportunity to prey on the rich Pacific mercantile shipping led to voyages focused on plunder, warfare, and the search for new trade routes, which led to better knowledge of the geography and human societies of Oceania. By the late eighteenth century, oceanic exploration was viewed as a branch of naval activity that brought national prestige and demonstrated, internationally, the ability of a European nation to project state force at a global level. European powers were often at war with one another, and the newly “discovered” geography of the Pacific was contested not for its economic riches but for the territorial and strategic contribution of islands (legitimized, in part, by the scientific endeavours of explorers) to the worldwide aspirations of distant states and empires. Pacific exploration become more organized and targeted under naval backing, and advances in cartography and navigation were paralleled by improvements in the ships themselves (e.g., size, steering, sails, hull protection), which were quickly adopted by merchant vessels. An important factor in decreasing voyaging costs to the Pacific was the growing number of geospatial hubs in the Indian Ocean and in Mainland Asia–Island Southeast Asia. Voyages from the West could resupply and refurbish vessels at those hubs, and such places were also trade centers that permitted voyaging costs to be defrayed by the transport of cargo. As maritime trade networks expanded, important resources were discovered in the Pacific, including whale oil, sealskins, sandalwood, and bêche-demer, whose extraction was accompanied by the implanting of informal groups 210
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(castaways, beachcombers) and specialized groups of colonists (missionaries and religious groups, convicts, merchants). By the first decades of the nineteenth century, the Euro-American presence was felt over most of the South Pacific; by that time many indigenous populations and traditional ways of governance had been irrevocably changed by demographic decline as a result of introduced diseases and intrasociety conflict associated with the introduction of muskets and cannon, and by the promulgation of different forms of Christianity. Emigration from Europe to the South Pacific by the mid-nineteenth century increased by state incentives (part of a colonization process: see chapter 1, this volume) and was associated with the migration of free settlers and the commoditization of land. The discovery of terrestrial resources, especially gold, caused one of the great international migration surges to the South Pacific both in number and in the diversity of cultural backgrounds. In short, the progressive and increasingly dramatic impacts of colonialism in the Pacific were closely linked to the maritime transport systems of Western states and empires. This outline of European expansion in the South Pacific suggests that sustained mercantile and economic interests often accompany colony emplacement and “colonialism” sensu stricto, whereas “contact” precedes “colonialism.” The boundary between contact and colonialism is seldom clear, of course. For example, when a temporary shore camp becomes a beachhead for repeat visits by vessels to reprovision, and the site transforms into permanent foreign settlement, at what point do we separate contact from colonialism? From a maritime systems perspective, the early phase of European voyaging in Oceania can arguably be characterized as “contact” rather than “colonialism” for several reasons. Among these was the short duration of visits to many islands, a focus on ship-based interaction, the small number of permanent foreigners present on islands, and the absence of viable migrant communities. Power relations were also relatively balanced, because there was no network of ports and settlements in the Pacific to support colony establishment until the nineteenth century. This is not to imply that “contact” was static and one-sided or that early meetings did not influence colonialism. Seafaring and contact, for instance, expanded the geographic horizons of both Pacific Islanders and Europeans, and exchanges of information and goods laid the groundwork for subsequent colonial enterprises based on the global reach of societies in the West. Contact also opened up new economic and leadership possibilities that indigenous individuals and leaders used to transform “traditional” systems. And we Violence in Early Maritime Encounters in the Pacific
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should not lose sight of the internal changes that resulted from early contact with Pacific societies, especially compared with the more visible and betterdocumented impacts of colonialism. This chapter’s more nuanced exploration of the concepts of contact and its relationship with colonialism extends the discussions in chapter 1 in new, productive directions.
Maritime Spheres and Prehistoric Interaction An often overlooked consequence of the growing maritime dominance of Europeans in the Pacific was the rapid collapse of indigenous voyaging systems that held together island polities, voyaging systems that were responsible for transporting traditional valuables and elite marriage partners and for maintaining and projecting chiefly authority. In recent times the construction of traditional Pacific canoes and the revival of indigenous seafaring have been combined to show the feasibility of prehistoric migration through deliberate long-distance ocean voyages. However, the full extent of Pacific maritime systems, including networks of trade, exchange, and contact, is uncertain. The geographic knowledge and voyaging spheres of different Pacific societies is a contentious issue, as knowledge of distant places does not require direct contact and interaction (Finney 1998; Parsonson 1962). To examine the maritime spheres of Pacific Island groups we can, first, examine lists of island names obtained by European explorers on Taumako, Tonga, and the Society Islands during the early contact period. The interaction spheres in the historical records can then be compared with the growing archaeological evidence for late-prehistoric interaction. The results of the geochemical sourcing of stone tools are especially useful in demonstrating that maritime communication and interaction over long distances did occur. Knowledge of and communication with other islands, at least for some Pacific societies, is important to establish, as it suggests that the initial response of islanders to Europeans may have been influenced by precolonial maritime contact with people from other cultures.
Taumako In 1606, Quirós reached Taumako (Duff Islands) in the southeast Solomons (Map 8.1) and recorded upward of sixty island names from the chief Tumai. The full list of island names was never reported, and only a small number of islands were named in the expedition accounts or obtained from a hostage (who was given the name “Pedro”) who was taken from Taumako but originally 212
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came from Sikaiana. The twelve island names in historical accounts divide in two, with the first group containing islands close to Taumako (Nupani, Pileni, Ndeni) along with Tikopia and Sikaiana. Historians have linked other names to several different island groups, with “Malicolo” identified as Vanikoro in the southeast Solomons, Malekula in Vanuatu (Cook’s “Mallicolo”), and Wainikoro (Natewa Bay) in Fiji. Distinguishing between different locations based on the recorded sailing time is difficult, as Ndeni is given in one account as being five days sailing from Taumako even though it is only 110 km away. A more reliable guide to sailing distances is the estimate of a four-day journey between Sikaiana and Taumako given by “Pedro” indicating a daily sailing distance of approximately 120 km, which is similar to the estimate calculated by Cook (in Beaglehole 1967b:164) for Tongan double canoes (ca. 110–160 km/sailing day) and the maximum overnight voyage length of 160 km calculated for Micronesian canoes (Lewis 1972; Marck 1986). While voyaging to distant islands such as Vanua Levu (?Wainikoro) and Tuvalu (?Guaytopo), cannot be verified, and there is additional doubt about canoe travel to these locations as the Spanish accounts state that the people of “Manicolo” were said not to eat human flesh (Markham 1967:494), while cannibalism was practiced in Fiji, and Tuvalu is more than two days’ sail from Sikaiana (1,700 km; see Table 8.1). However, canoe voyages of 24–30 days were reported as being made by Taumako sailors (Kelly 1966a:189), so the possibility that distant islands were visited should not be dismissed. Archaeological evidence for late-prehistoric interaction in the Namu Period on Taumako (1000–1800 C.E.) indicates contact with the main Solomon Islands–Santa Cruz from Nautilus shell units, arrow and spear bone points, pottery (feldspathic temper sand), Terebra and Mitra shell adzes, and shell ornaments of Cassis and cowrie. The Spanish also recorded the presence of the backstrap loom, which, along with the red feather money-exchange system, also indicates contact with Santa Cruz. Connections with islands far to the east is demonstrated by surface and excavation finds of seven stone tools of Samoan origin on Taumako. Geochemical and petrographic analysis indicates that the lithics probably derive from adze quarries on Tutuila (Best et al. 1992; Leach and Davidson 2008). The two exotic excavated adzes from Taumako date to 1300–1400 C.E. (Kahula site). Samoan adzes have also been found on Nupani (two adzes) and southern San Cristobal (one adze from the Na Mugha site). Samoa is 2,300 km from Taumako, and there is no traditional or historical evidence for direct voyages between the two island groups, although Taumako is a Polynesian outlier that in prehistory was settled by Violence in Early Maritime Encounters in the Pacific
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Table 8.1. Islands in the vicinity of Taumako recorded by the Spanish and identified by researchers A . TA U M A K O G E O G R A P H Y, 1 6 0 6 C . E .
Distance from Taumako (km)
Name
Identification(s)
Fonofono
1. Lomlom, SE Solomons 2. Funafuti, Tuvalu
100 1,200
Manicolo
1. Vanikoro, SE Solomons 2. Malekula, Vanuatu 3. Wainikoro, Fiji
190 680 1,460
Mecaraylay
1. Nukulaelae, Tuvalu 2. Makira, Solomons
1,200 600
Guaytopo
1. Vaitupu, Tuvalu 2. Eastern Solomons
Chicayana
Sikaiana
500
Pouro
San Cristobal, Solomons
500
Tucopia
Tikopia, SE Solomons
320
Nupan
Nupani, SE Solomons
170
Mami
Tinakula, SE Solomons
160
Indeni
Nendo, SE Solomons
110
Pilen
Pileni, SE Solomons
100
Temulflua
?
100
1,200 400–600
B . T O N G A N G E O G R A P H Y, 1 7 7 7 C . E .
Island/Island Group
Number of island names
Distance from Tongatapu (km)
Vava’u-Northern Tonga
35
300–600
Ha’apai-Central Tonga
15
150
Fiji (East-West)
13
400–700
Samoa
9
850
Kiribati
3
2,400
‘Uvea
1
850
Futuna
1
800
Rotuma
1
1,200
Tuvalu
1
1,500
Tokelau
1
1,200
C . TA H I T I A N G E O G R A P H Y, 1 7 6 9 C . E .
Island/Island group Tuamotu (East-West)
Number of island names
Distance from Tahiti (km)
11
200–900
Samoa
4
2,200
Marquesas
3
1,300
Tonga
2
2,600
Cook (south-north)
2
1,000–1,800
Austral
2
550
‘Uvea
1
2,800
Rotuma
1
3,500
Sources: Guppy 1887; Hale 1846; Jack-Hinton 1969; Kelly 1966a, 1966b; Lewis 1972; Parsonson 1962, 1966. Notes: Islands in the vicinity of Tonga (B) are based on locations in Geraghty (1994), except for Kinakina, which is attributed to Fiji but probably refers to Kinekina islet in the Ha’apai group. Islands in the Tongatapu group are omitted. Main islands in Tahiti (C) are identified in Tupaia’s chart by Di Piazza and Pearthree (2007).
people from west Polynesia. Computer simulation of drift voyaging indicates that Taumako could have been reached by canoes drifted from several islands with reasonable success, including Anuta (26.4 percent; 350 km), Fiji (18.9 percent; 1,400 km), Tikopia (10.8 percent; 320 km), Kiribati (8.3 percent, 1,300 km), Rotuma (6.1 percent; 1,100 km), and Tonga (5.3 percent; 2,250 km). It is notable that Samoan adzes have also been found on all of these islands. Moreover, several (e.g., Tikopia and San Cristobal) were well known to the people of Taumako, suggesting that the Samoan adzes may have arrived by a combination of drift voyaging, down-the-line exchange, and purposeful longdistance voyaging. Leach and Davidson (2008:313–314) also note the presence of “reel” ornaments made of bone/ivory with Taumako burials dating to circa 1500 C.E., which otherwise are found in Samoa and east Polynesia along with Tikopia and Vanuatu. Overall, the archaeological evidence supports the proposition that islands 300–500 km from Taumako were well known and that islands like Tikopia were way stations for longer voyages. This indicates that the geographic knowledge of Taumako sailors probably extended to islands 800–1,000 km away. Violence in Early Maritime Encounters in the Pacific
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Tonga In 1777, William Anderson, the surgeon and naturalist on Cook’s third voyage, was told the names of more than 120 islands, and he reported that more than 150 different islands were known to Tongans (Beaglehole 1967b:879). A list of 95 island names restricted to those in the neighborhood of Tonga was published (Cook 1784:368–369), and an analysis of the list by Geraghty (1994) identified landmasses from eight islands or island chains that lie beyond Tongatapu that can be divided into two groups. The first consists of islands in the Tonga Group—west and east Fiji, Samoa, ‘Uvea, and Futuna—all of which are 150–900 km from Tongatapu (Table 8.1; Map 8.1). Islands in the second group are 1,200–2,400 km from Tongatapu, including Rotuma (1,260 km), Tokelau (1,350 km), Tuvalu (1,500 km), and Kiribati (2,400 km). The closest islands in the first group are those that in traditional history are strongly associated with Tongan influence, including a colonial presence on ‘Uvea, Samoa, and east Fiji, and intermarriage between the paramount Tongan lines and chiefly families of Samoa and Fiji (Bott 1982; Gifford 1929; Kaeppler 1971). The more distant islands, with the exception of Rotuma, are all atolls that appear to have been visited to obtain tribute/valuables (Dillon 1972a:294–295). But the smaller and remote islands did not supply high-status marriage partners as did the chiefdoms of the large and resource-rich landmasses of Fiji and Samoa. Archaeological evidence for the extent of Tongan voyaging is found at the central place of the Tongan state at Lapaha on Tongatapu, where a monumental site was constructed during the 650-year rule of the maritime chiefdom. Geochemical study was conducted of archaeological stone tools associated with monumental architecture, particularly the stone-faced tombs of the paramount chiefs. This research found that two-thirds had been imported from other islands groups, even though fine-grained volcanics suitable for adze making occur on several islands, and Cook mentioned volcanic Tofua, only 160 km from Tongatapu, as a source of stone tools (Beaglehole 1967a:161). Most analyzed lithics at Lapaha are from Samoa (870 km), with a smaller proportion sourced to west and east Fiji (450–760 km). One adze, however, was sourced to the Society Islands, which are 2,500 km from Tongatapu (Clark et al. 2014). There can be little doubt that the Tongan state engaged in extensive and frequent canoe voyaging with islands within 600–800 km.
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Map 8.1. Map of the South Pacific showing the location of the main islands mentioned in the text.
Tahiti The most famous example of indigenous geographic knowledge is the chart made by the Tahitian priest and navigator Tupaia during Cook’s first voyage to the Pacific, in 1769. The original chart has been lost, but Tupaia told Cook of around 130 islands, not all of which were recorded. Versions of Tupaia’s chart were made by the Forster and Cook, with Cook’s version in the Banks collection listing 74 islands. This version with Tahiti at the center is regarded as the closest to Tupaia’s original work (Forster 1788:511–525), in which Cook discusses his version in some detail and includes notes given to him about the islands by Tupaia. Numerous researchers have struggled with the two versions of Tupaia’s chart, which incorporate elements of both European cartography and traditional way-finding concepts, and identifying around thirty to forty islands (Dening 1962; Finney 1998; Forster 1778). A study by Di Piazza and Pearthree (2007) indicates that the chart is a fragmented “mosaic of subjectcentred sailing directions or bearings to distant islands”; at least 26 islands outside the Society Islands can be identified (Table 8.1; Map 8.1). Included are islands from the Tuamotu, Austral, Marquesas, Cook, and Samoa island groups; it is possible that Tokelau was also known. The list also mentions ‘Uvea (Oweha) and Rotuma (Orotuma), along with Vava’u (Oouow) and Uiha in Tonga. Forster thought that Tupaia’s geographic knowledge spanned 20 degrees latitude (7–27 degrees South) and 40 degrees longitude (20 degrees either side of 150 degrees longitude). This estimated range is supported by Di Piazza and Pearthree’s analysis of Tupaia’s chart, notwithstanding the likelihood that Tupaia’s knowledge of distant islands was rudimentary (Di Piazza and Pearthree 2007:335; Finney 1998:447). On notes accompanying the Forster (1778:521) version of Tupaia’s chart, the island of “O-Reeva-vai” is recorded as a place where fine hatchets were made and taken to Ra’iatea. “O-Reeva-vai” (“Orivavie” in the Cook version) is clearly “Raivavae” in the Austral group. This is significant as Tupaia was from Ra’iatea, and he would certainly have known about the importation of stone tools from Raivavae, which lies 850 km south of Ra’iatea. Archaeological sourcing of Society Island adzes is at an early stage and studies of collections from significant chiefly sites have yet to be undertaken. Stone tools with a composition indicating manufacture in the Society Islands have been found in the southern Cook Islands (Aitutaki), Tonga and Tuamotu Group (Allen and Johnson 1997; Clark et al. 2014; Collerson and Weisler 2007). Significantly, adzes from Eiao in the Marquesas (Charleux et al. 2014) occur on several 218
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islands (Tuamotu, Society Islands, Line Islands, Managareva), and adzes from Rurutu have been sourced to the southern Cook Islands, Tuamotu Group, and Raivavae (Rolett et al. 2015). Adzes from the Tatagamatau adze quarries on Tutuila in American Samoa have the widest archaeological distribution of any artifact in the Pacific Ocean. This indicates that quarries in both west Polynesia and east Polynesia specialized in the production of fine-grained stone tools. However, the prevailing view based on the archaeological analysis of stone tools is that long-distance voyaging in east Polynesia declined after 1350 C.E. This finding is somewhat at odds with Tupaia’s geographic knowledge and the expansion of the Tongan state in late prehistory. It may be that imported stone tools did not have the same value in the Society Islands as they did in Tonga.
Map 8.2. Geographic knowledge of Pacific Islanders during the European contact era based on identified islands in Table 8.1. Stars indicate selected islands recorded by Tupaia in 1769. Hexagons represent islands known to Tongans in 1777. Circles are islands recorded by the Spanish from people on Taumako in 1606. Joined symbols indicate shared knowledge of an island, with Tongans and Tahitians both recording Samoa, ‘Uvea, Rotuma, and Tokelau. The circle marked with a question mark indicates the possibility that Taumako-Sikaiana people traveled to Tuvalu (Guayatopo), which Tongans also appear to have visited.
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Or it may be that the investigation of stone tools from important ceremonialpolitical sites in the Society Islands, such as the large ceremonial (marae) complex of Taputapuatea on Ra’iatea, will reveal a wider interaction sphere than has yet been documented. This is plausible, as a geochemical analysis of 19 stone adzes from the extensive Tuamotu Archipelago, with islands only 200 km from the Society Islands, identified adzes from the Pitcairn Group, Australs, Society Islands (Ra’iatea, Taha’a, or Huahine), Marquesas, and remarkably Kaho’olawe in the Hawaiian Islands (Collerson and Weisler 2007). Clearly, several island groups in the Pacific contained complex societies with well-developed maritime systems that involved contact and interaction with other islands. The arrival of Europeans, while certainly novel and attended with new types of valuables, was not in itself a necessary cause of violence. Oceanic societies with multiple maritime connections were capable of integrating people and material culture from other places. Overall, the growing archaeological evidence of interaction supports the geographic knowledge of Pacific Islanders recorded during the early European era in several parts of the Pacific (Table 8.1; Map 8.2). This does not mean that distant islands were necessarily frequently visited or were connected by an organized transport network of trade and exchange relationships. Nor did it necessitate accurate navigational information and adequate vessels available to reach every island. Nonetheless, many Pacific cultures had maritime systems through which they obtained knowledge of other societies and places. This suggests that precolonial indigenous encounters helped frame islander responses to the arrival of Europeans. In the following section I examine the ways in which maritime force was projected by Pacific Islanders as recorded in voyaging literature accounts.
Maritime Aggression, Canoes, and Crew Maritime interactions among Pacific Islander societies were quite diverse. Some frequently engaged in raiding/warfare, as in the western Solomons and New Zealand. Several focused on formal and informal economic exchanges, such as the hiri, kula, and Santa Cruz red feather money and Mailu trading systems. Others, including Tonga and Yap, were involved in the collection of tribute associated with political and ceremonial events. Different types of maritime activity were accompanied by specific types of craft and crew composition. The most significant aspect in exploring the relationship between maritime culture contact and violence is to determine if indigenous “conflict voyaging”—broadly 220
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defined as seafaring that had as its primary aim the delivery of aggression and violence to other groups—can be distinguished from “nonconflict voyaging.” Nonconflict voyaging encompasses a wide range of activities, such as trade and exchange, intercommunity visits, fishing trips, migration, chiefly investiture, and attendance at funerals, marriages, and ceremonies. There are many instances in the primary and secondary voyaging literature where observations do not specify the number or gender/age of people on sailing canoes. Two examples are Dillon’s (1972b:269) report of Rotumans traveling to Vaitupu (570 km) to obtain a valuable type of marine shell, and Williams’s (1837:412–413) mention of a canoe that was drifted 2,500 km from Ra’ivavae to Manua. The Spanish noted that the Taumako people “seemed to be great corsairs, and they must raid all these islands, where they are accustomed to make captives of their neighbours with whom it is understood they had feuds” (Kelly 1966b:284). But they did not record details of the crew or the type of vessel used in raiding/ warfare during their short visit. Several historical sources from the seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century indicate roughly equal numbers of men relative to women and children onboard seafaring canoes engaged in nonconflict voyaging in the Pacific. A double canoe traveling north of the Niuas, possibly on its way to Samoa, in 1616, carried about 25 people, including 8 women, at least 5 or 6 infants and children, and around 11 men (Suren 2009:12–13; the number of men on board may have been greater than reported). The Dutch specifically noted the absence of any weapons on the canoe. In 1696, two canoes with 35 people on the way from Lamotrek to Fais were driven 1,650 km to the eastern Philippine island of Samar. The survivors consisted of 16 men, 7 women, and 6 children (Krämer 1917:19). Prior to 1777, a double canoe with 20 men, women, and children traveling from Tahiti to Raiatea (200 km) was caught in a storm and drifted to Atiu in the Cook Islands (780 km) (Cook 1784:200–202). Three double canoes with 150 people traveling from Anaa to Tahiti (380 km) to mark the installation of a chief were caught in a storm and driven to VanavanaAhunui (690 km). One canoe had on board 23 men, 15 women, and 10 children (Beechey 1831:229–235). A double canoe with 35 crew, of whom 14–15 were women, was traveling from Tonga to Fiji to pick up a load of sandalwood in 1790 (Martin 1991:185). A mixed-gender crew-passenger group was also noted on Tongan voyaging canoes by Anderson in 1777 (in Beaglehole 1967b:939). He writes, “The number of people, amongst which there are always several women, being at least four times more than is sufficient to Navigate the Boat implys [sic] some Violence in Early Maritime Encounters in the Pacific
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other business.” Anderson described double sailing canoes as being loaded with provisions, along with considerable quantities of bark cloth and mats that are traditional valuables in Tonga, indicating that voyaging involved trade and exchange. The whaler Peter Bays (1831:62) commented on a large canoe found 480 km from land with 19 people on board. He described them as “aged sires and grandmothers; sons, daughters and grandchildren” and noted that “it is no new thing for South-seamen to pick up large canoes at sea, with whole families in them.” Thus, the people on board canoes involved in nonconflict voyages in several instances suggests a complement representing a broad cross-section of the community, with adult males making up about half of the total and women and children the other half. In comparison, canoes engaged in conflict voyaging were often distinguished by their large size, the predominance of males, and the presence of weapons. Single canoes were used to deliver intra-archipelago aggression in New Zealand (a single war canoe could be lashed to another canoe, and small sails were sometimes used) and in the western Solomon Islands. In the Solomons the Spanish recorded a fleet of 15 paddling canoes carrying around 110 men returning from a head-hunting raid in 1568. They also reported that the largest canoes carried 40–45 men equipped with bows, arrows, clubs, and baskets of stones (Amherst and Thomson 1901:147). New Zealand paddling/sailing canoes described as “war” canoes carried 18–20 males, with several larger vessels up to 21 m in length built “chiefly for war” that could carry “from forty to eighty or an hundred armed men” (a few women were noted on some war canoes [Beaglehole 1968:188, 576–578; Hawksworth 1775:263]). In both places war canoes were distinguished by their distinctive design and ornamentation. The Solomon war canoes (tomoko) had a crescent shape, with an elongated and high bow and stern that carried wooden carvings, shell inlay, and cowrie shell strings. New Zealand war canoes had a high carved stern decorated with strings of feathers and an ornate prow figurehead (tauihi) bearing feather ornaments (see Figure 8.1A): But the canoes of the superior kind, which seem to be their men of war, are magnificently adorned with open work, and covered with loose fringes of black feathers . . . the gunwale boards were also frequently carved in a grotesque taste, and adorned with tufts of white feathers upon a black background. (Hawksworth 1775:264) Cook’s third expedition to the Pacific, in 1779, witnessed the return of Kalaniopu’u, the ruler of the island of Hawai‘i, from a military expedition to Maui. He traveled in a fleet of more than 150 large double war canoes; the lead 222
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Figure 8.1. A, New Zealand war canoe, 1770, with warriors displaying weapons during a martial performance. Note the carved bow and stern decorated with feathers. There appear to a number of women, a child, and a dog in the canoe, suggesting it was the vessel seen on 16 January (Hawksworth 1775: 2020). B, Tahitian double war canoes, 1774, equipped with a fighting stage (toward the front) and high sterns. The headdress (fau) and clothing distinguish the principal war leaders from the warriors and the ordinary people who paddled the vessel. Note the presence of weapons (spears and clubs), carvings at the bow and stern, and cloth banners and pendants. C, Tongan voyaging canoe (tongiaki), 1774. This voyaging canoe is likely to represent a type of vessel used in inter-archipelago raiding and warfare.
vessel contained four statues representing men of “monstrous” size at each end of the canoe, covered with mantles of colored interwoven feathers. A few days earlier the crew had noted two canoes from the Maui expedition crewed by warriors who “were all armed and cloathed in the military uniform, after their country manner” (Rickman 1781:312–313). The best example of specialized war canoes is from the Society Islands, where Cook witnessed 160 large war canoes and 170 smaller sailing canoes in 1774. Usually paddled, the war canoes could be easily distinguished from other double canoes (maeha’a, tira, tipairua, va’a ti’i, pahi) used in fishing, short- and long-distance voyaging, trade and exchange, and ceremonial events (see Beaglehole 1968:Figures 31 and 32; Forster 1778:458; Haddon and Hornell 1936; Wilson 1799:378–379). As they did not carry a permanent sail and rigging or have a shelter house, war canoes were only used within the Society Islands and were designed to carry a large group. Cook noted that the Tahitian war canoes were much larger than any other indigenous vessel (in Beaglehole 1968:108). Hoare (1982) saw a war canoe being built that was 26.7 m long, while Cook recorded a war canoe with hulls 32.9 m in length (in Beaglehole 1969:402). A useful comparison here is with Cook’s first vessel, Endeavour, which had a hull length of approximately 32 m. One large war canoe was reported as having 144 paddlers and 8–10 steersman (Forster 1778:457; Wales in Beaglehole 1969:802 drawing of a hull cross-section that suggests the craft may have been a modified pahi); the Tahitian fleet recorded by Cook and Forster was estimated to include at least seven thousand men. Tahitian war canoes had rounded-flat bottoms and vertical sides that distinguished them from the sharp-keeled and rounded hulls of oceangoing pahi, modified for warfare when the need arose (Cook in Beaglehole 1969:402). In addition to their large size and hull shape, war canoes had several distinctive structural and decorative features. These features included a raised platform mounted on carved posts toward the front, on which a high chief or group of warriors stood, and a decorated stern up to 6 m in height that indicated the status of the owner (Figure 8.1B). Cook observed that when landed prow first on a beach, the high sterns did not let water enter the craft. He wrote that the canoes were the “best calculated for landing in a Surf of any Vessels I ever saw” (in Beaglehole 1969:408). The high sterns were also ornamented by attaching carved posts, described as headpieces, with a wooden figure of a man on top (tikee). In some cases the tikee was covered with black feathers (Hoare 1982:454), and several had cloth “flags and streamers” flying from them. The canoes were stacked with spears, sling stones, and battle axes (?clubs). 224
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The principal war leaders were distinguished by wearing a cylindrical wicker work helmet known as a fau, 1.5–1.6 m high, with a shield-shaped frontal piece lashed to the cylinder. The frontlet was covered with glossy green pigeon feathers, edged with white feathers, and bordered with a projecting line of tail feathers from the tropical bird. Forster (1778:454) saw only two of these headdresses in the fleet of approximately 160 Tahitian war canoes. The most recent view is that fau were worn by senior chiefs with military responsibilities (Stevenson and Hooper 2007). Interestingly, the more numerous warrior chiefs seen on the fighting platforms “almost universally” wore gorgets/breastplates known as taumi, covered with pigeon feathers and shark teeth and fringed with white dog hair from the Tuamotu Islands (Forster 1778:455). Warriors were further marked by their clothing, which consisted of a long piece of white cloth hanging loose on the shoulders, overlaid with smaller pieces of red and brown cloth and a cloth turban (Cook in Beaglehole 1969:390; Hoare 1982:454). In the late eighteenth century the Tonga Islands formed a “little state” under a stable chiefly system that encompassed the islands of the archipelago (Beaglehole 1967a:177). As a result, European explorers did not find intergroup conflict of the sort they had seen in New Zealand, Tahiti, and other islands: “The Canoes run very leisurely throughout the whole [of the Tongan Islands] and they appear in a happy state of mutual confidence, and peace with each other” (Clerke in Beaglehole 1969:756). The peaceful relations led Cook to name Tonga the “Friendly Islands,” although the presence of clubs, spears, slings, and martial dance performances showed that warfare was not unknown. Prior to the outbreak of civil warfare in the late 1790s, Tongan warfare appears to have been directed primarily toward islands outside Tonga, particularly Fiji. Cook was told that there were frequent wars between Tongatapu and Fiji, but other islands had been subdued by military force in the past (in Beaglehole 1967a:163, 174). Anderson noted: From the number of weapons found amongst them there is little doubt but they sometimes engage in war, though in all probability it is mostly of the defensive kind, as the greatest part of the islands they know have been conquered by them and now form part of their dominion, so that the only enemys [sic] they have to contend with are those of Fejee [Fiji]. (in Beaglehole 1967b:955) Tongan demand for Fijian red parrot feathers and raiding by Fijians to carry off Tongan pigs and other valuables were given as reasons for interViolence in Early Maritime Encounters in the Pacific
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archipelago conflict (Beaglehole 1967b:958). One historical account mentions a major military expedition to Fiji—presumably to an island in the Lau Group—that resulted in the presentation of tribute to Tonga (Wilson 1799:269). The comparative absence of intra-archipelago warfare in the early European contact period means that we have few observations of maritime conflict in Tonga until the Tonga civil war era (1790s–1850s). However, Hoare (1982) noted that the war canoes of Tongatapu were covered fore and aft, were rigged for making long voyages, and had an elevated platform capable of holding 150 men (Figure 8.1C). Labillardiere (1971:356) in 1793 recorded a double war canoe 24 m in length on Tongatapu that had been taken from Fiji in an engagement by a Tongan chief. The descriptions indicate that large sailing double canoes (kalia/drua and tongiaki) were used in maritime warfare. This is also supported by observations of conflict voyaging (see Haddon and Hornell 1936) within Tonga and of Tongan voyages to Fiji in the nineteenth century. For example, three double canoes traveled from Tonga to Lakeba in the Lau Group circa 1800–1810. Led by the chief Tu’i Halafetai, who had 250 followers described as “young men” and “warlike companions” (Martin 1991:69, 72), a force of 5,000 men and 1,000 women in 50 large canoes went from Ha’apai to attack Vava’u (Martin 1991:159; the women remained in the canoes during hostilities). Traditional accounts similarly suggest large number of men on Tongan double canoes raiding further afield. On Funafuti atoll, traditions mention the arrival of two or three Tongan war canoes, each with 100 men on board (Hedley 1896:44). Fleets of canoes bearing Tongan invaders are reported from Tikopia (Dillon 1972b:112), ‘Uvea, Samoa, and islands visited by the 24th Tu’i Tonga during the hunt for his father’s murderers circa 1500 (Gifford 1929; Sand 2008). The examination of historical sources suggests the use of specialized watercraft in parts of Oceania for activities such as inter-island voyaging, tribute presentation, chiefly installation, weddings, fishing, funerals, and raiding/warfare. In several instances there is evidence that vessels engaged in raiding/warfare were distinguished by a predominance of males and the wearing of specific attire, in addition to the presence of weapons. Thus the type of vessel and the composition and costume/weapons of the crew formed a powerful symbol of maritime intent that would have been clearly understood by members of an indigenous culture, just as naval ships and crew signified sea power to people in Europe. Despite the vast differences between European and Pacific Islander watercraft, did aspects of European ships and their crews suggest the arrival of a martial group? 226
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Discussion Violence and conflict accompanied the arrival of Europeans in many parts of the Pacific, such as Guam (1521 C.E.), the Marquesas (1595), Vanuatu (1606), Tonga (1616), New Zealand/Aotearoa (1642), the Society Islands (1767), Rapa Nui/Easter Island (1722), and Hawai‘i (1778–1779). Clearly, many different reasons and particular circumstances contributed to each conflict encounter (Pearson 1970). The isolation of Pacific societies is often considered a cause of intercultural conflict when islanders were faced with the shock of meeting a new people; one historian remarked that Polynesians were “totally quarantined” in prehistory from contact with other islands (Campbell 2003:65). However, the geographic knowledge of Pacific Islanders, and especially of some Polynesian societies, spanned significant parts of the Pacific Ocean. This extensive knowledge had evidently been obtained through voyaging, both purposeful and accidental. Inter-island/inter-archipelago voyaging is also supported by archaeological evidence for late-prehistoric interaction in places such as Tonga and, to a lesser extent, the Society Islands. This indicates that for many of the less remote Pacific islands, there was some level of inter-island voyaging prior to the arrival of Europeans, and hence that societal isolation cannot by itself explain a high frequency of violent encounters. The amount of intra-archipelago conflict between precolonial groups is likely to be important, as frequent fighting over territory and competitive intergroup raiding may have encouraged a violent response to new arrivals, whatever their origin. The Spanish experienced frequent aggression in the politically fragmented Solomon Islands, while Tonga had a low level of intra-archipelago conflict owing to the control exerted by the centralized state. Consequently, relations between Tongans and Europeans were relatively benign until the collapse of the Tongan polity in the late eighteenth century. On the European side, the degraded state of a ship(s), a low quantity and quality of provisions, and poor health of the crew on arrival at a Pacific Island are factors that may have increased the probability of conflict. This hypothesis is supported by Magellan’s need to provision his ships at Guam after a voyage in excess of three months across the Pacific Ocean, during which many of the crew were lost to scurvy, dehydration, and malnutrition. Soon after Magellan arrived at Guam, a small skiff was stolen along with smaller items from the Spanish ships. This caused him to become “irritated” at the delay in obtaining provisions, whereupon an armed party went ashore and burned forty to fifty houses and killed seven local men (Hezel and Berg 1980:5). Violence in Early Maritime Encounters in the Pacific
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European sailing vessels were large in comparison with most Pacific Islander canoes, except for the largest paddling and sailing vessels often employed in warfare. Large canoes invariably belonged to senior chiefs, because of the labor and time required to construct and maintain them. Europeans described these vessels as the “most perfect mechanical production,” the “best specimens of their genius, industry and arts,” and the “chief treasure and wealth” of leaders (Anderson in Beaglehole 1967b:939; Forster 1778:457; Kelly 1966a:189). The large and complicated ships of Europe may have been perceived as marking the status and military power of the commander/chief and, by extension, his crew/lineage. It is notable that many officers and crew on British and French ships to the Pacific had served on warships and experienced naval warfare, with the discipline and organization of crew on exploration vessels, to some degree, based on that of the navy. The voyaging literature contains numerous references to Europeans conducting military drills and exhibitions of firepower that, though designed to avert conflict with Pacific Islanders, may have had the opposite effect by strengthening the view that the arrivals were a martial force. For example, on June 26, 1767, only two days after Tahitians had incurred serious loss of life by attacking the Dolphin, the crew formally took possession of the archipelago by landing a well-armed shore party and erecting a British pennant on a pole. It appears that this ceremonial act of territorial seizure was recognized. After removing the pennant, the Tahitian forces regrouped on the following day. A large party of armed men was seen carrying the pennant and preparing to attack the British, which was only stopped by firing the “Great Guns” and the destruction of about eighty canoes (Robertson 1973:50–53). The crew of European ships was exclusively male, and the absence of females and young children must have suggested to islanders the arrival of a fighting group rather than a nonconflict voyage. The logic of this association was recognized by Europeans themselves in dealing with potential aggressors, but it was not extended to an appreciation of what Pacific Islanders might have thought about the unprecedented arrival of large ships carrying a foreign all-male crew. “Three canoes came off to us [in New Zealand], having on-board above an hundred men, besides several of their women, which we were pleased to see, as in general it is a sure sign of peace” (Hawksworth 1775:202). Another aspect of indigenous conflict voyaging, at least in the Society Islands, was an onboard hierarchy in which paramount leaders and warriors on war canoes were distinguished by their costume from the common men responsible for paddling and working the vessels (Forster 1778:356). On European ships, uniforms similarly 228
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identified the commander, officers, and (on English ships) marines from the nonuniformed crew and supernumeraries (see Rodger 1996). As with indigenous conflict voyaging, it appears that weapons and armed men were reasonably common on European ships in the Pacific, with marines making up about 10–12 percent of the total on Cook’s voyages. The crew, under the gunner, were responsible for using the cannons and swivel guns and were armed when undertaking shore and boat duties (e.g., Cook in Beaglehole 1968:520–521). On early Spanish and Dutch vessels, the impression is of a wellarmed body of crew-soldiers, and recognizable weapons (sword/cutlass, bayonet/dagger, boarding axe, pike, shield) were certainly present on early European ships to the Pacific along with less familiar (to Pacific Islanders) projectile weapons (musket, pistol, arquebus). Tasman in Tonga recorded that “though these natives seem to be good-natured enough it is impossible to know what they hide in their hearts, for which reason we armed our people to be prepared for all accidents” (Heeres 2006:28). Moreover, the instructions to Quirós (Kelly 1966a:146–147) are replete with military advice, such as “they [the natives] should be given to understand the harm that can be caused them by the arquebuses, swords, and other weapons and firearms.”
Conclusion Interactions between Pacific Islanders and early Europeans have been described as encounters between “fighting sailors,” with Europeans characterized as “spirits,” “ghosts,” and “gods,” and islanders as “savages” both noble and ignoble (Campbell 1980, 1982; Parsonson 1966:84; Salmond 2006:249). The most detailed survey of Polynesian culture contact (Pearson 1970) found that ceremonies were commonly undertaken to temporarily assimilate Europeans into an indigenous society. Breaches of protocol by Europeans were also a significant cause of conflict (see Campbell 1994). Conflict and aggression have generally been seen as stemming from the presence of colonial and indigenous populations who inhabited separate worlds that “collided” violently when Europeans arrived in the South Pacific. An alternative framework is to see how precolonial culture contact among indigenous systems may have influenced encounters associated with nascent colonialism. This is a research area that requires additional input from both archaeology and traditional history, and which complicates dichotomous thinking about colonizers and colonized, Europeans and indigenous (Silverstein’s work in chapter 11 of this volume offers a prehistoric counterpart). Violence in Early Maritime Encounters in the Pacific
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Rather than focusing on the significant differences between European and Pacific Islander societies, it is useful to recognize that complex societies often share structural and organizational features that were recognized by both parties involved in cross-cultural meetings. Historical records of indigenous voyaging and archaeological evidence of late-prehistoric interaction in Oceania support the view that islands were not culturally isolated, and indicate that complex societies in a number of archipelagos had well-developed maritime systems. It is important not to overemphasize the extent of indigenous seafaring, but neither should the voyaging capacity of Pacific Islanders be underestimated. As a growing body of archaeological evidence demonstrates the prehistoric movement of stone tools over large distances of ocean, this careful reassessment of precolonial intercultural exchange and conflict is especially timely. Indigenous maritime systems had many dimensions, but conflict and the delivery of aggression were often important. Relatively small chiefdoms and simple political units engaged in maritime raiding. Larger and more complex societies like those of Tonga, the Society Islands, and the Hawaiian Islands could mount sizable expeditions to maintain or expand their territory, using large canoes carrying a well-armed group of male warriors under a senior chief. The purpose of such voyages was manifest in the number and size of the vessels, canoe ornamentation, the presence of weapons, and costumes of the crew. These features exhibited the social hierarchy, which jointly formed an unambiguous symbol of organized aggressive intent. European vessels in the Pacific also suggested a capacity for violence in their size, their armaments (and the demonstration of their efficacy), and especially by an all-male crew under a strong and organized “naval” hierarchy. The difficulty in communicating the purpose of European voyaging for exploration and scientific knowledge, particularly during the Enlightenment, suggests that European visitors were frequently viewed as potential raiders/aggressors in many parts of Oceania. Complex societies in the Pacific not only engaged in maritime violence but also recognized that long-distance voyaging was an expensive and often high-risk enterprise. This recognition must have raised the question of what the Europeans were looking for. In the Solomons, New Zealand, and Fiji, the unexpected visit of a male crew on large vessels would likely be met with violence, because indigenous societies associated such arrivals with raiding and intergroup conflict. In Tonga, the paramount chief observed that Cook’s crew, having “paid the best price for Women & Hogs, concluded that these were the Commodities [they] were in search of ” (Samwell in Beaglehole 1967b:1032). Both of these “valuables” are mentioned 230
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as the cause of traditional conflict between Tonga and Fiji. Further research is needed on the organization of crew and the watercraft used in oceanic raiding and warfare in Pacific Islander societies; the archaeological study of precolonial indigenous culture contact; and a deeper analysis of European voyages, including the proportion of soldiers/marines and number of armaments on ships and the military/naval background of captains and crew on different voyages (Spanish, Dutch, French, English). Only then can we properly understand the contribution of maritime systems to violent encounters and the history of colonialism in Oceania, and its theoretical contributions to the archaeology of colonialism more generally.
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Geraghty, Paul 1994 Linguistic Evidence for the Tongan Empire. In Language Contact and Change in the Austronesian World, edited by Tom Dutton and Darrell T. Tryon, pp. 231–249. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin. Gifford, Edward Winslow 1929 Tongan Society. Bulletin 61, Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu. Guppy, Henry Brougham 1887 The Solomon Islands and Their Natives. Swan, Sonnenschein, Lowrey, London. Haddon, A. C., and James Hornell 1936 Canoes of Oceania Volume I: The Canoes of Polynesia, Fiji, and Micronesia. Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin Special Publication 27, Honolulu. Hale, H. 1846 Ethology and Philology: United States Exploring Expedition During the Years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842, Under the Command of Charles Wilkes, U.S.N. C. Sherman, Philadelphia. Hawksworth, J. 1775 An Account of the Voyages Undertaken by the Order of His Majesty, for Making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere, Vol. II. James Williams, Dublin. Hedley, Charles 1896 General Account of the Atoll of Funafuti. Australian Museum Memoir 3(2):1–72. Heeres, Jan Ernst 2006 Abel Janszoon Tasman’s Journal. A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook. eBook No.: 0600571h.html. Hezel, F. X., and M. L. Berg 1980 Micronesia: Winds of Change: A Book of Readings on Micronesian History. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, Saipan. Hoare, Michael E. (editor) 1982 The Resolution Journal of Reinhold Forster, 1772–1775. Hakluyt Society, London. Jack-Hinton, Colin 1969 The Search for the Islands of Solomon, 1567–1838. Clarendon Press, Oxford. Kaeppler, Adrienne L. 1971 Rank in Tonga. Ethnology 10(2):174–193. Kelly, Celsus 1966a La Austrialia del Espiritu Santo: The Journal of Fray Martín Munilla O.F.M. and Other Documents Relating to the Voyage of Pedro Fernandez de Quirós to the South Sea (1605–1606) and the Franciscan Missionary Plan (1617–1627), Vol. I. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 1966b La Austrialia del Espiritu Santo: The Journal of Fray Martín Munilla O.F.M. and Other Documents Relating to the Voyage of Pedro Fernandez de Quirós to the South Sea (1605–1606) and the Franciscan Missionary Plan (1617–1627), Vol. II. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Krämer, A. 1917 Results of the South Seas Expedition, 1908–1910, II. Ethnography: B. Micronesia. L. Friederichsen and Co., Hamburg Scientific Foundation, Hamburg. Labillardiere, M. 1971 Voyage in Search of La Perouse, 1791–1794. N. Israel and De Capo Press, Amsterdam. Violence in Early Maritime Encounters in the Pacific
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Leach, Foss, and Janet Davidson 2008 The Archaeology of Taumako: A Polynesian Outlier in the Eastern Solomon Islands. New Zealand Journal of Archaeology Special Publication, Auckland. Lewis, David 1972 We, the Navigators. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu. Marck, Jeffrey C. 1986 Micronesian Dialects and the Overnight Voyage. Journal of the Polynesian Society 95(2):253–258. Markham, Clements 1967 The Voyages of Pedro Fernandez de Quirós, Vol. 1. Kraus Reprint Ltd., Liechtenstein. Martin, John 1991 Tonga Islands. William Mariner’s Account. 5th ed. Vava’u Press, Tonga. Parsonson, G. S. 1962 The Settlement of Oceania: An Examination of the Accidental Voyage Theory. In Polynesian Navigation: A Symposium on Andrew Sharp’s Theory of Accidental Voyages, edited by J. Golson, pp. 11–63. Polynesian Society, Wellington. 1966 The Islands and Their Peoples. In La Austrialia del Espiritu Santo: The Journal of Fray Martín Munilla O.F.M. and Other Documents Relating to the Voyage of Pedro Fernandez de Quirós to the South Sea (1605–1606) and the Franciscan Missionary Plan (1617–1627), Vol. I, edited by Celsus Kelly, 121–154. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Pearson, W. H. 1970 The Reception of European Voyagers on Polynesian Islands, 1568–1797. Journal de la Sociétié des Océanistes 26:121–154. Rickman, John 1781 Journal of Captain Cook’s Last Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, on Discovery, Performed in the Years 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779. 2nd ed. E. Newbury, London. Robertson, George 1973 An Account of the Discovery of Tahiti from the Journal of George Robertson Master H.M.S. Dolphin. Folio Press, London. Rodger, Nicholas A. M. 1986 The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy. Rev. ed. Norton, New York. Rolett, Barry V., Eric W. West, John M. Sinton, and Radu Iovita 2015 Ancient East Polynesian Voyaging Spheres: New Evidence from the Vitaria Adze Quarry (Rurutu, Austral Islands). Journal of Archaeological Science 53:459–471. Salmond, Anne 2006 Two Worlds. In Vaka Moana: Voyages of the Ancestors: The Discovery and Settlement of the Pacific, edited by Kerry Ross Howe, pp. 248–269. David Bateman Ltd., Auckland. Sand, Christophe 2008 Prehistoric Maritime Empires in the Pacific: Ga’asialilil (‘Elili) and the Establishment of a Tongan Colony on ‘Uvea (Wallis, Western Polynesia). In At the Heart of Ancient Societies: French Contributions to Pacific Archaeology, edited by Anne Di Piazza, Erik Pearthree, and Christophe Sand, pp. 73–105. Les Cahiers de l’Archéologié en NouvelleCalédonie Vol. 18. Département Archéologie, Nouméa.
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9 Population Migrations, Colonization, and Social Changes in the Late Prehistoric Lower Yangtze River T I A N L O N G J I AO
Population Migration and Colonization as Explanatory Concepts in Archaeology One of the fundamental problems in archaeology is how to interpret changes in material culture over time and space. For prehistoric archaeologists who do not have textual records to consult, this has proved to be a challenging endeavor constantly affected by their preferred theoretical perspectives. Over the past century, archaeologists have applied a variety of concepts to approach this question. Concepts favored by most cultural-historical archaeologists in the early part of the twentieth century, such as cultural diffusion, colonization, and population migrations, lost fashion when the processual approach dominated American archaeology in the late twentieth century. Although there are a few exceptions (e.g., Rouse 1986), migration as a concept was basically dropped from archaeological studies. This has been called as “the retreat from migrationism” (Adams et al. 1978). As a consequence, the archaeology of colonization also retreated to the realm of historical archaeology, where good historical texts can provide reliable evidence for studying colonialism. The archaeology of colonialism is especially relevant to comparative research on migration, because the processes of conquest and colonization require the movement of peoples across often great distances. Colonization necessitates migration for particular purposes. But recognizing colonists as migrants is made more difficult when one does not have historical records describing who was sent and where. For prehistory, most archaeologists focus on internal mechanisms for explaining cultural and social changes in the archaeological records, viewing cultural artifacts as tools for adaptation, not as a reflection of population migrations or the movement of people for the purposes of colonization.
While it is well recognized that early cultural-historical applications of migration were too simplistic, it is also acknowledged that people did move in prehistory, sometimes in large numbers and/or over great distances. As such, migrations for colonization should be reflected in different regions’ archaeological records. Therefore the question is not whether prehistoric archaeology is capable of investigating colonization and migration, but rather how to find and interpret the features associated with migration that are independent or part of a colonization process in prehistoric archaeological contexts. It is encouraging to note that since the early 1990s, both in North American and European archaeology, there has been a renewal of interest in reconstructing and explaining the mechanisms and impacts of population migrations. Early studies such as David Anthony’s (1990) criticized processual archaeologists who threw away both the bathwater and the baby by ignoring migration in their studies. Anthony’s call to reformulate the theoretical basis of migration in prehistoric archaeology was echoed by a number of case studies. Dean Snow (1995) explicitly explored migration to explain the changes of Northern Iroquoian cultures around 900 C.E., challenging the traditional model of in situ development. Catherine Cameron (1995) also identified population migrations in the Southwest. In 1997 a special monograph about population movements in archaeological studies was published, and it was titled Migrations and Invasions in Archaeological Explanation (Chapman and Hamerow 1997). In Europe a number of archaeologists also reacted positively to this new round of interest in population migrations. In 2000, Current Anthropology published two major articles written by two European archaeologists, one by Stephen Shennan, the other by Stephan Burmeister. Both Shennan and Burmeister criticized processual archaeologists for ignoring population migrations as an explanatory concept. In doing so, both of them offered their own theoretical approaches to and case studies of population migrations (Burmeister 2000; Shennan 2000). For instance, Shennan (2000) argues that in studying the process of cultural transmission, archaeologists cannot ignore the influence of population fluctuations and movements, and he believes that the expansion or contraction of population size play important roles in cultural changes. As a result of this more recent interest in migration, the past two decades have seen an increasing number of archaeological studies of population migration. Population migration as an explanatory concept has once again gained recognition in Western archaeology (Bar-Yosef 2004; Burmeister 2000; Clark 1994; Jochim et al. 1999; Renfrew 2002; Shennan 2000). However, it is important to note that this new interest is not a simple retreat to an old concept. Both the Population Migrations, Colonization, and Social Changes, Lower Yangtze River
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theories about and the methodologies to reconstruct the processes and impacts of population migrations are different from the earlier and rather simplistic cultural-historical approaches. For instance, many argue that population movements must be treated as a patterned human behavior and that archaeologists must first understand the structure of population migration. Anthony (1990: 908) writes: “If the structure of the migration process is understood, prehistoric migrations can be recognized by the patterning they produce, even in cases where the specific causes of migration remain unknown.” In the framework of new Darwinian evolution theory, Shennan phrased his study of population migration and diffusion “descent with modification” (2000). No matter what theoretical framework one takes, the fundamental question is still how to distinguish the material similarities produced by population migration, whether part of a directed process of colonization or not, from chance homogeneity, exchange contacts, or acculturation. In other words, what are the archaeological signatures of population migrations, especially within colonization? Anthony (1990) argues that one should look for the interrelated chain of information from homeland to the migration destination and that the existence of a narrow range of artifacts from the donor region to the migrant region is the clearest indicator of population migration. He maintains that the larger the number of converging traits, the more likely that the true explanation will indeed be migratory activities. Burmeister (2000) divides the immigrants’ material worlds into an external domain and an internal domain. He argues that archaeological evidence for migration will more likely come from the recognizable material styles of artifacts from the internal domain, such as the interior architecture of the houses, and the burial goods of marginal persons such as children. Shennan (2000) maintains that the key requirement for examining the impact of population dynamics is the development of a high-resolution chronology of the study area in order to be able to recognize the sudden appearance of a group of people from elsewhere. If a migration event happens as part of a process of conquest and deliberate colonization, then the appearance of people from elsewhere should occur in conjunction with evidence for political intrusion (colonialism). In the light of these theoretical discussions, this chapter seeks to use population migration and colonization to explain some of the new discoveries in Chinese prehistoric archaeology. It is noteworthy that most studies of the movement of people in China have been confined to the reconstruction of population migrations, avoiding the more nuanced concept of colonization. However, I believe that a large-scale population movement in a prehistoric 238
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context may also be an indicator of purposeful colonization, if we treat colonization as a key part of an aggressive attempt by one polity, represented by the immigrant colonists, to dominate the aboriginal population of a region. As Beaule explained succinctly in chapter 1 of this volume, colonialism should be viewed as one way to expand one’s territory with attempts to absorb the conquered subjects into the home culture or polity, and either isolating the indigenous people to minimize resistance or assimilating them culturally. However, it is equally important to emphasize that population migration and colonization are complex human behaviors. Without the backup of historical texts, prehistoric archaeologists can investigate colonization by systematically examining the origin of the migrations, the possible routes, and most importantly, the impact upon the indigenous cultures. To be more specific, an effective archaeological study of migration as part of colonization should address the following objectives: 1. Identify the difference or discontinuity with respect to previous material cultures in the region. As an assemblage, a newly established immigrant culture should display evident differences from the previous culture. In other words, their origin cannot be found locally. 2. Search for a possible source culture (homeland) and their migration route. An immigrant culture should resemble its parent culture in many aspects. However, because of the founder effect and adaptation to local context, this derivative culture might display differences from the source culture. This principle should also apply to look for the possible migration route. The immigrant sites between the homeland and the migrant destiny should have strong similarities with the parent cultures, but differences might also occur as well. 3. A high-resolution chronological sequence has to be established both for the source culture and the derivative culture. The dating should consistently show that the source culture was earlier than the derivative cultures. 4. Identify the immigration process and explain the impacts upon the local culture. It is an abrupt replacement or a gradual assimilation? If it is a complete replacement, there should be evidence of the nature of the adaptive advantage that allowed the newcomers to replace or dominate the previous residents of the region. 5. Explain the context of the migration, especially regarding prehistoric colonization. There should be evidence for colonialism, or for the Population Migrations, Colonization, and Social Changes, Lower Yangtze River
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deliberate effort to politically dominate a subject region by a distant, likely more politically powerful state. Evidence of economic reorganization or changes in order to meet tribute demands or for the attempted economic exploitation of a region’s resources similarly suggests colonialism. The appearance then of a recognizable group of migrants from the colonial homeland would make it an example of migration for colonization.
Migration and Diffusion in Chinese Archaeology Compared to Western archaeology, Chinese archaeology underwent a different course of development (Chang 1986; Chen 2002). Since its beginning in the 1920s, the dominant theories in Chinese archaeology have experienced constant changes over the decades. Although it is beyond the scope of this chapter to fully review the theoretical trajectories of Chinese archaeology (see Chang 1986; Olsen 1987; Tong 1995), in terms of theories of diffusion and migration it is noteworthy that these concepts have never been explicitly rejected by Chinese archaeologists. As I will elaborate below, diffusion used to be an important concept to study the origins and the impacts of ancient Chinese civilizations, and in many cases the terms “cultural diffusion” and “population migration” were used interchangeably. However, since the early 1980s the focus of Chinese archaeology shifted to a regionalism paradigm, and the reconstruction of a regional genealogical sequence of archaeological cultures has become the priority (Falkenhausen 1995). Under this paradigm, when it comes to explaining interregional cultural similarities, most Chinese archaeologists prefer to use vague terms such as “influences” (ying xiang), “communication” (jiao liu), or “interactions” (hu dong). There has been little effort to explore whether similarities in material cultures were produced by trade, population migration, or other specific mechanisms. In this regard, like Western archaeology prior to the 1990s, population migration as a concept has not been critically addressed or theoretically tested in Chinese archaeology. And the mechanisms of migration continue to be ignored in Chinese archaeology today. The concept of diffusion was introduced into Chinese archaeology when it first started in 1921, marked by the excavation of the Yangshao site by Swedish geologist J. G. Anderson. Anderson discovered the earliest Neolithic culture known in China at that time, and he believed he had found the source of Chinese civilization. Based on a comparison of painted pottery, Anderson argued 240
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that Yangshao culture diffused into China from central Asia. By establishing an external source for the Chinese Neolithic, Anderson implied that the ultimate origin of Chinese civilization was outside China. This theory astonished Chinese scholars, who were taught by traditional historiography that China was the center for all civilizations. Although some fiercely criticized Anderson’s theory, without further evidence, most of them nonetheless felt powerless to argue against his conclusions. As a result, diffusion as a model to explain the origin of the Yangshao culture as well as the Chinese civilizations prevailed in the 1920s and 1930s. Not surprisingly, this external diffusion theory was challenged and subsequently rejected by later archaeological discoveries in China. By the late 1950s, with the establishment of the genealogical relationship between the Yangshao and the Shang culture, Chinese archaeologists proudly proclaimed that they proved Chinese civilization originated inside China. Anderson’s foreign diffusion theory was laid to rest. However, this does not mean the diffusion concept itself dissolved too. On the contrary, diffusion became an accepted model to explain the impact of Yellow River civilization upon other regions inside China. This has been referred as the “mono-center theory” (yi yuan shuo) of the origins of Chinese civilization (Chen 2002). This diffusion model also influenced Western studies of Chinese archaeology. For instance, from the 1960s through the early 1980s, K. C. Chang, the most influential American scholar of Chinese archaeology, published the first three editions of his influential Archaeology of Ancient China (1963, 1968, 1977). In that book he proposes a diffusion model to explain the spread of the Longshanoid cultural traits from the Yellow River valley to other regions, arguing that this process was the key to the formation of Chinese civilization. One American art historian, Robert Bagley, responded that (1999:133) “Chinese archaeologists rejected foreign influence, not diffusion; for them diffusion outward from the Yellow River valley has continued to be a natural assumption because it gives to this region the same civilizing role that traditional historiography ascribes to it.” In the early 1980s a model of multiregional origins (duo yuan shuo) was proposed for the formation process of Chinese civilization. Su Binqi proposed a regional diversity theory, dividing prehistoric China into seven major areas, each with a distinctive chronological sequence. Su argues that these seven regions all contributed to the formation of Chinese civilization and that at some points the Central Plain fell behind other regions (Su and Yin 1981). Chang later revised his Longshanoid model, proposing an interaction sphere theory, Population Migrations, Colonization, and Social Changes, Lower Yangtze River
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in which he argues for the formative importance of interregional interaction during the Longshan Period (Chang 1986). Both Su’s and Chang’s theories remain mainstream in Chinese archaeology today. One of the consequences of this theoretical continuity is that much effort is expended looking for regional continuities. Archaeologists in different areas or provinces devote themselves to establishing cultural continuities inside their respective territories. For most provincial archaeologists, it has become a priority to look for new archaeological cultures in their own province. Changes in the region are mostly viewed as an internal process, and in many cases, environmental changes are regarded as the primary reason. As a result, regionalism has become a ubiquitous phenomenon in Chinese archaeology (Falkenhausen 1995). This regional continuity model has been challenged by a series of new discoveries in the past decade. Abrupt changes or regional discontinuities have been described in many areas. This is particularly notable during the late third millennium B.C.E., when a number of highly developed Neolithic cultures in both the Yellow River and Yangtze River valleys suddenly disappeared from the horizon. The decline of the Shandong Longshan culture (2500–2000 B.C.E.) in the lower Yellow River reaches, the collapse of the Shijiahe culture (2600–2000 B.C.E.) in the middle Yangtze River reaches, and the disappearance of the Liangzhu culture (3350–2350 B.C.E.) in the lower Yangtze River area are among the three most prominent discontinuity cases in late Neolithic China. In particular, the collapse of Liangzhu culture around 2350 B.C.E. has drawn much attention from Chinese archaeologists, partly because it disappeared so abruptly following its peak. There have been many hypotheses about the causes of this collapse, all of which focus on internal factors such as natural disasters, political turmoil, or excessive religious waste. The impact of possible outside factors has never been seriously explored. As I discuss below, the newly discovered Guangfulin culture offers a valuable opportunity to reexamine the collapse of the Liangzhu culture from a different perspective. I explore the idea that the impact of outside population migrations might have played a decisive role in the final disappearance of the Laingzhu culture. On the basis of a comprehensive comparison of material cultures and a well-established chronological sequence, I argue that Guangfulin culture as an immigrant culture can be firmly established. Guangfulin culture was brought in by immigrants from the Jiang-Huai Plain, an area of the Zaolutai culture (ca. 2500–2000 B.C.E.). These immigrants were responsible for the final collapse of the Liangzhu culture around 2350 B.C.E. (Map 9.1). 242
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Map 9.1. Location of major archaeological sites in the text.
The Rise and Fall of the Laingzhu Culture: Continuity and Discontinuity During the period from 5000 to 2300 B.C.E., the lower Yangtze River delta witnessed continuous cultural development. Based on the stylistic changes in material cultures as well as the history of archaeological discoveries, Chinese archaeologists have divided this developmental sequence into three phases: the Majiabang culture (5000–3900 B.C.E.), the Songze culture (3900–3300 Population Migrations, Colonization, and Social Changes, Lower Yangtze River
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B.C.E.), and the Liangzhu culture (3300–2300 B.C.E.) (Mu and Wei 1978). Stratigraphic contexts and stylistic connections suggest that these three archaeological cultures have genetic relationships, that the Songze culture developed from the Majiabang culture, and that the Liangzhu culture descended from the Songze culture. The demarcation of each culture is based on the arbitrary selections of certain traits of a number of diagnostic pottery vessels and stone tools. As a consequence, there has been constant debate as to where the chronological lines between them should be drawn. On the other hand, the fact that it is difficult to separate them indicates that the whole delta enjoyed a relatively stable cultural development for roughly three thousand years and that this long-term stability was the foundation of the highly developed Liangzhu culture. Dominating most parts of southeast China both politically and culturally over a millennium, the Liangzhu culture marked a formidable peak in many aspects of southeast China’s prehistory. The core area of the Liangzhu culture is around today’s Lake Tai, and its impact reached as far as modern northern Jiangsu Province to the north, the Zhoushan Archipelago to the east, and southern Zhejiang Province to the south. A number of regional centers developed over time within the core area. During its early and middle periods (3300–2600 B.C.E.) the political center was in today’s Liangzhu area in Yuhang County, Zhejiang Province, with the Mojiaoshan site serving as their chiefly residential compound. Large rammed-earth foundations of palatial structures were found at this site, suggesting they were chiefs’ residences (Figure 9.1). The recent discovery of massive walls around Mojiaoshan reinforces the significance of this major site. The walls were built upon a foundation of quarried rocks, and their base was as wide as 60 m. An inner moat and an outer moat were also found parallel to this wall. The area within this approximate rectangular wall is about 290 million m2, the largest walled enclosure ever found in late Neolithic China (Liu 2007). Most Chinese archaeologists are convinced that this was the capital of the Liangzhu culture (Map 9.2). The high political status of this area was also marked by a dense residential population, elite cemeteries, and shrines. Within about 16 km more than 135 sites have been found, 55 of which have been excavated to various degrees (Zhejiang 2005). The density of the sites is almost as high as current settlement in this region. There are different population estimates for this Liangzhu capital. Hsu (1999) estimated that at least 100,000 people lived in this area. This number might be overestimated. Based on the settlement size and density, Zhao Ye argues that the maximum population would be 50,000 (Zhejiang 2005). In 244
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comparison, today this area only has 45,000 people. In any case, it is clear this was a densely populated area during the Liangzhu Period. In order to support this political center, resources from other areas were likely brought in (Map 9.2). A number of elite cemeteries and altars have been found within this walled enclosure and in its adjacent suburban areas, including the Fanshan cemetery, the Yaoshan altar and cemetery, and the Huiguanshan altar and cemetery. Most of the tombs at these cemeteries were elaborately furnished with jade artifacts, lacquerwares, and other precious items, indicating the interred individuals’ high social status. One of them, M12 of the Fanshan cemetery, was believed to have been “king” of the Liangzu society. The Liangzhu culture developed many regional centers over time, including the Fuquanshan site in today’s Shanghai area, the Sidun site, the Zhaolingshan site, and the Gaochengdun site in today’s southern Jiangsu Province. All of these sites have tombs lavishly furnished with jades and other precious objects, indicating their chiefly status.
Figure 9.1. Profile of the Liangzhu city wall.
Map 9.2. Major sites in the Liangzhu area.
Liangzhu accomplishments in craftwork, textiles, agriculture, religion, social organization, and seafaring were among the most advanced of their contemporaries. Jade carving represents the highest achievement in Liangzhu crafts. The Liangzhu elites were lavishly adorned with the precious stone both in life and in death. More than 6,000 pieces of jade were found in the Fanshan and the Yaoshan cemeteries. From daily ornaments (such as necklaces and beads) to symbols of power (such as yue [axe], cong [tube]), jade was the preferred material for elite identification (Figures 9.2, 9.3, and 9.4). As a consequence, Liangzhu artisans developed an unparalleled level of carving skills and achieved an astonishing artistic sophistication in jade work. Liangzhu society was based on an intensified rice agriculture economy. One of the Liangzhu technological improvements over their predecessors was the widespread use of stone plows to prepare rice paddies. This probably helped to increase the yields, which provided food surpluses for the support of its sophisticated social hierarchy. However, hunting, fishing, and gathering were still important subsistence activities. Marine resource exploitation was also important to the communities on the coast and the offshore islands.
Figure 9.2. Liangzhu jade cong-tube. 246
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Figure 9.3. Liangzhu jade crown-shaped ornament.
Figure 9.4. Liangzhu jade fork-shaped ornament.
The dramatic differences in the quantity and quality of tomb furnishings demonstrate that Liangzhu was a highly stratified society. Scholars are still debating whether the Liangzhu polity was a chiefdom or an early state, but most of them agree that the hierarchy was clear-cut, including as many as four social classes (Liu 2007). The sudden disappearance of such a remarkable culture around 2300 B.C.E. has puzzled archaeologists. Until the discovery of the Guangfulin site, in 1999, there were both chronological and cultural gaps between the Liangzhu and the later Bronze Age Maqiao culture, which appeared in this area around 1950 B.C.E. The abrupt disappearance of Liangzhu demands explanation. It is not surprising that most Chinese archaeologists dig deep to find an internal or regionally specific reason for the collapse. Environmental disasters such as severe floods, cold climate, or ocean transgression have been listed as possible primary causes for the Liangzhu disappearance (Chen 2004; Yu 1993). Internal political turmoil, or even an obsession with religious activities, has also been proposed (Song 2004; Zhao 1999). However, none of these hypotheses can explain why the Liangzhu material culture completely and abruptly disappeared. Natural disaster or internal political turmoil might destroy the political structure of the Liangzhu chiefdom or state, and the items associated with the elite such as jade or ritual artifacts could have been abandoned. But it is hard to believe that these forces were capable of fundamentally and suddenly transforming the styles of a regional society’s entire material culture, including its pottery, stone tools, and other kinds of daily utensils. Even if style changes might have happened after a structural adjustment in the society, the trajectory should be traceable in archaeological records. Over the period of almost three thousand years, from the early Majiabang culture to the late Liangzhu culture, the styles of material culture underwent constant transformations, but the sequence is so clear that the whole transformation process is continuous and gradual. In comparison, the collapse of Liangzhu was so complete and so abrupt that there was no detectable evidence to trace where it went. Its disappearance had remained an archaeological mystery until recently.
Guangfulin Immigrants and the Liangzhu Collapse The excavation of the Guangfulin site in 1999 offered valuable archaeological materials to challenge the above-mentioned conventional wisdom about the Liangzhu collapse. The Guangfulin site is located in Songjiang District, Shang248
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hai (see Map 9.1). Beginning in 1999, six seasons of extensive excavations have been conducted by the Shanghai Museum and various collaborators, and more than 2,000 m2 have been exposed. The most important discovery is a new material assemblage at Zone I that has served to fill the chronological gaps between Liangzhu and Maqiao, as evidenced by both the stratigraphic sequence and a series of 14C dates. The inventory of Guangfulin material culture, including pottery, stone tools, and jades, displays remarkable differences from the Liangzhu. Subsequently the archaeologists of Shanghai Museum proposed to name it the “Guangfulin Type” (Song 2004) . A series of 14C dates from the Guangfulin site and the Qianshanyang site suggest that the Guangfulin culture dates from 2350–1950 B.C.E. This time span fits well between the Liangzhu culture (3350–2350 B.C.E.) and the Maqiao culture (ca. 1950–1250 B.C.E.). The most important feature of the Guangfulin culture is its unique pottery assemblage and stone tools. The pottery consists of tripods (ding, gui), pedestal cups (dou), jars (wong), cylinder-shaped cups (tong xing bei), and basins (Figures 9.5 and 9.6). The styles of each of these pottery vessels are completely different from those of the Liangzhu culture. For instance, the tripods (ding) have three flat triangular feet with a dent on the lower end, and the body is usually decorated with impressed vertical lines. The pedestal cups have a tall, slender, plain pedestal with a shallow dish on top of it. These kinds of vessels did not exist in the Liangzhu culture. The cylinder-shaped cups and the gui-tripods are absent from the Liangzhu pottery assemblage. The Guangfulin jars are decorated with cord-marks separated into several registers by appliqués. Moreover, the stepped stone adzes, a diagnostic feature of the Liangzhu stone adzes, are not found at Guangfulin. Instead, the Guangfulin had a kind of stone arrowhead with a lozenge crosssection, a style absent in the Liangzhu culture. As often happens in Chinese archaeology, once an archaeological material culture is identified, similar remains are subsequently recognized in other sites. The study of the Guangfulin culture is no exception. Since 1999, cultural remains stylistically similar to the Guangfulin have been identified all over the former Liangzhu cultural area. In addition to the evident differences in pottery and stone tool types, the Guangfulin culture fundamentally lacks the jade artifacts that dominated all Liangzhu communities. These major differences in their assemblages make it difficult to identify a local cultural transition from the previous Liangzhu culture. Instead, they necessitate a search for the origins of Guangfulin outside of the Liangzhu territory. Where did the Guangfulin culture originate? How did it replace the LiangPopulation Migrations, Colonization, and Social Changes, Lower Yangtze River
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Figure 9.5. Guangfulin ceramic tripods.
Figure 9.6. Guangfulin ceramic jars.
zhu culture? Thanks to the fine-grained studies of regional cultural sequences in eastern China, it does not take a dramatic effort to find answers to these questions. On the basis of pottery styles, most Chinese archaeologists agree that most of the traits at Guangfulin originated from the Zaolutai culture (or Wangyoufang type), a regional variety of the Longshan cultures in the Huai River reaches, in an area often called the Jiang-Huai Plain. Song Jian (2004), the director of the Guangfulin excavation, systematically compared the Guangfulin pottery assemblage with the Zaolutai culture. He concluded that the styles of almost all major Guangfulin pottery vessels can be traced back to Zaolutai, demonstrating that the Guangfulin culture was developed from the Zaolutai culture, not from the Liangzhu culture. I concur with Song, and further argue that the changes from Liangzhu to Guangfulin were the results of massive population migrations from the Zaolutai territory into the Liangzhu area. The available archaeological data suggest that these southward population migrations happened around 2500–2300 B.C.E. They penetrated into the Liangzhu area around 2400 B.C.E., and within about a century they replaced the Liangzhu culture.
The Zaolutai Expansion The Zaolutai culture was named after the Zaolutai site in Yongcheng County, Henan Province (Li 1983). A series of 14C dates from a number of key sites suggests a date range for the Zaolutai culture of 2500–2300 B.C.E. Zaolutai culture is best represented by a unique assemblage of material culture, particularly pottery. Archaeological research has established its distribution in southeastern Henan Province and northwestern and middle Anhui Province, reaching as far as eastern Jiangsu Province, with the discovery of the Nandang site in Xinghua County (Nanjing Museum et al. 1995). The Nandang site is particularly important. The cultural deposit of the Nandang site is only about 10–15 cm thick, and the material inventory is almost identical with those found at other typical Zaolutai culture sites, suggesting the Zaolutai people lived here for only a short period of time. A comparison of the age of the key sites in this area suggests that the Zaolutai culture started to expand southward during its late period. In the Huai River Plain, a significant number of Zaolutai sites have been found, and some of them were heavily fortified. By 2400–2300 B.C.E. its frontier posts already reached into the Liangzhu territory, as evidenced by the materials at the Luotuodun site in Yixing City, the Longnan site in Wuxian, the Qianshanyang site in Huzhou Population Migrations, Colonization, and Social Changes, Lower Yangtze River
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and the Guangfulin site in Songjiang. All of these sites are located in the Lake Tai area, the traditional core of the Liangzhu culture. The reasons for the Zaolutai’s aggressive expansion have to be understood in the political landscape of central China during the late second millennium B.C.E. The extant archaeological data suggest that a number of powerful polities developed in the middle and lower Yellow River, and the appearance of an increasing number of fortified settlements suggests that they engaged in frequent wars with each other. Each polity was interested in expanding its territory. The Zaolutai was sandwiched between the Shandong Longshan culture to the east and the Wangwai III (or Henan Longshan) culture to the west, so it chose to expand southward. Their encounter with the Liangzhu culture probably started around 2300 B.C.E., and by 2000 B.C.E. they made the Liangzhu culture completely disappear from the horizon.
Colonization and Cultural Assimilations The fact that the replacement of Liangzhu by the Zaolutai culture took place in roughly two or three hundred years demonstrates that the whole process was not as abrupt as it seems to have been. It was a rather slow and gradual process, and very likely involved a high degree of cultural assimilation. Over the course of two centuries, the Liangzhu people gradually abandoned their traditional material culture, adopting the culture brought in by the Zaolutai newcomers. In fact, throughout its one-thousand-year development period, Liangzhu had frequent contacts with its northern neighbors. The Liangzhu artifacts, particularly the jades and black pottery flask, have been frequently found at many Dawenkou culture sites, suggesting that the northern people had developed a taste for imported Liangzhu artifacts. Interestingly, during its peak era (the early and middle period) the Liangzhu culture did not seem to accept any items from the north. However, this started to change during the late period, as evidenced by the materials at many late Laingzhu sites. New pottery types such as northern-style tripods and pedestal cups started to appear in the Liangzhu assemblage. The reason for this shift is not clear, but the fact that people started to accommodate northern material goods probably paved the way for their later cultural assimilation by the Zaolutai people. Interestingly, as the Zaolutai people migrated southward, their subsistence patterns and material cultures also gradually changed. Rice agriculture became increasingly important. As mentioned above, the Guangfulin culture also picked up some Liangzhu-style stone tools and absorbed some decorative ele252
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ments into its pottery assemblage. They also adopted some techniques or styles from cultures further south, as indicated by the presence of a few pottery vessels with geometric impressions. Nevertheless, around 2300–2000 B.C.E., Guangfulin culture arose from the ruins of the Liangzhu culture. The available archaeological evidence is insufficient to discern whether or not this replacement process involved the exercise of force. And we also do not know the population size of the immigrants. The size of the Guangfulin site is about 10,000 m2, a small village at that time. However, the construction of large houses at the Qianshanyang site indicates that these immigrants were organized under powerful clan leaders. In other words, these were not individual immigrants. On the contrary, their southward expansion was likely well organized and the migration was coordinated, with the goal of colonizing the Liangzhu lands to the south. This model is supported by the relatively quick appearance of Guangfulin culture, the apparent near-wholesale replacement of one material culture for another, and the size and complexity of the Guangfulin core settlement. Coupled with the sudden, as yet unexplained Liangzhu collapse and evidence for intensified rice agriculture, migration for the purpose of colonization is suggested.
Conclusion Population migrations have occurred throughout human history. For prehistoric archaeologists who primarily deal with cultural remains not recorded in historical texts, a critical challenge has been to properly identify migrations and to link a certain kind of migration to colonization using the silent archaeological assemblages. It is even more challenging to reconstruct a particular migration event’s process, its local impacts and causes. While it is true that cultural changes can be caused by a variety of factors, including environmental changes and social structure transformations, we have to keep in mind that migration is a common human activity. People move, and if they do so in significant numbers and with the authority of a powerful polity, they will create changes after they have successfully settled in a new land. Their appearance and the impact of their presence will be reflected in abrupt changes in the local material culture sequences that are prehistoric archaeologists’ basic data. In his criticism of processual archaeologists’ ignorance of population factors, Shennan (2000) claims that population dynamics is the most important factor to understand culture change. The case study in this chapter demonstrates that a sizable population migration and successful colonization of a region provide Population Migrations, Colonization, and Social Changes, Lower Yangtze River
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a powerful explanation for dramatic changes in material culture. Under such circumstances, immigrant cultures like the Guangfulin can eventually replace the local culture. The pattern of Zaolutai population migrations and colonization, which I believe was responsible for the final replacement of the Liangzhu culture in the lower Yangtze River around 2300 B.C.E., is likely relevant to many other similar cases in other regions of the prehistoric world.
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PART II I Rethinking Categories
T
his section of the volume brings together three chapters that challenge sometimes dichotomous thinking in the archaeology of
colonialism. The research questions we ask, the methods we employ, and our conceptual frameworks, definitions, and interpretive slants all reflect, to varying degrees, this moment in the history of archaeological research. However aware we are of the pitfalls of our terminology (e.g., contact period), the limits of our fragmentary data, or our problematic interpretations of long past events, we nonetheless plunge forward with our work. Rather than reiterating those problems, however, the three chapters in this section offer potential solutions. Chapters 10 and 11 complicate dichotomous thinking in colonial archaeology by challenging us to rethink what we mean by core/center and periphery/border/frontier. Focusing on local contexts and local responses, these archaeologists demonstrate that shifting power dynamics, rather than passive receipt of imposed traditions, characterize so-called frontiers or peripheries. In chapter 10, Ulrike Matthies Green and Kirk E. Costion offer a new framework for thinking about cross-cultural interactions of different types, on different scales, and especially at different levels of intensity and directionality. Their model deftly overcomes several shortcomings of other theoretical interaction models and provides a powerful but highly manipulable way to visualize various cross-cultural exchanges that may happen simultaneously. The kinds of complex, nuanced, and
highly variable interactions between distinct groups captured by the proposed model is especially applicable to colonial frontiers, where multiple peoples may come into contact. Green and Costion illustrate their model using evidence of interactions between four different cultural groups in the Moquegua Valley of southern Peru during the prehistoric Middle Horizon Period (550–800 C.E.). They briefly visit its applicability to three case studies presented in other chapters of this volume and argue convincingly for its wide applicability within the archaeology of colonialism (or cross-cultural interaction more broadly). Jay E. Silverstein’s (chapter 11) study of the Oztuma frontier in the Aztec Empire reconceptualizes this region as an interaction core rather than an Aztec (or Tarascan) periphery. Doing so allows Silverstein to see local Chontal agency in their responses to being caught in the middle of the Aztec-Tarascan conflict, Aztec colonization, and later Spanish conquest and colonialism. His careful consideration of both archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence allows him to reconstruct a complex settlement sequence for the populations of Oztuma. His work goes further than simply shifting the geographic focus from an empire capital to sites on its margins. He shows that this so-called peripheral region was itself the center of multiple periods of cross-cultural conflict, negotiation, and adaptation. Chapter 12 uses material culture analysis to closely read a series of religious artifacts, concluding that evangelization efforts reveal greater negotiation (in the sense offered by Adam R. Kaeding in chapter 3) in Latin America than in the Philippines. Christine D. Beaule explains this variability by referring to the greater population density of Spaniards in the Colonial Period Andes and by the intermediary position of Chinese artisans in the Philippines. She proposes a reconceptualization of
colonies as archipelagos of colonial influence. The archipelago (or chain of islands) analogy captures the variability across space and time in the impact of colonialism on indigenous cultures and landscapes. This idea of islands of influence is, she argues, more powerful than regional maps that simply color in large areas within which groups of colonists (and their artifacts) are distributed. Religious artifacts offer one simple category of material culture that helps us to see that variability, while the archipelago model offers a way to conceptualize it across space. These are not, of course, the only categories that the chapters in this volume challenge. And these three chapters could have easily been grouped with the others in part I and part II. Separating them this way, however, highlights yet another way to creatively pair case studies that cross the prehistoric/historic and Western/non-Western frontiers in the archaeology of colonialism.
10 Using a Graphic Model to Explore the Range of Cross-Cultural Interaction in Ancient Borderlands U L R I K E M AT T H I E S G R E E N A N D K I R K E . C O S T ION
Many archaeologists grapple with how to define and investigate the complexity and dynamism of the interaction between different cultural groups that may take place in colonial frontier regions. This volume is evidence for the ongoing struggle with this intricate topic. In this volume, ideas of periphery, frontier, or borderland invoke a sense of marginality, looseness, and permeability within and between disciplinary divisions, yet in this chapter and the next they also describe literal places, often at the edges of discrete and static political, social, or geographic spaces. We prefer to view these places as cultural interaction zones in which a wide range of interactions and exchanges occur simultaneously. In recent years, as the archaeological focus on the complexity of interaction has shifted away from the control of expanding centers and onto the peripheral stage where cross-cultural interactions take place, the investigation of frontiers and borderlands in colonial contexts has become especially important (Alcock et al. 2001; Cusick 1998; Malpass 1993; Schreiber 1992, 2005; Silliman 2005; Stein 2002; Stein, ed. 2005). We believe that in order to study complex culture contact as a result of state expansion, it is not enough to simply shift the research focus onto the periphery. These peripheral areas must be viewed as interaction zones in their own right, with dynamics not necessarily induced or monopolized by a powerful core or center (Jennings 2006). In order to best understand the nature of colonies in peripheries, it is essential to investigate both the colonizers and the local/indigenous populations. A balanced view recognizes that local participants make up at least 50 percent of the interaction in colonial peripheries (Alcock et al. 2001; Cusick 1998; Silliman 2005; Stein 2002), and their participation includes a variety of options and motivations embedded within localized traditions and customs. Considering indigenous perspectives in tandem with foreign aspirations is crucial to a nuanced understand-
ing of complex encounters in colonial settings, whether the result of colonization or diaspora. As a result, an investigative approach that most accurately captures such cultural contacts must allow for different kinds of interaction, such as formal conquest, local submission or resistance, selective local interaction, or the avoidance of interaction. Building on Gosden’s (2004:25) statement that “colonial cultures were created by all who participated in them, with colonizer and colonized alike being radically changed by the experience,” we argue that the same is true for any number of cross-cultural interaction scenarios. This is well supported by the case studies in chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5 as well. Reflecting this shift in thinking, many investigations of colonial peripheries in more recent years include both foreign and local perspectives (Dietler 2010; Silliman 2005; Wells 1998). Yet it can be difficult to conceptualize the palimpsestic quality of interactions that take place in these settings. Part of this challenge comes from the nature of our discipline itself. As Beaule emphasizes in chapter 1, as specialists we often create our own boxes based on material, methodological, theoretical, geographical, or cultural foci, not allowing for a more extensive crossfertilization of alternate views of our own data. What is needed is an interface suited to the comparison of data, analysis, and theoretical interpretations. To that end, we introduce a graphic model for representing a range of crosscultural interaction designed specifically to address these disciplinary challenges of conceptualization (Figure 10.1). This model allows for the visual interpretation of archaeological evidence for cross-cultural interactions, and thus facilitates a link between material culture and abstract theoretical models for cross-cultural interaction. One important connection that our model highlights, for instance, is the practice of consumption. Both Dietler (2010) and Gosden (2004) emphasize the importance of consumption patterns as a material manifestation of cultural exchange. Our model can be used to express the links between the adoption of different cultural goods and practices by a group, to changed preferences for particular kinds of goods. The specific workings of this model will be described in detail below. However, we will first review the archaeological evidence and the theoretical advances that led us to develop this graphic model for cross-cultural interaction. Within the context of Beaule’s terminology (chapter 1, this volume), our chapter specifically applies to the analysis of foreign colonies in the cultural and geographic borderlands at the edges of the influence sphere of expansive states. Nonetheless, the model is easily adaptable to less peripheral contexts of colonization. 262
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Figure 10.1. Graphic model of cross-cultural interaction emphasizing both intensity and directionality of exchange.
The initial inspiration for developing our model came about because we were looking for a better way to depict the complex cross-cultural interactions that took place during the early Middle Horizon (ca. 550–800 C.E.) in the Moquegua Valley of southern Peru (Map 10.1). This was a time of great change as two new Andean states, Wari and Tiwanaku, became increasingly influential throughout the south-central Andes. Early in the Middle Horizon, Wari control radiated north and south from the highland capital at Huari. The state eventually controlled much of the central Peruvian highlands and coastal desert until its collapse around circa 1000 C.E. (D’Altroy and Schreiber 2004). Many scholars consider the Wari state a colonial empire because of evidence for its strong political and economic control over a variety of different ethnic groups as well as its profound ideological influence in those territories (Cook 2001; D’Altroy and Schreiber 2004; Isbell and McEwan 1991; McEwan and Williams 2012; Schreiber 1992, 2001, 2005). However, Wari control was not uniformly exerted, especially along the coast, and their imperial strategies varied. In the Carhuarazo and Moquegua Valleys, the Wari employed strong hands-on control involving the construction of official large-scale administrative structures, Cross-Cultural Interaction in Ancient Borderlands
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Map 10.1. Map of the Moquegua Valley showing the locations of Yahuay Alta and Cerro Trapiche in relation to other important sites and landmarks in the region. (Adapted from Williams and Nash 2002:Figure 8.1.)
extensive terracing of valley slopes, and even the resettlement of local populations (D’Altroy and Schreiber 2004; Nash 2009; Schreiber 1992). Such cases are unambiguous examples of colonialism as defined by Beaule in chapter 1. In contrast, in the Cotahuasi and Majes Valleys and at Viracochapampa, Wari styles and traditions were emulated or adopted, often imperfectly, without any 264
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evidence for direct imperial control (Belisle 2015; Jennings 2006, 2010; Owen 2010; Topic 1991; Topic and Topic 2010). Tiwanaku was a socially and ethnically diverse state that rose to power in the Bolivian Titicaca Basin and began expanding at roughly the same time the Wari began growing their influence sphere (Janusek 2002, 2004; Stanish 2002, 2003). However, Tiwanaku expansion did not involve direct state control over its periphery. Instead, the Tiwanaku state relied on hegemonic strategies for expansion by leaving local leaders in control (Janusek 2002). So, in contrast with the Wari, suggests Janusek (2004:162), “Tiwanaku was an incorporative more than it was a transformative state.” In the Cochabamba region of Bolivia the extent of Tiwanaku influence is debated and ranges from full administrative incorporation (Anderson and Cespedes Paz 1998; Cespedes Paz 1993:65) to imitation of Tiwanaku ceramic, textile, and mortuary styles into local culture through indirect means such as long-distance trade and elite emulation (Browman 1997:231; Oakland 1986:246). Tiwanaku established large colonies in the Moquegua Valley, and there is some evidence for direct control; however, this colonization appears to have focused only on the exploitation of local resources and did not involve the control or reorganization of local social, political, or economic structures (Goldstein 2000a, 2005, 2009). For these reasons, although the Tiwanaku state was clearly an expansive power, which at a minimum influenced a large territory in the south-central Andes, it is generally not considered to have been a territorial state (Dillehay and Núñez 1988; Janusek 2002, 2004; Stanish 2002, 2003). As a result, Goldstein (2005) has referred to the Tiwanaku colonies in the Moquegua Valley as diasporas, a term adopted by Beaule in chapters 1 and 12 (this volume). Our research on cultural interaction during the early Middle Horizon is tied to the Moquegua Valley of southern Peru. This is the only known area in the Andes where both Wari and Tiwanaku simultaneously maintained active colonial settlements (Williams 2001, 2009; Williams and Nash 2002). When Wari and Tiwanaku colonists entered the drainage circa 550 C.E., they did not encounter an empty landscape (Goldstein 2005; Williams 2001; Williams and Nash 2002). The middle Moquegua Valley was inhabited by indigenous smallscale farmers associated with the Huaracane material culture who settled the region as early as cal 385 B.C.E. (Goldstein 2000b, 2005). Wari and Tiwanaku colonial occupations in the Moquegua Valley have been extensively documented from many angles (e.g., Blom et al. 1998; Goldstein et al. 2009; Goldstein 1993a, 1993b, 2000a, 2005; Green and Goldstein 2010; Moseley et al. 1991, 2005; Nash 2002; Owen 2005; Williams 2001, 2002; Williams Cross-Cultural Interaction in Ancient Borderlands
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and Nash 2002). Wari colonization concentrated primarily in the steep upper Moquegua Valley, where intensive terrace agriculture supported a large colonial population at the monumental mesa summit settlement of Cerro Baúl. The Wari also established one major outpost in the middle valley at Cerro Trapiche as early as 605 C.E. (Green and Goldstein 2010; Williams and Nash 2002). The Tiwanaku colonization of the region, on the other hand, was entirely concentrated in the middle Moquegua Valley. The major population centers Omo and Chen Chen, like all Tiwanaku settlements in the middle valley, were strategically positioned at considerable distances from the river margins, where the majority of indigenous Huaracane settlements were located (Goldstein 2005). Because no evidence for interaction between the Huaracane and the Tiwanaku had been documented at these sites, it was not clear until recently whether or not the Huaracane settlements in the middle valley were inhabited during the early Middle Horizon. However, new research, primarily at the sites of Yahuay Alta and Cerro Trapiche, has established that the Huaracane remained in the middle valley until circa 800 C.E. (Costion 2009; Costion 2013:Table 1; Costion and Green 2009; Green and Goldstein 2010). Because the middle Moquegua Valley was shared by Huaracane, Wari, and Tiwanaku settlers during the early Middle Horizon, we believe that this area was very likely an interface for active cross-cultural interactions between the three groups. In what we call the “middle valley interaction zone,” Huaracane, Wari, and Tiwanaku communities were positioned in close proximity and even within sight of each other, providing an opportunity to exchange raw materials, technology, ideas, cuisines, and customs. Although the opportunity for interaction between communities may have been relatively equal, we argue that the degree of intercultural interaction differed from community to community within this cultural interaction zone. We suggest that individual communities deliberately controlled their level of interaction with other cultural communities. Our graphic model seeks to illustrate this interaction from various perspectives and to highlight the complex motivations for individual communities’ choices. After introducing the parameters for our model of cross-cultural interaction, we will apply it to the middle Moquegua Valley.
Modeling Cross-Cultural Interaction In our reading of the literature, scholarly approaches to understanding complex interactions in colonial borderlands can be grouped in three main categories: (1) radial models, (2) regional interaction models, and (3) frontier studies. Be266
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fore introducing our visual approach we will briefly review each of these models and evaluate its limitations. The first group includes radial models, a term we adapted from Jennings (2006:347). These models emphasize colonial interaction as the political and economic control of a core society of geographic peripheries. Core-periphery models based on Wallerstein’s 1974 theory of world-systems, for example, have been adopted by several scholars of ancient empires (Berdan et al. 1996; Ekholm and Friedman 1979, 1982; Kohl 1987; McGuire 1989). A more nuanced understanding of the exertion of core power was framed in territorial and hegemonic models, which have been applied to the Inka Empire (D’Altroy 1992), the Roman Empire (Luttwak 1976), and the Aztec Empire (Hassig 1985). These models suggest a range of imperial strategies implemented by expansive states to exert control over peripheral regions (Doyle 1986; Schreiber 1992). Territorial or imperial states employ methods of direct control whereby local political systems and leaders are completely subjugated and replaced by imperial political systems and administrators. This approach to administering peripheral regions is effective but at the same time extremely costly to the state in terms of manpower and resources (Schreiber 1992:14). Hegemonic states, in contrast, rely on various strategies involving indirect control. In essence, these strategies leave local political systems and rulers in place as long as they submit to the conquering state and pay tribute. For hegemonic control to be successful peripheral, regions must have an adequately complex and effective political administrative system in place, and rulers in these regions must also be willing to cooperate with the conquering state. When these conditions are met, hegemonic control is substantially less costly than direct territorial control (Schreiber 1992:14). Schreiber’s (1992) “mosaic” model of the Wari Empire allows for a range of strategies employed by imperial cores. Nonetheless, these models still assume core dominance over peripheral regions. In the traditional understanding of Romanization and Hellenization in European archaeology, for example, superior Roman or Greek culture radiated from its respective core society and permeated distant, passive recipients. As Dietler (2010:46) emphasizes, these perspectives assume an inevitable and unidirectional flow of cultural influences that results in a complete assimilation to Roman/Greek culture and identity by natives. Hingley’s research in chapter 4 of this volume shows otherwise. Radial models by their nature underemphasize peripheral regions and thus, according to Jennings, “inhibit our ability to understand” (2006:346) the true nature of the cultural interactions taking place there. This is because they assign Cross-Cultural Interaction in Ancient Borderlands
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a passive, subordinate role to peripheries and their populations and assume a unidirectional flow of social, political, and economic power from the core to the periphery rather than intercultural exchange. Although radial models, especially on the territorial and hegemonic spectrum, do address the intensity of interactions in colonial regions, they only offer two modes, intense and remote, which are directly linked to geography (close vs. far away) and single directionality of power (direct vs. indirect). A second approach that responds to the challenges of a core-periphery approach are what we call regional interaction models. The models emphasize cross-cultural relations between peripheral regions and do not consider the influence of core power as the exclusive driving force. Rather, they address issues of identity in both local and foreign participants. Jennings (2006), for example, uses this approach in reinterpreting the “Wariness” of the Cotahuasi Valley in Peru. Originally he assumed that the appearance of Wari-style artifacts in the area was a reflection of Wari control (Jennings and Craig 2001). However, he later noted the absence of the usual markers of core control, such as administrative centers, and explained the sudden appearance of local variations of Waristyle ceramics as a form of emulation by local potters to participate in a regional exchange system that seemed to favor Wari-style objects. Regional interaction models do an excellent job of shifting the focus to the local perspective in colonial regions. However, the graphic models associated with such explanations (see Jennings 2006:Figure 2) are not explanatorily powerful, especially when it comes to depicting specific interactions in a region. A third model of cross-cultural interaction comes from frontier studies, which focus on interactions between social groups and individuals when crossing undefined spaces between cultural spheres. This approach focuses mainly on the nature of boundaries/borders and the fluidity of exchanges between participants. Frontiers themselves are by definition not static but imbued with a sense of fluidity and dynamic change (Cusick 1998; Parker 2002, 2006). This approach to frontier zones is exemplified by Parker’s (2002, 2006) work on the Assyrian Empire’s Anatolian frontier during the Mesopotamian Iron Age. Like Elton (1996:3–9), Parker (2002:374) described frontiers as zones with different types of overlapping boundaries. His “Continuum of Boundary Dynamics” (CBD) model conceptualizes frontier zones as a mix of overlapping geographic, political, demographic, cultural, and economic boundaries, each of which can range along a continuum from relatively closed or static to more dynamic, open, and fluid (Parker 2002:374, 2006:82). In this model, analysis must include multiple lines of evidence to truly understand 268
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the dynamics of frontiers (2002:374–375). Using this model, Parker (2002, 2006) interpreted the Assyrian Anatolian frontier as politically and geographically restrictive but demographically, culturally and economically porous. We agree that it is only by investigating multiple lines of evidence that we can illuminate the multifaceted and dynamic nature of frontier regions. Although the CBD model is more attentive to multiple manifestations of cultural exchange than are radial models, it does not sufficiently address directionality in these cross-cultural interactions. Thus this model is limited by the very general representation of the exchange of ideas, things, and people without addressing motivations and the directionality of cultural exchange. Our model of cross-cultural interaction (Figure 10.1) developed out of our dissatisfaction with these three alternatives for colonial regions. In particular, we were frustrated with these models’ limited abilities to conceptualize the active engagements of multiple parties and the (at least) two-way exchange of cultural ideas, materials, behaviors, and people. We agree with Jennings (2006) that conventional radial models, such as core-periphery models, too often assume core dominance over peripheries and so overlook nuanced interactions in the peripheries. Second, both the radial and the CBD models ignore motivations for cross-cultural exchange. Although the radial model emphasizes core power, political control through colonization was only one vehicle of cultural exchange. A second, equally important motivation for colonization was economic resource extraction, which is often viewed separately and less often considered a factor in the visualization of radial models. Similarly, the CBD model represents that exchange occurs, but not how, why, or through whom. By contrast, interpretations within the regional interaction model do a good job of describing cross-cultural exchange, especially when emphasizing the local perspective. However, they rarely depict the interaction in a visually compelling manner. Although frontier-focused models such as Parker’s (2002, 2006) highlight the complex interactions that take place in peripheral regions, they often assume core dominance. In combination with frontier approaches, our model offers an effective way to investigate the complex exchanges in a variety of interaction scenarios, including colonization. Taking inspiration from these different theoretical avenues, our graphic model has the potential to represent a number of different kinds of simultaneous interactions familiar to scholars of colonialism. We believe that this model can work equally well in peripheral regions of expansive states or empires or in multicultural centers such as Tiwanaku or Cross-Cultural Interaction in Ancient Borderlands
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Teotihuacan. The graphic representation we developed mainly reevaluates two important aspects of cultural exchange: directionality and intensity of cultural exchange. In our model, directionality does not mean forced change but simply indicates the adoption of practices, ideas, or material cultures other than one’s own. It is represented by arrows. Thus an arrow showing the adoption of a foreign custom does not mean that the practice was imposed by force or included by the other group under duress; it simply indicates the origin. Nevertheless, the model could be easily adjusted to represent forced change in certain colonial situations if specific explanations are provided in the legend, for instance. The intensity of cultural exchange is another important aspect we wanted to convey in our model. One could argue that incorporating a representation of spatial distance should be more dominant; however, geographic distance is not always the main factor in how practices get adopted, as regional interaction models suggest. Just because different cultural groups are physically close, it does not mean that cultural practices are adopted or blended. Conversely, interaction over great distances may have little or great impact. The importance of long-distance trade across the ancient world is a case in point. Geography is important, but we chose intensity over geography because we feel that the former can more easily include the latter. This model of cultural interaction is especially applicable to the variety of exchanges between local peoples and outsiders in colonial frontiers and borderlands. It is similar to Parker’s CBD model (2002:374), but instead of different types of simultaneous boundaries, our model emphasizes different crosscultural relationships and/or interactions that may simultaneously occur in and around colonies. In our representation the selective adoption of foreign cultural practices or material culture by some local group members may coexist with purposeful noninteraction, rejection, or selective resistance by others, as well as with changes imposed by an imperial power. Elton (1996:113) and Parker (2006:81) have argued that not all types of activities within a frontier zone can be contained in the same way or to the same degree. Similarly, we believe that not all types of cultural interactions in frontier zones can be contained, and hence that different types of cross-cultural interactions take place with different intensities. Elite emulation (local elites mimicking foreign ideas or material culture as status markers) is one example of cross-cultural interaction; marriages of local women and foreign men are another. Deagan (1998) emphasized the formation of new creolized identities through a process of transculturation and 270
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Spanish-American ethnogenesis as a result of cultural exchange in the Spanish colonies. Her research at St. Augustine in Florida in particular showed that it was through marriages between Spanish men and Native American women that a new colonial culture was created (Deagan 1983, 1998; Ewen 1991). Lightfoot et al. (1998) examined the same phenomenon of multiethnic households at the Russian fur-trade post of Fort Ross on the north coast of California. Alaskan Aleut men, hired by Russians as seal hunters, married local Kashaya Pomo women and lived together in intercultural households, but these households were segregated in a distinct neighborhood adjacent to the fort. Both examples clearly illustrate that we need to consider a range of local motivations and individual choices about the directionality and intensity of different kinds of cross-cultural interaction. We believe it is imperative to highlight the simultaneous nature of multifaceted interactions in colonial frontier settings, because any society, even the most homogeneous, is made up of multiple groups with varied interests. The individuals within them are often members in an array of other groups (e.g., families, occupation, political/religious orientation, social position), which have different interests at the same time. Therefore individuals or groups of individuals may operate on the basis of a number of different motivations or interests in any given cultural context at the same time and choose particular ways of pursuing these different interests.
Why a Circular Frontier Model? When first developing an image for our model, we originally used the concept of a continuum or range of interaction similar to Parker’s (2002, 2006) CBD model before we conceived of the graphic in Figure 10.1. The process of developing a visualization of our ideas went through several phases. Our first version of the model included three levels of intensity of interaction, much like our current version, but we depicted the core population on either side of an imaginary horizontal frontier line, as seen in Figure 10.2. We quickly rejected this version, because to us the spatial arrangement of the participating groups implied core dominance over the periphery, which we wanted to avoid. The second version of the model (Figure 10.3) simply turned the first version on its side. This fixed the visual problem of implied dominance of the core over the periphery, as both cultural groups were now on the same level, but this graphic only works well for depicting the interactions between two cultural groups. Because our research region included four cultural groups, Cross-Cultural Interaction in Ancient Borderlands
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Figure 10.2. Rejected top-down model of cross-cultural interaction.
we needed a flexible way to incorporate multiple groups. This led us to the circular model (Figure 10.4). A circular model avoids the assumptions linked to a traditional image of a top-down or bottom-up association of core-centric models. It provides a view through a wide-angle lens on the multidirectionality of simultaneous cultural encounters. A second consideration that went into choosing a circular model was to avoid a linear and spatial perception of borders or frontier lines. We felt that a circle better reflects the fluid and continuous nature of cultural interaction zones. That is not to say that discrete borders or boundaries do not exist in frontiers. Symbolic markers in the natural and cultural landscape such as buildings, boundary stones/walls, mountains, and rivers can be sharply divide cultural, political, or geographic spaces. Archaeological sites themselves are specific delineated elements of an ancient frontier. To incorporate the porous yet concrete material nature of different cultural identities in a frontier, we used a dashed line to distinguish groups; this illustrates different participating parties’ separate identities but also shows their permeability. 272
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Figure 10.3. Rejected side-by-side model of cross-cultural interaction.
It is important to note that the circular and layered depiction of contact is not equivalent with distance. Rather, this approach can be used for a number of different scenarios. It can illustrate one culture’s range of interactions with others on a long-distance scale (e.g., an empire) as well as within a particular geographic setting (e.g., a colony). In a circular representation, various levels of interactions of multiple groups at the same time can also be easily illustrated. Finally, one of the challenges we faced was the number of cultural groups in our area of study and the difficulty of depicting all of them using linear models. Using the circle solved this issue, and we have subsequently found it to be quite adaptive as one can include as many groups as necessary in the circle. Cross-Cultural Interaction in Ancient Borderlands
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Figure 10.4. Circular frontier model.
Levels of Intensity The different shades in the model are intended to reflect intensity levels of cross-cultural exchange. For the sake of simplicity and clarity we used only three different levels of intensity of interaction between indigenous and colonial groups, although the model can be adjusted to reflect more-nuanced levels. The first level of interaction, represented by the outer, light gray section (a) of Figure 10.5, is one of limited cultural exchange where little or no cultural exchange takes place, as in the exchange or trade of raw materials. This would, for example, represent the type of colonial control associated with the hands-off influence described in hegemonic models. Again, this does not represent the geographical distance between populations. Although there are many instances where long-distance exchange may not have intensively influenced a local population, there also existed long-distance colonial influence that was quite profound, as territorial models for direct control suggest. Similarly, in noncolonial situations, long-distance trade may have influenced local power relations, as control over exotic goods can contribute to the development of complex local power structures. For example, in our study area (Peru’s Moquegua Valley) emerging leaders in the Formative Period Huaracane culture appear to have 274
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Figure 10.5. Levels of intensity of cultural exchange: (a) limited cultural exchange; (b) selective cultural exchange; (c) intense cultural exchange.
been engaged in long-distance exchange networks with the Pukara culture in the highlands of the northern Titicaca Basin and with the Paracas culture to the north along the south-central coast of Peru, in order to obtain finely made items. These items may have been used to enhance and/or legitimize the status of emerging Huaracane leaders (Goldstein 2000b). In addition, emulation of official state iconography and other styles as Jennings (2006) describes can be articulated in this way if the different shades in the model represent the degree of adopting of Wari elements into local stylistic expressions. Jones’s (chapter 2, this volume) examination of Haudenosaunee settlement ecology provides an excellent example of limited cultural exchange. During the Colonial Period on the western extreme of Haudenosaunee territory, the Seneca adopted the use of many European items and materials. However their daily practices appear to have remained largely unchanged (see Jones, chapter 2, this volume; Jordan 2008). The second level of interaction, represented by the medium-gray (b) middle section of Figure 10.5, illustrates the nature of selective cross-cultural exchange. This entails the adoption of specific practices or material culture into existing local or colonial societies as well as their reinterpretation within Cross-Cultural Interaction in Ancient Borderlands
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these groups. It means that a group of people might adopt an (to them foreign) idea or practice, but instead of emphasizing its foreignness, it is absorbed simply as an extension of their own culture. An example would be the use of new materials like silk, imported through the Silk Road, in Roman elite contexts by the first century C.E. The style of Roman dress remained fairly continuous, including togas and tunics styles over many centuries, yet the exotic material became an additional indicator of elite status (Casson 1983; Olson 2012). Similarly, many well-made Roman prestige goods, mostly metal drinking vessels and precious metal jewelry, have been found in graves that were located well beyond the Roman frontier in what Tacitus called “Free Germany” (Wells 1992, 1998). Interpretations of these burials indicate that they conformed to the traditional indigenous burial practices of the region, suggesting that indigenous German elites were utilizing Roman imports to assert status through their connection to the Roman Empire. There is no indication that these German elites were attempting to become Roman or emulate the Roman elite classes; instead, the Roman imports were simply reinterpreted within traditional German practices of acquiring and maintaining prestige (Wells 1992, 1998). This part of the model creates an area where one could represent kinds of interactions that do not fit well into hegemonic and territorial models. Wilson, Ames, and Smith describe very a similar example in chapter 5 (this volume) at the Chinook site of Middle Village. Here the evidence indicates that this settlement was set up primarily for exchange of goods with European fur traders. As a result, the local residents obtained much larger amounts of European goods than did other settlements in the region. However, there is little indication that any European traditions or customs were adopted along with these items. Instead, following our model for selective cultural exchange, the Chinook incorporated these traded items into their preexisting system for prestige building in much the same way as the German elites described above (see chapter 5, this volume). The third level of interaction, represented by the dark gray center (c) in Figure 10.5, is consistent with intense cultural exchange and involves the direct entanglements and incorporation or mixing of indigenous and colonial/foreign material culture and cultural practices. This includes direct interference with local populations’ economic, political, and social systems that territorial models suggest. At this level of intensity, direct cross-cultural encounters may coincide with geographic proximity. Frontier regions and borderlands with colonies or diasporas are good examples of where such direct exchange may take place and 276
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where all parties involved may experience changes in cultural practice and see the rise of new customs, identities, languages, ethnogenesis, and so forth. As discussed by Beaule (chapter 1, this volume), this may take the form of trade outposts, or colonies established for military expansion. The trade colonies of the Greeks fall into this type of contact as well as the Hellenization of the ancient world. Again, distance is not a main factor, as even long-distance encounters can create deep and severe changes in other cultures. Similarly, change can be autonomous or forced (as in territorial models). In chapter 7 of this volume, Littman and Silverstein describe a situation of intense cultural exchange in Ptolemaic Egypt. Here the Ptolemaic leaders, out of necessity, blended Macedonian and Hellenistic traditions and imagery with Egyptian symbolism in order to facilitate rule in Egypt. At least among the elite ruling class, Macedonians/Greeks strongly influenced Egyptians and vice versa.
Participants and Directionality of Exchange Figure 10.1 illustrates the main components our model: the participation of different groups involved in multicultural encounters, the intensity of cultural interchange/interaction, and the directionality of cross-cultural exchanges that may take place between them. The white dashed lines separate four different groups (A, B, C, D) involved in different types of cross-cultural exchanges. Because of the flexibility of this model, any number of groups connected through cross-cultural encounters may be represented by simply adding to or reducing the number of dashed lines. The model thus has the flexibility to illustrate multiple scenarios from a colonial frontier where several cultural groups may come together, or it can convey the isolation of a diaspora or enclave situation (with only two groups represented). It can also represent long-distance communities involved in any type of exchange, from trade to warfare. Similarly, the model can represent interaction and exchange through colonization. If no lines appear, this focuses the view to one society’s perspective only, and so can be used to focus on one group’s network of interactions in more detail. The arrows in Figure 10.1 represent the directionality of exchanges that occur within a region or between groups. Two-headed arrows represent hypothetical two-way exchanges, and one-headed arrows illustrate one-way adoption of foreign practices. In testing this model we found that it is more likely have two-headed arrows occur during intense interaction situations in the center, such as the example from Ptolemaic Egypt in chapter 7 (this volume), than on the outer perimeter of the model where less intense interaction takes place. Cross-Cultural Interaction in Ancient Borderlands
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However, this is not always the case, and it appears to depend on the type of interaction and the segments of a society that are involved in the exchange. Our example shows that Group A and Group B share a loose contact, which results in the limited exchange of ideas, practices, artifacts, and so forth. This sort of contact may occur, for example, through the mutual trade connections with a third party (Group D). Group A also selectively adopted from Group C some specific practices, such as cuisine, and simultaneously engages with the same group on a more direct level through shared religious ideas. Multiple sets of arrows then may represent numerous types of encounters that take place within different groups, with changing deliberation, and in different social, political, and economic spheres as well as in one or more geographic regions simultaneously. A detailed representation of borrowing, blending, or exchanging of specific practices, artifacts, or ideas between any groups can easily be customized through format, thickness, or color of the arrows and appropriate descriptions in an accompanying legend. For example, a bold arrow could represent change forced on a peripheral group by an imperial power, and an arrow with a dotted line could represent the selective adoption of certain imperial traits by a peripheral group. Line styles of the arrows—solid versus dashed or dotted lines, for example—could also be used to illustrate the blending of customs, ideas, artifact assemblages, and other factors resulting from intergroup marriage. If desired, the appearance of the arrows can thus be altered to represent the motivation for exchange/adoption of cultural practices or material culture as well as its directionality. In the following example we also employ the arrow style to represent our level of confidence in the proposed exchanges.
Application of the Model: The Early Middle Horizon in the Moquegua Valley, Southern Peru Figure 10.6 shows how we apply this model to the Moquegua Valley region in the Middle Horizon Period and demonstrates its applicability with real data. Our goal was to provide a straightforward graphic representation of the simultaneous cultural interactions and exchanges that took place within this dynamic multicultural colonial environment. As discussed earlier, for much of the early Middle Horizon (ca. 550–800 C.E.) no fewer than three distinct cultural or ethnic groups—groups that must have been aware of one another—inhabited the middle Moquegua Valley. In addition, the Coastal Osmore Valley, which is separated from the middle Moquegua Valley by a 31 km stretch of desolate desert known as the dry gorge, 278
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Figure 10.6. Cultural interaction in the Moquegua Drainage during the early Middle Horizon.
may have been inhabited by the Algodonal Early Ceramic culture during this time (Owen 2005, 2009, 2012). As noted above, we originally developed the graphic model presented here to help explain these complex cross-cultural interactions. But we are only beginning to understand the interactions within this culturally dynamic region, and we expect that in time our model will be extended geographically and chronically. Figure 10.6 identifies the four cultural groups occupying the Moquegua Valley during the early Middle Horizon: Huaracane, Wari, and Tiwanaku in the middle Moquegua Valley and the Algodonal Early Ceramic in the Coastal Osmore Valley. Again, in theory this template could incorporate any number of cultural groups coexisting within a region. In order to represent different levels of certainty about the interactions depicted, we used different types of arrows. In the figure, interaction (a) represents the cultural exchange between the Huaracane at Yahuay Alta and the Wari colonists in the region that resulted Cross-Cultural Interaction in Ancient Borderlands
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in the Huaracane acquisition of Wari obsidian. Obsidian, which has no local sources in the Moquegua region, was the highest-quality lithic material found at Yahuay Alta. Notably, this material was only recovered from early Middle Horizon contexts, while no specimens were found in Formative Period contexts (Costion 2009). Overall, in early Middle Horizon contexts obsidian was moderately important, making up 7.3 percent of the excavated lithic assemblages. However, its importance varied from context to context, comprising between 1.1 and 21.0 percent of the lithic assemblages in individual excavated contexts (Costion 2009:Table 6.5). The obsidian assemblage at Yahuay Alta included no raw nodules or flakes with cortical surfaces and was composed entirely of finished tools, primarily small projectile points, and small debitage (Costion 2009). Thus, this assemblage conforms to the expectations for indirectly procured lithic materials (see McAnany 1989:333; Vining 2005:35), indicating that obsidian was acquired through some type of exchange. Fortunately, obsidian can be accurately sourced, because every geological obsidian source has a unique geochemical signature. Research on geochemically sourcing archaeological obsidian has been conducted in South America since the 1970s, and the obsidian exchange network for the Middle Horizon in the south-central Andes is relatively well understood (Burger et al. 2000). A sample of 24 obsidian specimens from Yahuay Alta were geochemically sourced using a nondestructive X-ray florescence (XRF) technique.1 The results of this analysis found that 79.2 percent of the obsidian came from the Alca source in the Cotahuasi Valley and 12.5 percent came from the Quispisisa source in the distant Ayacucho Basin, the homeland of the Wari. During the Middle Horizon, as Burger et al. (2000) have convincingly demonstrated, each of these sources was controlled by the Wari Empire. Thus, the overwhelming majority of obsidian recovered from Yahuay Alta (91.7 percent) came from Wari-controlled geological sources (Costion 2009:Table 6.14). Only 8.3 percent of the sampled Yahuay Alta obsidian came from the much closer Chivay source in the Colca Valley (Costion 2009:Table 6.14). During the Middle Horizon this source supplied the vast majority of the obsidian to the Titicaca Basin and appears to have been controlled by the Tiwanaku state (Burger et al. 2000; Giesso 2000). Although it is debatable whether or not obsidian sources, which may be quite spatially expansive, can be effectively monopolized by a state (Jennings and Glascock 2002; Vining 2005:34), well-documented obsidian distribution patterns strongly indicate that the Alca and Quispisisa sources were controlled by the Wari and that the Chivay source was controlled by the Tiwanaku (Burger et al. 2000). 280
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The percentages of sourced obsidian found at Yahuay Alta are nearly identical to previous geochemical sourcing analyses on obsidian samples from Cerro Baúl, the Wari regional capital in the Moquegua Valley (Burger et al. 2000; Williams et al. 2010). These data demonstrate that the early Middle Horizon inhabitants of Yahuay Alta were obtaining their obsidian primarily from Wari controlled sources, suggesting that the Wari controlled the flow of obsidian into the Moquegua region during the Middle Horizon. Based on these data we interpret the presence of obsidian in early Middle Horizon contexts at Yahuay Alta as indicative of direct exchange between the Huaracane residents at this settlement and Wari colonists in the region. As a result, we categorize Interaction (a) in Figure 10.6 as one-way with limited cultural exchange, because based on current evidence no cultural ideas or practices were exchanged, and Wari did not obtain any Huaracane materials. Interaction (b) in Figure 10.6 represents the exchange that took place between Wari and Tiwanaku colonists that consisted of Tiwanaku acquisition of Wari obsidian at the Tiwanaku site of Omo. Obsidian was relatively rare at the Omo site, so Burger et al. (2000) tested only eight Omo specimens. The results from this small sample showed that it came from a variety of sources: two from Alca, three from Andahuaylas (another Wari controlled source), one from Quispisisa, and two from Chivay (Burger et al. 2000:Table 6.6). Thus even at a distinct Tiwanaku site most of the obsidian came from Wari-controlled sources. This suggests that Wari dominated the obsidian exchange networks in the Moquegua Valley, and that even Tiwanaku residents at Omo did not get the majority of their obsidian from Tiwanaku directly or through Tiwanakucontrolled exchange networks moving Chivay obsidian (Burger et al. 2000). In contrast to the more intense cultural interactions that took place after 800 C.E. in the upper sections of the valley, in early Middle Horizon Wari and Tiwanaku contexts throughout the Moquegua Valley there is very little evidence other than the obsidian found at Omo for cultural interaction or exchange between Wari and Tiwanaku colonists during this time period. As a result, we classified this interaction as one-way with limited cultural exchange. Another exchange in Figure 10.6, interaction (c), represents the apparent Huaracane adoption of Wari chicha de molle brewing practices at Yahuay Alta (Costion 2012). Chicha de molle is a mildly alcoholic beverage brewed from the peppery berry-like fruits of the Schinus molle tree (Goldstein and Coleman 2004; Goldstein et al. 2009; Sayre et al. 2012; Valdez 2012; Williams 2009). Evidence from both the Wari heartland in Ayacucho and Wari provincial centers, such as Cerro Baúl, indicates that chicha de molle was the preferred drink Cross-Cultural Interaction in Ancient Borderlands
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throughout the Wari Empire, and possibly even served as a marker of Wari ethnic identity during the Middle Horizon (Cook and Glowacki 2003; Goldstein et al. 2009:160; Sayre et al. 2012; Williams 2009). In addition, detailed analysis of the patterns of chicha de molle production and consumption at Cerro Baúl suggest that this beverage served as a marker of Wari elite status or identity, as it was only produced and consumed in official state and/or elite contexts (Goldstein et al. 2009). Evidence from the Wari middle valley center at Cerro Trapiche indicates that, as at Cerro Baúl, chicha de molle was produced here in large quantities and was possibly served in an area adjacent to a Huaracane cemetery (Costion and Green 2009; Green 2015; Green and Goldstein 2010; Whitehead and Biwer 2012). Finally, evidence from Yahuay Alta indicates that chicha de molle was also likely produced in large quantities at this Huaracane settlement. However none of the material culture, such as highly decorated drinking cups, generally associated with Wari chicha feasting activities, were found at this site (Costion 2012; Costion and Green 2009). Given this evidence, we classified this interaction as one-way selective cultural exchange, because it involved the incorporation of a Wari cultural practice into existing Huaracane feasting traditions, without the use of any Wari material culture generally associated with this beverage. Again we have no evidence to suggest that the Wari adopted any Huaracane cultural practices in turn (Costion 2012; Costion and Green 2009; Green 2015). Interaction (d) in Figure 10.6 represents the intense cultural exchange that occurred between the Huaracane and Wari at Cerro Trapiche. We classified this example as a two-way interaction because the evidence at Cerro Trapiche indicates the cohabitation of Wari colonists and local Huaracane in certain sectors of the site (Green 2008, 2015; Green and Goldstein 2010). The slope of Sector D, for example, is covered in Wari-style stone-faced domestic terraces. However, a comparison of the ceramic material from a systematic surface collection in that sector revealed that 39.5 percent was Huaracane and 57.33 percent was of Wari affiliation (Green and Goldstein 2010:Table 2.2). Test excavations in several of these terraces confirmed a mixed Wari/Huaracane pattern. Of 1,211 analyzed sherds from Sector D excavations, Huaracane material dominated with 51.94 percent (n = 629) over 42.11 percent (n = 510) Wari ceramics (5.95 percent unknown, n = 72) (Green 2015:Table 5.6). Ceramic frequency distributions of individual terraces reverse from 66.44 percent (n = 194) Wari and 30.14 percent (n = 88) Huaracane material on the lowest terrace (3.42 percent unknown, n = 10) to 78.33 percent (n = 47) Huaracane and 20.0 percent Wari (n = 12) (1.67 percent unknown, n = 1) on the top of the slope (Green 2015:Table 282
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5.6). These ratios suggest that while both types of materials were common in all excavated terraces there appears to a preference for Huaracane pottery on the higher slopes, whereas Wari ceramics appear more frequently on the lower slopes closer to Sector C. The majority of ceramics were utilitarian wares used for cooking and storage, consistent with commoner households. The mixture of local and foreign wares also indicates that basic household practices such as food preparation and consumption were likely performed in bicultural households. Additional evidence for cross-cultural entanglement at Cerro Trapiche comes from Sector C, where the Wari constructed a formal patio group (see Isbell and McEwan 1991) in close proximity to a large, open plaza area. One excavated room in this structure contained evidence for feasting preparations and both Wari and Huaracane ceramics (Green and Goldstein 2010). Based on this evidence it seems plausible that the plaza associated with this patio group might have been a location where Wari hosted feasting events or ceremonies, possibly for both Huaracane and Wari participants. Such ceremonies may have served as an interface where Wari colonists and local Huaracane community members came together to negotiate their relationships (Costion and Green 2009). Each of these four aforementioned interactions is represented with solid arrows to convey that we are relatively certain that they took place. In contrast, we are less certain about the following two interactions and thus depict them with differently formatted arrows. Interaction (e) represents a probable interaction between the Huaracane population in the middle Moquegua Valley and the Algodonal Early Ceramic culture in the Coastal Osmore Valley. There is no direct evidence for cultural exchanges between these groups, but given the similarity between their ceramics, the shared mortuary tradition of túmulo burial mounds early in the Huaracane tradition, the presence of marine products in small quantities at Huaracane settlements in the middle valley, and their close proximity, we suggest that a two-way interaction at the level of selective cultural exchange was very probable, especially during the Formative Period (Costion 2009; Goldstein 2000b; Owen 1993, 2005, 2009, 2012). However, the interactions presented in Figure 10.6 focus on the early Middle Horizon, and there currently is very little evidence indicating that the Algodonal Early Ceramic culture continued into this time period. Only one published date for this culture extends beyond the Formative Period; a single context at the site of Loreto Viejo dates to cal 440–610 C.E. at the 1σ range (Owen 2009:Table 8.2). Given the current uncertainty about the continuity of the Algodonal Early Ceramic Cross-Cultural Interaction in Ancient Borderlands
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culture in the Coastal Osmore Valley, we used an arrow with a dashed line to represent our moderately high certainty about this interaction. More evidence from the Coastal Osmore Valley is needed before making substantial claims about such an interaction during the early Middle Horizon. The last interaction in Figure 10.6, interaction (f), represents a possible relation between the colonial Wari based at Cerro Baúl in the upper Moquegua Valley and the Algodonal Early Ceramic culture in the Coastal Osmore Valley. Some Wari-style textiles and ceramics have been found in the coastal section of the drainage, which may indicate that the Wari traded with the indigenous inhabitants here to gain access to marine resources (Owen 2012). Nevertheless, because of our uncertainty about the continued existence of this culture into the early Middle Horizon, our level of confidence at this time is low; thus we classified this as a possible interaction and used an arrow with a dotted line. The data from Moquegua provide an example of how two different local Huaracane communities with different interests interacted with Wari colonists in the middle valley. One group was directly involved with the newcomers, while the other remained on the sidelines of interaction and only incorporated particular foreign elements into its existing cultural repertoire. It is likely that this selective interaction illustrates the particular interest of only some individuals within the Yahuay Alta community who wished to enhance their personal status within that group. The Cerro Trapiche example, on the other hand, may illustrate the decision of a larger group to engage in contact with the Wari on a more pronounced scale. The Huaracane community members at Cerro Trapiche may have had their own motivations for settling there—perhaps shifting the power balance in the valley or creating a local representation within the foreign settlement. Finally, the possibility of interaction between the cultures in the middle valley and the Algodonal Early Ceramic in the coastal valley adds another layer of complexity to the cultural landscape of this dynamic region. Future research into additional local settlements in the middle valley and coastal sections of the drainage could provide additional insights into how other Huaracane or Algodonal Early Ceramic communities might have shaped this multicultural colonial frontier.
Summary In creating and applying this model we have found that it can serve as an important analytical tool that allows for connecting a number of important processes 284
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embedded within the archaeological record of cross-cultural interactions. Applying the model to a number of scenarios required us to think differently about the processes involved in cross-cultural interactions. With multiple colored or shaded levels representing intensity, and variously formatted arrows representing directionality, our model simultaneously emphasizes two of the most important aspects of cross-cultural interactions and/or exchanges in colonial settings. In conclusion, we believe that the examples from our Andean research successfully demonstrate how the model of cross-cultural interaction presented in this chapter can be applied. It is able to incorporate the different types of archaeological evidence that we employ to analyze the dynamic nature of prehistoric cultural interactions in any multicultural region. With small modifications this model can easily and accurately depict any type of cross-cultural interaction on any scale. Furthermore the versatility of this graphic model can easily be applied to cultural-exchange scenarios in contemporary contexts, within or outside of contexts of colonialism.
Note 1. Patrick Ryan Williams of the Elemental Analysis Facility at the Field Museum conducted the geochemical sourcing of the obsidian from Yahuay Alta as part of a larger geochemical sourcing project involving obsidian samples from various sites throughout the Moquegua Valley. The analysis was conducted utilizing a portable XRF machine in the facilities of the Museo Contisuyo in the city of Moquegua, Peru.
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Nash, Donna J. 2002 The Archaeology of Space: Places of Power in the Wari Empire. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida, Gainesville. 2009 Digging at Peru’s Cerro Mejia: A Small Settlement with Big Imperial Surprise. Archaeology Magazine Online. December 4. Oakland, Amy S. 1986 Tiwanaku Textile Style from the South Central Andes. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, Austin. Olson, Kelly 2012 Dress and the Roman Woman: Self-Presentation and Society. Routledge, London. Owen, Bruce D. 1993 A Model of Multiethnicity: State Collapse, Competition, and Social Complexity from Tiwanaku to Chiribaya in the Osmore, Valley, Perú. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles. 2005 Distant Colonies and Explosive Collapse: The Two Stages of the Tiwanaku Diaspora in the Osmore Drainage. Latin American Antiquity 16(1):45–80. 2009 Early Agriculture in the Coastal Osmore Valley, Peru: Synchronous Events and Macroregional Processes in the Formation of Andean Civilization. In Andean Civilization: A Tribute to Michael E. Moseley, edited by Joyce Marcus and P. Ryan Williams, pp. 121–144. Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, Los Angeles. 2010 Wari in the Majes-Camaná Valley: A Different Kind of Horizon. In Beyond Wari Walls: Regional Perspectives on Middle Horizon Peru, edited by J. Jennings, pp. 57–78. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. 2012 Ceramic and Textile Evidence of Wari Interactions with Osmore Drainage Populations form the Sierra to the Coast. Paper presented at the 77th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Memphis. Parker, Bradley J. 2002 At the Edge of Empire: Conceptualizing Assyria’s Anatolian Frontier ca. 700 BC. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 21(3):371–395. 2006 Toward an Understanding of Borderland Processes. American Antiquity 71(1):77–100. Sayre, Matthew, David Goldstein, William Whitehead, and Patrick Ryan Williams 2012 A Marked Preference: Chicha de Molle and Huari State Consumption Practices. Ñawapa Pacha, Journal of Andean Archaeology 32(2):231–282. Schreiber, Katharina 1992 Wari Imperialism in Middle Horizon Peru. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. 2001 The Wari Empire of Middle Horizon Peru: The Epistemological Challenge of Documenting an Empire without Documentary Evidence. In Empires: Perspective from Archaeology and History, edited by Susan E. Alcock and Terence N. D’Altroy, pp. 70–92. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 2005 Imperial Agendas and Local Agency: Wari Colonial Strategies. In The Archaeology of Colonial Encounters: Comparative Perspectives, edited by G. J. Stein, pp. 237–262. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe. Silliman, Stephen W. 2005 Culture Contact or Colonialism? Challenges in the Archaeology of Native North America. American Antiquity 70(1):55–74. 290
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Stanish, Charles 2002 Tiwanaku Political Economy. In Andean Archaeology I: Variations in Sociopolitical Organization, edited by Helaine Silverman and William H. Isbell, pp. 160–198. Kluwer Academic/Plenum, New York. 2003 Ancient Titicaca: The Evolution of Complex Society in Southern Peru and Northern Bolivia. University of California Press, Los Angeles. Stein, Gil J. 2002 From Passive Periphery to Active Agents: Emerging Perspectives in the Archaeology of Interregional Interaction. American Anthropologist 104(3):903–916. 2005 Introduction: The Comparative Archaeology of Colonial Encounters. In The Archaeology of Colonial Encounters: Comparative Perspectives, edited by Gil J. Stein, pp. 3–32. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe. Stein, Gil J. (editor) 2005 The Archaeology of Colonial Encounters: Comparative Perspectives. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe. Topic, John 1991 Huari and Huamachuco. In Huari Administrative Structure: Prehistoric Monumental Architecture and State Government, edited by William H. Isbell and Gordon F. McEwan. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. Topic, Theresa L., and John Topic 2010 Contextualizing the Wari-Humachuco Relationship. In Beyond Wari Walls: Regional Perspectives on Middle Horizon Peru, edited by Justin Jennings, pp. 188–212. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. Valdez, Lidio M. 2012 Molle Beer Production in a Peruvian Central Highland Valley. Journal of Anthropological Research 68(12):71–93. Vining, Benjamin R. 2005 Social Pluralism and Lithic Economy at Cerro Baúl, Peru. BAR International Series 1461. British Archaeological Reports, Oxford. Wallerstein, Immanuel 1974 The Modern World-System. Academic Press, New York. Wells, Peter S. 1992 Tradition, Identity, and Change beyond the Roman Frontier. In Resources, Power, and Interregional Interaction, edited by Edward M. Schortman and Patricia A. Urban, pp. 175–188. Plenum Press, New York. 1998 Culture Contact, Identity, and Change in the European Provinces of the Romans Empire. In Studies in Culture Contact: Interaction, Culture Change, and Archaeology, edited by James Cusick, pp. 316–334. Occasional Paper No. 25. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale. Whitehead, W. T., and M. Biwer 2012 Paleoethnobotany of the Moquegua, Peru Region: A Review of Middle Horizon Plant Use. Paper presented at the 52nd Meeting of the Institute of Andean Studies, University of California Berkeley. Williams, Patrick Ryan 2001 Cerro Baúl: A Wari Center on the Tiwanaku Frontier. Latin American Antiquity 12 (1):67–83. Cross-Cultural Interaction in Ancient Borderlands
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Rethinking Disaster-Induced Collapse in the Demise of the Andean Highland States: Wari and Tiwanaku. World Archaeology 33(3):361–374. 2009 Wari and Tiwanaku Borderlands. In Tiwanaku: Papers from the 2005 Mayer Center Symposium, edited by Margaret Young-Sanchez, pp. 211–224. Denver Art Museum, Denver. Williams, Patrick Ryan, Veronique Bélisle, Augusto Cardona, Robin C. Coleman, and Kirk E. Costion 2010 Obsidian as a Commodity of Interrregional Exchange in Wari Sites of Southern Peru. Paper presented at the 75th Annual Meetings of the Society for American Archaeology, St. Louis, Missouri. Williams, Patrick Ryan, and Donna Nash 2002 Huari and Tiwanaku at Cerro Baúl. In Andean Archaeology I, edited by William Isbell and Helaine Silverman, pp. 243–266. Kluwer Academic, New York.
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11 This Land Is My Land Identity and Conflict on the Western Frontier of the Aztec Empire
J AY E . S I LV E R S T E I N
Imperialism and colonialism are terms used broadly to describe the character and mechanics of expansionistic states. Empire refers to a state that embraces a doctrine of military, economic, or ideological incorporation of foreign lands, while colonialism refers to a process of incorporation predicated on establishing control of land and people through the transplantation of imperial agents within a foreign territory. In Western thought, empires have an assumed position at the top of the sociopolitical complexity hierarchy. “Old World” superstates are so fundamental to the genesis of the concept of empire that our terminology derives from the Roman terms imperium and colonaiae (see chapter 1). Colonists often viewed themselves as representing a benevolent or at least a superior society enlightening or entitled to exploit a lesser people. Military and political achievement generates positive feedback between imperial expansion and self-aggrandizing displays and rhetoric that create a supporting cosmic rationale to explain military and political success. Because of this, disproportionate emphasis is carried in the archaeological and historical record of the dominant class of a society, resulting in history with an elite emic bias. Historically, Greece, Rome, and modern Europe have served as the intellectual core of most of Western academic thought about empire, and for the most part we have not escaped this “core” bias in our heuristics. Since the latter half of the twentieth century, scholars have begun to address this bias through anthropological archaeology, which opens the study of empire to include the periphery. Thus the discourse on imperial and colonial relationships has expanded its theoretical framework for modeling cultural interactions between superstates and smaller polities to include the agency of those outside the core. New perspectives that include “peripheral” peoples and models of cultural
interactions have begun to recognize the distortions that were a consequence of omitting from the historical record populations who had been marginalized from processes in which they were fully participatory. The variables available for modeling phenomena such as frontier formulation and colonization have grown, and the a priori presumption that imperial and colonial relations are unidirectional has faded. As data have been gathered from regions beyond the metropoles, ever more specific studies lend voice to those people who in prior studies were a “people without history” (Wolf 1982). This volume is part of that broad theoretical shift expanding the study of transnational interactions to areas beyond the core and the dominant class or ethnicity. It recognizes that to understand the forces at play in history and gain insight into the nature of human geography, we must search for comparative perspectives that span not only time and world geography but also draw from the sociocultural space within a culture-interaction sphere (chapter 1). In this chapter, ethnohistoric and archaeological data are used to shift the point of perspective from the core of the Aztec Empire to one of its peripher-
Map 11.1. Central Mexico and the Aztec-Tarascan frontier in the Late Postclassic. 294
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ies, the kingdom of Oztuma in the modern Mexican state of Guerrero, on the southwestern frontier of the empire. Long situated as a frontier between two empires, the province of Oztuma provides a unique opportunity to challenge interpretations of Prehispanic colonialism by evaluating the motives and situational adjustments of those indigenous to the province as well as those who arrived and settled as agents of the Aztec Empire.
Toward a Polycentric Perspective In this chapter I use the definitions of empire put forth by D’Altroy (1992) and of colony presented by Stein (2002), ones that fit well within the framework outlined in chapter 1. Two precepts define empire. Foremost, empires are expansionist states that exert control over foreign peoples and nations through coercion, conquest, or ideological persuasion. Second, empires are usually motivated by a perception that their geopolitical security requires a buffer and control of strategic locales. Security needs often parallel or rationalize the opportunity to extract resources and exploit indigenous labor from a foreign land (see D’Altroy 1992:9). Successful imperial endeavors often coalesce in the form of a political ideology that strengthens an expansionist doctrine. Colonies are planned settlements inserted into foreign territories for permanent or semi-permanent occupation (see Stein 2002:30). Colonies tend to maintain a distinct cultural and spatial identity from indigenous populations and usually maintain political, legal, economic, and social autonomy. Expansionist states promote colonialism with specific military, political, social, and economic objectives differentiating colonists from other migrant or refugee populations. Colonists allow a state to garrison and administer occupied lands, exploit resources, and put dissidents, retired military, and prisoners of war in locations that meet strategic objectives. However, the prolonged interaction of colonists with native populations often results in assimilation, hybridization, violent and social resistance, genocide, or civil war, all of which stress the relationship and identity of the colonists with their homeland. The study of imperialism and colonialism has suffered from a persistent bias in which dominant sociopolitical strata are favored because their legacy figures most prominently in the documentary and archaeological record. Concepts of imperialism must escape the gravitational pull of metropoles and consider the gravitational pull of peripheries. Each polity on the fringe of an empire is itself a center, and the interactions of these centers with each other Identity and Conflict on the Western Frontier of the Aztec Empire
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and with the central metropole creates relationships that radiate out into the larger geopolitical system. In the kingdom of Oztuma, on the southwestern frontier of the Aztec Empire, we have an opportunity to compare core and periphery accounts of the same events and to place those events within a general archaeological framework. Not surprisingly, there are dramatic differences between the official imperial history and the history told by those who lived where the events occurred. Notwithstanding the tensions and conflict between colonist and colonized, the two factions were dependent upon each other for success in confronting larger geopolitical challenges. Rhetoric from the imperial core served to intimidate enemies and create national solidarity whereas the few written documents composed on the frontier focus on economic and strategic challenges. Certainly, common economic, political, and military challenges united the indigenous population and the colonists, and they had to succeed or perish together. At Oztuma, geopolitics created stressors that required an adaptive response from the smaller polity that included dramatic territorial adjustment and influenced or even invited the establishment of the Aztec colony. From the Aztec intervention in Oztuma circa 1490 through the early Colonial Period in the seventeenth century, it is possible to reconstruct the response of the Chontal of Oztuma to external threats, foreign incursion, and colonization. The Aztec colonists themselves faced a series of stresses related to frontier maintenance followed by the collapse of their empire. Orphaned from an imperial parent, the colonists were left to contend as peers with a people they had previously subjugated. I begin with a summary of the geographical, political, and cultural situation of Oztuma on the eve of Aztec intervention in the late fifteenth century. I then model the political and territorial response of the polity to the unenviable position of being stuck between two clashing superpowers. This is followed by an analysis of why and how an Aztec colony came to be embedded in the province, and finally a brief assessment of the impact of changes in the political and legal environment following the collapse of the Aztec Empire and the arrival of the Spanish.
Oztuma’s Situation in Mesoamerica The kingdom of Oztuma spanned the transition zone between Tierra Caliente to the west and Tierra Templada to the east (Palerm and Wolf 1957; West 1973). 296
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The western extent of the kingdom lay in the fertile valleys while the eastern limits lay in the mineral-rich hills, giving the kingdom access to diversified economic resources. In the western river valleys, valuable agricultural products, particularly cotton and cacao, could be grown, while the saline headwaters of the Sultepec River supported a thriving salt industry and the surrounding mountains offered rich mineral resources including jadeite and gold (see Berdan and Anawalt 1997; Paso y Troncoso 1905:1:167; Silverstein 2000:303–313; Silverstein 2001). On the eastern edge of the province, on top of a ridge overlooking the main east-west road1 that rises 1660 m above sea level, stands the Aztec fortress of Oztuma, the seat of imperial power in the region (Arana 1979; Armillas 1942– 1944; Lister 1940–1941). In the valley 500 m below the fortress is the town of Acapetlahuaya, now the capital of the municipio (district) of General Canuto Neri. Where the western edge of the foothills meets the Palos Altos Basin there is a subvalley now submerged under the reservoir Vincente Guerrero,2 built in 1967 by damming the southwest mouth of the valley (Arana and Cepeda 1966; Castillo Trejo 1967). The river that runs through the kingdom changes names from the Alahuiztlan River3 to the Palos Altos River4 as it passes through Vincente Guerrero dam to flow west across the valley and through a cleft (puerta) in the ridgeline that defines the western extent of the Palos Altos catchment. The Palos Altos catchment is divided into two segments, with the town of Arcelia dominating the eastern portion of an otherwise sparsely populated region. Arcelia is a modern settlement named after the 1860s governor of Guerrero, Francisco Arce, and his indigenous wife, Celia, and appears to represent the resettlement of an area that was largely abandoned from the time of the Spanish conquest until the end of the Colonial Period in 1821. The northwest corner of the frontier is defined by the Tlalchapa Basin, which drains into the Cutzamala River. South of Cutzamala, the Prehispanic Tarascan regional capital, Ciudad Altamirano, sits at the confluence of the Cutzamala and Balsas Rivers.
The Political Geography of Oztuma As is often the case, there is a strong correlation between environmental, ethnolinguistic, and political boundaries. The western half of the Palos Altos Basin area consisted of Cuitlateca-speakers, and the eastern part was dominated by Chontal-speakers. Ethnic divisions were further subdivided into the basic Mesoamerican sociopolitical unit called an altepetl in Nahuatl (altepemeh, pl.). Identity and Conflict on the Western Frontier of the Aztec Empire
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Altepemeh fit the general criteria of peer polities (Renfrew and Cherry 1986) in that they are territorial sociopolitical units organized along segmentary lineage relations and encompassing a territory that rarely exceeded one day’s walk in any direction from the cabacera, or head town (see Lockhart 1992:14– 47). Thus the Chontal-Cuitlateca frontier was divided along ethno-linguistic and political lines, with the Cuitlateca altepemeh of Cutzamala, Pungaravato, and Ajuchitlan facing the Chontal altepemeh of Alahuiztlan, Oztuma, Totoltepec, and Teloloapan (Map 11.2). While maintaining distinct political identities, each alteptl seems to have been in a loose confederation or alliance with the other altepemeh of the same ethno-linguistic group. The linguistic frontiers are readily discerned from the town names. For example, the cabeceras of Cutzamala and Ciudad Altamirano, which are Nahuatl and Spanish toponyms, were at that time respectively named Apatzingan and Pungaravato, which are Purépecha (Tarascan) names. The town of Ajuchitlan was called Tlitichuc Umo, a Cuitlatecan name (Acuña 1987:35; Brand 1943; Herrejón Peredo 1978; West 1973:Maps 7, 8). To the east, Nahuatl names including Oztuma, Acapetlahuaya, Alahuiztlan, and Teloloapan dominate and can be attributed to the persis-
Map 11.2. Political boundaries on the Chontal-Cuitlateca frontier. 298
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tence of the colonization and garrison of the area by the Aztecs at the end of the fifteenth century and the subsequent usurpation of Aztec institutions of administration, including toponyms, by the Spanish (Acuña 1985:290–291; Durán 1994:344–348; see Harvey 1971:603–606 for Chontal linguistic boundaries). During the Late Postclassic Period these ethno-linguistic territories had Purépecha (Tarascan)- and Nahuatl (Aztec)-speakers interposed within the indigenous altepemeh (Pollard 1993). When the Spanish arrived, the interpolity frontier was defined by the subject altepemeh and a series of fortified garrisons spaced a day’s march or less from each other (10–20 km). In mountainous areas the fortresses appear to have been situated to allow visible communication (Hernandez Rivero 1994; Silverstein 2000). On the Tarascan side the key fortress/garrisons were Cutzamala, Ciudad Altamirano, Coyuca, and Ajuchitlan (Brand 1943:42; Lister 1940–1941:217). Aztec-controlled fortresses included Alahuiztlan, Oztuma, and Totoltepec (Brand 1943). The fortresses generally coincided with administrative cabeceras for the altepemeh and, as such, were identified in colonial sources as ruling over sujetos (tributary towns). Therefore the distribution of the sujetos allows estimates to be made of the altepetl territorial extents. Understanding the core-periphery geography of an altepetl also provides insights into the strategic, defensive, and economic priorities of the kingdom. Because the conquered altepemeh were incorporated as provinces, their boundaries coincide with the imperial frontiers and therefore the buffer zone between the empires can also be identified; across the frontier, opposing sujetos are separated by 20–60 km (Armillas 1946; Armillas 1951:81; Durán 1994:331–332; Hernandez Rivero 1994:23). For example, the distance between the nearest Cutzamala sujeto, Tecomatlán, and the Oztuma sujeto of Mihuatepec is 21 km. The valleys between Oztuma and Tecomatlan, in spite of obvious fertility, were devoid of settlement in the sixteenth century (and probably the late fifteenth century) and, for the most part, remained so at least until the eighteenth or nineteenth century; this was a legacy of the war of conquest.5
Ethnohistoric Oztuma Studies of Oztuma have not considered the province beyond its situation within the Aztec Empire. The very limited archaeological work in the province focused almost entirely on the Aztec fortress settlement that housed the Aztec garrison and imperial officials (Acuña 1985; Arana 1979; Armillas 1942–1944:166; Armillas 1946:12–13; Lister 1940–1941; Reyna Robles and Rodríguez Betancourt 1989; Identity and Conflict on the Western Frontier of the Aztec Empire
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cf. Silverstein 2000). In the Codex Mendoza, Oztuma is one of a few provinces to be noted as having an Aztec colony present as well as both a governor (tlacochcalcatl) and a military general (tlacatecatli) (Berdan and Anawalt 1997; Carrasco 1999). Oztuma entered into recorded history circa 1462 C.E., as the Aztec and Tarascan Empires entered into a war that would last until the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Initially, the Aztec-Tarascan confrontation occurred in the Toluca Valley north of Oztuma, but by 1480 a stalemate developed over the mountains that divide Michoacán and Mexico. A militarized frontier evolved with parallel chains of fortifications that extended south from the Lerma River to the Chontal territories in Guerrero where the Balsas River cuts its way between the Sierra Madres (Gorenstein 1985; Gorenstein and Pollard 1983; Hernandez Rivero 1994). Stalemated in the east, the Tarascans pushed on the southwestern edge of the Aztec Empire by annexing the Cuitlateca kingdoms of the Tierra Caliente (Aragon 1903; Pollard 1993). Accordingly, Cutzamala was militarized with a garrison of ten thousand Tarascan warriors sent specifically to confront the Aztec Empire (Acuña 1987). To complete the flank of the Aztec western frontier the Tarascan Empire needed to subjugate the Chontal of Oztuma or persuade them to join their empire. The Chontal altepemeh, especially in Oztuma, were stuck between two warring empires, and they now had few options: they could either choose a side or try and maintain independence. From 1481 to 1486, under the relatively weak rule of the Aztec tlatoani (king), Tizoc, Aztec power waned, and during this time Oztuma appeared to remain independent (Hassig 1988). After Tizoc was disposed of, Ahuitzotl took the throne and set about reasserting dominance through a series of military campaigns. Ahuitzotl quickly reestablished Aztec divine and political authority by inviting subject and enemy kingdoms to a temple dedication highlighted with the reported sacrifice of 80,400 prisoners taken during his first military campaign or supplied by attending dignitaries (Durán 1984:347; Tezozomoc 1987:521–524). The dedication of the Great Temple to Huitzilopochtli served as a threat to states that would challenge Aztec dominance. Having quelled internal dissent, the empire turned its attention to the Tarascan threat in the southwest. Lords from the Chontal altepemeh had refused to attend the temple dedication, and the flow of tribute had ceased from their lands. Aztec envoys to the eastern extent of the Chontal territory at Teloloapan were turned back (Durán 1984:343–349, ch. 44; Tezozomoc 1987:525–528, ch. 72). By 1487, Chontal polities seem to have created their own alliance to resist both empires (Connell and Silverstein 2006). The ensuing Aztec-Chontal war 300
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precipitated a chain of events that led to changes in the territorial organization of Oztuma (Silverstein 2001). Ethnohistoric records related to these changes are drawn from various sources generated during the extraordinary period between the Aztec conquest of Oztuma and the Spanish conquest of all of Mexico.
Historical Sources on the Conquest of Oztuma Colonial states are sustained though a system of expansion reinforced by extravagant displays as well as a bureaucracy to administer diverse realms. Inherent in this system is the construction of history that tends to obscure events, often to the exclusivity of propagandistic messages. Archaeological and historical records are infused with exaggeration and hyperbole (e.g., the recorded 80,400 sacrifices at one event) demonstrative of state power and legitimacy. Peripheries tend to be portrayed as subservient polities acted upon by the core and as largely voiceless actors on the political stage. However, in Mexico, as a consequence of the Spanish conquest and the superimposition of a new empire, the history of Oztuma was not wholly subsumed into the history of the Aztec or Tarascan Empires. Instead, after the exploits of Cortés the Spanish Crown sought to understand the vast lands they had annexed. Officers were sent throughout New Spain to learn of the people, resources, and history, and these accounts were recorded in a series of documents such as the 1548 Suma de visitas (Paso y Troncoso 1905) and the Relaciones geográficas of 1579–1580 (Acuña 1985, 1987). These records grant a voice to events that allow us to compare differing perspectives. Significant discrepancies as well as important concordances occur between groups of early Colonial documents relating to the history of Oztuma. One set of documents presents a perspective from the Aztec heartland, while other sources tell the same story from the Chontal point of view (chapter 6 in this volume outlines a similar conflict between historical accounts). The Relaciones geográficas followed a well-designed ethnographic method using standardized questions. While the data varied widely depending on the author, the relaciones of the Chontal region are exceptional thanks to a vigorous and intelligent investigator, Captain Lucas Pinto. His attention to detail and insistence on finding the appropriate sources from which to collect his data meant that he left a highly informative legacy of history, economy, geography, and culture of the Chontal. The archdiocese of Ichcateopan, the region assigned to Pinto, included the provincial capitals of Oztuma, Acapetlahuaya, Teloloapan, Totoltepec, and Alahuiztlan, and the relaciones for these towns are compiled as Identity and Conflict on the Western Frontier of the Aztec Empire
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the Relación de Ichcateopan (Acuña 1985:275–292; Paso y Troncoso 1905:6:105– 117). Documents include narrative histories that are derivatives of a lost source, Crónica X (Barlow 1945; see also Bernal 1994:565–577), particularly those written by Diego Durán (1984) and Hernando Alvarado Tezozomoc (1987). The Relaciónes geográficas of Oztuma and neighboring cabeceras offer different accounts of many of the same events described by Durán and Tezozomoc.
The Imperial Account of the Conquest of Oztuma According to the one set of sources, the Aztec ruler Ahuitzotl (1487–1502) viewed the Chontal’s refusal to attend his mass sacrifice ceremony as a provocation for war (Durán 1984:347; Tezozomoc 1987:521–524). While the articulated motive was the religious and political slight, there are hints that strategic concerns related to the Tarascan threat strongly influenced the Aztec decision to conquer and establish a colony at Oztuma. Aztec accounts say that Ahuitzotl sent spies disguised as merchants to investigate Teloloapan, and they reported that Teloloapan, Oztuma, and Alahuiztlan were in rebellion, having barricaded their roads with timber and thorny plants (Durán 1984:521). Ahuitzotl led an Aztec army to Teloloapan, quickly conquered the kingdom, and meted out punishment: They [Teloloapan] were ordered to pay the following tribute every 80 days: 400 loads of cacao and 10 loads of blankets, and also women’s clothes as well as the fruits and foods and all that the province grows and that the land produces. (Durán 1984:347, author’s trans.) The people of Teloloapan were let off easy, because they put the blame of inciting rebellion on Oztuma and Alahuiztlan. Warriors from Teloloapan then joined with the Aztec force to march against Oztuma (Durán 1984:348; Tezozomoc 1987:526). When the Chontal of Oztuma refused to yield, their fate was sealed: The king ordered the army to make ready. The horns and conches sounded and the Mexicans raised a great shout and bravely attacked the town, and when they were close to the walls they shouted: “Here in your own lands we are going to flay you and take your skins back to Mexico,” and with this they attacked so furiously that they broke through the fort and thick walls, and entered and put the temple to flame and began to kill as if slaughtering chickens. King Ahuitzotl said: “Do not kill the young men and women, we will take them to Mexico and of the rest leave no one alive; the unmarried men and women we will take back to Mexico to honor 302
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Tetzahuitl Huitzlipochtli.” Saying this did not stop the other nations from capturing and tying prisoners: the women, maidens, and female children wailed calling to their fathers and mothers, and the Mexicans, in a blood rage, killed their fathers and mothers, and they were captured. (Tezozomoc 1987:527, author’s trans.) Alahuiztlan met a similar fate. In the end, Tezozomoc (1987:527) reports a total 44,200 Chontal dead or captured. Durán (1984:348–349) writes that 40,200 youths were distributed to the various Aztec provinces and that other captives were sacrificed during the “Flaying of Men” fertility ceremony associated with the deity Xipe Totec. The lands of Oztuma and Alahuiztlan were depopulated, and Ahuitzotl denied the request by the people of Teloloapan when they asked the king to give them the lands. Six months after the battle, Ahuitzotl made the following declaration: Lords, you already know how in the past war against Teloloapan, Oztuma, and Alahuiztlan we have left the cities depopulated and all of their fruits, cacao, cotton fields are uncultivated and deserted and it would be a great sorrow if they were lost and destroyed. Therefore, I have determined to send people to populate it and to enjoy and benefit from it. I have thought on this and considering that these cities are large and heavily populated, I wish to send from my city four hundred of my citizens and that each of you send another four hundred from each of your provinces so that in total there are one thousand two hundred, and that from the rest of the provinces we send twenty inhabitants that together would equal eight hundred, and with luck two thousand colonists will go, a thousand for each city. (Durán 1984:348–351, author’s trans.; Tezozomoc 1987:528) However, the land of cacao and cotton promised the settlers was caveated as follows: [The colonists] were further advised always to be wary and ready with people always on watch, because they were on the frontier with those of Michoacán, their archenemy, whom they must watch with all of the vigilance possible. The Mexicans abhorred these people and they had a mortal hatred for them. (Durán 1984:354; Tezozomoc 1987:535) As we will see, the “depopulation” of Oztuma is reminiscent of the exaggeration of the Egyptian pharaoh Merenptah in his stele of circa 1205 B.C.E., who, when recounting his victory over various Sea Peoples, states: “Israel is laid waste, having no seed.” Identity and Conflict on the Western Frontier of the Aztec Empire
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The Chontal Account of the Conquest of Oztuma In the 1579 Relación geográfica de Oztuma (Acuña 1985:281–291; Paso y Troncoso 1905:6:105–115), the Chontal presented their own account of the AztecChontal war. This telling agreed with the general narrative presented by Durán and Tezozomoc, but it differed on some very important facts. To begin, the very fact that the Chontal were able to recount their version of the war tells us that they were not exterminated. The Chontal account states that during the reign of their king, Tetzauhtecutli (Table 11.1), Aztec emissaries arrived and demanded tribute. Tetzauhtecutli told them that he was the natural lord of the town and that the people would pay tribute only to him. Upon hearing this, the Mexica king sent messengers back to Oztuma with the warning that to refuse vassalage would mean war. Tetzautecutli remained resolute and had all but one of the Aztec messengers killed (Acuña 1985:285). Twice a Mexica army was sent to subdue Oztuma, but Tetzautecutli met them en route and annihilated them. A third, larger Mexican army was sent, and Oztuma was conquered. Many Chontal were killed or taken back to Mexico where the king of Oztuma and some of his captains were executed. Table 11.1. Kings of Oztuma Name
Rule
Notes
Source
Amalpili
unknown
Acuña 1985:283
Cuculetecuhtli
ca. 1460?
“en tiempo de su gentilidad . . .” Father of Tetzauhtecuhtli
Tetzauhtecuhtli
?–1487
Nochtechutli
ca. 1487–1488
Ahuehuetecuhtli
ca. 1488–?
Michtecutli
ca. 1519
King when Cortes arrived
Acuña 1985:287
Diego Osorio
ca. 1564–1593
Governor who met with Capt. Lucas Pinto in 1579. Son of Michtecutli Tax receipts
Acuña 1985:287; Jalpa Flores and Ramírez Celestino 1997:1,exp. 26, doc. 1, fol. 1 Jalpa Flores and Ramírez Celestino 1997:1,exp. 21–27, 142–144, doc. 24 to doc. 40, and doc. 4, fol. 2
Gaspar Osorio (also ca. 1606–1616 called Gaspar Flores)
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Son of Cuculetecuhtli, executed by Aztecs From the family of Tetzauhtecuhtli, died after one year
Acuña 1985:284–285 Acuña 1985:284–286 Acuña 1985:286
Acuña 1985:286
The rest of the prisoners were allowed to return home as long as they accepted Aztec domination (Acuña 1985:286). The Chontal then chose a new king from the royal lineage of Tetzautecutli; however, this king died within one year. Ahuehuetl Tecutli became the next king, and it was during his reign that the Michoacános came with their armies to make war and subjugate them. The Tarascan invasion led Ahuehuetl Tecutli to ask the Aztecs for military aid. In response, the Aztec emperor sent help to Oztuma with a captain and a company of his best men, and when guarding Oztuma they found a place where they could settle and build a fort (Acuña 1985:286). These documents corroborate the Aztec-Chontal war of 1487 and confirm that six months to a year after the war the Aztecs established a colony and fort at Oztuma. Several accounts provide specific details of the colonists’ hometowns and indicate that they were drawn from experienced warrior-merchants (pochteca) capable of meeting the economic and military demands of the frontier. The colony was not a temporary affair or mere military outpost with troops that rotated through; it was a permanent settlement that engaged in trade, agriculture, administration, and defense. The history of the colonists persists in oral traditions. Pedro Armillas (1942–1944:166; 1946:12–13) interviewed two elderly men from the region of Acapetlahuaya, and these men related that they were descended from an Aztec merchant captain who arrived with twenty families from Tlatelolco, a sister city to Tenochtitlan, and founded the fort of Oztuma and garrisoned Acapetlahuaya to maintain a frontier against Michoacán. The oral history correlates strongly with the Crónica mexicana (Tezozomoc 1987:ch. 74), and the reference to merchants appears in multiple sources. In the Aztec Empire, warrior-merchants often served as the vanguard to imperial expansion and as official state representatives (Bittman and Sullivan 1978:215). A warrior-merchant leader is consistent with the Aztec strategic doctrine that fully integrated the imperial tributary and trade economy with military power. The Codex Mendoza, a key source for the political and economic organization of the Aztec Empire, includes a logographic record of the Oztuma colony (Berdan and Anawalt 1997:folios 17v–18r). Analysis of the codex demonstrated a correlation between Aztec colonial outposts and their mother city-states (Van Zantwijk 1967). The Codex Mendoza confirms that Tlatelolco, home of the largest Aztec market, sent colonists to Oztuma. This also suggests that the kinship between colonists and their origin towns played an important role in maintaining and administering the Oztuma colIdentity and Conflict on the Western Frontier of the Aztec Empire
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ony. These warriors spread out from their initial settlement as suggested by Armillas’s (1942–1944:166) informants, who noted that, in the aftermath of a battle, some of the Aztec soldiers scattered and settled in the outlying towns of San Simón and Totoltepec. The various sources provide an exceptionally coherent description of the circumstances that led to the establishment of an Aztec colony at Cerro Oztuma; however, there are some important contradictions. The Aztec account boasts of horrific consequences to those who resisted the annexation of their lands, whereas the Chontal describe their defeat by the Aztecs but characterize it as one in which the victor rationally balanced the use of force with the cultivation of a client state that met imperial strategic and economic objectives. The survival of the Chontal is revealed in the statement recorded by Captain Pinto, “Siempre éstos de Oztuma tenían señor a quien reconcían los naturales” (Always those of Oztuma had a lord who was recognized by the natives) (Acuña 1985:287, author’s trans.), suggesting a history of political self-determination. The governor of Oztuma in 1579, Don Diego Osorio, declared that he was the son of Michtecuhtli, who was the Chontal king when the Spanish arrived. The Chontal polity survived the Aztec conquest, yet these events profoundly affected the altepetl of Oztuma. To assess these effects, archaeological data provide a means to reconstruct the Chontal response to a violent and unstable political landscape.
Chontal Adaptations to Conflict and Colonialism Precolonial Settlement No documents record Chontal history before the Aztec intervention, so reconstructions of the polity are based wholly on archaeological data and inferences drawn from post-conquest accounts. During the Aztec period, Chontal settlements were situated on hilltops as necessitated by the Aztec-Tarascan war.6 The arrival of the Spanish ended those hostilities, and indigenous populations were removed from defendable locales. Circumstantial evidence suggests that before the conflict, Oztuma was situated in the western part of the province in the Palos Altos Basin, in what became a no-man’s-land. The Aztec-Tarascan conflict forced the population to abandon the fertile bottomlands for the security of the highlands. As mentioned above in Durán (1984:351), Ahuitzotl lamented the abandonment of the cacao and cotton fields of the Chontal lands that was a consequence of their decimation. As the emperor exhorted his people to resettle 306
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the region he specifically referenced the abandoned cacao and cotton fields. Likewise, these are two of the prime products noted in tribute accounts for the region (Berdan and Anawalt 1997). Yet, Early Colonial Oztuma was relegated to ridge tops and highland valleys not ideal for cacao or cotton, whereas the Palos Altos Basin was ideal for these crops.7 It seems reasonable to infer that the Chontal of Oztuma cultivated the Palos Altos Basin prior to the Aztec colonization. This suggests abandonment of the western lowlands and a retreat to the east. If this hypothesis is correct, the focus of the Oztuma altepetl prior to 1487 would have been the Palos Altos River Basin, particularly in the valley that is now under the Palos Altos/Vincente Guerrero Reservoir and the area just east of the modern dam. Salvage excavations prior to the construction of the dam in the 1960s recorded a number of elite structures (Arana 1979; Arana and Cepeda 1966; Castillo Trejo 1967). Unfortunately, no detailed reports or collections survived (Raúl Arana, personal communication 1996). Drawing what we can from the publications related to the rescue work, we can at least see a pattern of settlement and the presence of elite architecture (Arana and Cepeda 1966; Castillo Trejo 1967; Lister 1971:626–629; Lorenzo 1966). In assembling recollections of the salvage project, Rosa Reyna Robles (1997:84–87) noted that artifacts associated with the sites included prestige goods such as decorated bowls with loop supports and copper rings. Some of the burials excavated at site Palos Altos 3.1 included cremations in ollas (jars), also with copper offerings. While far from conclusive, the data available do suggest that during the Classic (ca. 250–900 C.E.) through the preimperial Late Postclassic Periods (ca. 1400–1490 C.E.) the valley held significant settlement. Survey of the Palos Altos Basin indicates that sites immediately west of the dam included high-status Postclassic complexes8 that predate the Aztec or Tarascan presence in the valley (Hendrichs 1945; Silverstein 2000, 2001, 2002). Presumably, based on the pattern of overall abandonment of the valley, this was a direct consequence of the war. A survey in the “no-man’s-land” found evidence of a fortified zone situated to guard the entrance to the reservoir valley to the east (Silverstein 2000) (Map 11.3). Structures found between the towns of La Montaña (Site POC 98-054) and Palos Altos (Site POC 98-055) were determined to be disarticulated parts of a once continuous wall that had a fosse or moat on the southwest side (Sites POC 98-047 and 98-048).9 In addition, a lithics assemblage located outside La Montaña at the north terminus of the wall consisted of a concentration of sling stones and projectile points, suggesting a Prehispanic battlefield (Site POC 98Identity and Conflict on the Western Frontier of the Aztec Empire
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Map 11.3. Palos Altos–La Montaña wall.
054). A number of the arrow points had concoidal tip fractures consistent with having been shot, and approximately 3 percent of the obsidian was Pachuca green imported from the heart of the Aztec Empire, an unusually high concentration for sites in the no-man’s-land (Silverstein 2000:447–449). The hill that contained these artifacts also contained foundations of the ancient wall. Elders from La Montaña and Palos Altos said that the ancient wall ran between their town and Palos Altos and that in the 1940s it still stood chest high (Silverstein 2001). The wall was quarried in the 1960s and the stone used for dam construction. On an aerial photograph from the early 1970s, vestiges of the wall could be discerned, and the entire length was able to be traced by connecting extant segments a total length of 2.8 km. La Montaña and Palos Altos sit at bends in the Palos Altos River such that, when connected by the wall, they create a defensive island protected by water on the north side and a stone wall and what was likely a flowing moat on the south side. This fortified zone protected the only entrance into the Vincente Guererro reservoir valley. The survey and salvage work suggest settlements in the Palos Altos Basin may have formed the administrative and economic core of the Oztuma alteptl prior to Aztec colonization in 1487. It appears that the Chontal either constructed (or already had in place) a defensive line to hold the valley during the war. As the war intensified, fighting eventually forced a retreat from the valley into the highlands. The presence of Pachuca obsidian in the La Montaña assemblage could indicate Aztec support; however, Postclassic sites in the valley at and around La Montaña show little evidence of Aztec ceramics or Pachuca obsidian, suggesting that the contact was early in the Aztec intervention in the region.10
Aztec Colonization Post-Aztec settlement can be discerned from Colonial documents and archaeological survey. The best-documented settlement in Late Postclassic Oztuma is the massive fortification above Acapetlahuaya. Artifacts clearly correlate this settlement with Aztec colonists (Arana 1979; Armillas 1942–1944, 1951; Hendrichs 1940–1941; Hernandez Rivero 1994:23; Lister 1940–1941; Silverstein 2000, 2001). Documents, however, have led to some confusion about the occupational history of the fortress on Cerro Oztuma. Because the Relación geográfica was vague when differentiating the Oztuma fortress from another Chontal fortress capital, the two references became blurred. Armillas (1948:159) proposed that a second, not-yet-found Chontal fortress was located at Tejocotes, a fortified hilltop site about 5 km southeast of the Aztec fortress. Reyna Robles Identity and Conflict on the Western Frontier of the Aztec Empire
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and Rodríguez Betancourt (1989:15) suggest that the Aztecs had simply replaced the Chontal and reoccupied the depopulated hilltop settlement at Cerro Oztuma, and so the relación simply refers to the same place before and after Aztec colonization. Key to unraveling the mystery of the Chontal cabecera was an obscure archive of sixteenth-century documents tucked under a bed in the remote town of Ixtepec northwest of Acapetlahuaya. The search for this rumored archive led first to the abandoned town of San Simón Oztuma. The town with its roofless cathedral was nestled in a valley along the headwaters of the Sultepec River (Figure 11.1). Not a soul lived in there in 1998, but the cathedral and other municipal buildings indicated it had been a cabecera in the late Colonial Period. A shepherd boy and a traveler passing through said that the last inhabitants had left in the 1990s to search for work in the United States, leaving their children in neighboring towns. The traveler indicated that the town of Ixtepec might hold the archive, because “San Simón, Ixtepec, we are all the same.” The reference to spatially distinct towns as the “same” population suggests a persistent communal Chontal identity in the hinterlands of the modern municipio. It also seemed to indicate kinship distinct from those in Acapetlahuaya, who, in spite of being part of the same political unit, had no idea where San Simón was or that it had been abandoned years before. The Ixtepec archive not only provided an independent source on the early Colonial history of Oztuma but also allowed some clarification of the Relación geográfica of 1579. The references to the Chontal fortress in the relación that had been so confusing (Arana 1979; Armillas 1942–1944; Umberger 1996:163–164; see Silverstein 1997) were clarified, as was the existence of relaciónes for both Oztuma and Acapetlahuaya, even though both were in the same province. The documents also provided examples of the tension between the Mexica and Chontal. In the Suma de visitas of 1548 (Paso y Troncoso 1905), Acapetlahuaya is listed as a subject town of Mexicans under the cabecera of Oztuma; this suggests that the Aztec colonists were nominally subjects of the Chontal yet maintained a separate ethnic and subterritorial identity. In the Relación geográfica of 1579, the governor of Acapetlahuaya laid claim to six subject towns, saying the towns were settled by companions to those who had established the Mexican fortress above Acapetlahuaya (Figure 11.2). The same towns were claimed by the Chontal governor, Don Diego Osorio (see Silverstein 2000:ch. 3; Silverstein 2001). The Aztec of Acapetlahuaya argued that because of their service as colo310
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Figure 11.1. Ridgetop view looking north toward the cathedral in the abandoned town of San Simón Oztuma, 1998.
Figure 11.2. View northeast of the main Aztec fortress of Oztuma from an outlying fortified hill.
nists they had previously been exempted from sending tribute to Tenochtitlan, and that their Chontal subjects had provisioned them. Prior to the arrival of the Spanish, they claimed, their temple on the Aztec fortress served as the capital and location for prisoner sacrifice (Acuña 1985:292–293). From these statements it appears that the Mexica of Acapetlahuaya were trying to establish a legal precedent for their right to rule the province; however, Captain Pinto seemed wholly unconvinced and ended his interview at Acapetlahuaya abruptly, noting that he had already interviewed the Lord of Oztuma, thereby recognizing the legitimacy of the Chontal claims over those of the Mexica. Central to understanding the Relación geográfica and the settlement history of Oztuma is the location where the Chontal ruler Don Diego Osorio spoke with Captain Pinto in 1579, formerly thought to be the Aztec fortress (Armillas 1942–1944; Reyna Robles and Rodríguez Betancourt 1989). This, however, could not be true, since one of the first acts of reorganization enforced by the Spanish was the relocation of populations out of fortresses as part of a policy of pacification. The Aztecs were moved from Cerro Oztuma to Acapetlahuaya. The Chontal movements were less clear, since their fortress had not been located. The only reference to a Prehispanic Chontal fortress was made by Captain Pinto: They say that the town of Oztuma, in earlier times, was located atop a steep hill, strong and unassailable . . . we saw this hill, falling a half-league to the northwest from where the people are now. In this fort a few people could defend against many, and so they say that many times, they were encircled by large numbers of warriors from Michoacan and, with only a few, they were able defend just by throwing rocks. It is on the top of a tall hill, surrounded with stone, with two walls and their fosses that ran from end to end. In this fort the lords and principal people lived and had their houses, and, when the Spanish came, the population moved to where it is now. (Paso y Troncoso 1905:6:113, author’s trans.) Above the town of Ixtepec on Cerro Ixtepec is a fortress that matches this description. Pinto likewise gave a detailed description of the Aztec fortress, noting that it was located one league (4.2 km) from Oztuma where he spoke with Governor Osorio (Map 11.4). Thus, from the Relación geográfica we can discern at least three Oztumas: the old Chontal fortress, the Aztec fortress, and the place where Pinto interviewed Governor Osorio. The situation becomes more 312
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Map 11.4. Maps of the Cerro Ixtepec (left) and Cerro Oztuma (right) fortresses. (Based on Silverstein 2000 and Armillas 1940–1942.)
complex when the Ixtepec archive is taken into consideration (Jalpa Flores and Ramírez Celestino 1997).11 In the Ixtepec archive, records from November 1564 discussing salt tribute requirements at Oztuma refer to Don Diego Osorio as “el indio principal,” recognizing him as governor (Jalpa Flores and Ramírez Celestino 1997:198, doc. 3). A 1585 legal petition is signed by Don Diego Osorio, leaving no doubt that the governor in this archive is the same governor to whom Captain Pinto spoke in 1579, and that both sets of documents cover the same political geography (Jalpa Flores and Ramírez Celestino 1997:1–4, exp. 26, doc. 1, fol. 1, Figure 3.4; see Figure 11.3). Toponyms used to refer to Oztuma in the Ixtepec archive shift over time, apparently corresponding to relocations of the Chontal capital. By 1601 the ecclesiastical name San Simón was appended to create the toponym of San Simón Oztuma (e.g., Jalpa Flores and Ramírez Celestino 1997:75, exp. 35, fol. 3r). In several entries beginning in 1593 the town is referred to as “Ostuma del barrio de los Chontales en Cimatepeque” (Jalpa Flores and Ramírez Celestino 1997:44, doc. 2), while in later documents (1615 and 1630–1660) it is referred to as “Santa María Ostuma y Salinas de San Simón” (e.g., Jalpa Flores and Ramírez Celestino 1997:29, doc. 48). The various movements of the capital during the sixteenth century can be directly correlated to Spanish demands for tribute. Combined Identity and Conflict on the Western Frontier of the Aztec Empire
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Figure 11.3. Pages from the Ixtepec archive with Don Diego Osorio’s signature in box on right.
with the movements indicated by the archaeological evidence for the abandonment of the no-man’s-land discussed above, a model of Chontal responses to war and imperialism can be constructed.
Altepetl Plasticity in the Face of War and Conquest From the archaeological and documentary record, the existence at least five different Oztumas can be extrapolated between 1470 and 1628, some of which have yet to be specifically located.12 As the war between the Aztec and Tarascan Empires intensified, Oztuma must have found its situation ever more precarious. To the west were Cuitlateca polities backed by the Tarascan Empire with their aggressive attempt to roll the southern flank of the Aztec Empire. To the east were the Aztecs, eager to secure their flank. Stuck between two warring empires, Oztuma formed a confederation with the neighboring 314
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Chontal altepemeh of Teloloapan, Alahuiztlan, and possibly Totoltepec. The Aztec Empire responded by conquering the provinces. While Aztec chronicles tell of the complete annihilation of the Chontal population of Oztuma, other sources state quite clearly that the Chontal remained in their land and maintained their own tlatoani of the proper lineage, even while dominated by the Aztecs. The premise that the Aztec-Tarascan war led to the formation of a noman’s-land is supported by the absence of settlements between the nearest subject towns of Cutzamala and Oztuma. Archaeological correlates include the fortification of the Palos Altos–La Montaña line, the possible archaeological signature of a battlefield, and the abandonment of large settlements sometime during the Late Postclassic. In addition, on the Tarascan side of the frontier there is evidence to suggest strategic points of vigilance on the bluffs overlooking the no-man’s-land. On one long bluff top we found a high concentration of projectile points, water basins carved into the leached tepetate surface, and possible redoubts near the access trails (Silverstein 2000: Site POC 98-125) (see Map 11.5). The presence of well-armed settlements with no discernible economic function on the cliffs overlooking the west side of the Palos Altos Valley suggests military posts for Tarascan forces watching over the valley below. The Relación geográfica of the Chontal cabecera of Totoltepec, just south of Oztuma, reported that during the war with Michoacán and Ajuchitlan, raids came at night, indicating that defending the lowland settlements would be difficult (Acuña 1985:329). Given the intensification of the imperial conflict during the Late Postclassic, I suspect the valley under the Reservoir Vicente Guerrero became too vulnerable.13 The Chontal, acting as Aztec clients, abandoned the fertile Palos Altos River Basin for higher ground that granted security. The Chontal of Oztuma withdrew up to the hills where they coordinated the construction or enhancement of fortified hilltop sites to create a chain of fortifications in line with and in sight of the great Aztec fortress at Oztuma. The main temple at the fortress at Ixtepec offers outstanding views to the south, west, and north, all potential directions of a Tarascan attack. From the walls of Cerro Ixtepec it is possible to see the Aztec fortress at Cerro Oztuma, meaning that flags or fire could easily have been used to communicate along the frontier limes. Artifacts at the Ixtepec fortress and at a mound in the town below the fortress included greenstone beads, polychrome Chontal ceramics, and a single sherd of imitation Aztec ceramic. This contrasts sharply with the prominent presence of genuine Aztec III Black-on-Orange and Texcoco Identity and Conflict on the Western Frontier of the Aztec Empire
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Map 11.5. Aztec and Chontal claims to the altepetl of Oztuma.
Black-on-Red ceramics at the Aztec fortress, indicating direct exchange with the heart of the empire.14 While the fortresses appear contemporary and well situated for the coordinated defense of the province, their material assemblages are quite different. At some point, Ixtepec seems to have become the bulwark of the Chontal portion of the frontier and remained so until the abrupt end of the war. It is certainly possible that the settlement shifts eastward toward Ixtepec included other attempts to create defensive points along the way, perhaps first in the valley now under the reservoir and then to a hilltop east of there before finally hinging their defenses at Ixtepec. However, any reconstruction of settlement patterns between the Palos Altos Basin and Ixtepec is purely conjecture given the lack of data. Based on the description in the Relación geográfica above, Cerro Ixtepec was the Chontal cabecera when the Spanish arrived. After the Spanish conquest, the Chontal, like their Aztec neighbors, surrendered their hilltop fortress for the town referred to in the relación. As noted above, Captain Pinto wrote that the Chontal fort was located “a halfleague [half-hour walk] to the northwest from where the people are now” (Acuña 1985:289–290). The Chontal would have been moved off their hilltop fort, and assuming the identification of Cerro Ixtepec is correct, this would put Oztuma of 1579 somewhere along the ridge road to San Simón and Acapetlahuaya. There are remains of a Late Postclassic elite structure within the modern town of Ixtepec, but this is likely contemporaneous with the hilltop occupation rather than an early Colonial context. Later the cabecera shifted to San Simón Oztuma, where there are saltworks and the ruins of the cathedral, presumably the same cathedral whose altar plan is illustrated in the Ixtepec archive. The Ixtepec archive indicates that tax demands for salt, driven by the Spanish exploitation of the Taxco silver mines to the north, nudged the cabecera from the 1579 Oztuma to the saline headwaters of the Sultepec River at San Simón by 1601. The twist of history that overthrew the Aztecs provided an opportunity for the Chontal to reassert dominance of their land. By 1564 the Chontal seem to have established legitimate rule, while the descendants of Mexica colonists vainly attempted to at least remain independent by declaring legitimacy inherited from the Aztec Empire. One document from 1585 is a legal petition to the high governor in which the governor of Oztuma (barrio of the Chontal) asks for help to prevent men of Zacatlan (a subject town of Oztuma) from moving from their town to join the Mexica at Acapetlahuaya (Jalpa Flores
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and Ramírez Celestino 1997:1–4, exp. 26, doc. 1, fol. 1–doc. 2). This indicates that Mexica-Chontal tensions persisted for several generations after the fall of the Aztec Empire. In more recent history, new roads and the obsolescence of traditional salt-production industries have resulted in the shift in political and economic focus from San Simón Oztuma back to the Aztec descendants in Acapetlahuaya, now the cabecera of the municipality of General Canuto Neri. From this history we can see that the administrative and ceremonial center of the alteptl of Oztuma shifted in accordance with the geopolitical tides that washed over this frontier. Initially, they capitalized on the rich agricultural lands to produce cotton and cacao. Because of the imperial war, the people of Oztuma were forced to abandon their fertile lands and withdraw to a position of military strength. When the Aztec-Tarascan war came to an abrupt end with the Spanish conquest, the people of Oztuma again moved, first down from their strongholds as part of the Spanish program of pacification, and then again to meet the demand for salt in New Spain. Finally, the cabecera shifted as modern highways and changing economic patterns isolated San Simón Oztuma from contemporary México. San Simón Oztuma was abandoned less than twenty years ago, surrendering the last vestige of Chontal political control of the province. However, even though their language has died, the Chontal still maintain a sense of ethnic identity, now heavily mixed with that of the descendants of the original Aztec colonists. While the Aztec town of Acapetlahuaya dominates the province, the Chontal, with their sociopolitical center at Ixtepec, still recognize themselves as a people bound in kinship and traditions distinct from those in the southern half of the municipio.
Discussion Subdued and subsumed within the asymmetrical power structure of the Aztec Empire and faced with the persistent violence of an Aztec-Tarascan war, the Chontal persevered by adjusting to their strategic situation, favoring defense over production. With the cessation of the indigenous war in the early Spanish Colonial Period, new political and economic forces were introduced. These drove the demilitarization of hilltop strongholds and relocation toward areas of increased economic importance to the new overlords, a pattern repeated throughout Mexico and elsewhere (e.g., Seleucid urban relocation in Kosmin
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2014:193–221). Adapting to the new political geography, the Chontal astutely used the legal regimen of New Spain to recapture status lost during decades of subjugation under Aztec rule. In considering the motives and responses of the Chontal to the ebb and flow of geopolitical forces, this chapter illustrates the utility of rethinking the concepts of core and periphery. The canvas has been broadened to consider those marginalized and often neglected because of the bias of core history and monumental archaeology; this contribution is bolstered by the research in chapters 3 (Kaeding), 4 (Hingley), 5 (Wilson, Ames, and Smith), and 6 (Barretto-Tesoro and Hernandez) of this volume. By recognizing the underlying complex currents of sociopolitical power that slant the record, and by employing diverse kinds of data, we gain a much richer picture of colonialism. Many archaeologists have recognized that those without significant historical records did not lack agency, yet the ability to see and analyze them in action remains challenging. As demonstrated in this volume, this work can provide the context for our analysis of the modern geopolitical landscape. Social science is evolving in tandem with the social mores of contemporary society. Marginalized peoples empowered through globalization, legal precedent, and knowledge are increasingly gaining a voice in history. This process is readily illustrated in Hawai‘i, one of the farthest frontiers of the American Empire. David Keanu Sai (2008:242) concluded his research on the legality of the incorporation of the Hawaiian Kingdom into the United States thus: Despite the lapse of time, the 1893 Cleveland-Lili’uokalani Agreement remains legally binding on the United States, and the continuity of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a sovereign State is grounded in the very same principles that the United States and every other State rely upon for their own legal existence. In other words, to deny Hawai‘i’s sovereignty would be tantamount to denying the sovereignty of the United States and the entire system the world has come to know as international relations. The models for imperial and colonial dynamics (see chapter 1) derived from the past also apply to the present. History is, after all, more than trivial anecdotes from bygone civilizations; it is the precedent set for the future. As we extend our analysis of sociopolitical forces that have evolved our modern worldsystem, we enhance our control of our own destiny and design the moral and sociopolitical framework for our progeny.
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Acknowledgments Everlasting gratitude is given to Adolfo Díaz Flores, who loved his heritage and lost his life defending the traditions of the Tierra Caliente. Thanks to Aurelio Díaz Flores and the entire Proyecto Oztuma-Cutzamala team and the people of the Tierra Caliente and Ixtepec. A special thanks to Alis Rasmussen, Rhiannon, Alexander, and David, who faced a frontier where few foreigners travel. The mentorship and support of David Webster, Ken Hirth, Mike Smith, Raúl Arana, Rosa Reyna Robles, and Dorothy Hossler was essential to the success of this project. This work would not have been possible without the support of the National Science Foundation and the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies.
Notes 1. This road is now called Highway 51. 2. This reservoir is also called the Palos Altos Reservoir. 3. The Alahuiztlan River is also known as the Sultepec River, and in early Colonial times it was known as the Xahualapa River (Acuña 1985:288). 4. This is also known as the Poliutla River. 5. The subsequent decrease in population following conquest and the focused mining industry undoubtedly minimized population pressure that might have led to an earlier reoccupation of the frontier. 6. For example, in the province of Totoltepec, just south of Oztuma, the people reported to Captain Pinto that they were upset with the Prehispanic government because of the war with the Tarascans and that the enemy used to raid them at night (Acuña 1985:329). 7. In 1998, I observed wild cotton growing in the central Palos Altos Basin. 8. See, for example, Silverstein 2000: Site POC 98-112. 9. Site references are from Silverstein 2000 and are prefixed with POC (Proyecto OztumaCutzamala). 10. Six of 211 pieces of obsidian at POC 98-054 were from Pachuca, an exceptional proportion for the no-man’s-land, which was otherwise almost devoid of utilitarian (blade/point) Pachuca obsidian (Silverstein 2000). 11. They supplied the owner with acid-free portfolios and translated and published the documents, which consist of Spanish, Nahuatl, and pictographic records. I was told that the owner of the archive was killed because some believed he was going to sell the archive. His widow was in possession of the documents when I was shown them. 12. The reference to Santa María Oztuma in the Ixtepec archive is not explained here, and it could be that there was another colonial settlement between the 1579 relación and the settlement at San Simón. There is a town called Santa Maria about 12 km north of San Simón Oztuma, but this seems far out of place and Santa Maria is such a common eponym that it alone should not be used to establish a spatial correlation. 13. In the Relación geográfica of Oztuma there is a reference to several major Tarascan invasions and sieges of the Aztec fortress. 320
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14. One sumptuary Tarascan vessel was found near the citadel of the Aztec fortress, possibly an example of a diplomatic offering or loot.
References Cited Acuña, Rene (editor) 1985 Relaciones geográficas del siglo XVI: Mexico, Vol. 6. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, Mexico City. 1987 Relaciones geográficas del siglo XVI: Michoacan, Vol. 9. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City. Aragon, Alfonso 1903 Relación de las ceremonias y ritos y población y goberanción de los indios de la provincia de Mechuacán. Morelia. Arana, Raúl Martín 1979 Patrones de un asentamiento prehispánico en Guerrero. Vivienda 4(5):390–409. Arana, Raúl M., and Gerardo Cepeda C. 1966 Localización de sitios arqueologicos en el vaso de la presa de Palos Altos, Guerrero. Boletín del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia 26:14–16. Armillas, Pedro 1942–1944 Oztuma, Gro., Fortaleza de los Mexicanos en la frontera de Michoacan. Revista Mexicana de Estudios Antropológicos 6:165–175. 1946 Informe mensual de enero y febrero, 1946. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City. 1948 Fortalezas mexicanas. Cuadernos Americanos 7(5):143–163. 1951 Mesoamerican Fortifications. Antiquity 25:77–86. Barlow, Robert 1945 La Crónica “X.” Revista Mexicana de Estudios Antropológicos 7:65–87. Berdan, Frances F., and Patricia Rieff Anawalt 1997 The Essential Codex Mendoza. University of California Press, Berkeley. Bernal, Ignacio 1994 Durán’s Historia and the Crónica X. In A History of the Indies of New Spain, by Diego Durán, translated by Doris Heyden, pp. 565–577. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman. Bittman, Bente, and Thelma D. Sullivan 1978 The Pochteca. In Mesoamerican Communication Routes and Cultural Contacts, edited by Thomas A. Lee Jr. and Carlos Navarrete, pp. 211–218. Papers of the New World Archaeological Foundation No. 40. New World Archaeological Foundation, Utah. Brand, Donald 1943 An Historical Sketch of Geography and Anthropology in the Tarascan Region. New Mexico Anthropologist 6–7(2):37–108. Carrasco, Pedro 1999 The Tenochca Empire of Ancient Mexico: The Triple Alliance of Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco, and Tlcaopan. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman. Castillo Trejo, Noemi 1967 Trabajos de rescate arqueológico en el area de embalse de la presa Palos Altos, Arcelia, Guerrero. Boletin del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia 12(30):24–29. Identity and Conflict on the Western Frontier of the Aztec Empire
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Connell, Samuel V., and J. E. Silverstein 2006 From Laos to Mesoamerica: Battlegrounds between Superpowers. In The Archaeology of Warfare: Prehistories of Raiding and Conquest, edited by Elizabeth N. Arkush and Mark W. Allen, pp. 394–433. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. D’Altroy, Terence N. 1992 Provincial Power in the Inka Empire. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. Durán, Diego 1984 Historia de las indias de Nueva España e islas de la Tierra Firme. Editorial Porrúa, S.A., Mexico City. Gorenstein, Shirley 1985 Acambaro: Frontier Settlement on the Tarascan-Aztec Border. Vanderbilt University, Nashville. Gorenstein, Shirley, and Helen P. Pollard 1983 The Tarascan Civilization: A Late Prehispanic Cultural System. Vanderbilt University, Nashville. Harvey, H. R. 1971 Ethnohistory of Guerrero. In Handbook of Middle American Indians: Archaeology of Northern Mesoamerica, Vol. 11, edited by Gordon F. Ekholm and Ignacio Bernal, pp. 603–618. University of Texas Press, Austin. Hassig, Ross 1988 Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political Control. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman. Hendrichs, Pedro R. 1940–1941 ¿Es el arco de Oztuma de construcción Azteca? El México Antiguo, Revista Internacional de Arqueología, Etnología, Folklore, Prehistoria, Antigua y Lingüística Mexicana 5:142–147. 1945 Por tierras ignotas: Viajes y observaciones en la región del Río de las Balsas, Tomo I. Editorial Cultura, Mexico City. Hernandez Rivero, Jose Isabel 1994 Arqueología de la frontera Tarasco-Mexica: Conformación, estrategia y tacticas de control estatal. Thesis for Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City. Herrejón Peredo, Carlos 1978 La pugna entre Mexicas y Tarascos. Cuadernos de Historia: Revista de Historia 1(1): 9–47. Jalpa Flores, Tomas, and Alfredo Ramírez Celestino 1997 Archivo de Ixtepec de San Simon Oztuma. Estado de Guerrero, Chilpancingo. Kosmin, Paul J. 2014 The Land of the Elephant Kings: Space, Territory, and Ideology in the Seleucid Empire. Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Lister, Robert H. 1940–1941 Cerro Oztuma, Guerrero. El Mexico Antiguo 5:209–219. 1971 Archaeological Synthesis of Western Mexico. In Handbook of Middle American Indians: Archaeology of Northern Mesoamerica, Vol. 11, edited by Gordon F. Ekholm and Ignacio Bernal, pp. 619–631. University of Texas Press, Austin.
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Lockhart, James 1992 The Nahuas after the Conquest: A Social and Cultural History of the Indians of Central Mexico, Sixteenth through Eighteenth Centuries. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California. Lorenzo, Jose L. 1966 Hallazgo arqueologico cerca de Arcelia, Guerrero. Boletín del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia 9 (25):11–17. Palerm, Angel, and Eric R. Wolf 1957 Ecological Potential and Cultural Development in Mesoamerica. In Studies in Human Ecology, pp. 1–37. Pan American Union, Washington, D.C. Paso y Troncoso, Francisco del (editor) 1905 Papeles de Nueva España. 8 vols. Impresores de la Real Casa, Madrid. Pollard, Helen Perlstein 1993 Tariacuri’s Legacy. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman. Renfrew, Colin, and John F. Cherry 1986 Peer Polity Interaction and Socio-political Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Reyna Robles, Rosa 1997 La cultura arqueológica Mezcala. Ph.D. dissertation, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, Mexico City. Reyna Robles, Rosa, and Felipe Rodríguez Betancourt 1989 Informe de las actividades realizados en Municipio de Acapetlahuaya, Proyecto Arqueológico Ozuma, #11–27. Archive of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City. Sai, David Keanu 2008 The American Occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom: Beginning the Transition from Occupied to Restored State. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Hawai‘i, Honolulu. Silverstein, Jay E. 1997 The Aztec-Tarascan War: Correlating Ethnohistory and Archaeology on the Imperial Frontiers. Paper presented at the 30th Annual Chacmool Conference, Calgary, Alberta. 2000 A Study of the Late Postclassic Aztec-Tarascan Frontier in Northern Guerrero, Mexico: The Oztuma-Cutzamala Project. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Pennsylvania State University, University Park. 2001 Aztec Imperialism at Oztuma, Guerrero: Aztec-Chontal Relations during the Late Postclassic and Early Colonial Periods. Ancient Mesoamerica 12(1):31–48. 2002 La frontera Mexica-Tarasca en el norte de Guerrero. In El Pasado Arqueológico de Guerrero, edited by C. Niederberger and R. M. Reyna Robles, pp. 409–428. Centro Francés de Estudios Mexicanos y Centroamericanos, Gobierno del Estado de Guerrero, and Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City. Stein, Gil J. 2002 Colonies without Colonialism: A Trade Diaspora Model of 4th Millennium BC Mesopotamian Enclaves in Anatolia. In The Archaeology of Colonialism, edited by Claire L. Lyons and John K. Papadopoulos, pp. 26–64. Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
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Tezozomoc, D. Hernando Alvarado 1987 Crónica mexicana. Editorial Porrua, S.A., Mexico City. Umberger, Emily 1996 Aztec Presence and Material Remains in the Outer Provinces. In Aztec Imperial Strategies, edited by Frances F. Berdan, pp. 151–179. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. Van Zantwijk, Rudolf 1967 La organización de once guarniciones aztecas: Una nueva interpretación de los folios 17v y 18r del Códice Mendocino. Journal de la Socíeté des Americanistes 56(1):149–160. West, Robert C. 1973 Cultural Geography of the Modern Tarascan Area. Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut. Wolf, Eric R. 1982 Europe and the People without History. University of California Press, Berkeley.
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12 Images of Evangelization and Archipelagos of Spanish Colonialism in Latin America and the Philippines C H R I S T I N E D . B E AU L E
Spanish colonialism, first in Latin America and later in the Pacific and Southeast Asia, in many ways set the stage for European colonialism and territorial expansion in the Age of Exploration (sixteenth to nineteenth centuries). The Spanish, British, Dutch, French, Portuguese, and German imperial formations had many similarities, including resource extraction mechanisms (e.g., plantations, slavery, racialized workforces), administrative tools (e.g., census records, multiscalar bureaucracy), and ideologies (the ethnocentric civilizing narrative and Christianization of native peoples). But no state had ever before faced the challenges inherent in organizing, subduing, and ruling such vast and distant lands as those that the Spanish acquired. The colonial empires that Europe built also had great internal inconsistencies and highly variable impacts on local economies, demographic compositions and settlement patterns, sociopolitical organization of both colonists and indigenous populations, and religious rituals and belief systems. Traces of these influences can be seen both in the material cultures of their colonial possessions and in indigenous and former colonial contexts today. For example, in Bolivia and the Philippines, Catholicism has, in general, very different foci and characters, despite both being the fruits of seeds planted by Spanish missionary orders and Catholic clergy. Local versions of the Virgin Mary dominate highland Bolivian churches and artwork; these Marian cults articulate in fascinating ways with reconstituted Pachamama worship. Akin to an earth mother, this female deity of fertility, agriculture, and reproduction (and at its broadest, the Earth) dates back at least to the Inka. Allen (2002:7) relates one origin story of coca use in the central Andes that provides an example of this Marian-Pachamama
syncretism. Hallpay (ritualized coca chewing) came about, she writes, “when Santísima María [Saint Mary], Our Mother, lost her child [Jesus]. Wandering aimlessly in her grief, she absentmindedly plucked some coca leaves, chewed on them, and discovered this eased her pain. Andean people have chewed coca ever since.” In the Philippines, on the other hand, Mary is a minor figure in the Catholic pantheon. There, Jesus as a young child enjoys a prominent role in Filipino Catholicism. The Santo Niño (child Jesus) is idolized as a doll with white skin, big round eyes, and apple cheeks, dressed in finely embellished outfits that are changed throughout the year, and housed on thousands of home altars. Those children, it is said, may come to life at night while a house’s occupants are asleep, dancing and causing mischief as small children are wont to do. These examples of syncretism support the arguments made by so many scholars that Catholicism’s ability and willingness to absorb indigenous religious traditions into its practices not only spawned new ideologies but also contributed to its successful spread throughout the world (Barrett 1997; Bastien 1978; Blanco 2009; Brown and Bick 1987; Carrasco 2013; Clendinnen 1990; Corr 2010; Diaz Balsera 2005; MacCormack 1988, 1991; Osowski 2010). The specific material manifestations of Spanish evangelization efforts are an informative lens that we can use to document variability in ways that Spanish culture infiltrated indigenous ideologies. This chapter uses a small set of religious artifacts to support a broad comparative argument about the impact of Catholic evangelization efforts (and colonialism more generally) on indigenous cultures in the southern Andes and Philippines. My focus on religious images offers an example of how one narrow category of material culture can reveal highly variable experiences of colonialism. That variability necessitates a different way of conceptualizing colonialism’s impact. I propose that we replace the assumptions inherent in maps with big shaded areas (see example in Map 12.1) labeled as an empire’s territory (e.g., New Spain, Roman Empire) with the image of localized islands of influence, or an archipelago of colonialism. The two case studies introduced in this final chapter are at an early stage of development, but they offer an opportunity to puzzle through some issues. What does it mean that the Spanish colonial period in the Philippines is so difficult to identify in the archaeological record? What does it mean when we find strong continuities in the local material cultural traditions of indigenous Andean peoples, when we know that politically powerful states like the Inka, Qing, or British were there? Does it do a dangerous disservice to the histories 326
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of violent oppression and erasure that so many indigenous cultures have suffered under, to recognize that sometimes, in some places, colonialism had little impact at all on those same peoples? These are different ways of approaching the same issues I brought up in chapter 1, namely, the meaning of continuity and change in both the archaeological record of prehistory and of indigenous cultures during the last five hundred years.
The Spanish Imperial Archipelago The Spanish Colonial Period in Latin America left highly variable cultural traces throughout several regions where the Crown claimed territories and populations (the Americas, the Pacific, and Southeast Asia) or attempted unsuccessfully to do so (China and Japan) (Map 12.1). The result is a mosaic of highly localized cultures that defy easy explanation; indeed, as MacCormack (1991) eloquently argued, the concept of “syncretism” is conceptually inadequate to explain the new, creative responses to the often violent and even devastating clashes between the Spaniards and indigenous Caribbean, Mesoamerican, and Andean populations. The initial conquest of the Mexican highland states was quickly followed by Spain’s extension of its colonial ambitions into the Pacific as the Crown continued its search for profitable trade routes to Asia. By 1564, Spain claimed hegemony over the Philippines. The Spanish East Indies eventually included Guam and the Mariana Islands, the Moluccas, Caroline Islands (Palau and the Feder-
Map 12.1. The Spanish Empire at its height. Spanish Colonialism in Latin America and the Philippines
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ated States of Micronesia), and parts of Formosa (Taiwan), but the Philippines were its central possession in the Pacific and Southeast Asia. This chapter follows the model of Morillo-Alicea (2005:27), who remains unusual among Latin Americanists for his focus on Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines as a single entity, what he calls “the Spanish Imperial Archipelago.” I am taken by this phrase because archipelagos are chains, clusters, or unconnected groups of islands. Conceiving of Spain’s colonial possessions as islands of controlled dominance is, I believe, a better way to conceive of colonial possessions, or of imperialism. Rarely does a foreign power’s dominance play itself out evenly over a landscape, but one could certainly draw that conclusion from the monolithic blocks of “territory” overlaid onto a map like in Map 12.1. Rather, there are specific loci of asserted control, and other areas between them that may be largely ignored or left to their own devices. This is as true of nationstates today as it was of ancient states and their historical counterparts. Even the material and socioeconomic forces of globalization have spotty visibility; the unevenness of the impact of imperialism, colonialism, and globalization are too often ignored. This variability is effectively obscured when we draw maps with a big, imprecisely delineated area called the “Roman Empire.” Even in geographically fairly small colonies like the islands of Hawai‘i, American colonialism and statehood have left uneven traces on the cultural landscape. I am extending Morillo-Alicea’s notion of archipelago in this chapter to mean islands of colonialism within a (colonized) region. These islands of political or economic hegemony often, but not always, dovetail nicely with islands or diaspora settlements of colonists. With a few exceptions (e.g., Ileto 1997 [1979]; Rafael 1993), the Philippines have been largely ignored by Latin American studies. This is an example of how archaeologists’ wariness of crossing our intradisciplinary frontiers has hindered fruitful comparison. Research on Spanish colonialism in the Philippines happens in Southeast Asian academic circles, among historians as well as archaeologists, while the Spanish period in Latin America is the subject of, well, Latin Americanists (or regional specialists such as Mesoamericanists, south-central Andeanists, and Caribbeanists). Working almost exclusively in regional silos is a mistake, because Europe’s colonies served not only as “laboratories of modernity” but also as laboratories for each other (Morillo-Alicea 2005:28). Spain put its colonial subjects on the same plane with the creation in 1863 of the Overseas Ministry to centralize control from Madrid in a single office, although earlier attempts to do so (e.g., 1810 Cortes de Cádiz) had failed (Morillo-Alicea 2005:31). The extraordinary wealth that the Spanish extracted from the great 328
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empires of Mexico and Peru fed the conquistadores’ lust for gold and glory, and in many ways, Spain’s Pacific and Southeast Asian colonies were disappointing attempts to re-create those initial successes. One important difference between the Philippines and mainland New World colonies was in their population densities and Prehispanic forms of sociopolitical organization. Spanish expeditions to the Caribbean, Mexico, and the South American continent encountered a continuum of sociopolitical complexity ranging from nomadic bands to the famous Nahuatl and Inkan empires. Although the conquistadores quickly focused on conquest of the Aztecs and the Inka, and the Portuguese fought to build a productive economic outpost with a combination of Tupi hunter-gatherers and imported African slaves, this variability in sociopolitical complexity mediated the effects of conquest and colonization on indigenous populations. In the much more densely populated heartlands of former states, such as the Valley of Mexico and the central Peruvian highlands, Spanish colonists and the epidemic diseases they introduced were devastating to those they mistakenly called the indios (Indians). Elsewhere, much lower population densities and/or the lack of natural resources attractive to the Spanish helped to mitigate those effects. Spanish attempts to increase the economic exploitation of their New World colonies included the congregation of scattered communities into larger towns or missions (reducciones), varying tribute obligations levied on communities and individuals who were physically separated from their homes, and laws intended to guard against Spanish abuses of indigenous peoples (however poorly and unevenly these were enforced). Although population estimates for North America, central Mexico, and the central Peruvian highlands vary greatly, and are equally controversial, disease, starvation, warfare, land dispossession, and overwork caused population declines of up to 90 percent from Prehispanic levels (Lovell 1992). Indigenous populations in the New World were especially vulnerable to epidemic diseases such as smallpox because they presented immunological “virgin soil” (Lovell 1992:435), in part due to the absence of significant numbers of domesticated animals. Guerra (1985) compares population data with the Philippines, arguing that despite some shared geographical similarities with the West Indies, Filipino indigenous populations’ close historical relationship with domesticated animals such as the pig gave them a measure of protection. Of course, the islands had long been in contact with mainland Asian populations too, which effectively included them, albeit peripherally, in the Old World disease pool. Nonetheless, the Philippines’ indigenous populations also experienced dramatic declines in the Visayas and Ilocos of 16.7 percent to as Spanish Colonialism in Latin America and the Philippines
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much as 67.6 percent during the first decades after contact (Newson 2009:78, Table 5.2, 196, Table 11.3). At the time of contact, competitive chiefdoms in the Philippines restricted land tenure, collected agricultural surplus as tribute, and sponsored artisans and trade expeditions to acquire prestige goods for alliance building (Junker 1994:234, 241). Much of this trade occurred through contacts with China, which had been established by the tenth century C.E. Sung Period, to import porcelains, silks, magnetite mirrors, and metal jewelry. But the majority of the indigenous Prehispanic population of the islands did not benefit from this trade. Instead, they lived in scattered coastal and inland barangays (villages and hamlets of kin), devoting their time to subsistence practices. Newson (2009:55–58) argues that generally food was not abundant. Populations depended on rice cultivation and fishing for their basic staples, supplemented by more stable root crops and interisland trade in food crops as well as highland-lowland trade. Gold, iron, and textiles were major trade goods too, but gold was not widely mined because of labor shortages; local farmers were, however, keenly interested in iron tools. Villages and scattered farmsteads were politically controlled by leaders called datus, whose own power and prestige depended on the numbers of subjects and slaves they attracted. The size and strength of a datu’s following were determined by the elaborateness of the feasts he sponsored and the politically advantageous marriage alliances he arranged (Newson 2009:58). This was like much of Southeast Asia at the time, but quite different from the caciques (chiefs) and kings the Spaniards encountered in the New World. Visayan society also included two other social classes, the timaguas (freemen who lived where they wished and could attach themselves to any datu) and oripun (indebted dependents who labored for the datus). Oripun could range from those who worked a few days a week for the datus and who were otherwise independent, to full chattel slaves. Oripun constituted the majority of Visayans at the time of contact. Newson argues (2009:58–59) that “dependents were so essential to the economic and political power of the datus that Spanish attempts to abolish ‘slavery’ became an obstacle to their Christian conversion in the early colonial period.” In both the coastal Visayas and Luzon, chiefdoms were fairly common on the coast when Legazpi arrived in 1565, but there were Islamic sultans in Manila and Mindanao (Phelan 2011:16–17; Zialcita 2008:58). Mohammedization from the southern islands had been increasing, and slowly spreading northward in the fifteenth century, but supra-barangay organization was relatively rare and did not always accompany Islam (Phelan 2011:16). Compared to the Americas, the islands were missing huge, dense native 330
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populations to draw labor and tribute from. But all of this also meant that conquistadores and colonists were not attracted to the Philippines in the same way. The extraordinarily long distances from Europe certainly contributed to the low numbers of Spanish colonists who came to the Philippines, and Filipino geography affected the efficacy of Spanish colonial control mechanisms in other ways too. With more than seven thousand islands, some with formidable mountainous interiors, populations geographically scattered in both coastal and inland settlements, piracy and slave raiders, and competition from both mainland Asian and, later, other European powers, Spanish colonists tended to drop anchor in Mesoamerica or the Andes rather than continuing west across the vast Pacific. I believe that these differences in sociopolitical complexity and population densities are the reasons why religious art and architecture show different levels of transculturation. Mexican and central Andean peoples, with higher population densities and more developed sociopolitical complexity, were more easily integrated into the Spanish colonial enterprise. The region’s vast wealth—at least initially—ensured that fairly high levels of colonial administrators and clergy remained. However, even there, colonists were most often confined to capitals such as Potosí and Mexico City, leaving few Spaniards in the countryside. As in the Philippines, these centers of colonialism—islands of colonists—are where European cultural ideals and Catholic doctrine were most visibly produced. Churches, convents, colonial government buildings, and elite homes expressed not just the wealth and status of their inhabitants but also that of Spain and the Catholic god. As Coseteng (1972:6) observes, “churches and conventos had to be built in as impressive a scale and as grandiose a manner as possible if they were to instill a sense of awe and wonder in the native about the majesty of the Christian God and the mystical nature of the cut.” The art, furniture, tapestries, dress, food, and drink that their residents consumed reinforced those messages of superiority. In the Philippines, the opportunities for sending that message were painfully few and far between. Huge baroque stone churches still stand (e.g., the Cathedral of St. William the Hermit in Laoag City, the Church of St. Augustine in Paoay, and San Agustin Church in Intramuros, Manila), but most have been repeatedly rebuilt, refaced, and redecorated after centuries of hurricanes, floods, and fires. Many examples of Spanish architecture, particularly in the former walled capital of Intramuros in Manila, were heavily damaged by bombing during World War II. Few traces of Spanish evangelization remain outside of these stone constructions. The historical record helps to fill some of the gaps. From 1571 to 1590, friars expeditiously adopted local building materials and architectural forms, such as post-and-beam, tabique walls (thin partitions), Spanish Colonialism in Latin America and the Philippines
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nipa palm and cogon grass, mostly in large, barn-style halls of worship (Coseteng 1972:5–6; Layug 2007). Convents and elite homes used native Filipino domestic architectural elements such as sliding wooden capiz-shell windows and latticed transoms (see example in Figure 12.1). But perhaps the most important variable in Spanish colonial religious architecture and art across the empire is the ethnicity of the craftsmen who produced so much of it. The Chinese population in and around Manila were quickly tapped not only for their merchant connections to Southeast Asia but also for their skills as master craftsmen and artisans. The Chinese in the Philippines were also not considered desirable permanent residents, and no sustained efforts were made to draw them into the church. Because of these reasons, they were probably the least assimilated into Spanish society and religious traditions. Nonetheless, anonymous Chinese painters produced religious paintings, sculptors sculpted, and builders labored to complete those churches, convents, government buildings, and residences. And their touches are visible everywhere that buildings and artifacts from the period survived.
Figure 12.1. Indigenous Filipino domestic architectural elements in Spanish colonial structures: sliding capizshell window screens and latticed transoms on a colonial period building in Vigan, Philippines. 332
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The sites of Spanish colonial presence—the archipelago of colonial impact— were spread quite thinly on the landscape. The Spanish regular orders (Dominicans, Augustinians, Franciscans, and Jesuits) divided the parishes among themselves by order of the Council of the Indies in 1594. Missionary orders were supposed to be replaced by secular Catholic priests once the conversion was complete, but because of the chronic shortage of personnel, the Philippines were considered an “active mission” long after the transfer of authority should have taken place. In 1655 there were still no more than 60 secular clergy members in the islands, plus 254 regular clergy members, to oversee some 600,000 indigenous Philippine people spread out over several thousand islands (Phelan 2011:32–33, 81). The total number of priests in the Philippines ranged from 254 to 400 throughout the colonial period (Phelan 2011:41). Coastal communities were considered to be only partially converted, and peoples living inland in the mountains were not considered Christian at all. Spanish clergy were spread very thin, were typically isolated from centers of colonial society like Manila and Vigan, and were unable to use coercion to force conversion or compliance by indigenous locals. This was the case elsewhere in the Pacific too (Buschmann et al. 2014; Driver 2004). Clergymen often attempted to resettle barangays into large missions such as the reducción described by Barretto-Tesoro and Hernandez (chapter 6, this volume), but they were even more of a failure than they were in the Andean lowlands of Bolivia and Paraguay. Reducciones were often ephemeral, as people moved back to their home communities and recently abandoned lands. By the end of the seventeenth century, there were less than twenty mission communities with resident populations over two thousand people (Phelan 2011:44–45). Thus religious and cultural conversion was more or less limited to a few geographic concentrations (diasporas) of Spaniards and indigenous Filipinos. One of the regions of more intensive interaction was the central Luzon plains, where rice cultivation by Tagalogs was intensified to address chronic food shortages in the capital of Manila. Elsewhere, there were very few places where sustained cross-cultural contact happened with any regularity or intensity. Parish cabaceras (capitals) presided over sets of visitas (chapels) periodically visited by nonresident clergy, a pattern imported from Mexico (see chapter 3, this volume). Their distribution on the landscape followed a predictable pattern, with cabaceras in the coastal lowlands and visitas upvalley and in the foothills; visitas outposts later formed a buffer zone between the headhunting Negritos and lowlands, and were staffed by regular clergy in the late seventeenth century who ran misiones vivas (active missions) protected by small military garrisons. Spanish Colonialism in Latin America and the Philippines
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But their presence did little to spread Christianity; even the residents of villages around the visitas were considered only “half-Christian.” Elizalde (2012:158–159) adds that Spaniards’ colonial influences in the Philippines were underdeveloped in part because local elites were not given citizenship or sufficiently socialized into the Spanish colonial system, as they were in Latin America. This in turn put too much authority in the hands of the religious orders. Even in Manila, Tremml argues (2012:556), “its undisputedly rapid success did not result in sustained economic development, neither of the archipelago nor of the city itself.” Local social structures were often left in place as a practical matter, so the kinship-based barangay system survived, just like the extended kinshipbased structures called ayllus in the Andes, the Aztec altepetl, and the Mayan cah (Restall et al. 2005). Instead, the “missionaries understood that they had to lead the prospective convert out of paganism by working within the colonial subject’s frames of reference . . . in and through their languages, images, or figures of speech (talinhagâ) and, by extension, through many of their concepts of the universe and the great mysteries: their ‘cosmovision’” (Blanco 2009:101) Jesuit priest Pedro Murillo Velarde advised against heavy intervention in natives’ lives (101), but others like Franciscan Fray Domingo Pérez forced natives to urinate on their idols in the latrines. His parishioners eventually killed him (102). Indeed, Manuel Bernáldez Pizarro’s 1823 memorandum, “Opinion on the causes that oppose the promotion of security of the Philippine islands and measures that require a remedy,” asserts: The Indians live in entire moral separation from the Spaniards; they have their own laws of tradition, their own opinions and customs, entirely unknown to anyone who is ignorant of their language or has not continual intercourse with them. The European religious are the only persons in the confidence of the government who by favor of these circumstances, and with a practical and intimate understanding of the nature and inclinations of the natives there, can find a way into their hearts, incline their wills to what is right, enlighten them, and keep them peaceful and submissive; and without this larger armies would be of no avail. (qtd. in Blanco 2009:85) He also acknowledges, however, that the “lack of European religious in the Philippine Islands for the occupation of at the very least four-fifths of its parishes is incompatible with the lasting preservation of that colony.” Although the Americas boasted much larger numbers of both clergy and administrative authorities, they too tended to concentrate in the urban centers as well as the places boasting the richest resources like irrigable land or productive mineral deposits 334
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such as Cerro Rico in Potosí. This meant that Spanish cultural influences were greatest in those colonial centers, and most ephemeral in the vast, less well controlled rural areas (in the archipelago analogy, the ocean around and between islands of colonial influence). Again, one can conceive of these islands of colonialism, of intensive cross-cultural interactions and mutual influences, as diasporas/islands in an archipelago of colonialism. Certainly this played a role in the survival of indigenous cultures through centuries of European colonialism in both regions. But it also means that the art, architecture, and religious symbols of Christian conversion—even in the Philippines cabaceras and Andean cathedrals—reflect compromises between Spanish and indigenous ideologies.
Imagery as Evangelical Tools Because of the small numbers of missionaries and the illiteracy of the vast majority of the indigenous populations, images were particularly important tools of evangelization during the Colonial Period. The tremendous diversity in indigenous languages in both regions, the chronic need for dictionaries and interpreters, and the inherent difficulties in translating abstract religious concepts into another language and cultural context all meant that images were critical tools of communication and interpretation (Gruzinski 1995:54). In the sixteenth century, western Europe was experiencing its own “idoloclasm” over so-called papist idolatry, especially in Great Britain (Gruzinski 1995:55), analogous to the frenzied destruction of indigenous imagery and idols in early missionary period in Mexico (Clendinnen 1982). Religious leaders in Europe were also debating over the intelligence and original sin inherent in indigenous peoples. For example, Franciscans such as Jacobo de Testera and Diego Valadés considered indigenous populations “illiterate but susceptible to the allure of new things and of painted images” (Gruzinski 1995:55). Gruzinski argues that the Virgin of Guadalupe “materialized God’s physical invasion of a pagan space that had once been dedicated to heathen cults.” That space was the Tepeyec hill that once held a Prehispanic shrine to the mother of the god Toci, then later converted to a shrine to the Christianized version of the same, “Tonantzin, Our Mother, the name they had once used for Toci” (Gruzinski 1995:60). This process of replacing gods and their places of worship with temples dedicated to the invaders’ gods would have been familiar to indigenous peoples; the Aztecs did the same, and both they and the Inka were known to hold local idols hostage in the capital to ensure populations’ cooperation with the state and compliance with its demands for labor and material resources. Spanish Colonialism in Latin America and the Philippines
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The production and prominent display of images of the Creed, Decalogue, Seven Deadly Sins, and related subjects were at the core of a pedagogical technique submitted to the Council of the Indies and approved for use by other religious orders (despite Franciscan opposition). But the European cultural meanings of “person, god, body and nature, causality, space and time, history, and so on . . . [were] never being clearly explicated by its exponents, the missionaries” (Gruzinski 1995:56). Some Spanish missionaries were so concerned with avoiding a cult of images that friars even banned Christ from crosses in front of churches. “They thought that the symbols of Christ’s Passion—the nails, the scale—could represent the bloody episode without running the risk of showing a practice—crucifixion—that the Indians might have confounded with human sacrifice” (56). That quickly changed, at least in Mexico. During the second phase of evangelization, starting in the mid-sixteenth century, secular Catholic clergy gained power over the missionary orders, and the role of images changed to fill the gap left by old pagan idols. Clergy “systematically took advantage of apparent miracles and prodigies in order to impress and Christianize the Indian masses” (Gruzinski 1995:58). In Mexico the church started to promote a Christianity that was more open to cults of the Virgin and saints, both now recognized as vehicles of syncretism. Because the Bible and other religious texts were subject to error and heretical misinterpretation, the church confiscated them and focused instead on standardized, preapproved imagery. I believe this flexibility facilitated the conversion of masses of indigenous peoples, but with a superficial understanding at best of the principles or tenets being exemplified through those images. Although there was a critical mass of trained European artists in Mexico, that was not always the case elsewhere in the empire. Indigenous artists of various ethnicities could express their understanding of those persons, stories, or scenes. All of the examples I use in this study date to this later period, so we should expect to see greater imitation of European artistic conventions and subjects, because evangelical efforts emphasized the role of imagery over texts. Religious art dating to the early Colonial Period, in contrast, should have markedly greater indigenous subjects, materials, artistic media, and aesthetics. Religious imagery in Mexico also activated networks across community and political dividing lines in central Mexico through traveling alms collectors (Osowski 2010). The Spanish clergy were highly suspicious of these spiritual pilgrims because of the participation of women and the domestic contexts where shrines were temporarily set up for worshippers to visit idols. Such suspicions reveal again the tension between the superficiality of the religious conversion of indig336
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enous Mexicans and evidence in the form of alms for their spiritual devotion. Stories of miraculous images and indigenous communities’ apparent willingness to sacrifice some portion of their meager resources to the maintenance of religious shrines and idols were simultaneously cause for celebration and suspicion. That suspicion was well founded. “Visionaries and swindlers alike went about with statues and paintings whose miraculous origins they promoted. Hybrid, heterodox, and clandestine images appeared here and there” (Gruzinski 1995:67). Some of these may have been products of indigenous artists’ misunderstandings of Catholic orthodoxy, while others were expressions of the need to deal with the elusive mysteries of their new religion. Methods of worship, as much as the objects of that worship, were also sites of heterodoxy. The study of witchcraft in the Colonial Period provides abundant examples. In the 1680s in a Michoacan pueblo called Tarimbaro, a Spanish woman named Petrona Rangel gave hallucinogens to her clients to see a Saint Rose image come to life and speak to and cure them. The saint revealed where lost things were and the necessary remedies for disease. The Virgin Mary had also supposedly been in touch with this witch. Although the practice of witchcraft was denounced as ignorant nonsense by the Spanish Inquisition (Few 2010), images with Catholic roots and references often played roles in those rituals. Given the close relationship between intoxicants and worship in some Prehispanic ritual practices, it was perhaps inevitable that the production and consumption of images was linked to the consumption of alcohol during feasts of the saints. The physicality of worship through dancing, singing, fasting, and feasting, as well as heightened sensations through alcohol and drug use, carried through the Colonial Period. In Ecuador, Corr (2010) documented dancing at crossroads and along paths between the households of a community, much as Bastien’s research in Bolivia (1978) described life-cycle rituals performed on the body of a mountain, conceived of as the community’s collective body. But the conception of corporeality also caused misunderstandings. For example, early during the evangelization process, Spanish friars used the term ixiptla to describe images of saints to the Nahuatl peoples in the Mexican highlands. This Amerindian concept of a god and his many expressions “confounded the ambiguities of translation with those of visual interpretation, [and] bred other confusions in terms of religious practice” (Gruzinski 1995:71). Ixiptla were deity impersonators in Aztec rituals, representations either by a chosen sacrificial victim dressed as a god or by a wooden or clay image of a deity. The Spanish practice of simply and systematically substituting images of the Virgin and saints for Prehispanic idols made false equivalencies too easy (Gruzinski 1995:71). For example, physiSpanish Colonialism in Latin America and the Philippines
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cal likeness between Saint Joseph (Mary’s elderly husband) and the old man who represented Huehueteotl (Nahua fire god) led later Indians to identify that saint with fire. So “the fire was St. Joseph and when the wood was wet or green, when it was smoking a lot and weeping while it was burning, they said that St. Joseph was angry and that we wanted to eat” (qtd. in Gruzinski 1995:72). We may be able to extend this misunderstanding of corporeality to the painting of the Virgin of Cerro Rico in Potosí (Figure 12.3), whose body is depicted as the hill full of Spanish silver mines, sites of forced labor where thousands perished. Was this mountain that ate men also a Virgin who ate men? To what extent were the conditions of labor extraction, epidemic disease, forced religious conversion, and Catholicism conflated in the indigenous Bolivian mind at the time? The few images that remain from that time and place suggest real opportunities for misinterpretation and misunderstanding. As these few examples show, imagery played an important but contestable role in evangelization and in cultural hybridity in Colonial Latin America. Although no comparable studies of Colonial Period Catholic imagery in the Philippines have been done, I believe this historical framework can be applied to that region’s Colonial Period art too.
Religious Art and Identity It is precisely because the Spanish congregated in small communities that were few and far between that I advocate for an approach focused on diasporas (islands of colonists and foreign influence in an archipelago of colonialism on the landscape). This involves starting in the centers of colonial interaction, where some residents had recognizable ties to a distant, often more powerful society. These ties will appear most noticeably in the architectural styles, artifacts, and features that mimic versions in their homelands. But colonization involves more than the congregation of members of an ethnic group in a foreign land. Colonies are tools in a specific kind of imperialism (see chapter 1, this volume, for fuller discussion); colonies are set up by a state or nation for the express purpose of asserting political, economic, and cultural dominance over another population. Colonists are functionaries in an administrative machine that extracts a distant region’s resources (labor to produce raw, unprocessed materials, or finished products). Colonists may also aim to reorganize indigenous social, political, religious/ideological, and economic elements to facilitate that extraction. Thus the diasporic connections between colonists and the homeland are more than the basis of an ethnic group; they can be simultaneously the public symbols of power, dominance, hegemony, or claims of superiority. Or—and this 338
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is important to remember as well—they can simply signify personal identity. Distinguishing between the two is challenging, to say the least. In the case of the Spanish Colonial Period in the Philippines, I argue that settlements of indigenous Filipinos, immigrant Chinese, and Spanish colonists were multiethnic diasporas. Using this concept instead of colony, with its focus on state needs and power differences, lets us approach them more neutrally. The cross-cultural interaction and reinterpretation that happens in contexts of producing religious imagery are sites for creative hybridity. So despite preferences to express the splendor of God and Spain in their churches, convents, and government buildings, the realities of limited resources and personnel potentially left a lot of room for the people carving the posts and painting the canvases to insert themselves and their own interpretations into those material contexts. Focusing on religious objects provides a different way of interrogating stylistic boundaries than analyses of ceramic assemblages, for example. Empires create an internal “other” (Coronil 2007:255), divided into hierarchically organized and ideologically justified classes of people. But evangelization or conversion efforts must allow for an “us” among the “other.” This sameness or kinship is couched in the language of conversion. It is precipitated by the recognition of common humanity, of the ability of the colonized, even while treated as racially, culturally, and politically inferior, to be saved by the same God as the colonized. And for that to be intelligible, even believable, to the illiterate, both the goal (inhabitants of heaven and the saintly role models) and the instruments of God’s will (priests, missionaries, and nuns) must reflect a degree of familiarity to the observer. The paraphernalia of evangelization, the things that are used in the process of translating different belief systems and ritual practices into legible terms for converts, have an inherent tension in them. Things like chalices, embroidered robes, and paintings clearly reinforce hierarchies: the wealth, status, and power of the Catholic god, Jesus, Mary, and saints is conveyed through rich imagery and rare materials, and this sends a message of superiority over indigenous deities. The otherness of the white-skinned, blue-eyed Jesus is apparent to Mesoamericans, Andeans, Filipinos, Chinese, and Pacific Islanders alike. But this otherness is amended by the need for familiarity, the need to create an affiliation between newly converted Catholic subjects and the Catholic pantheon and priests. To this end, references to familiar, indigenous beliefs, values, practices, traditions, and local backgrounds may be built into the imagery. For evangelization efforts in indigenous-majority regions like rural Bolivia, this means that the religious figures, motifs, and references must be appropriately localized. The Mexican Virgin of Guadalupe is an example. But by the time SpanSpanish Colonialism in Latin America and the Philippines
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ish missionaries got to the Philippines, they had become somewhat wary of syncretism, for it suggested superficial ideological conversion. The Catholic Church instituted a policy in the Philippines of not translating Catholic concepts into indigenous terms, though that practice was common elsewhere. Still, indigenous religious beliefs and ritual practices persevered, in part because of the fierce reputation of indigenous Filipinos in the interiors. There, some Negritos were said to answer evangelization efforts with decapitation. This meant that the Spanish were able to achieve little penetration of the interior of the larger Philippine islands, leaving small, compact Spanish or missionary communities on the coast. Within those coastal diasporas, Spaniards lived in ethnically homogeneous settlements, sometimes accompanied by a small contingent of armed guards. The organization of the missionary outposts largely followed the cabaceras/visitas model developed in Mexico. As in rural Latin America, many smaller and distant chapels were built in towns throughout the parishes, but these visitas rarely enjoyed a resident missionary, instead settling for periodic visits from the nearest cabacera priest. In most areas, the parish priest was usually the only Spanish authority. This infrequent contact colors the conduct of Catholic rituals and the interpretation of belief systems within local cultural contexts (for poignant examples, see Carrasco 2013; Corr 2010; and Osowski 2010). Given the rarity and superficiality of contact between Spaniards and indigenous locals, we would expect to see little in the way of stylistic influences, especially in rural and domestic architecture and utilitarian goods. And perhaps this is why Spanish Colonial Period sites are so notoriously difficult to identify in the Philippines’ archaeological record. Instead, continuity in material culture and architectural remains are the norm (Grace Barretto-Tesoro, personal communication, 2014). This is connected to the very low numbers of Spaniards that the Philippine colonial project was able to attract from its home base of Acapulco, Mexico. The chronically low numbers of colonists, in fact, meant that the Spanish in Manila and elsewhere were uncomfortably dependent on the thousands of Chinese merchants, laborers, and craftsmen who were attracted by the Manila Galleon’s loads of silver currency (Chia 2006; Wills 2011). In turn, Chinese laborers and artists, rather than indigenous Filipinos, built churches and homes and outfitted them with imported and locally made furniture and decorations. The Spanish generally viewed the Chinese in their midst, though, as threatening to the social order, with criminal tendencies (Chia 2006:512). Still, Chinese artisans produced religious art under the direction of Spanish missionaries in order to convert indigenous Filipino communities. But racial biases prevented the Spanish from viewing the Chinese as partners in their colonial mission, like 340
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the Portuguese and Goan doctors in African colonial clinics. If local Chinese in the Philippines were not converted or treated as tools of empire, then they would not have been provided with the education to understand or correctly interpret the religious symbolism and ideological principles that their work was meant to embody. Chinese merchants in Manila illustrate Rogers’s (2005:332–333) point about the oversimplistic dichotomy of colonizer/colonized. One hypothetical example should suffice. Say a painted portrait of the Virgin Mary is to be commissioned by a Spanish priest. If he hires an indigenous Peruvian artist to do so, he might be able to find a well-trained artist who studied and apprenticed under a Spanish master painter for many years. The painting would likely reflect Spanish conventions of religious art, with familiar proportions, uses of light and color, skin tones, props, and backgrounds that were close to their European counterparts. The painting of the Virgin of Candelaria in Figure 12.3 is probably the best example of those I include in this chapter. If the priest instead got an indigenous artist who had neither years of training under a Spanish painter nor deep familiarity with Catholic doctrine, that painting would more likely have a central figure with skin tones, clothing, props, and backgrounds more familiar to the indigenous artist than to the Spanish priest. The “Chinese Jesus” in Figure 12.4 is an example. In the soaring cathedrals and sprawling convent compounds of the capital cities of Latin America, European-style religious paintings and sculptures appear alongside versions with indigenous symbolism, figures, and referents. The ethnic triad in the Philippines, on the other hand, coupled with the chronic shortage of clergy and administrators, means that we should see Colonial Period religious art that reflects some combination of local, indigenous, and Chinese plants, animals, settings, stories, skin tones, clothing, and other elements, while remaining focused on Catholic figures, stories, and themes. Does this variability constitute cultural hybridity? Does it reflect the ethnicity of those manufacturing these artifacts (e.g., painting what “normal” faces look like or what they know)? Is it a form of active resistance to conversion, or something else? If we interpret a Chinese face on Jesus’s disciples as representing a lack of training, that tells us something valuable about where limited personnel and resources were invested in the Philippine colonial project. If we assume instead that Spanish colonialism prioritized resource extraction and evangelization, as the historical records tells us, then maybe that disciple’s Chinese face becomes a symbol of active resistance to cultural hegemony. I argued in chapter 1 that the nature of colonialism is inherently variable, expensive, inefficient, and ineffective and that archaeologists sometimes read too much Spanish Colonialism in Latin America and the Philippines
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into the appearance or absence of foreign material goods and styles in local or indigenous contexts. From this perspective, assumptions about power dynamics, stylistic influences, and assimilation/transculturation should be tested rather than assumed. One can do so at many different scales. Without regional settlement pattern data and excavations of many communities, I can only surmise at this point what we might see. Others, however, have excavated in colonial period occupations and generally see few changes in material culture or architecture to clearly mark the arrival of the Spanish in the country. And that absence is a clear signal that the impact of Spanish colonialism was highly localized to where the Spanish were such as the cabacera parish capitals (e.g., chapter 6). The capital of Manila and the network of cabaceras and visitas were the archipelago of sites of Spanish colonialism in the Philippines. In both the Philippines and Latin America, the Spanish sought to create a new Europe (Skowronek 1998), but their refusal to allow indigenous, African, and Chinese citizens into their “new European” possessions doomed the project from the start. Outside of those boundaries, plantations such as the Jesuit tobacco ones in Ilocos Norte and small colonial outposts built to guard against invasions from the fierce inland headhunters on Luzon seem to have constituted the grand total of Spanish colonial settlements. But these colonial sites were where religious art was displayed and perhaps produced, and so paintings, textiles, statuary, and other media were the means by which religious tenets were reinforced, rituals supported, and political dominance encoded. Their importance to the colonial enterprise would have been amplified because there were so few media to broadcast Spanish ideals and so few people to send the message of religious and cultural superiority.
Dark-Skinned Saints, Earth Goddesses, and Dancing Babies If one visits Latin America and the Philippines today, one meets Catholics everywhere, which implies that the Spanish project of creating an empire of Catholic subjects was successful. And yet a closer glance at a few of the buildings and works of religious art from the Colonial Period suggests a different story, one with interesting implications for our understanding of the degrees of assimilation into a Spanish imperial archipelago. Examining the contexts for the production or display of these examples reveals a variety of Spanish diasporas, with very different interethnic relationships in each one. And the variability in those relationships in turn, I argue, helps to explain the different blends of indigenous, mestizo, Chinese, and Iberian stylistic influences. These examples are presented in order from 342
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least to most European, in my opinion. The first three come from Latin American Colonial Period sites, while the last three are from the Philippines.
San Francisco Basilica Carvings The Iglesia de San Francisco (Church of Saint Francis) in La Paz, Bolivia, was originally built between 1549 and 1581 and reconstructed from 1743 to 1753 after snow collapsed the roof in 1610. Built by Franciscans in honor of Nuestra Señora de Los Ángeles (Our Lady of the Angels), the complex eventually included the basilica, a convent, and living and industrial quarters for clergy. The church’s mestizo baroque stone facade was completed in 1790. The grandeur of the baroque style honors the god and saints as much as the colonial enterprise that funded it. But despite being under the supervision of Spanish friars and personnel, its construction and elaboration was also a mechanism of cultural hybridity. Figure 12.2 shows a carved image of Pachamama giving
Figure 12.2. The facade of the Iglesia de San Francisco in La Paz, Bolivia, carved in the late eighteenth century. The detail emphasizes Pachamama giving birth. Spanish Colonialism in Latin America and the Philippines
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birth among more traditional Catholic figures and symbols. This indigenous goddess, associated with fertility and the Earth, clearly had an important role in the religious ideology of the artisans (and presumably the indigenous and mestizo populations in La Paz) as late as 1790. This was a center of colonialism in the Andes, a settlement with a permanent resident population of Spaniards, creoles, and mestizos, including colonial administrators and religious missionaries and clergy. And still, Pachamama gives birth, not far from the Virgin Mary, on its facade.
Virgins of Candelaria (Socavón) and Cerro Rico Marian cults are quite popular throughout Latin America but relatively scarce in the Philippines. These central figures in Andean cathedrals offer fascinating examples of indigenous elements used to express European religious principles in European media (e.g., painting and idol sculpture). Two examples of prominent Virgin Mary figures, both venerated as local patrons of their respective Bolivian communities, are depicted in Figure 12.3. The first is the Virgen del Socavón (Virgin of the Mineshaft), also known as the Virgen del Candelaria (Virgin of the Candlemas, a purification ceremony), in Oruro, Bolivia. Her idol is housed in a cathedral built right into the mountain worked by Colonial Period tin miners, whom she protects. The cathedral’s artwork features Pope John Paul II sporting a miner’s helmet, saints surrounded by llamas and guinea pigs, and a dark-skinned Mary and Saint John, but with nary a portrait or statue of Jesus in sight. Her skin tone, dress, and facial features are Spanish, as are her child’s (see Figure 12.3). Yet she is locally associated with the indigenous Pachamama, and the festivals of Carnaval. She appears Spanish but is thoroughly assimilated into the local Quechua and Aymara cultures. The Virgin of Cerro Rico in Potosí, Bolivia, on the other hand, is even more strongly affiliated with Pachamama. There is one particular painting of her hanging today in La Casa de la Moneda (House of Money, the currency mint and national museum in Potosí) that Gentile Lafaille (2012) argues is an incarnation of Pachamama as (protectress of) the mountain-that-eats-men. Potosí’s silver mines were the location of extremely intensive colonial resource extraction, as well as the death of thousands of indigenous laborers. Painted around 1720 by an unknown indigenous artist trained in the Spanish Baroque school of painting, La Virgen del Cerro (The Virgin of the Mountain) depicts a woman whose dress and body are the cone-shaped peak that once held so much treasure. As one can see in Figure 12.3, the Trinity is represented in the heavens, while the Inkan deities of Inti (Sun) and Quilla (Moon) appear, as well as the 344
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Figure 12.3. Left: La Virgen del Cerro (painting of the Virgen del Candelaria/Socavón), circa 1720, in the Cathedral of the Virgin of Socavon in Oruro, Bolivia. Right: painting of the Virgin of Cerro Rico, eighteenth century, in Potosí, Bolivia, housed in La Casa de la Moneda in Potosí.
Inkan emperor Huayna Capac gazing up the mountain. Civil and religious authority figures stand at the base, gazing up in thanks at the celestial figures for the mountain’s wealth. In this symbolically powerful way, colonial wealth extraction, racial hierarchy, conquest, and Catholicism are wrapped up together.
Chinese Disciples As I mentioned earlier, Chinese artisans and craftsmen were instrumental in the construction and decoration of churches, convents, administrative buildings, and homes in Spanish colonial centers on Luzon. Thus we would expect to see both Chinese and indigenous Filipino features and referents in church art and architecture. Little of those remains have survived the ensuing centuries, but there are glimpses of those Chinese artisans in some of the art that was salvaged from the churches during the last reconstruction and modernization campaign under Imelda Marcos. The example is Figure 12.4 clearly shows Chinese facial features carved on the central figures of Jesus and John the Baptist. Similarly, Fu dogs and other Chinese elements appear on baroque church facades such as the stone lions at the entrance to the Augustinian Church in Spanish Colonialism in Latin America and the Philippines
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Figure 12.4. Spanish colonial period carved wooden image of Jesus being crowned by John the Baptist. Note the Chinese facial features of the two main figures illustrated in the close-up on the right. (Private collection, Manila.)
Intramuros, or the relief sculpture on the pedestal of the church in San Joaquin, Iloilo (see Coseteng 1972:Plate 116). Keeping in mind that these represent not visitas chapels in isolated rural parishes but rather Spanish-inhabited centers of colonialism, I believe that the Spanish clergy and colonists alike had little sway over the reception or acceptance of imposed ideologies and their expression.
Black Nazarene and Virgin of Antipolo The Black Nazarene (Figure 12.5) is a life-sized wooden statue of Jesus carved by an unknown artist in Acapulco, Mexico, sometime in the mid-seventeenth century and brought to the Philippines via the Manila Galleon. Widely believed to be miraculous, it is removed from its shrine three times a year, on New Year’s Day, Good Friday, and January 9. The January 9 devotion is the occasion of an annual pilgrimage that draws millions of Filipino Catholics, one that reenacts the statue’s traslación (transfer), in 1787, from its original home in what is today Rizal Park to its current permanent home in Quiapo. Its dark appearance comes from the mesquite wood out of which it was carved. The Black Nazarene is often compared to the Nuestra Señora de la Paz y Buen Viaje (Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage), also known as the Virgin of Antipolo. This idol (also pictured in Figure 12.5), after many journeys on the 346
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Figure 12.5. Left: Statue of the Black Nazarene, seventeenth century, Basilica of the Black Nazarene, Quiapo, Manila, Philippines. Right: Virgin of Antipolo, circa 1650, Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Antipolo, Rizal, Philippines.
Manila Galleon and relocations within the Philippines, came finally to rest in the Antipolo Cathedral in the city of Antipolo in Rizal province. The Virgin of Antipolo and the Black Nazarene have the highly unusual feature of a dark-skinned appearance, rare in the Philippines likely because of the church’s policy of avoiding translation of church doctrine, values, stories, and figures into local, indigenous terms (Reid 1993:141). Dark-skinned saints and Marian idols are much more common in Latin America, but their dark skin is the only notably non-European feature of their appearance and dress, and the manner in which they are venerated, including pilgrimages, processions, and display behind altars, are entirely imported. There are no noticeable aesthetic elements of indigenous Filipino cultures in any of these examples.
Evangelical Failures What are we to make of the Latin American examples of indigenous imagery in the symbolic heart of the Spanish colonial archipelago? Did Spanish missionaries accept churches constructed from poles and palm thatch, as well as paintings of dark-skinned virgins that performed miracles treated as more important than Jesus’s resurrection, out of necessity or expedience? Did indigenous Spanish Colonialism in Latin America and the Philippines
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and Chinese artisans and craftsmen use their access to resist evangelization, or did they just paint what they knew? In the case of Filipino church architecture and artifacts, there was three-way stylistic interaction in these limited contexts between native converts, Spanish missionaries, and Chinese artists. But those contexts (Spanish religious and domestic architecture and religious artifacts) should have arguably provided greater opportunities to see the preservation of Spanish cultural ideals in a foreign context, because those should be least subject to perversion or change. If Chinese artists were hired craftsmen rather than the targets of evangelization, and if Spanish missionaries were determined to avoid the syncretism and misunderstandings they saw in their New World conversion failures, then they should have been commissioning religious artifacts and buildings that reflected their specific criteria. These few examples suggest that that is not what they got in either case. Equally puzzling is the absence of obvious indigenous influences in Spanish churches and works of art in the Philippines. Were the natives thoroughly converted? The history books suggest that few were even superficially converted, and even fewer served as artists producing paintings and carving idols like their Andean counterparts. The absence of indigenous Filipino elements in the religious art of the Philippines, at least compared to the examples from Bolivia, suggests that few took part in any capacity other than passive observer. Deagan (2010) argues that the Hispaniola mission of La Florida was successful only insofar as the Spanish were granted the cooperation of local caciques in exchange for European goods hoarded in elite homes and burials as status markers. Indios peones (indigenous laborers) worked under the direction of their native leaders, so resistance to colonial labor demands was in effect resistance to their own leadership (51). Colonies in the Andes and the Philippines were likewise administered with the cooperation of indigenous elites. This makes resistance to colonialism more difficult to trace in the material record, because indigenous peoples who rejected colonial labor demands, religious conversion, or both did so by simply leaving the reducciones or their home communities (e.g., ayllus or barangays). Perhaps the variability documented in this sample of religious artifacts should be interpreted instead as evidencing imperfect translation, the persistence of local analogies in individuals’ understanding of Catholic concepts, or the superficiality of conversion. These artifacts were produced within the Spanish Empire and served as powerful, often revered symbols of not just Catholicism but of the empire itself. If Chinese architectural details and Bolivian 348
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man-eating mountains can exist in the hearts of the empire, how pervasive and effective was cultural assimilation during the Colonial Period? These religious images suggest that Spanish evangelization efforts met with highly variable success.
References Cited Allen, Catherine J. 2002 The Hold Life Has: Coca and Cultural Identity in an Andean Community, 2nd ed. Smithsonian Books, Washington, D.C. Barrett, Leonard E., Sr. 1997 The Rastafarians. Beacon Press, Boston. Bastien, Joseph W. 1978 Mountain of the Condor: Metaphor and Ritual in an Andean Ayllu. Waveland Press, Long Grove, Illinois. Blanco, John D. 2009 Frontier Constitutions: Christianity and Colonial Empire in the Nineteenth-Century Philippines. University of California Press, Berkeley. Brown, Diana De G., and Mario Bick 1987 Religion, Class, and Context: Continuities and Discontinuities in Brazilian Umbanda. American Ethnologist 14(1):73–93. Buschmann, Rainer F., Edward R. Slack Jr., and James B. Tueller 2014 Navigating the Spanish Lake: The Pacific in the Iberian World, 1521–1898. University of Hawai‘i Press, Honolulu. Carrasco, David 2013 Religions of Mesoamerica: Cosmovision and Ceremonial Centers. 2nd ed. Waveland Press, Long Grove, Illinois. Chia, Lucille 2006 The Butcher, the Baker, and the Carpenter: Chinese Sojourners in the Spanish Philippines and their Impact on Southern Fujian (Sixteenth–Eighteenth Centuries). Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 49(4):509–534. Clendinnen, Inga 1982 Disciplining the Indians: Franciscan Ideology and Missionary Violence in SixteenthCentury Yucatán. Past and Present 94:27–48. 1990 Ways to the Sacred: Reconstructing “Religion” in Sixteenth-Century Mexico. History and Anthropology 5:105–141. Coronil, Fernando 2007 After Empire: Reflections on Imperialism from the Americas. In Imperial Formations, edited by Ann Laura Stoler, Carole McGranahan, and Peter C. Perdue, pp. 241–271. School for Advanced Research Press, Santa Fe. Corr, Rachel 2010 Ritual and Remembrance in the Ecuadorian Andes. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Coseteng, Alicia M. L. 1972 Spanish Churches in the Philippines. New Mercury Printing Press, Quezon City. Spanish Colonialism in Latin America and the Philippines
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Deagan, Kathleen 2010 Native American Resistance to Spanish Presence in Hispaniola and La Florida, ca. 1492–1650. In Enduring Conquests: Rethinking the Archaeology of Resistance to Spanish Colonialism in the Americas, edited by Matthew Liebmann and Melissa S. Murphy, pp. 41–56. School for Advanced Research Press, Santa Fe. Diaz Balsera, Viviana 2005 The Pyramid under the Cross: Franciscan Discourses of Evangelization and the Nahua Christian Subject in Sixteenth-Century Mexico. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Driver, Marjorie G. 2004 The Account of Fray Juan Pobre’s Residence in the Marianas, 1602. Micronesian Area Research Center, University of Guam, Mangilao, Guam. Elizalde, Maria Dolores 2012 Imperial Transition in the Philippines: The Making of a Colonial Discourse about Spanish Rule. In Endless Empire: Spain’s Retreat, Europe’s Eclipse, America’s Decline, edited by Alfred W. McCoy, Joseph M. Fradera, and Stephen Jacobson, pp. 148–59. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison. Few, Martha 2010 Women Who Live Evil Lives: Gender, Religion, and the Politics of Power in Colonial Guatemala. University of Texas Press, Austin. Gentile Lafaille, Margarita E. 2012 Pachamama y la coronación de la Virgen-Cerro: Iconología, siglos XVI a XX. Advocaciones Marianas de Gloria, pp. 1141–1164. San Lorenzo del Escorial. Gruzinski, Serge 1995 Images and Cultural Mestizaje in Colonial Mexico. Poetics Today 16(1):53–77. Guerra, Francisco 1985 La epidemia americana de influenza en 1493. Revista de Indias 45:325–47. Ileto, Reynaldo 1997 [1979] Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840–1910. Ateneo de Manila University Press, Quezon City. Junker, Laura L. 1994 Trade Competition, Conflict and Political Transformations in Sixteenth-Century Philippine Chiefdoms. Asian Perspectives 33(2):229–260. Layug, Benjamin Locsin 2007 A Tourist Guide to Notable Philippine Churches. New Day, Quezon City. Lovell, W. George 1992 “Heavy Shadows and Black Night”: Disease and Depopulation in Colonial Spanish America. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 82(3):426–443. MacCormack, Sabine 1988 Pachacuti: Miracles, Punishments, and Last Judgment: Visionary Past and Prophetic Future in Early Colonial Peru. American Historical Review:960–1006. 1991 Religion in the Andes: Vision and Imagination in Early Colonial Peru. Princeton University Press, Princeton. Morillo-Alicea, Javier 2005 Uncharted Landscapes of “Latin America”: The Philippines in the Spanish Imperial Archipelago. In Interpreting Spanish Colonialism: Empires, Nations, and Legends,
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edited by Christopher Schmidt-Nowara and John M. Nieto-Phillips, pp. 25–54. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. Newson, Linda A. 2009 Conquest and Pestilence in the Early Spanish Philippines. University of Hawai‘i Press, Honolulu. Osowski, Edward W. 2010 Indigenous Miracles: Nahua Authority in Colonial Mexico. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Phelan, John Leddy 2011 The Hispanization of the Philippines: Spanish Aims and Filipino Responses, 1565–1700. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison. Rafael, Vicente 1993 Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under Spanish Rule. Duke University Press, Durham. Reid, Anthony 1993 Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce: 1450–1680, Volume 2: Expansion and Crisis. Yale University Press, New Haven. Restall, Matthew, Lisa Sousa, and Kevin Terraciano (editors) 2005 Mesoamerican Voices: Native-Language Writings from Colonial Mexico, Oaxaca, Yucatan, and Guatemala. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Rogers, J. Daniel 2005 Archaeology and the Interpretation of Colonial Encounters. In The Archaeology of Colonial Encounters: Comparative Perspectives, edited by Gil J. Stein, pp. 331–354. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe. Skowronek, Russell K. 1998 The Spanish Philippines: Archaeological Perspectives on Colonial Economics and Society. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 2(1):45–70. Tremml, Birgit M. 2012 The Global and the Local: Problematic Dynamics of the Triangular Trade in Early Modern Manila. Journal of World History 23(3):555–586. Wills, John E., Jr. 2011 China and Maritime Europe, 1500–1800: Trade, Settlement, Diplomacy, and Missions. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Zialcita, Fernando N. 2008 Devout yet Extravagant: The Filipinization of Christianity. In More Hispanic Than We Admit: Insights into Philippine Cultural History, edited by Isaac Donoso, pp. 53–77. Vibal Publishing, Quezon City.
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13 Conclusions C H R I S T I N E D . B E AU L E
Research on connections, interaction, exchanges, influences, conflict, replacement, resistance, and negotiations between indigenous/local/native and foreign/imperial/colonizer populations is, at its heart, an exercise in the interpretation of change and continuity in (pre)history. As Stahl so cogently argues (2012:159–160), questions of change and continuity are not neutral, but have real implications for indigenous peoples throughout the postcolonial world today. Legal standards for dispossessed indigenous and aboriginal peoples may require them to demonstrate long continuity in the face of prolonged material cultural change. In this conception of indigeneity or aboriginality, cultural continuity—or more specifically, continuity in material culture—is expected (see Martindale 2015). Elsewhere, indigenous peoples may be faced with the opposite challenge. In many African contexts, “assumptions of continuity feed entrenched notions of African societies as standing outside the flow of history, and the challenge can be to demonstrate change in the face of an overarching conviction that village life is lived ‘as it ever was’” (Stahl 2012:160). Stahl argues that our challenge is to develop forms of archaeological knowledge that recognize change and continuity not as polar opposites but as multifaceted, multiscalar, and interrelated dimensions of human life. Stahl is correct that archaeologists’ taxonomies founded in time (chronological periods marked by distinct and widespread material change) and space (sites and regions around which boundaries are drawn marking places of transition) are blunt instruments at best. Our ways of interpreting changes over time and differences across space are particularly problematic when the breaks we identify are envisioned as borders between cultures or cultural occupations of some place (2012:160). The analytical basis for those breaks we identify as meaningful are differences between and within sets of objects: differential densities of things (e.g., imported pottery), the presence or absence
of specific kinds of things (e.g., metal objects), or variations between the form and functions of things (e.g., agricultural tools). Contexts of colonialism increase the danger of getting it wrong, precisely because of the power dynamics involved. We know that, for example, the Portuguese had the kinds of technological and military advantages needed to make their defeat of the indigenous Senegalese almost inevitable. Yet imported products penetrated the African interior only very slowly, and sometimes not at all. And even where they did so, the arrival and presence of Europeans often had little immediate impact on local material culture and practices (Richard 2012:141). Richard points out that the temporal lag between coastal and interior societies’ changing in response to the presence of Europeans can be 250 years. These kinds of case studies, when juxtaposed against the demographic devastation that had started even before the arrival of Europeans in the North American interior or in the central Andes, should make us rethink assumptions about the impact of colonialism. This point simply reinforces others’ call to recognize variability within colonialism. In no way does it minimize the violence or tragic consequences that sometimes accompanied the arrival of territory- or resource-hungry outsiders in the past. But the reality is that colonialism—even European colonialism—was not always uniformly devastating to indigenous or local peoples (King 2012). That too is part of the colonial experience we struggle to understand. How, then, do we tease apart indigenous and imported, local and foreign, resistance and acquiescence, with our blunt methodological instrumentation? How are we to interpret the complex and often ambiguous scenarios that we find in ancient households, communities, and textual records? To do so, I believe we need more nuanced interpretations of continuity and change that reflect the passage of human history, with or without complex histories of colonialism. Material culture, like the cultural traditions it reflects, often simply changes over time, as generations pass and preferences change too. To what degree can or should we interpret those changes as hegemonic or transculturation, forced or voluntary, active resistance or quiet assimilation? How much do our personal feelings about the injustices suffered by some indigenous groups color our interpretations of the records of distant others? And how can we begin to take down the sometimes deep barriers within our discipline between historic and prehistoric, Western and non-Western archaeologies of colonialism, until we can figure out what colonialism is in a way that encompasses all of that variation? Conclusions
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I do not have good answers for these questions, but I am confident that we have made progress in developing a conscientious approach to the archaeological record of colonial encounters, and of communities that happened to live inside territories claimed by others. In part this comes from the simple recognition that not all people who lived in colonized areas were themselves colonized, as much as the recognition that the threat of violence and power differences sometimes did underlie relations between them. China and the Russians divided Central Asia between themselves in 1760 (Perdue 1998). The scale of such territorial claims was historically unprecedented, but the impact of a state whose colonial administrators were spread thinner on the ground than, say, the Romans or Qing was arguably less. This means that we should see highly variable, and sometimes minimal, levels of change in material culture outside of the centers of cross-cultural colonial interaction. That variability should be more than apparent in the small collection of case studies included in this volume. The North American fur trade clearly had less direct impact on Chinook material culture and sociocultural organization (chapter 5) than the Aztec-Tarascan conflict did on the Chontal (chapter 11). The fairly quick disappearance of the Liangzhu and its replacement by the Guangfulin culture (chapter 9) was a more abrupt and widespread change than the appearance of the colonies of discharged Roman veterans in the southern and eastern British Isles (chapter 4). It is not enough to recognize that variability, however. We must seek creative ways to explain particular aspects of it, whether that is done through the careful construction of indigenous perspectives (chapters 5 and 8), the testing of claims made by imperial administrators against archaeological data (chapters 6 and 7), finer chronological control over prehistoric changes in material culture (chapter 9), new graphical models (chapter 10), or revised conceptual tools (chapters 3 and 12). All of the case studies in this volume, together with the theoretical discussion in chapter 1, aim to provoke discussions of the frameworks of ideas that we use and the assumptions behind them. For example, archaeologists are quite good at using material culture to reconstruct the extent to which identities are reinforced, created, and erased within the household and by individuals in intensive interactions with others. But if those interactions reveal flexibility and creativity in identity formation processes, then we should extend those notions of fluidity to the sociopolitical analysis of colonial relationships too. Many of the chapters in this volume address this fluidity in different ways and using different terms (e.g., negotiation, resistance, variability, bi-directional interaction, contact). If indigenous and colonist feed off of each other in everyday small ways, then why 354
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do we still sometimes talk about colonizer-colonized relationships as if they are fixed and bounded? One telling example of the dangers of dichotomous thinking comes from Bastos’s (2007) work on biomedicine as a tool of Portuguese imperialism. The Portuguese founded the Goa Medical School in Goa, India, to transform indigenous locals into Western doctors. Graduates were often sent to Portuguese colonies in Africa, where they were treated not as the colonists they envisioned themselves to be but as unwelcome and inferior interlopers by the Portuguese clinic directors there. Did those Indian doctors identify more strongly as white Portuguese colonists, as elite Indians, or as colonial subjects who were as powerless (and almost as poor) as their African patients? Were they agents of colonialism, assimilated members of a colonized population, or both? These kinds of highly complex situations are not at all uncommon in case studies of prehistoric and historic colonialism. That complexity is perhaps what makes the archaeology of colonialism so fascinating to so many of us, working in vastly different regions of the globe and in very different time periods. We have much to learn from each other, especially those who come from different regional traditions and whose creative mining of data sources can provide new approaches to others. Many archaeologists choose to comfortably remain within our regional and chronological academic silos. But this volume demonstrates great potential for comparative research if we are only willing to blur the intradisciplinary frontiers that divide us.
References Cited Bastos, Cristiana 2007 Medical Hybridisms and Social Boundaries: Aspects of Portuguese Colonialism in Africa and India in the Nineteenth Century. Journal of Southern African Studies 33(4):767–782. King, Stacie M. 2012 Hidden Transcripts, Contested Landscapes, and Long-Term Indigenous History in Oaxaca, Mexico. In Decolonizing Indigenous Histories: Exploring Prehistoric/Colonial Transitions in Archaeology, edited by Maxine Oland, Siobhan M. Hart, and Liam Frink, pp. 230–263. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Martindale, Andrew 2015 Archaeology Taken to Court: Unravelling the Epistemology of Cultural Tradition in the Context of Aboriginal Title Cases. In Rethinking Colonial Pasts through Archaeology, edited by Neal Ferris, Rodney Harrison, and Michael V. Wilcox, pp. 397–422. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Conclusions
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Perdue, Peter C. 1998 Boundaries, Maps, and Movement: Chinese, Russian, and Mongolian Empires in Early Modern Central Eurasia. International History Review 20(2):263–286. Richard, Francois G. 2012 Lost in Tradition, Found in Transition: Scales of Indigenous History in Siin, Senegal. In Decolonizing Indigenous Histories: Exploring Prehistoric/Colonial Transitions in Archaeology, edited by Maxine Oland, Siobhan M. Hart, and Liam Frink, pp. 132–157. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Stahl, Ann 2012 When Does History Begin? Material Continuity and Change in West Africa. In Decolonizing Indigenous Histories: Exploring Prehistoric/Colonial Transitions in Archaeology, edited by Maxine Oland, Siobhan M. Hart, and Liam Frink, pp. 158–177. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
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Contributors
Kenneth M. Ames is professor emeritus of anthropology at Portland State University and a past president of the Society for American Archaeology. His research focuses on the evolution of social complexity and on hunter-gatherers. His theoretical interests include the application of evolutionary theory to cultural change and the structure of archaeological theory. He has conducted archaeological field research in western North America since 1968 and along the Lower Columbia River since 1987. Grace Barretto-Tesoro is associate professor in the Archaeological Studies Program at the University of the Philippines. She teaches social archaeology, mortuary studies, and Philippine archaeology. She conducts research in archaeological sites dating to the tenth to nineteenth centuries looking at the persistence and transformation of indigenous cultural elements in the context of foreign presence in Philippine societies. Her research interests include pottery, identity, cosmology, age, gender, and status. Christine D. Beaule is associate professor of Latin American and Iberian Studies in the Department of Languages and Literatures of Europe and the Americas, and Cooperating Graduate Faculty of the Anthropology Department at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. She is an Andean archaeologist who specializes in the impact of interregional, cross-cultural interaction on rural villages and household organization. Her dissertation work focused on highland Bolivian villages during the Tiwanaku contemporary period. She has recently extended her focus to include Spanish colonial occupations of Latin America and the Philippines, using interdisciplinary (history, cultural anthropology, and archaeology) theoretical approaches and methodologies. Geoffrey Clark is professor in the Department of Archaeology and Natural History in the School of Culture, History and Language at the Australian National University. He currently has archaeology projects in the Central Pacific
(Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga), western Micronesia (Palau and the Mariana Islands), and islands in the Indian Ocean. His interests center on colonization theory, particularly the development of methods and approaches able to model the social and environmental conditions of migrant groups after their arrival on uninhabited landscapes. The development and expansion of complex societies in western Polynesia from the study and conservation of monumental architecture and the evidence for long-distance voyaging are currently being examined in a major Australian Research Council project investigating the Tongan maritime chiefdom on Tongatapu. Kirk E. Costion is residential faculty in the Cultural Science Department at Mesa Community College, Arizona. He received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Pittsburgh, where his dissertation research entailed large-scale excavations of a prehistoric Huaracane domestic settlement in the Moquegua Valley of southern Peru and the subsequent analysis of material recovered during these excavations. His current research focuses on the development of social complexity and social inequalities in early village societies and on prehistoric culture contact. He is presently studying the Huaracane culture of the Moquegua Valley and examining how this small-scale village-based society reacted to encroachment upon their territory by the Wari and Tiwanaku states during the Middle Horizon (400–1000 C.E.). Vito Hernandez lectures on archaeology and Philippine history at the University of the Philippines. His specialized interest is landscape geoarchaeology. He is particularly focused on its applications to issues of land use and settlement adaptations to natural environmental phenomena received as disastrous, especially in the Philippines, where flooding and earthquakes are common. He received his master’s degree in archaeology from the University of the Philippines and is working on a Ph.D. project in landscape geoarchaeology. Richard Hingley is professor of Roman archaeology at Durham University (UK). His interests include Roman frontiers, Roman imperialism, Iron Age archaeology, heritage studies, and the theories adopted by archaeologists and classicists. From 2007 to 2011 he directed a major project on the afterlife of Hadrian’s Wall which resulted in the publication of Hadrian’s Wall: A Life. He has a range of additional publications, including The Recovery of Roman Britain, Boudica: Iron Age Warrior Queen (with Christina Unwin), and Roman Officers and English
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Contributors
Gentleman. He is currently working on a book on Roman heritage and is planning an ethnographic study of the Hadrian’s Wall corridor. Tianlong Jiao is the Josef de Heer Curator of Asian Art at the Denver Art Museum. Prior to his current position, he was the head and curator of Chinese art at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco in 2014–2015, chief curator of Hong Kong Maritime Museum in 2013–2014, and the chairman of the department of anthropology at Bishop Museum from 2006 to 2013. His research specialty is early Chinese art and archaeology. He has authored and coauthored six books and more than eighty research papers both in Chinese and in English. His book The Neolithic of Southeast China was the winner of the 2007 Philip and Eugenia Cho Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Asian Studies. Eric E. Jones is assistant professor in the department of anthropology at Wake Forest University. He received his Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State University in 2008, writing a dissertation on Haudenosaunee settlement ecology and population change from AD 1500–1700. Since, he has expanded this research to include more complex reconstructions of past landscapes in the Northeast and more detailed descriptions of Haudenosaunee population trends, publishing this work in American Antiquity, Journal of Archaeological Science, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, and Journal of Field Archaeology. Recently, he has begun exploring the settlement ecology of middle-range and chiefdom societies in the Southeast to understand the geographic distribution of cultures and complex sociopolitical organization in the region. Adam R. Kaeding holds positions as senior archaeologist at the 106 Group located in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and as affiliate professor at the University of New Hampshire, Durham. Adam received his Ph.D. from the department of archaeology at Boston University. His interests include Colonial Maya settlement patterns and mobility, colonial interaction, the Caste War of Yucatán, and pre-Columbian Maya settlement patterns. His research has incorporated both historical and archaeological data with special attention to landscapes and the appropriate scales of analysis in the investigation of colonial relationships. He is currently involved with the Belize River East Archaeological Project but has also worked elsewhere in Belize, Guatemala, the United States, Syria, and northern Quintana Roo, Mexico.
Contributors
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Robert J. Littman is professor and chair of classics at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. He holds an M.Litt. degree in Literae Humaniores from Oxford University and a Ph.D. in classical philology from Columbia University. He is the director of the Tell Timai Excavations in the Nile Delta, Egypt. He is the author of numerous books and articles on Greek history, Jewish history, Greek and Hebrew Bible, ancient medicine, and Greco-Roman Egypt. Ulrike Matthies Green is adjunct professor at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California, where she has been teaching archaeology and anthropology since 2008. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California San Diego in 2015. Her dissertation research focused on the nature of the Wari colonization in the middle Moquegua Valley in southern Peru, where she has worked at the site of Cerro Trapiche since 2003 and directed excavations for her dissertation project in 2008. Her research interests include the variation and effects of colonial strategies in the periphery of expansive state societies and reactions by indigenous populations. She is especially interested in understanding the underlying processes that shaped the intricate interactions in such colonial encounters of the past. Jay E. Silverstein holds a Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State University and is adjunct professor at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. He is also the GIS and Site Survey Manager for the DPAA (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency). He has led projects in Mexico and Guatemala and is currently the codirector of the Tell Timai Excavations in Egypt. His work with the DPAA has included projects at battlefields around the world. His publications include studies of the Aztec-Tarascan frontier, the earthworks of Tikal, and the third century B.C.E. destruction at Thmuis, Egypt. Cameron M. Smith is adjunct assistant professor at Portland State University’s department of anthropology and has been engaged in the archaeology of the Greater Lower Columbia Region since 1991. He continues his fieldwork today on the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge in collaboration with Linfield College and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. His publications have appeared in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Structure and Dynamics, Journal of Field Archaeology, Physics of Life Reviews, and Antiquity, among others. Currently he is completing an analysis of the Wapato Valley Archaeology Project’s 1984–1996 excavations on the Lower Columbia with Professor Emeritus Kenneth M. Ames of Portland State University, and is writing and illustrating his Atlas of Human Prehistory. 360
Contributors
Douglas C. Wilson serves as a Regional National Park Service archaeologist stationed at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site and is adjunct associate professor of anthropology at Portland State University. He directs the Northwest Cultural Resources Institute which integrates students from Universities with professional and avocational archaeologists, and National Park Service staff and partners to explore the unique cultural resources of National Park Service units and affiliated properties. His interests include public archaeology, historical archaeology, Pacific Northwest archaeology, and modern material culture studies.
Contributors
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Index
Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations. Acapetlahuaya, 310, 312, 318 Adzes: Guangfulin, 249; sources of, 213, 215, 218–20 Age of Exploration, 8–9, 15, 325 Agriculture: in Beneficios Altos, 73–74, 74–75, 76–77; of Haudenosaunee nations, 35; in Liangzhu culture, 246; in Yucatán Peninsula, 71 Ahuehuetl Tecutli, 305 Ahuitzotl, 300, 302, 303, 306–7 Alexander, Rani T., 70 Alexander the Great, 182–83 Algodonal Early Ceramic culture, 279, 283–84 Allard, Francis, 14 Allen, Catherine J., 325–26 Allen, Kathleen M. S., 35 Alms collectors in Mexico, 336–37 Altepemeh, 297–98, 299 Ames, Kenneth M., 127 Anderson, J. G., 240–42 Anderson, William, 216, 221–22, 225 Anthony, David, 237, 238 Anthropological archaeology, 293 Antiochus III, 190 Aranguraen Diguismo, Jose, 165 Archaeology: anthropological, 293; of China, 240–42; classical, 8, 12, 13; population migration as explanatory concept in, 236–40; postcolonial Roman, 94–95, 101, 105; to test ethnographic record, 112 Archaeology of colonialism: intradisciplinary specializations of, 1; North American, 112–13; population migration and, 236 Armillas, Pedro, 305, 306, 309 Artifacts, broadening research beyond, 54 Astor-Aguilar, Miguel, 62 Aztec Empire: claims to altepetl of Oztuma, 316; on conquest of Oztuma, 302–3;
frontier of, 294; warrior-merchant leaders in, 305–6; war with Chontal altepemeh, 300–301; war with Tarascan Empire, 300, 315. See also Oztuma kingdom Baetica, Iberia, 104 Bagley, Robert, 241 Barretto-Tesoro, Grace, 152, 166 Bastien, Joseph W., 337 Bastos, Cristiana, 355 Bayman, James M., 16–17 Bays, Peter, 222 Beneficios Altos: agriculture in, 73–74, 74–75, 76–77; Caste War of Yucatán and, 79–82; in Early and Middle Colonial Period, 66–72; in Late Colonial and Early Mexican Republic Periods, 72–74, 76–78; map of, 60; negotiation model of colonization of, 63–66, 65, 70–74, 72, 82–83; overview of, 59–61; population growth in, 77–78; Spanish colonization of, 61–63 Bernáldez Pizarro, Manuel, 334 Bhabha, Homi K., 94–95 Binford, L. R., 113 Black Nazarene, 346, 347, 347 Bolivia: Marian cults and Pachamama worship in, 325–26; San Francisco basilica carvings in, 343, 343–44; Virgin of Candelaria, 344, 345; Virgin of Cerro Rico, 344–45, 345 Borderlands. See Cross-cultural interaction in borderlands; Frontier Boundaries, intradisciplinary, 2, 3. See also Continuum of Boundary Dynamics (CBD) model Bourbon Reforms in Spain, 72–73, 74 Bradley, James K., 34 Brant, Joseph, 37
Britannia: administration of, 97–98, 100; classical accounts of, 89–90, 103–4; collapse of Roman rule in, 93; conquest and occupation of, 89, 90; military occupying force in, 90, 92, 97, 98, 104; processes of colonization of, 96–102, 106; Roman colonialism and, 92, 93–94; Romanization of, 102–5; settlers in, 97–99, 101–2 Burger, Richard L., 280, 281 Burmeister, Stephan, 237, 238 Cabeceras, 67–69, 68, 298, 310, 333, 340 Caesar, Julius, 89–90 Cameron, Catherine, 237 Casella, Eleanor, 18 Case studies: of local adaptations, 27–29; of movement, conflict, and transformation, 145–48; organization of, 19–20; overview of, 353, 354–55; of rethinking categories, 257–59; working definitions for, 6, 6–7 Cassius Dio, 89–90, 103 Caste War of Yucatán, 79–82, 80, 81 Castillo, Mariano, 156 Cathlapotle site, 119, 120–21, 122, 128–30, 129 Catholicism: artisans, craftsmen, and, 343, 343–47, 345, 347; in colonial period, 342–49; imagery in, 335–38, 347–48; in Philippines, 339–40, 348; Spanish colonialism and, 325–26, 331–34, 348–49. See also Evangelization Cayuga, strategies for settlement location choice of, 46, 48, 49, 51 CBD (Continuum of Boundary Dynamics) model, 268–69, 270, 271 Cerro Trapiche site, 282–83, 284 Chang, K. C., 241–42 Change: cultures as in constant state of, 38; in Haudenosaunee culture, 38–39; indigenous peoples as dynamic agents of, 18; interpretation of, 236, 248, 352–54; research focused on, 37. See also Continuity Chaonnophris, 191 Chi, Cecilio, 80, 82 Chicha de molle brewing practices, 281–82 China: archaeology of, migration and diffusion in, 240–42; population movement in prehistoric context in, 238–39. See also Liangzhu culture Chinese in Philippines, 332, 340–41, 345–46, 347 “Chinese Jesus” painting, 341 Chinook Middle Village: abandonment of, 364
Index
133; attributes of site of, 114–16, 116, 117; background of, 116–19; comparator sites for, 119–20, 134–35; contact period of, 119; creamware tea caddy from, 130; frequency and density of artifacts of, 123, 124–25, 126, 128–31, 129, 133–34; location of, 114; overview of, 110, 132–33; selective cross-cultural exchange in, 276; stone tool assemblage from, 120–21, 122; traditional technology and fur-trade artifacts of, 120–21, 123, 126–31 Chinook people: attributes of, 118; in furtrade era, 110–12, 127–28; slavery among, 127, 128. See also Chinook Middle Village Chontal people: account of conquest of Oztuma, 304–6; precolonial settlement of, 306–7, 308, 309 Churches: bandit attacks on, 165; in Philippines, 331–32; reducciones and, 154, 158, 160, 164, 169; of Tihosuco, 82. See also Catholicism Classical archaeology, 8, 12, 13 “Classics,” 8 Cleopatra VII, 202 Cochuah Regional Archaeological Survey (CRAS), 67, 69 Codex Mendoza, 305 Colchester colony site, 97 Cole, Douglas, 111 Colonialism: classical archaeology and, 12; colonization compared to, 4–5; comparative archaeological study of, 5, 355; contact compared to, 17, 211–12; European, 31, 33, 39, 131–32; features associated with, in local contexts, 2–3; imperialism and, 4, 179; interactions of, 62–66, 65; Lawrence and Shepherd definition of, 111; local variability in, 134–35; marine transport systems and, 210, 211; middle-ground, 94, 106; modern non-Western, 13–15; modern Western, 15–19; as negotiated process, 145, 149; North American archaeology of, 112–13; premodern non-Western, 10–12; premodern Western, 12–13; of Ptolemaic period, 183–86; research areas on, 10; role of frontier in nature and maintenance of, 83; Roman, 92, 93–94; Said definition of, 93; Silverstein definition of, 293; Spanish, 62, 325–26, 331–34, 348–49; territorial expansion and, 239; traditional models of, 59; variability within, 353–54; of Wari state, 263–66; working definition of, 6, 39; Zhou,
13–14. See also Archaeology of colonialism; Western/non-Western colonialism Colonization: Aztecs and, 305–6, 309–10, 312– 14; of Beneficios Altos, 61–63; of Britannia, 96–102, 106; colonialism compared to, 4–5; of Haudenosaunee nations, 52–55; impact of, on society and culture, 39; of Liangzhu culture, 252–53; population migration and, 236–40; Ptolemaic Empire and, 183–84; Roman, 96; Spanish, 67–72, 68, 72; Tiwanaku state and, 265, 266; working definition of, 6. See also Colonizer/colonized dichotomy; Colony; Cross-cultural interaction in borderlands; Negotiation model of colonization of Beneficios Altos Colonizer/colonized dichotomy: dangers of, 354–55; in Philippines, 152–54, 166–67, 168–70; Rogers on, 341 Colony: in Beneficios Altos, 64–65; definition of, 93; diaspora compared to, 5; direct exchange in, 276–77; migration and, 202; Silverstein definition of, 295; as tool of imperialism, 338; working definition of, 6. See also Colonization; Colonizer/colonized dichotomy Comparative research, potential for, 5, 355 Complex societies, features of, 230 Concomly, 118–19, 126, 133 Conflict voyaging: canoes involved in, 222, 223, 224, 226; onboard hierarchy and, 228; overview of, 208–9, 220–21; war leaders and, 225 Congregación policy of Spanish colonization, 67–72, 68, 72 Consumption patterns, as manifestation of cultural exchange, 262 Contact, colonialism compared to, 17, 211–12 “Contact Period,” 7, 17 Continuity: evidence of, 31, 38; of indigenous people of Britannia, 98–99; interpretation of, 9–10, 352–54; of land-use patterns in Yucatán Peninsula, 70; in material culture, 236, 248, 352; in Philippines, 340; regionalism paradigm in Chinese archaeology and, 240, 242; in Seneca communities, 39. See also Change; Resilience Continuum of Boundary Dynamics (CBD) model, 268–69, 270, 271 Contra-colony position in Beneficios Altos, 65, 65–66, 77, 78–79 Cook, James, 213, 216, 218, 222, 224, 225, 229 Coronil, Fernando, 3, 4, 15
Corr, Rachel, 337 Coseteng, Alicia M. L., 331 CRAS (Cochuah Regional Archaeological Survey), 67, 69 Criollo residents, 73, 76–78 Cromwell, Robert, 130 Cross-cultural interaction in borderlands: application of model for, 284–85; circular frontier model of, 271–73, 274; directionality of exchange in, 270, 271, 277–78; of Early Middle Horizon in Moquegua Valley, 264, 265–66, 278–84; graphic model for, 262, 263, 269–70, 272, 273; intensity of exchange in, 270–71, 274–77; models of, 266–71; overview of, 261–66; participants in, 277–78 Crumley, C. L., 153 Cultural interaction zones, 261, 266 Culture, Roman: as defined by citizenship, 97; as incorporative medium, 95–97, 99–102, 105–6 Curtis, Edward S., 118 Darling, David, 111 Davidson, Janet, 215 Davies, John K., 183 Deagan, Kathleen, 270–71, 348 Decisions, description of, 33 DeCorse, Christopher R., 128 Defensibility and Haudenosaunee settlement location choices, 35, 50–51 Definitions and intradisciplinary boundaries, 3 DePuydt, Raymond T., 123 Diadochi, 182, 183 Diaspora: approach focused on, 338–39; colony compared to, 5; direct exchange in, 276–77; Hellenistic imperialism and, 185; multiethnic, in Philippines, 339; Roman colonization as, 96; studies of, 16, 17–18; Tiwanaku colonies as, 265; working definition of, 6 Dichotomous thinking, dangers of, 354–55 Dietler, Michael, 262, 267 Diffusion in Chinese archaeology, 240–42 Dillon, Peter, 221 Di Piazza, Anne, 218 Discriminant function analysis of Haudenosaunee settlement location choices, 42–49, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48 Disease: from flooding in Pinagbayanan, 165–66; Haudenosaunee populations and, 36 Index
365
Downs, Mary, 104 Durán, Diego, 302, 303, 306 Dye, Thomas S., 16–17 Early Colonial Period in Beneficios Altos, 66–72 Egypt: conquests of, 179; Hellenism in, 179– 80, 182–87, 189; relation between Greece and, 184–85, 189–90; rivers and lakes of, 181. See also Ptolemaic Empire Egyptian Supreme Council for Antiquities, 194, 195 Elizalde, Maria Dolores, 334 Elton, Hugh, 268, 270 Empire: definition of, 3; elite emic bias in study of, 293–94, 295; ideology of justification and, 61; internal “other” of, 339; precepts defining, 295; Silverstein definition of, 293; state compared to, 3–4; working definition of, 6. See also Aztec Empire; Imperialism; Ptolemaic Empire; Roman Empire Empire/state distinction, challenges to, 10–12 Emulation hypothesis, 11 Ethnographic record, use of archaeology to test, 112 Europe: colonialism of nations of, 31, 33, 39, 131–32, 210–12, 325–26; conceptual association of modernity and, 15; emigration from, to South Pacific, 211; ships from, 208–9, 228–29. See also Spain Europeanization of Native American cultures, measurement of, 37–38 European/non-European divide, 2 Evangelization: Black Nazarene, 346, 347, 347; Chinese artisans and craftsmen and, 345–46, 346; failures of, 347–49; Franciscan missionaries in Beneficios Altos, 61–62; imagery as tool of, 335–38; Marian cults, 344–45, 345, 346–47, 347; religious art and identity, 338–42; San Francisco basilica carvings, 343, 343–44 Expansionist doctrine of empires, 295 Fang, Hui, 14 Fennell, Christopher, 16 Fiji, 213, 215, 216, 225–26, 230 Firearms, as trade goods, 128 Fishing Rocks site, 124–25 Fladmark, Knut R., 112 Flooding in Pinagbayanan: adaptation to, 168, 169; disease from, 165–66; evidence of, 366
Index
154–56, 160, 161–65; Lopez on, 157; persistence of, 170 Flores de Aldana, Rodrigo, 71 Forster, Johann Reinhold, 218, 225 Fort Astoria/Fort George, 118, 133 Fort Ross, 13, 38, 112, 271 Fort Spokane, 112 Fort Vancouver, 112, 119, 133 Fox, Jake, 10 Frames of reference, 113, 134 Franciscan missionaries in Beneficios Altos, 61–62 Friesen, T. Max, 9, 18 Frontier: of Aztec Empire, 294; circular frontier model, 271–73, 274; negotiation as reality of life on, 82–83; role of, in nature and maintenance of colonialism, 83. See also Cross-cultural interaction in borderlands Frontier studies, 268, 270 Fur trade: of Haudenosaunee, 50; in Pacific Northwest, 110–12, 126, 127–28, 132, 134. See also Chinook Middle Village; traditional technology and artifacts of, 120–21, 123, 126–31 Galleon trade, 151 Gentile Lafaille, Margarita E., 344 Geraghty, Paul, 216 Globalization, as new version of ancient pattern, 9 Glocalization and fur trade, 126, 134 Glouchester colony site, 97 Goldstein, Paul S., 265 González-Ruibal, Alfredo, 95 Gosden, Christopher, 94, 106, 262 Greater Lower Columbia Region, 116–17, 119, 132–33. See also Chinook Middle Village Great Mendes Stele, 187, 189 Great Revolt: archaeological signature of, 193–98, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200–202; overview of, 191–93 Greece, relation between Egypt and, 184–85, 189–90 Gruzinski, Serge, 335 Guam, Magellan in, 227 Guangfulin culture: as immigrant culture, 242, 248–49, 251; map of, 243; rise of, 252–53 Guerra, Francisco, 329 Haciendas, 69 Hajda, Yvonne, 127
Hamilton, Scott, 121 Haronnophris, 191 Haudenosaunee nations: change in culture of, 38–39; establishment of Haudenosaunee Confederacy, 51–52; geographic distribution of, 34; interaction between Europeans and, 35–36; plant and animal use patterns of, 36–37; regional exchange networks of, 34; warfare patterns of, 33–34, 37. See also Haudenosaunee settlement location choices Haudenosaunee settlement location choices: discriminant function analysis of, 42–49, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48; factors influencing, 34–35; fur trade and, 50; impact of colonization on, 52–55; landscape characteristics and, 41; limited cultural exchange in, 275; methodology of study of, 39–43; overview of, 32, 54–55; settlement ecology, 49–52; sites, 40 Hawai’i: incorporation of, into United States, 319; material style in, 16–17; war canoes of, 222, 224 Hazzard, R. A., 189 Hegemonic control and radial models of cross-cultural interaction, 267–68 Hellenism in Egypt, 182–87, 189 Hellenization: direct exchange and, 277; premodern Western colonialism and, 12–13; radial models of cross-cultural interaction and, 267 Herodotus, 185 Hirsch, Eric, 153 Historical archaeology in Philippines, 151–52 Historic period in Pacific Northwest, 110 Hoare, Michael E., 224, 226 Hsu, Chuoyun, 244 Huaracane culture: cross-cultural interaction in, 278–83, 284; exchange networks of, 274–75; Tiwanaku state and, 265–66 Hunter-gatherer world-systems theory, 18 Identity: formation of, and diasporas, 16; material culture and, 16–17; religious art and, 338–42 Ideology of justification, 61 Imagery, as tool for missionaries, 335–38 Imperialism: colonialism and, 4, 179; colony as tool of, 338; Hellenistic, and diaspora, 185; modalities of, 4; multiple imperialisms, 12; of Portugal, 353, 355; of Ptolemaic Empire, 180; radial models of cross-cultural interaction and, 267–68; Said definition of,
93; of Spain, 327, 327–35, 342–43; uneven impact of, 328; working definition of, 6. See also Empire Indigenous peoples: agency of, 105; as barbarians, 89–90, 103–4; in Britannia, 98–99; Catholicism and, 325–26; continuity and, 10; conversion of, 336, 339; in cross-cultural interaction, 261–62; debates on intelligence and original sin of, 335; as dynamic agents of change, 18; imagery of, 347–48; Laurentide Iroquoian, 36, 42, 46, 47; of Philippines, 329–30; resettlement of, 154; resilience of, 169, 170; of Roman Empire, 90, 94; Romanization of, 99–105; sociopolitical complexity and population density of, 329; values of, 166–68. See also Chinook people; Chontal people; Haudenosaunee nations; Maya communities; Pacific Islander societies Interpretations, variable richness of, 7 Inuvialuit people, 18 Islam in Philippines, 330 Ivy Station site, 124–25 Ixtepec, 310, 312–13, 315, 317, 318 Jaffe, Yitzchak Y., 14 Janusek, John, 265 Jennings, Justin, 7, 9, 267, 268, 269, 275 Jiang-Huai Plain, 251 Jones, Rhys, 4 Jordan, Kurt A., 38, 39, 52, 53, 54 Kalaniopu’u, 222, 224 Khatchadourian, Lori, 11, 13 Knappa Docks site, 124–25 Kumaran, R. Navnith, 164 LaBianca, Oystein S., 9 Labillardiere, M., 226 Landscape patterns in Philippines, 153 Late Colonial Period in Beneficios Altos, 72–74 Latin America: level of transculturation, compared to Philippines, 331; San Francisco basilica carvings, 343, 343–44; Spanish Colonial Period in, 327, 328–29. See also Aztec Empire; Oztuma kingdom; Yucatán Peninsula Laurentide Iroquoian people, 36, 42, 46, 47 Lawrence, Susan, 111, 131–32 Leach, Foss, 215 Leone, Mark P., 113 Index
367
Lewis, Napthali, 185 Lewis and Clark National Historical Park, 114, 115, 116 Liangzhu culture: city wall of, 245; collapse of, 242, 248; colonization and cultural assimilation of, 252–53; craftwork of, 246, 246–47; Guangfulin immigrants and, 248–49, 251; major sites of, 245; map of, 243; Mojiaoshan site of, 244; rice agriculture economy of, 246; rise of, 243–44; stratification of, 248; Zaolutai culture and, 251–52 Lightfoot, Kent G., 13, 38, 271 Lincoln colony site, 97 Local adaptations, case studies of, 27–29 Lopez, Victor, 155, 156, 157, 166–67 MacCormack, Sabine, 327 Magellan, Ferdinand, 227 Majiabang culture, 243–44 Manning, J. G., 183 Maqiao culture, 248, 249 Maritime systems: nonconflict voyaging, 221–22; of Pacific Islander societies, 209, 220–21; trade networks and, 151, 210–11. See also Conflict voyaging Martinez, Antoinette, 13 Maschner, Herbert D. G., 127 Material culture: assimilation of, 252–53; of Chinook, 111–12; of Guangfulin, 249; identity and, 16–17; interpretation of change and continuity in, 236, 248, 352–54; population migration and, 239, 253–54; Romanization of, 102–3; of Senegal, 353 Mattingly, David J., 12 Maya communities, 61–63, 73. See also Beneficios Altos Meier site, 119, 119, 120–21, 122, 128–30, 129 Mendes (Tell el Rub’a): location of, 194; maintenance of harbor of, 201–2; as primate center, 187; shift of power from, 192–93, 203; temple complex of, 180, 189 Merenptah, 303 Methodological differences and availability of texts, 7–8 Mexica-Chontal tensions, 312, 317–18 Mexico, religious imagery in, 336–37. See also Aztec Empire; Oztuma kingdom; Yucatán Peninsula Middle-range theory, 113 Migration. See Population migration Minor, Rick, 123, 132 368
Index
Modern non-Western colonialism, 13–15 Modern Western colonialism, 15–19 Mohawk: impact of colonization on, 53; settlement location choice of, 43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 51 Mojica, Damaso, 165 Mono-center theory of Chinese civilization, 241 Moquegua Valley, Peru, Middle Horizon period in, 263, 264, 265–66, 274–75, 278–84 Morgan, Lewis Henry, 41 Morillo-Alicea, Javier, 328 Multiple imperialisms, 12 Murillo Velarde, Pedro, 334 Nassaney, Michael S., 126 National Park Service, 115 Native American cultures: Europeanization of, measurement of, 37–38; in northeastern North America, 32; view of European colonialism impact on, 31–32. See also Chinook Middle Village; Chinook people; Haudenosaunee nations Negotiation model of colonization of Beneficios Altos: after Bourbon Reforms, 77, 77–78; Caste War and, 79–82, 80, 81; in Early and Middle Colonial Periods, 62–66, 65, 70–72, 72; as reality of frontier life, 82–83 Newson, Linda A., 330 New Zealand: European arrival in, 230; war canoes of, 222, 223 Nonconflict voyaging, 221–22 North American archaeology of colonialism, 112–13 Northern Iroquoian societies, 32. See also Haudenosaunee settlement location choices; Laurentide Iroquoian people Obsidian in Middle Horizon Period, 280–81 Oceania. See Pacific Islander societies Odyssey, 184 O’Hanlon, Michael, 153 Omo site, 281 Oneida, settlement location choice of, 44–45, 46, 48, 49, 50–51 Onondaga, settlement location choice of, 46, 48, 49, 51 Osorio, Diego, 306, 310, 312–13, 314 Oztuma kingdom: adjustments to war and conquest in, 314–15, 316, 317–19; Aztec colo-
nization of, 309–10, 312–14; Chontal account of conquest of, 304–6; ethnohistory of, 299–301; fortresses in, 311, 313, 315, 317; geography of, 296–97; historical sources on conquest of, 301–2; imperial account of conquest of, 302–3; kings of, 304; location of, 294; overview of, 294–95, 296; political geography of, 297–99, 298; precolonial settlement in, 306–7, 308, 309 Pachamama worship in Bolivia, 325–26, 343, 343–45 Pacific Islander societies: conflict voyaging of, 208–9, 222–23; European arrival, violence, and, 227–29; geographic knowledge of, 209, 212, 219, 220; interactions between Europeans and, 229–31; interaction spheres of, 212–13, 215–16, 218–20; map of islands of, 217; maritime activity of, 209, 220–21; nonconflict voyaging of, 221–22; Tahiti, 215, 218–20, 223, 224, 228; Taumako, 212–13, 214, 215, 219. See also Tonga Pacific Northwest: fur trade in, 110–12, 126, 127–28, 132, 134; historic period in, 110. See also Chinook Middle Village; Chinook people Papantoniou, Giorgos, 10–11, 12–13 Parker, Bradley J., 268–69, 270, 271 Parmenter, Jon, 35 Pat, Jacinto, 80, 82 Patch, Robert W., 69 Pearthree, Erik, 218 Perez, Camilo, 156 Pérez, Domingo, 334 Peripheries. See Cross-cultural interaction in borderlands Persian Achaemenid Empire, 10–11 Peru. See Moquegua Valley, Peru, Middle Horizon period in Phelan, John Leddy, 151 Philippines: Asian trade networks in, 16; Black Nazarene in, 346, 347, 347; Catholicism in, 326, 331–34, 339–40, 348; Chinese in, 332, 340–41, 345–46, 347; historical archaeology in, 151–52; indigenous domestic architecture in, 332; indigenous populations of, 329–30; level of transculturation, compared to Latin America, 331; multiethnic diasporas in, 339; San Juan, flooding and history of, 150, 154–56; sociopolitical features of, 330; Spanish colonial influences in, 334–35, 341–42;
Spanish colonization in, 151, 327, 328, 340; Virgin of Antipolo, 346–47, 347. See also Pinagbayanan site Phillips, Richard, 4 Pinagbayanan site: archaeology of, 157–58, 159–60, 160–62; beach zone of, 161–62; history of, 154–55; landscape and settlement patterns in, 153–54; land-use and landscape features of, 162, 162–65; opposition to transfer of town, 156–57; overview of, 149; petition to transfer town, 155–56, 166–67; reconciliation of archaeological and historical records of, 168–70; stratigraphy of, 161; urbanization of, 164–65; values of people of, 166–68. See also Flooding in Pinagbayanan Pinto, Lucas, 301, 306, 312–13, 317 Place, preference for or attachment to, despite environmental problems, 163. See also Flooding in Pinagbayanan Plankhouses of Chinook, 115, 116, 117 Polybius, 190–91, 201 Polyuc, 69 Population migration: in Chinese archaeology, 240–42; as explanatory concept in archaeology, 236–40; material culture and, 239, 253–54; of Ptolemaic Empire, 202–3; reasons for, 202–3. See also Colonization; Oztuma kingdom Portland State University, 115 Portuguese imperialism, 353, 355 Postcolonial Roman archaeologies, 94–95, 101, 105 Postprocessual approach to research on Native American cultures, 31–32 Potter, Parker B., 113 Pottery of Guangfulin culture, 249, 250 Power relations between colonizer and colonized, in Philippines, 152–54, 166–67, 168–70 Precolumbian trading system, 126–27 Prehistoric/historic divide: case studies and, 28–29; colonial negotiation and, 63–64; “Contact Period” and, 7; implications of challenge to, 9; overview of, 2; relationship between premodern/modern divide and, 8–9 Premodern/modern divide, 2, 8–9 Premodern non-Western colonialism, 10–12 Premodern Western colonialism, 12–13 Processual archaeology and population migration, 236, 237, 253 Index
369
Ptolemaic Empire: assimilation in, 203; colonization and, 183–84; direct exchange and, 277; Egyptian religion and, 186–87, 188, 189; Great Revolt and, 191–93; imperialism of, 180; migrations of, 202–3; overview of, 180, 182, 183; ram god cult in, 200–201; relations between Greeks and Egyptians of, 184–85, 189–90; resistance to, 190; statue of Queen Arsinoë II, 188, 189; Syrian Wars and, 190–91 Ptolemaic melting-pot model, 12–13 Ptolemy I, 182, 183, 185, 186–87 Ptolemy II, 202 Ptolemy IV, 189, 190, 192 Ptolemy V, 191–92, 193, 199, 201 Qianshanyang site, 249, 251–52, 253 Qin dynasty, expansion during, 14–15 Quirós, 212, 229 Radial models of cross-cultural interaction, 267–68, 269 Ranchos, 69 Ray, Verne F., 126 Redford, Donald B., 192–93 Redman, Charles L., 153 Reducciones, 154, 158, 160, 164, 169, 333 Regional interaction models, 268 Regionalism paradigm in Chinese archaeology, 240, 242 Regional specialties, 1, 9 Reith site, 124–25 Relaciones geográficas of 1579–1580, 301, 304, 309–10, 312, 315, 317 Religion: art, identity, and, 338–42; Egyptian, 186–87, 188, 189, 200–201; Islam, in Philippines, 330. See also Catholicism; Churches; Evangelization Repúblicas de Indígenas, 73 Repúblicas de Indios, 72–73 Resilience: creativity and, 167; flooding and, 168; indigenous knowledge of landscape as form of, 169; of indigenous people, 170; in Philippine archaeology, 152–53, 164–65. See also Continuity Resistance: to move from Pinagbayanan, 149–50, 166–70; to Ptolemaic Empire, 190. See also Resistance in negotiation model Resistance in negotiation model: Caste War, 79–82; contra-colony position, 77, 78–79; distance between centers of imperial control and, 71; overview of, 64–66, 65 370
Index
Reyna Robles, Rosa, 307, 309–10 Richard, Francois G., 16, 353 Richter, Daniel K., 33 Rodríguez Betancourt, Felipe, 310 Rogers, J. Daniel, 341 Roman Empire: civitates of, 94, 100; colonization by, 96; extent of, 90; material culture, Romanization of, 102–3; provinces of, 91; selective cross-cultural exchange in, 276; theoretical approaches to, 94–96. See also Britannia; Culture, Roman Romanization and radial models of crosscultural interaction, 267 Rosetta Stone, 191–92, 193 Roundhouses, Iron Age-style, 102 Russian-American Company, 13 Sai, David Keanu, 319 Said, Edward, 93, 94–95 Samoa, 213, 215, 216, 217, 219 San Juan, Philippines: cholera epidemic in, 165–66; flooding and history of, 154–56; map of, 150. See also Pinagbayanan site San Simón Oztuma, 311, 313, 318 Sastron, Manuel, 155 Sauer, Jacob J., 153 Scham, Sandra Arnold, 9 Schiff, Ann M., 13 Schreiber, Katharina, 267 Scouler, John, 133 Security needs of empires, 295 Seleucid Empire, 190–91 Seleucus I Nicator, 185 Seneca: cultural exchange of, 275; impact of colonization on, 52–53, 54; material culture of, 52; settlement location choice of, 43, 45–46, 49, 50 Senegal, material culture of, 353 Senegalese Siin Kingdom, 16 Settlement ecology, 39, 41, 49–52 Settlement patterns: in Hellenistic world, 187, 189; in Pinagbayanan, 153–54. See also Haudenosaunee settlement location choices Shang Dynasty, Zhou conquest of, 13–14 Shanghai Museum, 249 Shaw, Justine M., 67 Shennan, Stephen, 237, 238, 253 Shepherd, Nick, 111 Silliman, Stephen W., 17, 38 Silverstein, Michael, 118 Skowronek, Russell K., 16
Slavery: Chinook people and, 127, 128; in Philippines, 330; Precolumbian trading system and, 126–27 Smith, Monica L., 2 Snow, Dean, 237 Society Islands, 216, 217, 218, 224, 228 Solomon Islands, 213, 217, 222, 227, 230 Song, Jian, 251 Songze culture, 243–44 Spain: Aztec Empire and, 298; Bourbon Reforms in, 72–73, 74; colonialism of, 62, 325–26, 331–34, 348–49; colonization of Beneficios Altos by, 61–63; colonization of Philippines by, 151, 327, 328, 340; congregación policy of, 67–72, 68, 72; imperial archipelago of, 327, 327–35, 342–43; Laws of the Indies, 154, 169; Mexico and, 301; reducciones of, 154, 158, 160, 164, 169, 333 Specialization within discipline, 1, 9 Stahl, Ann B., 9–10, 352 Stanwick, Paul E., 201 State, empire compared to, 3–4 State/empire distinction, challenges to, 10–12 Station Camp/McGowan site, 114, 122, 124–25 Stein, Gil J., 4 Stone, Glenn Davis, 33 Su, Binqi, 241, 242 Syrian Wars, 190–91 Tacitus, 89–90, 276 Tahiti, 215, 217, 218–20, 223, 224, 228 Tarascan Empire, 294, 300, 315 Taumako, 212–13, 214, 215, 217, 219 Tell Timai, 193, 194, 196. See also Thmuis Terrenos baldios, 74–75 Testera, Jacobo de, 335 Tetzauhtecutli, 304 Texts: accounts of conquest of Oztuma kingdom, 302–6; classical accounts of Britannia, 89–90, 103–4; conscious balance between artifacts and, 13; pitfalls and advantages of, 7–9; reconciliation of archaeological and historical records of Pinagbayanan, 168–70 Tezozomoc, Hernando Alvarado, 302, 303 Thalassocracy, 186 Thmuis: archaeology of, 182, 193–98, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200–202; rise of, 201, 202, 203; settlement pattern of, 187 Tihosuco, church of, 82 Tituc, 71 Tiwanaku state, 263, 265, 266, 278, 281–84
Tonga: canoes of, 223, 225, 226; European arrival in, 230–31; expansion of, 219; Fiji and, 225–26; geographic knowledge of people of, 214, 219; location of, 217; overview of, 216; relations between Europeans and, 227 Trade goods: of Chinook Middle Village, 118, 123, 128–31, 129, 130; Northwest Coast cultures and, 126; in Philippines, 330. See also Fur trade Trade networks: Asian, in Philippines, 16; of Haudenosaunee nations, 34; maritime systems and, 151, 210–11; Precolumbian, 126–27. See also Fur trade; Trade goods Tremml, Birgit M., 334 Tsaghkahovit site, 11 Tu’i Halafetai, 226 Tupaia, 218, 219, 219 University of Hawai’i, 195 Urbanization, 153, 164–65 Valadés, Diego, 335 Van Dommelen, Peter, 12 Violence: conflict voyaging and, 208–9; in culture-contact record of Pacific, 209; European arrival in Pacific Islander societies and, 227–29. See also War Virgin of Antipolo, 346–47, 347 Virgin of Candelaria, painting of, 341, 344, 345 Virgin of Cerro Rico, 338, 344–45, 345 Virgin of Guadalupe, 335, 339–40 Visayan society, 330 Visitas, 67–69, 68, 333, 340 Voss, Barbara, 18 Wallerstein, Immanuel, 267 War: in Aztec Empire, 300–301, 315; in Britannia, 89, 90; Caste War of Yucatán, 79–82, 80, 81; in Oztuma kingdom, 302–6, 314–15, 316, 317–19; in Ptolemaic Empire, 190–91; Shang Dynasty and, 13–14 Warfare patterns and European arrival, 33–34, 37 Wari state, 263–66, 267, 268, 278–84 Wendat, 36, 37, 51 West, as hyper-real construct, 15 Western/non-Western colonialism: case studies and, 28–29; negotiation model and, 64; overview of, 10 Willapa Bay site, 123 Index
371
Williams, John, 221 Woolf, Greg, 90, 103–4 Writing systems, timing of writing of, 8 Yahuay Alta site, 279–82, 284 Yan, Sun, 13, 14 Yangshao site, 240–42 Yao, Alice, 14
372
Index
Yucatán Peninsula: agricultural demands of, 71; artifacts found in, 70; Caste War of, 79–82, 80, 81; colonial experience of, 59; provinces of, 60. See also Beneficios Altos Zaolutai culture, 251–53 Zenk, Henry, 118 Zhou colonialism of Yan state, 13–14