The Archaeology of Politics: The Materiality of Political Practice and Action in the Past 1443830046, 9781443830041

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The Archaeology of Politics

The Archaeology of Politics: The Materiality of Political Practice and Action in the Past

Edited by

Peter G. Johansen and Andrew M. Bauer

The Archaeology of Politics: The Materiality of Political Practice and Action in the Past, Edited by Peter G. Johansen and Andrew M. Bauer This book first published 2011 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2011 by Peter G. Johansen and Andrew M. Bauer and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-3004-6, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-3004-1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures............................................................................................ vii List of Tables.............................................................................................. xi Preface ....................................................................................................... xii Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Reconfiguring the ‘Political’ in the Reconstruction of Past Political Production Peter G. Johansen and Andrew M. Bauer Case Studies Chapter One............................................................................................... 29 Small Change in Madagascar: Sacred Coins and Profane Coinage Susan Kus and Victor Raharijaona Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 56 Metals, Pigments, Ores and Assays: The Politics of Value in the Early Spanish Colony of New Mexico Noah Thomas Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 83 Producing the Political Landscape: Monuments, Labour, Water and Place in Iron Age Central Karnataka Andrew M. Bauer Chapter Four ............................................................................................ 114 The Politics of Locality: Pre-Inkan Social Landscapes in the Cusco Region, Peru Steven Kosiba

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Table of Contents

Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 151 Holding Down the Fort: Landscape Production and the Sociopolitical Dynamics of Late Bronze Age Fortress Regimes in the Southern Caucuses Ian Lindsay Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 186 Practicing Social Difference, Producing Social Space: The Political Architectonics of Iron Age Settlement Places Peter G. Johansen Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 221 Subjectivities and Spatiality in Indus Urban Forms: Mohenjo Daro, the Body and the Domestication of Waste Uzma Z. Rizvi Chapter Eight........................................................................................... 245 Towards a Middle Range Theory of Household Politics: The Standardization of Decorative Motifs in Middle Post-Classic Mexico Elizabeth M. Brumfiel Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 283 Standardization and Resistance: Changing Funerary Rites at Spiridonovka (Russia) during the Beginning of the Late Bronze Age Laura M. Popova, Eileen M. Murphy and Aleksandr A. Khokhlov Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 323 Causalities and Models within the Archaeological Construction of Political Order on the Northwest Coast of North America Andrew Martindale and Bryn Letham Conclusion............................................................................................... 354 Figuring the Political: The Stuff of Sovereignty in a Post-Evolutionary Archaeology Adam T. Smith List of Contributors ................................................................................. 363 Index........................................................................................................ 364

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1-1: The Indian Ocean Figure 1-2: The Tandra of “The Perfume of the Back.” Figure 1-3: Coins for Sale in the Market Place Figure 1-4: Coins and Bills Decorating a Wrap-around with the saying “Master/ Mistress of Wealth” Figure 2-1: Study area with the locations of the Hopi Mesas, Zuni Pueblo and San Juan Pueblo. Figure 2-2: Upper Rio Grande Valley with archaeological sites and locations mentioned in the text. Figure 2-3: Seventeenth century metallurgical workshop at LA 162, A) base of smelting furnace, B) linear bin furnaces, possibly for metal refining and forge work, C) charcoal concentration and roasting platform. The workshop was unfortunately bisected by a pothunter's trench excavated in the 1950's. Map: N. Thomas. Figure 2-4: Pierced and incised sheet copper disk recovered from the seventeenth century metallurgical workshop at LA 162. Figure 3-1: Shaded-relief map of Karnataka, indicating the location of the study area. Figure 3-2: Large modified rock pool at Hire Benakal (site-054), showing several large, slab-supported dolmens on the quarried bank in the distance. Figure 3-3: Overview of survey area, showing distributions of recorded settlements, megalithic complexes, and areas intensively surveyed by Bauer (2010) and Sinopoli and Morrison's previous VMS project (e.g., Sinopoli and Morrison 2007). Figure 3-4: Examples of some megalithic forms recorded in the survey region: (A) slab-supported dolmens, (B) boulder enclosures, and (C-D) modified and unmodified cobble and block-supported dolmens. Figure 3-5: Archaeological context of Hire Benakal (site-54). Figure 3-6: Distribution of menhir monument forms in the central cluster of features at Hire Benakal, near the large rock pool at the center of the site. Figure 3-7: Distribution of monument heights in the central cluster of features at Hire Benakal, showing a general increase toward the central rock pools. Figure 3-8: Passage-chamber megalith (site-113) with modified rock pool. Figure 3-9: Example of ceramic and lithic (A) artifact assemblages and representations of herding activities (B) found at ephemerally occupied places in the survey region (e.g., rockshelter site-010). Figure 4-1: The Wat’a Archaeological Project study area. Figure 4-2: Representative samples of Ollanta phase pottery and domestic architectural styles. Pictured here are common OP serving (left) and storage (right) vessel

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forms. On OP pottery, specific decorative motifs (often consisting of thickly painted bands) correspond to diagnostic rim and form types. Pictured below are common OP residential architectural styles – D-shaped (left) and circular (right). Figure 4-3: This map illustrates the OP settlements (circles) and serving vessel densities (triangles) that were documented throughout the survey area. The map depicts a clustered settlement pattern. It shows how medium-high percentages (>25%) of decorated serving vessels are only associated with specific sites. Named sites correspond to the OP towns. Settlement patterns are shown relative to potential maize production terrain (MPT). Figure 4-4: The map depicts how distinct localities were maintained from the Middle Horizon until the Ollanta Phase. Percent change indices suggest fluctuations in occupational history – a negative index (white triangles) reflects a decrease in densities of surface-level material from one time period to the next, while a positive index (white diamond) reflects an increase relative to OP surface level artifact densities (black dots). Figure 4-5: The graphs illustrate patterns in decorative attributes of pottery derived from the four settlement clusters in the survey zone. Figure 4-6: Local variations on a theme – pictured here are the more common “open” tomb types documented throughout the survey zone. Tower tombs (above left and right) were situated near the Vilcanota River, and were often built aboveground or next to large boulders. Cliff tombs (below left) were often documented in the Huarocondo canyon, and were usually clustered beneath vertical rock faces. Finally, pirca box tombs (below right) were recorded in the Yanawara area, and were painted red and situated on hillsides and beneath rock outcrops. In contrast, “closed” tombs (not pictured) were sporadically distributed, and typically consisted of a niche or enclosure that was blocked off with stones. Figure 4-7: This map shows the distribution of mortuary architecture styles throughout the survey area. Different mortuary styles clearly correspond to the different settlement clusters. Site numbers allow for comparison with Figure 48. Figure 4-8: This map illustrates the distribution of “open” tomb complexes, illustrating how such tomb complexes are almost exclusively associated with certain OP towns. Figure 4-9: The layout of Markaqocha (preliminary map) provides but one example of the OP trend of building discrete tomb complexes near the towns. Radiocarbon dates from grass embedded in the mortar of both houses and tombs from Markaqocha verify that these structures were built or used during the OP (Kosiba 2010). Figure 5-1: Map of prominent Late Bronze Age fortresses highlighting their distribution in northern Armenia. Figure 5-2: Map of Late Bronze Age fortress sites in and around the Tsaghkahovit Plain highlighting burial clusters recorded during Project ArAGATS’ 19982000 settlement survey. Note the sharp breaks in burial frequencies at western

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and eastern edges of the survey area in relation to the Hnaberd and Tsaghkahovit forts (after Badalyan, Smith, and Avetisyan 2003: Fig. 7.3). Figure 5-3: Plan view of the Tsaghkahovit residential complex operations excavated in 2003 and 2005, illustrating articulation of structures and rooms within the residential complex. Figure 5-4: Map of the 2008 gradiometry survey around the Tsaghkahovit fortress. Note South Lower Town excavations in the center of the figure is enlarged in Figure 3 (after Lindsay, Smith, and Badalyan 2009: Fig. 2). Figure 5-5: 40x40m South Lower Town survey area and SLT8 test trench, magnetic scale in nanoteslas (after Lindsay, Smith, and Badalyan 2009: Fig. 4). Figure 5-6: 1ha South Settlement Survey area and SS1 test trench, magnetic scale in nanoteslas (after Lindsay, Smith, and Badalyan 2009: Fig. 5). Figure 5-7: Map of compositional groups of LBA pottery based on clay sources analyzed to date (after Lindsay et al. 2008: Fig. 3). Figure 6-1: Map of South India with location of study area; map of sites and study region (inset). Figure 6-2: Map of Bukkasagara with spatial graph (inset). The spatial graph is justified from the southern extramural zone (i.e., the stock enclosure). Figure 6-3: Architectural Features from Bukkasagara; UAT 1 Iron working terrace (top left); boulder-wedged ‘menhir’ (bottom left); ‘expedient’ less formalized dolmens (top and bottom right). Figure 6-4: Map of Rampuram and photograph of large wall that closed access to the settlement from the east (inset). Figure 6-5: Map of Rampuram’s central occupation area with spatial graph (inset). The spatial graph is justified to the western approach to the settlement. Figure 6-6: Map of Kadebakele’s Upper Terrace settlement and spatial graph (inset). The spatial graph is justified from the summit of the southern approach. Figure 6-7: Kadebakele: the northwestern approach from the base of the inselberg (top); the southern approach from the summit of the south division (middle); revetment steps at the top of the southern approach (bottom). Figure 7-1: Mature Harappan Sites (c. 2500-1900 BC). Map courtesy of G.L. Possehl. Figure 7-2: Site Plan from Mohenjo-Daro. Map courtesy of G.L. Possehl. Figure 7-3: Latrine from Mohenjo-Daro. Photo by J.M. Kenoyer, courtesy of Harappa.com and Department of Archaeology and Museums, Govt. of Pakistan. Figure 8-1: The Valley of Mexico during the Postclassic era, showing the locations Xaltocan and other important settlements. Figure 8-2: Floral motifs on Aztec I Black-on-Orange vessels from Xaltocan. Above left: flower motif on vessel floor; above right: petal motif on vessel wall. Below left: loop motif; below right, tight loop motif. Figure 8-3: Cipactli motifs on Aztec I vessels. Above left: cipactli motifs on the exterior walls of bowls; above right: cipactli motif on a vessel floor. Below left: cipactli from the Codex Telleriano-Rememsis Lám. 13v.; below right: cipactli vessel from Culhuacan (Brenner 1931: fig. 16).

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List of Figures

Figure 8-4: Aztec I ceramics, motifs representing oscillating and reciprocal movement. Above left: zig-zag motif; above right: ribbon motif. Below left: Sspiral (xonecuilli) motif; below right: step-fret spiral (xicalcoliuhqui) motif. Figure 8-5: Polychrome vessels. Above left, red spot on vessel floor; vertical bands and hatching on vessel wall. Above right, red spot on vessel floor; jigsaw motif on vessel wall. Below left, textile motif on a dish interior. Below right: circles with dots on the same dish, exterior. Figure 8-6: Spindle whorls with solar motifs. Above left: flower with fourdirection cross motif; above right: a solar disk motif and [eagle] feathers on the side. Below: spindle whorls with day dots. Figure 8-7: Spindle whorls with the xicalcoliuhqui and low frequency motifs. Above left: comb motif and four-direction motif with the xicalcoliuhqui motif on its side; above right: spindle whorl fragment with the xicalcoliuhqui motif. Bottom left: pentagram with mat incising; bottom right: tobacco bags and fire serpents. Figure 9-1: Map of the Eastern European Steppe. The rectangle delineates the Middle Volga region. The black dot indicates the location of Spiridonovka within the Samara oblast’. Figure 9-2: Plan of Spiridonovka 2, Kurgan 1 (courtesy of Oleg Mochalov). Figure 9-3: Plan of Spiridonovka 4, Kurgan 1 (from Kuznetsov and Mochalov 1999b: 208). Figure 9-4: Plan of Spiridonovka 4, Kurgan 2 (from Kuznetsov and Mochalov 1999b: 209). Figure 9-5: Spiridonovka 4, Kurgan 2, Burial 6 (Kuznetsov and Mochalov 1999b: 219) Figure 9-6: Spiridonovka 2, Kurgan 1, (1) Burial #2; (2) ceramic vessel with symbols; (3) detail of design on ceramic vessel; (4) bronze bracelets; (6) bronze needle; (7) nakosnik 1 (from Kuznetsov and Mochalov 1999a: 79-81).

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1-1: Pirate Booty. Table 1-2: Popular Names for Coins (adapted from Chauvicourt and Chauvicourt 1966). Table 4-1: The Cusco region chronology relative to the periodization used throughout the Inka provinces. The Ollanta Phase refers to particular stylistic changes that have been documented in the northwest area of the Cusco region. Table 4-2: This table lists the published and WAP radiocarbon dates from a sample of Ollanta Phase sites (see also Bauer 2004). Table 5-1: Abbreviated chronology of the Bronze Age and Iron Age periods in Southern Caucasia (after Smith, Badalyan, and Avetisyan 2009: Fig. 2). Table 8-1: Design motifs on Aztec I Black-on-Orange sherds from Xaltocan, Zocalo C (N=33). Table 8-2: Design motifs on Polychrome sherds from Xaltocan, Zocalo C (N=19). Table 8-3: Design motifs on Early Postclassic spindle whorls from Xaltocan, Zocalo C, (N=12). Table 9-1: Basic information about the burials in Spiridonovka 2, Kurgan 1. Table 9-2: Basic information about the burials in Spiridonovka 4, Kurgan 1. Table 9-3: Basic information about burials in Spiridonovka 4, Kurgan 2. Table 9-4: The most common pathologies at Spiridonovka.

PREFACE

The history of this volume can be traced back to many provocative conversations between the editors, and a number of graduate students and faculty at the University of Chicago during the early and middle years of the past decade. Most notable among the latter are Adam T. Smith, Kathleen Morrison, and Mark Lycett, and we thank them all for their valued insights. In October 2006, after a long day of hiking and conversation on the high mountain ridges above Howe Sound in British Columbia, we came to the idea of organizing a session for the 2008 Society for American Archaeologists’ (SAA) annual meetings that would gather a series of papers from archaeologists who as their central objective sought to explore past political practice and action, in ways that engaged with contemporary anthropological theory and a close attention to data and epistemological concerns. Among our goals for the SAA session was a questioning of what had been archaeology’s central foci in political analysis in the past, in particular the theoretical emphasis on socio-evolutionary narratives, and the dual focus on large-scale institutions and societal contexts referred to as ‘complex.’ Our initial goals for the session were to examine if issues such as the resolution of archaeological data sets, data collection strategies, and the selection of research foci were somehow structuring the emphasis of archaeological investigations of the political in the past to this relatively narrow spectrum of issues and contexts. As such, we agreed upon the title, Selective Foci or Fuzzy Data Resolution: Political Anthropology and the Archaeology of Political Production in the Past, for the session and invited a group of 13 archaeologists who were working on issues of past political production in socio-historic contexts that were either small in scale, quotidian in nature, or non-institutional in context. The session was composed of papers by of Wendy Ashmore, Andrew Bauer, Nicole Boivin, Peter Johansen, Susan Kus and Victor Raharijaona, Ian Lindsay, Diane Lyons and Andrea Freeman, Laura Popova, Noah Thomas, Uzma Rizvi and Adam Smith. Papers presented in the session were remarkably cohesive as a whole and we decided to approach participants shortly after with the suggestion of expanding their papers into chapter length discussions of their research. Wendy Ashmore, Nicole Boivin, and Diane Lyons and Andrea Freeman were not able to join us in the volume but

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each made very valuable contributions to the session and the intellectual spirit of the present volume. Lyons and Freemans’ expanded paper from the session entitled ‘I’m not evil’: materializing identities of marginalized potters in Tigray region, Ethiopia, can be found in a 2009 issue of the journal Azania. As the volume began to take shape we invited several other scholars to participate and were delighted to have chapters contributed by Elizabeth Brumfiel, Steven Kosiba, and Andrew Martindale and Bryn Letham. In addition to this Eileen Murphy and Aleksandr Khokhlov joined Laura Popova to contribute Chapter 9 of the volume. We thank them all for their valued contributions. We would also like to thank Carol Koulikourdi, our editor at Cambridge Scholars Publishing for her assistance, support and patience with the volume. Thanks also to Amanda Millar at CSP for her careful assistance with the production of the volume. A number of other individuals and institutions have our gratitude and thanks. Peter Johansen would like to thank the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia for their support and granting of a UBC Teaching and Research Postdoctoral Fellowship (2008-2010), during which much of his contribution to the volume was done. Special thanks to former and current Department Heads David Pokotylo and John Barker, and Michael Blake and Zhichun Jing for their constant support and encouragement. Johansen would also like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (and the tax payers of Canada) for the granting of an SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship (2010-2012) that enabled time to work on the last year of his contribution to the volume. Finally he would like to thank his family, Sandra, Penny and Lucy for their constant love and support. Andrew Bauer would like to acknowledge the University of Chicago’s Department of Anthropology, Committee on Southern Asian Studies, and the Program on the Global Environment for writing and travel support throughout the production of this volume. Numerous friends and colleagues have contributed to the intellectual framing of this volume through conversations in seminars, and over drinks and meals. We would be remiss not to offer thanks to our many friends that listened and contributed as we grappled with the limitations and possibilities for an archaeology of politics over the last decade. May 10, 2010 Vancouver and Chicago

INTRODUCTION RECONFIGURING THE ‘POLITICAL’ IN THE RECONSTRUCTION OF PAST POLITICAL PRODUCTION PETER G. JOHANSEN AND ANDREW M. BAUER

Archaeology’s engagement with the politics of past socio-cultural worlds is longstanding, extending to at least the first half of the 20th Century when many archaeologists grappled with understanding and reconstructing recently discovered ancient urban settlements and an everexpanding epigraphic record that spoke of past structures and expressions of power and forms of governance. Yet despite this early interest and indeed a degree of theorization about particular kinds of political organization (e.g., Childe 1936, 1942, 1950), it was with the development of the ‘New Archaeology’ and a sustained revival of socio-evolutionary theory in American anthropology that the attention of many archaeologists became focused squarely on the subject of political organization in the past. The engagement of archaeological research with the subject of politics from the 1960’s onwards was primarily concerned with the recognition of ethnographically derived stage-types of political organization (e.g., Fried 1967; Service 1962) from patterned archaeological data and the explanation of the causal mechanisms of their evolution from simpler to more complex forms (e.g., Adams 1966; Carneiro 1970; Claessen and Skalnik 1978; Flannery 1972; A. Johnson and Earle 1987; G. Johnston 1982; Sanders et al. 1979; Wright 1970; Wright and Johnston 1974). A critical development of this scholarship was the understanding of political forms as organizational systems that articulated people and resources within wider socio-material, cultural, and ecological framings. Yet despite the benefits of a renewed attention to explanation, this scholarship was constrained by a rigid adherence to both formal models and structuralfunctionalist logics. Particular emphasis was placed on categorizing, classifying (and reclassifying) those large-scale forms deemed most

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Introduction

socially and politically complex (i.e., chiefdoms and states), largely to the exclusion of those considered less complex or smaller in scale. During the 1980s and 90s there began a more concentrated effort to understand the operation of power, authority, and resistance in specific and strategic articulations of economic resources, ideational constructions, and ideological contexts of very particular past socio-cultural loci (e.g., see volumes by Brumfiel and Earle 1987; Brumfiel and Fox 1994; Earle 1991, Earle 1997; Price and Feinman 1995; Parker-Pearson and Richards 1994; Schortman and Urban 1992). The practice theories of Bourdieu (1977) and Giddens (1979, 1984) engendered significant interest among archaeologists in agency, and even the relationship between structure and agency through practice, particularly among practices set within political contexts (e.g., Ashmore 1989; Bell 1992; Dietler 1998; 2001; Clark and Blake 1992; Dobres 2000; Dobres and Robb 2000; Hastorf 1993; Hendon 1996; Hodder 1991; Joyce 2000; Joyce and Winter 1996; Pauketat 2000, 2001; Shanks and Tilley 1987). These developments, together with those of a recently revitalized political anthropology (see Spencer 2007) have led to recognition among a growing body of archaeologists of the importance of socio-historical context in the development of political institutions and forms, and also to a recalibration of analytic optics away from uniformitarian types and forms of political organization to a focus on culturally-inflected, historically situated, political practice and production (Bauer et al. 2007; R. Bauer 2007; Dietler 1998, 2001; Johansen 2008; Kus and Raharijaona 1998; 2000; Lycett 2001; Morrison 2008; Morrison and Lycett 1994; Pauketat 2007; Sinopoli 2003; Smith 1999; 2003; Stahl 2004; this volume). We begin the Introduction to this volume with a short examination of politics and archaeology (cf. Smith 2011). Specifically we ask what it is that constitutes politics, its social and cultural location, its materiality and sociology, and especially its position and possibilities as a conceptual category in archaeological analyses of past socio-cultural worlds. We hope this discussion will contextualize some of the diversity of new positions and approaches provided by the chapters that follow. In the end, we determine that politics could be more productively viewed as a fluid and dynamic field of social relations where navigation, negotiation, consensus, and contestation over the production of a web of social differences and affiliations unfold. Our primary goals for the volume are thus twofold: the problematization and re-conceptualization of politics from its understanding as a reified essence or structure of political forms (e.g., a state, a chiefdom, a stratified or egalitarian society) to that of a fluid, dynamic and culturally inflected set of practices; and, second, to consider politics’ entanglement

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with the materiality of socio-cultural worlds at multiple-scales through the demonstration of innovative analytical approaches to the material record. As such we outline some new and hopeful dimensions and directions of an exciting and dynamic topical and analytic field for current and future archaeological research.

Problematizing the Analysis of Politics in the Past For decades archaeological analyses of politics have been focused on larger-scale institutional structures and contexts, particularly those of past ‘complex’ polities to the near exclusion of both societies with less technocratically sophisticated governing institutions and non-institutional settings within larger polities. This appears to have been part of a larger tendency in the social sciences to focus analytic attention on structures rather than the practices and social relations that are constituent of these structures and crucial for understanding change and continuity (Sahlins 1985: xi). In much of the archaeological literature this has led to the use of typological distinctions where politics has become a reified essence of very particular kinds of political formations (e.g., bands, tribes, chiefdoms, states) rather than historically constituted relations between peoples, places and things (cf. Inden 1990). Despite the considerable amount of productive scholarship on institutional forms and scales, the result has been a general neglect of investigations of political practice in other social frames, scales and contexts (e.g., gender relations, families, occupations, village communities, landscape production1). Does this focus in archaeology on the politics of large-scale, institutional contexts result from a particular understanding of what does or does not constitute politics? Is there something inherently more political about the institutional practice of social relations in states than in non-state or non-governmental aggregate social settings? Or is the nature of most archaeological data simply such that the examination of politics at multiple scales and sites is a more vexing analytic proposition? Regardless of how we answer these questions, our understandings of political practice and action in the past beyond broad and formal institutional contexts remains, for the most part, less well-developed. Especially neglected are the political practices of everyday life—the pursuit of common social goals by people at a variety of scales, contexts and positions relative to the historical dynamics of power, authority and legitimacy. How then, as archaeologists, can we move beyond a notion of politics as simply an essence of some institutional structure (e.g., the state) towards an understanding of politics as a diversity of action and practice

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Introduction

orienting social relations towards general and particular kinds of social goals? The solution we feel lies in part in circumventing what Jonathon Spencer (2007:5) has recently called “the parochialism and formalism that has so disfigured the academic understanding of the political.” This will require us to probe, perhaps with some discomfort, what it is at the heart of our conceptualization and mobilization of politics as a category of sociological, historical and indeed, anthropological analysis. At issue here are a number of ontological tensions between what we consider constitutes politics, political activity, and the subject of political analysis. Tensions such as those between instrumentalist and expressivist understandings of politics, between private and public institutional domains, and the curious analytical divide between structure (e.g., forms) and agency, or structure and practice (Bourdieu 1977; Sahlins 1985) are all manifest in many cross disciplinary forums on the subject, and worth some discussion here (cf. Soja 2010; Zizek 1999). Despite certain formalisms that haunt political science and some political anthropology, decades of ethnographic research, which consciously documented political thought, practice and action, have underlined the culturally inflected nature of politics (Spencer 2007: 6). Cross-culturally, political thought and action navigate a spectrum of ontologies and social locations. These range from instrumental logics concerned with the mediation of power through coercive and cooperative action and structures, to the expression and performance of cooperative activities, or resistance to structures of power by a range of social actors as willing and active participants in a diversity of interdependent relationships and institutions. In the history of sociological and historical political analysis these tensions have been demonstrably difficult to recognize, let alone address. In archaeological analyses of politics the focus has been overwhelmingly on instrumental dimensions of political action, with attention to political performance or expression largely reserved to spatial proxies of political forms,2 e.g., settlement hierarchies as representative of socio-political types of organization, or structures (e.g., temples, houses) as containers for particular kinds of institutions. However, a number of recent analyses of political action in the historic and prehistoric past are addressing a closer convergence of these dimensions of politics, particularly through the entwined analytic frames of spatial production and landscape, as well as those exploring political ecology, commensal politics, ritual economies, identity production, factionalism, and resistance (Bauer et al. 2007; Cameron and Duff 2008; Dietler and Hayden 2001; Gilchrist 1999; Kus and Raharijaona 2000; Morrison 2001; 2009; Nassaney and Abel 2000; Smith 1999; 2003; 2006; Voss 2000; 2008; Wall 2000).

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The institutional setting of political action is another field of tension that needs our attention. Classical political anthropology produced in the frame of British and American structural-functionalism effectively navigated a broad range of institutional scales from public to private, yet homogenized political thought and action to a near universal instrumentalism echoed, in among other locations, the socio-evolutionism so pervasive in much post1960’s archaeology. Here not only was the cultural inflection of political action dissolved in the interest of a unifying structure and narrative of instrumental politics (and formalist economics), but also mislaid was an attention to the historical uniqueness of the social fields in which political activity was located; rather, interest was placed on a much broader universal history, or prehistory if you prefer (cf., Geertz 1980; Sahlins 1994; Spencer 2007). Perhaps then we are faced with a further ontological tension in our efforts to configure politics—one with even broader analytic and interpretational implications deeply rooted in the development of postenlightenment historiography, that between the intellectual production of universal and local histories (cf., Ogborn 2008; Sahlins 1985; Subrahmanyam 2005; Wolf 1982). This is a subject not unfamiliar to archaeologists and socio-cultural anthropologists, though recast as the clash between evolutionary meta-narratives and the sometimes atomistic and at times relativist renderings of the past found in the accounts of historical particularists (cf. Gledhill 1989; Roseberry 1987; Shanks and Tilley 1987). In archaeology, the pervasive legacy of socio-evolutionary approaches to the analysis of politics may indeed reflect an analytic disposition to focus almost exclusively on a particular kind or scale of institution in past societies viewed as essential to its position in an overall evolutionary scheme of politics—i.e., the “State” or “chiefdom” (Fried 1967; Johnston and Earle 1987; Service 1966; Hayden 1995).3 Leaving aside for a moment the more serious epistemological pitfalls of producing metahistories, this attention to the largest, or most essential, institutional context in archaeological analyses neglects other important institutional structures and practices and leaves the dynamic historical web of social relations and practice that construct, reproduce, and contest institutional structures remarkably under-pursued. Furthermore, if we put too much stock in the recognition of familiar ideal types4 of institutions (e.g., chiefdoms, states)—generated originally by a very specific kind of comparative ethnography—in order to navigate unfamiliar data we run the risk of seeing a far greater uniformity of forms in our collective research than actually exists. An analytic focus on practices enables a clearer understanding of the uniqueness and shape of culturally inflected political

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Introduction

forms that political practices produce as they articulate social relations. Perhaps then, rather than compress variation into ideal types of political organization—such as bands, tribes, chiefdoms, states, etc.—apparent cross-cultural similarities in political practice could be viewed more productively as what Adam Smith (2003: 22) has termed trans-historical regularities in practice, displacing the emphasis on the operational recognition of forms and squaring our attention firmly on the practices and social relations that constitute political fields of action. A further related problem is the neglect of political analyses of prehistoric societies deemed not to have touched the meta-historic moment of “complexity” (cf. Rowlands 1989: 32). To approach a question we posed at the beginning of this paper, we argue that human social organization without large-scale political institutions are no-less political than those with the most complex and large-scale institutions (cf. Bender 1989; Whitelaw 1994). While the scales, degrees and intensities of political thought and action vary across socio-cultural and historic locations, politics inhabits every dimension of our collective social lives (Gramsci 1971; Smith 2003: 11). It is therefore the social location and cultural inflection of political practice that requires the most serious analytic attention in all cases. The poststructuralist political anthropologies which have emerged in both the ethnographic and archaeological projects of the past several decades have broadened the field of political analysis to incorporate a much wider range and scale of the social action of past and current political life. Extending the lens of analysis into the articulation of smaller scale institutional spheres and exploring patterns of resistance from within and without institutional structures has moved the focus of attention from broad and synchronic political structures or forms to that of dynamic political practice. The result has been a more careful attention to the political production and reproduction of everyday life, its culturally inflected strategic logics and performative dynamics (e.g., Inomata and Coben 2006; Smith 2011; this volume). It has brought to the center of analysis relations of power involving less visible and privileged social actors and their articulation and exclusion within wider social and institutional frames (e.g., Appadurai 1981; Comaroff and Comaroff 1991; Ferguson 1992; Gordillo 2004; Guha 1997; Morrison 1995, 2001; Pauketat 2000; Scott 1985; Sinopoli 2003; Wolf 1999). Still, the prudent (if glib) note of caution provided by Sahlin’s (2002: 20-23) rejoinder to the ascendance of power and resistance studies in the social sciences during the 1980s and 90’s is of particular salience here; in order not to dilute or indeed dissolve the analytic utility and inferential value of the study of the

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political we must avoid “translating the apparently trivial into the fatefully political” (2002:23). In other words, while there is much in the social practices of everyday life that is political there is much in both the quotidian and non-quotidian fields of practice that is not. The archaeological challenge, then, becomes the interpretation of which sociocultural practices and strategies constitute the domain of politics at particular times, and which are the domain of the “apparently trivial” at others. Many recent archaeological explorations of past political practice have been influenced by a surge of post-colonial ethnographies and histories focused on studies of resistance to developing inequalities of access to resources, spaces, and institutional structures of power in historically documented societies (e.g., Comaroff and Comaroff 1991; Guha 1997; Scott 1985). An emergent theme in this body of work is an analytic concern with the operation of power, its modalities, and inhabitation within a range of socio-material and socio-symbolic practice in historically situated settings (Comaroff and Comaroff 1991; Gordillo 2004; Guha 1997; Morrison 2001; Sinopoli 1988, 2003; Wolf 1990; 1999). While much archaeological research has been temporally located in historic period research—especially that of modern colonialisms (e.g., Kus and Raharijaona 2000; Leone 1995; Miller 1989; Morrison 1995, 2001, 2007; Nassaney and Abel 2000; Sinopoli 2003)—a growing body of work on prehistoric periods has been exploring politics as suites of historically situated practices through which power is differentially articulated, manifested and impacted on a variety of social relationships by a diversity of social actors in the conscious pursuit of particular individual and collective goals (Bauer et al. 2007; Brumfiel 1994a; 1994b; Cameron and Duff 2008; Dietler 1998, 2001; Dietler and Herbich 2001; Johansen 2008; Morrison 2009; Pauketat 2000; Smith 1999, 2003, 2006). This work has demonstrated how the materiality of social life was engaged in historically contingent, culturally inflected political practices which strategically ordered, mediated and expressed social relations through a diversity of aggregations and distinctions. This suggests an answer to another question we posed earlier: that patterned archaeological data is in fact rather well suited to the analysis of political practices at a variety of scales and sites. Building on this scholarship we suggest that the recognition of the political from the “trivial” can be evaluated by engaging a concept rather familiar to archaeologists: context. In the cases presented in this volume there is acute attention to the cultural, social, and historical contexts that constitutes some actions and activities as political, and others not. For example, Bauer’s analysis of Iron Age landscape production in South India

8

Introduction

(Chapter 3), argues that the construction of commemorative megalithic monuments and other seemingly mundane features, such as rock pools for the purposes of watering grazing animals, constituted political practices of spatial appropriation largely because, as an ensemble of related activities, they contributed to the production of places characterized by social inequalities of access both to the places themselves and to the capacity to reconstitute the material and symbolic resources associated with herd management, provisioning communal feasts, and ultimately mobilizing labor. His interpretation of the political relevance of the creation of these commemorative places would have been much different if there was not well-attested evidence for the economic and symbolic importance of cattle during the Iron Age. Another good example of the critical role of socio-historic context in situating socio-material practice as decidedly political is found in Thomas’ investigation of the politics of value involving minerals and pigments during the early Spanish-Puebloan colonial encounter in 16th Century New Mexico (Chapter 2). In this case it is the “structure” of the historical “conjuncture” of two unique and unfolding cultural logics of value (converged on one and the same range of minerals), that having become entangled in the political economy and ecology of colonial encounter, produced and defined (or perhaps amplified) two distinct yet convergent and overlapping fields of political logic (perception, conception, valuation) and practice (e.g., collection, assessment, usage) through conflict and negotiation over the value, procurement and exchange of mineral ores. Moreover, Brumfiel’s chapter draws our attention to an important scale and context of political practice often overlooked by archaeologists as a unified socio-political (or indeed internally apolitical unit: the household (Chapter 8). Her study of variation among a (largely) common suite of design motifs on spindle whorls and serving vessels within a Mid PostClassic household in Xaltocan, Mexico demonstrates how the practice of decoration and display were used to negotiate individual and group identities within private and public spheres of political practice, both within the household and the wider community. In this case, the display of decorative motifs on spindle whorls within the private place of individual households was a means for individuals (likely women) to negotiate their individual identities (as distinctive or convergent to that of the larger household group), while the public display of a more restricted set of motifs on serving vessels, through the commensal politics of sponsored feasts, demonstrated household identity (and unity) to the broader community. Such examples take us to the heart of the theoretical issue we

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have been exploring—namely, what constitutes politics within a wider suite of social actions and practices.

Investigating the Theoretical and Sociological Location of Politics: Framing Practice, Power, Structure and Agency in Archaeological Analysis If archaeology has largely pursued the analysis of politics in the past through a somewhat restricted set of conceptual and theoretical constructs, epistemological framings, scalar and sociological objects and optics, how then might we refocus our analytic attention on a wider suite of political thought, practice and action? Part of the answer to this question we feel lies with a redefinition or reconstitution of what it is that we mean by political, both in terms of its theoretical location and also how politics inhabits socio-historical contexts and socio-material practice. Such a reframing we hope will allow us to better explore not only those political contexts thinly pursued by archaeologists to date but also enable us to reexamine, with new eyes and inferential logics, those avenues of past politics more frequently pursued in archaeological research. We do not wish to provide a reductive or restrictive definition of politics here; the intellectual history of political science and political anthropology serves as poignant reminders of the conceptual and analytic constraints that emerge from such efforts (Spencer 2007; Taylor 1985). Yet not to make any attempt at some, even very broad framing of the social field of politics risks its trivialization by the inclusion of all and sundry cultural phenomena as somehow political in character (Sahlins 2002). Here then we offer a framing that is somewhat flexible yet defined, but critically one that is capable of incorporating the myriad of culturally inflected political logic and practice regardless of spatio-temporal scale or socio-historic context. We view politics as a fluid and dynamic field of social relations where navigation, negotiation, consensus, and contestation over the production of a web of social differences and affiliations unfold. It is the social location where power is mediated through established and emergent cultural logics and social relations, where relations of power are challenged, renovated and reinvented, or the status quo of social orders are maintained. Finally, it is a field of creative and performative tensions though which ideological positions, individual and collective interests, and structures of authority, legitimacy, status and access are acted out and upon. While the mediation of power and the strategic instrumentality of agents (individuals and groups) are crucial components of the political dimension of social life, politics is neither a function of the expression of

10

Introduction

power or of a rational self-interest5 (Geertz 1980: 122, 135; Sahlins 2002: 20; Spencer 2007: 37). Rather, politics often proceeds along social trajectories that are decidedly non-rational, without the interest or promise of material gain, in which power operates through complex configurations of complimentary and juxtaposing modalities at times through relations and forms not immediately recognizable as such (cf., Comaroff and Comaroff 1991; Miller 1989; Scott 1985; 1998; Spencer 2007; Wolf 1990). The expression of power through a political field of social relations and practices warrants at least some brief exposition here. Miller (1989:64) draws our attention to a poorly resolved analytic tension between agency and structure located between more traditional accounts of power with their focus on instrumental control and coercion (e.g., that discussed by and derived from Weber 1947), and those of the later 20th Century (most notably Foucault 1977, 1981) in which power exists as a compelling force or principle within an underlying structure of practice and discourse. Comaroff and Comaroff (1991: 22) and Wolf (1990)6 address this tension through the identification of two analytically discrete modalities of power that inhabit and inhere to culturally–inflected social relations and the materiality of political practice. The first is a structural or non-agentive mode where social thought and practice are directed, even controlled by naturalized ontologies that are deeply and historically embedded in cultural values and conventions such as ethics and aesthetics (Comaroff and Comaroff 1991: 22). The second is an agentive or tactical mode, which entails the purposeful exercise of control over the “actions and perceptions” of all or segments of society by certain member groups (Comaroff and Comaroff 1991: 22; Wolf 1990: 587). These modalities of power articulate differentially and contingently according to historical circumstance, cultural location and spatio-temporal scale. The emphasis of the latter is on instrumental and strategic logics and practices and the aspirations of agents while the former is with historically seated traditions and naturalized logics and practices. Both, however, entail performance and materiality. Yet despite the utility of their analytic separation, these modalities of power must be recognized as convergent and dialectical in producing political practices in socio-historic contexts; they do not operate independent of one another regardless of the apparent analytic preeminence of one over another in a given context. Understanding the convergence of these two modalities of power, in the interpretation of historical processes of political production from the archaeological record is an important and useful analytical focus.

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Much work in historical anthropology has moved towards a clearer theoretical understanding of the dialectics of structure and agency through practice within a scalar recognition of time (and indeed space) (e.g., Appadurai 1981; Basso 1996; Comaroff and Comaroff 1991; Gordillo 2004; Lansing 1991; Mintz 1985; Roseberry 1987; Sahlins 1985; Wolf 1991; 1999). Political practice involves the exercise of power by agents through social relations within a given structure of power, with the consequent mediation of contingent or anticipated outcomes (cf. Comaroff and Comaroff 1991:18). The resulting political sociology may be enduring or fleeting, maintaining or altering that which preceded it. However, as Comaroff and Comaroff (1991: 18) note, transcending from a short to medium term temporality, emergent relations of power (of an agentive character) that once appeared contingent and fleeting, may through regularized practice, become naturalized and operate unquestioned (as tradition for a time) within localized ontologies (thus inhabiting a more structural location). But such a situation develops within its own unique articulating history of social relations, political practice and modalities and relations of power; i.e., as an historical process of political production (cf. Taylor 1985: 36). The sociology produced by political practice and its embedded relations of power is one in which social relations of difference (and affiliation) are constructed, maintained, challenged and reproduced, social relations that are based on varying degrees of unequal access to places, people, positions, materials, and knowledge. The scale and contours of these social relations and the degree and intensity of socio-material inequalities differ considerably in conception and practice from rigid social hierarchies to flexible and even permeable distinctions. Political economy with its focus on social differences and the potential for uneven distributions of, and access to, social, material and symbolic resources generated by productive activity has been an important location of study for the analysis of the sociological context of political practice in archaeology and historical anthropology. Yet, political economy’s materialist framing has been critiqued on a number of levels as placing either too strong an emphasis on, or granting a determinative role to, economic relations in its conception of political structure (and what we understand here as political practice and production) (cf. Martindale Chapter 10 Roseberry 1987; Rowlands 2004, 2005; Smith 2011). Among the consequences of particular shades of materialism on the framing of politics’ sociological location are a lack of attention to the role of symbolic resources, ideational constructs such as meaning, the materiality of social life (see below), and the historically

12

Introduction

constituted nature of political production7 (Roseberry 1987; Rowlands 2004). While in many cases much of this critique is justified, recent research is replete with examples of efforts to retool political economy paradigms to mitigate these very concerns (e.g., Bauer et al. 2007; Bauer Chapter 3; Johansen 2008, Chapter 6; Kosiba Chapter 4; Martindale and Letham Chapter 10; Roseberry 1987; Rowlands 2004, 2005; Stahl 2004). Here we argue for an inferential logic to the analysis of past political practice that begins with a recognition of the historical operation of structural and agentive modalities of power in political practice that produce sociological contexts and social relations of difference, one that acknowledges both a materialism and materiality in the politics of social life. It is from such a position that we may begin to analyze and assess many of those issues and contexts of political practice more common to archaeology and social science (e.g., authority, legitimacy, conflict, resistance, institutions, structures, agents, identity, gender, class) and those less commonly addressed (e.g., evaluation, consensus, cohesion, altruism; agonism, daily life, families, occupations, non-institutional settings). As it is with the archaeological vestiges of the materiality of political practice that our greatest potential for inference building and interpretation as archaeologists and historical anthropologists lies, we turn now to a discussion of the deep entanglement of political action within the materiality of socio-cultural worlds.

The Materiality of Political Practice Politics, as a specific and dynamic field of power, social relations and practices, both produces and is constrained by a materiality. There are (at least) two distinct, emphases on “materiality” circulating among archaeologists and socio-cultural anthropologists today. Some scholars call attention to the degree to which objects and things are actively imbued with meaning and come to embody and encode important values through their production and circulation within historical cultural contexts, while at the same time recursively shaping human experience, subjectivities, and society (cf. Boivin 2008; Demarrais et al. 2004; Miller 2005; Meskell 2005a). Meskell (2005b), comes the closest to a definitional stance on this position: Materiality represents a presence of power in realizing the world, crafting things from nothing, subjects from nonsubjects. This affecting presence is shaped through enactment with the physical world, projecting or imprinting ourselves onto the world [Armstrong 1981: 19]. Such originary crafting acknowledges that there are no a priori objects. They can never be simply

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inferred as axiomatic; rather, they must be sensed, experienced, and believed [Simmel 1979: 61]. Reciprocally it is this same material world with which human beings are constituted as cultural agents. (Meskell 2005b: 51-52).

Other scholars have placed emphasis on the dynamic relational attributes of physical materials to resist particular kinds of cultural imprints, uses, and projections, and instead highlight the degree to which the material world contributes to the generative process of constituting things, histories, and meanings through socio-material articulations. Tim Ingold, for example, takes a different position on the histories of things, arguing against the suggestion that we simply “project” or “imprint” “ourselves on the [physical] world.” His emphasis is placed provocatively on properties of the materials themselves arguing that they “are not fixed attributes of matter but are processual and relational.” They, too, are historical—changing according to the mediums through which they are experienced or according to temporary conditions such as being hot or cold, wet or dry, rooted in the ground or floating in water. Consequently, they always have dynamic potential and are not only capable of resisting preexisting kinds of (cultural) “imprints” or “projections,” but in fact contribute to the generative process of constituting meaning through sociomaterial practice (see also Boivin 2008: 26). Ingold suggests that “making” inanimate things is a process of “growth”—much like raising crops or animals—not a processes of producing something out of an infinitely malleable material substrate. Material forms are generated—like the forms of living beings—within the relational contexts of the mutual involvement of people and their environments” (Ingold 2000: 88, see also Ingold 2000: 339-348). In a similar vein Nicole Boivin argues, in definitional terms, that materiality: emphasize[s] the physicality of the material world—the fact that it has dimensions, that it resists and constrains, and that it offers possibilities for the human agent (or organism) by virtue of its set of physical properties. (Boivin 2008: 26)

Between the definition provided by Meskell and the orientation toward materials advocated by Ingold we see different framings of what “materiality” should or could mean. In the case of the first, the emphasis is placed on the power of meaningfully imbued objects to do work in a social field; “[m]ateriality is thus a set of cultural relationships [Pels 2002]. Imbued matter and embodied objects exist in relationship to specificities of temporality, spatiality, and sociality” (Meskell 2005a: 6). In the second

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Introduction

case, emphasis is placed on the properties of environmental constituents to actively inform, resist, enable, and constrain their “growth,” uses, and circulations among people through a dynamic process of practice and engagement: “The properties of materials, in short, are not attributes but histories (Ingold 2007: 15).” Despite the (at times contentious) debate spawned by Ingold’s concern for materials against materialities we hasten to add, perhaps too quickly, that the emphases are not mutually exclusive. Ingold’s protests stem largely from a concern for the generation of meaning and form; he opposes the idea that human actors simply impose meaning and form on materials entirely as they choose and please, with no regard for the activities and dynamic properties of plants, animals, and things that are interactive in the process of their fashioning. Such a framing tends towards the reproduction of an ontological dualism between the intentional worlds of humans and unintentional worlds of other thingsplants-and-animals, subjects and objects, or culture and nature, that a considerable degree of postmodern scholarship has rather effectively challenged (e.g., Descola and Pálsson 1996). Yet, much of the materiality literature, including that of Meskell’s cited above, is likewise attempting to dissolve the boundary between a priori subjects and objects (see, for example, Miller’s [2005] discussion of ‘objectification’) through the process of their “mutual constitution.” Regardless of where their meanings originate and the dynamic relationships through which things become things (and subjects become subjects), things do come to have meanings to people, meanings that may have a degree of permanence or that may change through their (re)fashioning, consumption, uses, and circulations. Meanings may also change as their material properties move through their own histories (e.g., as rocks weather, slopes erode, wood cracks etc.) interactively within a field of other constituent actors in socio-historic contexts. In other words, things do participate in the social and cultural fields that Meskell and others attribute to them (see also Knappett 2007). Many of the case studies in this book demonstrate that materiality matters, in either framing of the term discussed above. Social relationships and political practices are constituted not only through a symbolic field, but also a material one—complete with nonhuman constituents that take on and inform important meanings and attributes within the context of localized and historically constituted cultural logics and practice. This materiality actively inhabits socio-cultural worlds through political practices, recursively producing (and reproducing) social relations, individual and group subjectivities, and sociological contexts; it holds the potential for further anticipated or contingent consequences of both meaning and practice (cf. Keene 2005). As such, and in keeping with a

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more general theoretic of materiality, the optics of analysis for a political materiality cannot be subsumed in a set of relationships entailing the simple reflection of political forms or meanings in material objects (see Miller 2005); this kind of reductionist analytic strategy has characterized much archaeological research on politics such as the employment of settlement hierarchies as proxies for socio-evolutionary stage types (e.g., Johnston and Earle 1987). Rather here we advocate the recognition of political materiality as a “mutually constituted”8 process that embodies and empowers both people and objects9 through culturally inflected political practices that produce distinctive political sociologies and socio-material worlds. The dialectical relationships between people and things, humans and nonhumans, are inextricably bound together by historic and emergent relations of production. Yet understanding the dynamic (re)productive character of political materiality requires us to revisit the dialectical articulation of structural and agentive modalities of power discussed in the previous section. As such, we are exploring both a dialectics of objectification between people (individuals and groups) and objects (Miller 1987; 2005; cf., Ingold 2000; Lemonnier 1992; Rowlands 2004) and a dialectics of power, between agentive and structural modalities (Comaroff and Comaroff 1991), which coalesce in the action of political practice, making and remaking both people and things (cf., Rowlands 2004). Agentive and structural modalities of power actively inhabit objects/ artifacts such as buildings, landscapes (and aspects thereof that are physically constructed or socio-culturally conceived), tools, weapons, regalia, food and drink (to name a few) through practice within historical, contextual conjunctures at a multitude of scales (spatio-temporal, behavioral), effecting change or stability with anticipated or contingent consequences. The naturalization of power relations, in people, positions or objects and the relationships between particular objects and people may begin as the contingent effects of very particular circumstances but their historical origins may cease over time to be recognized, yielding agency to other sources in embedded cultural logics (e.g., supernatural, natural or sociocultural). The displacement of emphasis from an agentive to structural modality of power can result in objects assuming a more agentive role in culturally-inflected power relations whereby certain forms (e.g., buildings, monuments, landforms, insignia) are imbued with the unquestioned (or little questioned) power of convention with attendant status, value and meaning (cf. Comaroff and Comaroff 1991; Fernandez 1977; Foucault 1977; Kus and Raharijaona 1998, 2000; Lansing 1991; Latour 2005;

16

Introduction

Markus 1993; H. Moore 1986; J. Moore 1996; Smith and David 1995). As Miller (2005: 32) reminds us, “[s]ocial relations exist in and through our material worlds that often act in entirely unexpected ways that cannot be traced back to some clear sense of will or intention” (see also Latour 2004). This ensuing and resultant political materiality is an intrinsic part of a political sociology of practice as many of the papers in this volume demonstrate—a materiality that is identified through the patterned remains of archaeological landscapes. Thomas’ discussion of the historical conjuncture of color and mineral valuations between Spanish and Puebloan peoples during the early colonial period in New Mexico (Chapter 2), Johansen’s Iron Age South Indian architectural practices of residential separation (Chapter 6), and Rizvi’s spatial aesthetics of Indus toiletry and civic sanitation practices (Chapter 7), all speak to a political materiality and sociology located within deeply embedded, naturalized ontologies of power. Yet we cannot loose sight of the fact that very real human agents produced these materialities and sociologies through political thought practice, and action. This leads us towards contexts of political materiality where the agentive modality of power appears more pre-eminent in political practice. Political materiality is no less active in contexts of political practice where human social agents employ instrumental and strategic logics to achieve political goals. Of course social actors, be they individuals or groups, must navigate local, historically established structures of power when practicing politics and this entails the strategic manipulation of material relationships and forms. This can manifest itself in multiple ways, where individuals and groups control, appropriate or manipulate the meaning or physical presence of things in order to maintain or effect change on their sociological contexts at multiple, and at times convergent, scales of practice. Several Chapters in the volume discuss examples of this shade of political materiality. Bauer’s examination of the politics of landscape production during the South Indian Iron Age underlines the role of an agentive modality of power expressed in practices such as feasting and ritual commemoration that reauthorized social relations and relations to redefined places, all within the contexts of well-established structures of power (Chapter 3). Kosiba’ analysis emphasizes the role of mortuary practices and commensalism as elements of agentive strategies for creating localities of political autonomy during Late Intermediate Period in the Cusco region of Peru (Chapter 4). Lindsay’s chapter investigates how emergent Late Bronze Age political elites, building upon an earlier tradition of martial leadership, amplified and institutionalized established social inequalities by renovating the Middle Bronze Age regional

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landscape of the Tsaghkahovit Plain, constructing massive fortresses as the symbolic, material and political nodes of regional networks of power (Chapter 5). Johansen’s examination of spatial appropriations through small scale commemorative practices and the construction of elevated terrace structures in residential zones at South Indian Iron Age settlements is another example that infers small social groups making claims about place, and social affiliation and difference through a political materiality (Chapter 6). Brumfiel’s chapter explores the potential of symbolic motifs on serving vessels and spindle whorls to encode, signal and perform layers of personal and group identity in the navigation of household and community contexts that range from the familial to wider frames of commensal politics (Chapter 8). Popova, Murphy and Khokhlov’s investigation of resistance to established standards in burial practice in the Late Bronze Age Volga-Ural region of Russia documents how mortuary ritual was used to distinguish important social differences among small numbers of individuals in clear yet decidedly unostentatious material deviations from standardized practice (Chapter 9). The chapter by Kus and Raharijaona documents how the value and meaning of colonial coins were reconstituted as other material and cultural forms by the nineteenth century Merina state and the street and ritual economies of everyday twentieth century Malagasies, resisting colonial and global economies of scale by refashioning money as others kinds of objects through culturally inflected political practice (Chapter 1). Through a case study informed by ethnohistoric sources and contemporary ethnography the authors of this chapter navigate a remarkable swath of spatial, temporal and political scales, demonstrating how agentive and structural modalities of power dialectically realize very specific historically situated and related political sociologies through a clearly defined materiality, that of coins.

Directions of Analysis, Inference and Optics: Shape and Scope of the Volume At the beginning of this Introduction we asked how, as archaeologists, are we to move beyond the notion of politics as something essential to a particular institutional structure or form to an understanding of politics as a diversity of action and practice orienting social relations at a variety of scales and contexts towards particular articulations, aggregations, frictions and divergences. The answer to this question we feel lies in exploring a variety of multi-scalar relationships between peoples, places, objects and environments with a view to explaining the politics of social action and

18

Introduction

practice—their motivations and consequences for structures of power, authority, legitimacy, cooperation and community and the social aggregations in which these coalesce and dissolve. The chapters that follow address this challenge, through a diversity of data analysis, theoretical perspectives, methods and approaches, building a clearer understanding of past political practices and production from a variety of times and places, scales and contexts across the globe. They speak to a number of important interpretational issues that engage with past political thought, practice, action and materiality while enjoining archaeologists to think in epistemological and methodological terms about how we can better approach the construction of inferences on politics from patterned archaeological data sets. It is through analytic practice then that the contributions of this volume grapple with the historical processes of past political practice and action through the scattered yet patterned remains of its materiality seeking to probe, critique, test and expand the ontological and epistemological dimensions of what it is that constitutes politics as a critical aspect of human sociality. The chapters that follow are ten regional case studies from a diverse range of times and locations, each of which focuses on political practices and production within unique socio-historical contexts with their own culturally–inflected political logics. Chapters by Kus and Raharijaona (Chapter 1), and Thomas (Chapter 2) open the volume with rich historical case studies that engage combinations of ethno-historic research with ethnography and archaeology (respectively) to examine the politics of constructing, maintaining and contesting value through a variety of sociomaterial practices that produced a political materiality and sociology involving coins (Chapter 1) and mineral ores and pigment (Chapter 2). The chapters that follow by Bauer (Chapter 3), Kosiba (Chapter 4), Lindsay (Chapter 5), Johansen (Chapter 6) and Rizvi (Chapter 7) are more squarely focused on the political materiality of landscape production and its recursive effects (and affects) on the generation and maintenance of political sociologies in a variety of ancient (prehistoric) socio-historic contexts (Iron Age South India, the Ollantaytambo region of Peru during the Late Intermediate Period, Late Bronze Age Armenia, and Mature Harappan Indus Valley). This is followed by two chapters that employ quantitative analyses of artifact (Brumfiel in Chapter 8) and feature (Popova Murphy and Khokholov in Chapter 9) attributes to examine the role of deviations in standardized socio-material practices in political action involved with the negotiation and contestation of social identities including gender, group and individual statuses. In the final case study Martindale and Letham’s examination of archaeology’s engagement with

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long term histories of political organization and the role of the spiritual on the Northwest Coast of North America shifts our attention back to the issue of politics’ ontological location and the frequently invoked materialist epistemology that lies at the heart of much of anthropology’s engagement with political thought, practice and action, past and present. Adam Smith’s conclusion returns us to the central theoretical reoriention of political analysis in archaeology that this volume proposes. His cogent examination of the volume’s chapters explores how the authors challenge both modernist notions of a political ontology and the epistemological framings in archaeology that are the legacy of socioevolutionary theory by focusing analytic attention on everyday practice and the active participation of materials in the logic and practice of politics. Smith’s definitional focus of politics (see also Smith 2011 is clearly centered on the logics and practices of authorization and subjection, which converges neatly with our foci on the production of social differences, associations and affiliations through culturally-inflected practices that negotiate, articulate and order social relations with relations of power.

Notes 1

Yet this comes as growing general interest in these scales and contexts continue to develop. 2 Though see the recent collection of papers in Inomata and Coben 2006. 3 See discussions in Pauketat 2007 and Yoffee 2005 for a detailed history of this engagement in archaeology. 4 See Trigger 2003:40 for an opposing view on the relationship between socioevolutionary political stage types and ideal types, specifically “civilization”. 5 In other words, as Comaroff and Comaroff (1991: 16) have underlined in terms of the analysis of culture, we must be cautious of the telic and reifying effect of various formalisms and functionalisms on our understanding what constitutes the domain of politics (see also Sahlins 1995 and 2002). 6 Wolf (1990) identifies four modalities, which we selectively coalesce into two that are roughly coterminous with those of Comaroff and Comaroff (1991). 7 I.e., in opposition to a more evolutionary sense of the process. 8 Here we consciously using a term Miller (2005: 45) has identified as “much over used in anthropology”. 9 Or alternatively the capacity to disempower and disembody others.

20

Introduction

References Cited Adams, R. Mc. 1966. The Evolution of Urban Society. Aldine, Chicago. Appadurai, A. 1981. Gastro-politics in Hindu South Asia. American Ethnologist 8:495-511. Armstrong, R.P. 1991. The Powers of Presence: Consciousness, Myth and Affecting Presence. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia. Ashmore, W. 1989. Construction and Cosmology: Politics and Ideology in Lowland Maya Settlement Patterns. In Word and Image in Maya Culture: Explorations in Language, Writing and Representation, edited by W.F. Hanks and D.S. Rice, pp. 272-286. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City. Basso, Keith. 1996. Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language among the Western Apache. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. Bauer, A.M., P.G. Johansen and R.L. Bauer. 2007. Towards a Political Ecology in Early South India: Preliminary Considerations of the Sociopolitics of Land and Animal Use in the Southern Deccan, Neolithic through Early Historic Periods. Asian Perspectives 46 (1): 335. Bell, J. 1992. On capturing Agency in Theories about Prehistory. In Representations in Archaeology, edited by J.-C. Gardin and C. Peebles, pp. 30-55. Indianna University Press, Bloomington. Bender, B. 1989. The roots of inequality. In Dominance and Resistance, edited by D. Miller, M. Rowlands, C. Tilley, pp. 83-95. Unwin Hyman, London. Boivin, N. 2008. Material Cultures, Material Minds: the Impact of Things on Human Thought, Society, and Evolution. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Bourdieu, P. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Brumfiel, E. 1989. Factional competition in complex society. In Dominance and Resistance, edited by D. Miller, M. Rowlands, C. Tilley, pp. 127-139. Unwin Hyman, London. —. 1994a, Factional competition and political development in the New World: an Introduction. In Factional competition and political development in the New World, edited by E. Brumfiel and J. Fox, pp. 3-13. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. —. 1994b. Ethnic Groups and Political developments in Ancient Mexico. In Factional competition and political development in the New World,

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edited by E. Brumfiel and J. Fox, pp. 103-110. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Brumfiel, E. and T. Earle (editors). 1987. Specialization, exchange, and complex societies. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Brumfiel, E. and J.W. Fox (editors). 1994. Factional competition and political development in the New World. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Cameron, C.M. and A.I. Duff. 2008. History and Process in Village Formation: contexts and Contrasts from the Northern Southwest. American Antiquity 73 (1): 29-57. Carneiro, R. 1970. A Theory of the Origin of the State. Science 169: 733739. Childe, V.G. 1950. The Urban Revolution. Town Planning Review 21: 317. —. 1941. What Happened in History. Penguin Books, Middlesex. —. 1936. Man Makes Himself. C.A. Watts, London. Clark, J.E. and M. Blake. 1994. The power of prestige: competitive generosity and the emergence of rank societies in lowland Mesoamerica. In Factional competition and political development in the New World, edited by E. Brumfiel and J.W. Fox, pp. 17-30. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Claessen, H.J.M. and P. Skalnik. 1978. The Early State: Theories and Hypotheses. In The Early State, edited by H.M.J. Claessen and P. Skalnik, pp. 3-29. Mouton, Hauge. Comaroff, J. and J. Comaroff. 1991. Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism and Consciousness in Southern Africa Volume One. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Descola, P. and G. Pálsson. 1996. Nature and Society: Anthropological Perspectives. Routledge, London. Dietler, M. 2001. Theorizing the Feast: Rituals of Consumption, Commensal Politics and Power in African Contexts. In Feasts: Archaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives on Food, Politics and Power, edited by M. Dietler and B. Hayden, pp. 65-114. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington and London. —. 1998. Consumption, Agency, and Cultural Entanglement: Theoretical Implications of a Mediterranean Colonial Encounter. In Studies in Culture Contact: Interaction, Culture Change, and Archaeology, edited by J. Cusick, pp. 288–315. Centre for Archaeological Investigations, Carbondale. Dietler, M. and B. Hayden (editors). 2001. Feasts: Archaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives on Food, Politics and Power. Smithsonian

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Press, Washington. Dietler, M. and I. Herbich. 2001. Feasts and Labor Mobilization: Dissecting Fundamental Economic Practice. In Feasts: Archaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives on Food, Politics and Power, edited by M. Dietler and B. Hayden, pp. 240-262. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington and London. Dobres, M-A. 2000. Technology and Social Agency: Outlining a Practice Framework for Archaeology. Blackwell, Oxford. Dobres, M-A. and J. Rob (editors). 2000. Agency in Archaeology. Routledge, London and New York. Earle, T. 1997. How Chiefs Come to Power: the Political Economy in Prehistory. Stanford University Press, Stanford. Earle, T. (editor). 1991. Chiefdoms: Power, Economy and Ideology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Ferguson, L. 1992. Uncommon Ground: Archaeology and Early African America, 1650-1800. Smithsonian Press, Washington. Fernandez, J. 1977. Fang Architectonics. Institute for the Study of Human Issues, Philadelphia. Flannery, K. 1972. The Cultural Evolution of Civilizations. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 3: 399-426. Foucault, M. 1981. History of Sexuality: Introduction. Penguin Books, London. —. 1977. Disciple and Punish: the Birth of the Prison. Vintage, New York. Fried, Morton. 1967. The Evolution of Political Society: an Essay in Political Anthropology. Random House, New York. Geertz, C. 1980. Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali. Princeton University Press, Princeton. Giddens, A. 1984. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. University of California Press, Berkeley. —. 1979. Central problems in Social Theory: Action, Structures and Contradiction in Social Analysis. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Gilchrist, R. 1999. Gender and Archaeology: Contesting the Past. Routledge, London. Gledhill, J. 1989. Imperial Form and Universal History: Some Reflections on Relativism and Generalization. In Dominance and Resistance, edited by D. Miller, M. Rowlands and C. Tilley, 108-126. Unwin Hyman, Boston. Gordillo, Gaston. 2004. Landscapes of Devils: Tensions of Place and Memory in the Argentinean Chaco. Duke University Press, Durham. Gramsci, A. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. International

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Publishers, New York. Guha, Ranajit. 1997. Dominance without Hegemony: History and Power in Colonial India. Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Hastorf, C. 1993. Agriculture and the onset of political inequality before the Inka. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Hayden, Brian. 1995. Pathways to Power: Principles for Creating Socioeconomic Inequalities. In Foundations of Social Inequality, edited by D.T. Price and G.M. Feinman, pp. 15-86. Plenum Press, New York and London. Hendon, J.A. 1996. Archaeological Approaches to the Organization of Domestic Labor: Household Practice and Domestic relations. Annual Review of Anthropology 25: 45-61. Hodder, I. 1991. Reading the Past. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Inden, R. 1990. Imagining India. Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis. Ingold, T. 2007. Materials against materiality. Archaeological Dialogues 14 (1):1-16. —. 2000. The Perception of the Environment: Essays in livelihood, dwelling and skill. Routledge, New York and London. Inomata, T. and L. Coben (editors). 2006. Archaeology of Performance: Theatres of Power, Community and Politics. Altamira Press, Lanham. Johansen, P.G. 2008. A Political Economy of Space: Social Organization and the production of an Iron Age Settlement Landscape in Northern Karnataka. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Chicago, Chicago. Johnson, A. and T. Earle. 1987. The Evolution of Human Societies: From Foraging to Agrarian State. Stanford University Press, Stanford. Johnston, G. 1982. Organizational Structure and Scalar Stress. In Theory and Explanation in Archaeology: the Southampton Conference, edited by C. Renfrew, M.J. Rowlands and B.A. Segraves, pp. 389-422. Academic Press, New York. Joyce, A.A. 2000. The Founding of Monte Alban: Sacred propositions and social practices. In Agency in Archaeology, edited by M.-A. Dobres and J.E. Robb, pp. 71-91. Routledge, London and New York. Joyce, A.A. and M. Winter. 1996. Ideology, Power and Urban Society in Prehsipanic Oaxaca. Current Anthropology 37 (1): 33-86. Keene, W. 2005.Signs are not the Garb of Meaning: On the Social Analysis of Material Things. In Materiality, edited by D. Miller, pp. 182-205. Duke University Press, Durham. Knappett, C. 2007. Materials with Materiality? Archaeological Dialogues 14 (1): 20-23.

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Kus, S.M. and V. Raharijaona. 2000. House to Palace, Village to State: Scaling up Architecture and Ideology. American Anthropologist 102 (1): 98-113. —. 1998. Between Earth and Sky There Are Only a Few Small Boulders: Sovereignty and Monumentality in Central Madagascar. Journal of Anthropological Anthropology 17: 53-79. Lansing, J.S. 1991. Priests and Programmers: Technologies of Power in the Engineered Landscape of Bali. Princeton University Press, Princeton. Latour, B. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to ActorNetwork-Theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford. —. 2004. The Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy. Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Lemonnier, P. 1992. Elements for an Anthropology of Technology. Anthropological Paper, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, No. 88. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Leone, M. 1995. A Historical Archaeology of Capitalism. American Anthropologist 97 (2): 251-268. Lycett, M. 2001. Transformation of Place: Occupational History and Differential Persistence in Seventeenth Century New Mexico. In Archaeologies of the Pueblo Revolt: Identity, Meaning, and Renewal in the Pueblo World, edited by R.W. Preucell, pp.61-74. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. Markus, T.A. 1993. Buildings and Power: Freedom and Control in the Origin of Modern Building Types. Routledge, London and New York. Martindale, A. 2009. Entanglement and Tinkering: Structural History and the Archaeology of the Northern Tsimshian. Journal of Social Archaeology 9 (1): 59-91. Meskell, L. 2005a. Introduction: Object Orientation. In Archaeologies of Materiality, edited by Meskell, L., pp. 1-17. Blackwell, Malden MA. —. 2005b. Objects in the Mirror Appear Closer Than they Are. In Materiality, edited by Miller, D., pp. 51-71. Duke University Press, Durham. Miller, Daniel. 2005. Materiality: An Introduction. In Materiality, edited by D. Miller, pp. 1-50. Duke University Press, Durham. —. 1989. The Limits of Dominance. In Domination and Resistance, edited by D. Miller, M. Rowlands and C. Tilley, pp. 63-79. Unwin Hyman, London. —. 1987. Material Culture and Mass Consumption. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

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Mintz, S.W. 1985. Sweetness and Power: the Place of Sugar in Modern History. Penguin Books, London. Moore, H.L. 1986. Space, Text and Gender: An Anthropological Study of the Marakwet of Kenya. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Moore, J. 1996. Architecture and Power in the Ancient Andes: The Archaeology of Public Buildings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morrison, K.D. 2009. Daroji Valley Landscape History, Place and the Making of a Dryland Reservoir System. Vijayanagara Research Project Monograph Series 18, Manohar Press, Delhi. —. 2007. Making Places and Making States: Agriculture, Metallurgy, and the Wealth of Nature in South India. In The Wealth of Nature: How Resources have Shaped Asian History, 1600-2000, edited by P. Boomgaard and G. Bankoff, pp. 81-99. Palgrave MacMillan, London. —. 2001. Coercion, Resistance and Hierarchy: Local Processes and Imperial Strategies in the Vijayanagara Empire. In Empires, edited by S. Alcock, T. D’Altroy, K. Morrison and C. Sinopoli, pp. 252- 278. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. —. 1995. Fields of Victory: Vijayanagara and the Course of Intensification. Contributions of the University of California Archaeological Research Facility Berkley. Regents of the University of California, Berkeley. Morrison, K.D. and M.T. Lycett. 1994. Centralized Power, Centralized Authority? Ideological Claims and Archaeological Patterns, Asian Perspectives, 33(2): 312-353. Nassaney, M.S. and M.R. Abel. 2000. Urban Spaces, Labor Organization, and Social Control: Lessons from New England’s Nineteenth Century Cutlery Industry. In Lines that Divide: Historical Archaeologies of Race, Class, and Gender, edited by J.A. Delle, S.A. Mrozowski and R. Paynter, pp. 239-275. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville. Nevett, L. 1994. Separation or Seclusion? Towards an Archaeological Approach to Investigating Women in the Greek Households in the Fifth Century BC. In Architecture and Order: Approaches to Social Space, edited by M. Parker-Pearson and C. Richards, pp. 98-112. Routledge, London and New York. Ogborn, M. 2008. Global Lives: Britain and the World 1550-1800. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Parker-Pearson, M. and C. Richards (editors). 1994. Architecture and Order: Approaches to Social Space. Routledge, London and New York.

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Pauketat, T. 2007. Chiefdoms and Other Archaeological Delusions. Alta Mira Press, Lanham. —. 2001. Practice and History in Archaeology: An Emerging Paradigm. Anthropological Theory 1(1): 73-98. —. 2000. The Tragedy of the Commoners. In Agency in Archaeology, edited by M-A. Dobres and J.E. Robb, pp 113-129. University Press of Florida, Gainsville. Pels, P. 2002. “Materialism,” “ Spiritualism” and the Modern Fear of Matter and Materiality. American Anthropological Association, New Orleans, 2002. Price, D.T. and G.M. Feinman (editors). 1995. Foundations of Social Inequality. Plenum Press, New York and London. Rowlands, M. 2004. The Materiality of Sacred Power. In Rethinking materiality: the engagement of Mind with the Material World, edited by E. DeMarrais, C. Gosden and C. Renfrew, pp. 197-204. —. 1989. A Question of Complexity. In Domination and Resistance, edited by D. Miller, M. Rowlands and C. Tilley, pp.29-40. Unwin Hyman, London. Sahlins, M. 2002. Waiting for Foucault, Still. Prickly Paradgim Press, Chicago. —. 1996. The Sadness of Sweetness; or, The Native Anthropology of Western Cosmology. Current Anthropology 37 (3): 395-428. —. 1994. The Discovery of the True Savage. In Dangerous Liaisons: Essays in Honour of Greg Denning, edited by Donna Merwick, pp 4195 . University of Melbourne Press, Parkville. —. 1985. Islands of History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sanders, W.T., J.R. Parsons, and R.S. Santley. 1979. The Basin of Mexico: Ecological Processes in the Evolution of a Civilization. Academic Press, New York. Schortman, E.M. and P.A. Urban (editors). 1992. Resources, Power and Interregional Interaction. Plenum Press, London and New York. Scott, J. C. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. Yale University Press, New Haven. —. 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday forms of Peasant Resistance. Yale University Press, New Haven. Service, E. 1962. Primitive Social Organization: An Evolutionary Perspective. Random House, New York. Shanks, M. and C. Tilley. 1987. Social Theory and Archaeology. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. Simmel, G. 1979. The Philosophy of Money. Routledge and Keegan Paul, Boston.

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Sinopoli, C. 2003. The Political Economy of Craft Production. University of Cambridge Press, Cambridge. —. 1988. The Organization of Craft Production at Vijayanagara. American Anthropologist 90 (3): 580-597. Smith, A.T. 2011. Archaeologies of Sovereignty. To appear in Annual Review of Anthropology. —. 2006. Representational Aesthetics and Political Subjectivity: The Spectacular in Urartian Images of Performance. In Archaeology of Performance: Theatres of Power, Community and Politics, edited by T. Inomata and L. Coben, pp. 103-134. Altamira Press, Lanham. —. 2003. The Political Landscape: Constellations of Authority in Early Complex Societies. University of California Press, Berkeley. —. 1999. The Making of an Urartian Landscape in Southern Transcaucasia: A Study of Political Architectonics. American Journal of Archaeology 103 (1): 45-72. Soja, E. 2010. Seeking Spatial Justice. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. Spencer, J. 2007. Anthropology, Politics and the State: Democracy and Violence in South Asia. Cambridge University Press, New York. Stahl, A. Brower. 2004. Comparative Insights in to the Ancient Political Economies of West Africa. In Archaeological Perspectives on Political Economies, edited by G.M. Feinman and L.M. Nicholas, pp. 253-270. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City. Subramanyam, S. 2005. On World Historians in the Sixteenth Century. Representations 91: 26-57. Taylor, C. 1985. Interpretation and the Sciences of Man. Philosophy and the Human Sciences: Philosophical Papers 2, pp. 15-57. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Trigger, B. 2003. Understanding Early Civilizations: A Comparative Study. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Voss, B. L. 2008. Domesticating Imperialism: Sexual Politics and the Archaeology of Empire. American Anthropologist 110 (2): 191-203. —. 2000. Colonial Sex: Archaeology, Structured Space, and Sexuality in Alta California’s Spanish-colonial Missions. In Archaeologies of Sexuality, edited by R.A. Schmidt and B. L. Voss, pp. 35-61. Routledge, London and New York. Wall, D. 2000. Family Meals and Evening Parties: Constructing Domesticity in Nineteenth Century Middle-class New York. In Lines that Divide: Historical Archaeologies of Race, Class, and Gender, edited by J.A. Delle, S.A. Mrozowski and R. Paynter, pp. 109-141. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.

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CHAPTER ONE SMALL CHANGE IN MADAGASCAR: SACRED COINS AND PROFANED COINAGE SUSAN KUS AND VICTOR RAHARIJAONA

Introductory Remarks: The Ways of the Street The oft quoted aphorism of William Gibson (writer and culture critic), “The street finds its own uses for things” (from his Science Fiction novel, Burning Chrome) was and is used to speak of contemporary society besotted with technological innovations. Yet anthropologists know that they can extend that aphorism across a larger global space, extend it to dirt paths, rural villages, and temporary and contemporary (from hippie to Inuit1) encampments. Furthermore anthropological archaeologists know they can extend the adage back in time, extend it to all natural materials and the earliest rudiments of material culture. In this chapter we want to use that aphorism as a focus to discuss early world market involvement and “constellations of power” (to borrow vocabulary from Smith 2003) in Madagascar. More particularly, we want to bring into focus the “small/chump change” and the “lost coinage” of international trade and political economies both past and present in Madagascar. Originally, small amounts of gold coins circulating in the Indian Ocean trade network were brought to Madagascar in the first millennium A.D. However, after Europeans were blown off course rounding the Cape of Good Hope in the middle of the second millennium A.D. (1498) resulting in their “discovery” of Madagascar, large amounts of silver coins, predominantly “pieces of eight” (reales de a ocho or Spanish piastres) were brought to the island of Madagascar over the next several centuries. According to international observers at those times, this earliest of international coinage continually disappeared into this fourth largest island in the world.2 Or did it? We think that with our sleight of hand (and theory) the coins of many realms can be made to reappear on the island.

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Spoken like an anthropologist, Buchan, the novelist and former correspondent for the Financial Times has said: “Money is normative. So pervasive is its influence on our lives that it makes less moneyed ages [and peoples] incomprehensible, consigning them to barbarism or folklore” (1997:34). Indeed, we only have to think of the Western folktale of the sale of Manhattan for a few token beads to illustrate his remark. Power, money and civilization roll into one equation for many, including economists and historians. The French historian, Molet, who has published on the moneys of Madagascar (1970), took as an underlying assumption of his investigation that there is “a correlation between the monetary system and the state of political [organization]” (authors’ translation 1970:231). As we will see below, for centuries civilized Europeans were routinely annoyed by native Malagasy monetary practices that did not follow Western logic and/or defied Western expectations of indigenous behavior: annoyed when the natives refused coins, annoyed when the natives would only accept silver coinage, annoyed when the natives charged too much money, annoyed when natives chipped, cut or melted silver coins, annoyed when the natives refused paper money. Until perhaps this most recent economic downturn, today’s civilized users of all-purpose money operated on the assumption that they knew the basic logic and laws of the market. Yet, Friedman in his work Money Mischief, points to the fact that “money is a mystery to so many” (1992:8). The mystery, which is no mystery for Friedman the economist, is rooted in the conventional acceptance of the fiction of fiat money. Galbraith additionally suggests that there has been an element of the occult to modern economics in the West as well. Those who talk of money and teach about it and make their living by it gain prestige, esteem and pecuniary return. . . from cultivating the belief that they are in privileged association with the occult – that they have insights that are nowise available to the ordinary person. Though professionally rewarding and personally profitable, this too is a wellestablished form of fraud (1975:4-5).

Mystery, mischief, fraud and the occult sound like qualities of a powerful tale ripe for the telling. Yet, Galbraith continued the above remark by adding: “There is nothing about money that cannot be understood by the person of reasonable curiosity, diligence and intelligence” (1975:5). We want to suggest that such persons of “reasonable curiosity, diligence and intelligence” are and have been present in Madagascar, and that those qualities can be revealed in some of the annoying habits the natives have with money. This revelation demands a change in focus and a play with resolution, moving from the materials, rules and reifications of

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the past Indian Ocean world economy and present world economy to localized conventional and creative practices in the interior of the island. Such practices used (and still use) items of material culture, including coins, to entangle praxis and philosophy and to embroil local knowledge and hegemonies of political economy. From the perspective of political economy, many practices of the indigenous populations of Madagascar during the heyday of Indian Ocean trade through French colonial rule reveal reasoned, if not astute, economic practice. From the perspective of ritual economy (Wells and McAnany 2008), contemporary poetic and fetishistic employ of coins (many no longer in circulation) in the highlands of the island reveals continuing philosophical rumination and clever commentary on traditional cultural values in face of the “laws of the market place.”

The Indian Ocean: Currents that Circulated People, Goods and Ideas for More than 2000 Years We all appreciate the challenges faced by early Polynesian voyagers, moving across the vast Pacific Ocean that covers one-third of the globe, to establish some of the latest human settlements on the planet. The Atlantic Ocean proved to be a formidable barrier as well to movements of peoples. The Indian Ocean [see Figure 1-1] was much kinder to mariners though. Its monsoon winds and currents, moving northeast to southwest for several months of the year (December-March) and then conveniently reversing course during the other half of the year, fostered trade for those using vessels that hugged its coasts from China, Southeast Asia, India, Arabia, to East Africa for at least two millennium (Ottino 1974:6-7). This was a trade network that additionally linked populations from the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf areas, and inland Central Asia and India (McPherson 1993:5-8) trading in ideas, dogmas and heresies, and trafficking in materials: fashionable, ostentatious, desirable, exotic and erotic. Fuzzily resolved among these trafficked items were coins of all realms. Madagascar saw human occupation by at least the fifth century C.E. as the Indian Ocean trade network moved into the Comoro Islands and then across to Madagascar by the ninth century C.E. Trading towns such as Boeny, Nosy Langany, Sada and Vohemar flourished along the northern coasts of Madagascar well before the arrival of Europeans (Vérin 1986:45). Madagascar offered rice, soapstone, copal resin, mangrove stakes and slaves for Eastern harems in exchange for Islamic and Chinese ceramics,

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Figure 1-1: The Indian Ocean

carnelian beads from Camb[r]ay (India), textiles, a little gold and a “bit of silver” (Vérin 1986:4; Campbell 1993:113). There were coins, in particular gold dinars, introduced into Madagascar during the period of flourishing Indian Ocean trade of the 10th – 15th centuries C.E. But these coins were introduced only in small numbers and most did not serve as money. Archaeological evidence from the coastal trading ports of northern Madagascar reveals that the monied nature of these coins was secondary to other uses on the island. Such coins have most often been found as jewelry in burials (e.g., evidence from the site of Vohemar includes piercing and/or attachment to chains) and in one instance a gold coin was found in the mouth of an individual following what would appear to be the Muslim custom of placing gold in the mouths of the dead (Vérin 1986: 222-223; 250-251; Chauvicourt and Chauvicourt 1968:15).

“Pieces of Eight”: Coins and Malagasy Currency The traditional and continuing denomination for money in Madagascar is the ariary.3 The term ariary is most commonly believed to come from the term ar-rial or ar-riyal, the Arabic designation for the Spanish real (Chauvicourt and Chauvicourt 1967:9). Beginning at the very end of the 15th century, Europeans (initially Portuguese) entered into and severely disrupted the then existent Indian Ocean world trade network. The Spanish eight réaux, or piece of eight, came to serve as the common coin of

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commerce across the world. Through widespread use in Europe, the Americas and the Far East, it became one of, if not, the first global currency (Ferguson 2008:25). Pieces of eight entered Madagascar initially from the trade in provisioning European caravels and galleons (including some flying the Jolly Roger) rounding the Cape of Good Hope as they entered and left the Indian Ocean, and coins continued to enter the island from trafficking in slaves and provisions to the Mascarene Islands (today known as La Réunion and Mauritius) from the middle of the eighteenth century. Many Malagasy, both female and male across the island, from our collective experiences are not people to let pass by an opportunity for witty commentary or an opportunity for a pithy and probing reconstruction of history. Accordingly, some Malagasy argue that the term ariary is Malagasy in origin, either coming from the duplicative of the Malagasy term ary4 or from the phrase ary dia ary. Both suggest etymologies that offer themselves to multiple interpretations, and one possible meaning is the sense of “really being,” of being created full and complete (tena feno) (Kruger, et. al 1943:393). This interpretation is reinforced by the form and appearance of the coin, a disk that is round, with no beginning and no end, perfect in its completeness, as is the sun and the full moon. We want to use this indigenous poetic co-optation of a prosaic coin, a co-optation both material and lexical, as a point of transition into the real theme of this work: indigenous [street] smarts. Many Malagasy (as one might also argue for many members of populations labeled indigenous and traditional) never hesitate (and have never hesitated) to put their own spin on, to put to their own use, or to add their own commentary on imported items and logics. They are constantly never just borrowing, but rather appropriating items and ideas, including coins and market logics, often to re-enforce traditional logics and values. We do not want to pretend naiveté; certainly there are exploiters among all our ranks. Nevertheless, we want to focus attention on the strategies of resistance of others that might give us potential aid in our own ways of street resistance.

Disappearing, Desecrated and Defaced Coins in Early Times In 1507, a Portuguese ship under the command of Pereira sunk and 30 sailors made it to shore on Madagascar. They were able to salvage, among other things, a chest containing 12,000 silver coins. The same year a ship under the command of Jean Gomez reached Madagascar. Gomez was

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given a gift from a regional leader that was a large silver chain to which thirty pieces of silver coins had been attached (Chauvicourt and Chauvicourt 1968:17). During the sixteenth century coins continued to disappear into this large island (an island whose size is between that of California and Texas), melted down into chains and bracelets, placed as ritual offerings for the dead, though a few survived5 because of their markings to serve as decorative charms (e.g., Vérin 1986: 222-223; 250251, 343, 391.) The Portuguese continued to have sporadic contact with Madagascar during the sixteenth century. While it was supposedly reported that when the British first visited Madagascar in 1606 they did not have any merchandise that the locals would accept in exchange for their animals, and further the natives would not take payment in piastres (Chauvicourt and Chauvicourt 1968:19), that situation was short-lived. By the seventeenth century many Malagasy were habituated to trade for silver piastres or pieces of eight. Luis Mariano, a Portuguese Jesuit who visited Madagascar between 1613 and 1614 recorded that the locals sold their goods at high prices and accepted payment in silver coins, silver chains, as well as large glass beads, particularly partial to the color red (Grandidier et. al. 1904 II:40, 48; 1905 III:660). The Société de l’Orient reorganized in 1642 by Cardinal Richelieu created settlements along the southeast coast of Madagascar. In 1664 the Société de l’Orient was replaced by the Compagnie Française pour le commerce des Indes Orientales created by Jean-Baptiste Colbert. Louis XIV forbade the use of silver money to buy provisions for such outposts, and Colbert duly ordered agents of the company to practice barter in Madagascar (Campbell 2005:47). In 1667, the missionary priests, who accompanied and served the members of the Compagnie, ran out of local provisions of rice and then they were refused provisions of flour from the directors of the Compagnie. The religious superior wrote that the “natives” were “fed up” (rebuté) by offers of the goods that the French had brought (which included beads and copper and citrus fruit) and that they refused to trade except for silver (Chauvicourt and Chauvicourt 1968:1920). “[T]he strong bargaining position of the Malagasy allowed them to insist on payment in coin” (Campbell 2005:47) and to have that demand met. Nevertheless, the colonial logic of not habituating the natives to the use of money continued over the centuries. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries pieces of silver were increasingly demanded by the locals in trade with the European foreigners. Additional pieces of eight were also brought into Madagascar at one point by English, French and American pirates. When they were chased from the Caribbean, pirates (including Captain Kidd, Henry Avery and Thomas

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Tew) set up residence in the Mascarenes Islands (Mauritius and La Réunion) and on Madagascar at the Bays of Antongil, Diego Suarez6 and on the Île St. Marie just off the northeast coast of the island (Deschamp: 1972:76-78). It is estimated that by 1712 at least 400 were living in St. Marie and by 1720 there were 1200 (Chauvicourt and Chauvicourt 1968:20). The pirates preyed off the trade of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean during their heyday (1690-1730) in this part of the world. They certainly brought in pieces of eight and British sterling to be lost on the island of Madagascar, much as ostentatious expenditures (i.e. “les pirates étant rude et étalant un peu trop imprudemment leurs richesses” [Deschamps 1972:77]), and some as treasure that is still believed to lie buried in places such as the Île Ste. Marie. Chauvicourt and Chauvicourt (1968:20-22) offer some idea of how lucrative the pirates’ trade was and derivatively some idea of how much money may have been lost to the Big Red Island as can be seen in Table 1-1. While the pirates bring a bit of color and extravagance to the pieces of eight that were absorbed by the island, it was also international trade with slave traders that brought additional coins to the island. Beginning around 1750 the sugar plantations of the French Mascarene Islands (Mauritius7 and La Reunion) were in constant need of both provisions and slaves and this brought coins to Madagascar. Nicholas Mayeur, a French slave trader in Madagascar, estimated that in 1777 the French spent 120,000 piastres yearly on the island. More fascinating is Campbell’s (2005:55) precision that of these coins brought in from trade on the east coast of the island “the Malagasy transferred some 80 percent to Indian and Swahili traders in payments for imports from the west coast”. Clearly the disappearance of coins from the coffers of Europeans and their movement across a number of populations, and from one coast of this large island to the other, allowing Malagasy to participate in the Indian Ocean World Market, speaks to an astute understanding of rules of commerce on the part of the natives. In 1768 in an effort to keep down prices for materials being exported from Madagascar to the Île de France (Mauritius), its Governor urged merchants who did business on the east coast of Madagascar, not only not to conduct trade with piastres, but to make efforts to convince the Malagasy that the piastre no longer held value for the French8 (Chauvicourt and Chauvicourt 1968:23). Try as they might though, Europeans still continued to lose coins to the island. In 1807 the French trader Sylvain Roux said that despite extreme surveillance, and despite the threat of fines imposed by the Commander of the Île Bourbon (today known as La Réunion) the French could not avoid spending piastres in exchange for rice

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Year 1710 1720 ? 1701/1702

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Pirate Condent Condent Kidd Calliford

Ship Arab vessel in Red Sea English Ship Arab vessel Vessel in the Red Sea

Silver booty 120,000 pounds sterling 75,000 pounds sterling 100,000 pounds sterling 350.000 pounds sterling

Table 1-1: Pirate Booty and other supplies needed by that French colony. In 1826 the situation continued to be problematic for the French. One trader wrote to the Governor General of Mauritius (formerly Île de France) that while previously one could buy a cow with the cloth that was valued at three to four piastres, now a cow can only be bought at double the price and paid with Spanish piastres (Chauvicourt and Chauvicourt 1968:24). The trading practices of the Malagasy created an economic crisis for the French traders as the Malagasy would only trade for piastres and five francs silver piece. Chauvicourt and Chaurvicourt (1968: 24-25) cite one official French document from 1867 that speaks of the almost complete disappearance of the gold and the five francs pieces brought to the island. To paraphrase elements of the report: “The Arab and Indian merchants take all the gold, melt it down and then sell it at a profit in India on the one hand. The silver coins, on the other hand, are diligently sought after by the Malagasy who either bury them [with their dead] or convert them into ornaments and jewelry” (Chauvicourt and Chaurvicourt 1968: 24-25). Coins continued to disappear and the natives continued to create problems with “small change” to the consternation of those who would be the exploiters in the world market economy, both indigenous and European (Madagascar was under French colonial rule from 1895-1960). This crisis of disappearing coins was not a localized problem. European markets and economies were dependent on the circulation of these pieces of eight; even in the United States, Spanish and Mexican silver coins circulated as legal tender until an Act of Congress was passed in 1857 (Allen 1999:65).

Perspective of Political Economy If we take the perspective of political economy there are some additional interesting observations to make about the money that disappeared into Madagascar. The Spanish were never involved directly with Madagascar either in trade or as colonizers, with the exception of a rare visitor, yet for several centuries it was the Spanish piastre that was the international

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coinage best known on the island. More than 90% of the “Spanish” piastres used to purchase slaves and other materials in Madagascar were actually not only made from the silver of the New World, but were also minted in the Spanish colonies there9 (Chauvincourt and Chauvicourt 1968:33), and according to Fray Antonioi de la Calancha writing in 1628 “every peso coin minted in Potosi [Bolivia] has cost the life of ten Indians who have died in the depths of the mines” (as quoted in Ferguson 2008:23). To note this global connection is to underscore the brutality and the tragedy of the life blood from the “Open Veins” (Galeano 1973) of the New World that flowed across from its continents into oceans in exchange for the life blood of the Old World in the then existent world market economy. Malagasy populations on the coast that had sustained, continuous contact with the world economy during the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries, trafficking in provisions for ships, provisioning the pleasures of pirates, and supplying the needs of the Mascarene Islands, were involved in trading big ticket items and became quickly habituated to the moneyedness of pieces of eight. Traders bought cattle for eight or more piastres and pirates could be made to pay 15 during the seventeenth century (Chauvicourt and Chauvicourt 1967:3). There seems to be no problem of economic naiveté on the part of these indigenous populations, so many of the coins lost to these populations are best attributed to the economic disadvantage or naiveté of European traders. The silver coins that eventually made their way into the interior of the island (200 kilometers or more from coast to highland area), we need to remember, were indeed silver coins. This was specie, not fiat, money. (Specie money consists of coins made of precious metals. Fiat money is money that has little or no intrinsic value10 but which has been declared to be legal tender by a government, despite whether it is or is not backed by reserves). Silver was and still is in many cases the precious metal of choice in Madagascar. So it should not be surprising then that people who were removed from direct links to international trade treated these coins as silver first and money second. This was silver to wear as ornament, should shape or design be found pleasing. This was silver additionally to be melted down to create adornments that not only pleased the eye by shape and shine as they were placed on brow, neck, ear, wrist, waist and ankle, but also pleased or attracted attention through a sonority in movement (Callet 1981:924-925). Mayeur, a French slave trader, wrote in 1777 that one-third of the population of the island knew how to work silver and in 1785 he estimated that anywhere between 2,000 and 25,000 piastres had

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been transformed into jewelry annually in Madagascar (Chauvicourt and Chauvicourt 1968:23). This silver of specie money was indeed “wealth as adornment” (Graeber 1996:5). Contemporary money is fiat money, yet those of us who are familiar with foreign currencies other than that of the United States, understand that even fiat money can be very aesthetically pleasing. It is used on occasion by populations for decoration and display. A number of examples can be found in the edited volume, Money and Modernity, written by anthropologists who work in Melanesia. Yet, the editors of the volume are quick to point out that such use is not really consumption, and that money cannot be enjoyed, it has to be converted if consumption and enjoyment are to take place (Akin and Robbins 1999:4). Even if we concede that this is true for fiat money, the Malagasy use of specie money for decoration would seem to be a very interesting example of actually being able to have(enjoy) one’s cake and to eat(consume) it too, despite European assessment of Malagasy actions as defacement and economic irrationality.

The Microeconomics of the Malagasy Market Let us now turn our attention past the big traders and the very wealthy in Madagascar, to the commercial needs at the most local level of social exchange. Think of the cost of a cow/bull next to small needs for salt, crayfish, a taste of honey or even freshly roasted grasshoppers/locust available in the local weekly market. Certainly one can always barter for small things. In fact, Molet (1970) reminds us that the Malagasy term for “how much [does this cost]” is ohatra’inona, which more accurately translates as “comparable to what.” Barter is one possibility, but you can also use small change in your transaction. The name of Spanish piastres, reales de a ocho, commonly translated as pieces of eight, alludes to the fact that indeed these coins did lend themselves to fractioning. If one is dealing with specie money and if silver has traditionally been a standard of wealth, then it is convenient, at the street level, to create chump change that can always be accumulated and reconverted to silver. Cutting coins to have small change in Madagascar might be understood not only in practices that predated it, but practices that continued alongside it. Owen was a British soldier that accompanied the troops of the sovereign Radama, who reigned over most of the island from 1810-1828, on a number of campaigns. Radama’s troops were not paid for this service to the polity. Owen offered the following observation:

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Radama’s army had brought with them a certain quantity of silver chains, which they used as the current money; and it was amusing to observe them, when bartering with one another or natives, detaching small fragments and before paying them away, or receiving articles in exchange, putting them into a small pair of copper scales (which every soldier carried with him), in order to ascertain its value (Owen 1833:124).

The habit of cutting coins was not exclusive to Madagascar. Examples of cut money can be found in the British Museum from the reign of Alfred (842) through the reign of Henry III (1216-1272) and it was common in many French and British colonies, and even in the continental United States up through the last quarter of the eighteenth century (Molet 1970: 208-210). However, the ways of the street concerning the production and use of cut coins in Madagascar were amazingly clever and agile. Various foreigners to the island, missionaries and military alike, commented on the ability of the Malagasy to use delicate balances to weigh coins employing 5 standard weights along with grains of rice, the seeds of the voamena, and the seeds of the ambatry. Pieces of silver coins could be cut into numerous smaller pieces (up to 1/720th of their original size!). Foreign observers additionally commented on Malagasy mathematical skill in rapid and accurate calculations of equivalencies (see Chauvicourt and Chauvicourt 1967 and Kus and Raharijaona 2008 Table 1 for fuller appreciation of weight and cut coins in Madagascar). The problem of disappearing and non-existent small change was not only a problem not exclusive to Madagascar; it was a big problem for Europeans (and eventually their colonies) from the introduction of silver pennies by Charlemagne in 800 A.D. to the middle of the nineteenth century (Ferguson 2008:25; Sargent 2002). When money was specie, there were continuous arguments as to whether coins should be evaluated by weight or by tale [count]. From the Middle Ages on “scholastics, secular lawyers, and eventually economists” (Sargent 2002:40) continually debated the pros and cons of such measures. It is noted in the Encyclopedia of Money that the Phoenicians, the first significant international traders “were slow to accept coinage, preferring to trade in precious metals by weight and fineness” (Allen 1999:219). So the Malagasy and their similar quaint and annoying primitive habits find parallels in the economic behavior of the Phoenicians, among the first renowned ancient sea-faring international traders. Sargent has written a lengthy book on The Big Problem of Small Change, which would be impossible to summarize at this point, but let us offer a few details that help understand why small coins were subject to shortages (and debasements and depreciations). “The technology for

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minting coins remained unchanged from ancient times until the sixteenth century. It produced imperfect [hammered] coins” (Sargent 2002:50) and further the actual cost of minting large versus small coins meant that “minting costs were higher for smaller denominations” (Sargent 2002:52). Good specie coins were also hoarded, taken out of circulation, as bad ones were “variously adulterated, clipped, filed, seated, trimmed” (Galbraith 1975:10). This behavior appears to be a piece of a universally shared logic and it is now referred to as Gresham’s law (Galbraith 1975:10), a law that Malagasy populations followed as did European populations, not blindly, but with invested self-interest. It took the world a long time to solve The Big Problem of Small Change (Sargent 2002), and technological innovation was only one part of the solution. The problem was eventually solved in the middle of the nineteenth century by fiat money, the money of fiction and the money that creates the mystery of money according to Friedman (1992) as might be remembered from our introductory remarks. Here is the interesting point; this big economic problem is solved by the creation of profane fiat money as a symbol of value to replace the “full-bodied” wealth of specie coins. If we look to Madagascar, we can find a local (though temporary) and earlier (end of the eighteenth century) solution to the problem of small change from profaned specie coinage. The Malagasy solution used the flip-side, so to speak, of the logic that created profane fiat money as a symbol for wealth; the silver coin was created as a sacred symbol from among the profaned coinage of the market. The habit of cutting coins, thus taking them out of circulation in the world market, was actually partially circumvented by the indigenous ruler, Andrianampoinimerina (reigning 1787-1810). Traditionally, cattle of beauty and distinctively marked hides, as well as other symbolically significant objects (e.g., a stone vomited by a crocodile), plants (e.g., a stalk of bamboo visibly higher than other stalks surrounding it) and animals (crayfish as a sign of firmly established power) were offered to the sovereign on various ritual occasions including offerings of first fruits (see Kus and Raharijaona 2006 for fuller discussion). Andrianampoinimerina declared that the uncut silver coin, the vola tsy vaky, was to be offered as well. This coin, which had not suffered the profanations of cutting or melting, and whose symbolic significance of roundness, fullness, and completeness was easily recognized by the populace, was declared to be a ritual offering befitting the unique and singular sovereign of the land. The historian Berg argues that “the ritual system of [coins offered as prestation] does not necessarily exclude an appraisal of material reality” (1988:205) and the anthropologist Bloch (1983) points out that this

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ideological move is additionally a politically and economically clever move, filling the coffers of the sovereign with the coinage of off-island trade networks. If we stay within the focus of political economy, we can appreciate the cleverness of Andrianampoinimerina’s local solution to solving the problem of small change and disappearing coins. This was a culturally embedded cleverness necessary when the “constellation of power” (à la Smith 2003) in Imerina was still tenuous and the rules of play included the indigenous rules of a high art and philosophical form of oral discourse. This temporary solution did not last long under succeeding reigns, and certainly not under French colonial occupation of Madagascar, which began in 1898. Even though cut coins were supposed to be taken out of circulation in Madagascar in 1900, still in 1908 the Secrétaire Général de Colonies chargé de l’expédition des affaires du Gouvernement Général de Madagascar et Dépendances addressed a note to all the Chefs de provinces et commandants de cercle concerning the “pieces of money damaged [détériorées] by the natives [indigenes]”. In that note he refers to the infuriating habit of the natives of marking and altering coins, in particular 5 francs pieces. This habit, he goes on to say, creates serious inconveniences for monetary circulation and he insists that this habit must come to an end (Chauvincourt and Chauvicourt 1966:67-68). This “infuriating habit of the natives” certainly resulted in the disappearance of coins and their moneyness for some foreign occupiers, but the habit facilitated exchange and the accumulation of wealth for the indigenous others. The French tried doggedly to get Malagasy to conform to their ideas of monetary conventions. The work of Chauvicourt and Chauvicourt (1966) offer a number of official French colonial documents to help us appreciate the frustration of the civilized in combating counterfeit money, the circulation of certain coins of other realms, and the infuriating habits of natives of altering and of adulterating coins. Since 1905 paper money had been used by Europeans on the island, but the Malagasy have always appreciated that coins persist, resist and endure in a way that paper money does not. Paper money, to paraphrase Molet (1970:227), is not only quickly dirtied and easily torn, but it fears water, fire, sweat, rats, termites and cockroaches. As the First World War engulfed the colonial powers, the French continued to try to get the Malagasy to accept paper money, but the Malagasy continued to resist. In 1916 the Colonial government passed a decree threatening punishment for those who refused to accept paper money for goods or those who changed the price of goods if they were paid in coin. In 1918 another missive went out from the Gouverneur

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Général de Madagascar et Dépendances, Commandeur de la Légion d’honneur concerning the decreasing availability of small change. Included in that missive is a comment concerning the fact that the natives had been reinforced in an erroneous idea, one that they already held, that specie coins possessed a higher value than paper fiduciary money (Chauvicourt and Chauvicourt 1966:70)! Think about this for a moment, how does one come to accept fiat money over specie money, to domesticate oneself, as Europeans had done, to accept the fiction of fiat and the belief in the “promise to pay”? Is that not the ultimate victory of the state controlling the political economy? Who is the “chump” in this situation? We should ask: Did not the street have reason here in the struggle with the colonial political economy? Nevertheless, today Malagasy possess their own fiat money, including beautifully decorated and colored paper money. Yet the story does not end here with the triumph of fiat; let us return for a moment now to those defaced and cut coins. Despite all those maimed, desecrated coins that disappeared from world market circulation, there were some that survived, and it will be recalled that they became the symbol of a state, complete and enduring. They were offered to the state not as “money” but as highly charged symbols absorbed into a complex nexus of other symbols of which they became pre-eminent. On this matter, the focus of ritual economy can bring into relief cultural details that slip from view when the focus is on political economy. The symbolic coup/move of the King Andrianampoinimerina is checked in the village and often mated on the street

Perspective of Ritual Economy: Another Coup of the Street Wells and McAnany (2008) have brought our attention to a concept of “ritual economy” whose focus is the “materialization of values and beliefs through provisioning and consuming aimed at managing meaning and shaping interpretation.” It is the case that coins collected as ritual prestation to the sovereign, Andrianampoinimerina, were used for trade and for economic advantage in advancing the central highland state of Imerina as a critical player in the political economy of the island and immediately off its Indian Ocean shores. Under Andrianampoinimerina’s rule (1787-1810), the Merina polity became the central player in trade and markets across the island. But Chauvincourt and Chauvincourt (1968:8) point out that among the collections of money from the former museum of the royal palace in Antananarivo, it was rare to find a piece of money that was intact, that is to say, that had not been pierced to string for decorative

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jewelry, suggesting that the logic of wealth for display was shared among both elite and street. Such prestation in the form of uncut silver coins continued to be collected under succeeding reigns. Andrianampoinimerina’s son, Radama I, was buried, according to British missionaries, in: “A silver coffin…8 feet long by 3 ½ deep and wide. Made of silver plates riveted together with silver nails all made from Spanish dollars---used 12,000 in its construction” and further interred with other precious materials (Tyerman and Bennett 1831:558). These same British missionaries commented further that: “We were fatigued and pained by the sight of such quantities of precious things being consigned to a tomb” (Tyerman and Bennett 1831:559). Yet another example of natives failing to follow rationality and (Western) logic!11 The uncut coin (vola tsy vaky) offered in allegiance to the singular sovereign of the state eventually became co-opted by the street for local, smaller scale ceremonies. Today uncut coins, silver in color (but not in substance) and of small denominations, have been appropriated from the royal rituals of previous centuries and are used in the central highland areas (in particular, the Betsileo area) to recognize and honor the talent in the hands and mouths of elders and the gifts one has been given as a child from individuals who taught you or cared for you. Such signs of recognition, called tandra, can be given, for example, to thank a grandmother for instruction in weaving. A tandra can be given to a ritual specialist who recites your family genealogy on occasions such as marriages and funeral, for assuring that the ancestors have not only been duly thanked and recognized, but more importantly, not offended. A teenager or young adult who is going to leave the village—to go to high school in the city, to join the military, to make his/her fortune in the capital city—may give her/his mother the equivalent of a quarter or at best a dollar as a sign of fofon-damosina [see Figure 1-2]. This can be translated as the “smell/perfume of the back”, a synecdoche, calling to mind the time when as a child one was carried on the back in young infancy and cared for with love and tenderness. Money in this case is not a measure of value according to its use to purchase goods and services in the market place. It is a sacred symbol of honor, of recognition, a thank you for something that can never be paid back in full. In many cases as reciprocation for this recognition, the token uncut silver coin is placed in a bowl of water and then used in aspersions. The sanctified water is blown, spit or sprinkled as a blessing on the one who offered the tandra by the elder who received the tandra. Ultimately, in all the cases above, the strictly calculated moneyed sum of the coin is irrelevant, it is the silver color and round shape that are

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Figure 1-2: The Tandra of “The Perfume of the Back.”

critical, reminding one of the sacred value of social exchanges and relationship in the [deliberate, if not flagrant] denial of the market value of the coin itself.

(Flip side of the coin): Further Contemporary Ritual and Anti-ritual among Non-elite and the Re-appearance of Money on the Streets and for Sale in the Market The street can be profanely utilitarian, audaciously disputatious, unashamedly appropriative, but also philosophically profound and symbolically striking. In following the trail of the disappearing coins

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(without a pirate’s map to buried treasure) we have seen coins changed into functional small change, into wealth as adornment transmuting with ease into legal tender, and into sacred objects. If we place the focus even more squarely on coins in contemporary Malagasy society we can discover additional ritual use, further forms of adornment, and sensory stimulus for both profoundly serious and profoundly humorous commentary. Given the most juvenile and facilely accomplished graffiti of black eyes, missing teeth and mustaches, it is interesting that one would choose to place one’s face on an object not under one’s control. Yet, hubris is exactly that, hubris. Galbraith has remarked that: “After Alexander the Great the custom was established of depicting the head of the sovereign on the coin, less it has been suggested, as a guarantee of the weight and fineness of the metal than as a thoughtful personal gesture for the ruler to himself” (1975:8). Coins, it would appear, have always been humorously defaced by street slang in Madagascar. A number of indigenous Malagasy royal edicts, referring to coins of various realms, conceded to the use of popular names in reference to this coinage. Consider the following lines of an edict issued on March 29th, 1881 clarifying aspects of the monetary system on the island: “The piastres whether they are: ngita, tanamasoandro, tsangan’olona, tokazo, malamakely, behatoka, or tombotsisina, are to be accepted at the same rate of exchange…” (authors’ translation, Chauvicourt and Chauvicourt 1966:54). Table 1-2 below lists the translation of the street name and the actual coin referenced. Today slang names are still given to money in Madagascar in similar fashion, and some slang persists despite actual physical changes in the coins and bills used. The current image of the baobab tree gives rise to the name baba for a coin of 50 ariary. Maizina or “darkness” is the term for a bill of iray alina, literally one (iray) ten thousand (alina). The term alina is a homonym for “night”. General Gallieni was governor of the French colony of Madagascar from 1896 to 1905. His face appeared on the 5000 Franc note, and to this day, the note of 1000 ariary (5000 Franc note), is called a Gala, despite the fact that the reference is obscure for many members of the current generation. Some images on faces of coins recommend themselves to humorous comment, others recommend themselves for ritual use today and many of these coins, no longer legal tender, can be found for sale in local market places. A mpikabary, in the Betsileo region of the central highlands, is an individual who speaks for a family during engagement negotiations, weddings, funerals, and other socially important rites de passage. There is a ritual performed by the apprentice mpikabary when he (most often but not exclusively male) will announce his assumption to his public role.

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Popular name of coin Ngita

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Translation

Tanamasoandro

Curly, kinky [as used to describe hair] Rays of the sun

Tsangan’olona

Standing people

Tokazo

Tuft of trees

Malamakely

A little bit polished/worn

Behatoka

Big neck

Tombotsisina

Impressed on the sides

Coin Spanish piastre decorated with coat of arms appearing in a detailed and complicated design Mexican piaster bearing a Phrygian bonnet with rays of sun behind it 5 franc piece minted during the 2nd and 3rd republics bearing the allegorical figures Liberty, Equality and Fraternity Piastre of the Bolivian republic with a profile of Bolivar on one side and a tree with two blades on the other French piastre of the 1st Republic under Napoleon I that was prone to showing signs of wear Pieces with faces of Louis XVIII and Charles X Piaster of the Latin Union marked by impression rather than in relief

Table 1-2: Popular Names for Coins (adapted from Chauvicourt and Chauvicourt 1966) While the subtlety and complexity of many Malagasy symbolic allusions are beyond the immediate appreciation of cultural outsiders, the use of a red copper coin with a rooster’s image, akoholahy mena, to signify a declamatory voice demanding attention in this rite de passage, can be appreciated well beyond the shores of Madagascar. (See Kus and Raharijaona 2008 for fuller description of the ritual.)

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Figure 1-3: Coins for Sale in the Market Place

The powerful mix of water from a sacred spring and silver can anoint; it can bless and purify.12 Add to this formula the perfect un-desecrated round orb of a silver specie coin (vola tsy vaky), and further, a specie coin with powerful imagery; such a coin recommends itself to ritual specialists for use in ceremonies of inauguration, curing and cleansing. One such particularly powerful coin is the French 5 Franc piece issued during the Second and Third Republics (1848-49 and 1870-78), which the Malagasy refer to as Tsangan’olona, or Upright standing person/people. On one face the image of Hercules is flanked by two allegorical muses intended to represent Liberté, Egalité et Fraternité [see Figure 1-3]. This trilogy echoes in the highland Malagasy trilogy of supernatural forces, Andriamanitra, Andriantompo and Andriananahary, and it further resonates with the Christian trilogy recognizable to the nominal Christians of the area. Western geometry’s abstract planar stability of three points is well known to Malagasy in the support and stability of the three stones traditionally used to hold the cooking vessel over the fire (toko telo mamasa nahandro). The image of standing upright three-strong can be glossed in Madagascar as an image of uprightness in oath taking and as the image of restoration when purification and contrition are critical issues. This coin is so socially and symbolically significant that today it can be found crafted into the Malagasy version of bling, the coin suspended from

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a sliver chain to be worn around the neck, often by a young male. This particular coin has continually been hoarded and is held as an heirloom by numerous families. When it is found for sale in the market its price can range from $25 to $50, a significant sum of money for the average Malagasy. In some cases it is the sonority of coins that carries the symbolic weight. One Malagasy proverb says: “Cattle bellow; children cry; and [it is the essence of real] money [to] clink/jingle.”13 Paper money is both light (in the sense of trivial) and mute. Betsileo say “ny mate raha mangiƾa,” that is, “death is a thing of solitude, of silence” (see Raharijaona and Kus 2001:64 for fuller elaboration of this imagery). Consequently, it is said that money offered in ritual circumstances should not be mute (vola moana), that is, it should not be money that is (exclusively) paper or money that is “too even” (e.g., 1,000 Ariary). Often three coins (of auspicious sums) are added as three friends (asiana namana), as three children “to make noise” (mikaratsaka). Sometimes it is the actual sum of money that carries symbolic significance. Often the money (that is part of the dowry) that the wife’s side contributes in a marriage ceremony in the Betsileo region of the highlands will include the small sum of money, kirobo. The kirobo is a two francs coin. It is intended to signify that the two individuals have now become one entity. Even numbers are feno or “full” and they invoke completeness and fullness. The number six, enina, in Malagasy also means “to have one’s share.” The Betsileo say “eni-noro, enin-kahavelomana” in wishing individuals prosperity and well-being and use the number six in calculating money offered in joyful ritual circumstance. Additional word play involves the number seven, fito. The rhyming phrase, mamito azy ny fito, is a wish that “seven brings an end to all that is nefarious or dangerous,” so in situations of sorrowful ritual this number plays a role. Malagasy of the highland interior, including the Betsileo and the Merina, do not shun the use of money in ritual circumstances, as should be obvious from the preceding discussion. Bloch has suggested that for the Merina these monetary substitutions are “unproblematic” (1989:186) and accomplished “without the substitution having much significance” (1989:165-166). We want to focus in on these “unproblematic” substitutions among the Betsileo, the Merina’s neighbors to the south, in order to call into question Bloch’s assessment of this invasion of fiat money into ritual as a “Trojan horse of change” (Appadurai as quoted in Akin and Robbins 1999:5). When the material and sensual qualities (e.g., shape, color, image, sonority, number, texture) of specie coin and/or fiat money need reinforcement (or may not be forthcoming) then the performative power of

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language is brought into play to effect a “transmutation of moneyness.” Consider the following examples. When the Betsileo (and the Merina) offer money rather than objects or physical aid in ritual circumstances they clearly mark the substitution with the term solo (meaning “replacement” or “substitute” or “stand in”). To mark a betrothal the family of the bride is offered a vodiondry (the rump of a sheep). Elders and those of high status are offered the vodiakoho (the “rear” part of the chicken), a delicacy, as a sign of respect, especially during ritual meals. During festive meals, in turn, young children are offered fenakoho, or drumsticks, by their elders. During funerals, depending on one’s closeness to the deceased, one can offer rambondamba (burial shrouds) and kofehy (twine [that binds the corpse]), faodranomaso ([cloth] to wipe the tears [of the bereaved]), or one can offer ranombary tsy masaka (uncooked rice [that will help feed the guests]). All of these items and concrete symbols can be replaced by money, a few coins to a grandchild, a modest sum to an elder, or a substantial amount to one’s potential or actual in-laws. The critical point, however, is that such substitution must be clearly announced in ritual speech in its presentation, as solon-bodiondry, solon-bodiakoho, solonpenakoho, solon-drambondamba sy kofehy sy faodranomaso, solondranombary tsy masaka. Solemnity, however, is not a prerequisite for all such performative speech acts. Some groups of the highlands practice secondary burials or rewrapping of the ancestors. In some cases when money is offered to the family sponsoring such an event, an ambiguously joyful occasion, humorous reference is made to the money as substituting (solo) for the earthly delights of the deceased; the meat or sweets they particularly enjoyed, or even the toaka or alcohol that they were fond of drinking, during their lifetime. Joyous occasions, including market days, and even occasions that are bitter-sweet (e.g., secondary burials) necessitate adornment. Silver is still an adornment of preference, but today, even fiat money of bills is continually transformed into adornment. It is not uncommon for a merchant of cloth or clothing to wish for their clients that they be wrapped in well-being (salama mitafy). To be wrapped in well-being is a central theme of many rituals in the central highlands of the island. Humor comes into play when one is actually wrapped in cloth that uses money as decoration on the cloth, and in some cases the juxtaposition of images of money with phrases often found on wraparounds, such as “People may hate me, but I am loved by God” or “Mistress/master or wealth” offers further humor [see Figure 1-4].

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Figure 1-4: Coins and Bills Decorating a Wrap-around with the saying “Master/Mistress of Wealth”

The street does seem to continually find amazing, as well as amusing, ways of calling into question the “moneyness” of money; these ways go well beyond mundane (though economically astute) disappearing coin tricks. In some way, it would seem that “ritual economy” as a term to focus our attention on indigenous and local values underpinning “economic activity” lacks the humor to accommodate our appreciation of the power of street sacrilege in act and commentary.

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Conclusion: “The messiness of practice” (Kurke 1999:334) Is resistance to the allure and the mystery of fiat money futile? Some have spoken of the valiant attempts of natives to domesticate and tame money, to make money serve the purposes of the traditional (e.g., Akin and Robbins 1999). Others (i.e., Appadurai 1986:26) remind us of the Trojan Horse ploy that introduces money and markets only to subvert and confuse the categories of object, persons and modalities of exchange (Akin and Robbins 1999:9) that have until then sustained a cultural logic of social and civil relations above all else. Yet, what we have seen from Madagascar might help us re-kindle a belief in the ways of the street. In Madagascar we have seen the hegemonic, both indigenous and colonial, lay claim to sacrality and tradition according to the letter of the law only to be contested both by the spirit of the law deployed by local guardians of tradition and by the savvy sacrilege of the street. This contribution was intended to look more closely at disappearing and desecrated coinage past and present in Madagascar as it was and is put to practical and pedestrian, poetically profound, and whimsical use in rural markets, local ritual, “political” protest and philosophical commentary. Money in Madagascar called and continues to call into question categories and functions; it forces not only a blurring of boundaries (of social science categories) of politics, economics and ritual, but also of street and state and demands a refocusing. Perhaps the refocusing is better understood not just as counterpoint movement between street and state with telescope and microscope, but rather involves passing the (blinding) white light of theoretical critiques through a prism of elite and street practice to refract various colors/dimensions so that we might better come to appreciate a complex cultural, existential and historical totality.

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Rhodes College for the Buckman funds for materials and research made available to Kus. They would also like to thank Art Carden and Russell Craig of the Department of Economics and Business of Rhodes College for their interest in our work and the many insightful and interesting comments they have offered us concerning our work. We would also like to thank Zoe Crossland for her invaluable suggestions based on her nuanced familiarity with Malagasy culture and prehistory. Yet again, Stacy Pennington came to our aid in putting our figures into correct format and digital access.

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Notes 1 Jean Brigg’s (1993) discussion of Inuit constant experimentation with materials offers very interesting examples. 2 Greenland, New Guinea and Borneo are larger. Madagascar is roughly 1,600 km NNE-SSW and 580 km ESE-WNW. 3 During French occupation and up until just recently the Franc (5 Franc = 1 Ariary) was used as the official monetary denomination. However rural populations never ceased using the ariary as the preferred denomination. The ariary was reinstated as the official monetary denomination on January 1, 2005. 4 The dictionary of Abinal and Malzac offers the following definition: “Ary. P. Creé, qui existe. Ary aho ka miteny. J’existe et je parle” (1955: 61). 5 The oldest piece of Spanish real that was found in Madagascar dates to the reign of Philip II (1556-1598) (Chauvincourt and Chauvincourt 1968:17). 6 The bay of Diego Suarez is believed to be the site of the pirates’ utopia of Libertalia (Deschamps 1972: 77), a community based on an elected system of delegates, corporate rules of distribution of wealth, and a pirates’ code of conduct. 7 Mauritius was originally discovered by the Dutch in 1598 and then settled by the Dutch in 1638. It was subsequently abandoned. It eventually was colonized by the French and became the Île de France in 1715. The island was ceded to England in 1810 during the Napoleonic wars and is today commonly referred to as Mauritius. 8 Dumas is quoted in Chauvicourt and Chauvicourt 1968:23: “de ne pas non plus en racheter, afin de faire croire que ces piastres n’ont plus de valeur pour nous et de les faire tomber dans l’esprit des Malgaches.” 9 While Spanish piastres were also minted in Bolivia, Peru, Chile, Columbia and Guatemala (Chauvicourt and Chaurivcour 1968:30), it was Mexico that provided over half the coinage circulating in the colonial world during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and almost exclusively all the coins found in Madagascar (Chauvicourt and Chauvicourt 1968:30). 10 For instance, the American silver dollar is 88.5% copper, 6% zinc, 3.5% manganese and 2% nickel. 11 Thank you to Zoe Crossland for bringing this source and commentary to our attention. 12 During the New Year’s festivities, the Merina sovereign would take a Royal Bath (fandroana) and announce that s/he was being made sacred (manasina). The water from the bath was subsequently used to bless the populace. The act of immersing the vola tsy vaky offered as tandra in water echoes this royal ritual, which in turn echoes previous local rituals of aspersions with water from sacred sources, sometimes blessed by the immersion of other sacred objects, including jewelry made of silver. 13 Mima ko aomby; mikonaina ko zaza; raha mikorisana vola.

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References Cited Abinal, Antoine and Victorin Malzac. 1955[1888]. Dictionnaire MalgacheFrançais. Ambozontany, Fianarantsoa, Madagascar. Akin, David and Joel Robbins (editors). 1999. Money and Modernity: State and Local Currencies in Melanesia. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh. Allen, Larry. 1999. Encyclopedia of Money. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara. Appadurai, Arjun. 1986. The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Cambridge University, Cambridge. Berg, Gerald. 1988. Sacred Acquisition: Andrianampoinimerina at Ambohimanga, 1777-1790. Journal of African History 19(2):191-211. Bloch, Maurice. 1983. La séparation du pouvoir et du rang comme processus d’évolution. Une esquisse du développement des royautés dans le centre de Madagascar. In Les Souverains de Madagascar, edited by Françoise Raison-Jourde, pp. 265-297. Karthala, Paris. —. 1989 The symbolism of money in Imerina. In Money and the Morality of Exchange, pp. 165-190, edited by Jonathan Parry and Maurice Bloch. Cambridge University, Cambridge. Briggs, Jean. 1993. Expecting the unexpected: Canadian Inuit Training for an Experimental Lifestyle. Ethos 19(3):259-287. Buchan, James. 1997. Frozen Desire: The Meaning of Money. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York. Callet, François. 1981[1908]. Tantara ny Andriana eto Madagascar, Tomes I & II. Imprimerie Nationale, Antananarivo (Madagascar). Campbell, Gwyn. 1993. The structure of trade in Madagascar, 1750-1810. International Journal of African Historical Studies 26(1): 111-148. —. 2005. An Economic History of Imperial Madagascar, 1750-1895. Cambridge University, Cambridge. Chauvicourt, Jean and Sophie Chauvicourt. 1966. Les monnaies françaises et de l’Union latine à Madagascar. Numismatique Malgache, Fascicule II. Antananarivo, Madagascar. —. 1967. La monnaie coupée et les poids monétaires de Madagascar. Numismatique Malgache, Fascicule IV. Antananarivo : Madagascar. —. 1968. Les premières monnaies introduites à Madagascar. Numismatique Malgache, Fascicule III. Antananarivo, Madagascar. Deschamps, Hubert. 1972. Histoire de Madagascar. Berger-Levrault, Paris. Ferguson, Niall. 2008. The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World. Penguin, New York.

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Friedman, Milton. 1992. Money Mischief: Episodes in Monetary History. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York. Galbraith, John K. 1975. Money, Whence it Came and Where it Went. Houghton Mifflin, Boston. Galeano, Eduardo. 1973. Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. Monthly Review Press, New York. Gibson, William. 1986. Burning Chrome. Arbor House, New York. Graeber, David. 1996. Beads and Money: Notes toward a Theory of Wealth and Power. American Ethnologist 23 (1): 4-24. Grandidier, Alfred, Jules-Charles Roux, Clément Delhorbe, Henri Froidevaux and Guillaume Grandidier. 1904. Collections des Ouvrages Anciens concernant Madagascar, Tome II. Comité de Madagascar, Paris. —. 1905. Collections des Ouvrages Anciens concernant Madagascar, Tome III. Comité de Madagascar, Paris. Kruger, E., Ravelojaona, R. Jonah-Gabriel, et. al. 1943. Boky ny Firaketana ny Fiteny sy ny Zavatra Malagasy [Encyclopedia of the Malagasy Language and Things]. Vol. A, (entry Ariary): 393. Imprimerie Fiainana-Firaketana, Antananarivo (Madagascar). Kurke, Leslie. 1999. Coins, Bodies, Games, and Gold: The Politics of Meaning in Archaic Greece. Princeton University, Princeton. Kus, Susan and Victor Raharijaona. 2006. Materials and Metaphors of Sovereignty in Central Madagascar. In Rethinking Materiality: The Engagement of Mind with the Material World, edited by Elizabeth. DeMarrais, Chris. Gosden and Collin Renfrew, pp. 239-248. McDonald Institute for Archeological Research, Cambridge. —. 2008. “Desires of the heart” and “Laws of the market place”: Money and poetics, past and present, in Highland Madagascar, In Dimensions of Ritual Economy. Research in Economic Anthropology, 27:149-185. McPherson, Kenneth. 1993. The Indian Ocean: A History of People and The Sea. Oxford University Press, Delhi. Molet, Louis. 1970. Les Monnaies à Madagascar. Revue Européenne des Sciences Sociales, 21 : 203-234. Ottino, Paul. 1974. Madagascar, les Comores et Sud-ouest de l’Océan Indien. Centre d’anthropologie culturelle et sociale, Université de Madagascar Antananarivo, Madagascar. Owen, W. F. W. 1833. Narrative of Voyages to Explore the Shores of Africa, Arabia and Madagascar, Performed in H. M. Ships Leven and Barracouta under the Direction of Captain W. F. W Owen, R. N. R. Bentley, London

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Raharijaona, Victor and Susan Kus. 2001. Matters of life and death: Mortuary rituals as part of a larger whole among the Betsileo of Madagascar. In Social Memory, Identity, and Death: Intradisciplinary Perspectives on Mortuary Rituals Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, No.10., edited by Meredith Chesson, pp. 56-68. Sargent, Thomas. 2002. The Big Problem of Small Change. Princeton University Press, Princeton. Smith, Adam T. 2003. The Political Landscape: Constellations of Authority in Early Complex Polities. University of California Press, Berkeley. Tyerman, Daniel and George Bennett. 1831. Journal of Voyages and Travels by the Rev. Daniel Tyerman and George Bennett, esq. deputed from the London Missionary Society, to visit their various stations in the South Sea Islands, China, India, &c. between the years 1821 and 1829; compiled from original documents by James Montgomery. Frederick Westley and A.H. Davis, London. Vérin, Pierre. 1986. The History of Civilisation in North Madagascar, translated by D. Smith, A. A. Balkema, Rotterdam. Wells, Christian and Patricia McAnany (editors). 2008. Dimensions of Ritual Economy. Research in Economic Anthropology, Volume 27.

CHAPTER TWO METALS, PIGMENTS, ORES AND ASSAYS: THE POLITICS OF VALUE IN THE EARLY SPANISH COLONY OF NEW MEXICO NOAH THOMAS

The mineral explorations of Spanish prospectors and colonists from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century in New Mexico, followed routes to mineral sources indicated by Pueblo informants, first from Zuni and Hopi, and then through mineral exchange networks centered in the Galisteo Basin and Salinas districts [Figures 2.1 and 2.2]. As the historical documents of the 1580s and 90s suggest, the colonists and explorers of this period found mineral sources through the interrogation of indigenous people they encountered, attempting to asses their knowledge of mineral resources by testing informants’ abilities to distinguish between metals, alloys and mineral samples. Ore locations were found by questioning the provenience of materials, primarily pigments, presented to them as gifts. This pattern of interaction could be viewed simply as an act of appropriation, one of many under the aegis of colonial exploitation of claimed resources. Although the appropriation of materials was often synonymous with the expression of sovereign dominion through proclamation, force of arms, torture and enslavement, the identification of resources in the early colonial period was just as equally dependent upon gift exchange and the development (although perhaps feigned) of expressions of mutual aid between colonizers and reticently accepting pueblos. The social contexts and negotiative processes by which Spanish colonists and prospectors received gifts of potential ore sources, and the ways in which provenience information was elucidated, brings to the fore questions of how common terms of value for minerals were established in this early period. It seems that a central historical question concerning the ‘mapping on’ to mineral resources by Spanish colonial miners involves how values were established from the recognition of pigments as ores (as a translation

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Figure 2-1: Study area with the locations of the Hopi Mesas, Zuni Pueblo and San Juan Pueblo.

of Spanish exchange values) or from the recognition of ores as pigment sources (as a translation of Puebloan exchange values). The negotiation of mineral value during the early seventeenth century in New Mexico was ultimately a political process, positioning frameworks for meaning and signification rooted in Katchina ceremonialism against a colonial industry, similarly rooted in symbolic associations of minerals to color, but radically repositioned in an early modern economic system. The historical and archaeological data presented here reveal the shape of this process in the seventeenth century and highlights what Wolf (1990:92) has succinctly observed that “power is thus never external to signification – it inhabits meaning and is its champion in stabilization and defense.” The fundamental categories that established mineral value by both colonists and indigenous communities of practice were challenged in this interaction, and through a close reading of the historical and archaeological record, the political dynamics of this interaction prove to be both subtle and revealing of the perseverance of indigenous frameworks of meaning within colonial institutions of labor and material appropriation.

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Figure 2-2: Upper Rio Grande Valley with archaeological sites and locations mentioned in the text.

Pueblo Pigment Use and the Significance of Colored Ores Central to this negotiation, and to a discussion of value related to both material categories (ore and pigment) is color. Pursuing the history of color associations among both ore prospectors and indigenous procurers of pigment, highlights the potential conflicts and syntheses possible from the results of these historical acts. This dynamic, in turn ‘colored’ the values upon which were built strategies of colonial appropriation as well as

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Puebloan cultural perseverance in the subsequent century of colonization leading up to the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Metallurgy was not practiced in the southwest before the introduction of Spanish colonialism, although copper bells (crotals) were traded into the region from West Mexico as early as A.D. 900, and native copper from Mississippian cultures may have been incorporated into deposits at Chaco Canyon (Judd 1954; Vargas 1995). The volume of trade for metals was most likely never very extensive (Vargas 1995:71). The fact that copper artifacts do not appear to have been exchanged to any great degree compared to that of other materials such as turquoise, shell, macaw and turkey feathers, indicates that although knowledge of metal may have existed in prehispanic times, it was not particularly associated with ritual production or other regimes of value in the Southwest. Metallic ores, on the other hand, were extensively used in the Southwest as a component in ceramic glazes and as pigments. Lead, copper, iron and manganese oxide were components of glaze paint recipes for ceramic vessels from their earliest use in the later half of the thirteenth century, through the late seventeenth century (Fenn et al. 2006; Herhahn 2006). Glaze recipes included the use of lead and copper as fluxes, lowering the melting point of their admixture with silica and producing a glossy finish, with copper, iron and manganese also acting as colorants (Habicht-Mauche 2006). Specific minerals were also included as temper within Eastern glaze wares. The persistence of this practice through time, from pre-colonial to the late seventeenth century, has led Capone to suggest that it was a component of inter-pueblo identity signaling (Capone 2006). The use of glaze and paint design and mineral inclusions as temper played various roles in establishing both inter- and intra-community and regional exchange, particularly through ceramic use in ceremonial feasting and the expression of regional identity (Adams 1991; Crown 1994; Duff 2002; Graves and Eckert 1998; Habicht-Mauche 1993, Mills 2002). The development of glaze ware styles in relation to wares derived from Mesa Verdean traditions appear to mark distinct regional associations to place and ideology. Habicht-Mauche, in her stylistic analysis of Pueblo IV (A.D. 1300 – 1600) ceramics has argued that this trend can be conceptualized as a “localization” of production, begun in the late thirteenth century, coupled with a “commodification” of crafts and raw materials that produced a shift away from an emphasis on local production and consumption, to local production for trade (Habicht-Mauche 1993:96). In a more recent analysis, Nelson and Habicht-Mauche (2006) argue that glaze ceramic forms may have circulated in more locally significant

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exchange practices, participating in inter community social signification. They contrast this with the role of glaze minerals in exchange, which appear to have had a fairly limited procurement source (from mines in the Cerrillos Hills) but a wider distribution across the Southwest based on lead isotope studies of glaze paint and archaeologically recovered galena (Habicht-Mauche et al. 2000). The broader regional exchange of minerals may be linked to patterns of exchange regulated by ritual production. In this regard, the apparent commodification of crafts and raw materials, or at least the formalization of exchange involving such objects in ritual production, appears to be linked to the increasing importance of the Katchina religion and the Southwest Regional Cult in the Pueblo IV period (Adams 1991; Crown 1994). Snow further suggests that the trend towards community specialization (as evidenced by the production of specific ceramic forms, an emphasis on cotton production at Hopi, etc.) was driven by the need to obtain materials for ritual paraphernalia (Snow 1981). Following Adams (1991), many researchers have interpreted this phenomenon as related to the functioning of the Katchina religion, linking communities at a regional level. Many of the design elements on early Rio Grande Glaze Ware may reflect aspects of either of these religious movements, particularly in the emphasis on polychrome and the vitreous, light scattering, quality of glaze itself. Mineral procurement and processing for ceramic production can be viewed also as involved with the creation of both community and regional associations to ‘place.’ Place as a structuring concept in Southwestern indigenous ideology may be a significant aspect for meaning frameworks involved with the remembrance of history (Lycett 2002; Rubertone 2000). Andrew Duff’s (2002) analysis of the production and consumption of several different wares in the Little Colorado region suggest that migrant households in the Pueblo IV period maintained historical associations to place through the crafting of specific wares. Duff presents a pattern of ceramic distribution that suggests that production and exchange of ceramics linked migrant households to the establishment of regional ideological associations. Such associations are related technologically to the locations of mineral resources within the landscape, which historically created metaphorical associations to the meaning of ancestral places through the practice of their procurement. As glaze ware ceased to be produced after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, ethnographic documentation of mineral use has centered on the use of mineral pigments in ritual production, particularly for its use in the production of Kachina masks. Parsons suggests that due to the spiritual significance of pigments, mineral procurement and processing was found

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to be under the proprietary rights of kiva societies and was conducted in a similar manner as parties conducted for the grinding of corn prayer-meal (Parsons 1966:352-353). The importance of pigment was stressed by Parsons in her claim that “the pigments are what make the mask sacred” citing Bunzel’s remark that it also made them “valuable” (Bunzel 1929; Parsons 1966:341).

Color Symbolism in Puebloan Political and Ritual Constructions Much of the meaning of minerals is conveyed through their associated colors. Alfonso Ortiz’s (1969) classic ethnography on San Juan Tewa social organization reveals the importance of color for referencing basic social organization and core cosmological concepts. Moiety divisions are indicated by distinct color combinations, which reference basic cosmological divisions between summer and winter seasonal cycles. Ortiz reports that the summer moiety is referenced by the colors blue/green, yellow and black, whereas the winter moiety is referenced through the use of red and white. These color distinctions symbolize the summer moiety’s association with new plant growth, sunshine and rain clouds, and the winter moiety’s association with snow and the hunting season. White Corn Maiden and Blue Corn Maiden, the two origin mothers of San Juan Pueblo are also associated with moiety color distinctions. Color distinctions are also linked, in turn, to a sacred geography based on six cardinal directions, and referencing the four sacred mountains surrounding San Juan Pueblo, as well as zenith and nadir designations. Color designations are rooted to the origin of socialized people in the Tewa worldview, linked to the creation of six pairs of brothers who explored and defined the boundaries of the Tewa universe from the Tewa place of origin (Ortiz 1969). Ortiz also documents the color association of minerals with the qualities inherent in each moiety, particularly the distinction between ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ natures. Metals are generally thought to be cold in nature, but minerals can take on either hot or cold natures. Black minerals, such as jet, are associated with warmth due to their color association with the summer moiety. Silver in particular is a ‘cold’ substance and is not supposed to be worn during summer rituals in order to avoid bringing cold weather (Ortiz 1969:118, 178-179). Internal qualities such as ‘hot’ and ‘cold,’ linked with the external display of appropriate colors, play a part in healing practices as well (Ford 1992). Ford documents the use of red coral and jet amulets worn to protect infants from harm. Similarly, medicinal plants identified in

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part by color associations, are thought to possess either ‘cold’ or ‘warm’ properties and are used to treat ailments (Ford 1992:132-133). The importance of mineral pigments in their association with Katchina masks is another aspect of the symbolic importance of color in ritual outside of moiety divisions. This association may have fostered the panregional nature of mineral trade in the precolonial period, as Katchina ceremonialism is largely thought to have been a component of many Pueblos. Adams suggests that the wide spread Katchina cult of the fifteenth century, found archaeologically in communities as disparate as the Hopi mesas, the Galisteo Basin, Salinas, and Humanas areas (cross cutting linguistic boundaries), was due to its association with rainmaking (Adams 1991). Among the Rio Grande pueblos, Adams further suggests that the imagery of the cult borrowed elements associated with warfare from the similar masked tradition of the Jornada style (Adams 1991:142143). The overlapping of imagery may also be due to the subsuming of Katchina ceremonialism under the auspices of other ritual sodalities such as War or Healing societies (Ware and Blinman 2000). In addition, Adams notes that ethnographically, the performance of Katchina ritual was accompanied by the redistribution of food and wealth within pueblos, and the occurrence of exchange events with individuals from other pueblos or tribes on the model of an “informal market” (Adams 1991:159). This aspect of the ceremonialism, he argues, may have been a key component of its success and widespread distribution throughout the Pueblo world. Other researchers have hypothesized the existence of markets in the precolonial Pueblo world based on similar observations of the exchange of ritual material and the apparent commodification of ceramics during the Pueblo IV period (Kohler et al. 2000). Markets are proposed as the most efficient way for goods distributions over large areas, involving many nonkin related individuals, and utilize common features of the Pueblo IV world, such as plazas and large-scale public events (Kohler et al. 2000:199). The application of market concepts to explain such distributions may mask other social formations that would result in similar patterns of artifact distributions. The link between large scale public events and the distribution of glaze ware ceramics may be more closely associated with the social strategies of individuals or sodalities within Pueblos, either as ‘aggrandizing’ behavior in the context of ritual feasts, or as a political process of both intra- and inter-pueblo alliance formation (Graves and Spielmann 2000; Spielmann 1998). The fact that many of the objects involved in such wide spread exchange practices during the Pueblo IV period were involved in the production of ritual paraphernalia, suggests the

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importance of exchange in the maintenance of a moral economy rather than a formal economic, price-based, market exchange. The dichotomy between markets versus other contexts of exchange that assume a foundation of reciprocity debated in the literature may reflect a conflation of the nature of the context of exchange versus the meaning of exchange. Although exchange appears to have been conducted around the peripheries of ritual events, an apparent market context, no abstract system of pricing or establishment of equivalencies of value appears to have been formalized, as suggested by Nelson and Habicht-Mauche’s analysis of glaze mineral distributions: …when we examine the acquisition and distribution of Cerrillos lead from the perspective of individual glaze ware potters or potting groups within communities we see the result, not of an abstract, overarching organizational system, but of choices and strategies made in response to local needs and individual interests, as constituted within culturally defined realms of value and meaning (Nelson and Habicht-Mauche 2006:213).

The fact that so much of the exchange documented archaeologically and ethnohistorically involved the production of semiotically dense objects (either as glaze painted ceramics or ritual paraphernalia) suggests that the overall context of exchange took place within the frames of value construction mediated by these material objects. This exchange was apparently mediated through the establishment of value between semiotically significant materials, establishing an interdependence between Pueblos framed in terms of the material basis for ritual production, as dictated by individual pueblo needs. Parsons’ (1936) observation that, during historic times, ceremonies, or important ritual knowledge, was often shared, borrowed, exchanged or purchased as well, also gives a sense of the possible dynamic of ritual exchange distinct from commodity exchange under a market system. Parsons stresses the political processes embedded within such exchange as dominated by processes of negotiation aimed at the integration of foreign or inter pueblo influences. In this regard she thought the act of masking had a particular importance, as giving value to new ceremonials, in that since it was “itself ‘valuable,’ the mask bestows value” (Parsons 1936:1162). This is a very different logic from market exchange, in that the biography of objects and the political associations of ritual goods play a major part in the establishment of exchange value rather than the establishment of an equivalency of value based on price. This fact highlights an unusual aspect of Pueblo exchange during the Pueblo IV period involving ritual materials. Goods necessary for ritual

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paraphernalia were often traded or exchanged, but often the paraphernalia themselves were involved in more restrictive contexts and resisted exchange. Similarly, although pigments are one of a series of materials used in exchange, and their exchange value appears to have been roughly equal to other similar goods necessary for ritual production, their value comes from their ability to reference objects that rarely enter exchange relationships, such as Katchina masks or ancestral places. These practices of exchange while referencing the un-exchangable may be related to the practice of “keeping-while-giving” (Weiner 1985). The value of such exchange practices may be more nuanced than the notion of social solidarity suggested by Adams regarding Katchina ceremonialism. As Weiner suggests: An individual’s role in social life is fragmentary unless attached to something of permanence. The history of the past, equally fragmentary, is concentrated in an object that, in its material substance, defies destruction. Thus, keeping an object defined as inalienable adds to the value of one’s past, making the past a powerful resource for the present and the future. The dynamics surrounding keeping-while-giving are attempts to give the fragmentary aspect of social life a wholeness that ultimately achieves the semblance of immortality, thereby adding new force to each generation (Weiner 1985:224).

Mills’ (2004) discussion of inalienable objects in the context of Puebloan ritual paraphernalia suggests that such objects could reference both collective and individual identities, thereby both establishing and undermining attempts at political hierarchy through their use and ritual deposition. Rather than referencing social solidarity in a broad sense, the use of inalienable objects references meaningful historical associations, used to establish social distinctions and claims at authenticity between ritual sodalities and individual participants within such societies. Mills, following Ruth Bunzel’s ethnographic work at Zuni (Bunzel 1932), suggests that the regular production of Katchina masks referenced the production of personal inalienable possessions reflecting an individuals value and social standing within the community. The possession of a mask, and the right to impersonate a Katchina, directly referenced an individual’s social value and the value of his household. Such value was indicated by the meaningful associations to place and history conferred through katchina impersonation, but also in the high cost of producing a mask through food payments and feast sponsorships. This fact highlights the inextricable and culturally meaningful link between Puebloan subsistence economy, exchange and ritual production (Spielmann 2002).

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Mills suggests that such practices have a deep antiquity in Puebloan history, predating the advent of Katchina ceremonialism in the fourteenth century. The intensification of ritual production, and the types of social hierarchies referenced through the possession of inalienable objects may have a historical connection to the frequent destabilization of communities and subsequent migrations present in the Southwest since the twelfth century (Mills 2004; Ware and Blinman 2000). The attempt at establishing inalienable goods created a conceptual basis for evaluating materials through their involvement in ritual production. Such practices were part and parcel of the way that social value was constructed politically. With the attempted establishment of Spanish colonial mining in the early years of the colony, minerals entered a new system of value designations based on Spanish attempts at the production of wealth that contrasted sharply with the kind of referencing of the ‘inalienable’ present in pre-colonial exchange. This occurrence poses a series of questions concerning the negotiation and contestation of mineral value during this period and their political ramifications. How did Puebloan practices intersect with colonial notions of value? Were such practices subsumed under colonial production regimes, or were they able to assert pre-colonial meaning frameworks? After the establishment of the colony, how did the appropriation of minerals by Spanish mining practices disrupt the production of ritual paraphernalia and attendant systems of exchange?

Material Expressions of Value and Signification under the Early Colony One avenue for approaching such questions is by looking at how ceramic technology was impacted by Spanish colonial resource demands. Glaze ware vessels became the ‘colono’ ware of New Mexico, replicating colonial forms, including soup plates, pitchers, and candle sticks, perhaps truly becoming commodities in a newly established market exchange system. The meanings signaled by glaze ware also became increasingly complex, with potters playing with the position of ideologically potent images within design fields, through the juxtapositioning of Catholic religious imagery with traditional designs, and a general trend toward the obliteration or concealing of design through the use of runny glaze. The reintroduction of glaze ware into the Zuni area accompanied the introduction of the Mission at Hawikuh in the 1630s and included an increased use of warfare motifs and semiotically potent feather imagery, perhaps referencing powerful religious sodalities at Zuni (Mills 2002). Kachina iconography often appears on the interior of vessels suggesting an attempt at concealing

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certain ritually significant imagery that was perhaps recognizable, and persecuted, by the Church (Mills 2002: 91). Mobley-Tanaka (2002) similarly documents that simplification and abstraction of ritually significant designs on Rio Grande glaze pottery associated with Mission communities from the same period, with the elaboration and explicit depiction of such designs on vessels made in non-mission communities. In addition, semiotic substitutions appear to have been made, by replacing explicit bird imagery with more abstract cross images on the same design fields, suggesting the use of Church iconography (either duplicitous or syncretic) to symbolize a continuity in semiotic meaning (Mobley-Tanaka 2002). Mission communities increasingly became the focus of indigenous settlement as Pueblo communities were disrupted by disease and the subsistence demands of the colonizer (Lycett 2004). Missions became the contexts within with both food and material production took place. As settlement contracted around such communities, perhaps both the semiotic contexts of production and signification and the context of raw material acquisition, contracted as well. Within mission communities the association between different individual and collective constructions of value, linking the acquisition of materials with ritual production, may have been displaced by community production in which Church symbolism and the mission economy dominated. Ceramics and glaze paint would have become commodities within the mission system, and signification would have taken on the dual role described by Mobley-Tanaka (2002) of both expressing affiliation with Church identity as well as providing ‘hidden transcripts of resistance’ within newly established contexts for the establishment of social value and exchange. In summary, inter-Pueblo exchange of the Pueblo IV period constructed a series of value associations for materials based on their acquisition for ritual production and their participation with the production of inalienable objects referencing both individual and collective social hierarchies. During the colonial period, mission communities subsumed much of the productive capacities of former autonomous pueblos. Former contexts for the construction of value were displaced by the imposition of new production regimes and new regimes of value associated with mission life. Concomitantly, during the early colonial period, mineral exploitation by Spanish colonial miners disrupted traditional procurement and use strategies for ritually valued materials such as mineral pigments. Although the physical extent of this disruption is not known, from the perspective of Pueblo economic relationships, mining interests must have been a significant force of displacement for the construction of value through ritual production, to a new construction based on wealth acquisition. Yet,

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as is evidenced by glaze production during this period, Pueblo frameworks for value construction in ceramic media functioned in concert with Spanish colonial economic and religious requirements, both within mission communities and in the commodity exchange of new vessel forms within mission and colonial households. A similar overlay of practice is observable in the attempted development of the mining industry in New Mexico as well.

Color Signifying Process and Value in Spanish Colonial Metallurgy Spanish colonial metallurgy was an outgrowth of metallurgical traditions developed in Europe and the Americas. One of its distinctive technologies developed in Mexico in the 1540’s, was patio process mercury amalgamation, the primary ore reduction strategy of the mines of Zacatecas and Parral during the early colonial period of New Mexico (Probert 1969). The historical roots of this technology lie in the theoryladen practice of Islamic and Christian monastic alchemy of the late medieval period. The contemporary description of both the theory and process of mercury amalgamation in the volume El Arte de los Metales, by the Curate of the Parish of San Bernardo, Potosí, Bolivia, Alvaro Alonso Barba, published in 1640, is particularly informative about the 17th century theoretical basis for the technology. Although Barba was probably one of the premier practical metallurgists of the period, his practice was rooted in alchemical tradition (Barba 1923; Holmyard 1957). Barba argued that the success of mercury amalgamation was due to the manipulation of the basic properties of matter as described in the ‘sulfur-mercury theory’, originally proposed by Jabir ibn Hayyan, the 8th century Islamic alchemist. Although considered unscientific today, this theory provided the structural framework from which the very successful technology of the patio process, and Barba’s own ‘hot method’ of mercury amalgamation, could be developed (Platt 2000; Salazar-Soler 1997). The sulfur-mercury theory of the formation of metals held that all metallic substances were produced by the interaction of two idealized substances holding similar characteristics to those of actual sulfur and mercury. The sulfurous substance was considered ‘hot’ and ‘dry’, whereas the mercurial substance was considered ‘cool’ and ‘wet’, the combination of the two in various proportions created the various metals (Barba 1923:43-51). Gold and silver were unique because of their “perfect mixture.” This property was, in turn, indicated by color such that “gold is yellow or red, the color being due to the heating effect of the purified

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Sulfur on its Mercury or humidity” (Barba 1923:53). In order to manipulate minerals, to obtain certain metals, it was therefore necessary to influence these various qualities inherent within mineral substances through the balancing of ‘hot and cool’ or ‘dry and wet’ properties (Holmyard 1957:75-76). This was conducted through a series of operations, sometimes under the technological repertoire of the metallurgist (involving the manipulation of heat, fuel, minerals and atmospheres within various furnaces) or under that of what we would consider the chemist or apothecary, through the preparation of elixirs. The operations used to effect changes on or within substances were extremely varied but generally were organized as a series of stages, or cycles, of processing, identified by the color and textural transformations of materials (Gage 1999). Color indicated process, with degrees of transformation indicated by color stages: white for the calcination of a material, black for its reduction, red for its ultimate transformation, etc. While the color designations were varied by historical period and individual experience, the use of color to indicate transformation made color a direct indicator of transformational change, making color a “language of movement” (Gage 1999:152). Color was an external indication of internal processes of transformational change. In the mining industry of New Spain, technologies of metal extraction were organized based on the characterization of the ore body exploited as either ‘red’ (colorados) or ‘black’ (negrillos) ores, where color indicated internal properties. Both colorados and negrillos could equally be rich in silver or other metals, but the processing technologies required of each were quite distinct. Red ores were considered ‘dry’ ores, and amenable to mercury amalgam processing. Red coloring is repeatedly used as a reference for silver deposits in landscape descriptions of the period. This projection of value contributed to the naming of the Little Colorado drainage after the Farfan expedition. In color associations of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, green copper ores could be indicative of red ore internal qualities, perhaps through their association with gossan deposits (Barba 1923:97). Alternatively, copper was held as “the origin or foundation of all silver mines,” in that copper “gives the color to the silver ore known as negrillos” (Barba 1923:72-73). Black ores (typically sulfide ores) required additional processes, such as roasting or calcination, and were more amenable to smelting technologies. Interestingly, Barba’s terminology (produced in early seventeenth century Peru) included the intermediate color designation of mulatos for ores that combined the qualities of red and black ore, possibly suggesting a similitude with casta social categories (Barba 1923:97).

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The Politics of Value in Early Colonial Copper Metallurgy From the historical and ethnographic data, it is apparent that there existed the potential for multiple pathways of communication between categories of meaning and referenced values within which color played a significant part by both Spanish colonial metallurgists and Puebloan pigment procurers. These involved a common language of color as indicative of larger social practices involving the construction of value, particularly in the divisions between color types and landscape potentials. Where colonial associations between red and black ores placed value on newly encountered landscapes in terms of their wealth bearing potential, color and landscape attributes for Puebloan individuals indicated subsistence ‘wealth’, as in the color designations and directionality of the Zuni and Tewa Corn Maidens, or as cosmological reference points in a socialized universe. Colors, and the internal properties that they represented, were manipulated by both groups for healing processes, although conceptualized along different lines. For Spanish metallurgists, transformations of color indicated a transformation of character. For adepts within the alchemical tradition, such as Alonso Barba, such transformations ultimately would lead to a divine perfection, symbolized alternatively by alchemically produced gold, the Christ figure, or the figure of the Red King (Holmyard 1957). Within Puebloan healing practices, at least those of the Northern Tewa, color is an indicator of identity rather than a ‘language of movement,’ or process of transformation. Although color at its most basic level indicates seasonal change, color is primarily an indicator of a specificity of place, time and quality. Both practices, in their most metaphysical forms, sought to restore or create an ideal ‘balance’ between internal properties, a key attribute of both the sulfur-mercury theory and Tewa healing. How were the similarities and differences of color associations negotiated historically within the framework of early colonial ore prospecting? What is apparent from the early historical encounters is the repeated offering and acceptance of copper carbonate and copper sulfide ores, despite the predominant focus of 16th and 17th century Spanish colonial metallurgy on silver oxide or lead sulfide bearing silver ores. Gallegos in 1581 accepted “samples of a copperish steel-like metal”, probably chalcopyrite, thought to be rich in silver. Luján and Espejo, in 1582 were also brought to copper deposits, which Espejo claimed as silver rich (contrary to Luján’s assessment) (Bolton 1963; Hammond and Rey 1953, 1966). Following in their path, Farfan de Godos in 1598 was

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brought to the same mines and was impressed with the deep blue color of the ores, suggesting that they may have been smalt, a byproduct of cobaltsilver ore processing in Europe. The archaeological record of early colonial metallurgical practice similarly reflects a focus on copper ores. Although only two facilities from the seventeenth century have been excavated, both reflect a technology within which copper ores play a significant part despite their being located adjacent to both lead ores with a profitable silver content and gold deposits that were eventually exploited in the early nineteenth century in the Cerrillos and New Placers Mining Districts. Both facilities were also located within Pueblos with a long history of occupation. This strategy by Spanish colonial metallurgists is not paralleled in the history of the development of the mining industry in northern New Spain. The three major mining communities identified in the historical record, La Cienaguilla, San Marcos and El Tuerto, were all occupied pueblos at the time of the establishment of the colony. This incorporation suggests a context in which indigenous labor, knowledge and skill were viewed as vital to the success of mining practices. The metallurgical facility at LA162, the historic Pueblo of Paa-ko, excavated by the University of Chicago Summer Field Studies Program under the direction of Mark T. Lycett (Lycett 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004), exhibits a preoccupation with the processing of copper ores [see Figures 2-2 and 2-3]. Paa-ko is not mentioned as a location for metal processing historically, but may be partially associated with the place name of El Tuerto, at least for the early colonial period. Although lead production and its subsequent refining for the recovery of silver did occur at the site as well, a preponderance of effort was expended on the reduction of copper ores. Two different smelting regimes were established within the technology at LA 162, involved with the processing of at least three different copper ore types probably recovered from multiple ore sources within the local region. Copper produced at the site, as well as copper brought in from elsewhere in the Spanish colonial world, was cached and re-worked into pendent forms and amulets, reflecting an application of local Puebloan practice incorporating the new material [see Figure 2-4].

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Figure 2-3: Seventeenth century metallurgical workshop at LA 162, A) base of smelting furnace, B) linear bin furnaces, possibly for metal refining and forge work, C) charcoal concentration and roasting platform. The workshop was unfortunately bisected by a pothunter's trench excavated in the 1950's. Map: N. Thomas.

Ores were treated as ‘negrillos’ ores by Spanish metallurgists, roasted and subsequently smelted under highly reducing conditions at LA 162. Refining operations also included the attempted ‘purification’ of metals using mineralized sulfur. Both operations relied on an understanding of the value of ore as requiring transformation, separating the pure substances of silver and gold from copper through the continued application of dry and hot substances and practices. Copper ore can be viewed within these practices as ultimately valuable but unrefined, perhaps similar to colonial perspectives on Pueblo communities as close to Spanish ideals of society but needing ‘reduction’ or instruction in Catholicism and the arts.

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Figure 2-4: Pierced and incised sheet copper disk recovered from the seventeenth century metallurgical workshop at LA 162.

The Pueblo of San Marcos (LA 98), a seat of Spanish missionary authority in the Galisteo basin in the pre-revolt period, also contains sporadic evidence for smelting or the refining of metals. The base of a furnace and its associated smelting debris was excavated by the University of New Mexico Field School, under the direction of Anne Ramenofsky in 2001, and analyzed by David Vaughan (UNM). This analysis identified the byproducts of copper metallurgy as well (Ramenofsky and Vaughan 2003; Vaughan 2001, 2006). Nelson’s work at San Cristobal, located within the Galisteo Basin and occupied during the same period, also suggests that copper working, if not smelting, was practiced on site during the colonial occupation, probably in the pre-revolt period (Nelson 1914). Copper sheet fragments were noted by Nelson in the colonial period deposits, associated with late glaze ceramics and domestic animals (Nelson 1914:59,63). Copper sheet fragments have also been reported from other contemporary sites associated with the early, pre-revolt, mission system such as Pecos and Gran Quivira (Kidder 1932; Vivian 1979). From the archaeological and historical evidence, copper minerals and copper metal were integrated into both colonial metallurgical practice and new consumption patterns within Pueblo communities, suggesting a shared value for such materials. This shared value can be interpreted along two lines: 1) copper minerals fit the criteria requested by Spanish prospectors as interpreted within Puebloan categories of mineral value, and that copper minerals were acceptable to Spanish prospectors as potential sources of wealth; 2) Puebloan mineral procurers sought to establish a common

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exchange value between Spanish prospector’s desire for ore and their own mineral ‘commodities’ acceptable for exchange with the Spanish. Perhaps at this early period of the establishment of colonial occupation in the Southwest, copper minerals may have served both color value designations. Copper minerals, as primarily blue, yellow and green colors, would most likely have conveyed associations of summer rain and would have at least partially been assigned to categories of ‘hot’ materials. They could have also referenced Corn Maidens as blue pigments, and therefore the ‘wealth’ inherent in the perpetuation of the corn agricultural cycle. Copper minerals, particularly the blue of copper sulfate, as vitriol, were considered primary substances for the transformation of metals by Spanish metallurgists. Paired antagonistically with mercury, these minerals would have been associated with the ‘dry’ and ‘hot’ qualities of sulfur, similar qualities as that found in the richest of silver ores in Northern New Spain. Viewed as a referent of internal qualities indicating potentials of transformation, blue copper ore may have been semiotically similar to the red ‘dry’ ores of Zacatecas. The exchange of pigments and ores, seen as an exchange of like materials holding similar qualities, established an equivalency of value based on the projection of value upon the landscape, as value idealized both as silver and as summer rain blessed agricultural cycles. Copper metal, on the other hand, was a transformation of blue/green pigments to a new substance with different properties of both color and luster. Copper sheet fragments and artifacts recovered from early colonial mission sites suggest that copper working was conducted by pueblo smiths, sometimes at a fairly large scale. Outside of the copper production at LA 162, the excavations of the Pecos mission quadrangle produced over 300 copper sheet fragments as well as a series of copper cross pendants (Bird 1992; Kidder 1932). Copper ornaments became a part of Pueblo dress in the eighteenth through nineteenth centuries, being replaced in importance by silver jewelry in the late nineteenth century. The use of copper metal within the practice of Pueblo adornment suggests an incorporation of the material within value frameworks established for the use of turquoise, shell, and later silver jewelry, as objects used to reference personal or familial worth (Adair 1944; Bird 1992; Ostler et al. 1996). Such referencing in turn suggests a continuity between the way pigments functioned within value frameworks for the establishment of ritual paraphernalia and the presentation of the body in relation to intracommunity constructions of identity.

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Changing Political Contexts: Constructing Value Post-Synthesis The exchange of ores/pigments within the negotiative context of early colonial interactions was in part possible due to the tenuous nature of the colony in the early decades of the seventeenth century. Such workable palimpsests of value, such as those represented by glaze painted pottery and extractive copper metallurgy, quickly devolved into more intensive extractive relationships under Spanish colonialism. In the subsequent decades of colonialism, both colonists and Pueblos struggled with the equivalence of value established from such interactions. Contrary to our usual conceptualization of colonial dominance, it seems that it was in fact the colonial system of valuation, based on precious metal extraction that eroded under local exchange priorities. Copper, a base metal associated with Native American production and consumption practices throughout the Spanish colonial world (Barrett 1987; Meek 1948), became a focus of practice, and possibly a medium for exchange within the colony of New Mexico, establishing a kind of reversal of values between silver and copper found elsewhere in the Spanish colonial system. This is indicated by the recommendations of the Audencia of New Spain concerning New Mexico in light of the testimony of Vincente de Zaldívar upon his return to Mexico City in 1602. Zaldívar was the sargento mayor of the colony and an experienced miner from Zacatecas. Much of the prospecting and early metal processing of the colony, of which the facilities at LA 162 and LA 98 are probably examples of, were under his direction. In light of his extensive mining experience, the recommendations offered by the audencia after his testimony are revealing: When silver or copper, which they say abound, are discovered, we could introduce some form of coinage to circulate there. Some could be coined in that country and the value set low enough so as to leave a profit for the merchants who might bring and sell copper in bars. This seems impossible since the cost of transportation would be more than its worth. It also seems impossible to put it in circulations by ordering the copper coined here [Mexico]. It would circulate at a higher value, and the same would be true of the coin of that land circulating here. If the value here were not excessive or much greater than its value there and that it often commands in other kingdoms, not much profit could be made, although in such a case we might use an alloy if we found some thing from which to make it. Unless they send coin or goods to this country to obtain money or to exchange it for what they need, there would be no way of establishing commerce. Even when this matter of coinage finds a better solution,

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whatever is sent there will be extremely expensive, in view of the cost of transportation… Even though it is not certain that there is silver, if means were found to establish copper coinage, this would encourage and facilitate trade and aid in the support of the Spaniards there, even if the profits were not large. They have nothing to sell from which they can obtain cash, and poverty is everywhere (Hammond and Rey 1953: 913-914). Italics mine.

Due to the economics of mining, the extreme distance over land from the center of goods distribution to the frontier of New Mexico, and the lack of Spanish controlled resources in the colony, silver could not hold the same value as it did in the rest of New Spain. Within the colony, silver produced in the colony could not be used to establish exchange value because of its extreme relative value in light of the poverty of the population and its high production costs. External to the colony, silver could not be used as a currency of exchange because of its low value in relation to the relatively abundant silver in New Spain and the high cost of transporting goods to New Mexico. The solution offered by the Audencia was a focus on copper coinage, produced within the colony in order to foster exchange, in essence, raising the value of copper coin in New Mexico to the functioning level of silver coinage in the markets of New Spain. The Audencia’s recommendation is a precursor to what became a kind of split economy, one based on the ‘strategic’ manipulation of institutions, both colonial and Puebloan, to collect tribute in order for colonial elites to profit from Native American labor and goods in the larger arena of the Spanish colonial world, and one based on local ‘tactics’ of counterappropriation and cultural preservation (de Certeau 1984). Following de Certeau’s model of the preservation of the creative life through the improvised daily actions of consumption and participation within a dominant culture, Puebloan economic practices created a foothold from which material actions based on indigenous values and political power could be enacted. As de Certeau suggests, such tactics are in part possible due to a re-evaluation of the structures of meaning in daily acts of cultural perseverance. The actual order of things is precisely what “popular” tactics turn to their own ends, without any illusion that it will change any time soon. Though elsewhere it is exploited by a dominant power or simply denied by an ideological discourse, here order is tricked by an art. Into the institution to be served are thus insinuated styles of social exchange, technical invention, and moral resistance, that is, an economy of the “gift” (generosities for

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Such ‘tactics’ included the adoption of Spanish and Mexican domesticates and production practices, certain Catholic religious imagery and Spanish political institutions, Spanish colonial craft and technological practices (European ceramic forms, reintroduction of glaze paint, retablo painting, Treadle loom weaving, wool production, metallurgy), and labor practices. Through the selective incorporation of Spanish colonial materials, institutions and practices, and their categorization into Puebloan meaning frameworks (or “Hopification” as Lomawaima describes it, [Lomawaima 1989]), Puebloan labor power became central for local economies, providing a basis for the functioning of the early colony while maintaining the possibility of Puebloan political and social influence within the structures of Spanish colonial society. This is exemplified in the life of Esteban Clemente, a Spanish appointed governor of the Salinas pueblos, who instigated revolt in the 1660’s through bridging Catholic and traditionalist communities. Contrary to de Certeau, it is not necessary to give up a vision of deep structural change while adopting a ‘tactical’ approach to practice. Many of the individuals linked to the organization of rebellion in the last half of the seventeenth century had similar backgrounds to Clemente, bridging Puebloan and Spanish colonial economies and socio-political organizations while maintaining a vision of a revitalized Puebloan world (Knaut 1995).

Conclusion The attempt at establishing a mining industry based on silver extraction in seventeenth century New Mexico failed not because of the lack of silver deposits; the high assay values reported by sixteenth and seventeenth century prospectors were in most cases justifiable assessments. The industry failed to establish itself because of the structure of the New Mexican economy, a structure shaped by the practices/tactics of Puebloan communities. The value of Puebloan pigments and their referential ability to denote value on the landscape, congruent with Spanish colonial expectations of metallic qualities, shaped prospecting efforts and the resulting metallurgical technology employed at early colonial sites such as the facilities at Paa-ko and San Marcos Pueblos. This placed copper minerals at the forefront of Spanish attempts at metal extraction and the

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development of a metal-based exchange medium, a reversal of Spanish colonial value categories between silver and copper metals. As a case study, the failure of the early colonial mining industry highlights the fact that the flux between the interpretation of colonial material forms and social structures as acts of appropriation or, conversely, as syntheses of ethnic identities, so prevalent in the literature on colonialism in the New World, generalizes too broadly the creative dynamic established by the colonized historically. Gifts were not given simply as acts of naiveté, tactics of engagement were not taken purely out of desperation, and the participation within colonial economies was not a complete capitulation of a vision of indigenous worldviews. Through the instigation of equitable exchange, through skilled artistry, and through the maintenance of indigenous structures of meaning, Puebloan communities shaped the colonial economy despite the strategic efforts of colonial elites to control their output. Indigenous structures of value, referencing moral economies in opposition to colonial appropriation, colored economic, social and political interrelationships, ultimately allowing for the reestablishment of political autonomy after the Revolt of 1680, and the relative independence of Pueblo economic and religious spheres in the post revolt period.

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Graves, W. M. and S. L. Eckert. 1998. Decorated Ceramic Distributions and Ideological Developments in the Northern and Central Rio Grande Valley, New Mexico. In Migration and Reorganization: the Pueblo IV Period in the American Southwest, edited by K. A. Spielmann, pp. 263284. Arizona State University Anthropological Research Papers, Tempe. Graves, W. M. and K. A. Spielmann. 2000. Leadership, Long-Distance Exchange, and Feasting in the Protohistoric Rio Grande. In Alternative Leadership Strategies in the Prehispanic Southwest, edited by B. J. Mills, pp. 45-59. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Habicht-Mauche, J. A. 1993. The Pottery from Arroyo Hondo Pueblo, New Mexico: Tribalization and Trade in the Northern Rio Grande. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe. —. 2006. The Social History of the Southwestern Glaze Wares. In The Social Life of Pots: Glaze Wares and Cultural Dynamics in the Southwest AD 1250-1680, edited by J. A. Habicht-Mauche, S. L. Eckert and D. L. Huntley, pp. 4-16. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Habicht-Mauche, J. A., S. T. Glenn, H. Milford and A. R. Flegal. 2000. Isotopic tracing of prehistoric Rio Grande glaze-paint production and trade. Journal of Archaeological Science 27(8):709-713. Hammond, G. P. and A. Rey. 1953. Don Juan de Oñate, Colonizer of New Mexico 1595-1628. The University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. —. 1966. The Rediscovery of New Mexico, 1580-1594. University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Herhahn, C. L. 2006. Inferring Social Interactions from Pottery Recipes: Rio Grande Glaze Paint Composition and Cultural Transmission. In The Social Life of Pots: Glaze Wares and Cultural Dynamics in the Southwest, AD 1250-1680, edited by J. A. Habicht-Mauche, S. L. Eckert and D. L. Huntley. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Holmyard, E. J. 1957. Alchemy. Dover Publishers, Inc., New York. Judd, N. M. 1954. The Material Culture of Pueblo Bonito. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Kidder, A. V. 1932. The Artifacts of Pecos. Yale University Press, New Haven. Knaut, A. L. 1995. The Pueblo Revolt of 1680: Conquest and Resistance in Seventeenth-Century New Mexico. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman. Kohler, T. A., M. W. Van Pelt and L. Y. Yap. 2000. Reciprocity and Its Limits: Considerations for a Study of the Prehispanic Pueblo World. In

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Alternative Leadership Strategies in the Prehispanic Southwest, edited by B. J. Mills, pp. 180-206. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Lomawaima, H. H. 1989. Hopification, a Strategy for Cultural Preservation. In Columbian Consequences, Volume I: Archaeologial and Historical Perspectives on the Spanish Borderlands West, edited by D. H. Thomas, pp. 93-99. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. Lycett, M. T. 1997. Preliminary Report of Archaeological Surface Documentation and Test Excavations at LA 162, Bernalillo County, New Mexico, conducted by Northwestern University Archaeological Field Studies Program, between 17 June and 8 August, 1996, under permit SP-269. Cultural Properties Review Committee, Historic Preservation Division, Santa Fe. —. 1999. Report of Archaeological Excavations at LA 162, Bernalillo County, New Mexico, conducted by the University of Chicago Archaeological Field Studies Program, between 21 June and 18 August, 1998, under permit SE-134. Cultural Properties Review Committee, Historic Preservation Division, Santa Fe. —. 2000. Report of Archaeological Excavations at LA 162, Bernalillo County, New Mexico, conducted by the University of Chicago Archaeological Field Studies Program, between 21 June and 12 August, 1999, under permit SE-144. Cultural Properties Review Committee, Historic Preservation Division, Santa Fe. —. 2001. Report of Archaeological Excavations at LA 162, Bernalillo County, New Mexico, conducted by the University of Chicago Archaeological Field Studies Program, between 21 June and 17 August, 2000, under permit SE-156. Cultural Properties Review Committee, Historic Preservation Division, Santa Fe. —. 2002. Transformations of Place: Occupational History and Differential Persistence in Seventeenth-Century New Mexico. In Archaeologies of the Pueblo Revolt: Identity, Meaning, and Renewal in the Pueblo World, edited by R. W. Preucel, pp. 61-75. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. —. 2004. Report of Archaeological Excavations at LA 162, Bernalillo County, New Mexico, conducted by the University of Chicago Archaeological Field Studies Program, between June 15 and August 1, 2002. Cultural Properties Review Committee, Historic Preservation Division, Santa Fe. —. 2005. On the Margins of Peripheries: the Consequences of Differential Incorporation in the Colonial Southwest. In The Postclassic to Spanishera Transition in Mesoamerica: Archaeological Perspectives, edited

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by S. Kepecs and R. Alexander, pp. 97-116. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. Meek, W. T. 1948. The Exchange Media of Colonial Mexico. King's Crown Press, New York. Mills, B. J. 2002. Acts of Resistance: Zuni Ceramics, Social Identity, and the Pueblo Revolt. In Archaeologies of the Pueblo Revolt: Identity, Meaning, and Renewal in the Pueblo World, edited by R. W. Preucel, pp. 85-98. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. —. 2004. The Establishment and Defeat of Hierarchy: Inalienable Possessions and the History of Collective Prestige Structures in the Pueblo Southwest. American Anthropologist 106 (2): 238-251. Mobley-Tanaka, J. L. 2002. Crossed Cultures, Crossed Meanings: The Manipulation of Ritual Imagery in Early Historic Pueblo Resistance. In Archaeologies of the Pueblo Revolt: Identity, Meaning, and Renewal in the Pueblo World, edited by R. W. Preucel, pp. 77-84. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. Nelson, N. C. 1914. Pueblo Ruins of the Galisteo Basin, New Mexico. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 15. 1 vols, New York. Ortiz, A. 1969. The Tewa World: Space, Time, Being and Becoming in a Pueblo Society. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Ostler, J., M. Rodee and M. Nahohai. 1996. Zuni: A Village of Silversmiths. Zuni A:Shiwi Publishing and University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. Parsons, E. C. 1966. Pueblo Indian Religion. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln. Platt, T. 2000. The Alchemy of Modernity: Alonso Barba's Copper Cauldrons and the Independence of Bolivian Metallurgy (1790-1890). Journal of Latin American Studies 32(1):1-54. Probert, A. 1969. Bartolome de Medina: The Patio Process and the Sixteenth Century Silver Crisis. Journal of the West 8:90-124. Ramenofsky, A. F. and C. D. Vaughan. 2003. Jars Full of Shiny Metal: Analyzing Barrionnuevo's Visit to Yuque Yuque. In The Coronado Expedition: From the Distance of 460 Years, edited by R. Flint and S. C. Flint, pp. 116-139. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. Rubertone, P. E. 2000. The Historical Archaeology of Native Americans. Annual Review of Anthropology 29: 425-446. Salazar-Soler, C. 1997. Alvaro Alonso Barba: Teorias de la Antiguedad, Alquimia y Creencias Prehispanicas en las Ciencias de la Tierra en el Nuevo Mundo. In Entre dos Mundos: Fronteras Culturales y Agentes

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Mediadores, edited by B. A. Queija and S. Gruzinski, pp. 269-296. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Sevilla. Spielmann, K. A. 1998. Ritual Influences on the Development of Rio Grande Glaze A Ceramics. In Migration and Reorganization: The Pueblo IV Period in the American Southwest, edited by K. A. Spielmann. Anthropological Research Paper no. 51. Arizona State University, Tempe. —. 2002. Feasting, Craft Specialization, and the Ritual Mode of Production in Small-Scale Societies. American Anthropologist 104 (1): 195-207. Vargas, V. D. 1995. Copper Bell Trade Patterns in the Prehispanic U.S. Southwest and Northwest Mexico. Arizona State Museum Archaeological Series 187. Arizona State Museum, Tucson. Vaughan, C. D. 2001. Investigating Spanish Colonial Mining and Metallurgy. Archaeological Conservancy and the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division. —. 2006. Taking the Measure of New Mexico's Colonial Miners, Mining, and Metallurgy. Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Vivian, G. 1979. Gran Quivira: Excavations in a Seventeenth Century Jumano Pueblo. Archaeological Research Series 8. National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, DC. Ware, J. A. and E. Blinman. 2000. Cultural Collapse and Reorganization: Origin and Spread of Pueblo Ritual Sodalities. In The Archaeology of Regional Interaction: Religion, Warfare, and Exchange across the American Southwest and Beyond, edited by M. Hegmon, pp. 381-410. University Press of Colorado, Boulder. Weiner, A. B. 1985. Inalienable Wealth. American Ethnologist 12 (2): 210-227. Wolf, E. R. 1990. Distinguished Lecture: Facing Power—Old Insights, New Questions. American Anthropologist 92 (3): 586-596.

CHAPTER THREE PRODUCING THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE: MONUMENTS, LABOR, WATER AND PLACE IN IRON AGE CENTRAL KARNATAKA ANDREW M. BAUER

The archaeological record of the South India Iron Age attests to the emergence of pronounced social differentiation and large-scale labor mobilization, yet evidence for well-developed institutionalized authority is conspicuously absent. Despite the apparent absence of large-scale political authority during the South Indian Iron Age, it is clear that a variety of practices oriented social relations at multiple scales toward strategic goals—practices that appear to have been instrumental in constituting and reconstituting social relationships and inequalities (e.g., Bauer and Johansen 2008). In this chapter I highlight an active suite of ancient cultural practices in an effort to understand how politics were lived and enacted during the period. Specifically, I call attention to the production of megalithic ritual complexes, and their strategic “location” within a broad array of cultural activities that (re)created privileged access to places with material and symbolic resources that were important to the reproduction of social relationships during the period. By highlighting the broader social significance of landscape creation within a set of politically charged cultural activities, I hope to demonstrate that one does not need conventional archaeological proxies for ancient political forms—such as centralized places of rule or worship—to both recognize and investigate political actions and strategies in the ancient past.

“Politics” and the South Indian Iron Age The South Indian Iron Age (1200-300 B.C.) has been the subject of scholarly research for nearly two centuries. For most of this time, however, research on the period has focused solely on a suite of mortuary

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remains and associated monumental, “megalithic”1 architecture, which appears to have been constructed across much of the subcontinent during the first millennium B.C. Indeed, the salience of megalithic ritual complexes in the early archaeography on the period led many scholars to (wrongly) suggest that other kinds of Iron Age sites, such as habitation settlements, simply did not exist in the archaeological record (see Moorti 1994 for a discussion). This almost exclusive focus on the abundance and diversity of megalithic forms has produced a picture in which archaeologists have long suggested that inequalities in social status and ranks developed during the period, yet ironically, without being able to address how Iron Age inhabitants lived and reproduced social relationships. More specifically, attention has frequently been given to recognizing and categorizing Iron Age political forms within a socioevolutionary framework, often categorizing them as “chiefdoms” based on inequalities in the mortuary record (e.g., Brubaker 2001, Moorti 1994), but not to the strategies, activities, and social practices that gave substance to these forms; it has simply become a truism that hierarchical social inequalities were manifest and fixed in the South Indian subcontinent during the period. Given the importance of the mortuary record to existing arguments for the development of social complexity during the Iron Age, it is perhaps an even greater irony that few existing studies have detailed the spatial arrangement of megalithic sites or reported quantifiable empirical differences in the monumental record either within or between mortuary complexes (though see attempts from Sundara [1975] Moorti [1994, and Brubaker [2001]] for exceptions). Indeed, Johansen (2008: 99) rightly points out that interpretations of Iron Age social organization have narrowly focused on a limited sample of grave goods excavated from a small number of poorly dated sites across the subcontinent. The variability among interments, mortuary assemblages, and megalithic monument forms and arrangements are frequently described in only anecdotal terms—often simply contrasting the presence of both large and small megalithic forms and/or rich and poor internments. Thus, the logics of interpretation and archaeographic representations of the South Indian Iron Age have arguably combined to produce a static tautology, whereby the presence of large megalithic burials index the presence of fixed social elites, which affirm the presence of a complex social structure, while reducing the need to critically assess the spatial and temporal distributions of the data upon which these claims are founded—let alone relate the production of these megalithic places to other cultural and social activities that continuously recreated the material and symbolic environments of ancient inhabitants.

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This picture, however, continues to change as recent research has increasingly targeted Iron Age settlement organization, production and consumption activities, and land use through both excavation and survey strategies in an effort to understand the suite of social and cultural practices that constituted life during the period. Despite the rather bleak portrait I have just sketched of our understanding of Iron Age social life, it is clear from current data that a variety of ancient practices oriented social relations at multiple scales toward strategic goals. For example, not all Iron Age inhabitants produced mortuary monuments involving the labor-intensive construction of stone and masonry architecture—attested by the presence of unelaborated pit burials at many sites (e.g., Mohanty 2010; Thaper 1957). While the evidence for vast disparities in monumental mortuary architecture cannot be taken as a simple reflection of Iron Age social organization and status ranks,2 it nevertheless implies that new modes of labor mobilization emerged during the period, and that not all inhabitants participated (or desired to participate) in the cultural practice equally. Moreover, as will be detailed below, there is evidence that a variety of new practices of consumption and production developed during the period that appear to have been likewise unequally participated in and instrumental to the reproduction of social relationships. Thus, rather than striving to categorize a typological form (e.g., “chiefdom”) of political inequality for the Iron Age, it would be more useful to investigate how politics were lived and practiced during the period. In this sense, I conceptualize politics as a range of strategic actions and practices, specifically those that negotiated and redefined the social and symbolic resources through which enabling social distinctions and inequalities were contested and (re)created (sensu Smith 1999).3 Although the South Indian Iron Age largely lacks evidence for conventional archaeological proxies for large-scale institutionalized authority, such as pronounced settlement hierarchies and centralized places of rule or worship—i.e., the urban sites, palaces, and temples in many other world regions—there is no absence of politics in the sense defined above. In this chapter I provide a contextual analysis of how social differences and inequalities were constituted during the South Indian Iron Age in an 80 km2 study region of central Karnataka, South India, that has been intensively surveyed and documented [Figure 3-1; see A. Bauer 2010]. Given that megalithic monuments are the most referenced archaeological evidence for the development of social differentiation during the Iron Age, as well as the most salient indicator for new forms of large-scale labor mobilization, I specifically undertake an assessment of place- making at

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Figure 3-1: Shaded-relief map of Karnataka, indicating the location of the study area.

Megalithic mortuary sites in the study region. However, the archaeological evidence for the distribution and production of megalithic mortuary places in the study region destabilize the a priori assumption that megalithic ritual sites simply index social inequalities; rather, the materials force one to move beyond the notion that these sites simply “reflect” ancient social structures to a consideration of how the culturally active process of producing these places was one in which social relationships were created; patterning among archaeological materials suggest that megalithic mortuary

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complexes were active places in the cultural geographies of their creators, distant neither physically nor necessarily wholly distinct in their symbolic content from other places where Iron Age production and consumption activities occurred. Indeed, these ritual locales frequently overlapped with those of routines and practices that constituted daily life, evidenced by an association with modified rock pools and erosion control walls indicative of agro-pastoral land use and also ephemerally occupied rockshelters, hill slopes, and more sustained settlement sites. I will argue that it is partly this overlap in activities, and consequently the multiple meanings associated with these places, that made their production critical to the negotiation of social relationships during the period.

Landscapes and the Social Relations of Place The emphasis on the social and political significance of landscapes and places I have just foreshadowed has a history within the social sciences dating back to at least the mid 1980s, when postmodern and Marxist influenced geographers began to highlight the role of producing spaces and places to political practices and the creation of subjectivities.4 For example, David Harvey’s text The Condition of Postmodernity (1990) suggested that social relations in general are profoundly spatial phenomena, and that their defining spatiality is “necessarily created through material practices and processes which serve to reproduce social life” (Harvey 1990: 204). Similar arguments that inserted space as a critical analytical field for understanding sociality rightly gained traction in the social sciences in the late 80s and 90s (e.g., de Certeau et al. 1998, Soja 1989). Indeed, considerable work has subsequently detailed the instrumentality of spatial production to (re)configuring both political projects and hegemonic cultural practices (cf., Hirsch and O’Hanlon 1995; Scott 1998; Smith 2003). Within archaeology, landscape has generally been taken up in a slightly different vein. Ashmore (2004) rightly points out that archaeologists tend to dichotomize between “ecological” approaches and “interpretive” approaches to landscape. While the former tends to focus on functional humanenvironment interactions and environmental histories, the latter is generally framed by a phenomenological epistemology more concerned with the meaningful constitutions of places, in which the affective dimensions of human experiences and perceptions are often highlighted. I take the position that interpretive approaches to landscape, while having rightly moved archaeology beyond a narrow focus on solely the material dimensions of past human-environment interactions, have conversely

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neglected the role of (material) cultural practices in creating social and culturally meaningful places in the past. Smith (2003) has cogently noted that phenomenological approaches to landscape, although concerned with meaning, generally provide few mechanisms for how spaces and places actually become imbued with meaning. This problem arises “out of a rather under developed account of the process of spatial production. The direct connection between culturally organized systems of belief or meaning fails to take into account the social organization of production, economy, and power that allows things to get built” (Smith 2003: 67). Smith’s criticism of phenomenological approaches to landscape resonates with other theorists of materiality and spatial practice. Ingold (2000), for example, likens the materiality of landscape with what he terms a “taskscape”—“the entire ensemble of [cultural] tasks, in their mutual interlocking….Just as the landscape is an array of related features, so — by analogy — the taskscape is an array of related activities ” (Ingold 2000: 195). For Ingold (2000), the material dimensions of landscapes are the “congealed form of the taskscape” (Ingold 2000: 199). While singular cultural meanings of tasks and activities, I would argue, are not congealed to particular places in any fixed, universal, and singular sense, it is reasonable to suggest that differential involvement and experiences in the production of landscapes (through meaningful actions and activities) are several axes upon which places become socially and symbolically defined and differentiated. Building on this assessment I use the term landscape to include the cultural meanings that were attributed to places and spaces in the past as they were historically (re)produced through changes in how peoples’ activities related to the material and symbolic environments of which they were a part. As an analytic it is possible to investigate the potential social and political significance of landscape production by assessing how the actions and activities responsible for constantly reproducing landscapes were differentially participated in and consequently experienced by different social actors, particularly when set within an entire ensemble of culturally meaningful actions. As the work of Smith (2003) and Ingold (2000) collectively imply, by contextualizing the material creation of landscapes within both a social field and an array of meaningful activities responsible for their production, it is possible to begin assessing how landscapes are simultaneously both products and active producers of social relationships. Turning to an analysis of the active political importance of Iron Age megalithic places it is thus important to begin by examining other social and cultural activities that appear to have had considerable social salience during the period and, not coincidently, appear to have been

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related to the production of megalithic places.

Iron Age Production and Consumption An understanding of economic and social activities during the Iron Age remained relatively unformed until recently. This is due, in no small part, to the fact that much of the nearly two centuries of research on the period has primarily sought to describe the vast array of megalithic monuments that were constructed across much of the subcontinent. The emphasis of early colonial scholars on megaliths can largely be attributed to the features’ apparent “similarity” and “kinship” with those found in continental Europe and (especially) the Caucasus and Iran, where they represented a potentially important line of evidence in developing migration, diffusion, and lineage based racial narratives of ancient history (e.g., Childe 1947; Taylor 1889; see also Trautmann [1997] for a discussion of racial narratives in colonial India). Although this early emphasis on megaliths has detracted from investigations of broader archaeological understandings of Iron Age social life at settlement sites, mortuary investigations have provided some clues about significant production activities during the period. For example, it is noteworthy that many new occupational tools (e.g., axes, spades, sickles, spindle whorls, herding gear, horse trappings, fish hooks, etc.) are frequently found in association with Iron Age mortuary remains, suggesting that a widening variety of production activities developed during the period (Gururaja Rao 1972; Rao 1988; Moorti 1994). Thus, in addition to providing evidence for new forms of labor mobilization attested by the construction of megaliths, mortuary excavations have implied that some production routines and activities likely had considerable cultural significance to inhabitants during the period. However, how social life was constituted through daily activities of production and consumption remained an unaddressed question until only recently. The presence of Iron Age habitation deposits in South India have been reported as a component of many archaeological publications for at least the last half century, allowing Moorti’s (1994) comparatively recent synthesis of existing publications to call attention to their presence and the inaccuracy of the “myth” associated with the absence of settlement sites. However, prior to recent survey projects very little was known about the structure and distribution of Iron Age residential sites (see Johansen, Chapter 9). The results of systematic survey outside of the modern village of Hampi, central Karnataka (see below), for example, have identified a series of settlements situated on granitic inselberg hills near the Tungabhadra

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River (e.g., A. Bauer 2010; Sinopoli and Morrison 2007). With an occupational area of over 60 hectares, Kadebakele is by far the largest of these sites and suggests that settlement during the period was potentially concentrated in some locales (Sinopoli et al. 2009). Moreover, there appear to be differences in the activities that occurred at certain settlements. For example, some sites show evidence for specialized Iron production (e.g. Johansen 2008). In addition to sustained settlements, nearly 100 ephemerally occupied rockshelters and small terraces were documented in the survey region. These sites frequently contain low densities of ceramics, lithic debitage, and also pictorial representations of cattle and other animals, suggesting the regular occurrence of dispersed activities, such as hunting and herding animals, away form the major settlements during the period (A. Bauer 2010; see also below). Iron Age occupational deposits have been systematically excavated from only a few settlement sites within the Southern Deccan region of the subcontinent. From those it appears that agricultural production was diversified and intensified in some areas during the period. Grains such as barley, wheat, rice, and millets, as well as pulses such as pigeon pea and hyacinth bean, have been found in domestic contexts that are Iron Age in date (e.g., Kajale 1984, 1989). Although it is difficult to characterize the entire range of Iron Age agricultural production given current data, Morrison (2009) has suggested that the concentration of some Iron Age settlements close to perennial water sources, such as those documented near the Tungabhadra River, may reflect an increased reliance on floodwater rice production. Moreover, there is preliminary evidence to suggest the development of more sophisticated water management. Reservoirs—constructed dams or quarried catchment basins for pooling rainfall and runoff—begin to occur in many different contexts throughout the region. At Kadebakele, for example, a reservoir was seemingly constructed during the Iron Age5 near the center of the upper occupational area overlooking the Tungabhadra River. Although such features do not include provisions for large-scale agricultural water distribution, they also occur within ephemeral drainage ways in association with check dams and at the base of hills where water could be pooled and retained for crop production (see also Allchin 1954; A. Bauer et al. 2007; Johansen 2009). In addition to being found near settlements, water catchment features, such as modified rock pools6 [Figure 3-2], also occur on granitic hills with broad depositional terraces and at megalithic mortuary sites (see below). In short, it appears from previous observations and surface associations that early forms of water management occurred during the Iron Age. Artifact

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Figure 3-2: Large modified rock pool at Hire Benakal (site-054), showing several large, slab-supported dolmens on the quarried bank in the distance.

associations and prehistoric rock art suggest that many of these features away from settlements were important to pastoral production in the semiarid environment of central Karnataka, serving as watering tanks for herded animals on vegetated terraces within the hill tracts (A. Bauer 2010). However, the development of water retention features during the period also generally coincides with increases in crop diversity, and thus possibly had a role in agricultural production as well. Despite a growing suite of cultigens, Iron Age inhabitants of the Southern Deccan clearly continued to rely heavily on a pastoral economy characterized primarily by cattle herding that developed in the preceding Neolithic Period, during which the animals have well-documented economic and symbolic importance (A. Bauer et al. 2007; Boivin 2004; Johansen 2004). Nearly all excavated contexts show Bos indicus dominating the faunal assemblages in both Neolithic and Iron Age contexts and indications of charring and butchering is commonly present on both cattle and caprine remains from Iron Age sites across the region (e.g., Sastri et al. 1984, Thomas et al. 2006). Despite evidence for their consumption, it is noteworthy that cattle remains from Iron Age contexts

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frequently demonstrate demographic profiles indicating that the animals lived into advanced age, suggesting also the importance of dairy products and the animal’s importance as draft labor to inhabitants (e.g., R. Bauer 2007; Thomas 1984; Thomas et al. 2006). In addition to raising domesticated animals, inhabitants of the Southern Deccan clearly augmented their diet with hunting during the Iron Age. Wild fauna are evident in ample proportions in nearly all systematically excavated and analyzed Iron Age habitation deposits, and include a variety of large and small mammals (e.g., blackbuck, chital, hare), as well as a diversity of aquatic, amphibious, and reptilian fauna (e.g., fish, mollusks, turtles, lizards, etc.) (e.g., R. Bauer 2007; Nagaraja Rao 1971; Thomas 1984; Thomas et al. 2006). This is also the case at Kadebakele, where analysis of faunal materials have begun to suggest that differential participation in communal consumption activities played an important role in the development and perpetuation of social distinctions (A. Bauer et al. 2007; R. Bauer 2007). The distribution of faunal remains in combination with other materials at Kadebakele attest to the likelihood of social feasting practices during the Iron Age (A. Bauer et al. 2007; R. Bauer 2007; Sinopoli 2007). For example, young, primed-aged individual cattle remains showing evidencing of charring were found deposited within a series of deliberately prepared, plastered pits. Moreover, the distribution of burned remains across the site indicate that cattle were roasted more than any other animal and the highest proportion of such charred bones were recovered from these prepared pits (R. Bauer 2007). The interpretation of these pit deposits to reflect feasting activities is bolstered by the distribution of ceramic materials across the site, which show the highest concentrations of a suite of small serving vessels, including those interpreted by Sinopoli (2007) as small carinated cups and a range of small- and medium-size bowls, in the same contexts. In other words, the distribution of ceramics in combination with the faunal remains suggest that certain contexts at Kadebakele represent non-quotidian, communal consumption activities, and constitute the best evidence to date for Iron Age commensal politics (A. Bauer et al. 2007; Bauer and Johansen 2008). Indeed, Sinopoli (2005) has suggested that the widespread appearance of small “hemispherical or carinated bowls” during the period likely relates to new modes of public consumption activities, such as feasting, across much of South India. Feasts can take a variety of forms within various cultural contexts, ranging from specific ritual transformations in personhood, to work feasts intended to mobilize labor for large-scale projects, or the reception of nonlocal guests. A variety of ethnographic literature has demonstrated that

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feasts often concurrently produce social distinctions and group cohesion, highlighting those responsible for sponsoring the activity while also reestablishing social ties (e.g., Dietler and Hayden 2001). It has been suggested that emerging social differentiation documented during the Iron Age was likely tied into such communal events (e.g., A. Bauer et al. 2007; Bauer and Johansen 2008; R. Bauer 2007; Johansen 2010). For example, R. Bauer (2007) has pointed out that the importance of secondary products in the Iron Age subsistence economy would likely have imbued cattle with a great deal of social value, and provisioning the animal(s) suitable for communal consumption may have bestowed social distinction on a kin group or individual. Moreover, the socio-symbolic importance of cattle in the region has clear antecedents in the preceding Neolithic period, when the piling and burning of cattle dung produced large mounds of ash and vitrified dung, many of which reached monumental proportions (A. Bauer et al. 2007; Boivin 2004; Johansen 2004). Thus, it is not surprising that the evidence for feasting in the South Indian Iron Age coincides with indications for new modes of power relations and labor mobilization— attested through the construction of both megaliths and other landscape features, such as reservoirs, and retention walls. In this sense, associations between developing socio-political relationships and their materially were integrally connected to landscape production. And it is within the context of this broader suite of Iron Age social activities that I now turn attention to the production of Iron Age megalithic places—largely because there is evidence that they are strongly related to the politics of production and consumption just highlighted.

Making Megalithic Places The following assessment of the creation of Iron Age megalithic places is based on the results of archaeological survey and surface documentation. The survey was designed to characterize the production of an ancient cultural landscape near the Tungabhadra River in the semi-arid residual hill tracts south of a large Iron Age megalithic site known as Hire Benakal (Site-54) and north of the substantial Iron Age settlement at Kadebakele (VMS-530) [Figure 3-3]. In addition to addressing questions of settlement location and land use, the surface survey also aimed to build on the contextual associations among a suite of other prehistoric places and landscape features, such as megalithic mortuary sites, rock art, water retention features, terrace walls, and ephemerally occupied rockshelters and hill slopes—to name a few. The survey7 recovered more than 100 prehistoric sites, including all of the categories of features just noted, as

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Figure 3-3: Overview of survey area, showing distributions of recorded settlements, megalithic complexes, and areas intensively surveyed by Bauer (2010) and Sinopoli and Morrison's previous VMS project (e.g., Sinopoli and Morrison 2007).

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well as additional Iron Age settlements and megalithic complexes. Hire Benakal (site-054) is the largest of the seven megalithic sites recorded in the study region and represents an excellent example of how these ancient places were created and spatially arranged.

Hire Benakal (site-054) The Hire Benakal megalithic complex is situated at the highest peak in the surveyed hill tracts, south of the modern village from which it takes its name. The complex contains more than 1,000 distinctive commemorative features in an expansive area nearly 20 hectares in size. Monuments are primarily block-supported and slab-supported dolmen forms, but other megaliths present at the site include stone circles, menhirs, simple rectilinear cists, cairns, and boulder enclosures—an improvised monument formed by arranging stone cobbles around the base of a naturally in-situ granite boulder [Figure 3-4]. In addition to recording the monument clusters of the megalithic site, archaeological survey documented other “single” megalithic features in the vicinity of the complex. For example, boulder enclosures and passage chamber megaliths are scattered on the hillslopes below the site to the north, suggesting a more continuous distribution of monuments in the region of the main complex—albeit in much different densities. Before turning to an analysis of the spatial organization of the megaliths it is important to point out that there is considerable evidence for Iron Age occupation and land use at and in the immediate vicinity of the megalithic complex [Figure 3-5]. For example, there are two sizable Iron Age settlement sites approximately .5 km to the north, straddling the rise of the residual hill tract from the peneplain. It is particularly noteworthy that one of these settlements, in addition to having a variety of Iron Age ceramic forms and wares, contains Russet-Coated Painted Ware typical of the following Early Historic Period (300 B.C – A.D. 300), which suggests a long period of sustained occupation in the region spanning at least the entirety of the first millennium B.C. during which the monument complex was likely created and in use. A series of occupational terraces that show evidence for temporary but regular occupation in the hill tracts during the Iron Age are present south of the settlements. Similarly, there is also a series of temporarily occupied rockshelters just south, north, and even within the densest area of megalithic monument concentrations. In short, the megalith complex is anything but isolated from other evidence for Iron Age land use. Indeed, there are also prehistoric landscape features such as

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Figure 3-4: Examples of some megalithic forms recorded in the survey region: (A) slab-supported dolmens, (B) boulder enclosures, and (C-D) modified and unmodified cobble and block-supported dolmens.

soil retention walls and modified rock pools—the latter occurring as features both nearby the main clusters of monuments and also within the main clusters. Although it is difficult to control for the chronological development of the megalithic complex, it is clear that several operative principles guided the spatial production of this site for the potentially 1,000 years it was in use. The megalithic site is segmented into three main monument clusters that are roughly situated along a NW-SE axis. The principal approach to the site was almost certainly from the northwest, where one can follow an ephemeral drainage path into the hills from the settlements to the north. The monuments in this northwestern cluster are composed primarily of cobble- and block-supported dolmens built directly on expanses of hilltop sheetrock, where their builders appear to have taken advantage of naturally exfoliating irregular rock slabs to be used as monument capstones. The monuments in this portion of the site are generally arranged in parallel northwest-southeast trending rows, with two central axes forming a processional way that was further elaborated with stone lines. Thus, despite

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Figure 3-5: Archaeological context of Hire Benakal (site-54).

being built over a long period of time, it appears the monuments were continuously organized to channel movement through the northwestern portion of the complex and toward the central monument cluster. In general, the monuments at Hire Benakal become larger and more regular in form as one moves through this northwestern cluster toward the center of the site, and especially toward the top of the hill where there are primarily large dolmens arranged around an expansive water reservoir. The monuments in the central cluster of the site were arranged in bands that follow the contours of the hill, such that the overall effect as one approaches from the north or northwest is the imposition of broad swathes of large, slab-supported dolmens, some more than 3 meters above the ground surface with circular shaped capstones more than 5 meters in diameter. This central cluster of monuments also contains the greatest diversity of forms at the site and an examination of these forms shows strong spatial patterning. For example, all the quarried and shaped menhirs at the site occur toward the top of the hill in the central cluster, where they are found in association with the larger varieties of slab-supported dolmens [Figure 3-6]. In contrast to the menhirs, boulder enclosure monuments are

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Figure 3-6: Distribution of menhir monument forms in the central cluster of features at Hire Benakal, near the large rock pool at the center of the site.

concentrated on the peripheries of the main monument clusters and in dispersed areas on the lower hill slopes as one moves away from the center of the site. The placement of these easily created monuments relative to their more formalized and labor-intensive counterparts suggests that access to monument location and access to participant labor were complimentary dimensions of place making at this site. Statistical analyses of monument heights and capstone volume provide further evidence for disparities in the amount of participant labor involved in the construction and arrangement of monuments across the site. Larger, heavier, capstones were generally placed on higher supporting uprights, creating impressive monuments in both their areal extent and height. For example, three of the four monuments with capstones totaling more than three cubic meters of granite were placed on supporting slabs that lifted them more than two meters above the ground surface. More broadly, simple linear regression analysis across the site indicates that nearly half of the variance in capstone volume can be explained by monument height.8 When one considers the impressive ranges in both capstone volume —.02 to 4.5(!) cubic meters of stone —and monument height —.23 to 3.13 meters

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above the ground—it is strikingly apparent that considerable disparities in effort were involved in producing these features. That these differences show strong patterning across the site, with the largest monuments requiring more participant labor generally being those proximate to the central rock pool [Figure 3-7], further suggests a correspondence between labor mobilization and the production of unequally accessible monumental places and the social relationships they entailed. It is important to point out that although Hire Benakal is unique in the study region for the size and quantity of monumental features, the spatial pattern and the configuration of its megalithic forms are generally similar at the other megalithic complexes recorded during survey. For example, at other documented sites dolmen monuments were likewise arranged in linear bands oriented toward, and often incorporating, modified water retention features. Similarly, the most regular and formal architectural varieties are generally most central within these bands, while the less formalized features—such as cobble cairns and boulder enclosures—are most frequently located on the peripheries of sites. The distribution of these forms suggests again, that the placement and construction of megalithic features imply a convergence between differential abilities to mobilize labor and differential abilities to produce the material and symbolic content that constituted these places. As at Hire Benakal, the other recorded megalithic complexes also occur in association with evidence for other forms of Iron Age land use and activities spaces—suggesting that the locations of ritual activities and the “prosaic” routines and practices of daily life were perhaps not so separated for the creators of these places. This is also suggested by the distribution of the many single megalithic monuments documented during survey.

Single Megaliths In addition to finding megaliths in site complexes, such as at Hire Benakal discussed above, occasionally megalith commemorative features were recorded as single monuments—meaning that they were not constructed as components of large complexes of features. Most of these singular features can be categorized as less formalized features, such as “wedge” dolmens— often formed by wedging a cobble underneath a naturally exfoliated slab of granite to prop it up on one or two sides—or the boulder enclosures described above. Passage-chamber megaliths are exceptions, however, and

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Figure 3-7: Distribution of monument heights in the central cluster of features at Hire Benakal, showing a general increase toward the central rock pools.

require the construction of elongated “passage” cists covered by multiple capstones of various sizes (e.g., Lycett and Morrison 1998). Passagechamber featuers documented during survey ranged in size from approximately 1 to 5 m in length and .5 m to 1.5 m in height. Similar to the dolmen complexes highlighted above, singular megalithic features are often found in hilltop-terrace settings, and likewise are often associated with water retention features. Indeed, the vast majority of the ‘single’ megalithic features recorded in the survey region are found in association with water retaining weathering grooves, pits, or modified rock pools [Figure 3-8]. However, it is important to note that not all these features occur in such association. There appear to have been at least several logics to their placement and construction. Occasionally, for example, passage-chamber megaliths are found “hidden” high on rock slope terraces, often overlooking the expansive valley floor of the peneplain below. In one particular case a small passage-chamber megalith was recorded in a concealed rockshelter of a hillslope. Thus, it is difficult to simplify the contextualization of these features. Nevertheless, the majority

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Figure 3-8: Passage-chamber megalith (site-113) with modified rock pool.

of these monuments (over 70% of the 31 recorded singular megalithic sites) occur in terrace hilltop settings in association with water retention features—although clearly there are exceptions. As with the megalithic complexes described above, it is also important to stress that many of the single monuments occur in either very close proximity or in direct association with other evidence for prehistoric activity spaces. More specifically, the association between modified rock pools and megaliths are also frequently found with artifact scatters and features suggestive of ephemeral occupation and production activities. For example, one site, situated on the graded sheetrock component of a hilltop terrace setting, was surrounded by a sparse scatter of patinated dolerite, quartz, and chert reduction debitage. In other cases, the occurrence of megaliths and rock pools are also associated with ephemerally occupied rockshelters containing a suite of Iron Age materials, including bowl and jar fragments as well as lithic debitage [Figure 3-9]. Additionally, there are examples of the co-occurrence of megaliths and modified rock pools on hilltop terraces containing additional landscape modifications, such as soil retention features and erosion controls, as well as sparse artifact scatters of lithic debitage and ceramic fragments. Although it is obviously difficult to

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Figure 3-9: Example of ceramic and lithic (A) artifact assemblages and representations of herding activities (B) found at ephemerally occupied places in the survey region (e.g., rockshelter site-010).

control for the chronological relationships between surface artifacts and features, nearly all of the ceramics can be assigned to the Iron Age, and likewise the patination on much of the debitage is suggestive of at least non-recent deposition. Thus, the results of archaeological survey suggest not only an association between megaliths and modified rock pools, but also an association among their co-occurrences and artifact and feature assemblages suggestive of other forms of ephemeral occupation and land use.

Producing the Political Landscape The examination of the creation of megalithic ritual places presented above highlights several important axes upon which a broader understanding of the relationship between landscape history and the politics of Iron Age social differentiation can be drawn. For starters, spatial analyses suggest that vast disparities existed in the ability to mobilize labor and to both access and produce privileged commemorative places. This is especially clear at the dolmen complexes described above, where easily constructed features (e.g., wedge-supported dolmens, small cairns, and boulder enclosures) are located on the margins of the monument clusters and, by contrast, their more formalized counterparts (e.g., large slab-supported dolmens and menhirs) are centrally located within the complexes. This relationship is particularly salient at Hire Benakal, where slab-supported dolmens and menhirs are found to cluster in the central section of the site near the large water reservoir. The distribution of monument forms, construction elements, and sizes suggests a convergence between differential access to participant labor and

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differential abilities to produce commemorative places. Clearly not all inhabitants of the region had the ability to produce slab-supported dolmens near the rock pool at Hire Benakal. In fact, it has been previously suggested that the overwhelming majority of Iron Age inhabitants were likely not commemorated in formalized megalithic installations (e.g., Leshnik 1974; see also discussion of pit burials above). Thus, the production of these features and complexes almost certainly created symbolic distinctions for those who could mobilize effort to produce the larger and formalized varieties of monuments. Yet, given the broader archaeological context of the production of these sites and features within a cultural landscape, I would be wrong to argue that these mortuary monuments simply evidence status or the status aspirations of their producers (cf. Cannon 1989). The results of archaeological survey indicate that many monuments were built as part of the process of producing places that were not solely defined by the activities of mortuary rites or commemoration. This appears especially true for places were monuments were constructed in association with water retention features on hill terrace settings. The association between water retention features and megaliths in South India has been noted before, and evidence for the modification of rocks pools from recent survey is not wholly unique. These seasonal basins—known in geomorphological terms as gnammas, rock pools or weathering pits—are characteristic features of residual hills in the heavily weathered terrain of the tropics and subtropics that develop partly from the differential weathering of bedrock. During the Iron Age these features began to be modified, and even produced by regional inhabitants often in association with the production of megalithic mortuary places (e.g., A. Bauer et al. 2007; A. Bauer 2008, Bauer and Morrison 2008; Morrison 2009). In addition to the associations detailed above, other sites in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have been noted in the survey results of Sinopoli and Morrison’s Vijayanagara Metropolitan Survey (e.g., Sinopoli and Morrison 2007), as well as the earlier explorations of Allchin (Gordon and Allchin 1955), and Nagaraja Rao (personal communication). For example, at Buddagumpa—approximately 15 km west of Hire Benakal— cobble- and block-supported dolmens are clustered around no less than six rocks pools or weathering grooves that have been created or modified in association with the production of this ritual complex. The material details of the rock pool modifications at Buddagumpa are particularly noteworthy, in that architecturally similar granite blocks were used to expand the retaining capacity of the rock pools through the construction of embankments and also to support the capstones of the dolmen monuments.

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In other words, the water retention features and dolmen monuments clustered around them contain nearly identical construction elements, creating material and symbolic links between the activities of monument construction and water retention (A. Bauer 2008). A similar argument can be made at Hire Benakal, where in some instances monument stones were procured from the edges of the central reservoir and that quarried remains were then used to bolster and heighten the reservoir edges. The processes of creating the monuments were simultaneously processes of expanding the water retaining capacities of the reservoir and rock pools (see also Sundara 1975). In this sense, the production of monuments and their placement adjacent to water retention features were not simply symbolic claims of access to these important resources. Rather, the material relations physically linked the monuments with the important water retaining capacities of their adjacent rock pool; they were not claims, but instantiations of socio-material articulations. These associations suggest a ritual importance to early water management in the region, and it has been previously argued that the association between megalithic sites and water retention features attest to the symbolic importance of water in preparing the dead for burial or cremation (Morrison 2009; see also A. Bauer et al. 2007). However, it is important to point out that modified water retention features in the semiarid hill tracks of the survey area had cultural significance to Iron Age inhabitants beyond their symbolic significance to mortuary rites and commemoration practices, insofar as the archaeological evidence indicates that these places were also characterized with activity spaces for routines and practices that partly constituted productive daily life. As noted above, modified rock pools are also frequently associated with artifact scatters and features suggestive of ephemeral occupation and production activities—including lithic reduction debitage, sparse scatters of ceramic jar and bowl fragments, soil retention features, and ephemerally occupied rockshelters. Without more detailed work it is difficult to precisely identify the nature of the ephemeral occupation on these hill terraces from the sparse scatters of lithic debitage and ceramic fragments documented during this first phase of survey research (e.g., Bauer 2010). However, given the presence of many permanently occupied Iron Age settlements in the survey region, it appears that these scattered assemblages represent temporary and dispersed activities away from the settlements, such as those associated with hunting or herding animals— both of which are well attested by the faunal record at settlements and also commonly depicted in prehistoric art on the rock faces within these hills and in association with these features [Figure 3-9]. Thus, suggestions that

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rock pools likely served as “stock tanks” for prehistoric inhabitants in the dry hills of the semi-arid interior of the subcontinent is arguably supported by survey results—an interpretation, it is worth noting, that is also bolstered by substantial ethnographic observations of pastoralists both in India and elsewhere in semi-arid tropical environments (e.g., Seine 2000). Contextualizing the creation of megalithic ritual complexes and their associated features more generally within Iron Age cultural practices of production and consumption—and especially the potential instrumentality of feasting and importance of pastoral herd management—provides a view on their production that avoids a reduction to simple materialist or idealist interpretations. Modified rock pools, for example, although clearly functional in their ability to retain water, and apparent importance to herding and hunting activities in the semi-arid hill tracts of the survey region, were anything but prosaic features of Iron Age geographies; their strong association with megalithic monuments, as well as the fact that they were often simultaneously co-produced with megalithic features, imply that they were also places of ritual importance where inhabitants commemorated the dead. More to the point, it appears that the act of mortuary memorialization connected commemoration activities with the production activities and actions of the living. The process of monument construction was simultaneously an act of (re)creating a social and historical relationship to a place significant to the production activities of living inhabitants, including places where cattle were grazed. Analysis of the production of megalith complexes presented above indicates that not all inhabitants exercised equal abilities to produce social connections or claims to the material and symbolic resources that came to define these places. They were unequally created, experienced, and made meaningful, effectively creating privileged access to them and the social relationships they entailed. In other words, the production of megalithic commemorative places was simultaneously a process of socially differentiating places important to production (e.g., where animals were grazed). Given the current state of research, it is difficult to fully detail the social fields of difference during the archaeological period in which these places were created. However, preliminary data suggests that they were socially differentiated on at least several scales and axes. For example, all but one (e.g., site-098, Figure 3-3) of the seven megalithic complexes recorded in the survey region occur in relatively close proximity (e.g., within .5 km) to an accompanying Iron Age settlement, implying that these places were produced as a process of distinguishing and producing territories of different residential affiliations. Yet, as highlighted above, there is evidence even within these complexes for unequal abilities to

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create social relations or claims to the material and symbolic resources that were central to these places. Thus, it appears that social inequalities existed within settlement-affiliated social groups, and that perhaps status differences along corporate or kin-based social groupings were created in the process of producing privileged access to the resources of megalithic complexes (see also Johansen, Chapter 9). Establishing material and social connections to the rock pools that were primary features of many of these places, for example, likely also established differential abilities to manage and herd animal populations, which were linked to commensal politics during the period. By documenting and highlighting evidence for land use at and in the vicinity of megaliths and megalithic complexes above, I do not intend to downplay their special significance to Iron Age inhabitants. To the contrary, I suggest these exceptional places in the perceptual and conceptual schemes of their producers had meanings that went beyond the simple association with mortuary and commemoration rites. In short, building megaliths, expanding rock pools, and connecting these activities with other forms of land use in the hill tracts (e.g., hunting and herding) created a cultural landscape that was both a material and meaningful field through which spaces were appropriated and production was politicized. Salient social distinctions and differential abilities to mobilize labor appear to have been recreated through the production of privileged access megalithic places that had important significance to pastoral activities, and ultimately to the cultural practices of feasting through which commensal politics were practiced.

Conclusion Given the above focus on the importance of landscape production to the practice of politics during the South Indian Iron Age I conclude by emphasizing that I do not intend to suggest that all activities of landscape production should be constituted as political actions at all times. Such a formulation would dilute analytical utility through the conflation of strategies of recreating social relationships and material and symbolic resources with all cultural and spatial practices. Although obviously situated in historical, structural contexts of power relations (e.g., Johansen and Bauer, Introduction), in the case at hand, the constructions of commemorative megalithic monuments, or seemingly mundane features such as water retaining rock pools and soil retention walls for the purposes of grazing animals, are not considered a-priori political actions. Yet, when taken together as an ensemble of related cultural activities that contributed

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to the production of places meaningfully characterized with differential social access and differential abilities to reconstitute the material and symbolic resources associated with herd management, provisioning communal feasts, and ultimately mobilizing social labor, the practices of producing them were also those of politics.

Acknowledgments Many thanks are owed to the Government of India and the Archaeological Survey of India for the support and permissions to conduct the research presented above. Thanks are also due to the Karnataka Directorate of Archaeology and Museums for permission to work in Karnataka, and especially Director Dr. R. Gopal and Deputy Director Mr. T.S., Gangadhar for their help. Institutional support for some of this research was provided by the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) and the National Science Foundation. I would also like to thank C.S. Vasudevan of Kannada University in Hampi for guidance as my AIIS research supervisor. Several people commented on versions of this chapter and provided substantive and critical feedback, including Kathleen Morrison, Adam Smith, Carla Sinopoli, and Peter Johansen. Thanks are owed for their thoughtful commentary.

Notes 1

Despite the common interchangeability of the terms “Megalithic Period” and “Iron Age” to describe the same archaeographic category among South Asian archaeologists, it is important to note that not all Iron Age burial monuments are “mega,” and furthermore, that the practice of megalith construction is not exclusively confined to the Iron Age (cf., A. Bauer et al. 2007; Brubaker 2001; Lycett and Morrison 1998). 2 See, for example, Hodder 1980, McGuire 1988, Parker-Pearson 1982, Shanks and Tilley 1982, for a sustained critique of the view that inequalities in mortuary expression are always a direct reflection of social ranks and status distinctions. See also Silverman (2002) for a reorientation of traditional mortuary analyses towards a social examination of spatial production. 3 Smith (1999) defines political inequalities as “privileged access…to the economic, symbolic, and social resources on which power is based.” See also A. Bauer et al. (2007) for a distinction between socio-political—as the creation and contestation of social relationships and social and symbolic resources (e.g., A. Appadurai’s [1981] “gastro-politics”)—and formalized “Politics.” 4 Henri Lefebvre’s (1974) La Production de l’Espace is generally considered a foundational text for this spatial turn in the social sciences; however, Lefebvre’s

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views on social space were largely neglected in anglophone research until Harvey (1990) introduced it (see also Lefebvre 1991). 5 Excavations of stratified sediments in this feature have hitherto only recorded depths dating to the mid-first millennium A.D.; however, the basal deposits of the feature have not yet been reached with excavations, and depositional models, as well as artifact associations, suggest it was likely constructed much earlier. 6 Rock pools are depressions in the exposed granitic outcrops of the study region that capture and retain rainfall and sheet flow. See A. Bauer (2010, 2008) for a sustained discussion of their morphologies and social histories. 7 An 80km2 sampling frame was divided into 500 m (n-s) x 100 m (e-w) transects for intensive pedestrian survey at intervals of 20 meters. Contiguous transects were clustered into groups of eight, effectively creating “transect blocks” of .40 km2 that were then sampled with a systematic unaligned approach. Systematic survey sampled 25 km2 of this area, or approximately 31% (A. Bauer 2010; see also Sinopoli and Morrison 2007). 8 2 r = .475, f-statistic = 285.4, degrees of freedom = 316, p-value = 25%). The high densities of OP decorated serving vessels are often associated with mortuary complexes and specific sectors of select sites. They do not always correspond to large site sizes. Some of these thirteen sites share specific attributes that differentiate them from the others. Although there is no single site that dominates the entire region in terms of size or architectural complexity, eight sites (Huamanmarka [W-027], Wat’a [W-041], Sulkan [W-043], Llactallactayoq [W-144], Huaylluhuaylloq [W-149], Pumamarka [W-124], Markaqocha [W-168] and Yanawara [W-176]) are distinguished from surrounding sites—not necessarily by size, but by other variables, both qualitative and quantitative. These variables include: elaboration of domestic architecture, houses situated on terraces, mortuary complexes, variation in mortuary structure morphology, density of buildings, density of surface-level artifacts, and/or later Inka elaboration (Kosiba 2010). All of these sites

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Figure 4-3: This map illustrates the OP settlements (circles) and serving vessel densities (triangles) that were documented throughout the survey area. The map depicts a clustered settlement pattern. It shows how medium-high percentages (>25%) of decorated serving vessels are only associated with specific sites. Named sites correspond to the OP towns. Settlement patterns are shown relative to potential maize production terrain (MPT).

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possess at least three of these criteria. At these sites, there is little evidence for OP defensive structures.5 With these distinctions in mind, I employ the term “town” in referring to these sites. The term “town” emphasizes how these were significant local places—loci of specific kinds of social and perhaps ceremonial activity (llactas), particularly as evidenced by the copresence of high percentages of decorated serving vessels, domestic architectural styles, and mortuary complexes. It is necessary to further elucidate the socioeconomic and ceremonial practices that defined these places, particularly the practices that, over time, differentiated the towns from other sites.

Rendering Pre-Inka Places Political: A Diachronic View By looking at diachronic changes in occupational history relative to land use practices, we can begin to understand whether and how the local settlement patterns and towns of the Ollantaytambo area were constituted relative to the climatic shifts and the dramatic social and political transformations that swept through nearby Andean areas. Two expansive polities (Tiwanaku and Wari) dominated much of the Andes during the eighth to the eleventh century (Middle Horizon). Of greatest interest here is the Wari state, which built a massive administrative center and greater urban complex at Pikillacta in the nearby Cusco Valley (Bauer 2004; McEwan 1991, 1996, 2005). The WAP documented thirty-two sites that were occupied throughout the period of Wari state expansion. None of these sites contained the standard architectural styles or forms that mark Wari administrative sites. Wari pottery was recovered at only two (6%) of these sites, and constituted a small percentage of the overall surface collected assemblage from those two sites. Since the distribution of standardized spaces and objects were essential to the institutional practices of the Wari state (Isbell and McEwan 1991; McEwan 2005), the dearth of such structures and materials in the survey strongly suggests that the Ollantaytambo area was outside of the Wari expansionary purview (Kosiba 2010). Settlement patterns in the Ollantaytambo area remained remarkably stable throughout the centuries during which the Wari exerted their imperial power in parts of the Cusco Valley. The majority (74%) of earlier sites were expanded or continually occupied throughout the OP [Figure 44]. At these sites, densities of surface level pottery are consistent from the Formative Period (ca. 1000 B.C.E. – 500 C.E.) to the OP, suggesting that occupational intensity was largely maintained at many sites.

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Figure 4-4: The map depicts how distinct localities were maintained from the Middle Horizon until the Ollanta Phase. Percent change indices suggest fluctuations in occupational history – a negative index (white triangles) reflects a decrease in densities of surface-level material from one time period to the next, while a positive index (white diamond) reflects an increase relative to OP surface level artifact densities (black dots).

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Land use analysis was conducted to gauge whether and how specific local lands were both continually occupied and cultivated over time. I employed a range of complementary datasets (remotely sensed data, field observations, informal interviews) and analytical techniques (Geographic Information Systems) to conduct an analysis of the overall area of potential maize production terrain (MPT) within the survey zone. Maize was a highly significant staple and ceremonial food within many pre-Inka societies (Hastorf 1993). Similarly, camelid pastoralism was essential to the pre-Inka political economy. Llamas (Lama glama) and alpacas (Lama pacos) provided meat and wool for local populations, and also served as cargo animals. Roasted camelid meat was a socially marked food that was often served in feasting contexts (Costin and Earle 1989: Sandefur 2001). A study of settlement patterns relative to potential maize production and pastoral lands thus reveals whether and how local settlement clusters were situated in order to maximize immediate land resources and sharply localize land use practices. In the analysis, potential maize-production terrain (MPT) is defined as land that adheres to the biological requirements of maize cultivation (Gade 1975), more specifically: (1) ideal maize production land that has less than a ten-percent slope and is located at an altitude less than 3200m (MPT1), or (2) cultivable maize production land that has less than a twenty-percent slope and is located at an altitude less than 3500m (MPT2). The first category refers to land with optimal conditions for dry-farmed maize cultivation, assuming that a water source is located nearby and soils are adequate. The second category refers to land that is neither optimal nor preferred, but is sufficient for extensive dry-farmed maize production providing that soil erosion and water loss can be controlled. For the purpose of this study, pastoral terrain was categorized as land that has less than a thirty-percent slope, is situated near water sources, and is located at an altitude above 4200m. The analysis does not indicate a shift in site altitudinal location, or any significant movement of sites away from potential maize production lands [Figure 4-3—only the more inclusive MPT2 is shown]. In fact, the longterm history of land use in this area suggests a gradual and steady downward movement toward the further exploitation and development of lower maize lands, while previously occupied pastoral lands were maintained. These site location patterns are evident within both the northern and southern portions of the survey area, despite striking differences in the overall area of potential maize terrain throughout the different valleys of the region. In fact, the majority (71.4%) of continually occupied sites were situated in areas that are a relatively short walk

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(~500m) from potential maize land, as are the majority (66%) of newly established OP sites. More particularly, the large majority of newly established OP sites were situated within a short walk of select intensively used maize production and/or pastoral lands. Extensive agricultural strategies were not employed during this time period. Thus, although the occupation of individual settlements may have waxed and waned, people continued to live near the same maize agricultural and camelid pastoral lands. Also, new sites were largely established in and around the towns, suggesting that aggregation around these places was a principal concern. During the OP, the area around each town was densely occupied, even while several well-watered and rich alluvial soils remained vacant [Figure 4-4]. The data thus suggest the maintenance of tightly clustered and localized forms of social organization near specific places (towns), as well as the apparent intensification of agro-pastoral socioeconomic practices within specific micro-regions [Figures 4-3 and 4-4]. The expanses of unoccupied agricultural and pastoral land suggest that the settlement clusters were not produced relative to processes of environmental circumscription – i.e. broad climate change or resource scarcity, as suggested by some models of pre-state politics (e.g. Carneiro 1970). Contrary to accounts of pre-Inka populations warring over scarce lands (Earle 1997, 2002), if there was any conflict or warfare during the Ollanta Phase, then resource scarcity does not seem to be the cause. Altogether, the macro-scale analysis suggests that the organization of land use practices remained relatively consistent, thereby demonstrating that the effects of dramatic climate changes recorded for the south-central Andes may have been mitigated by the long-term local social organization of this region. Taken in tandem, the land use and survey data strongly suggest that these localized settlement clusters were a long-established form of organization that attached social groups to the soils and places of a specific area, while defining a set of localized agro-pastoral routines. These data both contrast and complement survey results from other parts of the Cusco region. In the northeast Cusco area, Covey (2006) posits that, prior to Inka state formation, broad political economic and ecological processes influenced drastic settlement pattern changes as people abandoned valley floors for higher terrain. However, similar to the patterns documented in the Ollantaytambo area, Bauer recorded occupational continuity in the Cusco Valley (Bauer 2004) and the Paruro area, south of Cusco (Bauer 1992). Thus, there is no single pattern of change that characterizes the entire Cusco region, as expected if all local groups were subject to uniform political economic or ecological upheaval. This is not to

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say that ecological or political economic changes did not occur. Rather, the comparative data suggest that local differences in socioeconomic organization, historical context, or political agency influenced the development of different settlement patterns throughout the Cusco region. It appears as though the OP settlement pattern was influenced by a perceived need for increased settlement proximity, perhaps linked to concerns about agricultural security or risk reduction (e.g. Wernke 2003, 2006a, 2006b). The array of potential land use activities in each cluster suggests that the immediate spatial organization of local settlements provided for socioeconomic self-sufficiency through the sharply localized complementarity of agro-pastoral practices. Localized agro-pastoral practices were maintained through the long-term (although perhaps shifting) occupation of specific lands and settlements, as well as the continual occupation and development of culturally valued places like the larger towns. Further investigation assesses whether and how this local sociological scale was linked to claims of political autonomy.

Socioeconomic Processes and Practices of Localization A series of analyses were undertaken to examine how socioeconomic production practices were coordinated within and among the settlement clusters. First, the distribution of ceramic styles gauged whether and how pottery production was organized locally. Second, analysis of site architectural attributes and artifact densities assessed how agro-pastoral routines were coordinated within specific settlement clusters. Third, consideration of the dichotomous distribution of site types within each cluster suggested how these settlement clusters were politically organized. An intensive analysis of surface-collected pottery sherds from sites within each settlement cluster identified local differences in ceramic manufacture and decoration techniques. My analysis considered the broad clusters of settlement revealed by the survey, categorized as: “Wat’a” (South, Huarocondo canyon); “Kachiqhata” (Northwest, Kachiqhata gorge); “Pumamarka” (North, Patacancha valley); and “Yanawara” (Northeast, Yanawara plain). Although there are general OP pottery types and decorative motifs throughout the survey region, the analysis gauged whether there were attributes that defined each settlement cluster, therefore suggesting the local production of pottery. The analysis considered a sample of 746 decorated non-serving vessels, and 565 decorated serving vessels (see Kosiba 2010). In general, the analysis found no significant differences in manufacture techniques (inclusion preparation, inclusion types, oxidation), paste color,

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rim forms, or decorative motifs. These similarities suggest some degree of shared knowledge among the people who produced these pottery styles. On the other hand, the analysis revealed the localized distribution of specific kinds of external surface treatment, particularly slipping and heavy burnishing. Several sherds have a cream-colored slip applied over a deep red or orange paste. In addition, the exterior surface of many sherds has a characteristic heavy burnishing pattern that yields the appearance of deep grooves etched into the surface of a pot. These decorative techniques are limited to specific settlement clusters, suggesting localized pottery production practices despite general decorative motifs and pottery forms throughout the area [Figure 4-5].6 Socioeconomic localization is also evident in the distinct dichotomous organization of these settlement clusters. Within all of the settlement clusters, the majority of smaller sites (68%) were situated within a short walk (~500m) of either maize agricultural land or high puna pastoral land. I refer to these as residential sites. Their location suggests that these sites were loci for agricultural or pastoral production. All of these residential sites contained very low densities of OP decorated storage or serving vessel sherds and high densities of undecorated OP utilitarian vessels.7 In comparison with the towns, these residential sites do not contain tombs of any type, nor do they contain complex forms of domestic architecture. In contrast, the towns all contain evidence for markedly different kinds of intra-site places, objects, and practices. The towns were distinguished from the other sites in three main ways: ceramic style and distribution; architectural style; and occupational history. In addition to higher percentages of decorated serving vessels, the towns contained styles of OP ceramics that were not recovered in any other contexts. Particularly, I recovered only Ollanta Black and Red on Buff vessels at the towns [refer to Figure 4-2]. In my excavations at Wat’a—a long-occupied and revered pre-Inka town and shrine within the Ollantaytambo area—this style was found in contexts containing high densities of decorated serving vessels and charred animal bones, suggesting that it was discarded along with materials that would have been incorporated in feasting events. These data imply that the towns were places for exclusive objects (special pottery types), and exclusive practices (feasting; high densities of serving vessels). Moreover, the analysis found that there is an idiosyncratic domestic architectural style at three of the towns (Wat’a, Llactallactayoq, Pumamarka) that makes them similar to one another, yet different than domestic structures in residential sites. Across the survey region, houses within the residential sites share a suite of stylistic and technological attributes. Houses at these residential sites are typically circular or D-shaped,

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Figure 4-5: The graphs illustrate patterns in decorative attributes of pottery derived from the four settlement clusters in the survey zone.

do not sit on platforms or terraces, and have un-coursed walls. Houses at the towns are typically D-shaped, yet also can have a more oval shape—a rectangle with rounded corners—are typically situated on platforms or terraces, and often contain coursed stones or corner quoins [refer to Figure 4-2]. These observations suggest that there was a common way of producing domestic architecture that cross-cut the socio-spatial differences

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of the clusters, and that architectural differences between the towns and their surrounding sites were more salient than differences within the towns. Besides qualitative differences in architecture and artifacts, the towns are different from surrounding sites in terms of their occupational history. Two radiocarbon assays from deep strata within one of our excavation units at Wat’a suggest that it was a village in the first millennium B.C.E.8 Surface collections at the other towns suggest that they have a similar long-term occupational history, even if current radiocarbon dates derived from architecture at other towns only indicate that they were occupied during the OP (Table 4-2). In contrast to many other Andean regions and LIP agglutinated settlements, these towns were not abruptly established during a time when people were more generally “moving on up” to higher locales (compare with Arkush 2005; Covey 2006; Dean 2005; D’Altroy 1992; D’Altroy and Hastorf 2001). In short, these towns were continually or intermittently occupied over centuries; they represent the extension and elaboration of a pre-existing way of life. SITE

C14 Age

Source

Calibrated Date (68.2%) C.E. 1345-1395 1350-1390

Pumamarka

645±45 BP 660±50 BP

Hollowell 1987

Kachiqhata

700±65 BP

Bengtsson 1998

1260-1320

Pumamarka

710±55 BP

Hollowell 1987

1250-1310

Wat’a

747±36 BP

Kosiba 2010

1229-1285

Wat’a

772±38 BP

Kosiba 2010

1230- 1299

Llactallactayoq

915±50 BP

Kendall 1996

1030-1190

Pumamarka

940±40 BP

Hollowell 1987

1080-1160

Kachiqhata

1150±60 BP

Bengtsson 1998

810-980

Table 4-2: This table lists the published and WAP radiocarbon dates from a sample of Ollanta Phase sites (see also Bauer 2004).

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The data thus reveal that pre-Inka local social organization was firmly rooted in practices of the soil—agro-pastoral practices—and in place (the towns). Sites within each of the clusters seem to be arranged in a dichotomous manner so as to coordinate socioeconomic activities within immediate areas. More particularly, inter-site differences within the settlement clusters suggest the development of nested communities in which the production of maize and other goods at smaller settlements was linked to the reproduction of both authority and society through the staging of feasting and mortuary practices at towns. Disparities in materials, house forms/sizes, and social practices suggest that the towns themselves may have been residences for emerging elite and their kin. During the OP, then, these towns were largely produced as distinct places through both the localized coordination of socioeconomic activities, the use of exclusive objects, and perhaps the performance of distinct ceremonial practices, like ancestor veneration. Local people within these towns were most likely staking claims to their authority by directing the production of distinct localities. A deeper understanding of such claims, and their claimants, is therefore necessary.

Blood and Soil: The Distribution of OP Mortuary Practices and Places Consideration of the non-quotidian practices that defined towns reveals a high degree of shared norms, especially with regards to ceremonial practices and particular spaces. Here I focus on mortuary practices. Embedding one’s ancestors within a specific place can be a claim to local autonomy, a way of ritually establishing a link between certain people and a certain place (e.g. McAnany 1995; Porter 2002; Renfrew 1976). The regularized propitiation of ancestors strengthens this claim, amplifying it to a political declaration about the history of a place and a people, or the continual—transcendental and traditional—correspondence between a people and a place (e.g. Barrett 1994; Bloch 1971; Silverman and Small 2002). A look at the distribution of tomb complexes in the Ollantaytambo area demonstrates how, in mortuary practices, local elites staked claims to particular places, assembled notions of local tradition, and perhaps ironically, contributed to the array of regionally recognized practices of authority that would later undergird the nascent Inka state. The veneration of ancestors within open and aboveground tomb complexes was a new political practice that emerged in the Cusco area during the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries (Bengsston 1998; Covey 2006, 2008; Dean 2005; Hiltunen and McEwan 2004; Isbell 1997; McEwan

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et al. 2002; Sillar and Dean 2002). These aboveground tombs were often individual structures built upon small platforms. Each tomb had an accessible doorway, thus allowing for visibility of the dead during highly ceremonial feasting activities throughout which specific ancestors were feted with food and drink (e.g. Ramirez 2005). Open doorways and aboveground visibility distinguish these tombs from the much more concealed subterranean tombs and mortuary rooms of the Wari (see Isbell 2004; McEwan 2005). In the Ollantaytambo area, the distribution of these open tombs suggests how different practices of ancestor veneration contributed to the establishment of authority within these localized settlement clusters. OP tombs were often built within discrete places, and associated with specific kinds of settlements. To study the distribution of these tombs, I defined three tomb site types. Sites containing ten or more tomb structures clustered within a discrete area (< 1ha) were classified as “tomb complexes.” “Interspersed” tomb sites were typically comprised of five to ten tombs sparsely distributed among agricultural terraces or below residential structures. Finally, “isolated” tomb sites consisted of one to three mortuary structures that were not directly linked to specific sites or settlements. Both “open” and “closed” tombs were documented within these tomb site types. In “open tombs,” the dead were housed in singular mortuary chambers. “Closed tombs” typically consisted of a rock fissure that was blocked off with stones. The open tombs were in part characterized by stylistic idiosyncrasies in architecture. Amongst the various types of tombs found throughout the region, the most common are individual open tombs: namely, tower tombs, cist tombs, cliff tombs, and pirca box tombs [Figure 4-6]. All contained high ratios of OP to later period ceramics (an average of 4:1). Tower tombs are short (1-1.5m high) circular or square structures made from unworked fieldstone and often capped with a corbelled stone roof. Cist tombs are much like tower tombs, yet are much shorter and are semisubterranean. Cliff tombs feature discrete doorways cut into a cliffside, typically a gypsum or quartzite bluff. Pirca box tombs are square structures made from fieldstone and adobe. The pirca box tombs were painted red. Radiocarbon dates from several Ollantaytambo area open tomb structures confirm that they were first constructed and used in the twelfth century (Bengsston 1998). These tomb styles clearly differentiate settlement clusters, although they are not exclusive to specific clusters [Figure 4-7]. For instance, tower tombs are significantly associated with both clusters within the northern portion of the Ollantaytambo area near the Vilcanota River (Llactallactayoq

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Figure 4-6: Local variations on a theme – pictured here are the more common “open” tomb types documented throughout the survey zone. Tower tombs (above left and right) were situated near the Vilcanota River, and were often built aboveground or next to large boulders. Cliff tombs (below left) were often documented in the Huarocondo canyon, and were usually clustered beneath vertical rock faces. Finally, pirca box tombs (below right) were recorded in the Yanawara area, and were painted red and situated on hillsides and beneath rock outcrops. In contrast, “closed” tombs (not pictured) were sporadically distributed, and typically consisted of a niche or enclosure that was blocked off with stones.

and Pumamarka-Markaqocha). Cliff and cist tombs characterize the southern portion of the survey zone, near Wat’a. Pirca box tombs are found only within the Yanawara area. These stylistic differences in mortuary architecture morphology most likely manifested and materialized claims of local social identity and/or political authority.

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Figure 4-7: This map shows the distribution of mortuary architecture styles throughout the survey area. Different mortuary styles clearly correspond to the different settlement clusters. Site numbers allow for comparison with Figure 4-8.

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Figure 4-8: This map illustrates the distribution of “open” tomb complexes, illustrating how such tomb complexes are almost exclusively associated with certain OP towns.

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Despite the stylistic differences, there are similarities in how mortuary practices were staged within each cluster. OP tomb complexes were only situated within or near the towns [Figure 4-8]. In many of the towns, the tomb complexes emphasize the social interrelation and localization of spaces of death (mortuary complex) and life (towns). Similarities in the internal spatial organization of these complexes are significant. When located near the towns (e.g. Wat’a, Llactallactayoq, Markaqocha, Sulkan), tomb complexes are discrete areas that are physically distant from the town’s main habitation areas [Figure 4-9]. The tomb complexes often contain large platforms upon which multiple individual tombs are situated. Many tower tombs often have a small platform attached to the tomb structure, and a wall that surrounds this platform. Such kinds of spatial demarcation suggest that these areas were marked and restricted, and thus only certain activities or people were allowed therein. High densities of decorated serving vessels were located within and near the platform spaces of mortuary complexes. There is a statistically significant relation between tomb complexes and high densities of OP serving vessels (percentages of OP serving vessels in each tomb sector assemblage; Pearson’s r = .753, n = 34; significance at 0.01 level). Serving vessel percentages from these tomb sites were also reclassified as categories using natural breaks (jenks) in the data set. Considering these categorical data, a chi-square test also reveals a highly significant correlation between tomb complexes and high densities of serving vessels (χ2=33.298; df=6; significance at the 0.001 level), as well as a patterned correlation between tomb site type and densities of decorated OP serving vessels. The high densities of decorated serving vessels in these tomb complexes suggest that similar practices, perhaps feasting ceremonies, were staged in these spaces. In sum, despite stylistic variation in mortuary architecture, similar mortuary practices were constituted in similar ways within these separate OP towns. The similarities include: (1) the spatial proximity of open tombs to towns, (2) the restricted spatiality of tomb complexes, (3) the intervisibility of tomb complexes and towns, and (4) the kinds of feasting practices that were associated with these tomb complexes. These mortuary practices relied upon an intimate relationship between ancestors, open spaces and communal food consumption. Thus, even though they were claiming local distinctions, people in various towns were invoking the same logic and participating in the same practices—although separate claims to locality were being made, they were being made in similar ways.

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Figure 4-9: The layout of Markaqocha (preliminary map) provides but one example of the OP trend of building discrete tomb complexes near the towns. Radiocarbon dates from grass embedded in the mortar of both houses and tombs from Markaqocha verify that these structures were built or used during the OP (Kosiba 2010).

The mortuary data suggest that, during the OP, local autonomy was grounded in claims to social continuity within place and over time. These claims were constituted in specific ceremonial practices that were staged within particular places. Most likely, local elites or kin groups developed a set of ancestor veneration practices through which claims to local authority and autonomy could be recognized by others. I argue that these practices were not passive expressions of local culture and/or social identity, but rather strategic political actions. These ceremonial practices added to the agro-pastoral practices of the soil that assembled distinct, local communities. That is, local people staked claims to social authority and political autonomy by attaching their ancestors to particular places and thereby declaring a natural link between their blood and the soil.

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Conclusions: Constituting Locality, Staking a Claim to Authority The data from the Ollantaytambo area empirically illustrate how claims to locality engender distinct political scales and practices—both local and regional. Throughout the eleventh-fourteenth centuries in the Cusco region, certain towns (llactas) came to be the places through which claims to local social authority and tradition were made. Local social organization was assembled through the coordination of production activities and agropastoral practices within distinct areas, and a kind of ceremonial activity in which autonomy was declared through the ritualized establishment of traditional links between ancestors and particular places. In this case, the inhabitants of select towns appear to have directed a program of localization as an instrument of rule and a claim to authority. Such claims to authority were staked in select places in order to declare and maintain local autonomy. In using the phrase “staking a claim,” I invoke the American and Australian usage of the term “claim” as a political right and social relation that is specifically “staked” in the land itself, and manifested through human relationships with land. These practices and relationships create “place,” and undergird claims that places both contain and constitute a kind of traditional and inviolable authority. Here, we saw how the assembly of both agro-pastoral and ceremonial practices within specific lands worked to define separate localities. Throughout the centuries that preceded Inka ascendancy, these practices— and their evocation of an essential and primordial relationship between people and the land, blood and soil—were crucial to the constitution of both ancestral places and the authority that they manifested. In attending to these processes of localization, I propose a new rendering of pre-Inka politics in which changes in the constitution of authority are generated less by the rise and fall of regional states, and more by differences in the local and regional coordination of specific practices. Throughout the Cusco region “LIP” (ca. 1000-1300 C.E.), social groups built distinct, internally coordinated clusters of settlement that manifested localities defined by economic self-reliance and sociopolitical autonomy. Common types of settlement organization and mortuary architecture throughout much of the Cusco region (Bauer 1992, 2004) suggest that many of these groups shared a similar set of political practices, as well as mutually recognizable ways of expressing and performing their local authority. These localized socioeconomic and ceremonial practices assembled distinct localities and also, consequently, constituted a regional social landscape—a common way that people experienced, imagined, and

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perceived their social and physical environment (e.g. Smith 2003). Thus, in the Cusco area, a regional sociopolitical framework might have been the unintended outcome of highly localized political practices designed to affirm local ties between people and places. In this sense, it is quite likely that, rather than (solely) a chaotic social landscape of warfare or socioeconomic competition, a shared framework of political norms preceded the development of the Inka state in this region (see Kosiba 2010). It is in these processes of localization, then, that we glimpse the history that was effaced in Inka narratives about the barbarous pre-Inka world—a dynamic history that produced the very places and “traditions” that would one day undergird Inka rule. By focusing on political practices and processes of localization, archaeologists can begin to forge multiple narratives about pre-Inka societies, and non-state societies more generally. For some areas, a renewed focus on the link between processes of localization and regional political practices may shed additional light on emergent forms of nonstate political complexity that were cut short by later imperial expansionism. For instance, the pre-Inka social landscape of the Cajamarca area (northern Peru) mirrors the data presented in this chapter, presenting a form of social interaction described as a loose “confederation” characterized by both conflict and cooperation (Julien 1993: 246). On the other hand, in Andean areas that seem to have been defined by incessant raiding, like the Collao region near Lake Titicaca (Arkush 2005; see also Frye 1997; Stanish 2003; Wise 1993), a focus on localization provides an understanding of how certain socioeconomic and political practices coincided with, supported, or subverted strategies of warfare. Analysis of local processes and agendas may also serve to elucidate the local and regional political motives that engendered fortress and castle landscapes of medieval Burgundy, Armenia, and England (Crumley and Marquardt 1987; Smith 2003; see similar critique in Johnson 2002). Furthermore, emphasis on processes of localization might further illuminate the political agendas employed by local elites on Crete, who appear to have built remarkably similar palace complexes throughout an era of political fragmentation in order to further their immediate interests, rather than to simply constitute a prop for later state formation (Cherry 1986; cf. Renfrew 1986). Above all, a renewed concentration on links between local and regional social processes enables us to reconsider models of regional dynamics that assume particular political practices and institutions to simply coincide with balkanized or centralized landscapes of power. Such models often assume rather than explain continuity throughout sinusoidal cycles of political “boom and bust.” They too often relegate institutional developments

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to fleeting moments of centralization, after which populations are assumed to passively revert to traditional (read: “safe”) forms of organization. They presume spatial units such as “local” and “regional” to be the staging grounds for politics rather than as the mechanisms and ordering principles through which politics occurs. In such models, the local appears to be a universal ontological category, a given social reality that requires no further explanation. But archaeologists (and ethnographers) may do well to differentiate between “the local” as an analytical and inferential scale imposed by researchers, and “the local” as a political claim and social reality that social actors produce and enact. In this second sense, the local is not given: it is claimed and constituted. An analysis of how local practices may bolster political claims to autonomy highlights how such practices do not simply coincide with, but in fact assemble local communities and social landscapes. Locality is not simply a passive response. It can be, and often is, an active political program.

Notes 1 In the Inka lingua franca of Quechua, paqarina is the present participle of pacarini, which means to dawn, begin, or be born (see Domingo de Santo Tomas 1951[1560]). Paqarina thus refers to both a beginning and a place – it denotes the moment and space that gave birth to a specific kin group, or ayllu. For more information on paqarinas and/or locally important Andean places, see Acuto (2005); Bauer (1991, 1998); MacCormack (1991); Niles (1992); Ramírez (2005); Rowe (1980); Urton (1990); van de Guchte (2003). 2 The data presented here are derived from my multi-scalar systematic survey and excavation project—the Wat’a Archaeological Project (WAP, 2005-2007)—in the Ollantaytambo area of the Cusco region. Major funding for the project came from a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship and a National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant. 3 My use of the term “locality” is thus distinct from Casey (1998) and Appadurai (1996), both of whom refer to a phenomenological and affective sense of rootedness that one may feel for a community or place, even when one is distanced from that community or place. 4 OP sites and serving vessel percentages per site were each categorized into four ranks using a classification by natural breaks (jenks) method. Site size ranks are not assumed to coincide with administrative tiers or a site-size hierarchy. 5 At two of these sites, immense walls surround a sector containing monumental residential structures. Recent radiocarbon, architectural, and excavation evidence from these sites (Wat’a and Pumamarka) indicates that the walls—and the buildings they contain—were constructed in the Inka Period (Kosiba 2010).

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Chi-square analyses tested differences in decorated non-serving vessel sherds and differences in serving vessels sherds, by settlement cluster. All differences were significant at the 0.01 alpha level. Differences in slipping among decorated nonserving vessel sherds: χ2 = 1.363; df= 3. Differences in burnishing among decorated non-serving vessel sherds: χ2 = 83.228; df= 3. Differences in slipping among decorated serving vessel sherds: χ2 = 1.303; df= 3. Differences in burnishing among decorated non-serving vessel sherds: χ2 = 59.608; df= 3. 7 The majority of these sites contain only one or two decorated serving vessel sherds; the percentages of decorated serving vessels within these sites range from 0 to 25% with a mean of 11.1%. On average, only fifteen sherds were collected at each of these sites. Undecorated utilitarian wares largely characterize smaller sites. 8 Three radiocarbon measurements were derived from Formative period contexts. These three measurements indicate that Wat’a was first occupied in the seventh or eighth century B.C.E. The calibrated ranges for these three Formative period dates are 3 to 118 C.E., 787 to 555 B.C.E., and 766 to 543 B.C.E. (68.2%) (OxCal 4.1).

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Exploration 8:392-411. —. 1998. The peaks and valleys of ancient states: An extension of the dynamic model. In Archaic States, edited by G. Feinman and J. Marcus, pp. 59-94. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe. McAnany, P. A. 1995. Living with the Ancestors: Kinship and Kingship in Ancient Maya Society. University of Texas Press, Austin. McEwan, G. F. 1991. Investigations at the Pikillacta Site: A Provincial Huari Center in the Valley of Cuzco. In Huari Administrative Structures: Prehistoric Monumental Architecture and State Government, edited by W. H. Isbell and G. F. McEwan. pp. 93-119. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC. —. 1996 Archaeological Investigations at Pikillacta, a Wari Site in Peru. Journal of Field Archaeology 23(2):169-186. —. 2005 Pikillacta: The Wari Empire in Cuzco. University of Iowa Press, Iowa City. McEwan, G. F., M. Chatfield and A. Gibaja Oviedo. 2002. The Archaeology of Inca Origins: Excavations at Chokepukio, Cuzco, Peru. In Andean Archaeology 1: Variations of Sociopolitical Organization, edited by W. Isbell and H. Silverman, pp. 287-301. Kluwer Academic, New York. —. 2008. Arquitectura monumental en el Cuzco del Periodo Intermedio Tardio: Evidencias de continuidades en la reciprocidad ritual y el manejo de administrativo entre los horizontes Medio y Tardio. Boletín de Arqueología PUCP 9:257- 280. Morris, E. 2006. "Lo, Nobles Lament, the Poor Rejoice": State Formation in the Wake of Social Flux. In After Collapse: The Regeneration of Complex Societies, edited by G. M. Schwartz and J. J. Nichols, pp. 5871. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Niles, S. A. 1992. Inca architecture and the sacred landscape. In The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes, edited by R. Townsend, pp. 347-358. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Ortloff, C. and A. Kolata. 1993. Climate and Collapse: Agro-ecological Perspectives on the Decline of the Tiwanaku State. Journal of Archaeological Science 20:195-221. Osborne, R. 1996. Greece in the Making, 1200-479 BC. Routledge, London. Parsons, J. R. and C. M. Hastings. 1988. The Late Intermediate Period. In Peruvian Prehistory, edited by R. W. Keatinge. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Parsons, J. R., C. M. Hastings and M. M. Ramiro. 2000. Prehispanic Settlement Patterns in the Upper Mantaro and Tarma Drainages,

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The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by I. Shaw, pp. 108-136. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Sillar, B. and E. M. Dean. 2002. Identidad étnica bajo el dominio inca: una evaluación arqueológica y etnohistórica de la repercusiones del estado Inka en el grupo étnico canas. Boletín de Arqueología PUCP 6:205264. Silverman, H. and D. B. Small (editors). 2002. The Space and Place of Death, Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 11(1). Smith, A. T. 2003. The Political Landscape: Constellations of Authority in Early Complex Polities. University of California Press, Berkeley. Smith, M. E. 1992. Rhythms of Change in Postclassic Central Mexico: Archaeology, Ethnohistory and the Braudelian Model. In Archaeology, Annales, and Ethnohistory, edited by A. B. Knapp, pp. 51-74. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Snodgrass, A. M. 1971. The Dark Age of Greece. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh. Spalding, K. 1984. Huarochirí: An Andean Society under Inca and Spanish Rule. Stanford University Press, Palo Alto. Stanish, C. 1985. Post-Tiwanaku Regional Economies in the Otora Valley, Southern Peru, Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, Chicago. —. 2003. Ancient Titicaca: The Evolution of Complex Society in Southern Peru and Northern Bolivia. University of California Press, Berkeley. Stanish, C. and B. S. Bauer. 2007. Pilgrimage and the Geography of Power in the Inka Empire. In Variations in the Expression of Inka Power, edited by R. L. Burger, C. Morris and R. Matos Mendieta, pp. 45-84. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC. Stern, S. J. 1993. Peru's Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest: Huamanga to 1640. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison. Tilley, C. Y. 1994. A Phenomenology of Landscape: Places, Paths, and Monuments. Berg Publishers, Oxford. Urton, G. 1990. The History of a Myth: Pacariqtambo and the Origin of the Inkas. University of Texas Press, Austin. van de Guchte, M. 2003. The Inca Cognition of Landscape: Archaeology, Ethnohistory, and the Aesthetic of Alterity. In Archaeologies of Landscape: Contemporary Perspectives, edited by W. Ashmore and A. B. Knapp, pp. 149-168. Blackwell, Malden. Webster, L. and M. Brown. 1997. The Transformation of the Roman World, A.D. 400-900. University of California Press, Berkeley.

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CHAPTER FIVE HOLDING DOWN THE FORT: LANDSCAPE PRODUCTION AND THE SOCIOPOLITICAL DYNAMICS OF LATE BRONZE AGE FORTRESS REGIMES IN THE SOUTHERN CAUCASUS IAN LINDSAY

In this chapter, I lay out a framework for investigating the dynamics of power and socioeconomic integration within ancient political landscapes of southern Caucasia. In southern Caucasia (including portions of what are now the post-Soviet republics of Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan) the mid-second millennium B.C. witnessed the reappearance of settlements for the first time in nearly eight centuries. During the centuries preceding 1500 B.C., the only clearly discernable architectural traditions in the region’s Middle Bronze Age (MBA; ca. 2200-1500 B.C.) were monumental funerary barrows (kurgans), whose scale and furnishings have lead to the general image of this period as dominated by hierarchically organized, belligerent, and highly mobile social groups. The construction of fortresses after 1500 B.C., demarking the onset of the Late Bronze Age (LBA; 1500-1150 B.C.) suggests a reduction in mobility in favour of a more settled, if equally martial, lifestyle. In the Tsaghkahovit Plain of northwestern Armenia, 11 fortresses were constructed in a panoptic distribution along the foothills and rocky crags of the basin’s interior perimeter. Emerging from these historical processes are important consequences for relations between political authorities and subject populations, issues that intersect with mounting archaeological interest in the historically contingent strategies of political authority in the ancient past and in charting their impact at the grassroots level. Preliminary results from excavation, geophysical survey, and pottery sourcing studies at a residential complex associated with a LBA fortress in the Tsaghkahovit

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Plain, hint that portions of the community may have retained their tradition of seasonal transhumance in contrast to their more sedentary leaders. This chapter therefore fuels emerging discussions on the method and theory of analyzing mobile populations in the archaeological record (Barnard and Wendrich 2008). I open the chapter with a more detailed overview of the archaeological signatures of the MBA-LBA transition in the region. The discussions that emerge from this turn on two epistemological concerns reflected in the chapter’s titular idiom. First, “Holding the down the fort” resonates my interest in archaeologically underrepresented subject populations on whose material and emblematic allegiance the existence of monumental fortresses owed their existence; that is, who and where were the people underwriting these monumental constructions? And second, the title reflects the archaeological quandary of pinning down the precise role of fortresses as prominent features of the LBA political landscape. The archaeological data presented in later sections of this chapter will help address these issues by illustrating how power was codified during the LBA and the place of grassroots populations in the political transformations of the time.

Archaeological Context: Southern Caucasia during the Second Millennium B.C. Charting the rhythms of integration and disintegration in southern Caucasia over roughly 2000 years of Bronze Age prehistory reveals widescale sociopolitical transformations accompanied by archaeologically visible shifts in settlement patterns and social organization (Table 5-1) (for more thorough treatments of the Bronze Age in the Caucasus consult Kohl 2007: Chapter 3, and Smith et al. 2009: Chapter IV). Toward the end of the third millennium B.C., the tradition of the Early Bronze Age KuraAraxes farming villages is followed by sharp changes in material culture traditions and new forms of social, economic, and political organization associated with mobile cattle herders. A striking addition to the Middle Bronze Age socio-political landscape were ostentatious kurgan burials marking the onset of formalized social hierarchies embedded within a nomadic-pastoral economic framework (Burney and Lang 1971: 86; Kohl 1992: 125; Piotrovskii 1962). As kurgan construction reached its pinnacle of wealth and size, ruling elites were cremated or interred in tumuli with large sepulchral chambers such as those excavated at the Trialeti type-site in southern Georgia (Kuftin 1941), as well as tombs in northern Armenia such as Vanadzor and Karashamb (Kushnareva 1997: 107; Oganesyan 1992a; Oganesyan and Muradyan 1986; Piotrovskii 1949: 46-47). The size

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of the largest kurgans in Georgia’s Alazan Valley (Dedabrishvili 1979) reach 140 m in diameter and 11 m high, and contain burial chambers approaching 170 m3. Several kurgans on the Tsalka plateau have long stone processional paths between the kurgans (Litscheli 2001; Narimanischvili 2009). Funerary goods of the wealthiest tombs provide evidence for the use of wagons as well as advances in tin-bronze metallurgy and metal working, in the form of jewellery, hammered bronze belts, ceremonial and practical weaponry, and inlaid gold bowls. Additional developments in wheeled transport, warfare, mortuary ritual and social organization, are distilled symbolically and materially in the embossed iconography of finely crafted metal goblets from Karashamb, Trialeti, and Korukh Tash. Taken in sum, the traits of monumental funerary architecture—from the disposal of precious goods to the imposing dimensions of the kurgans themselves—combine to promulgate the singularity of the MBA leader, whose basis of authority appears to have rested at least in part on prestige in combat (Badalyan et al. 2003). Local Periodization Iron I

Late Bronze Age

Phase

Dates BC (approx.)

Iron Ib

1000-800

Iron Ia

1150-1000

LB III

1300-1150

LBA II

1400-1300

LB I

1500-1400

MB III

1750-1500

Regional Sequences Anatolia Mesopotamia Neo-Assyrian Syro-Hittite states Middle Assyrian Hittite Empire Middle Hittite Mitanni Old Hittite

Middle Bronze Age

Old Assyrian MB II MB I

2150-1750 2400-2150

Ur III Akkadian Early Dynastic

Table 5-1: Abbreviated chronology of the Middle Bronze Age to Iron I periods in Southern Caucasia (after Smith, Badalyan, and Avetisyan 2009: Fig. 2).

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During the mid-second millennium B.C., another set of rather jarring social, political, and economic transformations occurred that define the onset of the region’s LBA. Technologically, the period witnessed the replacement of polished black and painted red wares in fashion during the MBA by new forms of gray wares with incised, nail-impressed, and polish ornamentation, as well as a surge in tin-bronze metal production with new forms of finely-crafted figurines and bronze weapons. Important changes in settlement and subsistence strategies are evident in the wide-spread construction of ‘cyclopean’ stone fortifications that oversaw the settlement of agro-pastoral communities for the first time since the dispersion of Kura-Araxes villages 700 years earlier [Figure 5-1]. Ostentatious mortuary practices, seen in the enormous kurgans of the MBA, decline in frequency as hilltop cyclopean fortresses in the foothills of the Lesser Caucasus, the Ararat Plain, and the shores of Lake Sevan replace kurgans as the most prominent symbol of political power.

Figure 5-1: Map of prominent Late Bronze Age fortresses highlighting their distribution in northern Armenia.

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Unfortunately it is very difficult at this stage address the factor(s) behind the collapse of the MBA sociopolitical system, not least because the lack of settlements has hindered a more comprehensive picture of the period. As I discuss further below, the negative data on settlements essential to the dominant image of MBA societies as highly mobile also has the troubling effect of thwarting attempts to compare political and economic organization between the MBA and LBA that would help us better understand the social conditions leading to the transition. Much work remains for us to clarify the settlement situation during the MBA, drawing on recent theoretical considerations on the archaeology of mobility in concert with methodological advances in archaeological geophysics, isotopic analysis, and seasonality studies. In the meantime, while several looming questions remain about the MBA, there are two pressing issues in particular that I wish to briefly touch on here. First, what were the means through which mobile pastoralists accumulated the volumes of wealth deposited in the kurgans, given that the social and economic practicalities of herding make livestock a difficult commodity for rulers of mobile groups to lay claim to? William Irons (1979: 372), in a rather stark conflation of subsistence and political organization, predicted that “in the absence of relatively intensive political interaction with sedentary society, pastoral nomads will be organized into small autonomous groups or segmentary lineage systems. Chiefly office with real authority will be generated only by interaction with sedentary stateorganized society.” In a particularly well-studied example of nomadic political development, the confederacy of nomads in Central Asia that comprised the Hsiung-nu empire relentlessly tormented the Han dynasty after it unified China in the third century B.C. (Barfield 1989). The centralization of power among the Hsiung-nu did not rely on the extraction of resources from its member tribes, since this would have been extremely difficult to accomplish in mobile groups dispersed over a wide geographical area. Rather, authority was rooted in the ability of the leaders to quickly mobilize raiding parties against the Chinese frontier towns, retreat before the lumbering imperial forces could catch them, and render the central administration of imperial China helpless in the face of extortive demands for tribute to the dreaded Hsiung-nu. Allegiance of individual nomadic tribes was assured through the booty that trickled down to them (Barfield 1989). Here, success in battle and acquisition of loot were key factors in the process of legitimation in nomad social hierarchies. A second important question I wish to raise is why nomads decide to relinquish their mobility in favor of settled life. Recent contributions to

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Barnard and Wendrich (2008) remind us that ‘mobile’ and ‘sedentary’ are two extremes that bracket a wide and fluid spectrum of settlement strategies; earlier, Barth (1959), recognizing the contingent, permeable boundary between settled farming and nomadic pastoralism among the Basseri of Iran, believed that agriculture drew either those who could afford to farm or those who could not afford to avoid it (e.g., due to deteriorating economic or ecological circumstances). By contrast, research by Black-Michaud (1986) among the Lars, and Bradburd (1990) among the Komachi exposes the underlying relationship of economic inequality that structures intra-societal relationships in which poor shepherds enter into exploitative herding contracts with wealthy herd owners, allowing them to maintain their valued identity as pastoralists. In these studies, economic misfortune does not automatically drive a poor herder to settle and farm, but he is given a chance to retain his place among pastoralists as an often-underpaid client shepherd. The wealthy patron may appeal to notions of family bonds, real or imaginary, to mitigate the tension of their unequal economic relations. Bradburd’s exploration of the internal relations of pastoral groups—laying bare exploitative economic relations and attempts to couch them in discourses of fictive kinship—offers interesting potential for understanding the localized political dynamics of nomads. But can these historical and ethnographic cases be reliably stretched to fit the MBA of southern Caucasia? During the MBA, there were (with very few exceptions) no sedentary farming villages to which poor and disenfranchised (or, for that matter, wealthy) herders could turn in response to their economic circumstances, as farming does not appear to have been a significant part of the region’s economy for many centuries. Moreover, there were no neighboring settled states with which nomads would have had sustained direct relations—neither as an agent of suppression nor as a source of extorted wealth. Indeed, the very lack of a nearby sedentary state from which to siphon resources may have left Middle Bronze Age elites with few options to finance and reproduce their political positions. Consequently, we must look to internal stimuli for political transformations at the Middle-Late Bronze Age transition. Given the logistical difficulty in establishing an extractive political economy to maintain relationships of authority within a nomadic framework, and the lack of direct contact with sedentary states that would help finance a growing political apparatus, I argue that if leaders were interested in maintaining their political hold (or if ambitious leaders sought to establish a new kind of political system) the decision to settle was based on a conscious, autochthonous strategy.

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While the causes of the MBA-LBA transition are still a matter for debate, two important social consequences of the transition were (a) new sets of spatial practices that structured interactions between social groups and the landscape, and (b) changes in political and economic relations between the grassroots and political elites as new institutions of governance took shape during the LBA. Consequently, it follows that a fuller understanding of life during the LBA in southern Caucasia requires the integration of theoretical models that form a bridge between these seemingly disparate scales—landscape and household. For example, Pauketat (2000) highlights the significance of landscapes to the formation of community identity as both the media and consequence of social action (sensu Soja 1989), noting that radical changes in settlement patterns that attended political centralization in the American Bottom during the Mississippian period must have had an equally profound effect on senses of community and group identification. He proposes that the reorganization of Late Woodland settlement patterns around newly established mound centers may have been “a conscious political tactic of certain interest groups” as emerging political leaders appropriated community representations, converting them to regional phenomenon as a means of integration (Pauketat 2000: 34). Recent advances in political landscape theory have helped archaeologists studying complex societies gain needed perspective on how political regimes used the semiotic properties of spaces (both the natural environment and the built environment) as media for forwarding political agendas and legitimating authority. In addition, archaeologists have begun to see the importance of studying households and communities as a means of gaining a more holistic perspective on political economic systems. Less common, however, are attempts to bring these two productive approaches together as a way of seeing how political landscape production impacts the lives of grassroots populations and shapes economic, ideological, and political practices.

Late Bronze Fortresses and Landscapes of Power Archaeologists have documented the remains of LBA fortresses in much of northern Armenia since the turn of the 20th century and the early decades of the Soviet era (Adzhyan et al. 1932; Kalantar 1937; Khachatryan 1974; Lindsay and Smith 2006; Smith 2005; Toramanyan 1942; Toramanyan 1948). However, it has only been in the past decade that details about the political, ritual, and economic institutions that developed at fortresses on the Tsaghkahovit Plain have emerged, largely as

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a result of systematic survey and excavations undertaken by Project ArAGATS (Archaeology and Geography of Ancient Transcaucasian Societies), an international collaboration of Armenian and American archaeologists (Avetisyan, Badalyan and Smith 2000; Badalyan et al. 2003; Badalyan et al. 2008; Smith et al. 2004) [Figure 5-2]. Recent excavations have focused most intensively on the sites of Tsaghkahovit on the south side of the plain and Gegharot on north side. Operations on the fortress’ citadels and upper terraces have revealed important new evidence for administrative and ritual spaces, including the discovery in 2003 of a LBA shrine complex at Gegharot complete with a large circular alter, several large storage jars, censor vessels, metalworking paraphernalia, even cylinder seals characteristic of the Mitannian common style (Badalyan, Avetisyan and Smith 2005). Associated with the advent of fortress construction was the appearance of vast cemeteries of modest stone cromlechs dotting the foothills around the forts, suggesting a large population increase during the LBA (Badalyan et al. 2003: 162). Indeed the study of the LBA in Armenia was, until recent years, dominated by exhaustive excavations at necropoli such as Artik, Harich, Keti, and Lchashen (Khachatryan 1963, 1975; Mnatsakanyan 1960, 1961; Petrosyan 1989). While data from mortuary contexts and the rarefied settings of the fortress citadels continue to shape our understanding of LBA material culture sequences and the evolution of political institutions, we still know very little about the subject populations living in the shadow of the forts who made up the vast majority of the population. The large cemeteries provide us clues about how and where they died, but how and where they lived has remained an open question. Nearly all historical attempts to interpret the LBA have been constructed from the examination of temples and/or tombs with scant attention to domestic contexts. This presents interpretive challenges, not only for generating holistic reconstructions of LBA sociopolitical life, but because there is so little precedent research with which to compare data emerging from this study. The same holds true for settlement data on the MBA, since much of our understanding about MBA settlement patterns rests on few documented settlements in contrast to the literally thousands of burial excavations. The research reported here begins to address this gap by examining how local communities responded to strategies of integration and subjugation, strategies that involved attempts to make the social order legible on the Tsaghkahovit Plain through the semiotic properties of landscapes.

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Figure 5-2: Map of Late Bronze Age fortress sites in and around the Tsaghkahovit Plain highlighting burial clusters recorded during Project ArAGATS’ 1998-2000 settlement survey (denoted by rectilinear boundary lines). Note the sharp breaks in burial frequencies at western and eastern edges of the survey area in relation to the Hnaberd and Tsaghkahovit forts (after Badalyan, Smith, and Avetisyan 2003: Fig. 7.3).

However, prior to elaborating on the picture that is emerging of Tsaghkahovit’s fortress settlement, we might begin by considering the notion of the fortress itself, as forts are clearly the dominant feature of the built environment and were likely orienting principles of the LBA political landscape. Viewed strictly through the narrow lens of architectural form, the traits of the individual fortresses—double-faced cyclopean citadel walls and outer barricades—likely speak to their capacities for defense. Indeed, the most parsimonious explanation for the campaign of fortresses construction is as a product of an escalating Bronze Age arms race where defensive posturing becomes the raison d’etre of newly established settlements. But a strictly functional reading of the forts becomes less satisfying in light of the fact that warfare had endured in the MBA (as a legitimizing ideological force, if not a fact of everyday life) for many centuries prior to fortress construction; this is vividly displayed in the arsenals accoutring MBA kurgans and particularly in the violent scenes animating the silver goblet recovered from the Karashamb kurgan in Armenia (Oganesyan 1992b). In addition, there is currently very little evidence to indicate what the stakes of violent conflict actually were—

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regional status, territoriality, control of resources—to suggest how they may have differed between the MBA and LBA. I certainly do not deny that fortresses as an architectural form can be powerful symbols of regional sovereignty aimed at potential aggressors, but interpretations that rely heavily on the fortress as a military apparatus do little to advance our understanding of how it helped define relations between political leaders and their constituents. The distribution of fortified sites and outposts within the interior perimeter of the Tsaghkahovit Plain appear to target an audience within the plain (i.e., the body politic) as much as aggressors external to the plain. That is, the physical distribution of fortresses may have served as a legible imprint for a new kind of political authority. Fortresses were not placed solely at the primary geographic choke points at either end of the plain or other strategic loci for impeding invading outsiders; rather, they are dispersed throughout the plain’s interior perimeter. Moreover, archaeological data from settlement survey and ceramic circulation studies combine to suggest that the fortresses within the plain appear to be linked politically and economically, so it is equally unlikely that the fortresses were constructed simply to fortify one side of the plain against the other (Badalyan et al. 2003). Looking beyond their military function, then, I would suggest that the fortresses were central to a larger reformulation of the political, ritual, and economic landscape. As populations abandoned their mobile lifestyle for one of agro-pastoral settlements tied to emerging fortress systems, we can expect the means of political integration and legitimacy grounded in this new commitment to locality to be very different between nomadic societies and settled polities. With the onset of the LBA, a new commitment to delimited territories (if not outright territorial control) signified changes in the means through which political authority was monumentalized, such that hill forts largely replace kurgans as the most prominent materialization of power on the landscape. The ability to marshal the labor and resources needed to construct cyclopean fortresses presumes the continuation of dramatic social difference and militancy during the LBA, but, significantly, these efforts were summoned for the construction of institutional spaces rather than tombs glorifying the individuality and singularity of leaders. Thus the fortresses likely signify important transformations not just in the use of the landscape as a medium for projecting and experiencing authority, but in the very idea of rulership and the relations between leaders and grassroots populations. Therefore, studies of these iconoclastic regimes must account for the means through which authorities impose spatial legibility on the landscape in order to

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influence the social order and assert control, and how these strategies are reflected in newly settled fortress-centred communities. In other words, what is needed is a multi-scalar approach that attends to the instantiation of political practice on the landscape and in the local community. In his classic treatise, Descartes (1980) lauded modern (i.e., 17th century) cities laid out on orthogonal grids as a triumph of Enlightenment principles in urban planning. However, conditions of an ordered political geography are not just reflected in the economic rationality of historically recent capitalist states but can be traced back to ancient political centres from Amarna to Mohenjo-Daro (see Chapter 7), from Babylon to Teotihuacán. Landscapes—imbued with meaning through narratives, aesthetic representation, cultural practice, and memory—are powerful semiotic media through which leaders can project representations of authority and influence how people imagine and experience political and economic forces (Blanton 1989). My point here is not to equate the fortresses of Caucasia with highly developed urbanism in the Indus Valley or state-planned centres of New Kingdom Egypt; rather it is merely to emphasize that as discursive elements through which ritual, political, and economic dimensions of social inequality are apprehended and given meaning, constructed landscapes (including, but not limited to, the regimented orthogonality of highly planned urban spaces) offer a potent, legible medium for projecting and legitimizing political authority (e.g., Grant 2001; Scott 1998). Such insights into the politics of spaces can offer an instructive lens through which to take a more nuanced look at how power is instantiated through the built environment on the Tsaghkahovit Plain and how socioeconomic practices took shape within this new setting. As fortresses overtook funerary barrows as the most pronounced materialization of political authority they clearly projected the martial ethos of the times, but as I argue above, far from simply heralding a new era of heightened militarism their construction was also a crucial part of inscribing the landscape of the new social order using legible tropes steeped in familiar military traditions. The utility of space and landscape in understanding ancient political systems has been well-established along a broad spectrum of theoretical perspectives and archaeological settings (e.g., Amerlinck 1998; Ashmore 1989; Ashmore and Knapp 1999; Bender 2001; Ingold 1993; Robin and Rothschild 2002; Smith 2003; Thomas 2001; Tilley 1994) influenced in no small measure by conversations emerging from a cross-section of humanistic disciplines concerned with human-environmental interaction. Over the past three decades, cultural geographers and critical theorists began exploring the spatial dimensions of social life and how political

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authority was constituted and experienced in the past through media of space and landscape. The writings of Lefebvre (1991) and Foucault (1994) in the 1960s and 1970s highlighted the critical importance of spatial perspectives to the social, with the result that space became viewed as a dynamic locus of social production in the development of sociopolitical orders rather than a static, neutral stage for historical progression. The 1980s witnessed the earliest attempts to take spatial theory in archaeology beyond locational models of positivist human geographies (see Edmonds 1999; Ingold 1993; Tilley 1994 among others) using phenomenological approaches that saw landscapes as direct representations of belief systems, worldviews, and lived experience (Tilley 1994). Such perspectives have been useful in broadening the conception of landscape in archaeology beyond land-use strategies, or as John Barrett has put it, “a history of things that have been done to the land” (1999: 26). However as Barbara Bender (2001: 83) has noted, phenomenological accounts that focus on a being-in-the-world attachment to place have a “wonderful fine-grainedness, but risks losing sight of the larger picture, the larger fields of political, social and economic power, and processes of change”. A more promising thread that surfaced from the “spatial turn” in social theory included new forms of critical human geography (Harvey 1973; Massey 1994; Soja 1989) and art history (e.g., Mitchell 2002; Warnke 1995) that scrutinized, often with Marxist overtones, how spaces, places, and landscapes condition and are conditioned by political narrative, historical contingency, and social contestation. In one of the more comprehensive archaeological accounts of how political authority emerges through the production and manipulations of landscapes and spatial representations in ancient complex societies, Adam T. Smith (2003), following Lefebvre’s (1991: 38-39) triadic conceptual approach to spatial practice, examines how authority was constituted and affirmed through experiential, perceptual, and imaginary dimensions of political landscapes using diverse archaeological case studies (see also Ashmore 1989; Bender 1998; Moore 1996; Smith 2000). Unfortunately, while local communities are recognized as a vital component of regimes, and clearly a target of the experiential and perceptual effects of representational aesthetics produced by elites, Smith does not confront political subjects more directly; we are left with a strong sense of the intent and materialization of strategies of authority, but less of their social impact. Any account of these new political formations is incomplete without an understanding of how the impulses of authority are reflected in communities at the grassroots level. After all, the success or failure of a political regime in perpetuating itself

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should be reflected in the relations between leaders and those they seek to govern.

Grassroots Populations on the Tsaghkahovit Plain Over the past several decades, an increased wariness of grand models of state formation and cultural evolution opened theoretical space for notions less attuned to the systematics of complex societies and more to the social dynamics that made them tick. This meant, in part, looking at a broader demographic of society than the socially dominant. Over 20 years ago, Gordon Willey emphatically summed up his forward to a special issue of American Behavioral Scientist dedicated to household archaeology with the pronouncement that, “no serious student of [the nature of power and class structure] can ignore the archaeological evidences from household sources” (1982: 616). The contributions to this issue were a sign that household studies were starting to receive long overdue attention from the archaeological community. Since then, the past two decades have seen important refinements in the conception of households and communities as important analytical constructs in the study of complex societies of the New World and Europe, and increasingly in the Near East (e.g., Allison 1999; Blanton 1994; Brusasco 2004; Canuto and Yaeger 2000; Flannery 1976; Joyce and Gillespie 2000; Kent 1990; Kolb and Snead 1997; Kramer 1979; Matthews and Postgate 1987; Rogers and Smith 1995; Schwartz and Falconer 1994; Stone 1987; Stone and Zimansky 2003; Veenhof 1996; Wattenmaker 1998; Wilk and Rathje 1982; Wills and Leonard 1994). Willey’s call to action was certainly not the first attempt to rally archaeologists away from the pull of urban centers and funerary monuments toward a recognition of the interpretive possibilities for studying the grassroots level of past societies. Robert Braidwood, in his pursuit of the transition to settled farming-village communities in Iraq, chided his postwar colleagues in southwest Asia for field programs that used small, deep trenches to expose the chronologies of great sites of the Near East (Braidwood and Howe 1960: 6). Pre-saging arguments that were about to shape processualist archaeology, Braidwood argued against “the familiar, old-fashioned archaeology of digging royal tombs for fine-arts museums,” advocating instead the use of “much larger exposures in our excavations so that architectural arrangements for family life and the communal aspects of activities of village life may be more adequately studied” (1960: 7). For Braidwood’s contemporaries in the Soviet Union operating within a rigid Marxist political/intellectual milieu, investigations into the mundane and quotidian aspects of village life were, ideally at least, one of

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the new theaters of archaeological study designed to suppress the aestheticization of material culture so characteristic of the Imperial period. In practice, however, with few exceptions the treasure-laden tombs of the Bronze Age and the great architectural features of Urartian, Classical, Medieval centers proved too strong a draw for most archaeologists in Armenia and throughout the Soviet Union. Indeed, the lack of scholarly attention to prehistoric domestic sites in the USSR was one of many scathing methodological indictments a disillusioned V. Gordon Childe leveled against his Soviet colleagues in the final years of his life (Childe 1994: 96). By the 1980s, a few scholars began to notice the glaring hole in regional historical narratives left by the absence of excavated habitation sites. However, the admonitions of a few progressive scholars (e.g., Areshian 1987: 115-116; Pitskhelaury 1979: 9) regarding the value of settlements toward clarifying general socio-economic patterns in the Bronze Age have gone essentially unheeded. To this day, there remains an acute deficit in settlement data relative to LBA fortresses in Armenia and how the emergence of new institutions impacted the general population. While the theoretical justification for investigating LBA settlements is hopefully clear, there remains the practical issue of identifying them archaeologically. The question remains of whether LBA settlements have never been located because nobody has looked very hard for them, or because they are not substantial enough to discover through traditional archaeological reconnaissance. For instance, Project ArAGATS’ systematic survey of the Tsaghkahovit Plain in 1998 and 2000, while very successful at recording fortresses and cemeteries (Smith et al. 2009), failed to positively identify a single LBA residential complex. This was due in part to the depositional history of some of the forts and therefore required innovative methods to detect them. Below, I discuss the initial identification and investigations of a fortress settlement at Tsaghkahovit via excavations, and the more recent use of geophysical methods to trace the size and spatial organization of the site. In 2003 I began research at a settlement at the base of the LBA fortress of Tsaghkahovit, in conjunction with Project ArAGATS’ excavations on the citadels at Tsaghkahovit and Gegharot. The aim has been to locate and describe a LBA residential settlement and elucidate the impact of sociopolitical developments in the Tsaghkahovit Plain on communities at the lower echelons of the social order to add to our understanding of political and economic organization in southern Caucasia. The LBA domestic complex was one of several precincts of the Tsaghkahovit site in use during the LBA. The fortified hill itself is crowned by a robust basalt stone wall enclosing the citadel with several

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artificial terraces that wind down the hill’s upper reaches. In a saddle formation at the base of the hill, archaeological deposits from several periods of known occupation (including the Early Bronze Age, Late Bronze Age, and Iron 3 [mid to late first millennium B.C.] Periods) have been documented, in addition to precincts on the northern and eastern portions of the settlement that are less well dated. Traces of surface architecture are also visible south of a small rise, in a precinct referred to as the South Settlement area. Tsaghkahovit is also home to an extensive LBA cromlech cemetery that forms the southern boundary of the site. Excavations in 2003 and 2005 led to the initial identification and exposure of occupations outside of Tsaghkahovit’s fortification walls in an area termed the South Lower Town (SLT) [Figure 5-3]. As of 2006, remains of three distinct constructions, Structures 1-3, have been uncovered at SLT offering an early glimpse of domestic life during the LBA and subsequent reuse of the site. Ten charcoal samples collected from all of the LBA settlement operations (SLT 1-5) were submitted for AMS dating, eight of which fall in the second half of the second millennium B.C. demonstrating an initial occupation contemporary with the Late Bronze levels of the Tsaghkahovit citadel and upper terraces (see Badalyan et al., 2008: Table 3). The diagnostic ceramics recovered from the three structures (n=3969) are heavily represented by LchashenMetsamor horizon sherds (59.2%), corroborating the radiocarbon dates. The three lower town constructions, Structures 1, 2, and 3, display manufacturing techniques common to LBA southern Caucasia of incorporating the natural bedrock outcrops into walls, foundations, and grinding features (Smith 1998; Smith and Kafadarian 1996). An examination of the architecture and periodization of sherds from each structure offers some informative patterns regarding the occupation sequence of the lower town. SLT Structure 1 is contained by walls constructed of variably sized, poorly masoned basalt stones. The exposed walls stand to a height of four courses in places, or approximately 1.5 m, and are built atop a natural bedrock outcrop that serves as foundation. Thin traces of prepared clay surfacing were visible on portions of the interior wall stones, particularly along the bottom edges near the floor. A number of features on the floor provide clues about the formal and functional attributes of the room. Three storage pits, each about 1 m in diameter and lined with chaff-tempered clay, were dug into the floor at the northern and southern edges of the room. A series of parallel vertical stone slabs laid into the floor along the northern wall may be the remaining examples of supports used to secure structural beams; this interpretation of the features would account for the lack of evidence for post holes on the

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Figure 5-3: Plan view of the Tsaghkahovit residential complex operations excavated in 2003 and 2005, illustrating articulation of structures and rooms within the residential complex.

clay floor. While there remains the possibility that the structure was open and unroofed, it seems unlikely the occupants would leave three storage pits exposed to pests and high levels of seasonal precipitation common on the Tsaghkahovit Plain. Structure 2, Room B is a much smaller room measuring approximately 3.5 x 8 m. A doorway in the southeast corner of the room allows access to

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Room A, and a second doorway in the northwest corner serves as an egress to the structure’s exterior. Radiocarbon determinations from two hearths in this structure place it near the turn of the thirteenth century B.C. (samples AA66873 and AA66876). There is far less evidence of reoccupation in Structure 2 relative to Structure 1 as suggested by the much lower proportion of late-period sherd quantities. The presence of four broken, in situ LBA vessels on the clay floor of Structure 2, Room B, indicates that the living surface may not have undergone major renovations such as those noted in Structure 1. The quantity of groundstone and other lithic tools uncovered in all operations of the lower town particularly in Structures 1-3 further support an interpretation of the structures as loci of domestic-scale production and consumption. Of the 16 handstone fragments recovered from the South Lower Town operations, half were collected from Structure 2. In addition, 15 small mortars and fragments were recovered, nine of which also were from Structure 2. Only two metal artifacts were found recovered from the settlement, a bronze pin and a bronze pendant; however, these finds are not particularly good temporal markers since bronze items with similar forms from sites in Armenia have been attributed to the secondmillennium through the first millennium B.C. A wide variety of pottery forms has been collected and catalogued from the lower town. The range of vessel forms from the settlement represent the full spectrum of domestic processing and consumption activities including jars, bowls, cookpots, cups, pithoi, bread moulds, and fragments of thick clay ovens. No complete vessels were collected from the excavations, though this is not unexpected in light of a posited Iron 3 reoccupation. In terms of storage capacity, the partial restorations of select vessels are enough to establish that the volumetric scale of the lower town pithoi do not come close to the enormous vessels unearthed at contemporary institutional contexts, as, for example, at the Late Bronze Age shrine at Gegharot. It also seems that the quantity and size of the cooking vessels from the lower town would not sustain large-scale feasting events, nor are large localized agglomerations of sherds present in the settlement that might indicate disposal commonly associated with episodes of mass consumption. I have proposed elsewhere (Lindsay 2006) that the residential complex was likely part of a large, permanent settlement housing populations and serving as the political and economic foundation for emerging fortress elites, shielded from view by alluvium and, in places, by later occupations during the first millennium B.C. In contrast, Smith et al. (2009) counter that the small exposures of LBA settlement uncovered thus far cannot

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account for the large populations visible in the vast LBA cemeteries recorded during our settlement survey along the foothills of the Tsaghkahovit Plain. They propose that the lack of visible large-scale LBA settlements represents the continuation of population mobility from the MBA to the LBA overseen by a more sedentary political authority (i.e., segments of the population remained mobile for parts of the year and therefore did not invest in constructing and maintaining settlements). According to this model, sedentary fortress elites were able to maintain their authority over these mobile communities by ensuring they returned to the plain on a regular basis to attend to ritual funerary obligations. However, these models are not mutually exclusive; indeed, as a magnetometry survey helped demonstrate they are quite compatible. In 2008 I conducted a pilot magnetic survey of several areas of the Tsaghkahovit settlement to test the hypothesis that further LBA constructions were present below the surface. The survey targeted three 1 ha areas in the southern and eastern sectors surrounding the Tsaghkahovit fortress hill. In addition, one smaller 40 x 40 m plot, termed the South Lower Town Survey Area, was laid out immediately south of the 2003/2005 South Lower Town excavations [Figure 5-4]. The survey revealed anomalies in geometric patterns indicative of subsurface architectural remains, including what appears to be a large room about 18 m wide visible near the center of survey area along with several smaller attached rooms and suggesting the continuation of the exposed residential complex [Figure 5-5]. Another survey further to the south and over a small rise revealed further subsurface constructions in a similar pattern. Small 2 x 2m test soundings in each of these survey areas confirmed the presence of basalt stone walls, clay floors, pits, and hearths, as well as pottery and radiocarbon determinations that place these constructions in the latter half of the second millennium B.C. [Figure 5-6] (Lindsay et al. 2010). Significantly, only a single layer of prepared clay floor was visible in each sounding leaving the impression that the architecture was not used for recurrent or intensive occupation but may have been used seasonally by segments of the population that spent portions of the year on the move. Magnetic gradiometry and limited subsurface testing support the hypothesis that a substantial settlement had existed at the base of Tsaghkahovit fortress; however, the relatively thin, single-floor occupation layers also lend credence to Smith et al’s alternative hypothesis that the settlement may not have been as enduring as the fortresses that oversaw them, perhaps occupied seasonally by transhumant pastoralists. Increasing evidence for a large but ephemeral settlement at the base of the Tsaghkahovit fortress, juxtaposed with the importance of ritual institutions

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Figure 5-4: Map of the 2008 gradiometry survey around the Tsaghkahovit fortress. Note South Lower Town excavations in the center of the figure is enlarged in Figure 3 (after Lindsay, Smith, and Badalyan 2009: Fig. 2).

tied to the fortress at Gegharot and extensive LBA cemeteries throughout the plain, forces us to simultaneously account for continued residential mobility and a newly forged commitment to place. While the impetus for settling the plain may well have been predicated on the material needs of a sustainable political economy (Lindsay 2006), the important role of ritual obligation in legitimizing the power of fortress elites and ensuring the coherence of the regime (Smith 2009) cannot be overlooked.

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Figure 5-5: 40 x 40 m South Lower Town survey area and SLT8 test trench, magnetic scale in nanoteslas (after Lindsay, Smith, and Badalyan 2009: Fig. 4).

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Figure 5-6: 1 ha South Settlement Survey area and SS1 test trench, magnetic scale in nanoteslas (after Lindsay, Smith, and Badalyan 2009: Fig. 5).

If this is indeed the case, LBA sedentary political leaders faced the prospect of legitimizing their right to rule over populations that sought to maintain their long legacy of mobility—a supreme challenge faced more recently by Czarist Russia’s drive (continued by Stalin) to tame northern

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Mongolia and establish agricultural production on the far reaches of the steppe (Naumova 1991; Olcott 1987) and Reza Shah’s effort to settle Iran’s nomadic tribes (Barth 1961; Beck 1986), both with decidedly mixed results. However, a more suitable analogy might be found in the ethnographic record of Iran and neighboring regions in which mobile pastoralists such as the Qashquaaii and Bakhtiyaari engage in dry farming between seasonal movements and construct permanent or semi-permanent villages of mud brick or stone architecture. In certain cases, khans (chiefs) of tribal confederations have been known to repair to their own sizeable farms and engage in irrigation agriculture, relying on hired hands to manage their substantial flocks (Alizadeh 2008; Barth 1959; Bradburd 1990; Garthwaite 1983; Stack 1883).

Boundaries and Scales of Interaction Evidence from the lower town thus far seems to confirm that settlers maintained a degree of mobility as part of a flexible strategy involving a mixed agro-pastoral economy based on cereal grain farming and herding sheep, goats, and cattle. We now return to the broader question of the dynamics between the lower town communities and political leaders. Defining the nature of authority during this period and delimiting its spatial limits remain fundamental challenges to our view of LBA political life. Group membership among mobile populations can be quite fluid as members express dissatisfaction with leaders by “voting with their feet” and joining extending kin members in another group. This makes the task of identifying the ties of allegiance and obligation that bind mobile groups to the forts particularly critical. Project ArAGATS’ field research has thus far afforded a preliminary sketch of local sovereignty in which the LBA fortresses within the Tsaghkahovit Plain appear to form an integrated confederation. For example, our initial settlement survey of the plain in 1998 and 2000 uncovered a sharp break in the spatial distribution of LBA cromlech cemeteries along the northern slope of Mt. Aragats that may reflect social boundaries distinguishing the spatial extent of sovereignty in the plain as distinct from neighboring fortified communities in the Shirak Plain to the west and the Aparan Valley to the south and east [Figure 5-2] (Badalyan et al. 2003: 163). And significantly, fortresses across the plain from each other appear to have economic and ritual ties that suggest a level of local integration. Boundaries and frontiers etched in the mortuary landscape are not unusual means of expressing commitments to place. However, an examination of artifact exchange and distribution patterns can often

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provide a more dynamic view of social relations within a regime and how it positions itself in relation to neighboring polities. Since 2004, I have been engaged in an ongoing provenance study and clay source survey of clay beds in and around the Tsaghkahovit Plain with the aim of examining how trade and communication routes between neighboring valleys and between social classes may reflect political strategies and boundary formation during the LBA (Lindsay 2006; Lindsay et al. 2008). In this sourcing study, I examined the results of INAA and petrographic analyses subjected to a sample of pottery from the Tsaghkahovit South Lower Town and compared these results to sourcing data derived from elite contexts at neighboring forts in order to capture patterns of ceramic circulation at varying geographic scales and socioeconomic contexts. I did not assume that finished pots themselves were a commodity for exchange, but the flow of ceramics was a reflection of people transporting containers over the course of seasonal social, ritual, and economic activities. Ceramics in this sense serve as a proxy for interaction on a large spatial scale that might be used to model social boundaries. An earlier INAA study by Smith et al. (2004: 35-39) identified three clay sources on the Tsaghkahovit Plain exploited during the LBA, two on the north side of the plain near Gegharot, and one on the south side of the plain near the fortresses of Hnaberd and Tsaghkahovit. The results of the sourcing study led Smith et al. (2004: 37-38, figs. 19 & 20, Table 14) to interpret the flow of ceramics within the plain as gravitating toward the extraordinary shrine on the upper terrace of Gegharot (Badalyan et al. 2005). Building on these results, I focused on clay sources outside of the Tsaghkahovit Plain in order to clarify inter-polity circulation patterns, as well as to establish the place of subject populations in the regional political economy. A sample of 150 LBA sherds from the South Lower Town excavations and 12 clay sources from outside the Tsaghkahovit Plain were submitted for INAA (see Lindsay et al. 2008 for detailed methods and results) [Figure 5-7]. The most telling outcome of this study was that none of the compositional groups formed by ceramics on the Tsaghkahovit Plain included sources from the neighboring Shirak Plain, an area that also hosts a series of LBA forts and with which some interaction seem highly probable. Some of the Shirak Plain sources are of particularly high quality in terms of workability, and traditional potters continued to use them until quite recently. If we assume that ancient potters residing near forts in the Shirak Plain and Pambak Valley were also using these sources in the Bronze Age, as seems likely, none of their wares from these nearby sources found their way into the Tsaghkahovit Plain, suggesting that ties

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between these regions may have been limited. Specifically, only 1% of the sherds (i.e., two sherds in 150) from the Tsaghkahovit settlement sample were considered non-local, representing an undetermined clay source outside the Tsaghkahovit Plain. Sourcing data from the Tsaghkahovit citadel and upper terraces (Smith et al. 2004) reveal a similar pattern to that found at the settlement—only 2% of sherds (one sherd in 47 sampled) from this “elite sector” were considered non-local (also from an unidentified outside source). Thus, in both elite and non-elite contexts at the fortress of Tsaghkahovit, almost no pots were produced outside the plain, and the vast majority was produced near the fortress itself from sources close to the site. The consistent circumscription of pottery movement among differing socioeconomic contexts at Tsaghkahovit implies that status may not be a good predictor of access to exchange relationships outside the plain. A still more complex picture begins to emerge across the plain at Gegharot. As noted earlier, Gegharot was attracting more ceramics from the south side of the plain than it gave in return. It is here that we find the highest frequency of sherds from unidentified sources outside the plain (14 sherds, or 8% of the sample), hinting that the site, perhaps related to its ritual status as host of the LBA shrine, may have been the focus of extra-regional tribute. In sum, data from the Tsaghkahovit lower town demonstrate that 99% of the LBA sherds analyzed from the settlement were produced within the Tsaghkahovit Plain, while only Gegharot had access to any substantial quantity of pottery originating outside the plain. From these general patterns emerge two important points. First, if we use the sourcing data as a proxy for interregional exchange, we may be seeing the forging of new social boundaries in the Tsaghkahovit Plain that attended the transition from mobile pastoralism to semi-sedentary fortress polities. Second, the interpretations of the Gegharot shrine are still in their early phases (Badalyan et al. 2005), but it is clear thus far that an asymmetrical exchange relationship was present in which Gegharot received goods from surrounding sites in the plain and perhaps beyond. Eliciting tribute may have been part of a legitimizing ideology targeting the occupants of the fortress settlement, a pattern that may well have coincided with the need to create new forms of political legitimacy and legibility of power distinct from the previous period.

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Figure 5-7: Map of compositional groups of LBA pottery based on clay sources analyzed to date (after Lindsay et al. 2008: Fig. 3).

Conclusions Throughout this chapter, I have tried to demonstrate the utility of examining political and economic practices along the spectrum of spatial (landscapes and household) and sociological (leaders and subjects) dimensions. The construction of large stone fortresses in the Tsaghkahovit Plain (and across much of northern Armenia) represented a profound shift in the constitution of political authority over the previous MBA period, including how social orders were mediated through the built environment and mapped onto the arrangement of fortress settlements. Within the earlier nomadic traditions of the MBA, authority was heralded through the construction of monumental funerary tumuli (kurgans) marking the singularity of individual leaders, while new political strategies in the LBA appear to have shifted away from the commemoration of individual personalities toward a greater investment in building enduring political institutions. With this commitment to fixed locales, societies at least partially relinquished a 700-year tradition of nomadic pastoralism from the MBA, and reconfigured their relationship to the landscape through

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monumental fortress construction and a mixed farming and herding economy. What has been lacking to this point is a clearer view of where and how the majority of the population lived who built the forts and gave their allegiance to fortress elites. Magnetic gradiometry and excavations demonstrate that a large population had settled at the base of Tsaghkahovit fortress; however, the relatively thin, single-floor occupation layers also suggest that part of the population may have continued to engage in seasonal transhumance. Evidence for a large but ephemeral settlement below the Tsaghkahovit fortress is juxtaposed with the importance of seasonal activities related to agricultural and ceramic production as well as ritual obligations tied to the Gegharot shrine and perhaps the extensive cemeteries. The combination of these features reflects our need to account both for continued mobility and a newly forged commitment to place. With a clearer picture of the issues faced by political leaders and the subject communities during the MBALBA transition, the answer to how fortress authorities of the LBA succeeded at maintaining their hold on mobile communities for several centuries, will continue to be a focus of our research in the southern Caucasus in the coming years. These insights into the dynamics of politics and settlement patterns, while still preliminary, counter traditional Near Eastern and Anatolian models that posit the rise of early complex societies in these regions as highly dependent on a sedentary agricultural economy. Located squarely between the nomadic pastoral traditions of the Eurasian Steppe and the agrarian urban states of Mesopotamia, complex societies in the southern Caucasus followed a trajectory of political development combining aspects of both the steppe and the sown. The results of Project ArAGATS’ longterm investigations on the Tsaghkahovit Plain have demonstrated the need for an alternative model of political change that accounts for the range of subsistence activities pursued by LBA populations, and the need for flexible strategies of authority by elites aiming to rule them.

Acknowledgements I first wish to thank Peter Johansen and Andrew Bauer for inviting me to participate in the diverse and thought-provoking SAA session on which this volume is based. Fieldwork and analyses discussed in this chapter were funded by the National Science Foundation, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and a Purdue University Research Incentive Grant. Data collection and analysis were carried out under the mentorship and encouragement of Adam T. Smith, Ruben Badalyan, and Pavel

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Avetisyan, who continue to be sources of invaluable critical insight throughout the research process. Richard Blanton read a previous draft of this paper and offered useful comments. All errors of fact or omission remain my own.

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Yerevan. Kent, Susan (editor). 1990. Domestic Architecture and the Use of Space: An Interdisciplinary Cross-Cultural Study. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Khachatryan, Telemak S. 1963. Materialnaya Kultura Drevnego Artika [Material Culture of Ancient Artik]. Izdatelstvo Akademii Nauk Armyanskoy SSR, Yerevan. —. 1974. Iz Istorii Izucheniya Drevneyshikh Pamiatnikov Sklonov Gori Aragats [On the History of Research of Ancient Monuments on the Slopes of Mt. Aragats]. In Hayagitakan Hetazotutyunner [Armenological Studies], edited by P.M. Muradyan, pp. 83-114. vol. 1. Izdatelstvo Erevanskogo Universiteta, Yerevan. —. 1975. Drevnaya Kultura Shiraka, III-I tys. do n.e. [The Ancient Culture of Shirak, III-I Millennium B.C.]. Izdatelstvo Erevanskogo Universiteta, Yerevan. Kohl, Philip L. 1992. The Transcaucasian "Periphery" In the Bronze Age: A Preliminary Formulation. In Resources, Power, and Interregional Interaction, edited by Edward M. Schortman and Patricia A. Urban, pp. 117-137. Plenum Press, New York. —. 2007. The Making of Bronze Age Eurasia. Cambridge World Archaeology. Cambridge University Press, New York. Kolb, Michael J. and James E. Snead. 1997. It's a Small World after All: Comparative Analyses of Community Organization in Archaeology. American Antiquity 62(4): 609. Kramer, Carol. 1979. Ethnoarchaeology. Columbia University Press, New York. Kuftin, Boris A. 1941. Arkheologicheskiye Raskopki v Trialeti [Archaeological Excavations at Trialeti]. Akademy Nauk Gruzinskii SSR, Tbilisi. Kushnareva, Karine Kh. 1997. The Southern Caucasus in Prehistory: Stages of Cultural and Socioeconomic Development from the Eighth to the Second Millennium B.C. Translated by H.N. Michael. University Museum Monograph 99. University of Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia. Lefebvre, Henri. 1991. The Production of Space. Basil Blackwell, Oxford. Lindsay, Ian. 2006. Late Bronze Age Power Dynamics in Southern Caucasia: A Community Perspective on Political Landscapes. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California. UMI, Ann Arbor. Lindsay, Ian, Leah Minc, Christophe Descantes, Robert J. Speakman and Michael D. Glascock. 2008. Exchange Patterns, Boundary Formation, and Sociopolitical Change in Late Bronze Age Southern Caucasia:

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Preliminary Results from a Pottery Provenance Study in Northwestern Armenia. Journal of Archaeological Science 35: 1673-1682. Lindsay, Ian and Adam T. Smith. 2006. A History of Archaeology in the Republic of Armenia. Journal of Field Archaeology 31(2): 165-184. Lindsay, Ian, Adam T. Smith and Ruben Badalyan. 2010. Magnetic Survey in the Investigation of Sociopolitical Change at a Late Bronze Age Fortress Settlement in Northwestern Armenia. Archaeological Prospection 17:15-27. Litscheli, W. 2001. Archäologie in Georgien. In Georgien: Schätze Aus Dem Land Des Goldenen Vlies, edited by I. Gambaschidze, A. Hauptmann, R. Slotta and Ü. Yalcin, pp. 62-67. Deutsches Bergbau Museum, Bochum. Massey, Doreen. 1994. Space, Place and Gender. Polity Press, Cambridge. Matthews, Roger J. and J. Nicholas Postgate. 1987. Excavations at Abu Salabikh, 1985-86. Iraq 49: 91-119. Mitchell, W.J.T. (editor). 2002. Landscape and Power. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Mnatsakanyan, Arutyun O. 1960. Drevnie Povozki iz Kurganov Bronzovogo Veka na Poberezhe Oz. Sevan [Ancient Wagons from Bronze Age Kurgans on the Shores of Lake Sevan]. Sovetskaya Arkheologiya 2: 139-152. —. 1961. Lchashenskiye Kurgani (Raskopki 1956 Goda) [Lchashen Kurgans (1956 Excavations)]. Kratkiye Soobshcheniya Instituta Arkheologii 85: 66-72. Moore, Jerry D. 1996. Architecture and Power in the Ancient Andes: The Archaeology of Public Buildings. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Narimanischvili, Gorderdzi. 2009. New Discoveries of the Trialeti Culture. Mtsignobari, Tbilisi. Naumova, Olga B. 1991. Evolution of Nomadic Culture under Modern Conditions: Tradition and Innovation in Kazakh Culture. In Rulers from the Steppe: State Formation on the Eurasian Periphery, edited by Gary Seaman and Daniel Marks, pp. 291-307. vol. 2. Ethnographics Press Center for Visual Anthropology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Oganesyan, Vahan E. 1992a. Raskopki Karashambskogo Mogilnika v 1987 g. [Excavations of the Karashamb Burial Ground in 1987]. In Archaeologicheskii Raskopki v Nogostroika Armenii 1986-1987 gg., edited by Aram Kalantaryan, pp. 25-36, Yerevan. —. 1992b. A Silver Goblet from Karashamb. Soviet Anthropology and

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Archeology 30(4): 84-102. Oganesyan, Vahan E. and Firdus Muradyan. 1986. Karashambi Dambaranadashti No. 117 Dambarana [Burial No. 117 of the Karashamb Burial Ground]. Vestnik Obshchestvennykh Nauk, 91-96. Olcott, Martha Brill. 1987. The Kazakhs. Hoover Institution Press, Stanford, California. Pauketat, Timothy R. 2000. Politicization and Community in the PreColumbian Mississippi Valley. In The Archaeology of Communities: A New World Approach, edited by Marcello A. Canuto and Jason Yaeger, pp. 16-43. Routledge, New York. Petrosyan, Levon A. 1989. Raskopki Pamyatnikov Keti i Voskeaska (III-I tys. do n.e.) [Excavations of the Sites of Keti and Voskeask (III-I Millennium B.C.)]. Izdatelstvo AN Armyanskoy SSR, Yerevan. Piotrovskii, Boris B. 1949. Arkheologyiya Zakavkazya: S Drevneyshikh Vremen do I Tysyacheletiya do n.e. [Archaeology of the Transcaucasus: From Ancient Times to the 1st Millennium B.C.]. Izdatelstvo Leningradskogo Gasudarstvennogo Ordena Lenina Universiteta, Leningrad. —. 1962. The Aeneolithic Culture of Transcaucasia in the Third Millennium B.C. Atti del VI Congresso Internazionale delle Scienze Prehistoriche e Protostoriche; Roma 29 agosto-settembre 1962 2:360366. Pitskhelauri, Konstantin N. 1979. Vostochnaya Gruziya v Kontse Bronzovogo Veka [Eastern Georgia at the End of the Bronze Age]. Trudy Kakhetskoy Arkheologicheskoy Ekspeditsii 3. Metsniereba, Tbilisi. Robin, Cynthia and Nan A. Rothschild. 2002. Archaeological Ethnographies: Social Dynamics of Outdoor Space. Journal of Social Archaeology 2(2): 159-172. Rogers, J. Daniel and Bruce D. Smith (editors). 1995. Mississippian Communities and Households. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa. Schwartz, Glenn M. and Steven E. Falconer (editors). 1994. Archaeological Views from the Countryside: Village Communities in Early Complex Societies. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. Scott, James C. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. Yale University Press, New Haven. Smith, Adam T. 1998. Late Bronze/Early Iron Age Fortresses of the Ararat and Shirak Plains, Armenia: Typological Considerations. Ancient

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Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia 5(2): 73-97. —. 2000. Rendering the Political Aesthetic: Ideology and Legitimacy in Urartian Representations of the Built Environment. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 19: 131-163. —. 2003. The Political Landscape: Constellations of Authority in Early Complex Polities. University of California Press, Berkeley. —. 2005. Prometheus Unbound : Southern Caucasia in Prehistory. Journal of World Prehistory 19(4): 229-279. Smith, Adam T., Ruben Badalyan, Pavel Avetisyan, Mkrtich Zardaryan, Armine Hayrapetyan, Leah Minc and Belinda Monahan. 2004. Early Complex Societies in Southern Caucasia: A Preliminary Report on the 2002 Investigations of Project ArAGATS on the Tsakahovit Plain, Republic of Armenia. American Journal of Archaeology 108(1): 1-41. Smith, Adam T., Ruben S. Badalyan and Pavel Avetisyan (editors). 2009. The Archaeology and Geography of Ancient Transcaucasian Societies I: Regional Survey in the Tsaghkahovit Plain, Armenia. Oriental Institute Publications, Chicago. Smith, Adam T. and Koriun Kafadarian. 1996. New Plans of Early Iron Age and Urartian Fortresses in Armenia: A Preliminary Report on the Ancient Landscapes Project. Iran XXXIV: 23-37. Soja, Edward W. 1989. Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory. Verso Press, London. Stack, Edward. 1883. Six Months in Persia. G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York. Stone, Elizabeth C. 1987. Nippur Neighborhoods. Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Chicago. Stone, Elizabeth C. and Paul Zimansky. 2003. The Urartian Transformation in the Outer Town of Ayanis. In Archaeology in the Borderlands: Investigations in Caucasia and Beyond, edited by Adam T. Smith and Karen S. Rubinson, pp. 213-228. The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, Los Angeles. Thomas, Julian. 2001. Archaeologies of Place and Landscape. In Archaeological Theory Today, edited by Ian Hodder, pp. 164-186. Polity, Malden, Massachusetts. Tilley, Christopher. 1994. The Phenomenology of Landscape Places, Paths and Monuments. Berg, Oxford. Toramanyan, Toros. 1942. Nyuter Haykakan Jartarapetutyan Patmutyan [Materials on the History of Armenian Architecture] 1. Izdatelstvo ArmFAN, Yerevan. —. 1948. Nyuter Haykakan Jartarapetutyan Patmutyan [Materials on the History of Armenian Architecture] 2. Izdatelstvo AN Armyanskoy

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SSR, Yerevan. Veenhof, Klaas R. (editor). 1996. Houses and Households in Ancient Mesopotamia (Papers Read at 40e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Leiden, July 5-8, 1993). Nederlands HistorischArchaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul, Leiden. Warnke, Martin. 1995. Political Landscape: The Art History of Nature. Essays in Art and Culture. Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Wattenmaker, Patricia. 1998. Household and State in Upper Mesopotamia: Specialized Economy and the Social Uses of Goods in an Early Complex Society. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. Wilk, Richard R. and William L. Rathje. 1982. Household Archaeology. American Behavioral Scientist 25: 617-639. Willey, Gordon R. 1982. Forward. American Behavioral Scientist 25: 613616. Wills, Wirt H. and Robert D. Leonard (editors). 1994. The Ancient Southwestern Community: Models and Methods for the Study of Prehistoric Social Organization. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.

CHAPTER SIX PRACTICING SOCIAL DIFFERENCE, PRODUCING SOCIAL SPACE: THE POLITICAL ARCHITECTONICS OF IRON AGE SETTLEMENT PLACES PETER G. JOHANSEN

Introduction Research on social and political organization during the South Indian Iron Age has until recently been largely restricted to the study of a remarkable suite of commemorative/memorial features, some with associated human interments and grave goods, collectively referred to as megaliths (cf., Banerjee 1965; Deo 1985; Gururaja Rao 1972; Leshnik 1974; McIntosh 1985; Sundara 1975). Nearly two centuries of documented observation and research have recorded considerable variation in the form, location and content of these features; variation that is widely viewed today as evidence for politically salient Iron Age social differences (A. Bauer et al. 2007; Brubaker 2001; Deo 1985; Gurukkal and Raghava Varier 1999; Moorti 1994; Morrison and Lycett 1998; Sinopoli et al. 2009; Tripathi 2001). Yet regional investigations into the character and development of Iron Age social and political differences have been impeded by significant deficiencies in the temporal and spatial resolution of the archaeological context of megalithic features in South India (Brubaker 2001; Moorti 1994).1 While the kind and quality of variation observed in the South India-wide sample of commemorative/memorial features does indeed point to significant social distinctions, analysis of the specifics of those differences—their character, causes, articulations, logics, practice, and duration—require further research design and approaches to systematic data collection (see Bauer, Chapter 3).

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Problematic spatial and temporal control for the South Indian data set of megalithic features may have also impacted the scale and character of Iron Age political analysis. The inferential framing and interpretive scale of Iron Age political analysis has focused on large and reductive political forms (i.e., chiefdoms, tribes or ranked and stratified societies) located within problematic but well-established socio-evolutionary meta-narratives frequently employed in archaeological theory and practice. Politics framed in the narrative of socio-evolutionary theory exists as series of generalized, ethnographically derived typological forms in a hierarchically arranged, yet curiously flattened space-time (Johansen 2008; Pauketat 2007; Smith 2003). An ostensible explanatory concern with process is displaced to the broad inter-period disjunctures of culture-history space-time, rewritten within a sequential (albeit multi-linear) narrative of socio-evolutionary stages. In this chapter my concern is less with reconstructing political forms than with political practice. My substantive focus here is on politically motivated architectural practices that produced social relations of difference and socially differential places within the occupational landscapes of three Iron Age settlements in a small region of central Karnataka’s Tungabhadra River corridor. I investigate how the instrumental ordering of Iron Age settlement places was practiced as part of the politics of constructing, maintaining and contesting social differences. My use of the term politics follows Gramsci (1971) in emphasizing the pursuit of common social goals by individuals and groups through practices of negotiation and contestation that produce social relations of difference and affiliation. The focus here is on political practices embedded in the everyday interactions of all members of society and not simply the impact of institutional structures of authority on social organization (cf. Pauketat 2000, 2007). These practices produced a historically unique settlement landscape with its own politically dynamic materiality and sociology. The production and organization of Iron Age settlement landscapes along the Tungabhadra River corridor entailed ordered sets of relations between places and people, in physical terms of access, constraint, labor and activity that were established, maintained and challenged within social fields of power relations (cf., Lefebvre 1991; Smith 2003). The instrumental ordering of spatial relations by politically motivated social practice constitutes a political architectonic (Smith 1999: 103) through which cultural meanings with socially differential consequences were mediated through Iron Age spatial forms. Regardless, the implementation of an Iron Age political architectonic as a strategy of power inscribed social relations of difference within landscapes of everyday experience.

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My focus here on Iron Age political architectonics is specifically on the entangled strategies of spatial exclusion and spatial appropriation (Harvey 1990; Smith and David 1995). In examining these dimensions of spatial practice I investigate architectural evidence that suggests the regulation of access both to the settlements themselves and to particular areas and activities conducted within specific places at each site. I also direct this analysis towards the identification and explanation of architectural practices often, but not always, entangled with those of spatial exclusion that suggest the efforts of Iron Age peoples to appropriate spatial and social meanings and resources. The Iron Age settlement sites I discuss below exhibit spatial patterning in architecture and artifact distributions that suggest that resident social groups invested considerable effort to control or direct access, first, into their settlements (ostensibly from non-residents), and second, to specific residential, work and ritual places within the settlements themselves (from non-residents and resident members of the wider settlement community). This suggests that these settlement communities practiced a significant degree of autonomy within the dynamics of a regional Iron Age political economy. Particular members or segments of each settlement community employed architectonic strategies both to inscribe social distinctions (e.g., between different residential groups) but also to construct and maintain asymmetrical relations of power within and between regional and residential social groups by controlling access to particular settlement places and the activities conducted there (e.g., residential, ritual, craft production). Much of the foundation for developing asymmetrical relations of power within these Iron Age settlement communities was likely located in the dynamics of the social relations of agro-pastoral production and other activities such as iron/steel metallurgy and ritual production.2 The archaeological landscapes I discuss demonstrate distributions of a range of Iron Age architectural features that suggest some degree of social differentiation involving an instrumental ordering of built environments and their social relations of production. I examine the articulation of a range of architectural features (walls, alignments, terraces, enclosures, platforms, commemorative/memorial features) at three archaeological sites in the Tungabhadra Corridor region of central Karnataka: Bukkasagara, Rampuram and Kadebakele [Figure 6-1]. Commemorative/memorial features (‘megaliths’) are not a primary focus of this investigation, but their distribution in and around Iron Age settlements makes them important components (albeit in some cases within post-occupational temporalities) of the politics of settlement landscape production in this region. See Bauer, Chapter 3, for a more focused and holistic analytical

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Figure 6-1: Map of South India with location of study area; map of sites and study region (inset).

treatment of the role of commemorative/memorial features in the Iron Age landscape of this region.

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Landscape Production, Political Architectonics and Architectural Practice The production of landscapes is instrumental to political strategies that organize social relations at all scales (Smith 1999:103). Spatial relations— places, people and the activities which link them—are ordered by the social relations of their production and are imbricated by relations of power that both configure and are recursively configured by a variety of social contours of affiliation and difference (e.g., articulations of class, gender, residence, kin, occupation, religion). Relations of power enter spatial production through ideological and material dimensions of the process impacting spatial thought, logic and action in overt yet often deeply naturalized ways. Spatial meanings, their endowment and legitimation, are a source of power, the location of which is in a political economy of space (Johansen 2008; Morrison 2009; Wolf 1997: 388). The social field in which the power and processes of spatial production unfold constitute a political economy of space. It is the instrumental ordering of spatial relations by political forces through which cultural meanings with socially differential consequences are mediated within a political economy of space that constitutes political architectonics (Smith 1999: 103). Political architectonics condition spatial orders through the process of landscape production, informed by very specific and historically contingent sets of ideologies and practices. The social, political and material consequences include differential access to materials, technology and knowledge, control and contestation over spatial access and meaning (cf., Kuper 1972; Lansing 1991; Morrison 1995, 2009; Smith and David 1995). The appropriation or restriction of access to places are not necessarily strategies involved with architectural practices,3 yet they are often implemented through an architectural medium. The strategic and instrumental ordering of places through architectural practice are strategies of power which are used to define and maintain social differences and claims and control over spaces and resources (Foucault 1977; Markus 1993; Renfrew 1984; Smith and David 1995). This dimension of architectural practice and production necessitates the construction of architectural features and the constitution of places but unfolds with the daily perception, use and movement through the settlement landscape (Lefebvre 1991). Relations of power are thus embedded in the everyday experience and perception of landscape (Smith 1999: 103). Yet despite the clearest of instrumental intentions socio-political consequences are always to some extent contingent to a variety of circumstances.

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Spatial Exclusion and Appropriation This investigation of the political architectonic of Iron Age settlement landscapes focuses on two entwined architectonic strategies: spatial exclusion and appropriation (Harvey 1990; Johansen 2008; Smith and David 1995). Spatial exclusion denotes the practice of defining or restricting access to particular places (constructed or other) by one or more groups within larger social aggregations through the construction of physical (and/or perceptual) barriers or conduits to movement (Smith and David 1995: 441-442). Spatial appropriation refers to the arrogation of socio-cultural meanings and resources through the production of constructed places at or proximal to critical locations within established social geographies (Lefebvre 1991; Harvey 1990; Smith and David 1995: 441). Both are important strategies of power and modes of establishing social distinctions through spatial practice and media. Spatial exclusion is a political strategy of control, yet the degree and character of that control and the nature of the social relations it involves have tremendous variation in range and effect (Smith and David 1995). Strategies of spatial exclusion can be accomplished architecturally by constructing barriers or conduits4 between places which can control the movement of individuals though space. The restriction of physical or visual access to places is a strategy of power often employed to mark social differences between individuals and groups of people in landscape production. Ethnographically and archaeologically documented cases of this kind of spatial practice demonstrate the creation of restrictions that are both physical—excluding or controlling the actual movement of people within and between places, and visual—restricting lines of sight to particular places for considerable numbers of people (cf. Fogelin 2003; Foucault 1977; Markus 1993; Moore 1996; Smith and David 1995). Documented examples range from architectural elaborations such as screens to restrict visual access to the central spaces of some Early Historic Buddhist places of worship in India (Fogelin 2003) to the remarkably complex architectural plans of Chimu royal palace compounds (ciudadelas) at Chan Chan in Peru’s Moche Valley that restricted and controlled access to a myriad of places reserved for socially privileged political elite (Kolata 1990; Moore 1996). The strategy of spatial appropriation is entwined with that of exclusion in the overall production of a political architectonic. Architectural strategies of spatial appropriation emplace features and structures in relation to other meaningful elements of the landscape (e.g., built, geological, hydrological, biological) over which groups and individuals

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seek to exert some form of control (Harvey 1990; Lefebvre 1991; Smith and David 1995). Again, the political character, degree and effectiveness of this control can vary considerably from one socio-historic context to another. Ethnographic and historical cases document a range of strategies and impacts through which the appropriation of spatial meanings and resources emplot narratives of power on settlement landscapes. Examples at one end of this range include Spanish colonial construction of churches and cathedrals on the demolished remains of pre-Columbian ritual places, or in prominent locations within existent settlements, politically recasting the meaning and experience of landscape production (Johansen 2002; Kubler 1990; Lycett 2001; Moctezuma 1994; Plunket and Urunuela 2005; Weckmann 1951). Other examples include the construction of ritual structures, images or inscriptions at key points in water management systems in Early Historic North India (Shaw et al. 2007), Early Modern Period Bali (Geertz 1980; Lansing 1991) and Medieval South India (Morrison 2009). The erection of hero stones in Medieval South India to commemorate and memorialize historical individuals and events, real or imagined, document a less intensive yet still powerful political appropriation of the space and meaning of places within a wider ongoing production of landscape (Morrison 2009; Settar and Sontheimer 1982; Zagarell 2002).

Examining Iron Age Dimensions of Political Architectonics in Northern Karnataka: a Socio-spatial Analysis of Iron Age Settlement Places My analysis of an Iron Age political architectonic employs mapping and spatial graphing techniques designed and modified to infer the control of access to particular places within the overall architectural matrix of settlement landscapes (Hillier and Hanson 1984; Markus 1993; Smith 1996, 2003; Stockett 2005). For each of the three archaeological sites in this analysis I have drafted detailed maps of surface distributions of architectural features and their articulation with topographic features. Where appropriate I have created spatial graphs to demonstrate variation in the structural depth, integration and distribution of constructed spaces (mostly terraces and extramural areas). My usage here follows from that of Markus (1993), Smith (1996) and Stockett (2005) who employ this graphing technique and its associated spatial properties to map possible routes of movement and sites of control within and between constructed places in the context of historically situated cultural logics of space and social relations of power.5

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I infer the restriction, regulation or direction of access to particular places within each settlement primarily through the analysis of three spatial variables: 1) depth, 2) symmetry, and 3) distribution of constructed settlement spaces. Depth denotes the number of structured/constructed spaces that must be passed through to access a particular location within the overall settlement plan, with greater depth often indicating a higher degree of control over access (Stockett 2005: 389). Symmetry is a range measure that considers the number of routes that link a constructed space with others; more routes accessing a particular space indicate spatial integration (symmetry), while fewer, deeper routes suggest increased segregation (asymmetry) and by extension the exertion of control over a given location (Smith 1996: 82; Stockett 2005: 390). Distribution is another range measure which considers the organization of routes between spaces. Distributed spaces have multiple non-intersecting routes suggesting more open patterns of access while non-distributed spaces have few or single routes suggesting more restricted access (Hillier and Hanson 1984: 94; Smith 1996: 82; Stockett 2005 390). Settlement plans with many non-distributed spaces display branching route plans suggesting a hierarchical ordering of constructed places (Smith 1996). The graphing techniques I employ use closed circles to represent constructed spaces and connecting lines to denote possible routes between spaces on both the maps and their associated spatial graphs (Hiller and Hanson 1984: 94; Markus 1993:13) [Figures 6-2, 6-4, 6-6]. I use the results to assess strategies of spatial exclusion and appropriation at each site from which I suggest the kinds of historically specific social relationships that could account for the observed patterning (e.g., asymmetrical relations of power between resident social groups). I consider structurally deep, non-distributed and segregated constructed spaces in settlement site plans to suggest: 1) the regulation or control of access to particular places within the settlement and by extension, 2) social distinctions within the residential community based to some degree upon access to those places, and 3) the appropriation of the physical space and meaning of those places by one or more groups of people within each settlement community. Careful consideration of the use and occupational histories of constructed spaces (e.g., residential, ritual, work zones) is necessary to infer the social location of control over these settlement places. For the sites in this study this has been addressed through detailed analyses of artifacts and architectural attributes recorded during extensive surface collection and documentation and limited excavation (see A. Bauer et al. 2007; R. Bauer 2007; Johansen n.d., 2008, 2009, 2010; Morrison et al. 2007; Sinopoli 2009; Sinopoli et al. 2003).

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Each of the settlements in this analysis are located on one or more connected terraces on inselberg hills, surrounded by eroding walls of bulbous granite with limited routes of access, indicating a common criteria for site selection. Architectural barriers (e.g., walls, alignments) and elaborations (e.g., steps, alignments) to approach routes at each settlement suggest the regulation and control of movement into and out of the sites by all or part of the settlement community. Sites with non-distributed, asymmetrical approach routes suggest symbolic and/or practical restrictions of access (e.g., defence, social affiliation, cosmological considerations) to the settlement that may have been designed to differentially regulate the spatial perception and experience of residents and non-residents in navigating the wider regional settlement landscape. This analysis of the political architectonic of settlement spatial organization is limited to examining routes of movement largely within and between some walled spaces and built up but largely un-walled terrace structures. I use the spatial graphing technique as employed in modified form by both Marcus 1993 and Smith 1996 to demonstrate the political architectonic of architectural spaces with clear openings between walled spaces. I have modified the use of this technique to demonstrate spatial relations of depth, symmetry and distribution not only between walled structures and spaces with clear openings but also between elevated and un-elevated constructed terraces without clear openings or distinctive barriers to passage. Clear openings to these features are infrequent but the depth, symmetry and distribution of constructed spaces at each settlement suggest that there were very particular routes of access to many constructed terraces and other features. As many of the residential terraces would have contained free-standing wattle-and-daub structures my assessment of the political architectonic of spatial production at each site is tentative and almost certainly oversimplified. In many of the cases I document below, the places that were the deepest and less-well integrated had their physical space and social meaning appropriated by particular groups within these Iron Age settlement communities. My assessment of Iron Age spatial appropriation further examines the emplacement of particular forms of commemorative/ memorial features in locations that are proximal to Iron Age residential activities yet on the spatial and/or temporal margins of the most intensive of these occupations (see below). I turn now to a discussion of the three sites themselves, their spatial and architectural contexts and a spatial analysis of their political architectonic.

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The Political Architectonic of Iron Age Settlements in the Tungabhadra Corridor The three archaeological sites I discuss in this chapter were discovered by the Vijayanagara Metropolitan Survey, a systematic survey of an approximately 450 km2 region surrounding the medieval capital city of the Vijayanagara Empire in north-central Karnataka (Sinopoli and Morrison 2001, 2007). Each has been the subject of further research since 2003 as part of the Early Historic Landscapes of the Tungabhadra Corridor (EHLTC) research project (A. Bauer et al. 2007; R. Bauer 2007; Johansen n.d., 2008, 2009, 2010; Morrison 2009; Morrison et al. 2007; Sinopoli 2009; Sinopoli et al. 2003). Research includes intensive surface collection and documentation at all three sites as well as excavations at Kadebakele and Bukkasagara. The sites are three of five Iron Age settlements discovered within the EHLTC survey region. The two remaining sites, and today Bukkasagara, are now either completely or largely destroyed by industrial scale granite quarrying. The three settlement sites share similar locational environments, nestled in one or more sedimented terraces, within the heavily eroded inselberg topography of the Hampi-Daroji Hills. Kadebakele is located on the north and Bukkasagara on the south side of the Tungabhadra River on granite inselbergs that flank the river’s narrow alluvial tract [Figure 6-1]. Rampuram is located approximately 2 km north of the Tungabhadra on the northern and lower edge of a large inselberg fronting a wide colluvial plain. The Iron Age settlements at Bukkasagara and Rampuram have documented occupations that span areas approximately 2-3 ha. while at Kadebakele the large upper terrace is approximately 3 ha. with further Iron Age occupation on a lower terrace to the north and perhaps to the south potentially expanding the Iron Age occupation to as much as 30 ha. Distributional analyses of surface collections at each site and excavations at Bukkasagara and Kadebakele have demonstrated a variety of differentially maintained places within each settlement (A. Bauer et al. 2007; R. Bauer 2007; Johansen 2008, 2009, 2010; Morrison et al. 2007; Sinopoli 2009). Analyses of artifact attributes and features have further suggested the construction and maintenance of residential and work places associated with activities such as iron or steel metallurgy, animal husbandry, agriculture, mortuary production, and ritualized commensalism (A. Bauer et al. 2007; R. Bauer 2007; Johansen 2008, 2009, 2010; Morrison et al. 2007; Sinopoli 2009). Detailed surface documentation of architectural features recorded in association with surface distributions of artifacts reveal a social and political logic to the production of these three

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settlement landscapes; a political architectonic produced by, and recursively producing emergent Iron Age social distinctions.

Bukkasagara Bukkasagara was built primarily on a large inselberg terrace elevated above the surrounding colluvial and alluvial plains. The settlement’s central occupational area is nestled between large vertical boulders to the north, elevated and undulating terraces to the east and steep to gradual breaks in slope to the west and south. Along much of the site’s northern margins and in a small portion of the southwest are a series of tiered residential terraces constructed of stone and earth revetments. To the south is a large sprawling extramural zone with an expansive sheet midden to the west, and a large area to the east with concentrated deposits of ashy and vitrified cattle dung, large mammal bone (bovine) and a high proportion of wide mouth ceramic vessels (likely milking jars), that I have interpreted as a stock enclosure [Figure 6-2] (Johansen 2008, 2010). The current configuration of architectural features and inselberg topography suggest that access to the settlement may have been controlled. Along the eastern end of the settlement are the remains of two intersecting granite walls that restricted access from the upper inselberg to the east along the widest passage into the site. The western edge of the central occupation zone is enclosed by a line of large naturally occurring granite boulders. This perimeter of the site may not have been built up to the same extent as the eastern side but access to the settlement could have easily been restricted by filling in gaps between the boulders with cut stone, wood and acacia thorn brush. A possible route into the site is through a 12 meter saddle between granite hills that close the terrace off from the Tungabhadra flood plain to the north; however this approach may also have been blocked as evidenced by the surface remains of a low granite boulder wall along its northern edge [Figure 6-2]. A second and likely elaborated entrance to the settlement is just north of the southwestern architectural terraces where a 20 meter alignment of loosely spaced large boulders is arranged along what appears to be a small area of natural slope from the site’s main occupation zone down to the lower sheetrock terrace to the south [Figure 6-2]. This alignment may be part of a constructed entrance to the settlement similar to one observed at Rampuram (see below). Within the settlement the configuration of the northern stepped architectural terraces suggests an effort to practically and symbolically delineate the residential places of some members of the settlement community

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Figure 6-2: Map of Bukkasagara with spatial graph (inset). The spatial graph is justified from the southern extramural zone (i.e., the stock enclosure).

from those of others. The lower terrace levels of the northwestern and north-central architectural terrace zones were separated by constructed boulder and earth revetments which elevated each terrace above the southern extramural zone creating an interstitial space between the two areas [Figure 6-2]. While these embankments do not appear to have blocked passage between the lower levels of each terrace system they appear designed to unambiguously demarcate the space of each of these tiered terrace residential zones from one another. A similar spatial delineation of residential space is evident at Rampuram, albeit executed in somewhat different terms. The structural depth, integration and distribution of constructed space within the northwestern and north-central architectural terrace systems suggests further intentional design by a part of the residential community to limit or control access to their uppermost levels. The integration of terrace spaces in each of these zones is asymmetric with access to the top tiers possible only by first ascending the lower tiers. Figure 6-2 contains a spatial graph illustrating the connections between constructed terrace spaces in the northern architectural zones, their symmetry and distribution

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relative to access from the southern extramural zone. Upper terrace enclosures in both the northwestern and north-central architectural terrace zones (i.e., UAT 2, UAT 3, UAT 6) display considerable structural depth.6 Access to these terraces were limited by their structural integration above and behind two and three lower terrace enclosures [Figure 6-2]. The placement of residential terraces here in constructed spaces structurally less accessible than others (e.g., LAT 1, LAT 2) suggests the existence of Iron Age social distinctions mediated and manifested partially by the production of differentially meaningful places and control of access to those places. The deepest and most poorly integrated constructed space, UAT 1, is located at the summit of four constructed terraces in the northwest architectural terrace zone perched above the site’s two extramural zones [Figures 6-2 and 6-3]. It was here on the lower portion of this terrace that the settlement’s iron metallurgists practiced their craft (Johansen n.d., 2008, 2009, 2010). Access to UAT 1 appears distributed between the northwestern and north-central architectural terrace zones. However, access to and from the north-central architectural terraces to the UAT 1 could have easily been controlled through the narrow three meter wide passage linking the two otherwise separated architectural terrace zones. The location of the UAT 1 on the structurally deepest constructed terrace from any of the postulated entrance points to the settlement suggests an intentional effort by a segment of the settlement community to control access to its metals production facility. That segment of the settlement community may have been the residents of the upper terraces of the northwestern, or perhaps the northeastern residential terraces. From the available data, there is evidence to suggest a political architectonic characterized by limited degrees of spatial exclusion and appropriation at Bukkasagara. The construction of walls and alignments between passage blocking topographical elements suggests a contingent (i.e., perhaps flexible) exclusion of non-residents that involved the control of access to the central occupational zone. There also appears to have been the exertion of some form of social control over movement through residential spaces and access to materials and production within these places by engineering the depth and integration of constructed spaces. The rather open access (although physically enclosed) to the spaces associated with pastoral production (i.e., the stock enclosure) can be juxtaposed with that of the spatial restriction of iron working and its postulated proximity to particular residential spaces.

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Figure 6-3: Architectural Features from Bukkasagara; UAT 1 Iron working terrace (top left); stone wedged boulder feature (bottom left); ‘expedient’ less formalized dolmens (top and bottom right).

Finally, in a more general sense, the marginal spaces of the settlement have been socially appropriated by social groups (residential, family, kin associations?) through the erection of commemorative/memorial architecture that surround portions of the more intensively occupied residential zone. On the eastern and northern margins of the settlement are the remains of several features that include large stone alignments, a variety of lessformalized, more expediently constructed megalithic structures (stone circles, stone wedged boulders and flat ‘table’ slabs, small dolmen-like structures) and at least one massive boulder-filled crack feature7 [Figure 63]. Bauer (Chapter 3) notes a similar pattern of such less formalized megalithic features on the spatial margins of several of the dolmen complexes he has documented within the same region (e.g., Hire Benakal). Were these commemorative or memorial features at Bukkasagara erected during the residential occupation of the site? Or were they built later as a possible claim to the historical space of the settlement, as the three possible megalithic stone circles associated with the LAT 1 might suggest [Figure 6-2]? While the specific temporality of these features is not clear,

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their production created uniquely meaningful contexts that enculturated and appropriated space by producing meaningful Iron Age places that underlined social distinctions and identities at regional and settlement scales of practice.

Rampuram The Iron Age political architectonic at Rampuram appears to have entailed the restriction of access to, and the control or mediation of, movement through the settlement by residents and visitors alike. The site is located on a series of terraces on the lower reaches of a large granite inselberg. The settlement’s central occupational zone is divided between three adjacent terraces: the northern, southern and eastern occupational zones [Figure 6-4]. Each contains architectural remains and patterned concentrations of artifacts. The northern and southern occupational zones are similar in spatial structure and analyses of surface collections suggest they were the location of the settlement’s primary residential areas (Johansen 2008; 2010). The eastern occupational zone is unique for its brick architecture, constructed rock pool, memorial architecture and low overall artifact densities which suggest this area may have been the location of mortuary preparations (Bauer and Morrison 2007; Johansen 2008, 2009, 2010). Below and south of the central occupational zone are two large open areas, a basin to the west and a small valley to the east both with very low or absent artifact densities and a number of soil and water retention features that were likely important components of the settlement’s agro-pastoral land-use practices [Figure 6-4]. The settlement at Rampuram is hemmed in by boulder strewn hill slopes, making access to the site terraces difficult if not impossible from all but two restricted entry points [Figure 6-4]. One of the possible access points, the low and relatively narrow (i.e., 18 meter) saddle that spans the east end of the eastern valley was blocked by the construction of a large core-and-veneer wall [Figure 6-4 inset]. This wall, with some supervision, could have effectively prevented access to the east valley from the colluvial plain below. The second approach, and one that appears to have been an important entry point to the site, is reached by ascending the granite outcrop from the west and entering the settlement through a wider (35 meter) saddle terrace at the west end of the site just above and northwest of the western basin [Figures 6-4 and 6-5]. It is unclear if the passage was once walled; granite quarrying west of the terrace has significantly altered the slope. Regardless, this access point could have been

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Figure 6-4: Map of Rampuram and photograph of large wall that closed access to the settlement from the east (inset).

easily monitored to detect movement towards the settlement from the plains below. The structured ordering of movement within the settlement also appears to have been an important dimension of architectonic design and practice at Rampuram. Beginning east of the western saddle passage, a series of boulder alignments appear designed to direct passage along a prescribed route through the sheetrock terraces east towards the southern entrance to the southern occupational zone. The architectural elaboration of this route suggests that movement into the settlement’s occupational core from outside may have been practically and symbolically regulated, directing movement first into the southern occupational zone from the architecturally formalized western route. From this route the southern occupational zone was a spatial pivot to movement both north through a set of constructed granite alignment strictures to the northern occupational zone, and east, through the formalized alignment architecture of the sheetrock terrace leading to the eastern occupational zone [Figure 6-5]. While the northern and the eastern occupational zones are accessible to one another through an alternative route that bypasses the southern occupational

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Figure 6-5: Map of Rampuram’s central occupation area with spatial graph (inset). The spatial graph is justified to the western approach to the settlement.

zone, this route is not marked by any formalized architecture.8 Maintaining the position that the primary route of access to the site (for visitors and residents) was the architecturally formalized route from the western passage, the northern and eastern occupational zones are then both structurally deeper and less well integrated spaces than the southern occupational zone [Figure 6-5]. If we consider the functional distinctions I have suggested for each of these spatial contexts, then the spatial control of access to the northern and the eastern occupational zones from the southern occupational zone might suggest that the inhabitants of the latter had a regulatory role in providing access to both non-resident visitors and most or all of the settlement’s residential community to the ritual space of the former. The political architectonic involving the spatial integration of the northern occupational zone with the southern zone is potentially more complex, but the informal access to the eastern occupational zone from the northern terrace may hint at the political nature of social relations between the inhabitants of the two residential terraces. The northern occupational

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zone is structurally deeper and less well integrated spatially with the rest of the settlement than the southern occupational zone [Figure 6-5]. The narrow surface boulder alignment passage at the north end of the southern zone appears to be the formal entrance into the northern occupational zone. The restriction of this passage may signify that access into the northern occupational zone (from the southern zone) was spatially as well as socially restricted. The narrow constructed pathway that leads to the central extramural area in the northern occupational zone also opens to the east onto a narrow sheetrock terrace from which the eastern occupational zone can be accessed through a route that enters the east end of the sheetrock terrace circumventing the southern occupational zone [Figure 6-5]. What this meant for the politics of social relations between resident groups on the southern and northern occupational zones is not abundantly clear. However, the spatial integration and distribution of the settlement’s two residential zones suggest that access to the northern occupational zone may have been more socially exclusive than that of the southern zone and that residents of the former did not require the spatial (or political) mediation of the latter to access the ritual space of the eastern zone. Alternatively, this spatial architectonics could indicate that access to the northern occupational zone was regulated by the residents of the southern zone in a relationship that placed the latter in control of the movements of the former to some extent. But this interpretation fails to explain the informal access to the eastern zone from the northern occupational zone. To explore the relations of power suggested by the integration of these architectural places it is useful to examine the variation in the internal structure of the northern and southern occupational zones. The northern and southern occupational zones each have structured enclosures that flank open extramural terraces [Figure 6-5]. The structural differences in the design and configuration of these residential terraces can be considered as variables in assessing both the social distinctions and relations between individuals residing in these two areas. The terracing in the southern occupational zone is largely single-tiered extending from their structural interface (stone alignments) with the open extramural zone back to the vertical faces of the enclosing outcrop boulders. While the southern zone has a north and south component, these two areas appear largely similar in structure and design. The northern occupational zone, on the other hand, has a tiered topography to its constructed enclosures. The lower enclosure terraces back onto elevated constructed terraces which back onto the vertical faces of the outcrop boulders. The upper enclosures are accessible only through

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the lower terraces via the extramural zone(s), making these constructed spaces the most structurally deep of any at the settlement from the western entrance [Figure 6-5]. One of these upper terrace enclosures (UE 2) is larger (77 m2) than the others with approximately half of its area visually blocked from sight below by constructed and naturally occurring outcrop boulders. The interior of this terrace contains evidence of internal stone alignments suggesting walled partitions or building foundations. The spatial graph of constructed spaces at Rampuram [Figure 6-5] demonstrates that the UE 2 terrace was structurally the deepest, most segregated place within the settlement (see endnote 6). In addition to the architectural pattern, ceramic proportions from the surface assemblages in the northern occupational zone display a significantly higher proportion of serving vessels (43%) than those of the southern occupational zone (28%) (and indeed from sampled residential areas at Bukkasagara and Kadebakele).9 This proportion of bowls resembles that from excavated contexts associated with feasting activities at Kadebakele (Johansen 2008, 2010). The location of the high and moderate density ceramic deposits in the northern zone are primarily at the base of the lower constructed terracing at their interface with the large extramural zone, rather than in areas tucked away from residential and open extramural areas as in the southern zone. The increased proportions of bowls in the northern architectural terrace and the curious location of these deposits in an area usually free of debris may indicate efforts to increase the status of its resident population through community commensal practices such as periodic feasts. The structural depth, asymmetry, spatial integration and elevated position of the UE 2 terrace suggests an attempt by a socially distinct group (family or household?) to mark their domestic space as equally distinct and important through the restriction of physical and even visual access to their place of residential activity while maintaining a position of spatial prominence. This suggests the existence of asymmetrical relations of power in which a small residential social group was capable of defining spatial relations through the construction of spaces with degrees of integration and distribution that defined an empowered, political hierarchy to the perception of the settlement landscape at Rampuram. This constituted an appropriation of spatial meanings through an architectonic of control and exclusion (cf. Foucault 1979; Harvey 1990; Lefebvre 1991; Smith and David 1995).

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Kadebakele The site at Kadebakele is located on several terraces on a large inselberg hill and the wide open alluvial terrace that fronts the Tungabhadra River (A. Bauer et al. 2007; Sinopoli 2009) [Figure 6-6]. The occupational history of the site is complex with uncertain temporal resolution for large portions of the approximately 60 ha. site, however, surface collection and excavations on the site’s large (3 ha.) upper terrace demonstrate a residential occupation dating to the Iron Age with some commemorative memorial practices that are both contemporary with and post-date excavated domestic contexts (Morrison et al. 2007). The upper terrace is located approximately 100 m above the surrounding plains overlooking the Tungabhadra River to the south and the colluvial plain to the north. It is enclosed by large vertical bulbs of eroding granite through which three gaps provide access from the plains below [Figure 6-6]. The upper terrace has northern and southern occupational areas separated by a large constructed reservoir built and used during or potentially after the Iron Age. Surface collections and excavations in the north division have identified residential occupations, including domestic structures (Block B) and midden deposit, while a small horizontal excavation on the north division’s southwestern margins (Block A) has uncovered a palimpsest of commemorative memorial features (mostly stone circle features) datable to the Iron Age and early part of the Early Historic Period (A. Bauer et al. 2007; Johansen 2008; Morrison et al. 2007; Sinopoli 2009). The unexcavated south division is dominated by a large elevated rectangular terrace (SAT 1) which overlooks the northwestern and southern approaches to the upper terrace. Along the upper reaches of the engineered slope of the southern approach a small excavation exposed a series of superimposed deposits associated with feasting dating to the time of the residential occupations in the north division (R. Bauer 2007; Morrison et al. 2007). The architectural plan of Kadebakele’s upper terrace suggests an instrumental design to spatial production during both the Iron Age habitational occupation and perhaps an Early Historic occupation associated with commemorative/memorial practices and structures. My assessment of spatial production on the upper terrace suggests a number of dimensions to the political architectonic at Iron Age and Early Historic Kadebakele. There appears to have been a concern with: 1) the restriction of access and symbolic structuring of movement to the upper terrace; 2) the practical and symbolic structuring of movement and access to certain places on the upper terrace; and 3) the appropriation of parts of the margins

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Figure 6-6: Map of Kadebakele’s Upper Terrace settlement and spatial graph (inset). The spatial graph is justified from the summit of the southern approach.

of the upper terrace habitation zone, and later its abandoned remains, through the continued production of ritual and commemorative architectural features that began early in the Iron Age. The architectural elaboration (barriers, terraces, revetments) of the three surface routes to the upper terrace suggests that its Iron Age occupants were concerned with controlling access to and from this large

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part of the settlement. This regulation of passage to the upper terrace of the settlement may indicate a concern with establishing a defensible portion of the site and/or with excluding or controlling the passage of visitors or certain member groups of the settlement community to this part of the site. Of the three approaches, the northern passage appears to have been blocked off by the construction of a large masonry wall that controlled or curtailed movement from the north [Figure 6-6]. The northwestern route to the upper terrace is marked today by dense distributions of Iron Age cultural materials and numerous short granite wall segments that appear to be components of a larger engineered slope [Figure 6-7 top]. The ruins of a massive medieval period wall across the 15 meter saddle at the top of this route has obscured the remains of an Iron Age period wall here but the density of archaeological remains along the slope suggests that this was an important approach to the Iron Age period occupation of the upper terrace. The degree of architectural elaboration of the southern approach to the upper terrace suggests that this was the main formalized route to the upper terrace for at least part of its Iron Age occupation. The southern route consists of a long engineered slope with dozens of slope stabilizing walls and the remains of a stepped revetment resembling stairs spanning an approximately 15 meter width of the final 30 meters of the ascent [Figures 6.-7 middle and 6-7 bottom]. Its architectural formalization and the degree of organization, labour and resources that its construction entailed, demonstrates a concern with the practical and symbolic ordering of movement to the upper terrace. Whether this concern with the flow of movement to and from the upper terrace, its degree and social parameters of regulation, were associated with the Iron Age habitation or the subsequent continuation of memorial places, or combination of both, remains an open question. Passage to the upper terrace from the southern and northwestern approaches both entailed arriving first in the south division on either its northern or southern margins [Figure 6-6]. The entry points from both routes can be observed from the elevated SAT 1 terrace and further passage to the north division from either approach required passing along its base. The SAT 1 is a large approximately 40 m2 terrace elevated 5-10 meters above the southern and northern ends of the south division by a series of constructed boulder walls and revetments. The spatial graph I have included in Figure 6-6 presents a gross oversimplification of the spatial relationships between constructed spaces at Kadebakele. I have justified the graph from the summit of the southern approach but this could also have been done from the northwestern approach. Furthermore, detailed mapping of terrace constructions in the southern division will no doubt lead

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Figure 6-7: Kadebakele: the northwestern approach from the base of the inselberg (top); the southern approach from the summit of the south division (middle); revetment steps at the top of the southern approach (bottom).

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to a more sophisticated understanding of the approaches to the SAT 1 terrace. Yet it does demonstrate that the SAT 1 terrace, despite its closer proximity to the two architecturally elaborated approaches, is structurally deeper and less well integrated than the north division habitation zone. If, as I suspect, the large elevated SAT 1 terrace was the location of the residential (or other built) space of a socially distinct group, then its construction at the junction of the two main surface routes to the upper terrace may indicate an effort to structure all inward and outward movement past and below an elevated, architecturally elaborated position. The appropriation of the space and meaning of this place at such a central and pivotal a location may have served both to monitor and regulate movement onto and through the upper terrace, and to impress the power of that capacity on those passing through the area below. It suggests an effort by the residents of the SAT 1 terrace to distinguish themselves within the community’s political field of social relations. Despite its location central to all movement onto the upper terrace, the elevation and monumental proportions of the SAT 1 suggests that access to it was socially restricted. The juxtaposition of the visually imposing and restricted constructed space of the SAT 1 terrace with that of the open, unelevated location of domestic contexts exposed in the north division (Block B excavations) evokes the consideration of significant social distinctions between the larger residential community with asymmetries in power expressed though spatial production. These social distinctions may have been further manifested through the organizational capabilities of those groups or individuals to manipulate their social networks, mobilizing and deploying the requisite labour and resources necessary for the construction of the site’s larger architectural projects (i.e., the engineered approaches to the upper terrace and the SAT 1). The series of small superimposed feasting features and deposits exposed on a small south slope terrace adjacent to the stepped granite revetment may be further evidence of wider networks of labour mobilization (A. Bauer et al. 2007, R. Bauer 2007, Johansen 2008; Sinopoli 2009). Finally, the erection of a number of memorial and commemorative features across several areas of the upper terrace signifies further examples of spatial appropriation through which the social relations of Iron Age and early Early Historic landscape production were made manifest in sociomaterial practice. Here the production of ‘megalithic’ features appears to have exerted a number of distinctive social claims to the place (i.e., its space and meaning) of the upper terrace through ritual commemorative practice. Surface and subsurface deposits of commemorative/memorial features (stone circles, passage chamber megaliths) are located across the

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upper terrace but excavations in Block A [Figure 6-6] have exposed a concentrated group of numerous interwoven and overlapping large and small stone circle features that are largely contemporary with the excavated domestic deposits at the site and the feasting features excavated along the south slope of the southern approach (R. Bauer 2007; Morrison et al. 2007). Yet dates from the upper levels of these deposits indicate that the construction, maintenance and renovation of these features continued after the abandonment of the residential occupation in Block B. The location of this cluster of features on the sloping western margin of the north division (Block A), adjacent to an area with a documented residential component, suggests a conscious attempt by Iron Age and indeed later Early Historic social groups (perhaps residents of the upper or lower terraces of the settlement) to commemorate events and/or memorialize social groups and individuals in a place saturated with sociohistorical ‘memories’ (and physical remains) of past community associations. While many of these features are small and perhaps more ephemeral than others, some are clearly more substantial and temporally perduring. The precise character of commemoration involved with these features is not abundantly clear but their regular construction and renovation over an extended time within a restricted space suggests the maintenance or contestation of claims to this place. In such a socio-material context of practice, the agglutinative nature of the construction of several of the Block A features, their maintenance, reuse and reconstitution over time, suggest the material remains of unfolding political negotiation over social relations (e.g., claims to rights, position and place). Social relations that were negotiated with reference to a time and place, real or imagined, were embedded in socio-historic traditions through the production of a new and renewable landscape of commemoration through ritual and architectural practice.

Discussion and Conclusion The architectural patterning I document at Bukkasagara, Rampuram and Kadebakele suggests a political architectonic unique to the Iron Age production of settlement places in the Tungabhadra Corridor region. I have employed this architectural patterning to infer strategies of spatial exclusion and appropriation through which a variety of Iron Age social distinctions were practiced by settlement community members in both everyday quotidian contexts (e.g., living in particular settlements, separate residential terraces and terrace groups) and more punctuated and perhaps ritualized events (e.g., feasting, building, renovating and visiting

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commemorative/memorial features). This analysis suggests that the architectonic practices which produced these settlements were indeed coextensive with, and inextricable from, the production (and reproduction) of an Iron Age political materiality and sociology (see Johansen and Bauer, Introduction). Iron Age architectural practice in the central Tungabhadra River corridor elaborated upon certain topographical strictures to movement within and between settlement places, engendering a unique political architectonic to the character of spatial production. I suggest that this political architectonic both restricted and directed the movements of socially distinct groups of people according to a unique cultural logic of Iron Age social and spatial relations. The material properties of the region’s inselberg topography (e.g., elevation, enclosure of terraces, limitation of passage strictures through and into terraces; availability of eroded boulders of various sizes and consolidated sheet rock for construction material)—specific to each settlement, and in counterdistinction to the openness of the surrounding colluvial plains—appears to have been important considerations in the selection of locations for settlements and critical components for the production of a Iron Age sociopolitical materiality that included this unique suite of architectural practices. At one scale, access to settlements was restricted by the construction of barrier walls that obstructed movement through saddle passes into occupied terraces. Movement into and in some cases through settlements was practically and symbolically directed through other approaches by the construction and maintenance of architecturally formalized routes. These architectural practices appear intended to control movement into (and perhaps out of) settlements by all or a part of their residential communities, appropriating the spatial meaning of these places in ways that distinguished between resident and non-resident social groups. At another scale of spatial production, within settlements there is evidence for varying degrees of spatial exclusion and appropriation from sections of the residential community. There is evidence at each settlement for a range of architectonic strategies that appear designed to separate constructed residential places and to order movement within and between them. Adjacent residential zones at Bukkasagara were constructed to be distinct from one another while at Rampuram and Kadebakele discrete residential zones were built in two areas physically apart from one another, separated by both architectural and topographical features. In all three cases movement from one residential zone to another was controlled through a limited number of access points. This suggests an instrumental

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ordering of socially meaningful places, which defined in practical and symbolic terms, the social space of separate residential groups within the settlement. Indeed at Rampuram the structural depth, integration and symmetry of the northern occupational terrace suggests that its residents may have held greater control over access to their residential places than those of the southern zone. Further organization of constructed spaces within individual residential zones at Bukkasagara and Rampuram suggest architectonic strategies to separate the domestic spaces of socially distinct groups (families and households?) from those of others. At this spatial scale there are separate terrace constructions that radiate from open extramural zones with negligible differences in the structural depth, integration or segregation of one constructed terrace from another. Yet in the case of the northern architectural terraces at Bukkasagara and the northern occupational zone at Rampuram there is a vertical structure to these residential terraces. The highest and structurally deepest of these terraces was accessible only by passing through one or two lower terrace zones, suggesting that the residents of the former held a greater element of control over access to their domestic spaces than those residing on the latter. Does this indicate a political hierarchy of residential groups at these settlements? While further research is required to address this question, the structure of this patterning does indicate a political architectonic in which upper terrace residential zones were less accessible than those on lower levels and often in the deepest, less well integrated and most spatially segregated constructed spaces in the settlement. Furthermore they were elevated conspicuously above the living spaces of others in a fashion that may have been designed by those residing there to further appropriate the spatial meaning of the overall residential terrace group in which spatial and visual prominence symbolized social and political importance. This suggests the expression of an agentive modality of power, from within what was likely an established, naturalized socio-spatial logic and practice of residential exclusion; this acceleration of political architectonic strategy may have found at least partial sanction (or less resistance) in the power (structural modality) of an established logic and practice of separation. At Kadebakele where the size of the upper terrace Iron Age settlement is larger than those at either Bukkasagara and Rampuram, the location, configuration and orientation of the two residential zones suggests a different organizational structure to the settlement’s political architectonic. In this case the large elevated SAT 1 terrace was constructed at a location closer to the two entry routes to the upper terrace than the larger and structurally less elaborated north division residential zone. The SAT 1

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terrace is larger than any residential terrace at the other two sites (approximately 40 m2). Its position and prominent elevated location could have effectively enabled the control of entry to the upper terrace from the two principle routes from the plains below. So there appears then to have been some tactical flexibility to architectonic practice within a wider frame of Iron Age socio-spatial logic. Residential zones are separated and in some cases there are further separations within each zone. In certain cases the most prominent and controlled residential spaces are in elevated constructed terraces that are structurally in very deep positions but in at least one case—Kadebakele— the entry points to the settlement could have been controlled directly from a large imposing elevated terrace, a location in a relatively shallow and well-integrated position within the overall configuration of constructed spaces within the settlement. Further research will address both structural and material differences among the deposits in the upper terrace’s south and north residential zones. Finally, at certain Iron Age sites in the Tungabhadra River corridor, memorial architecture was erected and maintained on the spatial margins of residential places, and in some cases such as at Kadebakele and Bukkasagara (the site of Maski is another documented example—Thapar 1957), this practice continued into the period following residential abandonment. The practice of constructing and using megalithic memorial features both during and following settlement abandonment appears to have been strategic to the appropriation of the space of contemporary and former residential places, instilling revised but as yet undetermined meanings (claims?) to the landscape through the regular renovation of this architectural medium. This marking of events with enduring spatial form both reproduces real or imagined spatial meanings and produces new places through the act of inscribing the landscape with built features. In several documented cases at Kadebakele (e.g., Block A), previously inscribed commemorative places were renovated in ways that demonstrate a continuity of commemorative practice that began hundreds of years earlier, suggestive of acts associated with the maintenance of social distinctions and traditional claims to place. A similar situation may have unfolded at Bukkasagara and perhaps Rampuram but our current understanding of the dating of commemorative/memorial features at these two sites is unlikely to be resolved further as many of the features are either sitting directly on granite bedrock or are currently under imminent threat of destruction. Regardless of the dating, these features suggest an effort by smaller social groups to appropriate the physical space and

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meanings of places on the margins of the central occupation zones of Iron Age settlements. There is then some significant multi-scalar patterning of data from Iron Age settlements that we can use together with the remains of mortuary contexts to pursue a better understanding of the politics of social relations and indeed how relations of difference and power were produced and reproduced through daily practices such as the construction, maintenance and experience of living in settlements. The distributional patterning of architectural features I have discussed demonstrates a political materiality to spatial production in which access to settlement places at several analytical scales appears to have been socially unequal. The degree and intensity of these inequalities and their wider impact on Iron Age social relations remains to be seen. Further research at the three Iron Age sites discussed in this study and at other sites both within and beyond the central Tungabhadra River corridor region will continue to advance our understanding of the politics of social relations in Iron Age South India at a variety of scales and aspects of practice.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank the co-directors of the EHLTC research project, Kathleen Morrison, Carla Sinopoli and R. Gopal for the opportunity to conduct the research discussed in this chapter and their ongoing support. The fieldwork at Bukkasagara and Rampuram was made possible with the generous financial and logistical assistance of the American Institute for Indian Studies through the granting of an AIIS junior fellowship to the author in 2004-05. I would also like to extend thanks the Archaeological Survey of India for permission to conduct this research and to the Karnataka State Department of Archaeology and Museums and especially its director Dr. R. Gopal and deputy director T.S. Gangadhar for their valuable assistance with the project. Andrew Bauer, Sandra Johansen, Kathleen Morrison, Carla Sinopoli and Adam Smith provided valuable comments on this Chapter for which I am very grateful. All errors and omissions are my own.

Notes 1

Much of the large sample of published material on megalithic features was documented prior to the implementation of radiometric dating techniques and systematic recoding practices (see Moorti 1994).

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See A. Bauer, Chapter 8, A. Bauer et al. (2007), R. Bauer 2007, Johansen 2008 and U. Moorti 1994 for further discussion of the agro-pastoral economy of the Iron Age in northern Karnataka. 3 Places that are not physically constructed yet are produced through practices and ideologies of perception, imagination and experience are often critical elements of spatial appropriations and exclusions (Lefebvre 1991). Here I refer to examples of geological, hydrological or biological features that have been naturalized as sacral through powerful ontologies interior to specific historically situated cultural logics (e.g., sacred mountains, rivers, islands or other features) (cf., Bradley 2000; Ingold 2000). 4 These barriers or conduits to which I refer also constitute powerfully meaningful places. 5 My use of this graphic technique and their associated properties of depth, distribution and symmetry (designed by Hillier and Hanson 1984) do not imply an acceptance of a ‘universal grammar’ or ‘syntax’ of spatial relations as proposed by Hillier and Hanson (1984; see Smith 2003: 61). 6 Circles on the inset graph represent individual terrace spaces with lines indicating linkages or routes between terraces. Single level linkages display terraces connected to one another without ascending a constructed embankment or wall >0.5 meters high, two level connections indicate terraces joined by embankments < 0.5 meters. 7 See Bauer (2010) and Morrison and Lycett (1998) for a more detailed typological discussion of this suite of less formalized megalithic features. 8 A further alternative route that begins in a cave south of the southern occupational zone leads to a route to the eastern occupational zone (that was not architecturally elaborated) bypassing the former. This would have allowed the residents of the northern occupational zone to completely bypass the southern zone but would have entailed passing though the eastern zone, a place imbued with mortuary ritual. 9 A multiple comparisons procedure for proportions test conducted on the site wide sample parsed by major occupational zones at the Rampuram demonstrated that the proportional difference in serving vessels between the two residential zones is statistically significant (K=5, m=2.8) (see Johansen 2008: 329).

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References Cited Banerjee, N.R. 1965. The Iron Age in India. Munshiram Manoharlal, Delhi. Bauer, A.M. 2010. Socializing Environment and Ecologizing Politics: Social Differentiation and The Production of ‘Nature’ in Iron Age northern Karnataka. PhD. Dissertation, University of Chicago, Department of Anthropology. Bauer, A.M., P.G. Johansen and R.L. Bauer. 2007. Towards a Political Ecology in Early South India: Preliminary Considerations of the Sociopolitics of Land and Animal Use in the Southern Deccan, Neolithic through Early Historic Periods. Asian Perspectives 46 (1): 335. Bauer, A.M. and K.D. Morrison. 2008. Water Management and Reservoirs in India and Sri Lanka. In Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures, edited by H.L. Selin pp. 2207-2214. Springer, New York. Bauer, R.L. 2007. Animals in Social Life: Animal Use in Iron Age Southern India. VDM Verlag, Saarbruken. Bradley, R. 2000. The Natural Places. Routledge, London and New York. Brubaker, R. 2001. Aspects of Mortuary Variability in the South Indian Iron Age. Bulletin of the Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute 60-61: 253-302. Deo, S.B. 1985. The Megaliths: Their Culture, Ecology, Economy and Technology. In Recent Advances in Indian Archaeology, Proceedings of the Seminar held in Poona in 1983, edited by S.B. Deo and K Paddayya, pp. 89-99. Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute, Poona. Fogelin, L. 2003. Ritual and Presentation in Early Buddhist Religious Architecture. Asian Perspectives 42(1): 129-154. Foucault, M. 1977. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Penguin Books, London. Geertz, C. 1980. Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali. Princeton University Press, Princeton. Gramsci, A. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. International Publishers, New York. Gurukkal, R. and M.R. Raghavara Varier. 1999. Cultural History of Kerala, Vol. 1 (From the Earliest to the spread of Wet-rice). Department of cultural Publications Government of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram. Gururaja Rao, B.K. 1972. Megalithic Culture in South India. Prasaranga,

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Mysore. Harvey, D. 1990. The Condition of Postmodernity. Basil Blackwell, Oxford. Hillier, B. and J. Hanson. 1984. The Social Logic of Space. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Ingold, T. 1993. The Temporality of the Landscape. World Archaeology 25: 152-174. Johansen, P.G. n.d. Bukkasagara: Iron Age settlement and ferrous metallurgy. —. 2010. Site Maintenance Practices and Settlement Social Organization in Iron Age Karnataka: Inferring Settlement Places and Landscapes from Surface Distributions of Ceramic Assemblage Attributes. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 29 (4): 432-454. —. 2009. Site Structure and Settlement Organization at Iron Age Bukkasagara and Rampuram: Results from Surface Collections and Documentation. Man and Environment: Journal of the Indian Society for Prehistoric and Quaternary Studies XXXIV (1): 17-29. —. 2008. A Political Economy of Space: Social Organization and the Production of an Iron Age Settlement Landscape in northern Karnataka. Ph.D. Dissertation University of Chicago. —. 2002. The Lost Church of Paa’ko? Horizontal Excavations in the Southwest Corner of the Historic Plaza at LA 162. Poster presented at the 66th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeologists, Denver, April 2002. Kolata, A. 1990. The Urban Concept of Chan Chan. In The Northern Dynasties: Kingship and Statecraft in Chimor, edited by M. Moseley and A. Cordy-Collins, pp. 107-144. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington. Kubler, G. 1990 [1940]. The Religious Architecture of New Mexico in the Colonial Period and Since the American Occupation. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. Kuper, H. 1972. The Language of Sites in the Politics of Space. American Anthropologist 74: 411-425. Lansing, J.S. 1991. Priests and Programmers: Technologies of Power in the Engineered Landscape of Bali. Princeton University Press, Princeton. Lefebvre, H. 1991[1972]. The Production of Space. Basil Blackwell, Oxford. Leshnik, L. 1974. South Indian ‘Megalithic’ Burials: The Pandukal Complex. Franz Steiner Verlag GmbH, Wiesbaden. Lycett, M. 2001. Transformation of Place: Occupational History and Differential Persistence in Seventeenth Century New Mexico. In

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Archaeologies of the Pueblo Revolt: Identity, Meaning, and Renewal in the Pueblo World, edited by R.W. Preucell, pp.61-74. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. McIntosh, J. 1985. Dating the South Indian Megaliths. In South Asian Archaeology 1983, edited by J. Schotsmans and M. Taddei, pp. 467493. Universitareo Orientale, Naples. Markus, T. 1993. Architecture and Power. Routledge, London and New York. Moorti, U.S. 1994. Megalithic Culture of South India: Socio-economic Perspectives. Ganga Kaveri Publishing House, Varanasi. —. 1989. Evidence of Social Differentiation and Socio-political Organization during the Megalithic Period in South India. Puratattva 20: 1-14. Moctezuma, E.M. 1994. The Great Temple of the Aztecs: Treasures of Tenochtitlan. London: Thames and Hudson. Moore, J. 1996. Architecture and Power in the Ancient Andes: The Archaeology of Public Buildings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morrison, K.D. 2009. Daroji Valley Landscape History, Place and the Making of a Dryland Reservoir System. Vijayanagara Research Project Monograph Series 18, Manohar Press, Delhi. —. 1995. Fields of Victory: Vijayanagara and the Course of Intensification. Contributions of the University of California Archaeological Research Facility Berkley. Regents of the University of California, Berkeley. Morrison, K. D., and M. Lycett. 1998. Scales and Monumentalities: The Production of an Iron Age Landscape in North Interior Karnataka. Paper presented at the 97th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Philadelphia, PA. Morrison, K.D., C. Sinopoli, R. Gopal, A. Bauer, R. Bauer, L. Bridges and P. Johansen. 2007. Late Prehistoric and Early Historic Landscapes of the Tungabhadra Corridor: Report of the 2005 season. Submitted to the Government of India. Morrison, K.D., C. Sinopoli, R. Gopal, A. Bauer, R. Bauer, P. Johansen, M. Trivedi, B. Wilson. In prep. Late Prehistoric and Early Historic Landscapes of the Tungabhadra Corridor: Report of the 2009 season. To be submitted to the Government of India. Pauketat, T. 2007. Chiefdoms and Other Archaeological Delusions. Altamira Press, Lanham. —. 2000. The Tragedy of the Commoners. In Agency in Archaeology, edited by M-A. Dobres and J.E. Robb, pp 113-129. University Press of

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Florida, Gainsville. Plunket, P. and Urunuela. 2005. Recent Research in Puebla Prehistory. Journal of Archaeological Research 13(2): 89-127. Renfrew, C. 1984. Megaliths, Territories and Populations. In Approaches to Social Archaeology, edited by C. Renfrew, pp. 165-199. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh. Settar, S and G-D Sonthiemer (eds.). 1982. Memorial Stones: A Study of their Origins, Significance and Variety. Institute of Indian Art History, Karnatak University and South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg, New Delhi and Germany. Shaw, J., J. Sutcliffe, L. Lloyd-Smith, J-L. Schwenniger and M.S. Chauhan. 2007. Ancient Irrigation and Buddhist History in Central India: Optically Stimulated Luminescence Dates and Pollen Sequences from the Sanchi Dams. Asian Perspectives 46 (1): 166-201. Sinopoli, C.M. 2009. Late Prehistoric Landscapes of the Tungabhadra Corridor: Recent Excavations at Kadebakele (Koppal District, Karnataka). Recent Research Trends in South Asian Archaeology: Proceedings of the Professor H.D. Sankalia Birth Centenary Seminar, edited by K. Paddayya, P.P. Joglekar, K.K. Basa and R. Sawant, pp. 279-294. Deccan College Post Graduate Research Institute, Pune. Sinopoli, C.M., A. Bauer, R.L. Bauer, P. Johansen and N. Sugandhi. 2003. Early Historic Landscapes of the Tungabhadra Corridor, 2003 Field Season, Preliminary Report. Report submitted to the Archaeological Survey of India. Sinopoli, C.M., P. G. Johansen and K.D. Morrison. 2009. Changing cultural landscapes of the Tungabhadra Valley, South India. Power and Polities: Archaeological Perspectives on the Landscapes of Early States, edited by Steven Falconer and Charles L. Redman, pp. 11-41. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Sinopoli, C.M., and K. Morrison. 2007. The Vijayanagara Metropolitan Survey Volume I. Memoir 41. Museum of Anthropology University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. —. 2001. The Greater Metropolitan Region. In New Light on Hampi: Recent research at Vijayanagara, edited by J. Fritz and G. Michell, pp. 100-111. MARG, Mumbai. Smith, A.T. 2003. The Political Landscape: Constellations of Authority in Early Complex Societies. University of California Press, Berkeley. —. 1999. The Making of an Urartian Landscape in Southern Transcaucasia: A Study of Political Architectonics. American Journal of Archaeology 103 (1): 45-72. —. 1996. Imperial Archipelago: The Making of an Urartian Landscape in

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Southern Transcaucasia. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Arizona. Smith, A.T. and N. David. 1995. The Production of Space and the House of Xidi Sukur, Current Anthropology, 36(3): 441-470. Soja, K. 1985. The Spatiality of Social Life: Towards a Transformative Retheorization. In Social Relations and Spatial Structures, edited by D. Gregory and J. Urry, pp. 90-127. St. Martin’s Press, New York. Stockett, M.K. 2005. Approaching Social Practice through Access Analysis at Las Canoas, Honduras. Latin American Antiquity 16 (4): 385-407. Sundara, A. 1975. The Early Chamber Tombs of South India: A Study of the Iron Age Megalithic Monuments of Northern Karnataka. University Publishers, Delhi. Thapar, B.K. 1957. Maski 1954: A Chalcolithic site of the southern Deccan. Ancient India 13: 4-142. Tripathi, V. 2001. The Age of Iron in South Asia: Legacy and Tradition. Aryan Books International, New Delhi. Wolf, E.R. 1997[1982]. Europe and the People without History. University of California Press, Berkeley. Weckmann, L. 1951. The Middle ages in the Conquest of America. Speculum 26 (1): 130-141. Zagarell, A. 2002. Gender and Social Organization in the reliefs of the Nilgiri Hills. In Forager-Traders in South and Southeast Asia, edited by K.D. Morrison and L.J. Junker, pp. 77-104. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

CHAPTER SEVEN SUBJECTIVITY AND SPATIALITY IN INDUS URBAN FORMS: MOHENJO-DARO, THE BODY, AND THE DOMESTICATION OF WASTE UZMA Z. RIZVI

This chapter investigates constructions of self and subjectivity within an urban space. Through a focus on the body and spatiality, specifically relating to forms of architecture, urban planning and engineering, this study provides a step towards new interpretative frameworks for understanding the populations of Indus cities during the third millennium B.C. The primary forms of archaeological data utilized in this study are the waste management and drainage systems of the city of Mohenjo-Daro, used in order to document the disciplining of the body in the architectural space where it produces waste. This investigation recognizes a shift in the concept of the lived body from an understanding of biology that creates waste to a social body that lives within a particular context constituting a self that is governed in the production of waste through space and seclusion articulated in the urban environment. A discussion of subjectivity and spatiality is clearly relevant to multiple world areas and time periods. In using Mohenjo-Daro, this chapter also aims to contribute to the on-going scholarship related to understanding the organizing, managerial, centralized authority or power(s) that governed third millennium B.C. Indus Civilization. The project to define or understand the sovereign (if indeed that is the best way to describe this power) is necessarily beyond the scope of this chapter, and is the next step in the larger project. The selection of one site allows the analysis to focus on and locate the body and self in the ancient landscape at a human scale. This recalibration of scale shifts from a regional discussion of the Indus, to a micro-level analysis of the residential units in the city. The urban plan

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has the capacity to illustrate lived experience in ancient cityscapes in so far as such urban forms facilitate a specific interaction of the body with architecture and space in a densely planned urban environment. In most cases, when discussing the archaeology of South Asia, scholars bemoan the low resolution of archaeological data. This is not the case with the sewer system, which thus becomes, ironically, refreshing to work with. Building on prior scholarship of the Indus and discussions of the ancient body, this chapter examines the question of the body in the city, rerouting the discussion of power and control usually derived from ancient textual sources and/or technological apparatus of monumental architecture, to power indexed through the control of bodies in an urban space. The particularity of disciplining life through urban spaces, activating a specific type of space (Pløger 2008:52), is distinct in the construction of ancient cities and subjectivities. By interrogating the management of the space, the body, and the atrophic elements that exist between the two, I argue that it is through the seclusion of the body and its waste that transforms the body. This is a process in which there is a simultaneous construction of an interior self within fields of relational power and a condition of subjecthood that allude to particular subjectivities of that body. Contingent upon the disciplining of the body, spatiality is contextualized through reiterated practice mediated through urban spaces. Through the organization of urban space, decisions taken to traffic the body and its excretions in a managed order reflect the politics embedded in the policies and plans of Mohenjo-Daro.

Indus Urban Forms Work conducted on early Indus cities has primarily resulted in reconstructions of political systems within which urbanism existed (for example, Chakrabarti 1999; Jacobson 1986; Jansen 1994; Kenoyer 1998; Possehl 1999; Ratnagar 1991) [Figure 7-1]. The detailed planning of Indus cities suggests, among other things, centralized authority, specialization of craft, a complex society, and a thriving economy. Most significantly for this investigation, the urban planning project entailed an incredibly comprehensive waste and water management system, and access to water via wells in public and private locations. Scholars have also looked to urban form to understand social and ideological configurations of the Indus. A lack of formal religious indexicality and emphasis on access to water and water sources has led scholars, such as Gregory Possehl, to suggest that the reconstruction of ideology is not based on symbolic value rather on a metaphysical reality.

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Figure 7-1: Mature Harappan Sites (c. 2500-1900 B.C.). Map courtesy of G.L. Possehl.

Both he and Michael Jansen argue for the presence of water ideology (wasserlexus) that articulates the deep significance that access to water must have had for the Indus communities (2002: 57-58; Jansen 1989; 1993). Others, such as M.K. Dhavalikar have argued that Indus urban formations and plans generally divide the city into four localities, which correspond to fourfold divisions in society that may be a precursor to the varna system prevalent in Hindu society today (2002: 175). Most recently, Rita Wright (2010) has focused our attention on material correlates that provide information for an axis of value based on complexity of technology and access to resources (for discussions on value, see Miller

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2008). Wright argues that technological practices, such as the making of steatite beads, and ceramics, to name a few, and architectural forms index transformative mindsets that mark status distinctions and social differences within the populations (2010: 234-248). In these approaches, the tangible (urban form) informs possible intangibles (social/ideological) [see Possehl 2009 for a comprehensive review of Indus religion]. Hierarchies, centralized authority, and status have been discussed in relation to Indus cities in a variety of manners, scopes and scales (Bisht 1989; Chakrabarti 1999; Kenoyer 1998; Lahiri 2000; Lal 1997; Possehl 2002; Shaffer 1993; Thapar 1975; Wright 2010). By and large these analyses argue for forms of difference on the scale of communities or groups of people, whether in discussion of faunal analysis (Kennedy 1984), within discussions of difference and ethnicity (Shaffer and Liechtenstein 1989) or gender, sex, and sexuality (Clark 2003; Possehl 2002), as subjects of an Indus/Harappan cultural veneer (Meadow and Kenoyer 1997) and as communities living in different domains or cultural sub regions (Joshi 1984; Possehl 1999). In the Indus, the politics of the self, subject, and even identity are often limited to representational semiotics and material culture expressions of difference. These aspects of social or political distinction are illustrated by simple reversals of power structures, such as in that of class in which the binary of elite versus nonelite is used.1 The vast majority of scholars agree on the formulation of a state level of society (Jacobson 1986; Ratnagar 1991). Jim Shaffer’s work (1982) is one of the few early inquires which break out of the life cycle nature of political structuring that promulgate the idea of the birth, life and death of a culture. Rather, he shifts the discussion by refocusing the question on to how technology affects social organization. The Indus Civilization is agreed upon as a complex structuring agent that is best articulated and understood through craft specialization (Kenoyer 1989). This unique condition of the Indus, the hyper visibility of power's organization despite its invisible center, allows for an interrogation of the management of the body and its effluence within Indus urban forms. Analyzing the human body in such an urban Indus context, this paper examines the construction of subjectivity by locating the study in the most private space in the city, the toilets. There are a few other known Old World ancient sites that can boast of water waste disposal as part of urban planning: Late Uruk Period (3300-3200 B.C.) Habuba Kabira (Strommenger 1980) and third millennium B.C. Shahr-i-Sokhta (Tosi 1983). At both sites cylindrical ceramic pipes in the ground served as drains for waste water. The site of Tell Asmar in Mesopotamia, in third millennium B.C. strata,

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also has evidence of toilets and residential drainage, although primarily within the features documented as palaces (Frankfort 1933). However, the construction of individual latrines (in non-palatial structures) and the extent of the drainage network are far more complex and technologically robust at sites like Mohenjo-Daro. Almost every house, regardless of size, had a bathing place marked by a paved platform, with connecting ceramic drains or soak pits in the street (Jansen 1994: 270). The production of waste is the one activity that every biological body must engage in, and in the Indus, that constant provides a unique opportunity to study the ways in which the body may have been disciplined simultaneously by societal and cultural expectations within the urban form.

The Ancient Body as Subject Archaeological research about the ancient body, outside of physical anthropological circles, has been spearheaded, primarily, by feminist and gender studies. This scholarship first emerged from discourses illuminating the many ways in which women’s actions are responsible for the ancient artifactual record (Gero and Conkey 1991), how the female body moves or is moved through or secluded in space (Gilchrist 1994), and expanding the field of study to incorporate studying the corporeal, the construction of self and identity of the body and bodily excretions (Meskell 1999). Influenced by feminist literature, contemporary phenomenological approaches focus on the experiences of body practices, how representations, gestures, and postures are practiced on the body and its materiality (Joyce 2005; for Indus example, see Clark 2009). Research about the body has shifted from the ancient body as artifact or a locus of non-agentive display to a site of embodied agency. Archaeological scholarship has continued in this line of theoretical innovation, most recently allowing for nuanced discussions of queer bodies to emerge within archaeological discourses (Voss 2008; see also Geller 2009). The discussion presented in this chapter focuses on the human body and the processes through which it constitutes its subjectivity within a practice that every human body must perform, i.e. excreting waste. The link between the body and its waste are only significant to discussions of power if there is a clear articulation of the disciplining of space and body. Under this condition the history of waste can become the history of subjectivity. In a foundational sense, Marcel Mauss’s 1934 “Les techniques du corps” (Techniques of the Body) refers to the everyday highly developed body actions that embody specific aspects of a given culture (1973: 70-88).

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Subsequent work on the body and its actions connects them to the political frameworks within which they operate; for example, Michel Foucault’s work on biopolitics, which identifies the means of rationalizing government practices that control the body in eighteenth century Europe (1979). This notion of biopolitics has enjoyed continued use in the literature due to its evocative nature and ability to identify decisions and rationalizations of organizing powers as having structural ramifications (as apparatus) on the human body (for example, Lazzarato 2002; Sakai and Solomon 2006; Wallenstein 2009). Contemporary scholarship has used the notion of biopolitics as a form of power of Empire, “expressed as a control that extends throughout the depths of the consciousnesses and bodies of the population,” (Hardt and Negri 2000: 24) or delving deeper into epistemological separations of the body versus the subject by interrogating the meanings of life and the power of the sovereign (Agamben 1995[1998]). Utilized within archaeological scholarship, these concepts provide new frameworks for understanding power over ancient bodies, as evidenced in Zainab Bahrani’s work on war, its organization and technologies, and the representations of the prisoners of war and bodies in ancient Mesopotamia (2008). Her work is particularly critical of rote lineages of representation; rather, it focuses on ideologies of and philosophical beliefs about war in the Mesopotamian tradition. These conceptions of violence and power, she argues, were “inseparable from conceptions of the body and its control; and the process and rituals of war that these formulations of the body and power made possible.” (2008: 15) Scholarship of the body as subject has been cast in relation to violence on the body, arguably one of the key manners in which one can identify the state’s effects on the body. A more delicate take on the construction of subjectivity in relation to the state is Dominique Laporte’s “Histoire de la merde” (History of Shit) (1993 [2000]). Focusing on the politics of waste and waste management/disposal in sixteenth century France this study establishes links between sovereign power, the language of the law, and codes of purification. Laporte outlines how the disciplining of the body, particularly in reference to excrement production, involves a conditioning of all senses, at once creating and reiterating social hierarchies. Physical proximity to any form of “waste” directly indexes social status, illustrating a link between the creation of particular ideologies in relation to shit and interaction with the body through the vernacular, olfactory, and visual, thus revealing the identification of the invisible powers on the subject. The crux of this chapter is precisely this: the most basic form of life, the concept of the lived body, shifts from an understanding of biology that creates waste, to a social body that lives within a particular context

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constituting self, which is governed in the production and management of waste through space and seclusion articulated in the urban form. To analyze the urban form at a human scale in an effort to locate the ancient body and the construction of subjectivity, the site of Mohenjo-Daro is presented as a case study.

Mohenjo-Daro: Locating the Body in the City2 The site of Mohenjo-Daro (27° 15’ N, 68° 05’ E) is located in contemporary Pakistan (Sindh Province) and is considered one of the main urban centers of the Indus Civilization, extending well over 250 hectares (roughly 100-125 hectares visible [Tosi, Bondioli and Vidale 1984: 15; Jansen 1994: 270; Possehl 2002: 185]) [Figure 7-2]. Archaeological excavations at Mohenjo-Daro document hundreds of dwelling-houses and large buildings constructed along streets and lanes oriented towards cardinal points, which index an architectural sophistication of a well planned city (Jansen 1989: 177). Early research on the site recognized it as part of the Harappan Culture by 1922 (Banerji 1921), with subsequent excavations over the next 50 years uncovering the densely built up urban area (Marshall 1925-26, 1931; Mackay 1938; Hussain 1989; Wheeler 1953) and continued studies of the material culture until present (ArdeleanuJansen 1984; 1988; 1992; 2002; Blackman and Vidale 1992; Dales and Kenoyer 1986; Halim and Vidale 1984; Miller 2008). The main project at Mohenjo-Daro since 1979 has been the architectural documentation and investigation of formal and functional aspects through the ARPM (Aachen University Research Project Mohenjo-Daro) primarily directed by Michael Jansen (Jansen 1994; Jansen and Urban 1984; 1987; Jansen and Tosi 1988). Visually arresting due to its elevation, the western mound at MohenjoDaro variously called the “Stupa Mound,” (Marshall 1931), the “Citadel” (Wheeler 1953), the “Acropolis” (Jansen 1989) and even the “Mound of the Great Bath,” (Possehl 2002), is spatially separated from the “Lower Town” area by its construction on an artificial platform or substructure upon which structures still visible today were erected. This artificial mound, which is about 400 meters by 200 meters (8 hectares), consists of a huge retaining wall with inner filling surmounted by structures (Possehl 2002: 185; Jansen 1994: 269). The buildings visible on the surface are made primarily of fired brick and there is evidence of some structures that include timber as well. Excavations on this western mound uncovered a large colonnaded building with a specially designed water tank usually referred to as the “Great Bath” (or “Tank” [Wheeler 1953]). To the east of

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Figure 7-2: Site Plan from Mohenjo-Daro. Map courtesy of G.L. Possehl.

the “Great Bath” is an architectural structure variously named the “Granary” (Habib 2002; Wheeler 1953), the “Warehouse” (Possehl 2002), or the “Great Hall” (Kenoyer, personal communication)–a massive building with solid brick foundations with sockets for a wooden super structure, doorways, and a “heavy, thick, flat roof” (Possehl 2002: 191). Two other major building projects on the Mound are large open areas with colonnades. The “College” is located northeast of the “Great Bath” in the SD Area, and the “Assembly Hall” or “Pillared Hall” is in the southern part of the mound, in the C Block of the L-area. Just south of the “Pillared Hall” in L-Area there are a series of residential smaller units with bathing platforms, wells, and small internal courtyards, in A Block, B Block, and D Block (Mackay 1928-29).

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To the east of the mound, is the expansive “Lower Town” made up of numerous lower mounds that have been excavated over the years, including the DK, HR, VS and SD Areas and an extension of the “Lower Town” called the Moneer Area. The “Lower Town” has usually been the locus of architectural and residential study. In the Mohenjo-Daro excavation reports from the 1922–1927 seasons Sir John Marshall proposed three classes of architecture: dwelling houses, buildings whose purpose has not yet been determined and public baths which may have had either a religious or secular character (1931: 17). Marshall’s classes are simplistic. Subsequent scholarship, like that of Anna Sarcina, has established distinctions between private residences (i.e. residential models) and other public units (i.e. craft production or trade uses). Sarcina has used the statistical patterning of the architecture of these units to establish a theoretical residential pattern. Such patterns permit an understanding of relations between frequency, dimensional uniformity, and location of the residential models, as well as social organization (1979a: 157; 1979b). She has used the placement of the “courtyard” as the focal point and its relation with the rest of the architectural unit as a manner in which to suggest patterning. The five categories are identified by colors: yellow (58 models), red (42 models), green (6 models), brown (4 models) and black (2 models). These residential units are taken from both the HR-area and the VS-area. Archaeologists working at Mohenjo-Daro consider the various areas of the “Lower Town” to have been vibrant urban neighborhoods (Jansen 1989). Each of these neighborhoods was internally linked through a system of drainage that allowed for water to be brought into and waste drained out of the residential unit. The smaller drains and chutes of waste converged through the smaller lanes and merged into larger drains that further connected to even larger corbelled vault drains that exited the waste outside the city walls. Such public works are articulated on multiple scales, from the individual residence to the city as a whole. A key feature within these residential areas is a well. There is an average catchment radius of 25 meters per well estimated for Mohenjo-Daro; if extrapolated to the entire built-up area, including the unexcavated sectors, the city must have been serviced by at least 700 wells, with an average frequency of one in every third house (Jansen 1989: 179). Many of the houses in the “Lower Town” had their own private wells. One of the most common features of a house at Mohenjo-Daro was a rectilinear bathing platform, which was slightly tilted so that the water would flow into a corner and out of the bathing areas through a drain in the wall. Most houses were also equipped with latrines and/or privies in personal residential units [Figure 7-3]. There is

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some contention about whether all the pipes would be able to handle both solid and liquid waste, but regardless, these small, secluded, and closed spaces within households suggest localizable activity areas where bodily functions were taking place. Architectural plumbing features in these houses include intramural drains, vertical drain-pipes in the walls, chutes through walls to the streets, and drains from bathing floors into street drains. The streets and lanes in all the neighborhoods were provided with drainage. Most of the street drains had brick or stone covers and were roughly 50-60 cm under the street or ground surface. The most frequent cover was simply an ordinary baked brick laid flat across the sidewalls; the wider drains were covered with large limestone blocks quarried from the Rohri Hills area. Small settling pools and traps were built into the drains that allowed for coarse sediment and other materials to drop out of the flow in places where they could be later collected, as Mackay attested to based on, “the little heaps of greenish-gray sand…frequently found alongside them.” (1938: 29) Drains were made with baked brick, mudbrick, gypsum, terracotta, and stone, with some drains in certain areas, open to the sky, others covered with stone, and some of the larger ones entirely underground. Excavators have noted that the latter drains are large enough to fit people, allowing for easy cleaning in case of clogs (Jansen 1989; Mackay 1938). It is unlikely that every body that inhabited the city had to unclog the drains–but it is very likely that every body that inhabited the city contributed to materials in the drains. These bodies are forms of selves that are informed by practices linked to the ways in which they walk through, around, or under the city. The ways in and modes by which people traverse cityscapes may be infinitely diverse–and yet, there are some manners in which the urban form dictates how the body can be located in space, if only, in some instances, for functional purposes. The function of waste production was thus located on the scale of the individual, but the distribution and management of waste was a site-wide activity integrally linked to the urban policies that shaped that plan.

Spatial Seclusion and the Body/Subject Culture, ideology, and politics are manifest in the physical form of the city; the secluded nature of latrines is rife with potential for the regulation of the body. This direct management of the body becomes visible in the variable allocation of space and the apparatus of seclusion. Spatial segregation and separation have been theorized within archaeology in relation to complexity, in which the division of labor is most often cited as

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Figure 7-3: Latrine from Mohenjo-Daro. Photo by J.M. Kenoyer, courtesy of Harappa.com and Department of Archaeology and Museums, Govt. of Pakistan.

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the way in which we understand the construction of space (Kent 1990). These forms of separation, such as rooms or activity areas for household functions, usually create groups of people within spaces. The separation relevant for this chapter is particular in that it creates a seclusion of an individual body/self due to the structural separation articulated in the architectural form of the latrine. The standardization of the latrine form, across various residential units, indexes centralization of policy decisions reflected in architecture related to the management of waste with the specific intention of control and domestication. The Indus urban form exemplifies standardization. One of the key indicators of central management within the Indus urban form is the standardization of the bricks in an approximate ratio of 1:2:4. Thus construction of the built world around the body establishes conformity within a ratio creating an expectation of sameness based on relational values. The homogeneity of the ratio allows for the individualized functional aspirations and social life of each brick (and I would argue, body) within a specific Indus ideation. The relational sameness thus allows a diversity of meaning which extends to all the standardized forms of the Indus, like ceramic assemblages, shell bangles, or beads (to name a few). This adjustment of diverse sameness may be what Sarcina refers to as the “prevailing social uniformity” in her discussion of the standardization of house forms (1979a: 181); or more broadly the ways in which the “Harappan veneer” might be contextualized (Meadow and Kenoyer 1997). The diverse sameness implies that this is not a homogenous urban grouping—rather there are clear examples of distinction within the urban landscape as well (Wright 2010: 246). The Indus body existing with the expectations of sameness and the allowance of relational value is individualized within the socio-cultural system. Those socio-cultural distinctions are then reflected in the distribution of material culture. In particular, class, status, and rank distinctions can be inferred by the quality, absence/presence of, and locations of artifacts, latrines and drainpipes. Such distinctions allow for multiple creations of diverse habitus that also inform the constructions of subjectivities of the inhabitants of the city. Within the relationships of possible body-subject constructions, the city continues to discursively inform the movement of bodies through space. The significance of such diverse sameness cannot simply be thought of as having material repercussions. Each material decision articulates a conceptual choice that orders the space and forms around us, particularly in an urban context. The desire to control space is heightened in such contexts where populations, crowds, newness, difference, and power intermix in cosmopolitan realities. The ability to control the uncertainty

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and early urban anxieties speaks of powerful social and political structures— ones that create the feeling of safety and security through order and control of the body, space, and relational forms. It is an urban policy based on the standardization of experience through the standardization of construction— and yet, by using a relational standard, allows for individual experiences to emerge within a controlled environment. Such individualized experiences are the controlled every day practices that give meaning to spaces (de Certeau 1984; Lefebvre 1991 [1974]). By ordering the material world, the ways in which human bodies traverse through the material is structured. By providing a relational value to the material, the possibilities of ways bodies move through space is also given a relational stance, which in turn, is informed by social constructions such as gender, class, race and ethnicity. The construction of self from the experience of the body becomes a fleeting concept, only relevant as long as that body moves through that space. However, I would argue that there is something more visceral to that existence, an experience that allows the self to move into subjecthood, at the most basic level, articulated in the secluded spaces of the privies/latrines/toilets. Spatial analysis of Mohenjo-Daro has focused on the movement of the body through space, and has in fact, informed the manner in which structural functional evaluations of rooms have been conducted (Jansen 1984: 48). Based on access and movement between rooms, this analysis demonstrates an ability to distinguish cultural presumptions about what “private” and “public” mean in the Indus. The system of analysis explores degrees of access in which the categories go from most public to most private: 1. compartments directly accessible to the public; 2. compartments with more than one entrance (transit rooms); 3. compartments with a single entrance only (terminal rooms). (Jansen 1984: 48)

In so far as the latrines/privies can be considered terminal rooms, that is, rooms that do not lead anywhere else, they may at the very least, be considered secluded, if not private. And within those secluded spaces, very specific bodily functions were activated and contained. Those secluded spaces had very specific architectural conventions and a complex system of drainage that linked them to more public places. Within the residential unit, the system of drainage was planned in such a manner that any waste producing room was situated on the street side of the houses (Jansen 1989:187). Similarly, the waste water and other sewage of almost every house would be evacuated from the residential structure

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through an outlet into the larger drain running along the street outside (Jansen 1989:177). The latrines themselves were often incorporated in the outside wall of the bathing platforms. They were fitted with vertical chutes through which the sewage fell either directly into the street drain or into a cesspit. These vertical structures consisted of stacks of conical pipe sections, each about 60 centimeters long, built into the outside wall. The latrine itself was a rectangular baked brick structure with a larger brick or wooden plank for sitting or squatting placed across a pair of raised side supports (Jansen 1989: 187-188) [Figure 7-3]. The waste from the latrine would flow into built-in chutes, which sometimes stopped short some distance above the relevant drain or vessel in exposed locations, for example in House 49, HR-B Area. This exposure to waste in certain places probably resulted in a noticeably odorous atmosphere, in contrast to other locations, where drainage was covered and the smell of waste was not as penetrating. The bouquet emitted from the chutes, pits, and cesspools was formally attended to by every possible means of coverage (wooden plank, flatstones) and suggests an entire work force to maintain such control over the senses. The effluence was drained between the private spaces of the residential units to the more public spaces of the lanes and streets of Mohenjo-Daro. On the unpaved streets, drains ran roughly 50 or 60 cm below the surface; U-shape in cross-section, the sides and bottom of the drains were built of bricks set in clay mortar with a variety of possibilities for drain coverings, including loose bricks, flagstones or wooden boards. Jansen estimates a typical cross section of a drain to be “17 to 25 cm broad and 15 to 50 cm high, i.e. between two and eight brick courses deep,” with a slope gradient of 2 centimeters per meter (Jansen 1989: 189). These curved features were situated so that any frictional loss was at a minimum, and if the drains were particularly long, or it was a location where several drains intersected, cesspools were installed. These cesspools allowed for the waste to flow into the brick shafts at a higher level, and as the material fills to the top, it flowed out the other end at a slightly lower level. Any suspended material would deposit along the sides and bottom of the pool allowing for easy removal. These pools were most likely covered with wooden planks (Jansen 1989: 189). In some areas where small lanes would open onto bigger streets, open soak pits, which required more constant cleaning, were used. However, in terms of waste emerging from the household, even if the street drain was at a distance, a closed sewage catchment vessel was used. These vessels were positioned under the vertical toilet chute just outside the house. The only way to empty them out would be to tip them or, if the latrine was

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fixed into the wall, the contents scooped out. There are also examples of vessels with perforated bases that may have functioned as soak pits (Jansen 1989). In all these variations, waste was still ushered out of the house in a discreet and covered fashion. This suggests a very clear distinction in open versus closed sewages: in so far as waste emerged from private spaces, it needed to be covered, mirroring the seclusion of the body in the act of excreting.

Subjectivity and the Politics of Domesticating Waste The containment of bodily excretions articulate specific ideals of power on the body, reiterated through the continued practice of the every day techniques of bodies in these spaces. The domestication of waste is exemplified both by the structures of containment as well as through the practices that the body enacts during the function of excretion. The specificity of architectural form requires the body to sit in a particular manner, creating subjecthood through visceral, visual, olfactory and audible requirements on and of the body. Power manifest in architecture is rarely thought of in relation to latrines, but in fact, through a standardization of form requiring a standardization of practice, each body encounters social, cultural and political power on its body in an intimate setting and in a secluded space. The diversity of ways in which each individual experience is distinct thus becomes a narrow field in which all bodies are first and foremost required to defecate in the ways the organizing power has deemed fit. Wright has discussed these as rules “imposed about proper places to conduct bodily functions” (2010: 245). It is in that intimacy that this act can be powerful and it is in those secluded spaces that this affair between self and subjectivity is coherent. The political potential of such regulated behavior is not accidental. For example, Richard Neudecker’s, Die Pracht der Latrine (1994) illustrates how Roman urban planners of the second and third centuries A.D. used the hidden political power embedded in the regulation of private behavior (Koloski-Ostrow 2000). Neudecker argues that Roman social hierarchy was partly a result of conditioning as per the use of, what he calls “luxury” latrines, and in this manner links the materiality of the latrine to the status of the individual using it. There is no doubt that the materials used in Indus drainage reflect social hierarchies (see Wright 2010: 245-248). It would stand to reason that shit collected in gypsum-lined drains was of a higher status than that flowing into simple baked brick. The manner in which the excretions of the body maintain the status of the body is significant and yet, regardless

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of status, they continue to be separated and hidden within the visual landscape in the city. The urban forms domesticate the economies of waste, from the moment of production, to distribution and redistribution, indexing at the source, a domestication of the human body into self and subject in relation to the centralized authority3. The scales of bodily seclusion to enact waste production include the separation of self from society into the household and the separation of self within the household. This privatization of waste can be linked to not only the act itself but to all the visceral components of that act. It creates bonds within the residential unit through the act—in some sense, those within the interior spaces of the structural units are close enough to allow for various olfactory or visible signs (via the chutes and drains in the house) to emerge. Thus bonds form within the units themselves based on access to the terminal rooms and use patterns. The secluded space of defecation also provides a new place in the city, a solitary place in the city, a place where internal monologues and reflection may occur as an unintended consequence of formal separation. The ideation of sensory seclusion follows the waste product as it moves from the body to the drains of the house to the drains of the lanes and into the drains of the main streets. As the domesticated waste traverses the city landscape, it is anonymous and invisible. This desire to separate waste or contamination is obvious in the drain covers and the manner in which “trash” was collected through the use of bins in public locations. The controlling of the olfactory is also clear in the urban form—not only as seen in the drain covers, which significantly reduces smell emanating from waste, but also in the way that odors resulting from pyrotechnological activities were contained by limiting such activities to specific spaces in the urban landscape. These methods of visceral, visual, olfactory and audible separation found in the urban form and informed by the socio-cultural and political contexts provide the structure within which the subject may be created. The governance of this subject is then contingent upon the continued practice of everyday biological humanness.

Concluding Thoughts This chapter investigates value that is embodied in defecation, a value that is constructed by practice and social context. The construction of self through seclusion recognizes diffuse but very structured power that determines public utility through waste management. The process outlining the construction of self in this chapter brings together the historical

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specificity and materiality of the technologies of the self, along with the techniques of the self, in an act that reduces the body to basic biological needs. Control and discipline are illustrated through the ordering of daily life. This study does not follow the usual reconstruction of ancient power as having the excessive ability and right to take life as its own, exemplifying its authority through extravagant displays of control of the body and ability to mobilize bodies to construct monumental embodiments of dominance. Rather, it is the seclusion that accentuates the invisibility of the ancient power in a manner that precludes its time. This case study allows us to move beyond the metaphoric use of control and technologies of control to an understanding of control operating on multiple scales of a specific biological event. That this action is controlled through planning and policy in a gesture of excretion by the body that is compliant with the requirement for the seclusion and separation, transforms the body to self and subject by the reiterated practice in the most basic of all manners, that is, defecation. Through such an analysis, the Indus is recognized as having conditions that are relational, the ability to create the self in an image it perceives as the appropriate subject, as having regulations that are relevant to the body, that are intimate with the body, and that then inherently control and exert power by disciplining the body. The construction of the city of MohenjoDaro in this capacity and form allows its political ideology to be reinforced through practice every single day.

Acknowledgements I want to thank Peter Johansen and Andrew Bauer for their invitation to present an early version of this paper at the Society for American Archaeology conference (2008). I also want to thank them for the generosity of support and keen editing eye in the production of this chapter for this volume. A version of this paper was also presented at the Third Annual South Asian Archaeology Workshop, Yale University (2010), and this chapter has benefited from the comments of the participants of that workshop. Thank you, Marta Ameri, Ashish Chadha, Praveena Gullapalli, Nelson Hancock, Ann Holder, Christian L. Novetzke, Benjamin Porter, and Rita Wright for comments on this piece at various stages of its production. And for making sure it all comes together, as always, Murtaza Vali. This research was funded by a Mellon Foundation Faculty Grant from Pratt Institute.

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Notes 1

See Smith 2004 for a detailed critique of the archaeological subject. Jansen (1994) argues for caution in using the terms ‘city,’ ‘urban,’ and ‘town’ as they have very specific connotations and index western notions of the processes seen at sites such as Mohenjo-Daro. He recommends being aware of semantic differentiation that might have occurred in the lexical register of the Indus which might consider Mohenjo-Daro a spatial locus with different variables or at different scales. For the purposes of this paper, his cautionary note is acknowledged; the author does not believe that its use (as city or urban) effects the outcome of the analysis. 3 Every body that inhabited the city did not have access to these latrines. This argument of subjectivity is specific to those who occupied these units in the city. Thus, an argument can be made for multiple subjectivities being formed. Unfortunately, that exploration is outside the scope of this paper. 2

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CHAPTER EIGHT TOWARDS A MIDDLE RANGE THEORY OF HOUSEHOLD POLITICS: THE STANDARDIZATION OF DECORATIVE MOTIFS IN MIDDLE POST-CLASSIC MEXICO ELIZABETH M. BRUMFIEL

Households are important units of archaeological investigation. They organize essential economic and social processes, including production and reproduction and the distribution and inheritance of household assets (Wilk and Rathje 1982). Households articulate both with the local environment and with larger institutions such as markets, kin groups, states, and religious organizations (Guyer 1981; Wilk 1991). They are also places of deep sentiment, where particular definitions of identity are inscribed and naturalized (Bourdieu 1977; Sørensen 2000; Hendon 2004). Moreover, in household contexts, anthropologists are able to study individuals and their socially situated choices and world views (Moore 1986; Robin 2003). Archaeologists find households particularly appealing because they are archaeologically accessible through the excavation of ancient habitations. Although households and houses do not always coincide (Wilk and Ashmore 1988; Yanagisako 1979), archaeologists have for the most part been happy to equate households with houses or patio groups (Hendon 2006; cf. Coleman Goldstein 2008). Households have often been regarded as unitary “social actors.” Households have been said to work toward goals, fashion strategies, and adapt to changing demographic and political pressures in an effort to meet the needs of their members (Wilk and Rathje 1982:618). The model of the household as a unitary social actor is based on the assumption that individuals who live together share a unified household strategy, which stems from the common practices, world view, and instrumental logic

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shared by household members and from each member’s stake in the wellbeing of the unit as a whole.1 However, the model of the household as a unitary social unit has been vigorously critiqued by feminist scholars (Freidan 1963; Hart 1992; Hendon 1996; Roldán 1987). These scholars point out that power inequalities within households often produce uneven allocations of work, income, opportunity and decision-making among household members, to the advantage of some and the detriment of others. Regarding households as unitary social actors obscures the complex tensions and negotiations that occur within the household as its members pursue their individual interests (Hartman 1981; Guyer 1981; Schmink 1984; Wolf 1972; Yanagisako 1979). Three decades of research on the household have provided a long list of issues that might engender intra-household negotiation and dispute. Disagreements might arise over the mix of crops to be grown in household fields (each crop with its own labor requirements for production and processing and each destined for specific spheres of consumption); the allocation of household labor to domestic maintenance, child care, elder care, house construction or repair, agriculture, craft production, marketing, wage work, political maneuvering, and leisure; the expenditure of household income in capital investments, marriages, education or the consumer aspirations of household members; decisions concerning residential stability and mobility of the household or its members; restructuring the size and composition of the household through reproduction, marriage, clientship, or slavery; sanctioning the behavior of household members; and passing household assets on to younger members of the household (Guyer 1981; Moore 1992; Roldán 1987; Schmink 1984; Wilk 1991). Negotiations over these matters often involve appeals to culturally specific definitions of persons, rights, and needs (Fraser 1989). But disputes may be decided by the support that household members can draw from outside allies such as lineage mates, employers, state officials, or religious brethren (Guyer 1981; Moore 1992). In return, these extra-household allies can tap household resources in order to finance their own more public economic and political projects (Blanton 1995; Brumfiel 1994; Coontz and Henderson 1986; Hayden 1995). Thus, the household is an important locus for the articulation of private and public politics. The character of prehistoric households is still in question. While numerous ethnographers have documented conflict and negotiation within households, all of these households have participated to a greater or lesser extent in the global market economy, often over the course of several centuries (Pyburn 2004; Wilk 1991). Exposure to capitalist forms of labor

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and consumption may have produced more self-seeking individuals and diminished the collective nature of domestic social life. Strathern (1988) proposes that tribal societies produce more deeply socialized humans who are less inclined to engage in the self-seeking power struggles that typify bourgeois, post-Enlightenment individuals. But Lynn Meskell (1999:9) has labeled such arguments ethnocentric, and she argues vigorously in favor of the existence of the “single person as the fount of agency, consciousness, interpretation and creativity in cultural and social life” throughout human history. Dobres and Robb’s (2000) volume on agency in archaeology suggests that there is little agreement concerning the nature of human nature in the pre-colonial world. About half the contributors to the volume view actors as responding in self-promoting ways to their socially structured interests; the other half see actors’ self-interest as submerged in culturally specific patterns of cognition, logic, meaning, and particularly the actor’s self-identity (Brumfiel 2000). Blanton (1995) usefully suggests that households run the gamut from egalitarian, communalistic groups to those organizing inequality among members based on differences of gender, age and civil status. Ironically, Blanton believes that self-interest is most influential in determining the formation, maintenance, and change of egalitarian households, those that processual archaeologists might regard as the most evolutionary “primitive.” In egalitarian situations, individuals are free to join or leave households, collaborate or not, according to their perceptions of their individual advantage. In hierarchical households, Blanton explains, the goals of senior members take precedence over the goals of others, requiring specialized mechanisms to keep junior household members in line. These devices include coercion (not explored by Blanton) and mechanisms of ideological domination, which submerge self-interest and “constrain the ability of household members to make objective choices” (Blanton 1995:113). Such devices include the presentation of symbolic messages through household ritual and habitus which make household inequality appear powerful and sacred. Exactly the same devices are emphasized by Hendon (2004:280) as means of achieving household unity, although she prefers to regard them more neutrally as means of constructing identity rather than forms of ideological domination: Life-cycle rituals, accompanied by feasting and music-making, as well as the daily activities of production, reinforced these images of ideal appearance and behaviors as well as reaffirming household solidarity and social relations.

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The question of uniform or contested perspectives within prehistoric households seems ripe for empirical study. It seems likely that Blanton is correct in suggesting that household relationships form a continuum, with households where members who share a unity of purpose at one end of the continuum and households with highly contentious internal relations at the other and households where individual interests are submerged in ideologically laden identities somewhere in between (or constituting a separate dimension of variation?). If households with different degrees of unity could be identified archaeologically, then the political, economic and cultural factors leading to unity or conflict could be studied, and a historicized study of household politics could take its place among studies of other social and ecological forces in the analysis of social change. This chapter is an effort to develop an archaeological gauge of household unity. It brings together two lines of evidence used in previous archaeological studies of household politics. The first is the decoration of domestic artifacts. Martin Wobst (1977) first suggested that styles of dress and ornamentation might be used to communicate information on social identity. Polly Wiessner (1983, 1984, 1989) extended Wobst’s suggestion in two ways. First, she suggested that artifact styles could communicate affiliation at a variety of levels: households, lineages, local settlements and regional populations. Second, she suggested that individual styles might be used for self promotion. Decorated artifacts could communicate a positive image of an individual to attract possible exchange partners, including members of the opposite sex. Ian Hodder (1982, 1986) has also suggested that individuals decorate household artifacts in order to promote their prestige and power. Specifically, Hodder (1986:109) suggested that Ilchamus women in the Baringo district of Kenya decorate the calabashes that they use to serve milk to their children in order to emphasize “the reproductive importance of women in a society in which reproduction (of children and of the cattle which produce milk) is the central pivot of male power.” This claim is normally denied by men, “who control the dominant mode of discourse—overt speech.” Men’s control of public discourse requires women to assert their contributions more obliquely, through calabash decoration. Sharisse and Geoffrey McCafferty (1991) applied this suggestion to decorated ceramic spindle whorls in ancient Mexico. They proposed that spindle whorl decoration asserted women’s control over the economically important sphere of cloth production and their affiliation with the goddesses that controlled human reproduction. Both of these assertions would have reinforced women’s status and power. Blanton (1994) found a statistical association between highly decorated living quarters and hierarchical households. He explains this as the result

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of efforts by household heads to communicate legitimating ideologies to household members who serve their interests. A second form of evidence used to explore household politics is the variability of artifacts and their distributions. Several archaeologists have suggested the existence of an inverse relationship between variability in archaeological data sets and the strength of social norms. For example, Christine Hastorf (1991) has argued that the dispersion or concentration of debris on household living floors reflects ease or strain of relationships among household members. She suggests that the more even distribution of plant refuse in Wanka II households in Peru reflects a lower degree of stress between household members in pre-Inca times, whereas, the increased spatial concentration of plant refuse in Wanka III households suggests tightened control over daily household activities and more constraints on individuals under Inca domination. Cross-cultural data lend support to Hastorf’s argument; Blanton (1995:120) found that the presence of gender-specific space in houses correlated with postmarital residence rules that limit the choices of lower ranking members. Marcia-Anne Dobres (1995) suggests that the magnitude of the standard deviation of stone tool attributes at a given site reflects the strength of social norms. That is, strictly defined social roles are associated with low technical variability in artifacts, and while more flexible social roles are associated with higher technical variability. Finally, Wiessner (1989) proposes that relations between the individual and “society” are apparent in stylistic diversity. She suggests that the degree of design variability within local groups expresses individual versus group identity. Wiessner (1989) speculates that greater stylistic variability would be promoted by increased competition between individuals, increased opportunity for individual economic gain, or a breakdown in social order. It seems likely that the intensification of any of the numerous issues involving household decisions as described above might produce an increase in individual, as opposed to group, stylistic expression and an increase in stylistic variability. This chapter uses variability in the design motifs on different categories of artifacts as a gauge of the unity or tension within prehistoric households. It draws upon artifacts recovered from the excavation of a single commoner household (Zocalo C) in Xaltocan, Mexico, dating to the Middle Postclassic (1050-1200 C.E.) [Figure 8-1]. This phase of occupation at Xaltocan represents the period between the decline of Early Postclassic Tula in 1050 and the rise of the Aztec Empire in 1430 (Brumfiel 2005a). During this time, the Basin of Mexico was filled with a number of small, autonomous kingdoms, with Xaltocan dominating the

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northern Basin of Mexico (Brumfiel 1983; Davies 1980; Sanders et al. 1979). Xaltocan ceramics closely link Xaltocan with Culhuacan and other polities to the south and east of the site (Brumfiel 2005b). Zocalo C was a 3 x 7 m unit located at the northeast corner of the main square of contemporary Xaltocan, across the street from Xaltocan’s 16thcentury church. Although today the main square is the center of economic, social, and religious activity in the town, the plaza lies at the southwest edge of the Middle Postclassic occupation, and it probably dates to the Late Postclassic (Aztec) Period, 1430-1521 C.E. (Miller 2007). Excavations at Zocalo C revealed a Middle Postclassic residence consisting of several superimposed adobe-brick rooms with compact dirt floors and associated patio areas, storage areas, and deposits of domestic refuse. The artifacts recovered from Zocalo C suggest that members of this household engaged in subsistence activities (water fowl hunting, salt production, food preparation), craft production (textile production, obsidian blade production), and household ritual (using ceramic figurines and censers, sub-floor infant burials and modest artifact caches or offerings). This suite of activities is comparable to those present at other Middle Postclassic households at Xaltocan, and Zocalo C appeared to have enjoyed a standard of living comparable to, but no higher than, these other households. Zocalo C yielded few indications of distinctly elite status (Brumfiel and Rodríguez-Alegría 2010). The present analysis involves three classes of artifacts recovered from Zocalo C: Aztec I Black-on-Orange ceramics, Polychrome ceramics, and ceramic spindle whorls. I examine the iconographic meanings of the designs on these ceramic objects, but more important for the issue of household unity, I examine the diversity of design motifs and the extent to which motifs were shared among the artifact categories. I argue that decorated serving vessels represent a negotiated identity that the household as a unit presented when it faced the public as the sponsor of household feasts. On the other hand, I argue that decorated spindle whorls represent individual identity. Differences between the design motifs appearing on spindle whorls and serving vessels gauge the degree to which the personal identity of habitual spindle whorl users (i.e., women?) differed from the negotiated identity of the household as a public actor. These differences signal the extent to which the household was a place of interpersonal negotiation and possible tension. On the other hand, shared motifs on spindle whorls and serving vessel motifs indicate the unitary character of a household and the shared identity and outlook of its members. Shared motifs signal an absence of opposing interests and strategies within households and a corresponding absence of household politics.

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Figure 8-1: The Valley of Mexico during the Postclassic era, showing the locations Xaltocan and other important settlements.

The diversity or richness of decorative motifs on spindle whorls and serving vessels is also important. I hypothesize that if collective household activities involved the negotiation of individual interests, then the artifacts used in such activities (e.g., decorated serving vessels used in feasts)

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should exhibit a more limited range of design motifs than the artifacts used in activities that required less coordination of household personnel (e.g., spindle whorls). Prior to presenting a quantitative analysis of design overlap and diversity, I explore possible iconographic meanings of the designs appearing on serving vessels and spindle whorls. These meanings help to establish the use contexts of the artifacts that enter into the quantitative analysis. Recent discussions of daily practice have emphasized how these routines serve as mechanisms for maintaining relations of power within and between households (Bourdieu 1977; Hodder and Cessford 2004; Moore 1986). In contrast, Lightfoot et al. (1998) and Voss (2005) have explored how individuals can modify daily practices to negotiate and change their social identities. Contextualizing artifact designs within the sphere of daily practice at Middle Postclassic Xaltocan allows us to see how these artifacts might have strengthened a single hegemonic world view within households or provided the means to formulate alternatives. Ultimately, however, I rely on the quantitative measures of design overlap and diversity to gauge the extent of household unity. I think that these quantitative measures are methodologically more important than the iconographic analysis because they can be applied in any archaeological context, even in deep prehistory where written texts do not aid in the interpretation of design motifs. Moreover, quantitative measures provide a comparative view of households in contrasting economic and political contexts and thus can potentially supply a broad-ranging history of household politics and social change.

Methods I recorded the design motifs on 33 Black-on-Orange (Aztec I) vessels, 19 Polychrome vessels, and 12 spindle whorls, all from Zocalo C at Xaltocan. Spindle whorls are perforated ceramic disks associated with spinning thread for cloth production. These perforated ceramic disks help spindles maintain their rotational momentum during spinning. Spindle whorls from Postclassic sites in central Mexico come in different sizes. Small spindle whorls weigh 10 g or less and have diameters of 15-31 mm; large spindle whorls weigh more than 10g and have diameters of 35-61 mm. According to Mary Parsons (1972), small whorls were used on shorter, finer cotton fiber, imported to the Basin of Mexico from warm lowlands of Morelos and Puebla. But the small spindle whorls might also have been used to spin rabbit hair, feathers, and other short-staple fibers (S. McCafferty and

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G. McCafferty 2000). The large whorls were used to spin longer, coarser fibers, probably maguey, grown extensively in the cool highlands surrounding Xaltocan. Eleven of the 12 spindle whorls in this sample were large spindle whorls (diameters 39-54 mm; weights 14-39 g), and one was a small spindle whorl (diameter 29 mm, weight 8.5g). Eleven of the 12 spindle whorls were from deposits of household refuse, and one was associated with an infant burial. As S. McCafferty and G. McCafferty (1991) observe, spindle whorls play a functional role in spinning, but they do not have to be made from durable fired clay nor do they have to be decorated. The complex designs on spindles whorls from Zocalo C suggest that spinning and weaving were important sources of spinners’ identity in Middle Postclassic Mexico, as they were at the time of Spanish conquest (S. McCafferty and G. McCafferty 1991). Spindle whorls are small objects, and their intricate designs are difficult to see at a distance (although, some spindle whorls bear traces of blue or red paint which would have made them more visible). To see the designs, viewers must hold spindle whorls in their hands, closer than arm’s length; thus, viewing these designs would have been an intimate experience shared by the spindle whorl user and the user’s close associates.2 This suggests that, in addition to their function in textile production, spindle whorls served to heighten self-awareness and define elements of individual identity and self-worth (Smith 2007). Spinning is time-consuming; it accounts for two-thirds to threequarters of the effort involved in cloth production (Berlo 1991:451). Spinning can be carried out intermittently, and in 16th-century documents from central Mexico, women are sometimes pictured spinning while other household activities go on around them (e.g., Codex Mendoza 1992:68r). Thus, spinning was very likely one of the iterative acts which Smith (2007:416) claims are “an essential part of the identity-maintenance process.” There are several indications that, in Mesoamerica, spinning and weaving are connected to elaborate, formal systems of identity formation. For example, some contemporary Huichol women in northern Mexico undertake a program of spiritual training that involves prayer, fasting, vision quests, offerings and sacrifices in order to “complete themselves” in the arts of embroidery, beadwork and weaving (Schaefer 2002). Women who undertake such training acquire technical skill in their crafts, but they also seek personal growth. Similar practices seem to have been present among the Aztecs: Those women who were embroiderers and cotton thread workers first fasted.... Thus, they requested of it that what they undertook might be well

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Thus decorated spindle whorls, as spinners’ personal possessions, in almost constant use in domestic contexts, were likely media for the expression of the gender and individual identities of specific household members. The decorated spindle whorls are compared with pieces of 33 different Aztec I Black-on-Orange serving vessels and 19 different Polychrome vessels from Zocalo C. At Xaltocan, Aztec I Black-on-Orange pottery is by far the most common decorated type, accounting for 58% of the decorated rim sherds in Early-Middle Postclassic assemblages. Aztec I vessels are fired to an orangish base color and decorated with complex glyph-like designs painted in a heavy black line. Vessel forms include interior-decorated tripod dishes and molcajetes (dishes with stamped bottoms used to make and serve sauces), interior-decorated hemispherical bowls, and upright-rim bowls with exterior decoration. Polychrome pottery is the second-most common decorated type, accounting for 15% of the decorated rim sherds in Early-Middle Postclassic assemblages. Polychrome vessels have light tan to orange base color, but the natural surface of the vessel is covered by a thick layer of white or streaky orange paint. On this base, designs are painted in red, orange, white, and black. Painted surfaces are burnished to a high luster. Some designs are complex and glyph-like, particularly those occurring on vessel bases. But many of the design motifs are lines, bands or panels that divide the vessel surface in areas of contrasting color. Vessel forms include tripod dishes with interior decoration and hemispherical bowls with exterior decoration. These vessels are very similar to Polychromes in the city of Cholula, 75 km to the southeast of Xaltocan, corresponding to Noguera’s (1954) Policroma Firme, Lind’s (1994) Albina Polychrome, and McCafferty’s (2001) Torre Polychrome. They were probably imported to Xaltocan from Cholula. The vessel forms of both Black-on-Orange and Polychrome vessels resemble those used to serve food and drink in depictions of feasts in 16thcentury codices (Smith et al. 2003). The high frequency of these and other decorated serving vessels (in all, about 30% of the rims in Early-Middle Postclassic ceramic assemblages) suggests that feasting was a popular activity in Early-Middle Postclassic Xaltocan as it was at the time of Spanish conquest (Brumfiel 1987, 2004; Smith 1987). Some authors have suggested that Polychrome vessels were used primarily in the context of

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ritual offerings and burials (Hernandez Sanchez 2005; Lind 1994; Solís et al. 2005), but the consistent presence of Polychrome sherds, along with Black-on-Orange and other decorated wares, in domestic contexts in Xaltocan suggests that Polychrome vessels were used in commoner household feasts. Spindle whorls and serving bowls offer similar opportunities for decoration. Both present concave/convex surfaces which may be subdivided for the purposes of design composition into centers and sides. In the present study, the similarity of spindle whorls and serving bowls as palettes for decoration is enhanced by the fact that Xaltocan spindle whorls are almost all mold-made. This means that designs were inscribed on concave surfaces much like the interiors of tripod serving dishes and hemispherical bowls, but smaller. As if in acknowledgement of this similarity, both spindle whorl and pottery designs follow similar rules of design composition. Some spindle whorls and interior decorated bowls are hemispherical in shape, with a smooth curve obscuring the division between bottom and sides. In these cases, designs may extend from the bottom to the lower sides of the object. Other spindle whorls and tripod dishes have sharp breaks between bottom and sides, with different design motifs applied to the two areas so that bottom and sides constitute discrete decorative fields. In these cases, the sides of spindle whorls and vessels are always decorated, but bottoms may be decorated or plain. Side decoration consists of a horizontal decorative panel which may be divided into separate sectors by vertical bars. Because the sample consisted of sherds and not complete vessels, it was impossible to determine the number of divisions occurring on each vessel. But I suspect that the vertical bars often divided the decorative panel on the serving vessels into four parts, as they do on spindle whorls (Brumfiel 2008) and on Middle Postclassic ceramics from other regions of Mesoamerica (Rice and Cecil 2009). When bottoms are decorated, the motifs may or may not exhibit radial symmetry (Brenner 1931). The most important difference between these artifact categories is their size: spindle whorls are significantly smaller than ceramic vessels. Spindle whorls diameters range from 2.9 to 5.4 cm and the diameters of Aztec I vessels and Polychrome vessels range from 10 to 30 cm (Blanton and Parsons 1971:294; McCafferty 2001:75). The designs on serving vessels are larger, and they are drawn in thick black lines or brilliant colors that stand out against the contrasting base color. These designs would have been visible to people eating and drinking from the vessels and to others in the same room or patio space sharing the meal. Thus, viewing these designs would have been a collective experience involving family members

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and guests gathered in household feast contexts. As discussed above, viewing the smaller spindle whorl designs would have involved the individual or the smaller group of associates. Neither spindle whorls nor ceramic vessels were produced by the households that used them. Spindle whorls were mold-made, and a spindle whorl workshop at Middle Postclassic Otumba yielded nearly 100 spindle whorl molds along with deformed spindle whorl “wasters,” showing what a spindle whorl workshop would look like were one present at Xaltocan (Nichols et al. 2000). But nothing of the sort has been encountered in excavations at Xaltocan. With respect to Aztec I pottery, Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) suggests that about half of the Aztec I pottery found at Xaltocan was manufactured from local clays, with the other half coming from four other clay sources scattered throughout the western and southern Basin of Mexico. This suggests that much Aztec I pottery was acquired through market purchase (Nichols et al. 2002). The INAA of Xaltocan’s Polychromes is currently being carried out by Destiny Crider at Arizona State University, but results are not yet available. On stylistic grounds, I suspect that most of the Polychromes were manufactured in Cholula and, again, moved through market channels to reach Xaltocan. Spindle whorls probably were also purchased in the market. As described below, the motifs on spindle whorls and serving vessels are varied, suggesting ample opportunity for the exercise of consumer choice. Thus, while household members did not manufacture their own spindle whorls or serving vessels, they could have chosen to purchase artifacts in the market that conformed to their interests and perspectives. These purchases would have influenced the range of wares offered by merchants and ultimately influenced the choice of designs applied to the wares by specialized producers. Thus, the perspectives of users ought to be reflected in artifact designs even though the artifacts were made and used by different people. The spindle whorls and ceramic vessels included in this study are those large enough to exhibit at least one identifiable motif. Following the procedure used by Forde (2006) in his iconographic study of Mixtec sherds, all the different motifs that occurred on a single sherd were recorded. Each motif was recorded as a single instance, even if it occurred multiple times on a single sherd. The definition of motifs was aided by the fact that the people of Mesoamerica communicated ideas through a rich inventory of conventional symbols which have been the object of scholarly study for more than a century. Studies of Postclassic pottery designs include Brenner (1931), Brumfiel (2004), Forde (2006), Hernandez Sanchez

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(2005), Hodge (1992), Lind (1987, 1994), Martínez Gracida 2008; Rice (1983), Rice and Cecil (2009), Solís et al. (2005) and Vega Sosa (1984). Spindle motifs have been studied by Enciso (1971), Jordan (2003) and S. McCafferty and G. McCafferty (1999, 2000). One methodological problem to be resolved was whether to record a complex symbol as a single motif or to record each of its component design elements. For example, the cipactli motif is recognized by its reptilian eye, its curved open mouth, and the crest of plumes at the back of its head. Should this be counted as a single motif or as three motifs? I chose to record it as a single motif, since the presence of a cipactli design seemed to involve one choice by prehistoric producers and consumers, not three independent choices. A total of 20 motifs were recorded from the sample of 33 Aztec I serving vessels, 22 motifs from 19 Polychrome vessels, and 16 motifs from 12 spindle whorls. The locations of motifs on the artifacts were also recorded. These data are presented in Tables 8-1 through 8-3. The motifs are discussed below by artifact type and by the approximate order of motif frequency.

Ceramic Motifs I begin with a description of the Aztec I motifs (Table 8-1). Aside from the vertical bars which were compositional elements, ceramic designs cluster narrowly around three themes: (1) flowers, flower petals and flower-like motifs, (2) cipactli motifs and (3) oscillating motion or reciprocal motifs. These motifs are appropriate for vessels used in interhousehold feasting and negotiation. Flowers, flower petals or flower-like motifs were the most common motif on Aztec I vessels, occurring on 18 different vessels or 55% of the ceramic sample [Figure 8-2]. On vessel floors, simple flowers have petals surrounding a central circle; at times, the design extends upward from the floor to cover the lower part of the vessel wall. Individual petals are a common motif in the decorative panels on vessel walls. Complex flowers are simple flowers surrounded by spikey motifs that may represent leaves or flower casings. On some vessels, loops and tight loops encircling the vessel floor creating flower-like motifs that grade into sun burst motifs. Flowers (Xochitl) symbolized the sun in Aztec thought (Heyden 1983; Velasco and Nagao 2006). For example, in the Codex Magliabechiano (1983:8v), an illustration of a textile bearing a single multi-colored flower is accompanied by a Spanish gloss that identifies it as “manta del sol” or “mantle of the sun” (Vega Sosa 1984). Sahagún twice refers to flowers

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Figure 8-2: Floral motifs on Aztec I Black-on-Orange vessels from Xaltocan. Above left: flower motif on vessel floor; above right: petal motif on vessel wall. Below left: loop motif; below right, tight loop motif.

adorning the shields of deities as “the sun symbol design” (Tena 2009: 44, 56). Jane Hill (1992) has studied the meaning of flowers across the UtoAztecan language family. She concludes that flowers stand both for literal flowers and for many other brightly-colored things: the dawn and sunset, rainbows, hummingbirds, butterflies, iridescent insects, shells, crystals, colored lights and flames, all of which radiate tonalli, a divine energy and animating force emanating from the sun (López Austin 1988:204-205). Thus, in Uto-Aztecan thought, flowers represented all the many manifestations of tonalli, and the flower motifs on Aztec I serving vessels may have been intended to impart tonalli/divine energy to the food served within these dishes.

Towards a Middle Range Theory of Household Politics

Design motif Vertical bars Petals or plumes Simple flowers Complex flowers Loops Tight loops Floor cipactli Wall cipactli Crossed-Bands Wavy line Squiggles Zigzags Xicalcoliuhqui Ribbon S-spiral (xonecuilli) Spirals Volutes Scallops Circles Clouds

Exterior Wall 5 7

Interior Wall 6 5 1

Interior Base

1 3

2 1 2 4 2 1 2 1

3 2 3 1 1 1

1 2 1 2

2 1 1

259

Total 11 12 2 3 2 1 2 7 4 3 2 2 2 1 1 2 2 2 1 2

Table 8-1: Design motifs on Aztec I Black-on-Orange sherds from Xaltocan, Zocalo C (N=33). The cipactli or Mexican crocodile was the second most common motif on Aztec I vessels, occurring on 8 different vessels or 24% of the ceramic sample [Figure 8-3]. The consistent association of a reptilian eye, a curved open mouth, and pointed and rounded plumes in a decorative crest at the back of the head link this motif to the cipactli glyph, especially as it appears in the Codex Telleriano-Remensis (Quiñones Keber 1995). Like the petal and flower motifs, this cipactli assumes one highly stylized form on vessel walls and another more realistic form on vessel floors (Brenner 1931:40-59).

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Figure 8-3: Cipactli motifs on Aztec I vessels. Above left: cipactli motifs on the exterior walls of bowls; above right: cipactli motif on a vessel floor. Below left: cipactli from the Codex Telleriano-Rememsis Lám. 13v.; below right: cipactli vessel from Culhuacan (Brenner 1931: fig. 16).

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Cipactli was the first day of the tonalpohualli, the Aztec’s 260-day divinatory calendar, and because it was the first day, cipactli served as a symbol of the entire cycle as a whole (Arellano 1999; Caso 1971). Significantly, Xochitl (flower) was the last day of the day-count. In Aztec thinking, the beginnings and ends of cycles were important junctures, fraught with uncertainty and power (Gillespie 1989); thus, these days would have been endowed with special significance. The high frequency of cipactli and xochitl as motifs on Aztec I ceramics suggests the presence of a household strategy that featured calendars, feasting, decorated pottery, and inter-household alliances. Among the Aztecs, feasts marked the births, marriages, and deaths of household members (Sahagún 1950-82 Bk. 4, Chs. 12, 37; Bk. 6 Ch. 23; Durán 1967 II:123, 297; Durán 1971:122). Feasts were also held to celebrate the success of household members in warfare, trade expeditions, and the fulfillment of religious vows (Sahagún 1950-82 Bk. 2 Chs. 21, 25, 35, 37, Bk. 4 Chs.15, 25, Bk. 9 Ch. 7, 10). Such critical events in the life of the household were typically preceded by consultation with calendrical specialists to ensure their harmony with cosmic forces. Their successful outcome was celebrated with feasts. Thus, the calendrical motifs on Aztec I serving vessels may have affirmed that this household undertook ventures which were prudently chosen, both cosmologically opportune and socially viable (Brumfiel in press). Wavy lines, squiggles, zigzags, ribbons, and the xicalcoliuhqui (stepfret spiral) appear on 10 different vessels or 30% of the ceramic sample [Figure 8-4]. All of these motifs are drawn using reciprocal motions or are created by reciprocal elements, and thus they are perfect expressions of principles of balance and reciprocity. The popular xicalcoliuhque motif is exemplary in this regard. It is a design composed of interlocking identical elements arranged so that each mirrors the other, resulting in a design where either element may be regarded as foreground and the other as background. The xicalcoliuhque is the epitome of reciprocal action and balance in visual design, principles that guided Nahua personal behavior (Gingerich 1988; Hunt 1977:129; León-Portilla 1963:56; López-Austin 1988:267-270). These concepts are perhaps best summarized by the concept of nepantla (Maffie 2007). Although Klor de Alva (1982) and León-Portilla (1974) have argued that nepantla refers to the alienated space between native and European cultures experienced by early colonial Nahuas, Maffie (2007) proposes a more positive interpretation. He regards nepantla as a creative middle ground between opposing elements, the place where creative transformations occur and new syntheses are forged even as old elements are destroyed. According to Maffie (2007: 11), nepantla

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Figure 8-4: Aztec I ceramics, motifs representing oscillating and reciprocal movement. Above left: zig-zag motif; above right: ribbon motif. Below left: Sspiral (xonecuilli) motif; below right: step-fret spiral (xicalcoliuhqui) motif.

involves mutuality and balanced reciprocity: “Nepantla-processes are dialectical, transactional, and oscillating... simultaneously destructive and creative, and hence transformative.” On pottery, these reciprocal symbols may symbolize the balanced transactional and conjoining relationships that accompanied the formation of alliances in household feasts. Serving vessels with reciprocal motifs would have emphasized the danger and the creative possibilities of social alliances and the careful social accommodation that was required to insure a positive outcome. These same serving vessels might also have addressed household members, reminding them of the compromises that were needed to create a productive collective entity “the household” from its constituent members. On Polychrome vessels, color plays an important decorative role [Figure 8-5]. Most vessels feature linear elements (lines, bars, and bands)

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that guide the application of colors that surround and highlight whatever glyph-like motifs are present [Table 8-2]. These lineal elements occur on 14 vessels or 74% of the Polychrome sample. They define blocks of black, white, red, and orange paint which appear on the vessel walls and floor. The liberal use of red and orange paint on Polychrome vessels suggests iconographic association with the sun or tonalli. Red and orange were chosen by later Aztec artists to depict representations of the sun on ceramics and the famous Calendar Stone (Matos and Solís 2004:95). In the Zocalo C sample, two vessel floors are covered by large, red, circular spots. Solís et al. (2005:115) argue that the solid red spots on Polychrome vessels represent sacrificial blood offered to the sun. While this is certainly possible, it has also been argued that these red spots represent the sun itself (Lind 1987:37; Martínez Gracida 2008). This is supported by the single example of a large yellow circular spot covering the floor of a vessel recovered from a nearby excavation unit in Xaltocan. Yellow, like red, is associated with the sun, but it is not an alternative color for blood. In one vessel from Zocalo C, the red spot on the floor of the vessel is encircled by eagle feather motifs. For the Aztecs, eagles were synonymous with the sun (López Luján 2000:89). This symbolism is repeated in several Zocalo C sherds where eagle feather motifs alternate with orange rectangles overlain with red vertical lines, suggesting the sun’s halo. In one case, the eagle feather motif alternates with darts, perhaps a symbol of the sun’s battle against the forces of darkness. An ilhuitl glyph appearing on the side of a Polychrome bowl is also a solar symbol; the ilhuitl constitutes an element in the later Aztec solar/sky band (Nicholson 1955; Rodríguez-Alegría 2007). Red spots, eagle feathers, darts, halo motifs and/or the ilhuitl, all associated with the sun or tonalli, appear on 6 vessels accounting for 32% of the Polychrome vessels. A number of motifs on the Polychrome vessels seem to allude to value or worth. These include colored panels, a cross-hatched bead-net design familiar from Maya textiles (Joyce 1996), a rectangular element with vertical bars reminiscent of textile designs in the Codex Magliabechiano (1983), and strings of concentric circles that resemble strings of beads or balloons. Solís et al. (2005) interpret the colored panels as representing the painted paper and the bead-net design as representing textiles that lined ceramic vessels when they were used containers for offerings; they suggest that these paper and textile linings enhanced the value of the offerings. Solís et al. (2005) also suggest that the strings of concentric circles represented precious green stones (chalchíhuitles), symbols of the value of the vessel’s contents, which in feast situations might be the food and drink

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Figure 8-5: Polychrome vessels. Above left, red spot on vessel floor; vertical bands and hatching on vessel wall. Above right, red spot on vessel floor; jigsaw motif on vessel wall. Below left, textile motif on a dish interior. Below right: circles with dots on the same dish, exterior.

offered to guests. These “value-enhancing” motifs appear on 6 vessels or 32% of the sample. A diverse array of other glyph-like elements occurs on 9 vessels or 47% of the Polychrome sample. These include xicalcoliuhques (step-fret spirals), volutes, spirals, squiggle-edged “jigsaw puzzle” motifs, and crosshatched areas. As observed above, the xicalcoliuhque embodies key Nahua values of reciprocal action and balance. However, Solís et al. (2005) also recognize the xicalcoliuhque as popular textile design, and a metaphor for the movement of air currents and a symbol of the Mesoamerican deity Quetzalcoatl, the patron deity of Cholula (the likely source of Polychrome pottery). Spirals and volutes also express moving elements such as smoke and clouds (Forde 2006:99-100, 102; Hernández Sánchez 2005:78, 191-5).

Towards a Middle Range Theory of Household Politics

Design motif Rim hatching Vertical bars Vertical lines Horizontal lines Horizontal bands Horizontal bars Red spot Darts Eagle feathers Ilhuitl Colored panels Rectangle Beaded-net Circles with dots Volutes Spirals Square spirals Xicalcoliuhqui Cross hatching Jigsaw pieces Wavy line Spirals/complex design

Exterior Wall 2 3 6 3

Interior Wall 3 1 3 6 3 1

Interior Base

2 1 1 4

1 3 4 1 1

2 1

1

2 1 1 3 1 1 1 1

1 1

265

Total 5 1 6 12 6 1 2 1 4 1 4 1 1 2 2 2 1 3 1 1 3 2

Table 8-2: Design motifs on Polychrome sherds from Xaltocan, Zocalo C (N=19). In summary, then, the decorated pottery used in household feasts communicated: (1) the correctness of household ventures (as reflected in calendrical symbols), (2) the value of their prestations to guests (as reflected in symbols of tonalli, painted paper, textiles, and precious stones), and (3) the necessary compromises inherent in the formation of inter-household alliances (as reflected in reciprocal design elements). In addition, brightly-colored Polychrome vessels would have declared a household’s affiliation with Cholula, a distant and sacred city, as well as asserted its access to highly valued trade goods from the Cholula region and beyond, including cotton, copal, and brightly colored bird feathers.

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Almost all of the Aztec I motifs and 85% of the Polychrome motifs allude to the calendar, tonalli, or reciprocity. However, there is a residual element of variation in the ceramic assemblages. The 15% of the Polychrome motifs that do not fit any of these broader categories, along with other low frequency decorated wares used in varying frequency by different Xaltocan households, may have provided the means by which individual households could differentiate themselves from the rest, in their competition to attract partners and allies.

Spindle Whorl Motifs Spindle whorl motifs fall into three clusters [Table 8-3]. First, flowers and other solar/divine energy motifs occur on 5 (42%) spindle whorls [Figure 8-6]. These solar motifs include: flowers, solar disks and solar rays, and day dots. Because spinning and weaving in Mesoamerica are strongly gendered as female, the flowers on spindle whorls have been associated with the Aztec goddess Xochiquetzal (whose name means flowery quetzal feather). Xochiquetzal was the goddess of spring, flowers, love, feminine sexuality and the patron of weavers and embroiderers (Díaz Cíntora 1990; G. McCafferty and S. McCafferty 1999; Lopéz Hernández 2005). Thus, some scholars conclude that the flowers on spindle whorls symbolized women’s sexual and reproductive powers (S. McCafferty and G. McCafferty 1991; Nichols et al. 2000). This interpretation is correct, but probably too narrow. As discussed above, flowers also referred to the sun, heat, light, fire, and life (Hill 1992; Velasco and Nagao 2006). In defense of an interpretation of flowers on spindle whorls as symbols of divine energy, we might cite the many other spindle whorl motifs that refer to the sun. These include spindle whorls that are surrounded by petals or eagle plumes, as are solar disks (Solís 2004:104-131), spindle whorls that bear solar rays (common in Mixtec codices; Lind 1994:94), four-petal flowers (k’in) and ilhuitls which are elements in the Aztec solar/sky band (Nicholson 1955; Rodríguez-Alegría 2007), crosses or crossed-band motifs representing the inter-cardinal points of the universe (or more precisely, the points of sunrise and sunset during the summer and winter solstices, see Aveni 1980:156-7), and day dots (representing a succession daily suns; Brumfiel in press). While solar motifs commonly occur on spindle whorls, cipactli motifs are rare, suggesting that flowers on spindle whorls do not carry the calendrical connotations suggested by flowers on serving vessels. Thus, flowers and other solar motifs on spindle whorls may be regarded as efforts to impart divine energy to the thread and cloth being produced, much as solar motifs

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Figure 8-6: Spindle whorls with solar motifs. Above left: flower with fourdirection cross motif; above right: a solar disk motif and [eagle] feathers on the side. Below: spindle whorls with day dots.

on ceramics imparted divine energy to food, but without calendrical references. Calendrical references would not be expected on artifacts devoted to continuous activities, such as spinning, as opposed to episodic activities, such as feast sponsorship. Second, the xicalcoliuhqui (step-fret spiral) or a xicalcoliuhqui element occurs on 4 (33%) decorated spindle whorls [Figure 8-7, below]. This motif is also common on vessels, but its representation on spindle whorls is very standardized. As discussed above, the xicalcoliuhque embodies key Nahua values of reciprocal action and balance. Reciprocal motifs such as the xicalcoliuhqui may refer to back-and-forth movement involved in weaving, which creates the mutual dependence of warp and weft, making weaving the perfect embodiment of nepantla (Maffie 2007). When the xicalcoliuhqui appears on spindle whorls, then, it may represent movement

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Design motif Vertical bars Simple flowers Petals or plumes Solar disk Solar ray Day dots Cross Xicalcoliuhqui Xicalcoliuhqui elements Xiuhcoatl Copal bag Horizontal swirls Complex image Pentagram Comb Mat incising

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Side Panel 3

Base 2

2 1 1 2 2 3 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1

Top

Total 3 2 2 1 1 2 2 3 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1

Table 8-3: Design motifs on Early Postclassic spindle whorls from Xaltocan, Zocalo C, (N=12). and reciprocity as the key elements of cloth production. It may also represent the achievement of spiritual balance and self-control by the spinner. As a symbol of Quetzalcoatl, the xicalcoliuhque may have represented the movement of air currents and persistent movement, in general. As such, the xicalcoliuhqui was perfectly suited to spindle whorls which rotate endlessly as they produce thread. Thus, spindle whorl motifs might allude to the divine energy that enhanced the value of the thread and cloth being produced, to the motion and balance involved in spinning and weaving and, perhaps, to the aspirations for personal growth on the part of the spinner. In addition, low frequency glyph-like motifs occur on 4 (33%) spindle whorls [Figure 8-7]. These motifs include fire serpents, tobacco bags, pentagrams, an incised mat motif, and a comb stamp, perhaps representing a range of preferences for individual spinners. These motifs contribute to design variation for spindle whorls that is greater than design variation for serving vessels. It is to the quantitative analysis of design motifs that we now turn.

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Figure 8-7: Spindle whorls with the xicalcoliuhqui and low frequency motifs. Above left: comb motif and four-direction motif with the xicalcoliuhqui motif on the side; above right: spindle whorl fragment with the xicalcoliuhqui motif. Bottom left: pentagram with mat incising; bottom right: tobacco bags and fire serpents.

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Analysis: Statistical Considerations First, motifs on spindle whorls may be compared with motifs on Aztec I and Polychrome vessels to see if they draw from a single pool of design motifs or from different pools. Vertical bars and the xicalcoliuhqui are popular motifs on all three artifact classes, and they account for most of the motif sharing. Together, vertical bars and the xicalcoliuhqui account for 7 (28%) of the 25 motifs on spindle whorls. Aztec I pottery and spindle whorls share two other motifs: simple flowers and petals or plumes. These shared motifs account for 4 (16%) of 25 motifs on spindle whorls. The overlap with Polychrome pottery is slightly less. Aside from vertical bars and the xicalcoliuhqui, shared motifs include only circles with dots. This shared motif accounts for 2 (8%) of 25 motifs on spindle whorls. Thus, spindle whorl motifs, reflecting the choices of individuals, both shared in and were independent of the design programs of ceramic vessels, which were used in household activities. Spindle whorls share some elements of a “common language” with artifacts used in household endeavors, but they also “spoke” with independent voices. Twelve motifs (48%) of the total are unique to spindle whorls. Even the 52% of shared design elements may have diverged in their meanings or messages as they appeared in different symbolic contexts on spindle whorls and serving vessels. For example, flowers appear as an alternative (in paradigmatic relationship) to cipactli figures in the bottoms of Aztec I tripod dishes, but flowers appear only in association with solar motifs, not cipactlis, when they appear on spindle whorls. Thus, flowers may have had calendrical meaning when they appeared on vessels but a more generalized association with the sun and divine energy when they appeared on spindle whorls. By the same token, the xicalcoliuhqui motif is one of many reciprocal motifs on Aztec I pottery, perhaps representing mutuality, but the xicalcoliuhqui motif on spindle whorls occurs in the absence of other reciprocal motifs, suggesting a narrower focus on cyclical movement (of the spindle whorl in spinning, of the shuttle in weaving) and self-possession. The use of shared motifs might have made the “messages” of spindle whorls comprehensible to others while still communicating difference. The message of difference would have been reinforced by the fact that many of the motifs not shared with ceramic vessels are singular; they bear no discernable relationship to any of the wider themes that we have identified. Second, decorative motifs on spindle whorls and serving vessels may be compared in terms of their diversity or richness to see if a reduction in motifs occurred in moving from personal possessions to artifacts used in

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household activities. I hypothesized that if collective household activities required the negotiation of individual interests, then the artifacts used in such activities (e.g., decorated serving vessels used in feasts) should exhibit a more limited range of design motifs than the artifacts used in activities that required less coordination of household personnel (e.g., spindle whorls). A total of 20 different motifs were recorded for 33 Aztec I sherds, 22 different motifs were recorded for 19 Polychrome sherds, and 16 motifs were recorded for 12 spindle whorls. Using absolute count as a measure of design diversity, Polychrome sherds (with 22 different motifs) were the most diverse artifact class, with Aztec I sherds (yielding 20 different motifs) not far behind. Spindle whorls (with 16 different motifs) would be the least diverse artifact class. However, it is widely recognized that richness is highly dependent on sample size (Jones et al 1983; Kintigh 1984; Masson 2001; Yellen 1977). Taking sample size into account, spindle whorls are clearly more diverse than either Aztec I or Polychrome pottery since they yielded an average of 1.25 different motifs per artifact, a higher ratio than that yielded by Polychrome sherds (1.16 different motifs per artifact) or Aztec I sherds (0.60 motifs per artifact). When spindle whorls are compared to serving vessels as a whole, the results are comparable. The total of 16 different motifs from 12 spindle whorls can be compared to a total of 37 different motifs from 52 Aztec I and Polychrome sherds combined (20 different Aztec I motifs plus 22 different Polychrome motifs minus 5 motifs present in both ceramic wares). A simple chi-square one-way classification comparing frequency of design motifs on spindle whorls and ceramic sherds yields an F-value of 3.95, which is significant at the .05 level. This suggests that spindle whorl motifs are significantly more diverse than Aztec I and Polychrome sherds combined, despite the fact that serving vessels are individually bigger (therefore providing more room for decorative motifs), are more numerous in our study sample, and are more highly decorated with a greater number of motifs per object. It may well be that the diminutive size of spindle whorls contributed to their design variability. Being more easily transported, they may have moved more easily across regions. But greater variation in spindle whorl motifs may also be related to the fact that serving vessels and spindle whorls were different kinds of artifacts. Serving vessels were used in activities where mutual comprehension was important and where participants were expected to express adherence to shared norms. Spindle whorls were more intimate artifacts, used in situations where the spinner might engage in the development of personal identity by comparing one’s

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self with others. Spindle whorls might be considered more personal possessions than serving vessels, and as such, spindle whorls designs might reflect the variable identities of the individuals who acquired and used them.

Conclusions While the iconographic meaning of spindle whorl and serving vessel designs is important and interesting, it may be that quantitative analysis has greater potential for unlocking the internal dynamics of households because these measures can be applied to deep prehistory, where we have no keys to the meanings of design motifs, and can provide a standard of comparison between archaeological cases. My own study barely taps the analytical potential of this approach. Comparative studies of artifact design variability should explore how household tensions rise or fall in conjunction with transformations of the household, its internal economy, its ties to regional economic institutions, or its standing within local and regional political structures during the course of history. For example, archaeologists may want to ask if conformity to household norms is more strictly enforced in high-status households as opposed to low-status households. Archaeologists may wonder if household conformity increases when autonomous communities become parts of territorial states. Archaeologists may ask if individuals enjoy greater autonomy under systems of extensive cultivation than under systems of agricultural intensification where improvements on the land and issues of land inheritance give elders greater leverage over younger generations. These issues are important because social tension and negotiation between individuals are what drive innovative behavior and social change. If such tensions existed within households, then the internal dynamics of households may have driven social transformation on a scale equal to the more commonly cited variables of environmental stress or competition between political elites (De Lucia 2011). We may find that, beyond just facilitating political change, households and their internal relationships were actually prime movers of political dynamics.

Acknowledgements Early versions of this paper were presented at the session “Estudios de género en el México antiguo,” organized by M. Rodríguez-Shadow and R. García Valgañon, at the International Congress of Americanists, Mexico

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City, and as a guest lecture at the Department of Anthropology, The University of Wisconsin. The audiences at these two presentations provided stimulating questions and comments. Cynthia Robin, Kristin De Lucia, Enrique Rodríguez-Alegría, Peter Johansen and Andrew Bauer all provided important comments on earlier drafts of the paper. Archaeological field work at Xaltocan has been generously supported by grants (BNS8919095 and BCS-0612131) from the National Science Foundation, the H. John Heinz III Charitable Trust, the John S. Ludington Trustees’ Chair at Albion College, the Albion College Faculty Development Fund, the Albion College Fund for Undergraduate Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity, and a Northwestern University Faculty Research Grant.

Notes 1

Viewing the household as a place of shared interests, a locus of “generalized reciprocity” (Sahlins 1968; Service 1966) or of “primitive communism” (Engels 1972 [1884]) may be a lingering effect of the West’s “cult of domesticity,” where the domestic sphere was regarded as an altruistic retreat from self-seeking public marketplace behavior (Moore 1992; Welter 1966). 2 See Bailey (2005) for a discussion of artifact size and intimacy.

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McCafferty, Geoffrey G. and Sharisse D. McCafferty. 1999. The metamorphosis of Xochiquetal. In Manifesting Power, T.L. Sweely, ed., pp. 103-125. London: Routledge. McCafferty, Sharisse D. and Geoffrey G. McCafferty. 1991. Spinning and weaving as female gender identity in Post-Classic Mexico. In Textile Traditions of Mesoamerica and the Andes, M.B. Schevill, J.C. Berlo, and E.B. Dwyer, eds., pp. 19-44. Austin: University of Texas Press. —. 1999. Handspinning in Pre-Columbian Mexico: A Functional Analysis of Archaeological Spindle Whorls. Unpublished manuscript. —. 2000. Textile production in Postclassic Cholula, Mexico. Ancient Mesoamerica 11: 39-54. Meskell, Lynn. 1999. Archaeologies of Social Life. Oxford: Blackwell. Miller, Alexandra. 2007. Water Mountain: A GIS analysis of Xaltocan’s integration into the Aztec Empire. Evanston, IL: Senior honors thesis, Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University. Moore, Henrietta. 1986. Space, Text, and Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —. 1992. Gender relations and the modeling of the economy. In Understanding Economic Process, S. Ortiz and S. Lees, eds., pp. 131148. Monographs in Economic Anthropology, 10. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Nichols, Deborah L., Elizabeth M. Brumfiel, Hector Neff, Mary Hodge, Thomas H. Charlton, and Michael D. Glascock. 2002. Neutrons, markets, cities, and empires: A 1000-year perspective on ceramic production and distribution in the Postclassic Basin of Mexico. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 21: 25-82. Nichols, Deborah L., Mary Jane McLaughlin, and Maura Benton. 2000. Production intensification and regional specialization: Maguey fibers and textiles in the Aztec city-state of Otumba. Ancient Mesoamerica 11:267-291. Nicholson, H.B. 1955. The temalacatl of Tehuacan. El México Antiguo 8:95-134. Noguera, Eduardo. 1954. La Cerámica Arqueológica de Cholula. Mexico City: Editorial Guaranía. Parsons, Mary H. 1972. Spindle whorls from the Teotihuacán Valley, Mexico. In Miscellaneous Studies in Mexican Prehistory, by M.W. Spence, J.R. Parsons, and M.H. Parsons, pp. 45-80. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan, Museum of Anthropology, Anthropological Papers 45. Pyburn, K. Anne. 2004. Rethinking complex society. In Ungendering Civilization, K.A. Pyburn, ed., pp. 1-46. London: Routledge.

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Quiñones Keber, Eloise. 1995. Codex Telleriano-Remensis: Ritual divination and history in a pictorial Aztec manuscript. Austin: University of Texas Press. Rice, Prudence M. 1983. Serpents and styles in Peten Postclassic pottery. American Anthropologist 85:866-880. Rice, Prudence M. and Leslie G. Cecil. 2009. The iconography and decorative programs of Kowoj pottery. In The Kowoj: Identity, migration, and geopolitics in Late Postclassic Petén, Guatemala, P.M. Rice and D.S. Rice, eds., pp. 238-275. Boulder: University Press of Colorado. Robin, Cynthia. 2003. New directions in Classic Maya household archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Research 11:307-356. Rodríguez-Alegría, Enrique. 2007. Addicted to rituals of contested meanings in colonial Mexico. In Mesoamerican Ritual Economy, E.C. Wells and K.L. Davis-Salazar, eds., pp. 115-136. Boulder: University Press of Colorado. Roldán, Martha. 1987. Class, gender, and asymmetrical exchanges within households. In The Crossroads of Class and Gender by L. Benería and M. Roldán, pp. 109-136. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sahagún, Bernardino de. 1950-82. Florentine Codex translated by Arthur J.O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble, 13 vols. Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and The University of Utah. Sahlins, Marshall D. 1968. Tribesmen. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall. Sanders, William T., Jeffrey R. Parsons, and Robert S. Santley. 1979. The Basin of Mexico: Ecological processes in the evolution of a civilization. New York: Academic. Schaefer, Stacy B. 2002. To Think with a Good Heart: Wixárika women, weavers, and shamans. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. Schmink, Marianne. 1984. Household economic strategies. Latin American Research Review 19(3):87-101. Service, Elman R. 1966. The Hunters. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall. Smith, Michael E. 1987. Household possessions and wealth in agrarian states: Implications for archaeology. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 6:297-335. Smith, Michael E., Jennifer Wharton, and Jan Marie Olson. 2003. Aztec feasts, rituals and markets: Political uses of ceramic vessels in a commercialized economy. In The Archaeology and Politics of Food and Feasting in Early States and Empires, edited by Tamara Bray, pp. 235-270. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.

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Smith, Monica L. 2007. Inconspicuous consumption: Non-display goods and identity formation. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 14:412-438. Solís, Felipe. 2004. Testimonios arqueológicos sobre el culto solar en México prehispánico. In El Calendario Azteca y Otros Monumentos Solares, by Eduardo Matos Moctezuma and Felipe Solís, pp. 76-148. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia. Solís, Felipe, Verónica Velasquez and Roberto Velasco. 2005. Cerámica policroma de Cholula y de los otros valles de Puebla. In La Gran Pirámide Cholula, F. Solís, G. Uruñuela, P. Plunket, M. Cruz and D. Rodríguez, eds., pp. 78-129. Mexico City: Concaculta-INAH. Sørensen, Marie Louise Stig. 2000. Gender Archaeology. Oxford: Polity. Strathern, Marilyn. 1988. The Gender of the Gift. Berkeley: University of California Press. Tena, Rafael. 2009. La Religión Mexica: Catálogo de dioses mexicas. Arqueología Mexicana, edición especial 30. Vega Sosa, Constanza. 1984. El curso del sol en los glifos de la cerámica azteca tardía. Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 17: 125-170. Velasco, Ana María and Debra Nagao. 2006. Mitología y simbolismo de las flores. Arqueología Mexicana 78: 28-35. Voss, Barbara L. 2005. From Casta to Californio: Social identity and the archaeology of culture contact. American Anthropologist 107(3): 461474. Welter, Barbara. 1966. The cult of true womanhood: 1820-1860. American Quarterly 18, no.2, part 1:151-174. Wiessner, Polly. 1983. Style and social information in Kalahari San projectile points. American Antiquity 48: 253-276. —. 1984. Reconsidering the behavioral basis for style: A case study among the Kalahari San. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 3:190-234. —. 1989. Style and the changing relations between the individual and society. In The Meanings of Things, I. Hodder, ed., pp. 56-63. London: Allen & Unwin. Wilk, Richard R. 1991. Household Ecology. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Wilk, Richard R. and Wendy Ashmore. 1988. Household and Community in the Mesoamerican Past. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Wilk, Richard R. and William J. Rathje, eds. 1982. Archaeology of the Household. American Behavioral Scientist 25(6).

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Wobst, H. Martin. 1977. Stylistic behavior and information exchange: In For the Director: Research essays in honor of James B. Griffin, C.E. Cleland, ed., pp. 317-342. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Museum of Anthropology, Anthropological Paper, 61. Wolf, Margery. 1972. Women and the Family in Rural Taiwan. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Yanagisako, Sylvia J. 1979. Family and household: The analysis of domestic groups. Annual Review of Anthropology 8:161-205. Yellen, John R. 1977. Archaeological Approaches to the Present: Models for reconstructing the past. New York: Academic.

CHAPTER NINE STANDARDIZATION AND RESISTANCE: CHANGING FUNERARY RITES AT SPIRIDONOVKA (RUSSIA) DURING THE BEGINNING OF THE LATE BRONZE AGE LAURA M. POPOVA, EILEEN M. MURPHY AND ALEKSANDR A. KHOKHLOV

“Nothing is stronger than the position of the dead among the living.” —Virginia Woolf

Introduction In Eurasian archaeology, mortuary data are primarily used to reconstruct models of social organization and identity. However, as Hanks (2008:15) points out, “Variation in tomb construction and grave furnishings are often interpreted straightforwardly as direct indicators of contingent variation in social statuses, roles, and gender for early steppe societies.” As an example, he demonstrates how archaeologists of Eurasia tend to uncritically link the presence of weapons in Iron Age burials to hierarchical political systems and warfare. Such an interpretation is reliant on the presence of certain artifacts in particular contexts. Indeed, at the most basic level, Iron Age burials in the Eastern European steppe are seen as indicating a hierarchical society because there is variation. The opposite is true for the Late Bronze Age (approximately 1800-1200 B.C.) in the Volga-Ural region. In this case, archaeologists link the standardization of burial practices and the homogeneity of the material culture to an egalitarian political system. A lack of variation in the mortuary context is seen as indicating a lack of political variation.

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The goal of this chapter is to deconstruct the link between cultural standardization and egalitarianism. The first part of this deconstruction will be based on a discussion of how archaeologists create these types of links. It is argued that the way in which archaeological research is conducted in the Eastern European steppe, with its attention to delineating standardized traits for each archaeological culture, misses important differences and distinctive elements in the archaeological record. To highlight the types of mortuary data used and the inferences that are made, two Late Bronze Age archaeological cultures (Pokrovka and Srubnaya) will be examined in detail. Next it will also be shown that archaeologists of the Volga-Ural region use the interpretative toolkit of ecological determinism, ethnographic analogy, and/or a functional understanding of artifacts to provide substance to their narratives about past lifeways.1 Moreover, even when archaeologists are criticizing the dominant narrative, they often rely on the same interpretative toolkit. The second part of this chapter is dedicated to showing how studying mortuary remains as a form of social practice with sensitivity to issues of human agency can alter traditional narratives. To illustrate this point, three kurgans at Spiridonovka [see Figure 9-1] associated with the Pokrovka and Srubnaya archaeological cultures will be re-analyzed to show the way in which identity formation and human intentionality can be partially reconstructed when issues of age, physical difference, sex and gender become the focus of the analysis. A key component of this re-analysis will be the addition of paleopathological data. Finally, by linking these new data to research being conducted on Late Bronze Age settlements, it becomes possible to see standardization in the Late Bronze Age as a key component to a new form of political power, which will make it possible to address forms of resistance.

Archaeological Cultures With research agendas grounded in culture history, archaeologists of the Bronze Age in the Eastern European steppe have worked for more than a century to identify archaeological cultures and to situate them in chronological order. In its rawest form, the term “archaeological culture” simply represents a suite of materials (ceramic, metal, lithic) and remains (architectural and mortuary) that co-occur over various sites. In the Soviet/Russian tradition of archaeology, most archaeological cultures are constructed based on similarities in burial rite and ceramics. Thus, the goal is always to find those standardized traits that exemplify a “culture.” Although, in theory, the suite of materials that make up an archaeological culture are supposed to be used by archaeologists as a malleable tool for

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Figure 9-1: Map of the Eastern European Steppe. The rectangle delineates the Middle Volga region. The black dot indicates the location of Spiridonovka within the Samara oblast’.

understanding change over time. Time has shown that archaeological cultures are usually equated with real groups of people and, as a result, they are linked to major assumptions about the economic base, political organization, ethnogenetic lines of descent, and even language family of the group. In short, these clusters of material remains are seen as representing actual human cultures in the anthropological sense. For the Late Bronze Age in the Volga-Ural region, archaeologists still tend to rely on mortuary data to reconstruct the political orders of that time period (e.g. Vinogradova and Kuzmina 1996). When the settlement data is discussed, it is usually separated from the mortuary data (e.g. Kolev et al. 2000). As it will be demonstrated later, settlement data is seen as being a better indicator of economic and ecological issues. The material traits of the Late Bronze Age archaeological cultures, however, are related to mortuary data that focuses primarily on the layout of burials within kurgans, the orientation and position of the deceased in the burial, the age and sex of the interred, and a description of the grave goods included. To demonstrate the way in which these data are linked to a larger narrative

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about political practices in the past, we include a discussion of the generally accepted interpretation of funerary practices of two Late Bronze Age archaeological cultures in the Middle Volga region (the Pokrovka Culture and the Srubnaya Culture).

Pokrovka (or Early Srubnaya) Burials The Late Bronze Age (1800-1200 B.C.) is usually divided into two phases of development associated with the Pokrovka2 and Srubnaya archaeological cultures (1800-1600 B.C. and 1600-1200 B.C. respectively). Semenova (2000) argues that burials from the beginning of the Late Bronze Age in the Middle Volga region are quite similar to those from the previous period: there are usually several kurgans in each cemetery; each kurgan has only a few burials (usually less than three); and special attention is given to central burials. The burial pits are rectangular and they tend to be fairly large in size (2 x 1m). Semenova (2000:162) points out that the interred are almost always placed on their left side in a contracted position with their arms bent and hands in front of their faces. They are also almost always orientated in a northerly direction. These burials are often lined with organic mats, and in the kurgans where there are more than three burials, there are often ribs from large domesticated animals included in the burials as well as ochre and sometimes chalk (Semenova 2000:162). Multiple interments in a single burial pit are rare for the Pokrovka Culture. Pokrovka burials are also marked by a diverse array of grave goods including bronze knives and daggers, bone rings with ornamentation, flint arrowheads, and polished stone axes. Semenova (2000) argues that “elite” burials with fine grave goods also include at least one elaborately decorated ceramic vessel and often two. Kolev (2002) has noted that each separate Pokrovka kurgan cemetery has a dominant form of ornamentation that is common for all the vessels contained therein and that this ornamentation is copied on bone rings that are usually found in burials with weapons. Kurgans with burials with a great many grave goods also contain more simple burials. Animal remains are never included in these so-called simple burials. Sometimes there are ceramic vessels, but they are usually only short wide jars. Semenova (2000) has argued that this clearly demonstrates the continuation of the importance of rank in these early Late Bronze Age societies, supposedly showing a clear cultural (and perhaps ethnogenetic) connection to Middle Bronze Age “cultures” of the region.

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Srubnaya Burials There are four main characteristics that make Srubnaya burials different from Pokrovka burials. First of all, there is a new way of organizing kurgan cemeteries. Srubnaya cemeteries usually contain between three and fourteen kurgans, often built in close proximity to Pokrovka kurgans. This is seen as indicating a strong ethnogenetic relationship between peoples of the two cultures. Second, Srubnaya kurgans tend to contain more burials. In the larger kurgans there can sometimes be up to 35 burials. Third, archaeologists argue that the way the burials were put together is standardized. Fourth, the ceramic vessels used for burial purposes are uniform in style and ornamentation (Semenova 2000). Most burials contain single interments, however sometimes there are double interments, usually one young adult and a child. Moreover, in Srubnaya cemeteries it seems that all members of society are represented, young and old, male and female (Semenova 2000). The burial of children becomes much more common during the second half of the Late Bronze Age. Indeed, some kurgans have more children than adult burials. Archaeologists suggest that this perhaps indicates that certain burial mounds were reserved primarily for children. In kurgans where there is a relatively even mix of adults and children, the burials of the children are often placed in the center (Semenova 2000). The deceased are almost always placed on their left side with their arms bent and their hands near their face. The interred are usually orientated in a northerly direction, but they are also occasionally found facing east, west, and rarely south; so this is one aspect of the burial ritual that is not entirely standardized. The deceased are usually placed in a severely contracted position. Semenova (2000:172) notes that Srubnaya burial pits are excavated into the subsoil and that there is a standard size of burial for adults and children. These standard burials are rectangular in shape. Unlike the Pokrovka type burials, there is rarely evidence of food offerings of domesticated animals in Srubnaya burials. In addition, bronze and copper weapons, tools, and jewelry are rare. When a grave contains a metal object, it is usually a knife, awl, needle, bracelet, beads, or ornaments for clothing. It is rare to find tools and jewelry together in a single burial. Evidence of ochre and chalk are extremely rare for this time period, though sometimes something is burned in burials since excavators occasionally find charcoal and layers of ash in burial pits. The most common grave good is ceramic vessels, with usually no more than two vessels per burial (Semenova 2000). In the rare cases where there are three

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ceramics in a single burial, it is dedicated to a child. If there are four to five vessels, then it is a multiple interment. Semenova (2000) argues that there are no longer elite burials during the Srubnaya period; the relative wealth of the deceased can only be determined based on differences in the number and quality of burial goods. Archaeologists such as Vasiliev and Matveeva (1986) argue that this was a peaceful time in the region and that although there may have been slight differences in wealth, the groups were essentially egalitarian. It should be clear from this description that the only funerary practices that became standardized during the Srubnaya period of the Late Bronze Age were the size and shape of the burial pit and the type of ceramic vessels used. In the case of the orientation of the deceased, Pokrovka burials were actually more standardized than Srubnaya burials. As far as position of the body is concerned, Pokrovka and Srubnaya burials were standardized in the sense that the deceased was almost always laid down on his/her left side in a contracted position. Archaeologists, however, only tangentially connect these data to egalitarianism in the Srubnaya period of the Late Bronze Age. Instead, the real element of standardization that researchers believe demonstrates political equality is the lack of central “elite” burials in Srubnaya kurgans and the inclusion of a greater percentage of the overall population, if not all people, in kurgan cemeteries. Thus, it is argued that kurgans were no longer exclusive burial grounds by the middle of the Late Bronze Age.

Interpreting the Past As mentioned earlier, archaeologists of the Volga-Ural region use a series of interpretive logics to reconstruct past political, economic and social orders. The most common of which is functionally linking types of artifacts with implied use. Hanks (2008) demonstrated how weapons are often seen as an indication of the warrior status of the interred and the social focus on warfare during the Iron Age in the Eurasian steppe. The same could be true for the interpretation of weapons in Bronze Age burials in the Eurasian steppe. However, the issue with the Late Bronze Age is that objects archaeologists of the region consider to be markers of status are almost entirely absent from Srubnaya burials. The absence of weapons in burial contexts is seen as indicating that the time period was peaceful. The absence of a central burial is seen as proving that there were no recognized leaders. Thus, archaeologists use the absence of artifacts to explain the world at this time. In addition, the standardization of particular objects and practices (e.g. ceramic styles and the construction of burial

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pits) is interpreted by archaeologists of the Volga-Ural region as indicating a decrease in individualism. Many of these interpretations stem from ethnographic and ethnohistorical analogy (see Shishlina 2000), though they often present an inverted version of the actual research. For example, for Salzman (1999, 2001, 2004), there are several things about pastoral lifeways, especially of nomads, that make egalitarianism a greater possibility in these types of societies. First, he argues that the very nature of pastoral subsistence lends itself to equality. His theory is based, in part, on the idea that since wealth accumulation is unstable in pastoral societies economic relationships of inequality are not fixed (Salzman 2004). Pastoralists, especially nomadic pastoralists, can never be certain how much of their livestock will make it through a harsh winter or recover from a particularly virulent epizootic. As a result, he reasons, the main source of wealth (livestock) has a way of evening out over time. Second, Salzman implies that relative equality in the economic sphere, especially given its instability, leads to equality in the political sphere since people will work together to protect key resources important to all (Salzman 1999). Similarly, he argues that when “instruments of coercion” are distributed universally, order tends to become decentralized within pastoral societies as well (Salzman 1999:32). Egalitarian societies are recognizable, therefore, when there is no clear leader or leaders. The problem with the way these ideas are integrated with the archaeological data is that researchers start with the end results of egalitarianism, such as the lack of a clear leader, and hypothesize that the other conditions are correct as well. Archaeologists of the region have also attempted to show that the Late Bronze Age was a time of abundant resources, thus naturally minimizing the differences in wealth accumulation (Vasiliev and Matveeva 1986, Kuzmina 2000). The cause of this abundance, according to some archaeologists (Ivanov 1996; Semenova 2000) was a subtle change in the climate from arid to slightly more humid. The change in climate has been documented through palynological analysis of cores from local marshes (see Kremenetski et al. 1999 and Popova 2007). It is also clear that large structures were built during the Late Bronze Age, though they were not constructed in the Early or Middle Bronze Age in the Middle Volga region. What has not been definitely proven, however, is that these structures were farms or ranches (though see Anthony et al. 2005 and Popova 2006 for recent work on this), and that there was a great abundance in livestock. Just like the problem with associating lack of central burials and the standardization of burial rights with egalitarianism,

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it is equally troubling to link climate change to the minimization of differences in wealth accumulation. Most archaeologists who focus on the Volga-Ural region seem to be committed to the idea of egalitarianism during the Late Bronze Age. There are a few scholars, however, who have attempted to demonstrate the continued presence of hierarchical social formations during that period (e.g. Gorbunov 1996; Malov 2002). One group of archaeologists have worked to find particular types of artifacts typically associated with the elite in previous periods, such as spears, scepters, and maces to demonstrate that they are still found in burials dating to the Late Bronze Age (Tsimidanov 1997; Dryomov 2002; Malov 2002,). Although they have been successful in showing that burials associated with the Pokrovka archaeological culture do occasionally have these artifacts, they are still relying on the functional perspective of the link between material culture and past lifeways. As a result, they are left unable to explain what happens during the second half of the Late Bronze Age when these objects almost completely disappear from burials. Otroshchenko (2003) has argued more vaguely that the presence of domesticated animal bones in burials during the Late Bronze Age indicates that the interred were elite members of society. As with previous studies, he relies on the rarity of the funerary offering to indicate power during life. All of the above theorists are interested in challenging the so-called egalitarianism of the Late Bronze Age. Gorbunov (1996), on the other hand, is challenging what standardization in the Late Bronze Age means. He has focused his research on settlement data, looking at the development of economic and cultural centers during the Late Bronze Age. He is particularly interested in the role in which the large Bronze Age settlement of Kargaly played in regional politics. Kargaly, located in the Southern Urals was dedicated to metallurgy on a grand scale (Chernykh 1997). Archaeological research at Kargaly has demonstrated that a great labor force was needed to extract and process copper ore at Kargaly, partially based on the size of the settlement and also on the amount of meat consumed by the workers (Antipina and Morales 2003). Gorbunov (1996) has speculated that there must have been some sort of despotic regime that forced people to go to Kargaly and support this level of mining. This would in turn explain the monotony of the culture. Koryakova and Epimakhov (2007:122) argue that this interpretation of the past is based on speculation. Still, Gorbunov is unique in that he utilizes settlement data to better understand political orders during the Late Bronze Age in the Volga-Ural region. If his theory is lacking, it is partially due to the fact

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that settlement archaeology has not been the focus of Late Bronze Age research in the Volga-Ural region for decades.

A Re-Analysis Using burial types or grave goods inventories as a straightforward proxy for politics ignore the complex way in which the dead impact the living and the way in which the living appropriate the dead. As Verdery (1999) points out, dead bodies have a way of linking people to places and to other people, and in this way they can be important for maintaining social cohesion. She further suggests that what constitutes a “proper” or standard burial ultimately reflects cosmic conceptions of the way the world is ordered – something that impacts not only the way people think but also the way they act. She writes, “Proper burials have myriad rules and requirements, and these are of great moment, for they affect the relations of both living and dead to the universe they all inhabit” (Verdery 1999:40). The creation and maintenance of these rules can give authority figures a powerful way in which to shape not only people’s view of the world but the landscape itself. These rules can also provide opportunities for people to resist oppressive regimes by subtly refusing to follow the requirements of burial that are symbolic of the larger social order. How do we study what makes a “proper burial” and how do we study the way that concept changes over time? At the basic level, it is necessary to see all aspects of the burial as a reflection, albeit incomplete, of the social and political orders that shape society (Verdery 1999). In order to accomplish this task, important aspects of social identity, such as age and gender, need to be highlighted, especially since these facets tend to be ignored in the literature on Bronze Age in Russia (but see Linduff and Rubinson 2008 for a discussion of gender). Indeed, until relatively recently, archaeologists have assumed that concepts of ageing were fairly uniform across time and place. The last few decades have seen an increase in literature looking at life cycles (Carr 1986) or life courses (Harlow and Laurence 2002) through burial data (e.g. Sofaer Derevenski 2000; Meskell 2000; Thedéen 2008). These studies have shown that the progression of life in a variety of past cultures is often marked differently for different age groups and for different genders. Thus, it is imperative that archaeologists look at the way in which social conceptions of age and gender play out in burial contexts as well. In addition to mortuary practices providing information about the way in which people of the past ordered their world, these events can also reaffirm particular identities. Indeed, mortuary patterns both reflect the

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way in which identity is constructed by an individual in his/her lifetime and the way that identity is rearticulated by the living through the ceremony itself (Verdery 1999:24). In order to understand both the way in which burials of the Late Bronze in the Middle Volga region reflect social and political ideals as well as particular identities, three kurgans (discussed below) will be re-analyzed at a variety of levels. First, throughout the case study, each burial mound will be compared with the standard for that archaeological culture (whether Pokrovka or Srubnaya). This makes it possible to evaluate whether a pattern from any of the kurgans is unusual. As Lucy (1998) points out, grave goods can either serve to construct, reinforce or subvert social norms. Second, those aspects of the mortuary ritual that tend to be studied by archaeologists of the Volga-Ural will be described, such as the arrangement of the burials within the kurgan and the orientation and position of the deceased within the burial, yet in this (re)analysis patterning associated with different age groups will be discussed. Moreover, the paleopathological analysis of most of the human remains from these three kurgans will make it possible to discuss issues of health and diet for the society as a whole and for particular individuals. It should be noted that these data are often missing from the reports of kurgan burials in the Volga-Ural region. Finally, material culture associated with the deceased will be highlighted, but instead of focusing on functional interpretations of particular unique items, the discussion will be split into the categories of material culture on the body (such as clothing and jewelry) and materials culture off the body (like ceramic vessels and faunal remains). Parker-Pearson (1999) argues that it is useful to look at these aspects of the burial separately, since the patterning in each of these categories may differently represent how identity was constructed during an individual’s life and how the identity of the deceased was renegotiated by the living at the funerary event.

Funerary Evidence from Spiridonovka Spiridonovka was selected for this case study because a majority of burials in this region date to the early Late Bronze Age (1800-1500 B.C.) making it possible to examine this period of transition in more detail. Below we look at three separate kurgans from Spiridonovka which represent three stages of the development of burial traditions at this time. Archaeologists know that Kurgan 1 at Spiridonovka 2 (hereafter Spir2K1) was constructed around 1800 B.C., based on radiocarbon dates (Kuznetsov and Mochalov 1999a), followed by Kurgan 1 at Spiridonovka 4 (hereafter Spir4K1), and then Kurgan 2 at Spiridonovka 4 (hereafter Spir4K2).3 All

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of these kurgans, however, were constructed during the first half of the Late Bronze Age. Spir2K1 and Spir4K1 are both associated with the Pokrovka culture (1800-1600 B.C.), while Spir4K2 is associated with the Srubnaya culture (1600-1200 B.C.). The relatively small number of burials from the Spiridonovka kurgans means that it is not appropriate to undertake a statistical analysis of the mortuary practices (see e.g. McHugh 1999).

Organization of the Kurgans In this section we will compare and contrast the layout of burials in each of the three kurgans, with special attention to divisions based on age, since sex or gender does not appear to be a factor in the arrangement of graves at these kurgans. Spir2K1, associated with the Pokrovka Culture, was organized with a cluster of burials near the center of the mound with the rest of the burials fanning out in the southern section of the kurgan [see Figure 9-2]. A total of nineteen burials contained the remains of some twenty-three individuals – five adult males, two adult and one adolescent female, one adult of indeterminable sex and fourteen children. It is unusual for kurgans from the early Late Bronze Age to have so many burials and to have multiple interments. Older adults (age 30+) were placed primarily on the eastern and western edges of the kurgan, with the exception of Burial 16, which is considered to be one of the central burials.4 Kuznetsov and Mochalov (1999a) point out that there is a distinction between the elaborate central graves and the more simple peripheral graves. The two burials (1 and 16) that make up the central grave complex are quite diverse in nature, with a young male (age 17-25) in Burial 1 and an adult male in Burial 16 (age 2535). Spir4K1 [see Figure 9-3], which is also associated with the Pokrovka Culture, contained twenty-three burials, one of which (Burial 17) was a double interment and one was sacrificial complex that contained a ceramic vessel (Kuznetsov and Mochalov 1999b).5 Of the deceased for which the sex could be determined, there were at least eight males and six females buried (Khokhlov 1999b). Based on age, the kurgan contained twelve adults, as well as eleven children, aged between one and eleven years, and one teenager, aged around sixteen years. As at Spir2K1, the burials of older individuals (30+) are located on the eastern and western peripheries of the kurgan (Burials 7, 8, 11, 18, 20, and 22). What is different, however, is that there is no clear central burial. Instead, Kuznetsov and Mochalov (1999b) note that twelve burials (1-5, 14, 15, 18-22) were excavated into

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Figure 9-2: Plan of Spiridonovka 2, Kurgan 1 (courtesy of Oleg Mochalov).

the ground surface up to half a meter in depth, while ten more were excavated more deeply into the subsoil. Out of the three kurgans reviewed here, this is the only one that has burial pits with strikingly different depths. The implied assumption in the regional archaeological literature is that the deeper burial pits were for more important individuals (Kuznetsov and Mochalov 1999b). Spir4K2, which is the only kurgan of the three associated with the Srubnaya Culture, contained fifteen burials and one sacrificial complex that consisted of a single ceramic vessel in a pit [Figure 9-4]. The remains comprised fifteen individuals – five females, three males, two teenagers, one of whom was possibly female, and five children ranging in age from two and a half to twelve years (Khokhlov 1999a). The oldest individuals tend to be on the northern and southern periphery of the kurgan (for example Burials 1, 6, 12, and 15), with the exception of burial number 6, which was near the center.

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Figure 9-3: Plan of Spiridonovka 4, Kurgan 1 (from Kuznetsov and Mochalov 1999b: 208).

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Figure 9-4: Plan of Spiridonovka 4, Kurgan 2 (from Kuznetsov and Mochalov 1999b: 209).

One commonality among all three kurgans is that the older individuals were found primarily on the periphery of the kurgans. The age profile for each kurgan, however, is quite different. It would seem to be the case that fewer children under the age of twelve years were buried in kurgans as time goes on. Some 52% (n=12/23) of the burials in Spir2K1 were of children under twelve years of age, while children comprised 45.8% (n=11/24) of the burials at Spir4K1 and only 33.3% (n=5/15) of the interred at Spir4K2. This pattern does not seem to fit with the overall trend of children’s burials becoming more common in the Late Bronze Age (Semenova 2000). However, this discrepancy could be due to the fact these are only three kurgans out of a much larger kurgan cemetery. Still, it does demonstrate that it is important to look at the age profile for each

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kurgan, not just for the cemetery as a whole, in order to understand burial processes.

Human Remains – Arranging the Body In this section we focus on the human remains by looking at aspects of the funerary ritual associated with the body, such as the orientation of the body in the grave, the position of the body, and evidence of reburial, in order to examine how much more standardized burial practices were in the Srubnaya period. Burial#

Sex

Age

Form of Burial Pit

Side

Orientation

Paleopathology

1

M

17-25

Rectangle

Left

North

Yes

2a

F

15-18

Rectangle

Left

Northwest

Yes

2b

F?

6.5-8.5

"

Left

Northwest

Yes

3

5

Rectangle

Left

Northeast

No

4

4

Rectangle

Left

Northeast

No

5 6

M

15

Rectangle

Left

North

No

35-45

Rectangle

Left

East

Yes

7

8-9

Rectangle

Left

North

No

8a

6.5-8.5

Square

Left

North

Yes

8b

5-6

"

Left

North

No

8c

3-4

"

Left

North

No

9

6-7

Rectangle

Left

North

No Yes

25-35

Rectangle

Left

East

11a

10

M

5

Square

Left

West

No

11b

7

"

Left

West

No

12

5

Oval

Left

North

No

13

F

25-35

Rectangle

Left

Northeast

Yes

16

M

25-35

Rectangle

Left

North

Yes

17

F

25-35

Rectangle

Left

North

Yes

Table 9-1: Basic information about the burials in Spiridonovka 2, Kurgan 1.6

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At Spir2K1, all of the deceased were placed on their left side in a slightly contracted position with their hands close to their faces. Most of the deceased were orientated in a northerly direction, except burials 6 and 10 that were orientated in an easterly direction (see Table 9-1), which is unusual for burials from this time period. All of the burial pits were standard for Pokrovka burials, rectangular, rectangular with rounded edges, or square, with the exception of Burial 12, which was oval in form. There were three instances in this kurgan where there were multiple interments in one burial pit, all of which contained children or adolescents, which is very unusual for a Pokrovka type kurgan. Although there were secondary burials (14, 15, 18, and 19) discovered at Spir2K1, they all belonged to later time periods. At Spir4K1 there was more diversity in the orientation of the deceased. Most of the interred had their heads orientated in a northerly direction (n=14), but four people were buried with their heads in a westerly orientation (Burials 1, 2, 8, and 9), while the individuals in Burials 11 and 14 were orientated south and the individuals in Burials 18 and 23 had their heads positioned in an easterly direction (Kuznetsov and Mochalov 1999b). This diversity of orientation is unusual for a Pokrovka type kurgan. All of the deceased were placed on their left side in a contracted position (see Table 9-2). There were several secondary burials in this kurgan which added to its unusual layout. Burials 15, 21 and 22 were added after the burial mound was constructed. Burial 15 was located in the center of the kurgan and was the resting place of a 35-45 year old female. Burials 21 and 22 belonged respectively to a small child (1-2 years old) and an older female (35-45 years old). It is possible these two individuals were linked in some way. The skull, parts of the vertebrae and some ribs are missing from Burial 2 and as a result Kuznetsov and Mochalov (1999b) speculate that the interred (male, 35-45 years) may have been reburied in this kurgan. The female (age 35-45) in Burial 10 had three sharp knife cuts present at the upper end of her right femur which may be indicative of disarticulation as part of secondary burial processes. All of the burials that were added later were of older individuals, with the exception of the young child in Burial 21.

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Burial #

Sex

1 2

M

299

Age

Form of Burial Pit

Side

Orientation

Paleopathology

5-6

Unclear

Left

West

No Yes

35-45

Unclear

Left

West

3

9

Round

Left

Unknown

No

4

9.5-11.5

Rectangle

Left

North

Yes

5

F?

15-17?

Rectangle

Left

North

Yes

6

F

25-35

Rectangle

Left

North

Yes

7

M

25-35

Trapezoid

Left

North

Yes

8

M

35-45

Rectangle

Left

West

Yes

3-4

Rectangle

Left

West

No

9 10

F

35-45

Rectangle

Left

North

Yes

11

M?

35-45

Rectangle

Left

South

Yes

12

M

14.5-17.5

Rectangle

Unclear

Northeast

Yes

13

M

35-45

Rectangle

Left

North

Yes

4

Unclear

Unclear

South

No

15

F?

35-45

Unclear

Unclear

Unclear

Yes

16

F

Yes

14

17-25

Trapezoid

Unclear

North

17a

7-8

Rectangle

Left

Northeast

No

17b

8-9

"

Left

Northeast

No No

18

F?

19 20

M

21 22 23

F

60

Unclear

Left

East

6 to 8

Rectangle

Left

Northeast

No

25-35

Oval

Left

Northwest

Yes

1-2

Oval

Left

North

Yes

35-45

Rectangle

Left

Northwest

Yes

6 to 7

Rectangle

Left

East

No

Table 9-2: Basic information about the burials in Spiridonovka 4, Kurgan 1.

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Burial #

Sex

Age

Form of Burial Pit

Side

Orientation

Paleopathology

1

F

35-45

Rectangle

Unclear

South

Yes

2

8-9

Rectangle

Left

West

Yes

3

15

Rectangle

Left

North

No

4

12

Rectangle

Left

North

No

15-17

Rectangle

Left

North

Yes Yes

5

M?

6

M

45+

Trapezoid

Right

West

7

F

17-18

Rectangle

Left

North

No

8

M

35-45

Rectangle

Left

Northeast

Yes

9

4

Rectangle

Left

East

No

10

4.5-6.5

Rectangle

Left

East

Yes

25-35

Rectangle

Unclear

North

Yes

11

F

12

M

45+

Rectangle

Left

Northwest

Yes

13

F

17-25

Rectangle

Left

Northwest

Yes

2.5

Rectangle

Left

South

No

35-45

Rectangle

Left

West

Yes

14 15

F

Table 9-3: Basic information about burials in Spiridonovka 4, Kurgan 2. At Spir4K2, all individuals were buried on their left side in a contracted position, except for the person in Burial 6. He is the only individual in all three kurgans to be buried on his right side. Eight out of the fifteen burials were orientated in a northerly direction, while two were orientated south (Burials 1 and 14), two were orientated east (Burials 9 and 10), and three were orientated to the west (Burials 2, 6, and 15). Archaeologists expect some diversity in the orientation of the Srubnaya burial pits, but burying an individual on his/her right side is quite unusual (see Table 9-3). There were only two secondary burials in this kurgan (1 and 6), both of which are unusual in some respect. In Burial 6, an older adult male (45+ years) was buried in a trapezoid-shaped pit on his right side orientated to the west in a weakly contracted position [see Figure 9-5]. The other secondary burial in Kurgan 2 (Burial 1) was of a 35-45 year old female, with her head orientated to the south. Although there was no evidence for disarticulation, cut marks on her bones, and the plan of her burial would tend to suggest that the body had been at least partially disarticulated and

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Figure 9-5: Spiridonovka 4, Kurgan 2, Burial 6 (Kuznetsov and Mochalov 1999b: 219).

the legs tightly bound. Both individuals will be discussed in more detail in the following section.

Human Remains—Paleopathology Although it is common to age and sex the skeletons from most kurgan cemeteries in the Eastern European section of Russia, paleopathological analysis is rarely conducted on the human skeletal remains. In this section we will demonstrate that without these data, archaeologists of the Eurasian steppes are missing information that can provide important clues about how these people lived, whether their diet was sufficient, and what work they may have performed. It should be noted that not all of the skeletal

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remains from these burials were available for paleopathological analysis (see Tables 9-1, 9-2 and 9-3). The most common pathology from all three kurgans was degenerative joint disease affecting almost all of the older individuals studied from each kurgan (see Table 9-4), perhaps indicating that life was difficult during all three periods represented. Another commonly occurring vertebral disease seen in this population was Schmorl's nodes associated with physical stress often in young adults. These nodes form in dry bone as a small depression in the upper or lower surface of the vertebral body where part of the contents of a ruptured vertebral disc has been forced out. Another sign of physical stress and strain found in some of the individuals was spondylolysis, a vertebral fracture, with a possible genetic basis, which manifests following repeated stresses and strains to the lower vertebrae. These conditions impacted both males and females equally. The second most common group of pathologies from Spiridonovka, enamel hypoplasia and cribra orbitalia, were related to issues of diet and poor health. Enamel hypoplasia, which is malformation of the tooth enamel during development and is related to malnutrition and illness in childhood was seen in several individuals at all three kurgans (see Table 94). Cribra orbitalia, which is a pathological lesion of the roof of the eye socket (orbit) associated with deficiencies of vitamins B12, C and D (Walker et al. 2009: 7,11), was seen in several individuals from Spir2K1 and Spir4K1. Although enamel hypoplasia was seen in males and females equally, cribra orbitalia was seen mostly (perhaps entirely) in females, suggesting a difference in diet and/or health status between those two groups, especially during the Early Late Bronze Age. It is interesting that there were no instances of cribra orbitalia at Spir4K2, perhaps supporting the general opinion held by archaeologists of the region that the diet of the general population improved during the Late Bronze Age. Beyond better understanding issues of diet and disease that affected the population in general, paleopathology can also illuminate the particular lifeways of certain individuals. For example, the oldest individual (male, 35-45 years old) at Spir2K1, interred in Burial 6, was one of only a few individuals who were orientated in an easterly direction. His remains displayed a number of paleopathological lesions indicative of advancing age and possible stress and strain to the skeleton as a result of strenuous physical activities, including partial spondylolysis, Schmorl’s nodes and degenerative joint disease of the spine. What is unique about him is that chipping on his front teeth seem to indicate he had used his teeth as tools. The burial was also unique because the individual was buried with two rare small bowls with abstract drawings rather than stamped patterns. The

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Paleopathology

Spiridonovka 2, Kurgan 1

Hypoplasia

Burial 1

Cribra orbitalia

Burial 13

Degenerative Joint Disease

Burials 6 and 17

Spondylolysis

Burial 6

Schmorl's Nodes

Burial 6

Spiridonovka 4, Kurgan 1 Burials 1, 4, 10, 16 Burials 4, 10, 16

303 Spiridonovka 4, Kurgan 2 Burials 1, 2, 5, 13 None

Burials 2, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, 22

Burials 1, 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 15

Burial 22 Burials 6, 8, 10, 13, 22

None Burials 8, 11, 12

Table 9-4: The most common pathologies at Spiridonovka. combination of the chipping on his front teeth and the very unusual vessels (discussed more later) suggest that this individual served a special function within the group. As mentioned above, at Spir4K1, almost all of the individuals 35-45 years of age were either added after the kurgan was constructed or were reburied in this particular kurgan. In addition to having many of the conditions of advanced age suffered by the population in general, some of these individuals had unusual paleopathological lesions. For example, in Burial 8, the interred was orientated to the west and placed in the burial pit with his head almost at a 90 degree angle to his neck and his right arm resting on his knees. His unusual pose can perhaps be explained by paleopathological analysis. He was a 35-45 year old male and, in addition to degenerative joint disease and Schmorl’s nodes of his spine, he displayed evidence of having suffered from a wasted left leg. The nature of the lesions would tend to suggest that he had suffered from a developmental defect of the left hip or a fracture to the femur when he was a child. The wasted limb does not appear to have prevented the man from moving around and his right leg appears to have become overdeveloped, presumably because it had to carry the full weight of the man when he walked. In addition, his overall musculature appears to have been very well developed and, again, this was probably a secondary response to the wasted left leg. It is telling that this older individual with a significant physical disability was afforded an atypical burial. Such differential treatment in death of the physically disabled has been identified in a variety of cultures of various time periods from around the world and can provide insights as to how the individual was perceived during their

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lifetime (e.g. Charlier 2008: 58-62; Leach 2008: 51-52; Murphy 2000: 7475; Tsaliki 2008: 11-14). Another secondary burial from this kurgan (Burial 10) that should be discussed in more detail is of a 35-45 year old female. This burial is unusual since there is evidence that the deceased lived a hard life and yet she was one of the few individuals in this burial mound who had a relatively rich grave inventory. Her remains displayed numerous paleopathological lesions. The presence of Schmorl’s nodes in her vertebrae are indicative that she had engaged in heavy physical activities that had put strain on her intervertebral discs, while the occurrence of cribra orbitalia and enamel hypoplasia suggest that she had suffered from vitamin deficiencies and physiological stress when she was a child. A longstanding, well healed fracture was visible at the lower end of her left radius. Three sharp knife cuts present at the upper end of her right femur may be indicative of disarticulation as part of secondary burial processes. A rib from a large domesticated animal was identified during the paleopathological analysis and may represent the only evidence for a food offering within the burials of Spir4K1. This female’s burial was further distinguished by the evidence that at some point an organic cover was placed over her burial and burned (Kuznetsov and Mochalov 1999b). As mentioned earlier, it was not uncommon for organic mats to be incorporated into burials associated with the Pokrovka Culture, though they were relatively rare at Spir2K1 and Spir4K2. At Spir4K2, three individuals were older than 35 when they were buried (Burials 1, 6, 15). All of these individuals were orientated in a direction other than north and two of the three were secondary burials (Burials 1 and 6). Of these burials the most striking is number 6, in which the oldest individual in the kurgan (an adult male, 45+ years) was buried in a manner that went completely against the standard traits for the Srubnaya archaeological culture. He was buried in a trapezoid-shaped burial on his right side orientated to the west in a weakly contracted position [see Figure 9-5]. In addition to these differences, this individual displayed evidence of a major long-standing soft tissue injury to his left shoulder. The other secondary burial in Kurgan 2 (Burial 1) was of a 35-45 year old female, with her head orientated to the south. This individual displayed evidence of extensive enamel hypoplasia which indicated that she had been subject to at least five incidents of physiological stress between 4-6 years of age. She also displayed a developmental anomaly in the form of a partial block vertebra of her second and third vertebrae but this is unlikely to have caused her any adverse symptoms. Although there was no evidence for disarticulation cut marks on her bones the plan of her burial

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would tend to suggest that the body had been at least partially disarticulated and the legs tightly bound.

Material Culture on the Body In this section we will look at objects that were found on the body of the deceased. It was this category of items that most likely identified the sex of the interred. We look in particular at the presence and absence of bronze ornaments, paste beads, and bone items. In all three kurgans, females were more likely to be buried with a bronze item than males. The most common bronze item used to adorn the body of the deceased was a simple bracelet (sometimes two). The difference between the three kurgans, however, comes down to who is allowed to wear these items. At Spir2K1, bronze bracelets and other bronze ornaments are used to signify that the interred is female (although not all females have bracelets). The age of the individual does not seem to be important. The deceased have bronze bracelets in three burials: number 2 (6.5-8.5 year old and 13-16 year old), 7 (8-9 year old), and 13 (25-35 years), all of which are clustered on the southwestern quadrant of the burial mound. The young girl in Burial 7 also had a bronze earring. Paste beads, on the other hand, seem to be associated with young females as they were found in the burials of a teenager (13-16 years) and a child (5 years old), Burials 2 and 3 respectively. At Spir4K1 and Spir4K2, no paste beads were found and bronze bracelets were associated only with adult females aged 17 or older (see Tables 9-2, 9-3 and 9-5). More spectacular bronze ornaments were associated with the two young females placed in Burial 2 and the adult female (20-25 years of age) interred in Burial 13 at Spir2K1. Burial 2 contained the remains of a 6.58.5 year old child and a 13-16 year old female (Kuznetsov and Mochalov 1999a). Both young females had bronze bracelets and very unique bronze hair pieces (nakosniki) made up of plates of bronze bound together [see Figure 9-6].7 The older female also had paste beads around her neck and waist. Similarly, the female interred in Burial 13 had round bronze ornaments (blyakhi) below her chin and near her thighs which were probably used to embellish clothing. In addition, cylindrical bronze hair ornaments (proniski) were found near her head.8 It seems likely that these items are special markers of prestige. At least at Spir2K1, rare and unusual items were placed on the body of the two males interred in the central burials (1 and 16) as a marker of status. In Burial 1, a young adult male (17-25 years of age) was buried with two bone buckles (pryashki). So far archaeologists have only found

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Material Culture

Spiridonovka 2, Kurgan 1

Spiridonovka 4, Kurgan 1 Burials 3, 4, 610, 12, 13, 19, 21-23

Spiridonovka 4, Kurgan 2

Ceramic Vessels

Burials 1-4, 6-10, 12, 13, 16, 17

Faunal Remains Bronze Items Paste Beads

Burial 1, 8, 13, 16, 17, 19 Burials 1, 2, 7, 9, 13 Burials 2, 3

Burial 10

Burials 2, 5, 12

Burials 10, 16

Burials 13, 15

None

None

Lithics

Burials 1, 8,

None

None

Bone Items

Burial 1

None

None

Red Ochre Organic Mats

Burial 16

None

None

Burial 1

Burial 10

None

Burials 1, 3, 5, 6, 12, 14, 15

Table 9-5: Material culture from the kurgans at Spiridonovka. three examples of this type of horned buckle in the Middle Volga region (Kuznetsov and Mochalov 1999a). In this case, it seems likely that these buckles were part of the clothing of the deceased. On the other hand, in Burial 16, the body of an adult male (25-35 years of age) was covered with red ochre, which is also considered as a status symbol. It has been noted that ochre staining on bones was notably less common in the Late Bronze Age population of Samara compared to earlier periods (Murphy and Khokhlov 2004). Though in earlier periods, red ochre was often the only item added to the burial. Neither bone items nor red ochre were found in the other two kurgans, which perhaps suggests that people at Spiridnovka relied less and less on items placed on the body to indicate rank or importance, especially for males.

Material Culture off the Body In this section we will look at the objects that were not found on the body in these burials, such as ceramics, faunal remains, weapons, tools and lithics. These are the artifacts that are traditionally listed in almost all reports on Bronze Age burials in the Eastern European steppes. As we mentioned earlier, the diversity and number of artifacts found in a burial is seen a being an indicator of the status of that individual. Here we will

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Figure 9-6: Spiridonovka 2, Kurgan 1, (1) Burial #2; (2) ceramic vessel with symbols; (3) detail of design on ceramic vessel; (4) bronze bracelets; (6) bronze needle; (7) nakosnik 1 (from Kuznetsov and Mochalov 1999a: 79-81).

problematize this oversimplified association by instead looking at ways in which these artifacts highlight differences in age, sex, and social responsibilities. The most common grave good in all three kurgans was ceramic vessels (see Table 9-5). However, it should be noted that over time a smaller percentage of the burials contain this type of grave offering (76% at Spir2K1, 57% at Spir4K1, and 47% at Spir4K2).9 There was also a difference between the three kurgans based on the diversity of ceramic styles, vessel sizes and decorative patterns. Spir2K1 had almost an equal number of jars and bowls and it was the only kurgan of the three to have a beaker shaped vessel. Spir4K1, had mostly bowls, while jars were favored at Spir4K2. The two earlier kurgans had greater diversity in size (some vessels were tiny), whereas at Spir4K2, most vessels were of a standard size and shape. At Spir4K1, many different motifs were used to decorate the ceramic vessels, such as chevrons, rhombuses and zigzags,10 whereas at Spir4K2, most of the vessels were decorated with pyramids. One thing that is the same for both Spir4K1 and Spir4K2, but not for Spir2K1, is that the method used to make decorations on ceramic vessels was used

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consistently within each kurgan (e.g. a toothed stamp at Spir4K1 and small lines at Spir4K2). Kuznetsov and Mochalov (1999a) argue that this demonstrates that over time ceramic styles, like burial types, become increasingly standardized in the Late Bronze Age. This process of standardization stands in contrast to the diversity and rarity of some of the ceramic vessels at Spir2K1. For example, in Burial 6, discussed in detail above, the older adult male was buried with two small bowls with abstract drawings rather than stamped patterns. Mochalov (2008:179) argues that these small ceramic vessels may have fulfilled some sort of ritual function as they are quite rare, making up only 1-4% of all Late Bronze Age vessels in the Volga-Ural Region. The miniature vessels are usually undecorated, which makes the abstractly decorated miniature vessels in Burial 6 a very unusual find. In addition, the two young females interred in Burial 2 [see Figure 9-6] had a ceramic jar placed between them that was decorated with striped triangles in a very unusual arrangement. Such vessels are usually referred to as calendrical or mystical vessels or vessels with symbols (Mochalov 2004; 2008). It seems likely that in this case the unique ceramic vessels were associated with particular professions, though we do not know which ones. The second most common item included in burials at Spiridonovka were faunal remains. At Spir2K1, only adults, regardless of sex, had ribs from large domesticated stock included in their burials placed either near the head or behind the back (Burials 1, 13, 16, 17). That is not to say, however, that all adult burials in this kurgan had evidence of food offerings. At Spir2K1, only one burial (number 10) contained the rib bone of an animal. As was mentioned earlier, this was the secondary burial of an older adult female (35-45 years) who had lived a hard life. The fact that children did not have domesticated animal remains in their burials at these two kurgans might suggest that the protection of the herd was seen as being an essentially adult responsibility, though no doubt children helped (see e.g. Murphy 2008). There was more variety in the way faunal remains were incorporated into burials at Spir4K2 compared to the earlier two kurgans. In Burial 5 (male, age 15-17) and Burial 12 (male, age 45+), animal bone was found in the ceramic vessel that accompanied the deceased. In Burial 15 (female, age 35-45), only animal bones were included. Although the report does not explicitly state that the faunal remains were of domesticated animals, it seems likely that they were in these instances. It is perhaps significant that faunal remains were deposited differently in the burials of males versus females. It is hard, however, to see if this trend holds true more broadly

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since most Late Bronze Age burials in the region do not have faunal remains (Kuznetsov and Mochalov 1999b). Faunal remains were associated with the burials of children at both Spir2K1 and Spir4K2 and in both cases the items were unusual. At Spir2K1, four perforated carnivore fangs were included in Burial 8 which was the multiple interment of three children (Sk 1, 7-9 years; Sk 2, 5-6 years and Sk 3, 3-4 years; Khokhlov 1999a). The fangs were placed up against the northern wall of the burial pit and were not specifically associated with one child in particular. Several different types of vessels were placed near the head and feet of the deceased as well as a stone carving of an animal, which may have been a toy. At Spir4K2, faunal remains were uncovered in Burial 2 (8-9 year old child, orientated west). In this instance, a group of horse phalanges from three difference horses were clustered in the southwestern portion of the pit (Kuznetsov and Mochalov 1999b). Without more evidence of this kind of offering on a regional scale, it is hard to speculate what these faunal remains could mean, although one is tempted to postulate that they were gaming pieces (see Stepanov et al. 2001). Bronze items found near the body (such as knives, needles and awls) were the third most common type of grave offering. Artifacts such as these were only found at Spir2K1 and Spir4K1 in burials that already contained many other goods as part of their grave inventory. The only bronze weapon uncovered in these three kurgans was a knife located behind the head of the young adult male interred in Burial 1, a central burial, at Spir2K1. Five flint arrowheads and one bone arrowhead were also associated only with this burial. In addition, the human remains in this burial were covered with a rare organic mat. Needles were discovered in the burials of adult females with other forms of adornment made from bronze (Burial 2 at Spir2K1 and Burial 10 at Spir4K1). The individual in Burial 10 at Spir4K1 was also covered with an organic mat. Although the knife and needles were associated with adults, the only bronze awl uncovered at these three kurgans was found under a ceramic vessel in the burial of an 8-9 year old (Spir2K1, Burial 7). In short, these bronze artifacts off the body served to embellish already rich burials.

Discussion Traditionally archaeologists of the Late Bronze Age in the Middle Volga region rely on two types of data to show that this was a period of cultural standardization and political equality. The lack of diversity in burial practices and ceramic types, they argue, hinted at cultural monotony

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and the lack of central burials and the number and type of people buried in Srubnaya kurgans were seen as indicating egalitarianism. Looking at burial practices alone, however, cannot provide a complete picture. After all, as Verdery (1999) points out, burials represent cosmic conceptions of the way the world is ordered. Thus, the burial data need to be interpreted alongside what is known about the way people lived. As it was mentioned above, the Late Bronze Age in the Middle Volga region was a period of social and economic upheaval. While archaeologists (Kolev et al. 1999) have located only a handful of ephemeral settlement sites associated with the Early and Middle Bronze Age in the Volga-Ural region, suggesting highly dispersed temporary communities, hundreds of Late Bronze Age settlements have been discovered. The most impressive of these settlements consist of several large structures that could have housed up to 120-150 people, according to Vasiliev and Matveeva (1986). Due to the spaciousness of the buildings, it is often assumed that they indicate a turn to a more communal way of life. Instead of nuclear families living in tents or wagons, the members of a particular community were brought together under one roof (Vasiliev and Matveeva 1986). There has been some question about whether or not these buildings were actually year-round dwellings for Late Bronze Age communities of the Middle Volga region (see Popova 2006). Still, it is certain that these structures would have changed the way people interacted with each other, with the landscape, and with their livestock, which would have ultimately impacted the way in which they conceived of the burial process. To illustrate the social upheaval that comes with this kind of change, it makes sense to look at Abu-Lughod’s (1986) ethnography of the Bedouin women of the Western Desert of Egypt. In this text she explores how life changes for these nomadic pastoralists as they start living more sedentary lives, switching from tents to permanent dwellings and becoming involved in a cash economy. As a result of this shift, she argues that women felt more isolated, since they were often segregated from other women in a single dwelling. Women’s work was increasingly confined to “a separate and economically devalued domestic sphere” (Abu-Lughod 1986:73). Finally, women were unable to spend much time out of the house, since it became harder to avoid male nonkin and strangers while moving about in the settled communities. The challenge then is to see how changes in Late Bronze Age settlement strategies in the Middle Volga region altered social relationships, economic practices, and cultural sensibilities which were ultimately reflected in the burial data. What follows is a discussion of the similarities

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and differences discovered for the three kurgans and how these illuminate changing ideas about the politics of life and death. When archaeologists argue that burial practices were increasingly standardized during the Srubnaya period of the Late Bronze Age, the implied meaning is that previous burial practices were more individualistic and focused on demonstrating difference. In some cases this was true. There were central burials at Spir2K1, but none at the later two kurgans. There was greater diversity in ceramic grave goods, both in form and ornamentation, at Spir2K1 and Spir4K1 than at Spir4K2. There was also more variety in the types of funerary items included in Spir2K1 than at Spir4K1 and Spir4K2. Indeed, Spir2K1 was an unusual kurgan in that it contained so many rare artifacts, including: bone buckles, bronze hair ornaments shaped like daggers, a bronze knife, flint and bone arrowheads, and paste beads. Most of these rare items were clustered into a few burials (especially Burials 1 and 2). Thus, it seems likely that at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age (around 1800 B.C.), distinctions in age, gender, and wealth/power were played out in funerary contexts. With permanent dwellings still relatively new, community members looked to familiar rituals, especially in mortuary contexts, to provide a sense of cultural continuity. It has also been demonstrated in this chapter that at Spiridonovka there were elements that remained consistent for all three kurgans, most of them based on age categories. First, older adults (age 30+) were usually buried on the peripheries of the burial mounds. In the case of Spir4K1 and Spir4K2, secondary burials that were either added to the kurgan after it was built or moved from another location were almost always reserved for older individuals, both male and female. This pattern indicates the importance of making sure older individuals were buried in specific kurgans, demonstrating a strong sense of communal (perhaps kin based) ties re-enforced through burial rituals throughout the first half of the Late Bronze Age. In this sense, what was included with the individual was sometimes not as important as the fact that the individual was selected to be buried in the in the kurgan itself. Faunal remains of domesticated animals were also found in all three kurgans, though this goes against the standard for Srubnaya kurgans. These remains were only associated with adults (age 17 or older), with the exception of the horse phalanges found associated with a child at Spir4K2.11 The difference, however, was that at Spir2K1 and Spir4K1 the rib bone of a large domesticated animal was commonly used, whereas at Spir4K2 bits of animal bone were found either loose or in ceramic vessels. We would argue that this subtle change could indicate that the way in

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which people were utilizing livestock changed profoundly over the Late Bronze Age. The rib bones from Spir2K1 and Spir4K1 are often interpreted by archaeologists of the region as evidence of feasting associated with the funerary ceremony (see Kolev et al 2000). It seems possible that the food offerings at Spir4K2, the only Srubnaya burial, were stews made from the meat of domesticated animals. There is support for this interpretation in Demkin’s (1999) phosphate analysis of residues from Late Bronze Age ceramics vessels found in mortuary contexts in the Volga-Ural region. He discovered that ceramic vessels in these contexts (all Srubnaya) either contained meat bullion, water, or kasha. There still may have been feasts in which livestock were roasted and shared, but in this case the emphasis was on consumption by those involved in the ceremony, rather than inclusion of remains from the actual feast with the deceased. It could also indicate a trend in food preparation in general in which smaller amounts of meat were made to feed larger numbers of people by being stewed rather than roasted. Paleopathological analysis also demonstrated that there were issues of health and diet that impacted the individuals in all three kurgans. Almost all of the older individuals studied (both male and female) had degenerative joint disease indicating that life was physically demanding during all three periods represented. Another common pathology was enamel hypoplasia which indicated that individuals (both male and female) in all three kurgans had suffered from malnutrition and illness in childhood. The presence of cribra orbitalia in females from Spir2K1 and Spir4K1, indicates that these individuals suffered from vitamin deficiencies. It is interesting that no cases of cribra orbitalia were evident at Spir4K2 perhaps indicating that females had more access to more nutritious foods, although other lines of research would need to be utilized to test this hypothesis. Perhaps meat and other foods were distributed more evenly, allowing women more of the share. It is also possible that the permanent buildings allowed for the stockpiling of food which minimized the risk of food shortages. The downside to this change, however, could have been decreased interaction with and control over livestock. Throughout the Late Bronze Age there was an increased interest in cattle over other forms of domesticated stock in the Middle Volga region and elsewhere (see Kolev et al. 2000), which was at odds with the sedentary life these people chose since cattle require more (and better) food than other types of animals. Although many archaeologists (e.g. Vasiliev and Matveeva 1986) see these settlements as ranches, recent research suggests that a fair number of people broke off from the main settlement during winter and summer in order to take the community’s livestock to better pastures (see Popova

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2006). This would have resulted in the division of the population at particular times of the year and although we do not know if this was a gendered division, it seems possible that it was. Another commonality for all three kurgans was that females were more likely to be buried with bronze items than males were. Bronze bracelets were the most common item associated with females and they were found in all three kurgans, though this also goes against what is considered normal for Srubnaya burials. It is interesting to note that when there was another type of artifact only associated with young females, such as paste beads at Spir2K1, then females of all ages had bronze bracelets. However, in the later two kurgans when young females were not distinguished in this way, bronze bracelets were only worn by a select few adult females. This could perhaps demonstrate changing views about gender as it relates to different age groups, but it would need to be explored at more burial mounds in the region to know for sure. It would not be surprising that if a greater number of people began to interact with one another regularly in large permanent dwellings, there would be some changes in gender relations. Perhaps the inclusion of bronze items with older women was a way of signifying the matriarch of the group, clearly a significant figure, especially if we assume that the people living in each structure were kin. The open nature of the large structures would have made the matriarch literally more visible to all. The fact that males did not have bronze items could indicate that it was more important to keep these items in circulation, especially when they were associated with powerful male lineages. As with the sacrificing of livestock for a feast, it seems that by the middle of the Late Bronze Age, the focus was shifting more on utilizing important objects in life rather than depositing them with the deceased. A more unexpected congruency was that each kurgan had one burial of an older male with some particular physical condition that was interred in an unusual way. At Spir2K1 (Burial 6), the oldest individual in the kurgan (male, 35-45 years old) was one of two burials orientated east. His remains displayed a number of paleopathological lesions indicative of advancing age and possible stress and strain to the skeleton as a result of strenuous physical activities and his chipped front teeth indicated that he had used his teeth as tools. What marked this individual as someone with a special function in society were the two extremely rare miniature ceramic vessels with abstract drawings that were included in the burial. At Spir4K1 and Spir4K2, however, rather than objects included with the individual, it was the way in which the deceased was arranged within the burial that marked the individual as unique. At Spir4K1, all of the individuals buried in a

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direction other than north were either older adults age 35+ or very young children (which suggests that the burials of adolescents and young adults were most likely to conform to the standard burial type). Although it is unclear what the change in orientation was supposed to indicate in all of these cases, for Burial 8 it was meant to distinguish a 35-45 year old male who had suffered from a developmental defect of the left hip or a fracture to the femur when he was a child. Only the change in orientation marks this individual as different. The situation was different at Spir4K2, the only Srubnaya kurgan analyzed in this chapter. The older adult male (45+ years) interred in Burial 6 who had suffered from a major long-standing soft tissue injury to his left shoulder would have immediately been recognized as unusual. First, this burial was one of two added to the kurgan after it was constructed. Unlike all but one burial, he was orientated to the west. He was the only individual to be buried in a trapezoid shaped burial pit at Spir4K2 and he was the only individual in all three kurgans to be buried on his right side. In each of these cases, the male individual was buried in some exceptional way. They were all marked as different by the orientation of the burial, although they were not the only individuals to receive this treatment. In the case of Spir2K1, the individual was further distinguished by the inclusion of special grave goods. This was effective, because all individuals with a unique status were given unusual burial goods in this kurgan. In the case of Spir4K2, every burial standard was deliberately violated in Burial 6. This was just as effective, if not more so, than the addition of special grave goods, but only in the context of the middle of the Late Bronze Age. As the burials became more standardized, any element of standard practice that was resisted would have been noted. We think it likely this individual was an important political figure, since he was deliberately added later to a kurgan that was already built. As discussed above, pastoral groups deemphasized the inclusion of material goods in burials during the second half of the Late Bronze Age. This, however, does not mean important individuals could not be marked in a way that would be meaningful for all, while allowing the individual’s wealth (and the power associated with that wealth) to remain in circulation.

Conclusion What changed during the Late Bronze and how did this effect burial practices? On the one hand, it seems likely that with an increasing sense of what constitutes a “proper burial” it became easier to highlight exceptional

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individuals. No longer were extravagant grave inventories necessary. Instead, as Burial 6 from Spir4K2 indicates, the standard burial form could be changed in part or in its entirety. This resistance to the accepted standard practice would immediately signal to those at the funeral that this burial was special. It is not clear yet if this was an honor, but it seems likely that it was, since the individual in Burial 6 was specially added later to an already built kurgan. Moreover, the lack of extravagant burial goods in Srubnaya burials might be a product of the fact that people were seeing each other more frequently during the Late Bronze Age. As Gorbunov (1996) points out, with the development of economic and cultural centers in the Late Bronze Age marked by built structures, pastoralists, who were previously semi-nomadic would likely see each other at regular points in the year. However, this does not necessarily mean there was a despotic political regime that made sure people went to these centers, as Gorbunov suggests (1996). Instead, it seems likely that the biggest impact these settlements had on the social transmission of material culture of the time was that special items that were linked to an individual or family remained in circulation and enhanced the identity of their owner in life rather than at death. As Appadurai (1986) notes, rare objects are often worth more the longer they are kept in circulation since the history of the object adds to its prestige. Based on these three kurgans alone, it is difficult to state what the political system was like for people in the Spiridonovka region during the Late Bronze Age. However, it is clear that it cannot be easily labeled as egalitarian. There are social and political orders that were central to creating the so-called monotony of the Srubnaya culture, which required people to follow the social norms put in place. Moreover, when previously nomadic peoples settle, there are necessarily shifts in power throughout society, often along gender lines, as Abu-Lughod (1986) points out so well. On the one hand, our data suggests that females were receiving more nutritious diets by the middle of the Late Bronze Age in Spiridonovka, which perhaps demonstrates that food was being distributed in a way that allowed for greater gender parity. On the other hand, what work males and females did and how that work was valued likely changed during the second half of the Late Bronze Age, with women’s work perhaps being undervalued. Excavating more settlement sites with sensitivity to questions of gender will help us understand these possibilities more fully. As for the gendered nature of power at Spiridonovka, it seems apparent that the elder males of society, perhaps with an emphasis on those that were older than most, were important political and cultural figures. The three unusual burials from all three kurgans demonstrate this power – the

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power to subvert the norm. Without looking at a greater number of dated burials in this way throughout the region using the same methods as we did here, it is hard to know how often this type of “deviant” burial occurs and what it means. Researchers should, however, be prepared to look for important burials that are defined by more than the objects they contain. We should also realize that the burials at Spir4K2 indicate that women were powerful as well. The fact that women and not men were buried with bronze items at Spir4K2 indicates that older women, perhaps matriarchs of the clan, were worthy of distinction, albeit in a more conventional sense. There are still many aspects of the Late Bronze Age in the Middle Volga region that are unknown. One thing that is certain is that archaeologists need to be more critical about the ways in which mortuary data is used to reconstruct political orders and practice. Burial contexts need to be viewed as places in which social obligations and relationships are re-enforced or re-envisioned. Even though these contexts never represent the entirety of the social system, they still offer many clues to what archaeologists want to know about ancient social and political practices. Approaching research with a new set of questions about the material dimensions of age groups and genders will facilitate this investigation. In addition, as Hanks (2008) suggests, archaeologists need to rely on the new methods of bioarchaeology and include methods that are already well known, such as paleopathology, but underutilized in the field. As the amount of sites analyzed using these research methods and questions grow, our ability to discuss the nuances of politics at the local and regional scale will be greatly enhanced.

Notes 1

Proto-language reconstruction is also used, but it is beyond the scope of this chapter. For a good example of this see Kuzmina 1994. 2 Semenova (2000) shows that archaeologists are split on whether or not to refer to the culture of the early Late Bronze Age as Pokrovka or Early Srubnaya. Archaeologists agree that what defines the Pokrovka archaeological culture is a strong association to the Abashevo Culture of the Middle Bronze Age. However, in the Middle Volga region, especially in the Sok and Samara River Valleys, the link is to the Potapovka Culture instead. In this paper we recognize this difference, but use the term Pokrovka, because it is easier to keep separate from the later Srubnaya Culture. 3 It is not possible to give a specific date for Spir4K1 and Spir4K2, since the human remains from these kurgans were not radiocarbon dated. The approximate dates for Spir4K1 and Spir4K2 come from Mochalov’s analysis of ceramic vessels

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from each kurgan that date to specific periods (see Kuznetsov and Mochalov 1999b for a full justification of the dates they suggest). 4 Burial 19 (Spir2K1) does not fit this pattern and was from a later time period than the rest of the burials. 5 In Russian archaeological texts, a sacrificial complex in a mortuary context is something that was buried in a pit without human remains. 6 Burials #14, 15, 18 and 19 have been omitted because they belong to different time periods. 7 Nakosniki are relatively rare items. They are best known in the southern part of the Volga region and the Ural forest-steppe as well as central Kazakhstan. Each bronze hair holder is usually completely unique in style and ornamentation (Kuznetsov and Mochalov 1999a). 8 Round ornaments for clothing (blyakhi) and bronze hair cylinders (proniski) were popular throughout the Bronze Age. Blyakhi that look like those found at Spiridonovka are usually found in the Oka River region in the North. 9 This is partially due to the fact that fewer graves have any grave goods over time at Spiridonovka. 10 Kuznetsov and Mochalov (1999b) point out that Spir4K1 is a rather unusual example of the Pokrovka archaeological culture. They argue that this is due to the fact that people in this area were more influenced by the Potapovka archaeological culture than the Abashevo archaeological culture. 11 We would argue that, in general, horse remains are treated differently than other domesticated animal remains in Bronze Age burials in the Middle Volga region.

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drevneishikh vremen do nashikh dnei: bronzovii vek, edited by Yu. I. Kolev, A. E. Mamonov, and M. A. Turetskii, pp. 152-208. Tsentr Integratsiia, Samara. Shishlina, Nataliya I. 2000. Sesonni economicheskii tsikl naseleniia Severa-Zapadnovo Prikaspiya v bronzovom veke [The Seasonal Economic Cycles of the Populations of the Northwestern Caspian Region in the Bronze Age]. Vol. 120. Trydi Gosydarstvennovo Istoricheskovo Muzeya, Moscow. Stepanov, V.I., I.O Koryakov, Yu.P. Chemyakin, and S.V. Kuzminikh. 2001. Igral’niye kosti iz srubno-andronovskikh pamyatnikov Urala i Zapadnoi Sibiri [Gaming Bones from Srubno-Andronovo Sites in the Ural Region and Western Siberia]. In Bronzovii Vek Vostochnoi Evropi: Kharakteristika Kul’tur Khronologiya i Periodizatsiya, edited by Yu.I. Kolev, pp. 286-289. SamGPU, Samara. Sofaer Derevenski, Joanna. 2000. Rings of life: the role of early metalwork in mediating the gendered life course. World Archaeology 31(3):389-406. Thedéen, Susanne. 2008. Who’s that Girl? The Cultural Construction of Girlhood and the Transition to Womanhood in Viking Age Gotland, Childhood in the Past 1:78-93. Tsaliki, Anastasia. 2008. Unusual Burials and Necrophobia: An Insight into the Burial Archaeology of Fear. In Deviant Burial in the Archaeological Record, edited by E.M. Murphy, pp. 1-16. Oxbow Books, Oxford. Tsimidanov, Vitalii V. 1997. Triada srubnykh insigniy vlasti: mesto slozheniya [The Triad of Srubnaya Symbols of Power: The Place of Origin]. In Epokha bronzy i ranniy zheleznyi vek v istorii drevnikh plemyon yuzhnorusskikh stepei, edited by A.I. Yudin. Saratov State University, Saratov. Vasiliev, Igor B. and Galina I. Matveeva. 1986. U istokov istorii Samarskogo Povolzh’ya [The Roots of History of the Samara Volga Region]. Kuibyshevskoe Knizhnoe Izdatel’stvo, Kuibyshev. Verdery, Katherine. 1999. The Political Lives of Dead Bodies. Columbia University Press, New York. Vinogradova, Nataliya M. and Elena E. Kuzmina. 1995. Contacts between the Steppe and Agricultural Tribes of Central Asia in the Bronze Age. Anthropology and Archaeology of Eurasia 34(4):29-54. Walker, Phillip L., Ronda R. Bathurst, Rebecca Richman, Thor Gjerdrum, and Valerie A. Andrushko. 2009. The Causes of Porotic Hyperostosis and Cribra Orbitalia: a reappraisal of the Iron-Deficiency-Anemia Hypothesis. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 139:109-125.

CHAPTER TEN CAUSALITIES AND MODELS WITHIN THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONSTRUCTION OF POLITICAL ORDER ON THE NORTHWEST COAST OF NORTH AMERICA ANDREW MARTINDALE AND BRYN LETHAM

The archaeological analysis of politics necessarily interprets collective patterns of social interaction and the cultural contexts that inform and mediate these from the material correlates of human expression. Politics can be thought of as the structures recursively mediating and mediated by practices that people create and negotiate to effect or impose group decisions. Due to the integration of political practice, its cultural structures, and the ideological and even philosophical principles at its foundation, political systems create cultural conversance across regions and generations. Although continually re-negotiated, this conversance can give the appearance of stable political systems. Political organization represents the roles and relationships consequential to these structures and practices. Political authority is both the extent and limits on the power of these roles and the justifications and explanations of this authority. Thus the concept of the political is convoluted and a function of many sources of influence that range from environmental circumstances to ideological beliefs. The distance between politics and the archaeological sample of its material expression is large, and as a consequence archaeologists have filled the gap with models of cultural operations and historical causalities based on theoretical positions, themselves derived from very specific philosophical assumptions about human nature. Reigning models on the development and character of political systems on the Northwest Coast (NWC) of North America1 are founded upon culturally specific ideas about human nature derived from the archaeological cultural context of

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democratic capitalism and its foundational assumptions of economic rationalism and pervasive need. Yet, among NWC peoples, the political seems to be founded upon a different philosophical view, one informed by NWC spirituality that promotes cultural confidence in economic abundance and a sense of ‘belonging’ to history and place (Roy 2006:93). We suggest that ideologies of both need and confidence are at work in NWC history and in the negotiation of political order therein, but that the latter has not received much archaeological study. The spiritual domains of NWC peoples and the political patterns they inform are visible in NWC archaeological history as patterns of cultural continuity and territorial stability, patterns that are contrary to expectations derived from adaptive logics of optimization. The focus of our analysis is political organization within the huntinggathering-fishing (HGF) communities of the NWC. As a form of so-called complex HGF peoples, NWC social organization has been interpreted as an example of the natural political expression of society when otherwise limiting resources are abundant (Matson and Coupland 1995). The implication, developed most fully by Binford (1980), is that political expression derives from common human imperatives and correlates with environmental conditions, at least in HGF communities. The NWC appears to be among the strongest examples of this correlation, and its Holocene developmental trajectory is interpreted as the political consequence of increasingly exploitable natural resources in concert with human technologies for economic intensification (Keeley 1988; Matson 1992; Matson and Coupland 1995). However, we argue that the progressive-evolutionary explanation for the development of NWC political structure that derives from this view only partly explains the material patterning of NWC archaeology. Given the capacity for surplus production in the NWC ecosystem and the selectionism of adaptive optimization models, we would expect NWC history to demonstrate both socio-political change in concert with changes in economic capacity and a greater level of consolidation of territory within those cultural systems that first develop increased productive capacity and subsequently outcompete other cultural variants. Instead, recent data suggest that economic and technological transformations associated with the development of hierarchical political systems seem to have developed thousands of years earlier than previously expected, and long before material evidence of political hierarchies. We argue that this suggests an historically pervasive conservatism in NWC political orders, a conservatism informed by the spiritual beliefs of NWC peoples that balanced the volatility of surplus economics. In this chapter we unpack the

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assumptions of the progressive-evolutionary model and note their associations with the culture of archaeology. We also compare the expected developmental trajectory of political systems with emerging contradictory examples from recent research. Lastly, we examine recent ethnographic and ethnohistoric ideas to identify elements of NWC spirituality that differ from the archaeological assumptions of human nature. Specifically, we suggest that both physical/cultural landscapes and oral traditions relate histories that structure NWC spirituality, which is in turn reflected upon NWC political organization.

The Political in NWC Archaeology Archaeologists and ethnographers have described NWC peoples’ political order using a progressive-evolutionary model derived from Service’s (1962) band-tribe-chiefdom-state trajectory and modified with Fried’s (1967) ideas of the role of social ranking and the institutionalization of inequality in political organization. Although an oversimplification of both the range and development of social forms, elements of Service’s typology have had wide application on the NWC, specifically the transitions of scale and the role of kinship in the political development from bands to chiefdoms, because of their heuristic utility. These include the idea that political developments derive from economics and that political power is ultimately a form of secular economic control over resources or labor within and beyond kinship relations in which ideologies and cosmologies are superstructural to economic relations of production (see Grier 2006 for an excellent recent example). Although derivative of historical materialism, most North American archaeology reflects cultural materialist roots, an assumption that culture is the product of solutions to challenges of circumstance, most fundamentally, subsistence (Friedman 1974; Harris 1968). Similar logic was followed by Binford (1980; 2001) who proposed an environmentally deterministic model that explained hunter-gatherer socio-political organization as consequential to subsistence patterns and even resource distributions. These ideas had profound impacts on NWC archaeology, most influentially in the landmark Matson and Coupland (1995) overview, where the NWC Holocene culture sequence is seen as the evolution of selected adaptations to the abundant but patchy distribution of resources, specifically anadromous fish. This sequence divides the Holocene into developmental stages leading from an early period of mobile foragers to a sedentary period focused on marine resources after about 5000 years ago, and ending

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with the development of so-called complex HGF societies with political hierarchies (Ames and Maschner 1999; Carlson 1983:1996). The earliest examples of human presence on the NWC have generally been identified as nomadic bands focused on terrestrial resources (Matson and Coupland 1995). Recent data suggest that this model is the result of skewed sampling (Grier et al. 2009:255; Martindale et al. 2009); most early Holocene sites are high elevation caves and rock shelters, areas used for land mammal hunting. The data for early Holocene coastal sites have been under-represented as these locations are associated with relic shorelines in a very dynamic history of relative sea level changes. When archaeologists sample these shores (Fedje et al. 2005; McLaren 2008), an early Holocene marine adaptation emerges that has elements of both sedentism and technology previously associated only with mid- and lateHolocene times. The development of sedentary, or seasonally sedentary communities after 5000 years ago is associated with the growth in number and rate of deposition within shell middens (Ames and Maschner 1999:88-89). The explanation for this transition includes a) the development of climax ecosystems of cedar forest and anadromous fish populations, b) technological sophistication in food procurement and storage permitting both delayed-return and surplus economies, and c) population growth as a result of (a) and (b) that led to a population pressure positive feedback cycle reinforcing the growth of communities and the intensification of food production (Ames and Maschner 1999; Keeley 1988; Matson and Coupland 1995). The political model for the mid-Holocene is one of egalitarian relations based on kinship, essentially the identification of networks of extended family kin groups within large sedentary settlements culminating in the construction of villages. The egalitarian period of NWC political order is seen as inherently unstable because of the imbalance between surplus economic capacity and egalitarian social relations, a condition widely thought to have resulted in the widespread development of social ranking (Keeley 1988; Matson 1992). Following Fried (1967), ranking is the simultaneous constriction of roles of political influence and the elevation of the significance of political authority beyond kinship. In this model, social segments within communities begin to separate along lines of political control, usually based on economic capacity. The latter derives from control of technology, the knowledge of its application, control of specific resource locations on the landscape, or the formation of labor obligation between groups. The political consequence of this economic inequality is the institutionalization of socio-political authority in a restricted number of individuals both

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within lineage-based extended families and between such corporate groups. Ultimately, some of these ranked systems developed into true chiefdoms with paramount leaders, although these are often associated with colonial developments (Martindale 2003). The ranked system is both analogous to and derived from ethnographic descriptions of political organization. The temporality of these three broad periods is both linear and cumulative. An early Holocene period of opportunities presented by the newly exposed de-glaciated landscape is marked by four basal cultures as seen in lithic variation (Carlson 1983:15). By 5000 years ago, early association with marine resources had solidified in concert with areal technological trends manifest in regional variation from which there is some evidence of continuity to contemporary peoples. From about 5000 to 1500 years ago these variants transformed into communities with surplus productive capacity and emerging political hierarchies. This was followed by the transition into ethnographically recognizable cultures. Although the sequence remains largely intact, two seemingly opposing trends are emerging: a concern with the teleological use of ethnographic sources to interpret archaeological data (Grier 2007) and the exploration in archaeology of indigenous claims to ancestry, cultural continuity, and the interpretation of the historical record of the entire Holocene (Martindale 2006a). However, as Grier (2007:295) points out, there is a “middle road” in which archaeological and indigenous views of history are complementary. Part of this middle road, we suggest, is an evaluation of the anthropology of archaeological frameworks and a consideration of what aspects of indigenous claims of cultural continuity might be manifest in archaeological reconstructions of history. Thus, the progressive trajectory that tracks the origins of NWC political developments can be queried both in terms of archaeological and ethnographic evidence and the assumptions and models of its logic.

The Politics of Social Complexity The specific analogy deployed by many archaeologists to express the post-5,000 BP NWC political construct is called social complexity. Many writers argue, either explicitly or implicitly, that social complexity on the NWC evolved through adaptations to environmental factors, by pointing out correlations between environmental conditions and cultural characteristics (Ames 1981; Keeley 1988; Maschner 1991; Matson 1983; Richardson 1982; Ruyle 1973; Schalk 1977, 1981; Suttles 1962, 1987; Yesner 1980). Suttles (1968) was among the first to note a correlation between resource

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distribution and social organization. Pacific Coast resource availability is constricted in time and in space, and can be viewed as an example of Binford’s (1980) patchiness. This is typified by the great anadromous salmon runs where enormous numbers of fish swim up interior rivers to spawn during only a few weeks of each year (Schalk 1977; 1981). Suttles (1968) and others (Vaughan 1984) argue that patterns of resource distribution correlate with patterns of social organization such that 1) NWC HGF peoples have greater organizational complexity than other hunting and gathering societies, and 2) increased constriction in resource distribution towards the northern end of the NWC area correlates with increased organization and social complexity. Archaeologists have marshaled both of these ethnographically derived conclusions to present the NWC as an example of Binford’s (1980) more environmentally deterministic analogy. Matson and Coupland (1995) define the concept of a developing social and political complexity on the NWC most clearly as the developed northwest coast pattern (DNWCP), a model of the commonalities of cultural expression within NWC communities prior to colonization drawn from research on ethnographic sources. Matson and Coupland (1995:5-9) identify a pattern emerging after 3500 BP that includes the construction of populous villages of large plank houses permanently occupied or reoccupied seasonally. The basic social unit of the DNWCP was the extended family household located within a social system that included such features as ascribed status resulting in pronounced social inequality, family and individual ownership of resource locations, economic intensification (increased per capita rates of subsistence productivity) slavery, and a tendency toward occupational specialization especially in roles of authority, artistic pursuits, and the manufacture of technology. Economic organization was more complex than that of most hunting and gathering societies and involved intensified collection of storable resources such as salmon, creating both a delayed return economy and a surplus economy (Ames 1981; 1996). Within this view, the political order of NWC peoples is characterized by the institutionalization of authority for the generation and use of the economic surplus by a socio-economic elite (a nobility), often fuelled by a socio-economic underclass of slaves (Ruyle 1973). The scope of the control of labor by leaders is also a key measure of political power among Pacific coastal hunter-gatherer-fishers (Arnold 1993). The shift from household to extended family to non-kin segments under the direction or management of village group leaders is seen to mark the expanding political influence of indigenous leadership through the

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Holocene. This trajectory is interpreted from archaeological evidence of expanding community size and increased rates of economic productivity, both signaling the coordination of labor of larger groups of people. The permanency of both the architectural and economic trends suggests that these were institutionalized rather than transient effects. The gradient to this pattern along the NWC presents evidence of greater hierarchy and less flexibility in the north than the south. Certainly by the ethnographic period, the productive capacity under leadership was very high in the north, where leaders coordinated village group and even multiple village group associations (Martindale 2003). In the south the level of labor management was limited to the extended family household subdivision within the village group (Drucker 1983:90; Miller 2007). Specific analogies between ethnological and archaeological cases have informed NWC archaeological research. Drucker’s (1983) summary of the ethnographic literature defines a ranked (Fried 1967) or ramage (Firth 1954) style political order on the NWC that focuses on the largest socioeconomic entity, the allied extended family lineages that form a local coresident or village group. He lists six traits, (kinship, land tenure, trade, resource access/crest privilege, individual ranks [from which the collective rank of the group derived], autonomy in alliance-building) which represent a mix of both economic control and alliances with spiritual beings. Socioeconomic autonomy is a widely accepted criterion for political jurisdiction as control over subsistence and wealth are seen as meaningful expressions of power. Drucker’s list includes control over resource locations and rights of access and harvesting, but it also includes control over labor through kinship. Village groups were the most important socio-political and economic divisions in the late-Holocene, but are anthropologically the most enigmatic. Each village group was an autonomous entity, acting coherently in matters of economics, trade, feasting and war under a village group leader and his or her counselors. Each owned territory in common which was distinct from and contiguous with other village groups. Drucker (1983:89) argues that these were located around productive resources zones, but there are many archaeological and ethnographic examples of land tenure systems that separated peoples’ residences from their resource territories (Coupland et al. 2001; Martindale 2003). Significantly, unlike phratries or clans, village groups were ranked relative to each other along a scale of status within cultural and linguistic areas. Coupland et al. (2001) have argued that rank was not a direct result of owning valuable resource territories per se, contrary to Donald and Mitchell (1975). Rank, though associated with economic resources, was derived from economic control,

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which could be the result of a number of factors including trading alliances and success at warfare and raiding. Drucker’s (1983) list is intriguing for its inclusion of crest privileges and the rank of individual members of households within political authority, as both are linked to spiritual authority. Crest imagery is a general concept of the association of symbols with particular historical narratives, often of an ancestor’s encounter with spiritual beings that becomes associated with the roles of office within a corporate group. Such symbols acted as historical cues, markers of status, statements of title and access to resource locations and territories, and examples of spiritual and hence political authority. High ranking individuals had powerful crests that spoke of important historical events of spiritual significance, were linked to valuable places on the landscape, and were enshrined in the narratives of oral tradition that were spoken as required at ceremonies. Public performance of such crest narratives was an honored occasion in which specific audiences were invited to acknowledge the ownership, power and geopolitical/socio-economic legitimacy of the claims. In the northern areas of the NWC, crest imagery was part of a system of formal heraldic images and titles; in the south the imagery was less structured. Though a political history envisioned as the developing structure and order of society is often the goal of the archaeological reconstruction, the concept of the political in NWC archaeology is rarely addressed directly, in part because of its complexity. This complexity only increases when we consider that NWC politics may have a spiritual foundation. Past political traditions like other organizational aspects of culture, must be interpreted from material patterns. While archaeologists are willing to construct interpretive models of economic organization from the material record, the political arena is often seen as a more distant construct. The facets of the body politic of NWC societies are envisioned through a series of proxies. Status (often burial status), resource management, surplus production, regional trade, demography, and symbolism are commonly evaluated along a scale from less-to-more differentiation or capacity (Wason 1994). Archaeological examples with evidence of less difference between individuals and an organizational effect upon fewer people are seen as socially less stratified and politically less complex. Given these methodological and interpretive challenges, the NWC archaeological focus on politics as a derivative of economics is understandable. By unpacking its assumptions in the following section, we seek to augment this interpretive framing rather than replace it.

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Scrutinizing the Deductive Syllogism The foundation to the application of the specific analogy of NWC social complexity is a deductive syllogism derived from a general analogy that locates politics as the expression of power with the foundation of this power located in HGF societies within economics. This scholarship is founded on the assumption that political structure is a consequence of political influence, which ultimately derives from economic control of either resources or labor. In this view politics is the negotiation and enforcement of influence between people that, over time, becomes institutionalized into long-term structures or traditions. It is assumed that these traditions perpetuate across generations because they either, a) outcompete alternatives in economic terms within a selective context of necessity or b) they are enforced forms of inequality that are stabilized by the institutionalization of power in tradition. In this case, optimization is both economic and symbolic (Bliege-Bird and Smith 2005). The debate over the construction and merit of this logic has become a focus for recent NWC research, and for the analysis of hunter-gathererfishing peoples worldwide. Food is both a driving force in history and a parameter to cultural expression (Johnson and Earle 1987). Arnold (1993) and Lepofsky et al. (2005) provide two of the few explanations of the former transformation on the Pacific coast, in the Chumash and Fraser Valley areas respectively. In both cases, surplus production is triggered by food crises in which administrators emerge as elites who mitigate food shortage by marshalling labor or mediating trade in the production of a valued item, which can then be exchanged for food with nearby communities who enjoy reliable food supplies. As persuasive as these examples are, the association of two communities sufficiently proximal for bulk trading of foodstuffs and where one suffers a local food shortage while the other enjoys an abundance of a valued trading commodity seem uncommon. Thus, while these specific analyses are sound, they may not be widely applicable in areas lacking evidence of this structured arrangement. In the absence of evidence of widespread but localized food shortages across the NWC at key moments in the development of political hierarchies, we are left with arguments that refer to social and cultural forces. What is at question here for the analysis of NWC political history is why did socio-political hierarchies form? Why did these HGF communities create political systems of apparent institutionalized inequality and how were they stabilized? Arnold (1996) creates a useful heuristic division between ultimate causality (the appropriate conditions for any historical change) and proximate causality (the marshalling of social

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power to take advantage of these conditions) as a means of accommodating both uniformitarian and contingent forces within a single model. In this view, forces derived from culturally materialist and neo-evolutionary imperatives represent ultimate causalities and social power defines the proximate causes. Thus the construction of NWC political systems is a balance between the coincidence of economic parameters within which cultural expression is free to chart an independent course. The argument that NWC Holocene history includes an overall trend toward sociopolitical hierarchy is not incorrect as the ultimate conditions of demographic growth, environmental stabilization, and technological capacity gradually became less restrictive on cultural variation. However, debate remains as to whether this trend is primarily a consequence of ultimate or proximal forces. The balance between these views has been charted by many archaeologists. Here we consider the influence of Binford (2001) and the work of Hayden (2009) and Coupland et al. (2009) as variations on this theme. Part of our challenge in evaluating the patterns of potential correlation between political order and demographic, technological, and environmental variables has been the lack of appreciation for the complexity of the task. Binford (2001) has advanced this effort considerably with his comprehensive review of HGF societies from ethnographic and ethnohistoric literature. His conclusions are manifold, but several are of particular relevance here. Binford (2001) situates the endeavor as a form of pattern recognition and correlation of variables. Second, he argues that the key philosophical motivation of all HGF communities is security. “A constant characteristic of human actors is that they attempt to maximize their vital security in any habitat, limited only by their capacities and means.” (Binford 2001:41, emphasis added). Binford focuses on food security but, as we discuss in the next section, we find value in a broader definition of this generative concept. Binford (2001:116-130) notes correlations between and within environmental, demographic and technological variables in huntergatherer-fishing societies. Specifically, correlations appear to exist between resource structure and availability (seasonality, density, and abundance), community organization (size, nested orders, density), and technology (economic capacities, facilities and surplus production). Societies divided into small household-based families tend to cluster in groups of less than six (Binford 2001:335). Binford (2001:318-319) argues that this is an expression of the limiting force of Johnson’s (1982) scalar stress in which group size is limited by the information management problems of consensus-decision making. Thus, group size itself influences group

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structure and political hierarchies are valuable means of integrating large communities. Larger communities, those based in villages, represent a shift to corporate groups (Hayden and Cannon 1982), frequently based on labor pools for resource collection (Binford 2001:336). Importantly, Binford (2001:340, 357) finds that corporate groups are not necessarily co-resident within common houses, suggesting a weaker correlation between house and household than some have suggested (Martindale 2006b; Coupland et al. 2009). Changes in labor organization imply changes in labor output, and Binford (2001:353) notes that more hierarchical societies focus on resource specialization and employ labor resources to create both per capita intensification (more resources per labor investment) and surplus (both as delayed return and as true surplus value in excess of consumption). The primary drivers of this transition in Binford’s (2001:354-357) terms are population pressure (resource/demographic imbalances that create food demand) and its derivative, risk management (the anticipation of population pressure). Population pressure can be a result of a range of factors including demographic growth, resource constriction, or territorial limits; each of which has its own suite of causal variables (Binford 2001: 363368). According to Binford (2001:368-370) the first response of a community to population pressure is to forestall the formation of hierarchical political structures by expanding niche breadth, fissioning, and technological solutions to intensification. When demographic packing reaches a limit, economic intensification becomes the only solution (Binford 2001:398). This creates both a positive feedback loop in which technological capacity increases to meet demographic growth that in turn adds pressure to the technological capacity and the need for hierarchical organizational principles to accommodate both informational challenges and the organizational challenges of heterogeneous labor logistics. Binford’s renewed thesis is that the ultimate causality of political hierarchy can be found in environmental and demographic variables but that this can be confronted in cases of HGF peoples through proximal social forces. In cases where hierarchies are not forestalled, they form as a consequence of these environmental conditions. Binford’s (2001) analysis advances Arnold’s (1996) heuristic and shifts our focus to the proximal social forces in which political negotiations occur and the primacy of ultimate or proximate factors. Hayden (1990; 1995; 1996) argues that three intrinsic human attributes, ambition, aggression, and avarice, permit opportunistic individuals to institutionalize social inequality when resources are abundant, rather than in times of shortage. In egalitarian societies, these attributes are channeled

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into non-economic spheres, such as marriage and ritual (Hayden 1995:24). Inequality exists in any society but has little effect on the development of social complexity until it can be linked to economic differences. In HGF societies this usually involves the control of surplus subsistence production and labor. Gestures of persuasion and control, similar to Marx’s ideas of control of capital investment (debt in infrastructure) and fetishization (the objectification in economic terms of social relationships) leverage risk management into a controlled surplus economy. Hayden (2009) argues that economic control is surrendered most commonly through debt-creating obligations, such as feasting, which develop during periods when staple foods are abundant. Thus, Hayden inverts Binford’s logic by arguing that political hierarchies form from the negotiation of pervasive psychologically competitive qualities of human nature that direct individuals to use proximal social avenues to take advantage of ultimate environmental and demographic conditions. However, the choice between these views limits our evaluation of the negotiations that must occur within less-hierarchical communities to create or prevent the formation of political hierarchies. Coupland et al. (2009) consider the development of NWC political hierarchies a function of opposing interests between individuals who constitute or become elites versus those who have less political power. This conflict, framed as a negotiation of the seemingly contradictory drives toward hierarchy or communalism, is for Coupland et al. (2009) a secular debate. Elites coerce and/or persuade commoners to subject themselves to their authority. Commoners resist the formation of hierarchies through the enforcement of egalitarian communalism or find avenues to channel it into collectively beneficial forms. Both elites and commoners find contexts favorable to their efforts, creating a range of communal/hierarchical social patterns up and down the NWC and a variety of socio-cultural contexts in which either premise is paramount. This view advances the debate considerably by recognizing the heterogeneity within communities and the tensions created as a result of divergent political ambitions. However, such a view assumes that different people within a community will inevitably seek divergent political futures based on irreconcilable ideologies. This seems inherently unstable and, while we agree that Coupland et al.’s (2009) model describes the ethnographic political context reasonably well, it lacks a logical explanation for either its existence (why does the same cultural community create such different ideological views?) or its causality (why would such divergent ideologies coalesce into single communities?). A heterogeny of views on political ideology is hardly surprising in a contemporary context and one of the remarkable observations that builds from Coupland et al.’s

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(2009) thesis is how political stability of any sort is maintained with hierarchies in the absence of apparent enforcement mechanisms.

The Post-Modern Critique An emerging commentary of criticism has developed in parallel to the formalist economic and uniformitarian cultural principles of the orthodox analysis of NWC political history. This critique is post-modern in its evaluation of the conjunction between the underlying logic of the orthodox view and the principles at work in the cultural context of NWC archaeologists. The applicability of such models and causalities of cultural change to ancient and non-capitalist contexts needs to be tempered by the recognition, following Trigger (1998), that economic optimization is the philosophical “myth-history” of the modern era and possibly of modernism itself. The latter creates the expectation of a fundamental rationality to existence, which in the modern era of Americanist archaeology (Trigger 1984)—the era in which NWC archaeology formed as a coherent sub-areal discipline—associates this rationality with economic growth and optimization. Thus, while the economic model can be linked to contemporary political processes, at least within forms of democratic capitalism, its application to indigenous NWC peoples remains unclear and untested. As Martindale (2003, 2006a, 2009) has argued, there is merit to aspects of this association since some NWC communities seemed sufficiently conversant in commodity exchange principles to take advantage of early trading relationships with Europeans. However, evidence from indigenous oral traditions and recent ethnographies (see below) suggest that other cultural logics are also at work. Cannon (1998, 2002) for example, argues that the economics of intensification and surplus are as likely to be about cultural choices that are illogical outside of their historical framework, as either demographicresource imbalances or economic leveraging. Indeed, the notion of a surplus economy is that it can be used in any manner, that its consequence is surplus to necessity and survival, and thus unfettered from its obligations to a universal rationality based on biological need. To then imbue it with an adaptationist selectionism echoes the tropes of neo-liberal capitalism. Rather, Cannon (2002) suggests that surplus economies existed in the early and mid Holocene because people wanted to enjoy winter ceremonial seasons without the obligations of food collection and with a sufficient surplus to entertain guests and give gifts. Although we struggle to test this hypothesis, Cannon argues that similar logical hurdles face evolutionary arguments, when subjected to the same scrutiny but that we

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resist this self-critique because these principles reflect our own cultural context. Similarly, Oliver (2007, 2010) challenges the correlation between socio-political order and adaptations of subsistence needs to resource distributions through technology, arguing that the data are weak and that the assumptions of the model are ethnocentric projections of western modernism. Archaeologists, especially those who study hunter-gatherers, have a hard time disassociating labor-equivalence value from arbitrary cultural value. Although Mauss (1921) argued that material exchanges in Oceania were less about the movement of goods, somewhat about the solidification of social networks, and primarily about the maintenance of spiritual obligations and sanctity, the culturalist view of economics has not been widely considered in HGF archaeology despite early work on the apparent affluence of hunter-gatherers (Sahlins 1968, 1972). Especially on the NWC, we have seen such explanations as indigenous cultural veneers obscuring foundational realities of competition, optimization, risk management, and necessity (Bird-David 1992). Even when NWC archaeologists have used exchange-value concepts, we have distanced ourselves from the arbitrary expressions of its value and instead identified exchange-value as the economic manifestation of social power itself operating in an optimizing framework. Thus, seemingly non-rational expressions of economic value are recast as optimizing influence across social boundaries, thereby arriving at a similar socio-political result (inequality) that is most frequently expressed as economic difference. As Orans (1975) acerbically demonstrates, the likelihood of demonstrating the latter in scientific terms is next to nil, creating a seemingly insurmountable logical hurdle for adaptive functionalism even as NWC archaeology continues to focus on this effort. The appeal of materialist and evolutionary logic is that it provides simple, and from a western capitalist perspective self-evident, solutions to complex problems. The ability to predict or resolve the political organization of communities from environmental, technological, and subsistence parameters based on uniformitarian causalities of optimization and adaptation or its more dialectic variants of entrepreneurialism and competition, fills in many of the gaps in archaeological reconstructions of the past. Unfortunately for archaeologists, ethnographic and ethnohistoric evidence suggests that people are rarely so predictable. The post-modernist critique implies that the cultural biases of archaeologists are at play in their analysis. To unravel this thesis requires that we consider foundational elements in anthropological culture. Sahlins (1996) argues that this influence is philosophical, creating a western understanding of human

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nature around the narrative of loss and the inherent imperfection of human nature built around want and greed. These twin assumptions, which Sahlins (1996) associates with a historically cultivated Judeo-Christian philosophy, creates a perpetual cycle of inadequacy and desire. The free will or agency of people raised in this context is constrained by the collectively constructed and individually accepted expectation that their state of want creates greed in others and a sense of loss in themselves, both of which arguably promote solace through accumulating wealth. The value of wealth is not its utility, beyond basic parameters that are easily met, but rather its reassurance that we are accumulating an equal or more-thanequal share thereby fulfilling our spiritually constructed and emotionally expressed sense of loss. The source of this cultivated emotional loss resides in the retelling of historical narratives of the collective and founding religious heritage of institutions expressed in the parables taught to children, the ideological demands made of society and in the moral underpinning of popular social expressions and arts. Whether we agree with Sahlins’ (1996) assessment of anthropological culture or not, it illustrates two significant points in our analysis. First, it reveals the deeply rooted levels of cultural-spiritual understanding and the pervasive influence they can have on the construction of both society and the naturalization of such a constructed view. Thus, the deductive syllogisms that political inequality either results from or produces economic inequality is weakened by an apparent association between the foundational principles of the society from which archaeologists emerge and the causalities that archaeologists project onto the past. We do not argue that orthodox explanations are necessarily incorrect, rather they are incomplete. This presents the opportunity noted by Cannon (2002) that we can seek evidence of contradiction between the data and models of NWC political history and if a gap exists employ other logical but currently unverifiable assumptions to explain NWC history.

Empirical Challenges to Archaeological Models of NWC Political Developments We currently do not have an adequate representative sample of archaeological data of the form proposed by Binford (2001) to evaluate NWC political history. The archaeological models we do have are thus weakened and rely heavily on teleologies developed from a heavy reliance on ethnographic data (Grier 2007). This context reinforces the postmodernist critique since political models of archaeological history are presented and debated without sufficient attention to this fundamental

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elision. The current archaeological patterns for the Holocene need reviewing in light of sampling issues associated with changing sea levels (Fedje et al. 2009; Grier et al. 2009; Martindale et al. 2009), but we can note a number of emerging trends that appear to contradict the evolution of the DNWCP as outlined by Matson and Coupland (1995). First, the history of technological capacity focusing on marine resources appears to have an early Holocene precedent. Rather than shifting from terrestrial hunters, to marine foragers, to collectors of anadromous fish, the capacity to produce marine based surpluses seems evident earlier in a number of regions, in line with Cannon’s (1996) data from Namu. McLaren (2008) and Martindale et al. (2009; 2010) report the discovery of shell midden components from over 10,000 years ago and early Holocene villages dating to over 5000 years ago. This suggests that major political transitions seen in architecture and material expressions of inequality may not coincide with technological innovations in subsistence and craft productivity. The time difference between the two may be considerable, on the order of millennia, suggesting that cultural efforts to forestall hierarchies are stable political practices themselves. This should not be surprising since the analysis of a political trajectory toward hierarchy is simply one form of political expression. Instead, we should be prepared to model a range of political expressions within and between communities, variation that should be expressed throughout the NWC Holocene. Second, the emergence of earlier and more varied architectural forms in village construction, at least in the north (Ruggles 2007), suggests that the transitions from egalitarian to ranked village organization is an oversimplification. Ames and Maschner (1999:254) note that, “inequality on the coast is quite likely to have grown from earlier systems of social differentiation rather than developing from earlier, completely egalitarian societies.” This suggests that there may be evidence of the development of different styles and different trajectories within different time frames and ethnographic areas along the coast. Coupland et al.’s (2009) analysis of political order from architecture and Binford’s (2001:340) provocative thesis that architecture and political organization do not correlate indicate that we need greater research on NWC architecture before we can adequately evaluate political history. Third, there is increasing evidence of cultural continuity at specific sites and landscapes spanning the entire Holocene (Cannon 1998; Martindale et al. 2009). Such stability in the face of environmental and technological change does not necessarily contradict evolutionary explanations, but does contradict the simpler forms of progressive evolutionism that have been used to explain NWC history. Such evidence warrants an examination of

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both contemporary evolutionary models (see Ames 2010 for an example) and culturalist theories about the maintenance of long term structured traditions. Fourth, there is evidence of dramatic political events in the ancient past including warfare, migration, integration, cultural hybridities, and the long term juxtaposition of different cultural traditions within the same territory (Martindale et al. forthcoming). The Dundas Islands area of Tsimshian territory illustrates the considerable conjunction between archaeological settlement patterns and Tsimshian oral records (Martindale et al. 2010; forthcoming). Specifically, the oral record (Marsden 2001) describes a resident Tsimshian population on the islands that encounters two migrations of northerners many generations apart. The first is accommodated and the second results in a regional war (Martindale and Marsden 2003). Recent data from the Dundas area has located an early, Tsimshian-style village architecture dating back to over 5000 years, a different form of village appearing after 3000 years ago, and the disappearance of all major villages after 1500 years ago at a time coincident with similar settlement upheavals in the nearby Prince Rupert Harbour that has been associated with the regional war (Archer 2001; Marsden 2001). This suggests that our current model of slow, linear transformations in settlement patterns and political organization is overstated. NWC political developments seem to include dramatic cultural events that are to some degree independent of local ecological contexts. Fifth, there is increasing archaeological evidence of economically irrational behavior that suggests the perpetuation and even ascendancy of non-optimizing economic gestures. For example, Maschner and Stein (1995) find that habitation sites in Tebenkof Bay, southeast Alaska are not near fresh water sources and they cannot statistically correlate occupational intensity with any environmental variables; a similar pattern appears in the Dundas Islands area (Martindale et al. 2010). Losey (2010) argues that there are material consequences of animistic beliefs visible in fish weirs. The location, construction, disassembling and abandonment of these economic features seem to include additional and unnecessary efforts at dismantling them when they are not in use. He concludes that this is a consequence of cultural attention to spiritual reciprocity: salmon souls should not be harvested unless human souls are there to consume their bodies and release the souls back into the river. That such considerations influenced the construction of fundamental facilities of subsistence economics suggests that spirituality in some measure defines each act. Indeed, even the existence of shell middens, the most ubiquitous NWC archaeological site type, seems an illogical effort. Many, more accessible

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areas exist along the shore for shell discard. If efficiency were the primary criterion, shell midden areas would be thin and wide rather than concentrated and deep, and shell middens as deep and localized deposits would be rare. Sixth, there is increasing evidence that the construction of shell middens is part of long term construction planning efforts to create terraces upon which villages can be placed by later generations (Martindale et al. 2010). Such inter-generational planning suggests the existence and importance of long-term transmission of cultural knowledge and persistent and potentially non-rational ties to place. Long-term use and planning may be related to the seventh contradictory observation that most shell middens are burial grounds as well as resource extraction sites and habitations. Thus, the secular activities of residence and resource collection are inevitably associated with the spiritual landscape of the dead.

Power and Agency in NWC Politics Binford (2001:37) presents a passionate refutation of the critique of exceptionalism to the uniformitarian effort, writing “[i]n my opinion, it would be wise to reject claims for a unique epistemology and a uniquely human view of the human experience.” The debate hinges less on the nature or uniqueness of human agency and more on the archaeologist’s view of its impact in selection. If you view the effect of choice as the primary arena in which culture change occurs, then uniformitarian principles of the generation and selection of those choices becomes paramount. If you view the negotiation of choice as primary and the effect of agency simply consequential to the choice, then the culturalist construction of choice becomes primary. In our view, both are relevant, and NWC political history is a negotiation between people over the possibilities of their political futures, negotiations that are informed by the long history of tradition that they inherit and the capacities they have of creating leverage to effect their choices, capacities that are ultimately generated from environmental and demographic circumstances. Wolf’s (1990) four avenues of power are a useful comparative matrix for parsing proximal power that locates, 1) the power of individuals to act (agency), 2) the power of individuals over other people, 3) the relations of power defined by the context in which relations are negotiated, and 4) the power as defined by the cultural institutions that defines the cultural landscape and within which people operate. Thus power is something that is imposed on individuals by others either directly or through an institutional apparatus such as a political system with its constituent laws

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and enforcement. However, the capacity of individuals to have or be susceptible to expressions of power includes a deeply constituted subscription to the rightful existence of such avenues. In this way, the philosophical, which in the NWC case are expressed as spiritual underpinnings of a cultural community can be linked with the creation of political institutions. Adaptionist and selectionist interpretations of NWC archaeology tend to focus on a form of this that frames such ambition as universal, creating a competitive field within history analogous to biological evolution. However, Bourdieu (1977) has famously argued that expectations of individual capacities are themselves part of a culturally constructed system constructed both out of discursive claims and habitual practice. Thus, power of individual action is mediated by individual expectations of how power itself operates. This relationship is recursive in three ways, between individuals and groups as a form of the agency-structure model found in Giddens (1984), in a historically contingent form in which innovations/traditions are expressed in the context of the cultural past (Bourdieu 1984), and philosophically as meditations within individuals as they gain and tinker with understanding of themselves and their cultural milieu (Martindale 2009). It is reasonable to ask, why, if power is defined by systems of expectation that individuals subscribe to, do people not simply change their expectations. In some cases they did. There is an abundance of ethnographic cases that document how wealth was translated into political authority through ceremonial feasting, i.e., the potlatch. This was the collective expression of one lineage-based corporate group giving away goods to other corporate groups as a means of cementing obligations through indebtedness and as a form of payment for sanctioning the claims of power and political office of the hosts. The arrival of market capitalism during the early colonial era on the NWC created economic opportunities for individuals that bypassed traditional systems of reciprocal obligation maintained through ceremony. Low ranking individuals could amass economic wealth through the fur trade that rivaled or surpassed traditional systems based on surplus food production. The result in some areas was a time of extremely competitive feasting in which wealthy individuals supplanted the leaders of corporate groups by using the new wealth of the market system to hijack the traditional system of giving in which wealth could only be accumulated though the cooperative labor of large families (Codere 1950). It is also apparent from the evidence of continuity on the NWC however, that in many cases, people did not challenge the status quo of traditional structure, and this requires an explanation for why people

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seem to favor the perpetuation of cultural tradition over their own individual economic and political advancement.

The Spirituality of Politics Our position is that the negotiation between ultimate and proximal factors includes historical contingency, that at each moment in history people drew on traditions passed down via oral traditions (Martindale 2006a) and a cultural understanding of landscape to inform their decisions. Part of such negotiations clearly would have included voices promoting hierarchy, especially as the productive capacity of the anadromous fish population reached its modern levels, around 5000 years ago (Carlson 1996). However, as Coupland et al. (2009) argue, there would have been contrary voices arguing for the maintenance of the status quo of communalism. The status quo would itself be a naturalized cultural artifact, perhaps borne of the parameters of scalar stress noted by Johnson (1982) and Binford (2001). We argue following Coupland et al. (2009), that political expressions of communalism and hierarchy were not mutually exclusive, and were combined within communities through a balance of individual and collective rights. Coupland et al. (2009) suggest that the more hierarchical the organization of the society on the NWC, the stronger the effort by elites to create a sense of communalism. We argue that justifications for resistance to hierarchy among both political elites and commoners was/is embedded in NWC spirituality. We do not argue that this resistance was a non-discursive legacy effect of an earlier, more egalitarian history but rather that NWC people marshaled this cultural legacy though modes of place and oral tradition, creating an ongoing but stable tension between seemingly opposing political ideologies. Spirituality is the metaphorical expression of deeply held views about the nature of the universe, its principles of cause and consequence, the proper order of society, and the role of individuals in these contexts as they proceed through their lives (Losey 2010). Thus, spiritual worlds are an expression of a philosophical faculty that lies at the root of much of human culture, expressed in other forms such as political ideology (Cruikshank 2005). Knowledge of this association allows us to work backwards from spirituality to an understanding of these foundations and then forward to an extrapolation of their influence in the history of society. Rather than being epiphenomena, spiritual expression represents a collective statement on a cultural community’s philosophical views, ideas that are the foundation of all other cultural gestures (Marsden 2002). Since NWC peoples appear to have a different spiritual view of human nature

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from that of the majority of archaeologists who study their past, it should not surprise us if this expresses itself in different logics of social, economic, and political relationships (Oliver 2010). Second, its evaluation of the philosophical foundations of anthropology as creating self-fulfilling analyses based on the primacy of economic need provide us with an additional justification for considering alternate explanations. That spiritual worlds could be the primary source of political influence seems antithetical to the rationality of western science: how can we accommodate the power of sacredness into our explanations when we cannot observe, verify, or reproduce such power ourselves? One way is to develop models that explore the ways in which places and cultural traditions propagate histories and invoke spiritual beliefs that have a structuring effect on the way people organize themselves. To accept this logic, we must accept that current archaeological evidence suggests that economic necessity acted as parameters to cultural arbitrariness, but rarely was food shortage so profound that economic circumstance selected some cultural traits or systems over others through competition. Ethnographic and contemporary accounts of NWC First Nations highlight a deeply rooted reverence of the physical landscape, a manifestation of the spiritual landscape and the ancestors that dwelled within it. Speaking of the Coast Salish (a southern NWC peoples), Thom (2005:1) argues that “[they] have profound attachments to their home places which are foundational to their social organization and ontological orientation. These places, which range in scale from specific locales as small as a boulder or bathing pool, and as large as a mountainside or a territory, are richly imbued with meaning, and are sites of personal and community identity.” The natural landscape of the NWC cannot be divorced from the many cultural landscapes through which people understand space, including that of archaeology and other western scientific traditions (Cruikshank 2005). On the NWC, scholars such as Oliver (2010), Thom (2005), and Thornton (2008) have argued that people inhabit culturally constructed landscapes, which are nexuses of ‘places’, the intersections of space, time, and human experience that render the experience and knowledge of spaces meaningful (Basso 1996; Thornton 2008:10; Van Dyke 2003:180). The construction of places is therefore dynamic, changing from person to person and from time to time, creating shifting patterns of meaning dependent upon the historical and social context. Places are both structuring for and structured by people: “a place owes its character to the experiences it affords to those who spend time there … and these, in turn, depend on the kinds of activities in which its inhabitants engage” (Ingold 1993:155). However, this definition of place is

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limited by its phenomenological expression as locations within which shared experiences occurred. Places have an additional value because they have been assigned historical meaning. Ingold (1993:139) describes landscapes as “life’s enduring monument”, although the nature and location of these monuments often confounds non-native archaeologists. The NWC landscape is populated by places from the beginning-time in which humans were created and the landscape transformed. Many highly visible geological features for example, are transformation places: locations where the Transformer deity created or modified the landscape of the first humans (Oliver 2010). As Miller (1999) argues, the closest western analogue for these is that they are churches, places of religious reverence, places of ongoing spiritual growth and understanding, and places that have figured prominently in the geopolitical history of NWC communities. On top of this ancient but ongoing spiritual layer, is the rich and detailed knowledge of human history. Just as places can act as ‘mnemonic pegs’ (Thom 2005:16; Thornton 2008:17) by gathering meaning so too do these places in time act as chronological markers, indexes to the negotiated memory of history (Martindale 2006a). Experiencing an inscribed place can evoke imagined memories, while oral traditions often reference places and place names that cause the remembering of histories attached to them (Basso 1996). Marsden’s (2002) analysis of the Tsimshian2 adawx (oral-historical texts), limx’ooy (sacred songs) and ayuks (crest images) shows how these resources mediate and reflect the naxnox (spiritual power) of individuals through a cartography of spanaxnox (spiritual locations on the landscape). Through a study of these texts and landscapes, Marsden reminds us of the links between the scales of the quotidian and the historical and of the imperfect assessment that archaeologists make of the material landscapes of history these generated. Traditional Tsimshian villages along the Skeena River with their bold and colorful house front paintings were dramatic and polysemic cultural statements; archaeologists know this even as we struggle to identify their locations, let alone the paintings themselves. They contained intended messages for a variety of audiences, all of whom would have shared a knowledge of the histories of these places, the spiritual forces and locations they evoke, and the index of crest imagery that summarizes the statements of history and association resulting in the geopolitical landscapes of ever-shifting contemporary meaning. Archaeological focus on such villages is not surprising, but in the absence of the cultural tapestry of texts, songs, and symbols, we are largely unaware of their rich context of meanings. Archaeologists focus on bounded sites defined by loci of material consequences of human

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behavior. Without the adawx we would be ignorant of the parallel places across the river where the spiritual beings reside, locations that both mark the village site and from which the inhabitants draw their spiritual power. Without this tradition, we do not know that such places mark the history and spiritual foundation of communities, provide markers that signal shifting political and territorial boundaries, and, to the informed traveler, signal both the navigable route through the river and the obligations of privilege owed for its passage. Thus, the political authority of Tsimshian individuals is presented as being drawn from both the long history of interactions between direct ancestors and the spiritual world and the individual’s own knowledge of this history and the ongoing influence of the supernatural in human affairs. Power to influence exists through materialist sources such as control of labor and resources (Martindale 2003), political gestures such as alliancebuilding and warfare (Martindale 2006a), and from the spiritual standing and acumen of individuals and their ancestral lineages. Knowledge of the latter’s influence on the former two is an example of the ongoing discussion, evaluation, and debate within NWC indigenous society, scholarship that is preserved in an oral literature.

Conclusion Bird-David (1992) has suggested that HGF peoples cultivated a different philosophical view of the nature of privation and thus of the role of economic necessity than we see in the modern world. Building from Sahlins’ (1968) idea of HGF affluence deriving from a worldview analogous to Zen-Buddism, Bird-David (1992) re-framed this as economic confidence in the abundance of natural systems. In this view, economic accumulation against risk is replaced by spiritually-informed expectations a) supporting a perception that food will always be available and b) against aesthetics of accumulation and inequality. Is it possible that spirituality provided people with a form of Binford’s (2001:41), “vital security” that augmented food security and bolstered efforts at maintaining communalist values? The answer may lie in Wolf’s final level of power as structural. In some ways it links to the ideas of structure proposed by Giddens (1984). Both Giddens and Wolf invoke a level of unconscious or foundational meaning that informs the creation of motives in the application of agency. This includes biological constraints and imperatives (Wolf 1999:3). However it also extends into the domains charted by Sahlins, the philosophical landscapes that form our unacknowledged certainty about

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issues of appropriateness, preference, taste and commonsense. All of this identifies the relationships between foundational cultural knowledge, such as expressed in spirituality, and the construction of society through expressions such as political practice. This analysis suggests that the construction of political organization on the NWC is a response to issues including but beyond economic interest. Drucker’s (1983) conclusion that the political is in part a consequence of the spiritual seems reasonable if counter-intuitive to those of us schooled in free market capitalism. The implications of this position are that the political history of the NWC is not entirely correlated with economic conditions or any of its correlates or consequences. The overall view is that NWC communities developed complex and nuanced political institutions that balanced tensions between what we think of as hierarchy and communalism. The so-called social complexity of these societies in the period prior to contact is not incorrect, but is a fundamental oversimplification of both the political reality of these communities, the mode and tempo of their histories, and the archaeological rationale required to understand them.

Notes 1

The NWC area is defined by its environmental character and by the ethnographic patterns of cultural similarity (Carlson 1983). The coastal zone of western North America from northern California to southern Alaska, including all of coastal British Columbia is an area of crenulated coastlines, mountainous topography, temperate climate and abundant marine, riverine, and terrestrial resources. Ethnographic data highlights the cultural similarities along this coast, but variations existed along with important cultural relationships between NWC peoples and inland communities. 2 The Tsimshian are a linguistic community on the northern British Columbia coast comprising a number of related but independent polities. Prior to contact with Europeans there is evidence that several of these were highly stratified, a process that seems to have increased in the early colonial period (Martindale 2003).

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—. 2009. Entanglement and Tinkering: Structural History in the Archaeology of the Northern Tsimshian. Journal of Social Archaeology 9(1): 59-91. Martindale, Andrew, Bryn Letham, Duncan McLaren, David Archer, Meghan Burchell, and Bernd Schöne. 2009. Mapping of Subsurface Shell Midden Components through Percussion Coring: Examples from the Dundas Islands. Journal of Archaeological Science 36: 1565-1575. Martindale, Andrew, Bryn Letham, Natalie Brewster and Angela Ruggles. 2010. Final Report of the Dundas Island Project Permit No. 2005-159. Unpublished report on File with the British Columbia Ministry of Small Business, Tourism, and Culture, Archaeology Branch. Martindale, Andrew and Susan Marsden. 2003. Defining the Middle Period (3500 BP-1500 BP) in Tsimshian History through a Comparison of Archaeological and Oral Records. BC Studies 138: 13-50. Martindale, Andrew, Susan Marsden, Duncan McLaren, and David Archer. Forthcoming. Tsimshian Landscapes: Archaeological, Paleoenvironmental and Indigenous Histories in the Dundas Islands. UBC Press, Vancouver. Maschner, Herbert D.G. 1991. The Emergence of Cultural Complexity on the Northern Northwest Coast. Antiquity 65: 924-934. Maschner, Herbert D.G. and Jeffrey W. Stein. 1995. Multivariate Approaches to Site Location on the Northwest Coast of North America. Antiquity 69: 61-73. Matson, R.G. 1983. Intensification and the Development of Cultural Complexity: The Northwest Versus the Northeast Coast. In The Evolution of Maritime Cultures on the Northeast and Northwest Coast, edited by Ronald J. Nash, pp.125-48. Simon Fraser University, Department of Anthropology Publication No. 11, Burnaby, British Columbia. —. 1992. The Evolution of Northwest Coast Subsistence. Research in Economic Anthropology 6: 367-428. Matson, R.G. and Gary Coupland. 1995. The Prehistory of the Northwest Coast. Academic Press, Toronto. Mauss, Marcel. 1922 [1990] The Gift: Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. Routledge, London. McLaren, Duncan. 2008. Sea Level Change and Archaeological Site Locations on the Dundas Island Archipelago of North Coastal British Columbia. Unpublished PhD dissertation. University of Victoria, British Columbia. Miller, Bruce G. 1999. Culture as Cultural Defense: A Sacred Site in Court, American Indian Quarterly 22(1): 83- 97, 1999.

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—. 2007. Introduction. In "Be of Good Mind": Essays on the Coast Salish, edited by Bruce G. Miller, pp, 1-29. UBC Press, Vancouver. Oliver, Jeff. 2007. Beyond the Water’s Edge: Towards a Social Archaeology of Landscape on the Northwest Coast. Canadian Journal of Archaeology 31(1): 1-27. —. 2010. Landscapes and Social Transformations on the Northwest Coast. University of Arizona Press, Tuscon. Orans, Martin. 1975. Domesticating the Functional Dragon: An Analysis of Piddocke’s Potlatch. American Anthropologist 77: 312-28. Richardson, Alan. 1982. The Control of Productive Resources on the Northwest Coast of North America. In Resource Managers: North American and Australian Hunter-gatherers, edited by Nancy M. Williams and Eugene S. Hunn, pp. 93-112. Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado. Roy, Susan. 2006. “Who Were These Mysterious People?” cena:m, the Marpole Midden, and the Dispossession of Aboriginal Lands in British Columbia. BC Studies 125: 67-94. Ruggles, Angela. 2007. Is Home Where the Hearth Is?: Evidence for an Early Non-Domestic Structure on the Dundas Islands of North Coastal British Columbia. Unpublished MA thesis. University of British Columbia. Ruyle, Eugene E. 1973. Slavery, Surplus, and Stratification on the Northwest Coast: The Ethnoenergetics of an Incipient Stratification System. Current Anthropology 14(5): 603-31. Sahlins, Marshall. 1968. Notes on the Original Affluent Society. In Man the Hunter, edited by Richard B. Lee and Irven DeVore, pp.85-89. Aldine, New York. —. 1972. Stone Age Economics. Aldine-Atherton, Chicago. —. 1996. The Sadness of Sweetness: The Native Anthropology of Western Cosmology. Current Anthropology 37(3): 395-428. Schalk, Randall F. 1977. The Structure of an Anadromous Fish Resource. In For Theory Building in Archaeology, edited by Lewis R. Binford, pp.207-49. Academic Press, New York. —. 1981. Land Use and Organizational Complexity among Foragers of Northwestern North America. In Affluent Foragers edited by Shuzo Koyama and David H. Thomas, pp.53-75. SENRI Ethnological Studies, Osaka. Service, Elman R. 1962. Primitive Social Organization: An evolutionary perspective. Random House, New York. Suttles, Wayne. 1962. Variation in Habitat and Culture on the Northwest Coast. In Proceedings of the 34th International Congress of

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Americanists, edited by Oskar Grunow, pp.522-37. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. —. 1968. Coping with Abundance: Subsistence on the Northwest Coast. In Man the Hunter, edited by Richard B. Lee and Irven Devore, pp.56-68. Aldine, Chicago. —. 1987. Coast Salish Essays. University of Washington Press, Seattle. Thom, Brian David. 2005. Coast Salish Senses of Place: Dwelling, Meaning, Power, Property and Territory in the Coast Salish World. Unpublished PhD dissertation. McGill University, Montreal. Thornton, Thomas F. 2008. Being and Place among the Tlingit. University of Washington Press, Seattle. Trigger, Bruce. 1984. Alternative Archaeologies: Nationalist, Colonialist, Imperialist. Man 19: 355 70. —. 1998. Sociocultural Evolution: Calculation and Contingency. Blackwell, Oxford, UK. Vaughan, J. Daniel. 1984. Tsimshian Potlatch and Society: Examining a Structural Analysis. In The Tsimshian and their Neighbors of the North Pacific Coast edited by Jay Miller and Carol Eastman, pp. 58-68. University of Washington Press, Seattle. Van Dyke, Ruth M. 2003. Memory and the Construction of Chacoan Society. In Archaeologies of Memory, edited by Ruth M. Van Dyke and Susan E. Alcock, pp. 180-199. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, UK. Wason, Paul K. 1994. The Archaeology of Rank. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Wolf, Eric. 1990. Distinguished Lecture: Facing Power – Old Insights, New Questions. American Anthropologist 92(3): 586-596. —. 1999. Envisioning Power: Ideologies of Dominance and Power. University of California Press, Berkeley. Yesner, David R. 1980. Maritime Hunter-Gatherers: Ecology and Prehistory. Current Anthropology 21(6): 727-750.

CONCLUSION FIGURING THE POLITICAL: THE STUFF OF SOVEREIGNTY IN A POST-EVOLUTIONARY ARCHAEOLOGY ADAM T. SMITH

On December 17, 2010, a policewoman in the Tunisian city of Sidi Bouzid, 300 km south of Tunis, confiscated an unlicensed produce cart from twenty-six year old Mohamed Bouazizi, the sole income earner in a large extended family. Humiliated by the brutality of the police and the imperious disregard of local officials, Bouazizi set himself on fire in front of the headquarters of the provincial government. This act of spontaneous self-immolation sparked riots across Tunisia that ultimately cascaded into popular uprisings across northeast Africa and the Middle East. By spring 2011, governments had fallen in Tunisia and Egypt, crackdowns against mass demonstrations preoccupied authorities in Iran, Yemen, and Bahrain, and Libya had collapsed into a violent civil war. It is hard to imagine a more quotidian beginning to regional revolution than a confrontation over a produce cart that spiraled into a popular movement to renegotiate the terms of political association. Yet the 2011 uprisings did just that, following on a series of mass movements that have convulsed the early years of the new millennium (e.g., Serbia 2000, Georgia 2003, Ukraine 2004, Lebanon 2005, Kyrgyzstan 2005, Iran 2009), struggles—some successful, some not—that sought to redefine the limits of sovereignty and fundamentally re-order relations of authorization and subjection. Yet the episode that sparked Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution neatly encapsulates the central theoretical contention of the present volume, revealing how the political is located in a broad array of practices that are mediated by dense, and often surprising, material assemblages. The papers gathered here offer a much-needed reassessment of archaeology’s traditional understanding of the political and map out new conceptual pathways for the discipline, joining a wider intellectual

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movement across the social sciences to break with the legacy of traditional modernist understandings of politics. As Johansen and Bauer note in their introduction, the move away from uniformitarian models of structural form and socio-evolutionary process has opened new intellectual space for “culturally-inflected, historically situated” (p.2) accounts of politics in practice. By sketching an account of the political that sets aside the traditional preoccupations of late 20th century political anthropology—a concern with typology, a teleological sense of historical emplotment, and an insistent reduction of the political to the economic—this volume charts a new course for archaeological examinations of authorization and subjection. My goal in this brief conclusion is to highlight the theoretical turns and thematic foci that weave through the chapters and thus constitute the analytical core of the emerging new, post-evolutionary archaeology of political life. Let me begin by first outlining the broad agenda set forth in the volume’s introduction. At the heart of Johansen and Bauer’s gratifyingly polemical engagement with the contemporary archaeology of political association is a call for two key epistemological shifts. The first demands a deinstitutionalization of our understanding of the political. Where traditional evolutionary archaeologies closeted the political in a series of limited historical and sociological positions—chieftainship, kingship, bureaucracy, military etc.—Johansen and Bauer call attention to the neglected politics of the everyday. What is most powerful in this argument is not only a methodological recentering of the archaeological gaze, but a demystification of institutions themselves. That is, the institutions of palace and bureaucracy are themselves simply congeries of quotidian practices, made temporally enduring and spatially encompassing through the process of representation. Institutions are in this sense simply a mask placed over quite mundane activities. Deinstitutionalization thus demands not only looking beyond government for political practices, but more formidably using the lens of everyday action to critically re-examine institutions themselves and thus expose both the rather banal activities that they comprise and the particular fields of representation that set them apart. The second shift that Johansen and Bauer’s introductory essay demands is theoretical rethinking of the discipline’s traditional understanding of materialism. As social evolutionary approaches to ancient politics swamped the field during the late 1960s and 1970s, a great deal of analytical effort went into defining the archaeological correlates of specific socio-political types, whether in settlement patterns, architectural forms, or craft production technologies. The relation between politics and material was thus one of passive mimesis: for example, a four-tiered settlement

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hierarchy reflected a state level society. It did not assist in calling the state into being. This was an analytic deeply committed to a sense of its own materialism—to a presumption that historical transformation was driven in large measure by human interactions with the physical world. However, human interactions with this physical world were in large measure reduced to the purely economic—to the extraction, exchange, and consumption of things as resources. Largely ignored were the practices that gave shape to a political world of subjects engaged in negotiated relationships mediated by a dense order of objects. As a result, in a particularly ironic twist of archaeology’s intellectual history, the more steadfastly materialist the discipline became, the less things actively participated in human political life. Hence Johansen and Bauer’s resonant reminder that “materiality matters” calls attention to things not as passive reflections of political forms but as active participants in the production, reproduction, and transformation of political practices. Understandably, the chapters of the book respond to the project Johansen and Bauer outline in different ways. The everyday materiality attendant to political regimes of value animates Kus and Raharijaona’s fascinating account of Madagascar and the disappearance of international coinage. The “annoying habits the natives have with money” (p. 30) stands as a powerful check on the universalizing macroeconomics of archaeology’s traditional approach to economy and a productive methodological call to attend to the “ways of the street” (p. 39). Moreover it also strikes me as a critical elaboration of traditional historical analyses of the advent of money. In his Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy Marx attends in one brief section to the qualities of gold and silver that have suited them to serve as universal equivalents in international trade: the ability to represent qualitatively distinct commodities in purely quantitative terms, the material capacity to be divided in parts that can later be recombined, and their ability to compress a great deal of exchange value into a relatively small volume. These qualities facilitate “transport, transfer from one hand to another, from one country to another, enabling gold and silver suddenly to appear and just as suddenly, to disappear—in short these qualities impart physical mobility, the sine qua non of the commodity that is to serve as the perpetuum mobile of the process of circulation” (Marx 1970: 154). In Marx’s sense, the disappearance of coinage is central to its ability to be hoarded—the building block of wealth, capital, and class differentiation. The coup of the street then, as Kus and Raharijaona point out, is neither the sequestering of coinage nor its partition but rather the politics of desecration that call into question the “moneyness of money”.

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A similar rethinking of the politics of value animates Thomas’s study of mineral extraction and political order in the 16th and 17th century New Mexico. Like Kus and Raharijaona’s study, Thomas’s chapter explores a case of macroeconomic failure that forces a rethinking of the terms of political order. By highlighting the enduring authority of indigenous moral economies of value, Thomas not only sheds light on the inability of traditional political economy to explain the collapse of silver extraction in the region but also forwards an aesthetic account of the dynamic between ruler and ruled. That is, the failure of the Spanish venture in colonial expropriation reveals the maintenance and expansion of indigenous understandings of value grounded in the artistry of production and structures of equitable exchange. By worrying these moments of failure in state economic policies, the opening chapters of the volume tear down archaeology’s traditional economic determinism and create a critical space for rethinking the terrain of the political. For Bauer, this means pushing an account of political order away from its traditional reliance on large-scale centralizing institutions and toward accounts of material orders created in, and sustained by, place making. In the South Indian Iron Age, place making served as a means to transform, manipulate, and contest everyday activities. By advancing claims to privilege, congealing labor, and materializing social distinction, megalithic constructions politicized everyday practices from pastoralism to feasting. Bauer’s analysis provides a key link between the (il)logics of economic production that preoccupied Kus and Raharijaona’s and Thomas’s chapters and the making of political order. Bauer’s analysis thus challenges us to understand how places come to be instantiated within a political field through the workings of intensely local practical regimes, a point that Steven Kosiba’s study of the Andean Late Intermediate Period of the Ollantaytambo region elaborates through a close examination of locality. By framing locality as a claim, rather than an abstract geographic scale, Kosiba re-centers the political in the practical relationship between the economics of everyday production and the aesthetics of ceremonial performance. In the coordination of these practical regimes, Kosiba uncovers an important description of the political as a continual renegotiation of the ties that articulate both places and traditions. These ties assemble the polity not as a congery of discrete institutions but as a community of differentially placed subjects shaped by both landscape and history. The formation of a community of subjects, of a public claimed by and responsive to sovereign authority, has long resided at the heart of theoretical definitions of the political. For Aristotle (1988: I.i), the

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examination of politics was an inquiry into the nature and purpose of the highest form of human association, the polis. For Hobbes, politics lay in the assembly of the commonwealth out of the collective resignation of the right to govern oneself and the concomitant authorization of the sovereign (Hobbes 1991: 132). For contemporary political thinkers from Robert Nozick (1974) and John Rawls (1971) to Roberto Unger (1997) and Giorgio Agamben (1998), the central problem of political life is to define—and reshape—the logic of authorization and subjection that assembles the polity and differentiates the terrain of personal will from that of sovereign power. Politics thus lies in the articulated practices of authorization and subjectivization. However, this sense of politics has a rather limited history of archaeological investigation, to the detriment of both political thought and our understanding of political production and reproduction over the longue durée. Hence, Lindsay’s effort to detail an account of subject communities in the Late Bronze Age South Caucasus and Johansen’s study of political architectonics in the South Indian Iron Age represent important contributions to the reorientation of archaeology toward an account of the constituent relationships at the heart of sovereignty. Lindsay’s examination of the transition from mobile pastoral communities to emplaced fortress-based polities in the Tsaghkahovit Plain during the mid second millennium B.C. suggests a dramatic reshaping of the grassroots coincident with the emergence of new constellations of authority. Of particular note is how, as in Kosiba’s study, tradition and landscape conspire to not only create subjects, but to forge a new kind of public emplaced in an entirely new built environment. The same is true of Iron Age South India, according to Johansen’s study of the architectonics of built and unbuilt space. Here spatial exclusion reveals efforts to not only define the privileges of an elite, but also (and perhaps more powerfully) reciprocally establish the terms of subjection that shape the wider public. Lindsay’s and Johansen’s studies push the archaeology of political association beyond the domains of what archaeologists have traditionally called “public” spaces to investigate more intimate contexts of political action. The chapters by Rizvi, Brumfiel, and Popova et al. take up the challenge, drawing us into the politics of household, grave, and body. As Brumfiel rightly points out, households have long held a certain irreducible pride of place in archaeological research as foundational “social actors” in the assembly of the polity (p. 245)—a position undoubtedly grounded in Aristotle’s (1988: I.i) scalar account of the forms of human association. So Brumfiel’s study of intra-household politics in Middle Post-Classic Mexico not only undermines traditional foundations

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of archaeological analysis, it calls into question the sundering of public and private that has long served as a key presumption of political thought. In arguing for a material index of household “unity” in ceramic and spindle whorl design variability, Brumfiel’s study poses a series of questions regarding the articulation of subject and sovereign through the mediating institution of the household. Of particular interest is the focus on decoration rather than, for example, technical style. Household objects are critically redescribed as fora of political representation, as media where publics meditate on their own location within nested institutions of order. Households, in other words, are locales of self-formation central to political formation and disintegration. Contexts of self-formation also animate Rizvi’s study of waste management at Mohenjo-Daro, although here the focus is on the particular practices of the body. By attending less to the technical challenges of waste removal within an urban context and more to the requirements that technologies impose upon subject bodies, Rizvi highlights the intimacy of ties between self and sovereign. Moreover, the domestication of the body described by Rizvi and the disciplining of political space detailed by Kosiba, Lindsay, and Johansen would appear from the perspective of Mohenjo-Daro to address the same problem: the reproduction of subjection. Like Rizvi’s contribution, Popova, Murphy, and Khokhlov’s study of Late Bronze Age burials in the Volga-Ural region of central Eurasia also centers its account of the political squarely on the body and the mediations of things. And like Brumfiel’s chapter, Popova et al. work in their contribution to make sense of variability and homogeneity in material culture; however, they reject the kind of direct correlation that Brumfiel advances, arguing for a necessary decoupling of variability in mortuary treatment and political variation. Burials, as representations of the imagined ordering of the world, provide powerful contexts for reproducing political community both in the establishment of ritual practices ceded normative status and in the capacity to make exceptions. Popova et al.’s discovery that it is the burials of elderly males that “subvert the norm” provides an excellent example of what Agamben (1998) calls “the sovereign exception”. Sovereignty, according to Agamben, resides simultaneously both within and outside of a constituted order, a dual positioning rendered most apparent in the capacity to decide upon exceptions to the enforcement of other claims, whether traditional, juridical, bureaucratic, or even theological. To enforce an exception to traditional mortuary practices represents a dramatic claim to sovereignty— a claim to special status not only in this life, but the next as well. Hence

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Popova et al.’s account of variation in mortuary treatment not only pushes archaeologists to look for distinction in mortuary remains beyond simple measures of wealth, but also to search for claims to sovereignty beyond immediate strategic engagements with subjects. In pushing archaeology to detail the practices and material mediations that forge and reproduce political community, the papers in this volume mark a radical break from enduring traditions of neo-evolutionism. Not only are formal types and metahistorical narratives abjured, but the metaphysics of the processual reduction of the political to the economic are entirely set aside. Nowhere is this clearer than in Martindale and Letham’s reassessment of political order in North American Northwest coast communities. As the authors point out, the formalist economics and cultural uniformitarianism of traditional approaches to northwest coast societies (and “chiefdoms” more broadly) rested on a mythical ontology of optimizing subjects guided by innate tendencies to ambition, aggression, and avarice (Hayden 1996). As a result, the figure of the capitalist subject is read as a universal avatar of humanity in general. The authors dissent by attending to the political as a consequence of the spiritual interactions between the immediate world and the supernatural. Practices such as alliance negotiation and resource organization are thus redefined as consequences of acumen in the politics of managing ties to ancestors and spirits. As in Popova et al.’s account of Late Bronze Age burials in central Eurasia, we again find the terms of political association bound up in negotiations with the supernatural. What it means to be a member of a political community is clearly closely tied to negotiations over belonging and order more generally. Strangely, only rarely has archaeology understood politics in these terms: as an historical negotiation over the logics of authorization and subjection that stitch together the polity and differentiate the terrain of personal will from that of sovereign privilege. To be sure, archaeology over the last century has scrutinized royal iconography, surveyed the Urban Revolution, tracked the rise and fall of civilizations, and detailed the evolution of formal sociopolitical types such as the chiefdom and the state. However, none of these conceptual frameworks attends directly to the creation and maintenance of sovereignty in practical negotiations between variously formalized authorities and a publically specified community of subjects. This is not to argue that archaeologists have entirely ignored themes critical to politics; studies of bureaucracy and kingship, tribute and taxation, hierarchy and order, have a rich history in the discipline. However, archaeological interpretation has consistently sublimated the dynamics of political association into other relationships

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constitutive of economic exchanges, ecological systems, bureaucratic flows, cultural ties, or social rankings. Taken together, the papers in this volume provide a strong defense of the analytical autonomy of the political and thus make a critical contribution to what I have elsewhere called, “the emerging archaeology of sovereignty” (Smith 2011). This new, and largely inchoate, intellectual movement pushes against the lingering vestiges of neo-evolutionism to center analysis on the practical production of political regimes and the material mediations that articulate authorities and subjects. In its traditional sense, sovereignty describes an ultimate authority, an apparatus of supremacy within a delimited territory that insinuates itself into all other domains of association—the home, the workplace, etc. However, as Agamben (1998: 39) points out, the key dynamic of supreme authority lies in the sovereign’s articulation of “constituting power” (i.e. the principles that authorize the polity as an association) and “constituted power” (i.e. the practices of governance). Sovereignty thus is not a substantive quality to be possessed but rather a condition of political interactions, embedded in the “actualities of relations” (Humphrey 2004: 420) that ground association. As such, sovereignty is manufactured in a vast array of places and things that mediate practices of authorization and subjection. The reconfigured archaeology of the political advanced in the papers assembled here thus pushes political theory more generally to take seriously the stuff of sovereignty. The current move across the social sciences and humanities to retheorize the material mediations and practical regimes at the heart of political association opens rich conceptual terrain for a uniquely archaeological contribution. Perhaps more pressing however, is the need to develop an archaeology of the political that can provide the analytical tools for unpacking our current political moment; a moment when an unlicensed fruit stand sits at the epicenter of a regional uprising. What the new archaeology of sovereignty promises is an understanding of the figuring of political order, of the ways the political is given form and shape in practice, in material, and in representation. In this critical project of contemporary archaeology, the papers in this volume have clearly pointed the way.

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References Cited Agamben, G. 1998. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford University Press, Stanford. Aristotle. 1988. The Politics. Penguin Books, London. Hayden, B. 1996. Thresholds of Power in Emergent Complex Societies. In Emergent Complexity: The Evolution of Intermediate Societies, edited by J. E. Arnold, pp. 50-58. International Monographs in Prehistory, Ann Arbor. Hobbes, T. 1991. Leviathan. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Humphrey, C. 2004. Sovereignty. In A Companion to the Anthropology of Politics, edited by D. Nugent and J. Vincent, pp. 418-436. Blackwell, Oxford. Marx, K. 1970. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Translated by S. W. Ryanzanskaya. Interantional Publishers, New York. Nozick, R. 1974. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Basic Books, New York. Rawls, J. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Belknap Press, Cambridge MA. Smith, A. T. 2011. The Archaeology of Sovereignty. Annual Review of Anthropology 40. Unger, R. M. 1997. Politics: The Central Texts. Verso, New York.

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Andrew M. Bauer, DePauw University Elizabeth M. Brumfiel, Northwestern University Peter G. Johansen, University of British Columbia Aleksandr A. Khokhlov, Samara State Academy of Social Sciences

and Humanities Steven Kosiba, University of Alabama Susan Kus, Rhodes College Bryn Letham, University of Toronto Ian Lindsay, Purdue University Andrew Martindale, University of British Columbia Eileen M. Murphy, Queens University Belfast Laura M. Popova, Arizona State University Victor Raharijaona, Université de Fianarantsoa Uzma Z. Rizvi, Pratt Institute Adam T. Smith, Cornell University Noah Thomas, AECOM

INDEX adaptation, 325-327, 335-336 agency, 2, 4, 9-11, 15, 128, 225, 247, 284, 337, 340, 342, 345 agriculture, 156, 172, 195, 246 all-purpose money, 30 ancestor veneration , 122, 132, 133, 138 Andes, 115, 117, 118, 124, 127 Andrianampoinimerina, 40-43 architecture, 84, 85, 117, 122, 129131, 133-135, 137, 139, 153, 165, 168, 172, 188, 199-202, 213, 221, 222, 229, 232, 235, 338, 339. Ariary, 32, 33, 45, 48, 52 Armenia, 18, 140, 151, 152, 154, 157-159, 164, 167, 175 authority, 2, 3, 9, 12, 18, 22, 83, 85, 114, 115, 119, 122, 132-134, 138, 139, 151, 153, 155-157, 160-162, 168, 172, 175, 176, 187, 221, 222, 224, 236, 237, 291, 323, 326, 328, 330, 334, 341, 345, 357, 358, 361 (see also political authority) Aztec, 249, 250, 253, 257, 261, 263, 266 barter, 34, 38, 39 biopolitics, 226 body, 73, 221, 222, 224-238, 288, 292, 297, 300, 302, 305, 306, 309, 358, 359 burials, 32, 49, 84, 85, 103, 104, 107, 152, 153, 158, 159, 250, 253, 255, 283-298, 300, 302317, 340, 359, 360 calendrics, 261, 265-267, 270, 308 cattle, 8, 37, 40, 48, 90-93, 105, 152, 172, 196, 248, 312

ceramic analysis, 59, 76, 92, 128, 129, 165, 173, 175, 204, 250, 252-266, 270-276, 308, 359 ceremonial practice, 57, 59, 62, 64, 65, 119, 121, 122, 124, 126, 132, 138, 139, 335, 341, 357 Chaco Canyon, 59 chiefdoms, 2, 3, 5, 6, 84, 187, 325, 327, 360 cities, 161, 221, 222, 224 (see also urban planning and urbanism) climate change, 127, 289, 290 Coast Salish, 243 coin(s), 17, 18, 29, 30-51, 74, 75, 356 Colbert, Jean-Baptise, 34 commemoration, 16, 103-106, 175, 210 commemorative/memorial features, 8, 17, 95, 99, 102, 187-189, 194, 199, 205, 206, 209-213 communalism, 334, 342, 346 communities, 3, 57, 60, 62, 63, 6572, 76, 77, 132, 138, 144, 154, 157, 158, 161-165, 168, 172, 176, 188, 194, 211, 223, 224, 272, 310, 324, 326, 327, 328, 331-337, 342, 344-346, 358, 360 copper, 34, 39, 46, 52, 59, 68-77, 287, 290 cribra orbitalia, 302-304, 317 culturalist, 336, 339, 340 Cusco, 16, 114, 115, 118-125, 127, 128, 132, 139-141 design, 8, 37, 46, 59, 60, 65, 66, 120, 201, 203, 205, 249-255, 257, 261, 263-265, 268, 270272, 359

The Archaeology of Politics diet, 92, 292, 301, 302, 312, 315 drainage, 90, 96, 221, 225-230, 233235 Early Inka Period, 120 egalitarianism, 284, 288-290, 310 elite, 16, 43, 44, 51, 75, 77, 84, 114, 132, 138, 140, 152, 156, 157, 162, 167-169, 173, 174, 176, 191, 224, 250, 272, 286, 288, 290, 328, 331, 334, 342, 358 exchange-value, 336 faunal analysis, 91, 92, 224, 308311 feasting, 16, 59, 92, 93, 105, 106, 120, 122, 126, 129, 132, 133, 137, 167, 204, 205, 209, 210, 247, 254, 257, 261, 312, 329, 334, 341, 357 fiat money, 30, 37, 38, 40, 42, 48, 49, 51 fortresses, 17, 140, 151, 152, 154, 157-161, 164, 166, 168, 172176, 358 Galisteo Basin, 56, 62, 72 gender, 3, 12, 18, 190, 224, 225, 233, 247, 249, 254, 266, 283, 284, 291, 292, 311, 315, 316 gold, 29, 32, 36, 68-71, 153, 356 Gresham’s law, 40 Hampi-Daroji Hills, 195 herding, 89-91, 104-106, 155, 156, 172, 176 hierarchy, 64, 141, 204, 212, 235, 329, 332-334, 338, 342, 346, 356, 360 Hire Benakal, 91, 93, 95-100, 102104, 200 Holocene, 324-327, 329, 332, 335, 338 Hopi, 56, 57, 60, 76 households, 8, 17, 60, 64, 67, 157, 163, 175, 204, 212, 230, 232, 234, 236, 245-257, 261, 262, 265, 266, 270-273, 328-330, 332, 333, 358, 359

365

hunter-gatherer-fisher (HGF), 324, 326, 328, 331-334, 336, 345 hunting, 61, 90, 92, 104, 105, 106, 250, 324, 328 (see also huntinggathering-fishing) identity, 4, 8, 12, 17, 59, 66, 69, 73, 115, 134, 138, 156, 157, 224, 225, 246-250, 253, 271, 284, 291, 292, 315, 343 India, 7, 16, 18, 31, 32, 83, 85, 89, 92, 103, 105, 186, 189, 191, 192, 214, 358 Indian Ocean, 29, 31-33, 35, 42 Indus, 16, 18, 161, 221-238 Inka, 114-142 Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA), 173, 256 Iron Age Eurasian, 284, 288 South Indian, 7, 8, 16-18, 83107, 186-215, 357, 358 Kadebakele, 90, 92, 93, 188, 195, 204-213 Karnataka, 83, 85, 86, 89, 91, 103, 107, 187, 188, 192, 195, 214, 215 Killke, 120, 122 labor, 8, 57, 70, 75, 76, 83, 85, 89, 92, 93, 96, 98, 99, 102, 106, 107, 117, 122, 131, 160, 187, 207, 209, 230, 246, 247, 253, 390, 325, 326, 329, 331, 333, 334, 336, 341, 345, 357 land use, 85, 87, 93, 95, 99, 102, 106, 119, 122, 124, 126-128, 162, 200 landscape, 3, 4, 7, 15-18, 60, 68, 69, 76, 79, 83, 87, 88, 93, 101-103, 106, 115, 122, 139-141, 151, 152, 157-162, 172, 175, 187196, 204, 209, 210, 213, 221, 232, 236, 291, 310, 325-327, 330, 338, 340, 342-345, 357, 358 (see also political landscape)

366 Late Bronze Age South Caucasus, 16, 18, 151, 153, 156, 159, 165, 167, 358 Volga region, 17, 283-293, 296, 302, 306, 308-316, 360 Late Intermediate Period, 18, 115, 120, 357 Late Postclassic, 250 lead, 59, 60, 63, 69, 70 Llacta, 114, 115, 124, 139 locality, 114, 115, 119, 137, 139, 141, 160, 357 Louis XIV, 34 Madagascar, 29-43, 45-48, 51, 356 magnetic gradiometry, 168-171, 176 Mascarene Islands, 33, 35, 37 materiality, 2, 3, 7, 10-18, 88, 187, 211, 214, 225, 235, 237, 356 (see also political materiality) Mayeur, Nicholas, 35, 37 meaning, 11-17, 33, 42, 57, 60-66, 69, 75-77, 87, 88, 105-107, 161, 187-194, 198, 204, 209, 211215, 226, 232, 233, 247, 250, 252, 258, 270, 272, 311, 314, 343-345 megaliths, 89, 93, 95, 99-106, 186, 188, 209 Mesoamerica, 253, 255, 256, 264, 266 metallurgy, 59, 67, 69, 72, 74, 76, 153, 188, 195, 290 metals, 37, 39, 56, 59, 61, 67, 68, 71-73, 77, 198 metanarrative/metahistory, 5, 187, 360 Mexico, 8, 52, 59, 67, 74, 246-255, 358 Middle Postclassic, 249, 250, 252256 middle-range-theory, 245 missions, 65-67, 72, 73 Mohenjo-daro, 161, 221, 222, 225, 227-229, 231, 233, 234, 237, 238, 359

Index money, 17, 30, 32, 34-45, 48, 51 Near East, 163, 176 Neolithic, 91-93 Northwest Coast (NWC), 19, 323346, 360 Ollanta Phase, 119-122, 125, 127, 131 Ollantaytambo, 18, 115, 119, 120, 122, 124, 127, 129, 132, 133, 139, 141, 357 optimization, 324, 331, 335, 336 oral traditions, 325, 330, 335, 342, 344 Paa-ko, 70, 76 paleopathology, 297, 299-303, 316 paper money, 30, 41, 42, 48 pastoralism, 126, 156, 174, 175, 357 pastoralists, 105, 155, 156, 168, 172, 289, 310, 315 Peublo IV, 59-63, 66 phosphate analysis, 312 physical disability, 303 piaster, 46 pieces of eight, 29, 32-38 pigments, 8, 56, 59-62, 64, 66, 7375 pirates, 34, 35, 37, 52 place, 3, 8, 11, 16, 17, 59-61, 64, 69, 83, 85-89, 93, 98, 102-107, 114, 115, 119, 124, 132, 133, 138, 139, 141, 162, 169, 172, 176, 187, 190-192, 209, 210, 213, 215, 250, 291, 316, 324, 330, 342-345, 357 political, architectonics, 186, 188, 190, 192, 358 authority, 84, 115, 119, 134, 151, 160-162, 168, 175, 323, 326, 330, 341, 345 economy, 8, 11, 12, 31, 36, 41, 42, 126, 156, 169, 173, 188, 190, 356, 357 landscape, 83, 102, 115, 151, 152, 157, 159, 162, 344

The Archaeology of Politics materiality, 15-18, 211, 214 practice, xii, 2, 3, 6-8, 10-18, 87, 115, 116, 122, 132, 139, 140, 157, 161, 187, 286, 316, 323, 338, 346, 355, 356 sociology, 2, 11, 16, 18, 187, 211 politics, xiii, 1-12, 15-19, 51, 56, 69, 83, 85, 92, 93, 102, 106, 107, 114, 115, 119-121, 127, 139, 141, 161, 176, 187, 188, 203, 214, 222, 224, 226, 230, 235, 246, 248-252, 290, 291, 311, 316, 323, 327, 330, 331, 340, 342, 355-360 polychrome vessels, 60, 250-257, 262-266, 270, 271 post-modernism, 14, 87, 335, 337 power (modalities of), 7, 10-12, 1517, 19, 93, 191, 212 practice theory, 2 Radama, 38, 39, 43 reservoirs, 90, 93, 97, 103, 104, 205 residential places, 196, 211-213 resistance, 2, 4, 6, 7, 12, 17, 33, 51, 66, 75, 212, 284, 285, 315, 342 Richelieu, Cardinal, 34 ritual, 16, 17, 34, 40-49, 52, 59-66, 73, 92, 99, 104, 105, 132, 139, 153, 157, 160, 161, 168, 172, 173, 176, 188, 193, 202, 209, 226, 247, 250, 255, 287, 292, 305, 311, 334 ritual economy, 4, 31, 42, 50 selecltionist, 341 silver, 29, 30, 32-41, 43, 47, 49, 52, 61, 67-77, 160, 356, 357 social distinctions, 7, 11, 61, 64, 85, 92, 93, 106, 186, 188, 191, 193, 196, 198, 200, 203, 209, 210, 213, 232, 357 socio-evolutionary theory, xii, 1, 5, 15, 187, 355 sociopolitical complexity, 6, 84, 114, 117, 140, 230, 327-346

367

sovereignty, 114, 160, 172, 354, 358,-362 space, 11, 87, 88, 108, 141, 161, 162, 187, 190-192, 221, 222, 225, 232, 233, 338, 343, 358, 359 Spanish, 8, 16, 56, 57, 65, 66-77, 114, 116, 192, 253, 254, 357 Spatial, graphing (depth, integration, distribution), 192-194, 197, 198, 202-204, 212, 215 appropriation, 8, 17, 106, 188, 190-194, 198, 204, 205, 209, 210, 213, 215 exclusion, 188, 191, 193, 198, 204, 210, 211, 215, 358 production, 4, 87, 88, 96, 107, 190, 194, 205, 209, 211, 214 specie money, 37, 39, 42 spirituality, 324, 325, 339, 342, 345, 346 standardization (cultural), 232-235, 245, 283, 284, 288-290, 308, 309 state, 2-6, 117-119, 127, 155, 156, 163, 224, 226, 245, 272, 356, 357, 360 structure, 2-18, 76, 84, 187, 212, 272, 324, 330, 331, 341, 355 subjectivity, 12, 14, 87, 221, 224227, 232, 235,238 subsistence economics, 339 surplus economics, 324, 326, 328, 334, 335 tandra, 43, 44, 52 tradition, 11, 31, 33, 51, 62, 67, 69, 114, 115, 118, 132, 139, 152, 175, 213, 226, 330, 331, 339343, 345, 357-359 Tsimshian, 339, 344-346 Tungabhadra River, 90, 93, 187, 195, 205, 211, 213, 214 urban planning, 161, 221, 222, 224 urbanism, 161, 222 (see also cities)

368 value, 8, 10, 12, 14, 17, 18, 31, 33, 35, 37-44, 50, 56-59, 63-69, 7277, 93, 222, 223, 232, 236, 263265, 268, 317, 331-333, 336, 356, 357 vola tsy vaky, 40, 43, 47, 52 waste management, 222, 226, 236, 359 water, 43, 47, 52, 83, 90, 91, 93, 97,

Index 99, 100-106, 126, 192, 200, 222, 223, 225, 227, 229, 233, 312, 339 wealth, 38, 40, 41, 43, 45, 49, 52, 62, 65, 66, 69, 72, 73, 152, 155, 165, 288-290, 311, 314, 329, 337, 341, 360 Xaltocan, 8, 249,-256, 263, 266, 273 Zocalo C, 249-254, 263