The research presented in this dissertation concerns preindustrial economic systems, specifically Classic Maya (A.D. 600-900) economic systems, using the site of Cancuen, Guatemala as a case study. The site of Cancuen was strategically located at the interface between the volcanic highlands and tropical lowlands of Guatemala, creating the ideal situation for the passage of highland trade goods, especially stone, on the way to the lowlands. The primary goal of this study was to explore the nature of craft specialization and exchange in the Classic Maya world through the analysis of stone tools and adornments, including jade, pyrite, obsidian, and chert. The nature of specialization and exchange was investigated through the typological, distributional, and sourcing analysis of lithic artifacts from Cancuen. The manufacturing sequences of these artifacts were then compared between households across the site, establishing the degree of control and power derived by the various social groups involved in craft production and exchange. The data at Cancuen indicate that production of prestige/ritual goods was completed in the early stages by domestic nonelite producers and then transferred to elite producers in domestic contexts who transformed them into ritually charged objects for circulation in the political economy. Elites afforded control over distribution of these prestige/ritual objects through a monopoly on esoteric knowledge and social prescriptions, such as sumptuary laws. Although elites did control the right of alienation and distribution of prestige goods and derived power from the ownership and gifting of those inalienable possessions, other social groups were able to challenge the existing power structure and gain power and prestige through the participation in the segmented production of those goods. Ritualized production of lithic artifacts was an important determinant of social identity for all status groups at Cancuen.

Settlement pattern research the study of the spatial distribution of settlement across a landscape is a fundamental aspect of archaeological investigations. This dissertation is a study of ancient Maya settlement on a regional scale in the Petexbatun region of Guatemala. The Petexbatun is located in the southwestern part of the Department of Petén and contains a number of significant archaeological sites, including Dos Pilas, Aguateca, and Tamarindito. These sites and the region as a whole were almost completely abandoned in the late eighth and early ninth centuries A.D., marking the beginning of the changes that swept the Maya world more than a millennium ago an event often referred to as The Classic Maya Collapse. For this reason a large scale, multidisciplinary project, the Vanderbilt University Petexbatun Regional Archaeological Project (VUPRAP), intensively and extensively investigated the region. The research presented here is part of that project. Focusing on intersite areas rather than major centers, a sampling strategy was employed to test the 30 square kilometer zone. Four transects were mapped covering an area of approximately 1.5 square kilometers, or 5%, of the region. Within each transect a minimum of 10% of all structures, walls, and features were excavated. Through this research and in conjunction with the other VUPRAP subprojects, particularly the ecology, epigraphy, and ceramics subprojects, this dissertation examines the relationship between rural settlement strategies, ecology, and social and political events over the 3000 year history of the region (approximately 2000 BC to AD 830). These changes over time are then integrated into broader processual issues in Maya and Mesoamerican archaeology.

Anthropologists have long sought to understand the political organization of complex societies. Investigations into the inter-site hierarchy of the Late and Terminal Classic in the Belize Valley have revealed evidence of political success fueled by economic prosperity. This dissertation addresses the degree to which hierarchy was centralized across the landscape and how centers in the core region of Petén affected the political and economic prosperity of the peripheral centers to the east. Data from three sites within the Belize Valley permit the analysis of relationships among centers of differing size, economic position, and populations. Evidence from architecture, tombs, caches, and glyphic inscriptions point to uneasy hierarchical relationships among centers as elites strove to increase their prestige and power. Models of political interaction as applied in the Maya region are used to facilitate the understanding of the new data. Evidence suggests Baking Pot, Cahal Pech, and Xunantunich had tense political relationships with higher-level centers in the Petén, power struggles often leaving peripheral regions under the political and economic control of militaristic polities. Within the Belize Valley, there are three types of centers; medium size sites with monumental architecture, small villages with minimal public architecture, and small hamlets with no elite activity. Throughout the Late and Terminal Classic periods these small villages and hamlets had little political power, as they fell under the authority of medium sized centers, which in turn answered to larger polities. Naranjo periodically exercised political control over the Belize Valley as evidenced through epigraphic and archaeological data. Calakmul dominated Naranjo, indicating at least a four tier hierarchy within the Maya Lowlands during periods of greatest political centralization.

The Pasión-Verapaz Region is located at the highland-lowland transition in central Guatemala. It was the mid-point of the Great Western Trade Route, one of two principal arteries connecting the Maya highlands and lowlands. Research in three cave systems in the vicinity of Cancuen has revealed nearly 2,000 years of ritual activity, spanning the Preclassic and Classic periods of Maya civilization. This investigation is the first in much of this region, and allows for the creation of a preliminary sketch of the culture-history of northern Alta Verapaz and the southwestern Petén. The nature of ritual activity in these cave systems, most of which was performed by merchants and other travelers along the trade route, is also examined.

In this dissertation I use the theoretical framework of ritual economy combined with ceramic analysis to understand the function and meaning of the introduction of orange slipped pottery to the Holmul Region during the second half of the Terminal Preclassic period (AD 150 250). I test the hypothesis that orange slipped pottery represents an amalgam of restricted or prestige technologies that were initially employed in the production of vessels used in potential elite diacritical feasting events of the Terminal Preclassic period. These vessels are here considered social valuables with various functions including the serving of symbolically charged foods during feasting events, mementos of ritual occasions, inalienable possessions that created social liens between owners and custodians, funerary furniture, and ritual cache objects. Using a specifically tailored methodology including aspects of type-variety analysis, modal analysis, diversity and standardization studies, petrography, and Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis I identify and quantify four statistically significant technologies associated with the monochrome and painted orange pottery traditions of the second half of the Terminal Preclassic period. These technologies encompass more than surface characteristics and are associated with changing patterns in paste preparation, forming, and firing processes from the Late Preclassic through early facet Early Classic periods. Some of these technologies do have roots in the red monochrome tradition of the Late Preclassic period, supporting the notion that the orange slipped traditions arose out of local innovation, at least within the Holmul Region.

This dissertation investigates the relationship between power and wealth in past societies by examining the economic networks through which wealth was distributed at Ko, Guatemala from the Terminal Preclassic through the Classic period (AD 150-900). Long-term patterns in construction activity form the basis of long-term estimates of elite power, and Hirths (1998) distributional approach has been employed as part of an examination of wealth. This study has sought to determine the degree to which jade artifacts, shell artifacts, obsidian artifacts, and grinding stones were acquired through elite redistribution, reciprocal luxury gifting among elites, and/or informal barter and marketplace exchange, and tests the hypothesis that a decline in wealth relative to power is dependent upon the networks through which wealth was distributed within this past economy.

This dissertation examines the relationship between dramatic changes in Andean culinary traditions and the development of one of the earliest state level societies in the Americas, Tiwanaku. Located in the Southern Lake Titicaca Basin of what is today Bolivia, Tiwanaku became a major urban center during the Middle Horizon (500- 1150 A.D.) and its influence quickly spread throughout the South Central Andes. Previous archaeological and paleobotanical research suggested that significant changes in diet, particularly the consumption of maize beer, or chicha, in the context of communal feasting events, occurred in conjunction with these sociopolitical developments. In order to evaluate the potential role of food related practices in the construction of political authority, I used bioarchaeological data, including standard dental observations, stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis, and analysis of plant microfossils from human dental calculus, to examine the diets of individuals living in the Tiwanaku heartland before, during, and after the development of the state. This study demonstrates that Tiwanaku was an intensely hierarchical and politically centralized state, which was likely involved in managing the production and distribution of imported resources such as maize. This is indicated by a significant increase in the consumption of imported maize associated with the rise of the state, as documented by this study, and further supported by previous archaeological and paleobotanical data documenting evidence of large-scale maize provisioning and the presence of specialized chicha production areas. Differential consumption patterns also suggest that access to large amounts of maize became an important means of marking status and ethnic boundaries, and thus, creating and maintaining social hierarchy in Tiwanaku society. I argue that maize beer was a key element in both diacritical and patron-role feasting events that were vital to the construction and maintenance of Tiwanakus political authority. Finally, significant changes in diet also accompanied the dissolution of the state in the Late Intermediate Period. Diets became more homogenous and included substantially more camelid meat and significantly less maize or local staple crops. These data suggest that with the collapse of the state, dietary distinctions no longer marked boundaries between altiplano social groups and the intense social hierarchy of the Middle Horizon was effectively leveled.

This dissertation explores early mound building and community development on the Pacific coast of Mesoamerica by considering the changing ways that people interacted with the landscape and ecology at the site of Chiquiuitan between 1450 and 600 B.C. Specifically, this study looks at shifts in how the landscape influences peoples lives and vice versa, within the context of the transition to sedentism and the development of agriculture. The approach taken to this topic also pays attention to the relationship between people and social structures (especially those found in features of the landscape, such as earthen mounds), reflecting an agency theory perspective. Archaeological methods include survey and excavation techniques, as well as materials analyses in ceramic type variety and attribute-based studies; lithic technological, typological and LA-ICP-MS analyses; osteological analysis; faunal identification; botanical investigation; and AMS radiocarbon dating. This dissertation contributes to research on the prehistory of Mesoamerica by offering a model for sedentism and community development that considers the environmental conditions that people responded to as well as ideological associations related to place and space. Furthermore, it adds to theory on human interactions with landscapes by focusing on a small-scale and non-complex community.

This dissertation investigates the relationship between non-domestic architecture, political rituals, and social production during the Late to Terminal Classic periods (700 to 1000 AD) in the Puuc region of Yucatan, Mexico. The primary goal of the research is to trace the changes in non-domestic architecture and the associated political rituals through time, from the Preclassic (800 BC) to the Terminal Classic (1000 AD). During these periods, the spatial characteristics of non-domestic architecture change dramatically, indicating that the way in which participants experienced the rituals that occurred within these environments also altered. I believe these spatial changes indicate sociopolitical transformations in Maya society, ultimately reflecting the co-option of ritual ceremonies (and the built environments in which they occurred) by Maya elite in order to legitimize asymmetrical power relationships. In order to explore the connections between the built environment and human behavior, the research uses an integrated approach that combines methodologies from architectural and environment-behavior studies. First, a theoretical approach that emphasizes the role of buildings in controlling movement and influencing social interaction, and therefore social production, is outlined. While all types of social interaction contribute in some way to the reproduction of social structures, the current research focuses on larger social occasions, and political ritual in particular. The unique ability of ritual to both promote social cohesion while at the same time creating social distinctions made it the perfect arena for emerging Maya elite to establish, legitimize and promote their power. <p> The analytical methods employed include a combination of access analysis and the nonverbal communication approach. Access analysis determines which spaces were likely contexts for social interaction based on their integration within a structure and nonverbal communication explores how the built environment encoded meaning and what behaviors these elements engender. A suite of elements used to identify non-domestic architecture and encode sociopolitical meaning was identified and changes in these elements through time are explored. Together, access analysis and nonverbal communication can be used to identify likely contexts for both public and private rituals within the built environment.

As one of the few indigenous groups in the Americas to actively resist European colonialism and the only group to successfully maintain cultural and political autonomy for over 350 years while expanding cultural influence, the Araucanians of south-central Chile are in the unique position to provide important information and perspectives on colonialism, culture contact, identity formation, ethnogenesis and other topics through ethnohistoric, ethnographic, and archaeological investigation. This research examines the Araucanian cultural system resilience at Santa Sylvia, an archaeological site that contains elements pre-Hispanic, Hispanic, and post-Hispanic occupations, through the interpretive framework of Resilience Theory. This theory posits that a system is resilient if it can absorb outside disturbance so as to retainthe same function (Walker et al. 2004:1). It is argued here that the political, economic, social, and ideological structures of the Araucanian culture system were such that, through the actions of the Araucanians themselves, the system could incorporate useful items, such as the horse, from the Spanish while avoiding the hybridization and syncretism that affected many other indigenous groups. This resiliency is seen in archaeological excavation at Santa Sylvia, ethnographic investigation in the surrounding area of Pucón-Villarrica, and ethnohistoric research on Araucanian/Spanish interaction beginning around AD 1541. Through developmental phases (known as the Resilience Cycle), the Araucanians adapted facets of their culture while maintaining traditional structures and practices until the late 19th Century. Further, it is argued that Resilience Theory has the potential to provide a useful framework for investigating how cultures persist through time and in the face of outside disturbances. In this way, this research can inform anthropologists, historians, sociologists, geographers, and other researchers examining issues of agency, identity, colonialism, culture contact, and development.