This doctoral thesis has three objectives: (1) model the Late Mesoamerican Village; (2) execute formally the direct historical method in the Mayan lowlands; and, (3) determine through hypothesis testing whether capitalist economic structures penetrated the Mayan political economy ca. CE 1550-1606. Analytical materials derive from sixteenth-century Yucatecan Mayan- and Spanish-language primary documents and six seasons of archaeological fieldwork at Ekbalam, Yucatan, Mexico. A series of theoretical models, including Wallerstein's world-systems, Marx's historical capitalism, Luxemburg's primitive accumulation, Hagerstrand's dissemination of innovations, Hayden and Cannon's material systems, and Kroeber's horizons, inform the evidence To accomplish stated objectives. I establish a theoretical framework for the study and trace a political economic history of the early-modern European world-system focusing on the origins of capitalist production, guilds, trade fairs, and wool cloth. The role of Castile-Aragon as first avatar of the European world-system, its geographic and economic expansion to the West Indies and colonial settlement at Puerto Real, Espanola, is examined. A history of Hispanic colonization of the Yucatan Peninsula scrutinizes the roles of republicas de espanoles and republicas de indios, encomienda and doctrina that structured the colonial political economy. Elements of capitalist production are detected in primary sources I next model the Mesoamerican pre-Hispanic past, define it as a world-system, narrate a thirteenth- through sixteenth-century history, and model the Mayan political economy. The work then focuses specifically on Tiquibalon (Ekbalam). Construction of its remote past derived from primary documents and Mayan inscriptions accompanies that of its political geography, late sixteenth-century history, and eventual abandonment To evaluate the proposed models of sixteenth-century political economy, I formulate hypotheses to test with archaeological materials. A history of settlement pattern research introduces the concept of 'corporate group' as a critical threshold for analysis of artifacts and architecture. Description of three phases of fieldwork in three 500 m2 quadrants adjacent to the monumental center of Ekbalam, which systematically recovered a wide range of artifacts from 120 dwellings establishing an occupation history for each, follows. One residence and its associated artifact assemblage and production facility are examined in detail. The work concludes with evaluation of hypotheses, formal execution of the direct historical approach, and discussion of capitalist production at Tiquibalon / acase@tulane.edu
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_24830 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Contributors | Hanson, Craig A (Author), Andrews, E. Wyllys, V (Thesis advisor) |
| Publisher | Tulane University |
| Source Sets | Tulane University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Access requires a license to the Dissertations and Theses (ProQuest) database., Copyright is in accordance with U.S. Copyright law |
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